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Fly in the Vote

To encourage the partisan faithful, the campaign rivals are offering heavily subsidized round-trip fares, with the stay in Israel limited to a few days bracketing the election dates.
[additional-authors]
May 6, 1999

Phone Chai L’Yisrael in Brooklyn and the recorded greeting tells the caller, “Your vote will help keep Israel safe and secure.”

The Web site for KesherUSA urges the visitor’s electoral participation to assure an Israel “committed to democracy.”

The code words need no translation for the initiated, as Chai L’Yisrael, on the political right, and Kesher, on the left, vie to transport the greatest number of adherents among Israeli citizens abroad to their homeland for the upcoming elections. (Israel has no absentee voting, except for diplomats and emissaries.)

While the first round of elections — for Knesset seats and prime minister — is on May 17, both sides are aiming their strongest push for the expected June 1 runoff between the two top prime ministerial candidates.

To encourage the partisan faithful, the campaign rivals are offering heavily subsidized round-trip fares, with the stay in Israel limited to a few days bracketing the election dates.

Chai L’Yisrael easily wins the fare competition, with an incredibly low $180 charter rate from five cities — New York, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto.

The group hopes to send more than 5,000 voters, but “there is no limit, and money will not be the deciding factor,” said a principal organizer and veteran Likud activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Applicants are reportedly required to state their affiliations with Jewish organizations and synagogues, but the spokesman indignantly denied rumors that applicants must pledge beforehand to support the choice of the religious parties.

“We are not nonpartisan, and we are targeting a certain type of voter,” he said. “But our only agenda is a strong, secure Israel, with Jerusalem as its undivided capital. We believe Prime Minister Netanyahu will assure such a state.”

The spokesman said that the more than $2 million needed to subsidize the fares has come from private citizens in Israel and America. He would neither confirm nor deny persistent rumors that Australian millionaire Yosef Gutnick is one of the project’s main financiers. In the last election, Gutnick, then strongly identified with Chabad, was one of Netanyahu’s largest financial backers.

The Chabad organization, whose Israeli branch mounted a large-scale campaign for Netanyahu in 1996, said through spokesmen in New York and Los Angeles that it has no connection at all with the voter airlift.

In 1996, the voter airlift from North America and Europe consisted almost entirely of supporters of the fervently Orthodox and nationalist parties. Overseas adherents of the Labor and left-wing parties largely sat the election out, apparently convinced that their candidate, Shimon Peres, would win handily.

This time around, Kesher wants to make sure that the same mistake is not repeated, and is focusing all its efforts on the June 1 runoff election.

Kesher co-founder and spokesman Udi Behr said that, as of last week, some 2,000 passengers had been processed and that he hoped that, ultimately, 5,000 to 7,000 Israeli citizens from North America and Europe will participate.

The numbers may prove crucial in a tight race, Behr believes, especially if the returnees can influence their families and friends in Israel to vote their way.

Kesher’s round-trip fares from New York are $449, and for students are $349. For flights from Los Angeles, leaving May 27 and 30, and returning from Tel Aviv June 3 and 6; typical fares are $649 and $549 (add tax on all fares).

Contributions to underwrite the fare subsidies have come from the liberal-oriented Shefa Fund and from individuals sympathetic to the Labor and new centrist parties, and the Peace Now movement, said Behr.

El Al Israel Airline earlier posted special election flight rates on its regular schedule, at $815 roundtrip from Los Angeles and $715 from New York, but the offer has expired.

Although Arthur Lenk of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles reported an unusually heavy volume of calls from Israelis checking on their voting rights, El Al Regional Manager Bill Gale in Los Angeles said that the interest had not translated into bookings on his flights.

Gal Shor, managing editor of the Hebrew-language weekly Shalom L.A., confirmed that among his Los Angeles readers, few are planning to fly to Israel for the election.

However, Behr of Kesher and other sources referred to a much stronger response on the East Coast and among the many Israelis working in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area.

Hardly any interest in the election has been evinced by the American Jewish community, whose reaction was summarized as a “collective yawn” by Washington-based columnist James D. Besser.

After checking with community leaders and political analysts around the country, Besser reports sparse attention and less enthusiasm by all sides, “except for a small group of activists on the right and the left.”

Reasons for the “epidemic indifference,” Besser writes, is the absence of an immediate threat to Israel, the fuzziness of the main candidates on the issue of religious pluralism, bafflement at Israel’s electoral system, and disgust with the negative “Americanization” of the Israeli political campaigns.

To reach Chai L’Yisrael, call (877) 868-3999. Kesher can be contacted by phone at (212) 966-3554, by e-mail at info@KesherUSA.org, or through its Web site at www.KesherUSA.org.


Why I’m Going to Vote

By Orit Arfa, Contributing Writer

As a Jew who has recently made “L.A.yah” (return to Los Angeles) after once making aliyah, my zechuyot (benefits for new Israelis) are ticking away each day I remain in the United States. But my right to vote is one zechuyah I will have for a lifetime.

In this upcoming election, the issues on the political agenda can shape Israeli society in dramatic ways. The outcome may radically change the course of Israeli statehood: Do we enact Oslo and Wye to attain a yet-to-be-realized peace? Do we remain suspicious of the Palestinians and stall and stall until we can stall some more? Do we support a Palestinian state? Do we enact public policy that says to Reform and Conservative Jews, “You are not legitimate Jews”?

As an Israeli citizen living in Los Angeles, I cannot just sit back and read about such questions without answering “yes” or “no” with my vote. As an Israeli citizen and resident hopeful, I want my Israeli relatives, friends, and perhaps me and my family to live there in peace and prosperity. As a Jew, I want an Israel that I and my fellow Jews are proud to call home.

I see my vote as a wand that I can freely wield to help create the Israel I envision. Perhaps the individual candidates do not impress me with their sparkling intelligence and magnetic charm, but because my voice may help put someone in office who sympathizes with my ideas on how to forge a greater Israel, I have to hop on a plane and be heard.

Maybe I won’t get a tax-free car or subsidized rent if I attempt to live in Israel again, but at least I can get an affordable flight to Israel that will enable me to achieve more valuable things — peace, justice and an Israel to which I can happily return.

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