We discuss 1) why some Israelis think cameras in polling places will destroy democracy, while others think it will save it 2) who doesn’t vote, and why 3) the angry claim by ultra-Orthodox feminists that progressive do-gooders fighting for the rights of Haredi women are messing up their game
A weeks and a bit before elections, Don Futterman, Noah Efron and Haaretz uber-reporter Judy Maltz, in an act of political empathy and imagination, ask for each of the parties to the Left of the Likud, why might someone vote for them.
Two weeks and a bit before elections, in an act of political empathy and imagination, we try to figure who votes for each of Israel’s right-wing parties, and why. (Next week, we do the same thing for the parties on the left.)
We discuss 1) whether or not Netanyahu has lost his edge, his grip, his inevitability and his invincibility 2) a new group aiming to politically empower English-speaking Israelis 3) what to make of the Israeli HBO series about the 2014 murders of Jewish kids by Palestinians and a Muslim kid by Jews
We discuss 1) the addition of an activist to the Labor Party list who once called it a party of racist oppression 2) a revisionist history of the settler movement arguing that it was not about religious ideology but rather economy and class 3) whether it’s right or not to harangue Avner Netanyahu about the purported “sins” of his father
We discuss 1) why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not a campaign issue in our incipient elections 2) an ad campaign showing PM Netanyahu with autocratish world leaders 3) the revolutionary advance of municipal bus service on the Sabbath
We discuss 1) whether Labor leader Amir Peretz is right that two leftist parties are better than one 2) whether the leaders of Israel’s new right-wing-consortium are right that one party to the right of the Likud is better than two 3) a new district court ruling finding that a man can be sued for not divulging to his fiancé-cum-wife that he prefers sex with men
We discuss 1) Labor Party’s decision to merge with the center-right Gesher party 2) the foreign ministry’s decision to retool its diplomats into economic ambassadors, rather than political ones 3) an advertisement that has half the country wailing and gnashing its teeth about selling out Israeli culture for filthy lucre
We discuss 1) signs of a new openness to cooperation between Jews & Arabs on the Left 2) a new book the purpose of which is “reclaiming Judaism from Zionism” in America 3) the legacy of the “Bund” in Israel, on the occasion of the closing of Tel Aviv’s “Bund House”
We discuss 1) Ayelet Shaked’s aspirations to lead Israel’s religious right, even though she’s as secular as can be 2) the woes of southern resort city Eilat 3) a week after we buried another Ethiopian kid killed by a police officer, what accounts for our omnipresent racism?
