In the 1988 elections, the party won two seats, taken by Avraham Ravitz and Moshe Gafni, and joined Yitzhak Shamir's coalition government.

Sometimes, the parties compete against each other; at other times, they join forces within a political alliance called United Torah Judaism (UTJ) (Yahadut HaTorah in Hebrew).

In Jerusalem, it was based on a long-standing argument against a 1989 agreement between Degel HaTorah's then-spiritual leader Rabbi Elazar Shach, the venerated Rosh yeshiva of the famed Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and the spiritual leader of Agudat Yisrael, the Pnei Menachem of Gur, Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Alter.

The deal, based on the demographics of the time, stated that when UTJ would join forces, Aguda would receive 60% of the seats, and Degel 40%.

[citation needed] Degel HaTorah's rabbinical arbiter ("posek") was, until his death in 2012,[4] centenarian Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv of Jerusalem.