Pre-Election Roundup

Just a few random thoughts about the upcoming election:

1) Why do media outlets refer to Moshe Ya’alon as “Bogey” and not “Boogie”. The former is a reference to a hostile aircraft or mucus. The latter to a 70s style dance culture. I'd much rather be a dance than a MiG or snot. It would be cool if he became Defense Minister and they started to play "Play that Funky Music, White Boy" as he makes his way to the podium.

2) Typical of our community: When discussing the Likud, the presence of 5 religious candidates amongst the top 22 always comes up. One candidate who’s gotten a bunch of good press is Tzipi Hotobeli. 30 years old, seemingly very serious about religion (long skirt and long sleeve variety; wouldn’t really dance in this video), child of Georgian (Stalin’s Georgia, not Carter’s) immigrant, lawyer, cable TV personality – always ends with the line “but she needs a shidduch”. Then the discussion becomes “who do we know for her”. It reminds me about the one where a Jewish mother is extremely proud of her daughter, the President of the United States, for marrying a doctor.

3) The election is not about policies, unfortunately. I did one of those on-line tests, and came out with a close match to Kadima, who I am not voting for because, frankly, I see them as a bunch of self-serving opportunists. Maybe all politicians are like that, but this is just way over the top. Similarly, the 3 things for which Rav Ovadia equated Yvette with Satan – legalizing serving pork in restaurants, drafting yeshiva students, and creating a system of civil marriages. I guess I’m with Satan, then, because I happen to support all three of those policies (in the same sense that Yvette does, namely, WRT pork for example, that there should be no law against selling pork at a restaurant). I sympathize with both elements, each in their own way (and still recall the “nash control” ads for the now-defunct Yisrael Ba’Aliyah party in the late 1990s which typified the antagonisms between the Mizrahim and Russians).

4) This is more social than political, but the integration of different Jewish cultures in Israel continues apace, except in Haredi circles. UTJ and Shas are the only pure Ashkenazi and pure non-Askenazi parties left (excluding Arab parties). I spoke with a Haredi cousin – and Ashkenazi married to a Sephardi – a few weeks ago, and she lamented the divisions between the two communities in Israel. I countered that my daughter’s class is fully integrated, and that I have several neighbors who are of mixed Jewish ethnicity. It was my Haredi sister who offered that the ethnic separation remains more in the Haredi world than anywhere else.

5) In this election, my overriding concern has become keeping Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak out of the PMO. I will cast my vote accordingly.