Page 44 - HaMizrachi #7BackgroundwithJIF-Purim

Yaniv ISRAELI

ANSWERS! ELECTIONS

Editor’s note: Our resident, totally unofficial Israeli guide brings you insights into a lighter side of the Israeli
experience you won’t likely find in the usual news sources. Yaniv will also respond to readers’ questions and
observations (non-halachic of course). He can be reached at yaniv@mizrachi.org. Enjoy!

QUESTION: chance to form a coalition of at least 61 move up into the Knesset, get his phone,
I’m having a little bit of a problem members (no single party has ever won resign, and so on.
understanding Israel’s electoral system. enough seats to constitute a majority on
Do Israelis vote for people, parties or their own, so spirited “horse-trading” is Debate in the Knesset can be rowdy
platforms? always a post-election phenomenon). and raucous, to say the least, and is not
There are currently 10 different parties for the shy or faint-of-heart. Some say
YANIV ANSWERS: represented in the Knesset, though the busiest person in the Knesset is the
f you’re confused about the several are made up of combinations of Sergeant-at-Arms, whose primary task is
upcoming Israeli elections, that’s a smaller parties. 30 parties ran in the last to evict MKs who get too out of hand.
I good sign – you’re in the majority! election and at least that many are vying School teachers are known to tell their
So here’s a little primer that may help – for office in the upcoming April election. overly-boisterous students, “Quieten
or at least amuse you! down. This isn’t the Knesset!”
The electoral threshold – the minimum
Israeli elections for the Knesset are – percentage of votes needed to enter There are even Knesset members
theoretically – held every four years. the Knesset – is now 3.25% of the total who have served prison terms and yet
I say theoretically because it’s been vote, which means that a party must returned – hopefully rehabilitated! – to
21 years since an Israeli government win at least four seats to make the cut. lead their parties and be members of the
went full-term; the shortest-lasting There was a time when parties needed ruling cabinet. As former head of the
government was the 16th Knesset, led only 1% of the vote to get a seat, which Yisrael B’Aliya party Natan Sharansky
by Golda Meir, which only survived for meant that single individuals could be famously joked when congratulating
three months. I like to say there are three elected. That made for an even more his fellow former Prisoner of Zion Yuli
Israeli national holidays during the year diverse group of people charting Israel’s Edelstein on his election as Speaker of
when there are no ritual restrictions: direction – including a one-time fugitive the Knesset: “Where we come from, we
Lag BaOmer, Yom HaAtzmaut and the from France whose election granted sit in jail and then serve in the Knesset,
Israeli election! But I guess it only seems him immunity from prosecution – and and not vice-versa!”
that way, in the wild and wacky world of a proliferation of fringe parties, like the
Israeli politics. Green Leaf party, whose sole platform Somehow, with all the mishigas and
was advocating the legalization of machinations of the Knesset, Israel
The Knesset has 120 members, divided marijuana. Israelis like to joke about manages to muddle forward, dealing
among various parties: Secular, the imaginary Telephone Party, formed admirably with crisis after crisis,
Sephardi-ultra-Orthodox, Ashkenazi- in the years when the wait for a home challenge after challenge, and still
ultra-Orthodox, National Religious, phone could be several years. The providing security to Israel’s citizens and
rightist, centrist, leftist and Arab. You person elected to the party – voted in by guiding the nation to unprecedented
vote for the party, which, at least in the many people still waiting for a phone heights. Which may be one of the surest
theory, espouses a particular platform, – would take his seat, receive a home proofs that G-d does, indeed, exist.
not the person, and each party’s primary phone (since all members of Knesset are
determines its own ordered list of who required to be reachable at all times), Feel free to send me any other
will represent the party. The party with and would then immediately resign, perplexing questions you have:
the most votes, or seats, is then given the causing the next person on the list to yaniv@mizrachi.org

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