Several Anglos elected to Likud central c'tee

"I didn't know that in Jerusalem, politics is Chicago style,” head of Likud Anglos organization Tauber says.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Likud primary polling place 390 (photo credit: Ben Spier/screenshot)
Likud primary polling place 390
(photo credit: Ben Spier/screenshot)
Many immigrants to Israel from English speaking countries got elected to the Likud central committee in Tuesday’s election, according to official results released on the party’s website Thursday night.
The head of the Likud Anglos organization, Daniel Tauber, finished sixth among more than 300 candidates for the 171 slots in the central committee reserved for Jerusalemites. An immigrant from Staten Island, New York, Tauber said he wished the election would have been cleaner and more ideological and less based on political deals.
“It felt less like democracy and more like the game show Let’s Make a Deal,” said Tauber, 28. “This culture of backroom deals is very bad. I expected there to be a dirty side to all politics, but I didn’t know that in Jerusalem, politics is Chicago style.”
Tauber said there were at least 3,000 people identified as coming from English-speaking countries on the Likud membership list and his organization would try to reach out to all of them in order to advance key issues affecting immigrants from English speaking countries.
“Now I am inside, and once you’re inside, you can get more information to help people,” Tauber said.
Jonathan Leci, who made aliya from England, was also elected in Jerusalem. Another new central committee member from England is Sonya Graham of Ra’anana.
Many of the English speakers elected to the central committee were backed by Likud activist Moshe Feiglin’s Manhigut Yehudit organization. In a deal in Beit Shemesh between former mayoral candidate Shalom Lerner, who has lived in New York, Baltimore and London, Feiglin’s representative in Beit Shemesh, Aryeh Sonnenberg, who is from Baltimore, Leah Karp from Melbourne, Gershon Kagan from New Jersey and Batya Jerenberg, David Kirshenbaum and Yonatan “Buddy” Lipsky from New York were elected.
In Efrat, Moshe Kopel, Avi Abelow and Michael Fishburger of New York were elected.
In Ma’aleh Adumim, Likud activist Gideon Ariel, who is from Queens, New York, succeeded in getting several American immigrants elected to the central committee, including Ze’ev Orenstein from New Jersey, Aryeh Blumberg from Missouri and Yitzhak and Avraham Klein from Boston.
“Anglos who make aliya are often quite active and often quite right-wing,” Ariel said. “It only makes sense that Anglo immigrants find a natural home in the Likud and want to make an impact. It took us a while to realize that the Likud central committee is the way to do it, but it looks like the tipping point has been reached.”