Jewish Agency holds mock elections around the world
01/17/2013 03:13
Likud Beytenu gets one-third of US college students’ votes according to Hasbara Fellowships poll, followed by Meretz with 10%.
Casting votes in JAFI mock election in Toronto Photo: Courtesy Jewish Agency
If Jews around the world could vote in the Israeli election, whom would they
choose? This week, the Jewish Agency and Aish Hasbara Fellowships are polling
young Diaspora Jews to find out.
Jewish Agency emissaries from Saskatoon
to Johannesburg are setting up voting booths for a mock election for Jewish
people aged 14 and older.
“This activity allows Diaspora Jewry to learn
about Israeli democracy,” Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky explained.
“This exposes them to the pluralism and variety of opinions in Israeli
society.”
Seven mock voting booths will be set up in Johannesburg, where
there are 45,000 Jews, in schools, nursing homes, kosher supermarkets and other
Jewish institutions. The Jewish Agency will have two more voting booths in Cape
Town, where 15,000 Jews live.
In Toronto, 400 middle school students will
vote, and different classes will represent different parties.
A Jewish
Agency camp in Melbourne will hold a mock election, in which campers presented
different parties’ platforms, and a youth group in Rio de Janeiro will have a
similar activity.
Next Tuesday evening, the Israeli ambassador and other
senior Jewish community members in South Africa will present the results of the
vote, which are expected to be broadcast on Israeli television.
Hasbara
Fellowships, a project of Aish International, interviewed English-speaking
students in Israel about the parties that they support, and posted the videos on
Facebook.
The organization encourages Jewish students around the world to
watch the videos and decide which party they would vote for if they were Israeli
citizens.
In addition, the students are asked to write what Israel means
to them.
The answers and results are posted on the Hasbara Fellowships
Facebook page.
On Wednesday, students from 52 colleges and universities,
mostly in the US, voted, with 31 percent supporting Likud Beytenu, 11% for
Meretz, 10% each for Yesh Atid and Labor, 9% for Bayit Yehudi, 6% for The Tzipi
Livni Party, 5% for Shas and 2% for Hadash.