Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, a leading Lithuanian-haredi rabbi who serves as one of the heads of the Ponovezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak and as President of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah of the Degel HaTorah organization, explained why the haredi public prefers Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the Left.
"They are not from among us," he said in a video published by the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party. "They are against us. The Left's purpose is to uproot religion, against the haredim. We cannot give them approval."
Rabbi Edelstein also called on his followers to vote for the UTJ party and not other religious parties.
"It's not haredi," he explained. "Only UTJ are subject to the opinion of the Torah scholars and sages of the generation. Who is his rabbi?"
"You must vote - it is a sanctification of G-d's Name. If you don't vote UTJ, you are avoiding sanctifying G-d's Name, and you do not want to proclaim that 'Moses is true and his Torah is true.'"
Rabbi Edelstein also countered the claim that UTJ's representatives are not subject to Israel's rabbis: "That's not true. If there is an instruction, they follow it. They don't do what they haven't asked [about]."