Meimad

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Meimad (מפלגת מימד Hebrew acronym meaning "Jewish State, Democratic State") is a left-leaning religious Zionist political party in Israel, founded in 1999, and based on the ideology of the Meimad movement, founded in 1988 by Rabbi Yehuda Amital.

It is often allied with the Israeli Labour Party (HaAvoda). It emphasizes the values of many social democratic parties, except on religious issues. Meimad, unlike Labor, takes a center-right approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It advocates the inclusion of religious studies in the main curriculum of Israel's public schools, and encourages the use of rabbinical courts in addition to civil courts. The party is currently headed in the Knesset by Rabbi Michael Melchior, who has served in the Barak government as minister of diaspora affairs. He is currently deputy minister of education.

Under Rabbi Melchior, the party has taken an even more left leaning approach both in foreign and especially in domestic affairs. The party has run in municipal elections in 2003, winning a number of key seats in Tel Aviv. It also ran together with the more farther left Meretz party in Haifa in which it shares a seat under a rotation agreement.

Meimad ran together with the Labor party in the 2006 elections.