At an event in Jerusalem in July, an opposition candidate for Israel’s Parliament kicked things off by asking what voters feared most if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing, religious government won another four-year term. The answers were startling.

Israel would become even more of an international pariah, one said. “I’m afraid my children would leave,” said another. “I’d want my children to leave,” said a third.

It got darker from there. “Tyranny of the majority.” “Civil war.” “Collapse.”

Every national election is important, and many play on voters’ fears. But none has felt so consequential and dire to so many Israeli Jews as the one on Tuesday.

And no wonder: They have the chance to render a verdict on polarizing decisions that have torn the country apart for years — and to choose between starkly different visions for Israel’s future.

Perhaps the rawest emotions among Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents surround the question of whether the long-serving prime minister, legendary for his political survival skills, will be held accountable for the worst national-security failure in Israel’s history, the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

As traumatic and shocking as that attack was, many other deep questions about Israel’s character hang in the balance.

Will the country weaken its judiciary and grant the government far more power? Will it rewrite the social contract to demand service and sacrifice from all sectors of society?

Will it arrest accelerating emigration before a brain drain threatens its tech-driven economy and, close behind, its vaunted military?

Will Israel defy global opprobrium and try to thwart Palestinian aspirations to statehood once and for all, potentially risking its relationship with the United States? Or will it reverse course and attempt to repair ties, at least with Washington?

Finally, will it end Mr. Netanyahu’s tenure precisely at a moment when his staunchest supporters believe that his fortitude and skills are most needed to face down Israel’s adversaries on the global stage?

These issues are so divisive, and the country so polarized, that even a clear election result may not begin healing the rifts.

“Whoever wins, the other side will feel that they’re not part of the Israeli state,” said Yuval Eylon, a retired Israeli rear admiral and researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

In a recent poll, the institute found that 39 percent of Israelis fear violence between different segments of society — as many as fear an Iranian nuclear weapon.

“It’s really a danger for the Israeli state as an idea,” Mr. Eylon said. “Ten years ago, people said we could deal even with a nuclear Iran, because we’re strong as a country, strong inside. But if you don’t have unity of the people, then the external threat becomes a mortal threat.”

Targeting the Ultra-Orthodox

Dan Ben-David, president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, has been warning for years that Israel faces a demographic point of no return.

He focused largely on the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi Jews, who tend to have many children and educate them in religious schools that don’t teach math, science, English or civics. They also receive far more subsidies than they contribute in taxes, largely thanks to Mr. Netanyahu, who has relied on their support to stay in power.

The ultra-Orthodox are doubling as a percentage of the population every 25 years, even as fewer of them are prepared for jobs in a modern economy.

That is an unsustainable trend, Mr. Ben-David warns, and a key driver of another: Already, just 20 percent of Israel’s workers supply 93 percent of all income-tax revenue, while half of all Israelis are so poor that they pay no income tax whatsoever.

Crucially, the ultra-Orthodox have also avoided military service — first under a decades-old exemption, and then, after the Supreme Court ordered in 2024 that conscription begin, by simply draft-dodging.