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Stop voting for us, strictly Orthodox Zionist party tells supporters
Eretz Hakodesh believes it has already secured the maximum number of seats – and further votes for it would be wasted
July 10, 2025 15:22
Eretz Hakodesh believes it has already secured the maximum number of seats – and further votes for it would be wasted
July 10, 2025 15:22The strictly Orthodox Eretz Hakodesh (EHK) group told supporters to stop voting for it in this week’s election to choose the UK’s delegates to the World Zionist Congress in autumn – and to instead vote for another party.
The group, competing in the UK Zionist elections for the first time this year, took the step mid-way through the election after it believed it had already obtained enough votes to secure the maximum five seats allowed under the electoral rules.
Nine slates are contesting the 19 UK seats for the Congress in the online poll, which opened on Monday and closes tomorrow.
On Wednesday, EHK UK issued “an urgent call” to supporters who had yet to cast a vote to redirect it instead to the Sephardi Orthodox party Shas Olami UK, which is also competing in the UK for the first time.
In a statement, EHK UK said the decision to cap the number of seats at five – which was taken while the process of registration was still under way in May – was “undemocratic and unfair” and was “widely seen as targeting the growing influence of the Eretz Hakodesh list”.
Around 14,000 people were registered to vote in the UK. According to an EHK website, more than 7,000 supporters had enlisted to take part.
EHK UK told supporters on Wednesday that “according to current projections, Eretz Hakodesh has already surpassed the vote threshold needed for the full five-seat allocation. As a result, any additional votes cast for the list will no longer yield further representation.”
After consultations with rabbis, including the influential Gateshead yeshivah head Rabbi Avrohom Gurwicz, it urged remaining voters to back Shas Olami, whose representatives, it said, “share a clear commitment to Torah values and are closely aligned with the principles of Eretz Hakodesh”.
It added that it was pursuing “legal action” to challenge the cap on seats which it described as “an unexpected and controversial change in the voting rules”.
However, Rabbi Lea Muhlstein, chair of the Zionist Federation, said EHK had already unsuccessfully appealed against the cap to the Central Elections Committee (CEC) in Jerusalem.
The cap was found to be “perfectly within the rules of the WZO constitution,” she said and something that had been adopted in other countries “to ensure diversity of representation”.
Now EHK UK has gone a level higher and lodged an appeal with the Zionist Supreme Court which is due to hear it the week after next.
Rabbi Muhlstein disclosed that around 240 prospective voters had appealed against disqualification because their application to register was judged not to have complied with the conditions; around five per cent of those appeals had been upheld.
The electorate is far larger than the last time an election for the Congress was held in the UK 20 years ago, when only a few hundred people took part. Generally, Zionist parties in the UK have negotiated an agreement to distribute the seats among themselves without having to go to the polls.
She estimated the cost of the poll at an estimated to be around £40,000 – towards which the WZO has contributed around £7,500.
The fierce competition for seats at the Congress has sparked several appeals to the Zionist authorities in Jerusalem. Shas Olami UK was only allowed to enter the race after it brought a case to the Zionist Supreme Court.
EHK UK itself had been disqualified from standing by the local area election committee overseeing the poll, after alleged irregularities in voter registration – but the ban was overturned by the CEC.
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