Brenner, a 57-year-old New York-born social worker, Reform Jew and feminist, is at the epicenter of the latest halachic earthquake shaking Israel. Her downstairs neighbor is Dov Dumbrovich, the Orthodox chairman of the local religious council, who is defying a Supreme Court ruling and refusing to let her take her seat on the council.
After a raucous six-hour debate, 55 legislators registered their confidence in Netanyahu, 50 voted against, and an unprecedented 15 abstained or absented themselves from the ballot. The government\’s paper support is 66 out of 120 Knesset members, plus two far-right sympathizers from Rehavam Ze\’evy\’s Moledet.
Binyamin Netanyahu this week put the Bar-On affair behind him. The Supreme Court endorsed as \”not exceptionally unreasonable\” the law officers\’ reluctance to indict the prime minister and Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi for the abortive appointment of an underqualified party hack as attorney-general.
After a year of licking the wounds of electoral defeat, the Israeli left has crowned a new leader who radiates an aura of victory and an appetite for power. The campaign of the year 2000 has begun.
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