The party decided not to endorse any other candidates.
By LAHAV HARKOVLGBTQ youth protest against far right Noam party at Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Noam Party ducked out of the race on Sunday due to the unlikelihood of passing the 3.25% electoral threshold on Election Day.The party decided not to endorse any other candidates.Noam ran on a platform of both family values – which they define as being against feminism, and against gay and transgender rights – and of Jewish Orthodoxy, slamming candidates in Yamina like Naftali Bennett for being willing to even speak with Conservative and Reform Jews.Their votes are likely to go to other religious parties, including Otzma Yehudit and Yamina, even though the party’s spiritual leader Rabbi Zvi Tau of the Har Hamor yeshiva – a leader in the “hardal” hard-line religious-Zionist stream – opposed Yamina and its previous incarnations for not being conservative enough for him.Noam claimed they had the support of 70,000 people.“We succeeded with God’s help to bring the story that everyone is trying to silence to the front of the stage,” said party leader Rabbi Dror Aryeh. “With thousands of volunteers, we managed to expose to Israel the attempt of foreign elements to take over the country and dismantle our basic values as a nation and a country. We dared say the truth that everyone was afraid to say.”The party plans to stay together and continue spreading its message outside the Knesset.
