Shas, led by a 92-year-old rabbi, combined its traditional defense of the have-nots with its fight for stricter rules for conversion to Judaism, an undisguised allusion to Israel’s masses of Russian immigrants with doubtful Jewish credentials. Meanwhile, Jewish Home, a party linked to fanatical, messianic rabbis for whom Zionism should now be imbued with eschatological meaning, challenged Netanyahu to adopt a more resolute expansionist policy in Palestinian territories.