Yaakov Asher

Yaakov Asher has taken over the leadership of United Torah Judaism just as the long-standing bargain between the Haredi parties and Israeli governments faces its toughest test, and his standing is tied to how this changing of the guard is perceived. A former mayor of Bnei Brak and a veteran Knesset member who chaired the Constitution Committee and, in the 25th Knesset, the Interior and Environmental Protection Committee, he quit the coalition in July 2025 along with the rest of Degel HaTorah's lawmakers on the instructions of Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch; in November of that year he sat on United Torah Judaism's negotiating team for the conscription law, and activists of the Jerusalem Faction, who oppose the law, demonstrated near his home for days. On September 5, 2026, Rabbi Lando's office announced that Moshe Gafni and Uri Maklev would not be included on the list, a move linked to the failure of the draft-exemption legislation, and Asher was placed at the head of Degel HaTorah and of the United Torah Judaism list. Within the Haredi public, his main asset is his closeness to the rabbinic leadership; on the national stage he puts regularizing the status of yeshiva students at the top of his priorities, but even before his appointment he said he does not rule out sitting with Gadi Eisenkot and that anyone who wants a stable government will want United Torah Judaism in it. On October 11, United Torah Judaism under his leadership signed a surplus-vote agreement with Shas, led by Aryeh Deri, and two days later it was reported that the two parties might refrain from recommending either Netanyahu or Eisenkot and prefer the opposition until a solution to the conscription issue is found. Many Israelis will judge him solely through the conscription fight, and his part in forming the next coalition is what will determine how his name is seen beyond Bnei Brak.