Mac TA star Tal Brody, GPO head Danny Seaman, Bibi's ex-chief of staff Yechiel Leiter aim for Knesset.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANtal brody 298.88(photo credit: courtesy)
Many American Jews won their races for the Senate and Congress on Tuesday, and three more are aiming to join a different government in the race for the Knesset on February 10.
Former Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball star Tal Brody, Government Press Office director Danny Seaman and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu's former chief of staff Yechiel Leiter are all running in the Likud primary, expected to take place the second week of December.
Spokesmen for other parties said they were not aware of other American immigrants running for Knesset beyond the three former US residents who are currently in the Knesset: Ya'acov Litzman (United Torah Judaism), Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) and Tzvia Greenfield (Meretz), as well as perennial Nation Union candidate Uri Bank.
Brody, 65, was born in Trenton, New Jersey and is best known for leading Maccabi to its historic win over powerful CSKA Moscow in the 1977 Euroleague basketball semifinal - a victory seen as Israel's defeat of the Soviet Union, which armed and supported many of its enemies during the Cold War.
"We are on the map and we are staying on the map, not only in sports, but in everything," Brody famously said in his American-accented Hebrew after the win.
Brody said he would make a final decision about whether to run next week, after determining his chances of getting elected. He said that in the Knesset, he would want to deal with advancing immigration and absorption, the Israel-Diaspora relationship and, of course, sports.
"It's important that people who are not politicians but are able to do things for the country do their part," Brody said. "I succeeded in basketball and business. For the third stage of my life, it would be good to serve the public with 100 percent of my time."
Brody was recently listed by the New York Times as one of the 10 most influential immigrants to Israel of all time, among the likes of Golda Meir, Moshe Arens and Stanley Fisher.
Leiter, 49, is not a basketball star, but he has been a slam dunk in every position he has held since moving to Israel in 1978 from his native Scranton, Pennsylvania - the hometown of Vice President-elect Joe Biden. He now lives in Eli in Samaria.
Besides serving as Netanyahu's chief of staff when he was finance minister and as Education Ministry deputy director-general under Limor Livnat, Leiter has been a spokesman for the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and most recently, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Leiter holds undergraduate degrees in law and political science and a master's in international relations, and is currently completing a doctorate in political philosophy. In the Knesset, he hopes to assist Netanyahu in finding and explaining new diplomatic paradigms following the failures of the Oslo process and the Gaza Strip disengagement.
"I want to effectuate change, and I believe that there's a great thirst for some serious, experienced parliamentarism," Leiter said. "Crisscrossing the country for the last year campaigning, I have learned a great deal about the problems of each locale, and it's helped me to structure my political agenda. I feel much more prepared for the tasks that lie ahead than if I would have been appointed to an automatic slot on the list."
Perhaps the most surprising American immigrant in the race is Seaman, who has faced off for years with members of the foreign press whom he considered antagonistic to Israel. As head of the GPO, he led the battle to prove that Israel was not at fault for killing Muhammad al-Dura. Before that, he held other posts in the GPO and in the foreign press department of the IDF Spokesman's unit. Seaman was born on a US Air Force base in Germany and lived all across America, but he identifies himself as a New Yorker.
Seaman said he wanted to serve in the Knesset because generations of his family members have been in public service. He said his political views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were similar to those of former ministers Uzi Landau and Bennie Begin, but he vowed that he never involved his personal politics in his work.
"My goal now is not to get elected, but to promote principles that I believe in," Seaman said. "I felt it's important for good, honest, decent people to no longer sit on the sidelines. There comes a time when you have to stand up and get involved. I've been through dirty things and prevailed, and I will continue to do just that in politics."
Other Likud candidates with connections to America are Israel's former ambassador to the US Zalman Shoval and Legal Forum for the Land of Israel co-chairman Yossi Fuchs, who moved to Israel from Brooklyn at age three. Fuchs led legal campaigns against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Vice Premier Haim Ramon and former finance minister Avraham Hirchson.
Another former ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, is running for the Knesset with Israel Beiteinu.
One of the best-known and most respected Israelis among Americans, former minister Natan Sharansky, does not intend to run, despite rumors to the contrary. Sharansky asked Netanyahu this week to deny the rumors, which upset him.
Sharansky has left the door open to receiving a top cabinet post if Netanyahu becomes prime minister, but a close confidant said he was "not holding his breath."
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