Nir Orbach of the Jewish Home party announced on Tuesday that he intends to run for the party leadership in place of the recently resigned Rafi Peretz. There have been rumors about his running for party leadership for some time, and this very week he reported that he had been negotiating with Naftali Bennet for a place in the Yamina list.
"I will not be running in the upcoming elections, nor will I take a place in the new government. We must find a new leader to rejuvenate the Jewish Home party," Peretz wrote in his resignation letter. "Two years ago I was called upon to save the Jewish Home party, a true religious Zionist party. I came upon a party in crisis, left leaderless by a prior party head departing."
"I believe in clean, fair, and moral politics that does not harm others and have practiced them as carefully as possible. I have made many difficult decisions along the way, but I believe that religious Zionism can connect all of the many factions of Judaism. I acted to protect religious Zionism and to keep the right-wing bloc from losing their seats in the Knesset."
"I was privileged to serve the beloved people of Israel as Minister of Education. I led the outreach program to isolated areas and cultures, and pushed to add Judaic studies to the curriculum so that the state would provide to one and all the same religious education that we believe in."