The Religious Zionist Party’s central committee passed a new constitution at a meeting in Neot Kedumim on Sunday night that includes holding a mass membership drive and then party primaries for its Knesset candidates.
The goal of the party is to reunite religious Zionists from across the political spectrum who voted in the past for Likud, Yamina and New Hope, as well as those who agree with the party's views but are not religious.
To that end, the membership drive will have forms not only in Hebrew, but also in English, French, Russian and Amharic.
The central committee was widened to include many religious-Zionist celebrities, including Rabbi Haim Druckman. The minimum age to be a member will be 17, and the minimum age to run, 21.
Religious Zionist Party head Bezalel Smotrich vowed before the March election to open up the party and hold primaries.
“This is a night that will be remembered for making history,” Smotrich told party activists. “This is a night of change, correction and repentance, a night when the Religious Zionist Party became the home of religious Zionism and the entire Right.”
The Likud is completing its membership drive on August 31. Nobel Prize-winning mathematician Prof. Robert Israel Aumann joined Likud in order to back former MK Uzi Dayan.
The Likud does not have membership forms in English.