1.  Initially, Peres directed his efforts towards winning the support of small orthodox religious parties.

2.  Both candidates have worked assiduously to court the Orthodox religious parties, whose rabbis can still deliver small but solid chunks of votes.

3.  After acquiring their new political clout a year ago, the Orthodox parties proposed a bill confirming the sole authority of Orthodox rabbis to perform conversions.

4.  After the ruling, legislators from Meretz and strictly Orthodox parties indicated that they were ready to negotiate a compromise bill that would regulate the exemptions and prevent abuses.

5.  After the vote, from left, Barak, Eli Ishai, Leader of the Shas Ultra Orthodox party and Education Minister Yossi Sarid.

6.  But he also said that Netanyahu indicated that he was politically bound to allow the Orthodox parties in his government to bring the bill to a vote.

7.  But of eight deputy mayors, four are Haredim, two represent a nationalist Orthodox party and the seventh is an Orthodox member of Likud.

8.  He persuaded a rigorously Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, to attach a motion of no confidence in his government to the bill calling for early elections.

9.  In response, Orthodox religious parties in the Israeli Parliament had introduced legislation that would enshrine into law their monopoly on performing conversions, weddings and most funerals.

10.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who relies on Orthodox parties to strengthen his ruling coalition, has become a strong sympathizer of Orthodox concerns.