The recent turmoil surrounding reported segregation in some maternity wards in Israeli hospital between Israeli and Arab moms resulted in strong statements of support for the segregation from MK Betzalel Smotrich. Smotrich then found himself the target of criticism by Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel. This has led to a new poll in the dati leumi community to determine who among the representatives is most liked.

The poll was conducted by ‘M’saker’ for News1, asking who among dati leumi elected officials in the various political parties most represents the dati leumi community. 400 respondents representative of that community took part in the poll, including classic dati leumi, torani and liberal.

61% Naftali Bennett

50% Tzipi Hotevely

38% Shuli Muallem

36.3% Eli Ben-Dahan

30.8% Betzalel Smotrich

20.5% Uri Ariel

27.8% Yuli Edelstein

22.0% Moti Yogev

19.5% Ze’ev Elkin

19.5% Nissan Slomiansky

Interestingly, 13.3% of the dati leumi community views Dr. Aliza Lavie of the Yesh Atid party as representative of their community as well as Yesh Atid’s Elazar Stern with 7.8% and Rachel Azariya of Kulanu with 7%.

Dr. Edan Lieberman of ‘M’saker’, which conducted the poll, points out that interestingly, the liberal camp of the dati leumi elected officials did not make it to the top ten list but two women did.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)