Far-right party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and national-religious HaBayit HaYehudi announced Feb. 20 that they will run on one ticket at the upcoming April elections in a merger endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the addition of Otzma Yehudit to the bloc already formed between HaBayit HaYehudi and the National Union has caused a rift in the religious Zionist movement. Criticism among the movement’s more moderate circles focuses on the racist elements of the teachings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Kach movement. The members of Otzma Yehudit regard themselves as his students.

Danny Hirschberg, a former head of the prominent B’nei Akiva religious Zionist youth movement, said in an interview with Army Radio, “I tried to stop the process. They have no place in the realm of religious Zionism. We will have to ask ourselves how we can explain to our youth that this ideology is far removed from our own.” Another prominent religious Zionist, Rabbi Amnon Bazak, described the election of Kahane's followers to the Knesset as “a desecration of God’s name.”

The sharpest critic of all has been Rabbi Benny Lau, who represents the leftist, liberal branch of religious Zionism. He did not mince words in interviews, on Facebook or in his synagogue. For instance, he posted on Facebook, “The introduction of racial theory into the Knesset signifies the destruction of the Jewish Commonwealth. … Violence against the non-Jewish residents of this land is a violation of our alliance and poses a challenge to the very settlement of this land. And yet the prime minister doesn’t care. All he wants is to win the election.” According to Lau, Otzma Yehudit is simply a new iteration of the Kach movement, which the Supreme Court disqualified from running for the Knesset in 1988 and which the government classified as a terrorist organization in 1994. He says that attempts are being made to soften the image of Kach so as to enable its entry into the mainstream through the historic National Religious Party (HaBayit HaYehudi’s predecessor), which once represented a moderate and inclusive school of religious Zionism.