Election Day

We have been nervously anticipating our first election experience in Israel. This was not the first election since we arrived but we had been abroad on the previous occasion and there is no such thing as a postal or proxy vote here. We were no longer the butt of jokes from our English family and friends. We would be voting for the third prime minister in three years where as they had just had their third in three months.

We had attended a very interesting zoom evening organised by Yad L'Olim an organisation that supports new immigrants. Seven Knesset members from top parties were asked questions in English about security, the economy, religion and state, and issues related to Olim. Each person was asked to speak for a minute about their party and then they took it in turn to answer the pre-prepared questions, put together from the questions posted on the Yad L'Olim Facebook page. Despite the fact that one candidate was clearly doing it from his car, I’m not sure if he was driving at the time, and another kept being interrupted by her six year old daughter, it was very good, very well moderated and extremely interesting. The cut off for gaining a seat in the Knesset is only 3.25% of the votes which is the root of the instability of governments here. It has led to 40 parties! Most do not reach the 3.25% threshold, but the tiny parties that are left end up having a ridiculous amount of influence in future coalitions. It became clear to us as we listened to the parties that our decision on who to vote for was going to be heavily influenced by whom the main parties would be going into coalition with.

Election Day arrived bright and clear. Election Day is a national holiday in Israel and there was definitely a party atmosphere as we strolled to our polling station at a local school. Whole families were coming together to vote. The entrance was festooned with banners from many parties and there was even a table selling a book about Netanyahu. Inside all the signs and posters were in Arabic and Hebrew but with the help of Google translate and some English speaking helpers we realised that a number on our polling card told us which classroom we were to queue outside. Only one person is allowed in the room at at time and once inside you present your identity card and you are ticked off a list. There were four checkers and a uniformed election officer. Each party is represented by a letter of the alphabet but as there are more parties than letters some of them have two or three letters!

Behind a screened off table there is a tray of cards with letters in. You put the card of the party you are voting for in an envelope and the envelope goes in the ballot box in front of the uniformed officer.

A number of us volunteer regularly at a fantastic children's home, Beit Elazraki in North Netanya where we do one to one English conversation with a student. It is home to 200 children and these children are all wards of Court. They have all been removed from their families for a range of reasons any many of the parents still have visitation rights. This makes the work of the home particularly difficult as they are continually dealing with the trauma this causes the children. The home does incredible work to help all the children reach their potential but, most importantly, to feel loved and cherished, one of their key missions being to break the cycle of abuse, so that the children go on to create their own successful families. The volunteers are part of this, showing that we care about the children and can be relied upon to turn up each week.

In Netanya some of our friends have turned out to be fellow jigsaw puzzlers and we exchange puzzles and enjoy chatting about our achievements and challenges without eyebrows being raised, or anyone saying how they wouldn't have the patience to do a large puzzle, somehow sounding like they are criticising rather than praising! At Bet Elazraki when there is a holiday they need to find ways to occupy the children so we spent a lovely morning, after voting, doing puzzles with some of the younger children. As you can see from the photos a fun time was had by all.

Those of you who have known us for a long time won’t be surprised that we weren’t happy with the outcome of the election, but we were proud to cast our vote in Israel for the first time and to take part in the democratic process. Who knows how soon we will be doing it again!