The election commercials of the 29 parties running for Knesset began late Monday night, delivering their share of gimmicks, mudslinging and even surprises.
The ads began with a woman speaking with a Russian accent. But it was not a commercial for Yisrael Beytenu.
"I am voting for United Torah Judaism because of Liberman," she said.
UTJ was also the first of many parties to feature US President Donald Trump.
"Torah came before Trump," UTJ's ad reminded voters.
Trump's speeches praising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were featured in the Likud's ads. The US president was the second most-featured politician in Likud ads, followed by Blue and White's Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, Yael German and Ofer Shelah, but no one else in Likud.
Blue and White's ads presented former Likud figures who no longer support the party, like Limor Livnat, Dan Tichon and Dan Meridor as well as an infamous Netanyahu quote referencing former prime minister Ehud Olmert, saying that "a prime minister up to his neck in corruption investigations has no moral or public mandate to decide crucial issues for the State of Israel."They also featured the proverbial red telephone ringing.
"Tell them you're too busy with your trial and will get back to them?" the Blue and White ads asked cynically.
Likud and Blue and White's attack ads on each other portrayed Netanyahu and Gantz as incapable of making decisions, Netanyahu due to his probes and Gantz, because he is secretly "hiding" left-wing views.
Yamina also made fun of Blue and White, for trying to woo religious Zionist voters with herring rogelach, kreplach and David Ben-Gurion wearing a crocheted kippa. The Yamina commercial went through the success of the religious Zionist sector in rising quickly from having no minister in the security cabinet to having a defense minister.
Yisrael Beytenu's commercial focused on matters of religion and state as well as health, asking the public whether they wanted their health minister to be a rabbi or a doctor.
Labor-Gesher-Tzomet's ads with leaders Amir Peretz, Nitzan Horowitz and Orly Levy-Abecassis were dizzying, using a camera that spun around between the list candidates.
Otzma Yehudit's commercial revealed that besides stopping territorial concessions, the reason its leader Itamar Ben-Gvir is in politics is "to stop the torturing of divorced fathers."
The smaller parties did their best to grab attention. The women's party Kol Hanashim did so by having the party's candidates talk about the need to listen to Sara.
At first it seemed that the women were talking about Sara Netanyahu. But they were really talking about Sara, Abraham's wife, the first matriarch of the Jewish people.