Rabbi MK Haim Amsalem, chairman of the Am Shalem Party, has been having a frustrating relationship in the last few weeks with the Knesset’s (Israeli Parliament) minimum-vote threshold. After he exceeded it in the past with three mandates and emerged as a new trend, mainly among Israel’s secular population, new players entered the playing field and Amsalem has started to lose momentum. But even if the rabbi doesn't find himself in the next Knesset, he is undoubtedly one of the interesting phenomena of the 2013 elections.

The current election campaign is full of absurdities, and Amsalem’s support-base is one of them. Amsalem was dismissed from the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement about two years ago after he rebelled against the main elements of its platform and, even worse — against its leaders. However, contrary to what one might presume, Amsalem does not constitute a threat against his former political bastion; the in-depth polls show that he does not challenge Shas’ electorate of Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Jews. Instead, he plays mainly in the secular Center-Left field in which he constitutes another breakaway faction, in addition to the many that already exist.

A poll recently conducted by the Knesset Channel found that about 45% of Amsalem’s supporters are secular, about 31% are traditional, 22% national-religious and only 2% are ultra-Orthodox. How, we ask, has this ultra-Orthodox rabbi born in Algiers, who embodied the conservative right-wing mindset until recently — how has he become the hit of the secular public, most of whom are affluent Tel Aviv residents?

Amsalem is blessed with impressive rhetorical skills that are music to (mainly) secular ears. According to Amsalem, hundreds of thousands of Shas voters are held captive by a political leadership that doesn’t really care about them and intentionally perpetuates their ignorance and poverty. Amsalem warns those voters that if they continue to shirk army duty, to oppose the “core studies” (the core study program designates the spheres of knowledge that must be taught in all educational facilities in Israel, including the ultra-Orthodox sector) and not go to work — they inflict a poverty-stricken future on their children and grandchildren too. He sounds like the secular-Israeli dream: fluent and incisive, up-to-date and courageous. He endeared himself to many in Israel’s leading commercial sectors who support him. In their eyes, he is a prudent, enlightened ultra-Orthodox Jew who thinks like they do. He became a welcome guest at Tel Aviv bars and in secular campuses. A star.