Aftershocks of the 1977 ‘mahapach’ (upheaval) and their effect on religious politics in Israel Nissim Leon The Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bar Ilan University ABSTRACT The significance of the electoral ‘mahapach’ (upheaval) is not limited to the Likud’s rise to power in 1977 for the first time in Israel’s history. It also brought secondary upsets in the form of changes of guard among other political forces. This article focuses on three such ‘aftershocks’ which remoulded Israel’s religious political sphere: the metamorphoses in ethnic, Haredi and religious-Zionist politics. The political change of guard in each of these areas as a result of the mahapach boosted the power of religious forces, transform- ing them from marginal, largely reactive factors into active players with lasting impact on the moulding of Israeli society. KEYWORDS ‘mahapach’; political aftershocks; Mizrahi; Haredi; religious Zionist; 1977 Israeli elections The ‘mahapach’ (upheaval) of 17 May 1977 was the sort of event that not only catalysed a chain of political and social changes but also realigned the Israeli political map. Modern history provides many examples of this phenomenon, including the republican revolutions of the nineteenth cen- tury and the rise of nationalist and democratic models; the rise and fall of totalitarian systems (social democracies, fascism); and the mass protests of our times (the Arab Spring; cost of living protests in Israel as well as in European countries). In the Israeli context, the mahapach of 1977 consisted of more than just the Likud’s rise to power, replacing the Labour government with a series of leaders who were either organic party members (as in the case of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon) or former Likud members who formed other dominant parties (as in the case of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni). It also served to accelerate anti-hegemonic processes on the sectorial level, such as the change of guard within religious Zionism and ethnic organisation and political renewal within Haredi society. I therefore refer to these processes as ‘aftershocks’ of the great political earthquake of 1977. CONTACT Nissim Leon nissimnu@bezeqint.net Bar Ilan University ISRAEL AFFAIRS 2018, VOL. 24, NO. 6, 944–957 https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2018.1530433 © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group