Torah Achdus

Achdus Torah פאכדוס תורה
name	Modern Hebrew
Leader	Moshe Lippman
Founder	Yezechiel Wein
Founded	July 23, 1969 (1969-07-23)
Preceded by	Degel HaTorah Agudas Shomray Shabbos
Headquarters	Yerushalayim, Yisrael
Student wing	Union of Yeshivah and Chareidi Students
Ideology	Religious conservatism Social conservatism Chareidi interests Internal Factions: Populism Ordoliberalism Welfare capitalism
Political position	Right
Religion	Orthodox Judaism
Colors	Silver
Seats in the Royal Knesset	19 / 142

Torah Achdus (Modern Hebrew: פאכדוס תורה, lit. "Unity [of] Torah"), also commonly called the Chareidi Bloc or simply the Silvers (colloquially), is a contemporary right-wing and Chareidi interests secondary political party in Yisrael. It is apart of the governing Right Bloc majority in Knesset led by the Conservatives since 2020. The party has 19 Members of Knesset, its largest number in history due to gains from the unusually three-way 2020 presidential and political bloc contest. Its political base is largely confined to heavily-populated Chareidi and some Chardal communities in the cities and suburbs. It has traditional strongholds throughout Yerushalayim, as well as several largely-religious cities in the Central and Western Districts. It is typically the third-largest bloc in the Knesset. Under Yitzchok Katz's mediation, it has made an uneasy peace with the nonreligious nationalist Northern League.

History

Yarden Accords and the emergence of a Chareidi political identity

Main articles: Neoconservatism (Yisrael) § Chareidi politics in the 1970s and 1980s, and Yarden Accords § 1969

The Torah Achdus party was founded during the peak of protest against the then-ongoing Yarden Accords peace process. With a slackening and growing laxity among children from Chareidi families attending state-run schools, the small and cloistered Chareidi world felt under siege and alienated from broader society, both fellow strictly religious as well as nominally religious sectors.

In the early 1970s, Yezechiel Wein organized a nascent political force across Chareidi neighborhoods, originally as an independent organization. However, the TA soon joined forces with the Conservatives. Under the Schwartz and Citron presidencies, the Chareidi Bloc was a steadfast Conservative ally in the Knesset.

Swing-vote status (1980s-2009)

As part of the moderating shift among the Constitutional Liberals due to the overwhelmingly success of the Schwartz-era Conservatives in the late 70s through the mid-1980s, the Chareidi world was enticed by overtures from the new Con-Lib moderates, whose socially-moderate stances were not in alignment with the Chareidim but whose shared state economic interventionist politics were a better fit. Starting with Con-Lib Yosef Aronov's election in 1988, Torah Achdus leadership reshuffled with the resignation of Wein and his Conservative-favoring clique after Aronov's inauguration. In return, a new clique focused on Con-Lib outreach and espousing an almost-purely transactional/benefits-seeking posture took over the party in February 1988 under the leadership of Nechemia Valkenburger. The Conservatives, meanwhile, termed this 'The Great Betrayal.'

While more sympathetic to the Constitutional Liberals than the Conservatives owing to the center-left party's willingness to create new government programs and subsidies, Valkenburger was aloof from either major-party, with a singular focus on creating new economic benefits and subsidies to the Chareidi community, which he felt would raise many of the sector out of poverty and would permit for widespread Torah study and keep the Chareidi world away from 'polluting' outside influences, a view he and many others believed came naturally from having to work a full-time, secular job. New, better-funded kollel and family subsidies and government largesse towards Chareidi institutions would be the chief aim of Valkenburger and his clique.

The TA and the Con-Libs were not a perfect match, however. Anti-Chareidi elements still inhabited important parts of the Chiloni-oriented party, and the TA would become the most sought-after swing vote in the Knesset over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s. The bipartisan corruption scandals of the Greenbaum and Hillel administrations also ensnared a few Chareidi politicians, including Valkenburger himself in the June 2002 scandal of Naor Hillel. Valkenburger resigned from his Knesset seat a few months after the scandal broke, and was indicted and convicted the following year, serving 4 and a half years in prison.

His protege, Feivel Lomsman, attempted to keep his mentor's transactional-first grip on the party upon taking over in late 2002, but his weak control and petty personality clashes saw him lose a leadership challenge and retire from politics in 2004. The last of the Valkenburgist Chareidi politicians, Chesky Polnitser, took over after challenging Lomsman and confronted a rising anti-Chareidi and anti-religious tide among parts of the Con-Lib base in the mid-2000s, part of a realigning trend unknown to most at the time.

By the early 2000s, there was a growing demand from an emerging clique of Chareidi politicians who felt their interests should be more ideologically driven, and that an alliance with the Conservatives, as had been in the 1970s and 1980s, was the best course for the party and the sector. Politicians such as Yitzchok Katz, Ariel Goldblatt, and Yehudis Eisenberger all belonged to this group, which increasing adopted the moniker 'New Chareidi.'

2009 New Chareidi coup

Main article: Electoral College in Yisrael § Third-party impact

Election results and current representation

Current representation

The TA currently have 19 MKs in the Royal Knesset. It is apart of the governing majority.

Member of Knesset Moshe Lippman is the leader of the Torah Achdus caucus since 2009 and a member of the ruling "New Chareidi" clique.

Election results

Royal Knesset
Election	Leader	Seats won	+/−	Rank	Majority
2020	Moshe Lippman	19 / 142	3	#3	Majority
2018	Moshe Lippman	16 / 142	2	#3	Supply and confidence with Majority
2016	Moshe Lippman	18 / 142	3	#3	Minority
2014	Moshe Lippman	15 / 142	1	#3	Minority
2012	Moshe Lippman	16 / 142	N/A	#3	Majority
2010	Moshe Lippman	16 / 142	3	#3	Minority
2008	TBD	13 / 142	1	#3	Minority
2006	TBD	14 / 142	2	#3	Minority
2004	TBD	12 / 142	TBD	#3	Minority

International affiliation and criticism

The party has no international affiliations.