Zionist Spirit taps religious kibbutz leader Amitai Porat for 3rd spot on slate

Zionist Spirit announces religious kibbutz leader Amitai Porat will be third on the party’s electoral list, behind leaders Ayelet Shaked and Yoaz Hendel.

“After four rounds of elections, standing before the fifth, I feel that our national resilience has been wounded,” Porat says at a Kfar Maccabiah press conference announcing his entry into politics.

Porat is a member of the national-religious movement, which he says can bridge Israel’s social and political divides.

Zionist Spirit has searched for a figure to attract national religious voters, as part of its struggle to bring back voters who fled Shaked’s previous party, Yamina. About a third of Yamina’s 2021 voters were national-religious or religious Zionist.

“Nationalist and statesmanlike people deserve a home, religious Zionism deserves a home — the hundred-year-old movement, the normal one, the sane one, the one that connects and does not alienate,” says Hendel.

Porat is the son of former MK Hanan Porat and the grandson of founders of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, where he lives.

Zionist Spirit is currently polling below the 3.25% electoral threshold necessary to enter Knesset, but should it succeed, lawmaker Zvi Hauser will likely be the fourth and last person on the party’s slate to get a seat.