{"id":612657,"date":"2026-09-11T09:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/612657\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:20:10","slug":"countdown-to-election-day-a-road-trip-through-a-country-deciding-its-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/612657\/","title":{"rendered":"Countdown to Election Day: A Road Trip Through a Country Deciding Its Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe x12ds5z6 x1rrzvkg x1txrjqu x115k1yo x126s5kd x1az39ph x1qxhirb xhhm3bp xjplvm8 x1ur7pbh x103ahzr x6ikm8r x10wlt62\">On October 27, Israelis will head to the polls in an election that could reshape its future. The outcome could determine whether Israel remains a Jewish and democratic state, true to the spirit of its Declaration of Independence, or a Jewish state under autocratic rule.<\/p>\n<p>Ra&#8217;anana, IsraelWho are Naftali Bennett&#8217;s neighbors voting for?<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe xhhvhw0 xarpr7i x126s5kd x1az39ph x1taym4m x17sw25h xhhm3bp xjplvm8\">Ra&#8217;anana, home to a large English-speaking community &#8211; and to Naftali Bennett &#8211; is widely hailed as a bastion of diverse Jewish religious communities. Will its moderate Orthodox residents choose allegiance to sectoral politics or liberal values?<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"x1bvjpef x41m6fz xly1mqq x1k57tk5 x1i43xu1 xx6stda x15spe28 x1wntsoc xj69yco xfw692k xg830sg x13dflua xfagghw xz4gly6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/elections\/2026-06-10\/ty-article-magazine\/.premium\/many-of-the-voters-who-could-swing-israels-next-election-live-right-here\/0000019e-92d3-d7a4-a9bf-f6db8b610000\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read the full story here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe xhhvhw0 xarpr7i x126s5kd x1az39ph x1taym4m x17sw25h xhhm3bp xjplvm8\">Population: 85,000<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe xhhvhw0 xarpr7i x126s5kd x1az39ph x1taym4m x17sw25h xhhm3bp xjplvm8\">History: Founded in 1922 as an agricultural settlement by a group of American Jews from New York<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe xhhvhw0 xarpr7i x126s5kd x1az39ph x1taym4m x17sw25h xhhm3bp xjplvm8\">How it votes: In the November 2022 election, the centrist Yesh Atid party was the top vote-getter, winning one-third of the ballots in this city, followed by Likud with 20 percent. The far-right Religious Zionism party won 10 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"rich-text\" class=\"x13faqbe xhhvhw0 xarpr7i x126s5kd x1az39ph x1taym4m x17sw25h xhhm3bp xjplvm8\">Why it&#8217;s important: The upcoming election could hinge on the number of moderate Religious Zionist (Modern Orthodox) voters that defect to the opposition bloc. Ra&#8217;anana is home to many voters who fall into that category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On October 27, Israelis will head to the polls in an election that could reshape its future. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,58195,954,43,3215],"class_list":["post-612657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-israeli-politics","tag-news","tag-october-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}