Partial Knesset Results: None of the Five Candidates With Bukharian Ties Is Currently in Line for a Seat

This report was translated in part from Hebrew by Bukharian Jewish Post from coverage by Kipa, Ynet and Kikar HaShabbat. All results cited here are partial and unofficial.

With most of the vote in Israel’s Oct. 27 election for the 26th Knesset counted, none of the five candidates with Bukharian roots or ties who appeared on party lists is currently in line for a seat, according to partial Central Elections Committee results published Wednesday, Oct. 28. The count is not finished. Hundreds of thousands of double-envelope ballots, most of them from soldiers, are still to be tallied. Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg said on election day that the committee would present the results to President Isaac Herzog in a week, Arutz Sheva reported.

On Oct. 26, Bukharian Jewish Post profiled the five candidates, drawing on interviews they gave to the Israeli Bukharian community magazine Menora, published on Bucharim.com. Each ran on a different list. This report sets each candidate’s list position against the seats his or her party holds in the latest partial count.

Where the count stands

The Times of Israel reported that with 84.5% of ballot boxes counted as of 12:34 p.m. Israel time (6:34 a.m. ET), the committee’s partial results gave 54 seats to the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 49 to the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot of Yashar! and 17 to the Arab-led Joint List and Ra’am. A majority requires 61.

The Hebrew news site Kipa, citing committee figures with 77.6% of votes counted as of 12:40 p.m. Israel time, listed the parties as follows: Likud 27; Yashar! 22; Beyachad 12; Joint List 11; the Democrats 8; United Torah Judaism 7; Yisrael Beytenu 7; Otzma Yehudit 7; Shas 7; Religious Zionism-Zehut 6; Ra’am 6. The two outlets measure progress differently, one by ballot boxes and one by votes, which is why their percentages differ.

The five candidates

• Rabbi Yosef Elnatanov, No. 11, Shas. Shas has 7 seats in the partial count. Kipa’s Shas page, based on committee data, lists the seventh slot, held by Moshe Abutbul, as the party’s last seat and marks Elnatanov (listed by the committee as Yossi Ilantanov) as outside. He would need Shas to gain four seats. Ynet and Kikar HaShabbat described him in September as the representative of the Bukharian community on the Shas list. He is principal of the Beit Yosef Talmud Torah in Holon and rabbi of the Beit Asher VeMordechai synagogue in Tel Aviv’s Kiryat Shalom neighborhood. Shas held 11 seats in the outgoing Knesset, according to the Israel Votes 2026 results tracker.
• Yaniv Badalov, No. 15, Otzma Yehudit. Otzma Yehudit, headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, has 7 seats in the partial count, and Kipa lists Badalov, the deputy mayor of Elad, as outside.
• Adi Mordechayev, No. 23, Yisrael Beytenu. Yisrael Beytenu, headed by Avigdor Liberman, has 7 seats in Kipa’s 12:40 p.m. figures, well short of 23rd place. Mordechayev is deputy mayor of Ramla.
• Zhanna Cohen, No. 45, Beyachad. Beyachad, the list headed by Naftali Bennett with Yair Lapid second, has 12 seats in the partial count. Cohen, a former Or Yehuda city council member who heads the World Union of Bukhara Immigrants, holds 45th place.
• Yiska Haimov, Noam. Noam, the party led by MK Avi Maoz, received 0.16% of the vote when 70.7% had been counted, according to JFeed, far below the 3.25% electoral threshold. A list that does not pass the threshold wins no seats. Haimov, who holds fifth place on the list filed with the committee, is not herself of Bukharian origin. She told Menora that her husband’s family is half Bukharian and that she has close ties to the community in Holon.

What could still change

The Times of Israel reported that the committee estimates about 600,000 double envelopes this year, a sharp increase from 2022, and that each Knesset seat is worth roughly 40,000 votes. The envelopes contain the votes of soldiers, prisoners, medical staff, patients and Israeli diplomats abroad. The newspaper noted that these votes have traditionally skewed away from the Arab and Haredi parties, but that the large number of reservists serving this year makes the effect harder to predict. The Times of Israel reported that the double envelopes may not be fully tallied until Friday.

As of this report, Bukharian Jewish Post had found no published breakdown of results for Bukharian neighborhoods, and city-level figures were still far from complete. Bukharian Jewish Post will report final seat allocations once the committee publishes official results.

Sources: The Times of Israel live blog, Oct. 28, 2026 (Central Elections Committee partial results at 84.5% of ballot boxes, 12:34 p.m. Israel time; double-envelope explainer); Kipa, 2026 election results page (Central Elections Committee figures at 77.6% of votes, updated 12:40 p.m. Israel time, in Hebrew); Kipa party pages for Shas, Otzma Yehudit, Yisrael Beytenu and Beyachad (in Hebrew); JFeed, Oct. 28, 2026 (threshold results at 70.7% counted, including Noam); Ynet, Shas list report (in Hebrew); Kikar HaShabbat, Shas list for the 26th Knesset (Sept. 8, 2026, in Hebrew); Bucharim.com / Menora candidate feature (Sept. 30, 2026, in Hebrew); Arutz Sheva, Oct. 27, 2026 (in Hebrew); Israel Votes 2026 results tracker; Bukharian Jewish Post, Oct. 26, 2026.