Monday, November 05, 2012

Primaries tomorrow

Tomorrow, (Tues) members of the Bayit Yehudi party go out to vote in the elections for the head of the party. Next week we will vote again for Knesset members and other roles (which I'll post about next week).

There are 3 candidates for the leadership, 2 of them are well known: Naftali Bennet and Zevulun Orlev. A third mystery candidate, Yehuda Cohen, is running as well. I say mystery candidate because he hasn't done any campaigning until the last week. His campaign included an interview on the srugim website and an email to all members of the party indicating what his positions are. I don't consider Yehuda Cohen to be a viable candidate, so use him for your protest vote if you don't like either of the other 2 candidates.

We are backing Naftali Bennet for a few reasons.
1) He came to the far north to speak to us, indicating that he feels that the backwoods periphery is relevant to him

2) A longtime member of the party from our community asked Orlev for help a couple years ago when the local rabbinate refused to agree to his position in the religious services office because they wanted someone from the chareidi community. Orlev's office said there was no budget for taking the matter to court. In our opinion, the issues of a small town just weren't relevant to him.

3) I listened to the whole debate between Orlev and Bennet. I didn't agree with one thing that Orlev said. I was on the same page as Bennet for everything that he said.

4) We feel that with Orlev as head, the party will continue its downward spiral and may finally succeed in dying. Orlev has insisted at all points in the campaign that he wants to continue with the party's existing path. He has not come up with any plan for resurgence or rehabilitation.

Get out to vote, and vote for Naftali Bennet.

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