Living in a city beset by economic stagnation and religious and ethnic divisions, Jerusalemites approach the mayoral elections with trepidation
By KAMOUN SHIMON15jlmflag(photo credit: )Cover story in Issue 15, November 10, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here. It's sad
To be the Mayor of Jerusalem.
It is terrible.
How can any man be the mayor of a city like that?
What can he do with her?
He will build, and build, and build.
And at night
The stones of the hills round about
Will crawl down
Towards the stone houses,
Like wolves coming
To howl at the dogs
Who have become men's slaves.
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), "Mayor"
(Translated from the Hebrew by Assia Gutmann)
Although it may be a "sad and terrible" thing to be mayor of Jerusalem, no fewer than four candidates are in the running for the job and 15 parties are competing for the 30 seats on the city council. Moreover, only one of the major national parties has even bothered to field a candidate, even though, symbolically and practically, these elections could determine the future of Jerusalem in the coming elections. But in the eyes of many Jerusalemites, not one of the candidates is up to the tasks of leadership that this city demands.
It's not as if Jerusalem doesn't desperately need effective leadership. With negative migration, a decreasing tax base, increasing disaffection and alienation, ethnic tensions, and, perhaps most crushing of all, the negative image that many residents have of their own city, Jerusalem is in crisis.
On November 11th, municipal elections will be held throughout Israel. Some 520,000 Jerusalemites over the age of 17, out of a total population of nearly 740,000, have the right to vote. One third of the population is Arab, who have consistently boycotted Israeli elections in order to avoid legitimizing Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem following the Six-Day War. Another third of the electorate is haredi, or ultra-Orthodox. Modern Orthodox, traditionally minded and secular Jews, who all dread being overwhelmed by the swelling numbers of haredim make up the remainder.
Voters will cast one ballot for mayor and another for one of the lists of candidates. While some lists have called on their constituencies to vote for a specific mayoral candidate, others have refrained from making any recommendation - probably to keep their options open for coalition negotiations after the elections.
The candidates for mayor are: the secular multi-millionaire Nir Barkat, current leader of the city council 6-seat opposition; the ultra-Orthodox Knesset Member Meir Porush, representing the United Torah Judaism party; Russian immigrant billionaire Arkady Gaydamak; and Dan Biron, a former TV director and today proprietor of a bar in central Jerusalem.
Polls put Barkat, 49, as the front-runner. A self-made high-tech whiz, Barkat is trying to convince the public that he possesses the entrepreneurship, business sense and leadership skills that the city needs. He narrowly lost the 2003 elections to the ultra-Orthodox candidate and current mayor Uri Lupolianski by only 12,000 votes. During his term as council opposition leader, his Jerusalem Will Succeed party imploded and regrouped several times, ultimately ending in a split. And in the eyes of most of his potential constituency, he has been unable to put an end to the ultra-Orthodox misappropriation of funds and benefits.
Barkat has engaged top-level American political strategist Arthur Finkelstein as his campaign consultant. Finkelstein was largely responsible for the strategy that brought Benjamin Netanyahu victory in the 1996 general elections, with below-the-belt slogans and negative campaigning.
Barkat has detailed programs for solving almost everything - from transportation and traffic problems to unaffordable housing to education, although some of his solutions are vague. He promises to attract between 10-15 million tourists (that's close to seven times the current rate) a year to Jerusalem and to bring in high-tech and biotech companies. But when asked, during a parlor meeting in his comfortable home in the well-off Beit Hakerem neighborhood, why the private sector should invest in this city, given the manifest and manifold problems, the best he could come up with was, "Because it's the right thing to do."
In widely distributed glossy flyers with air-brushed portraits of the candidate, Barkat promises to introduce massive changes in the educational system, including increasing the per-child allocation in the city. "Jerusalem invests only 3,800 shekels (just over $1,000) per child per year, compared to 14,450 shekels in Gush Etzion [a settlement bloc south of Jerusalem] and 11,105 shekels in Tel Aviv," the flyer warns. "We must change our priorities and make education the center of our urban vision." His platform includes a complex plan of combining private, public and philanthropic money to drastically improve the education system.
But Barkat's real appeal is based on the fact that he's a secular Jerusalemite, who offers an alternative to the ultra-Orthodox for the city's residents who fear being engulfed by the rising haredi tide. Yet, even as he presents himself as the great secular hope, Barkat also knows that without the votes of the modern-Orthodox and traditionally-minded residents, he doesn't stand a chance. And so, in one of the many paradoxes of these elections, he actively sought the endorsement of former chief rabbi (1983-1993) and modern-Orthodox spiritual leader, Mordechai Eliyahu. Although the rabbi declined to publicly endorse him, Barkat does enjoy the support of many of Eliyahu's closest advisers. And recently released publicity photos showing him wrapped in his prayer shawl at the Western Wall to receive the priestly blessing during the festival of Sukkot are obviously part of the same strategy.
Meir Porush, 54, a Knesset member for the United Torah Judaism party was anointed by the rabbis as the ultra-Orthodox candidate for mayor, under the terms of a rotation agreement signed before the last election by the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox parties. Lupolianski has made it very clear that he would love to run again and likely would have had a better chance than Porush, but the rabbis have insisted that the rotation agreement must be honored.
Lupolianski, 55, owed his 2003 victory to motivated, disciplined voting by the ultra-Orthodox, who, following the dictates of their rabbis, turned out en masse - over 80 percent of eligible haredi voters cast their ballots, while only 32 percent of the others bothered to turn out. Moreover, he was endorsed by his predecessor, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and large numbers of non-haredi citizens supported him, convinced that the gentle, soft-spoken man with a disarmingly sweet smile, would bring some order to this city. He was also helped by his proven managerial track record, having established Yad Sarah, which he developed from tiny beginnings into a massive, multi-million dollar charity that lends medical equipment, free of charge, to all citizens. In 2004, he was awarded the country's top civilian award, the Israel Prize, for this endeavor.
But as his term winds down, it is clear that neither the ultra-Orthodox nor the rest of the population are pleased with Lupolianski's performance. According to Yehoshua Pollack, Lupolianski's deputy mayor, the former are angry that he didn't push forward a haredi agenda and didn't provide his constituency with the budgets and benefits they had anticipated - schools, institutions such as ritual baths and synagogues, and lots of comfortable jobs with high salaries in the municipality, one of Jerusalem's largest employers. Most damning in their eyes - in all his years in office, between 2003 and 2008, he never prevented the annual gay pride from marching down Jerusalem's streets. (He did try, but his ban on the parade was challenged in court, and he lost.)
And, as for the rest of the city's inhabitants, they believe that the opposite of much of the above is true and that there has been preferential treatment for haredim and a lack of investment in non-haredi culture and education, and that his term has only contributed to a troubling malaise of disenchantment and disaffection that has affected the majority of the city's Jewish population.
While Lupolianski was nevertheless considered palatable by the non-ultra-Orthodox public, a kind-of "haredi lite," Porush is anything but lite. He is a Boyaner hasid, the son of a wealthy and well-connected Jerusalem haredi dynasty, and in the Knesset and in the municipality he has built his political career on aggressively promoting a strict sectorial haredi agenda. Most assume, based on his track record, that he intends to turn the capital into a haven for the ultra-Orthodox, no matter what the political, economic or social cost.
As Yossi Elituv, editor of the haredi weekly magazine, "Mishpacha" (Family) has written, "Out goes Lupolianski, the haredi pet, and in comes the real thing." Agreeing, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, an ultra-Orthodox activist who heads the volunteer Zaka medical relief organization, tells The Report, "They [the ultra-Orthodox parties] just needed Lupolianski to cross the hurdle [of being a haredi mayor] for the first time. Once the first ultra-Orthodox mayor won, they would rather crown a real haredi."
"It's all lies," Porush retorts in an interview with The Report. "All this stuff about tensions and hatred between the different populations are all invented by people with vested interests."
A rather forbidding figure, Porush appears on his campaign billboards as a lovable white-bearded cartoon figure, looking like Eric Kartman from "Southpark" with a Dumbledore beard. "Jerusalem will love Porush," the banner promises. But, in fact, not even all ultra-Orthodox Jerusalemites love him. The largest hasidic group in Jerusalem, the Gur hasidim, has announced that they will not call on their members to vote for him, and the High Council of Ashkenazi rabbis have not formally endorsed him.
Yet, paradoxically perhaps, Porush has received the endorsement of some noted secular and modern-Orthodox personalities, most notably former Knesset Speaker Avrum Burg, who has repeatedly called for a separation of religion and state. "Porush can get things done," Burg is quoted as declaring in advertisements in the media and on billboards. Porush has recently added a promise of "thousands of new jobs" to his campaign ads, ironic if not cynical, not only because of the threat of an impending recession but also because Porush represents a community that values religious study above all else, and certainly above gainful employment outside of the world of Torah.
With a wily smile, Porush concludes the interview with The Report with another rather cynical remark: "You secular folks should encourage us to be at the helm of the country and the city. When we are in charge, we become more moderate."
Most pundits view Arkady Gaydamak's candidacy as ridiculous at best and as a populist threat to democratic and social processes at worst. Born in Moscow in 1952, Gaydamak came to Israel in the early 1970s, but soon left for France, where he built up a vast fortune. In 2000, after an international arrest warrant was issued for him in connection with Angolagate, an arms-dealing scandal, he settled in Israel.
His initial encounter with the local elections commission nearly produced an identity crisis. Upon registering, he was told that he could not use his Russian name because, in an upredicted burst of patriotic emotion some time around the Second Lebanon War, he formally changed his name to the very Israeli-sounding "Arieh Bar Lev." But since no one knows who Bar Lev is, he had to hurry back to the Interior Ministry and, just before registration for candidacy closed, he remorphed back to Gaydamak.
In what many believed to be a campaign to acquire legitimacy, avoid extradition and pave his way into politics, Gaydamak purchased Jerusalem's popular Betar soccer team and the failing Bikur Holim Hospital and financed rest camps for Katyusha rocket-weary residents of Israel's north during the Lebanon War and all-expenses-paid vacations for the residents of Qassam-plagued Sderot.
One of Gaydamak's many disadvantages as a candidate is that he hasn't learned Israel's official language. To preempt criticism from those who point out the absurdity of this, his campaign posters blare out "Gaydamak doesn't talk. He does." Graffiti daubers have inserted "Hebrew" after the word "talk."
Gaydamak's aides have consistently failed to provide the media with an official biography, leading pundits and reporters to attempt to piece together his personal history. Although once his wealth was estimated at well over $8 billion, it is unclear exactly how he made his money and economic analysts are convinced that he is currently facing serious financial problems. He holds French, Canadian and Angolan passports and was awarded the Order of the Legion d'Honneur by the French Republic for helping extricate two of its citizens imprisoned in Bosnia. But most recently, he was indicted in absentia and, in late October, was put on trial in France for financial improprieties.
In an interview with The Report, Gaydamak was the only candidate who emphasized his vision for the city - albeit a vision based on profound ignorance of municipal issues and a strange view of current events. Gaydamak didn't speak of affordable housing, the brain drain, poor sanitation, or deteriorating education. Instead, he promised that, under his administration, Jerusalem would become "an international capital for all monotheistic believers around the world." He continued to say that he would "protect the Christian symbols of the city" from what he calls the "Israeli lack of respect." His first step once he decided to run for mayor was to pay a visit to the Vatican's chief representative in Jerusalem.
No poll has ever accorded Gaydamak more than 10 percent, but his candidacy does chip away at support for the other candidates. He is popular with the haredim because he saved Bikur Holim, which serves their community. And his best chance is probably a protest vote in the disadvantaged and underprivileged neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
Munching on a felafel in one of Jerusalem's poorer areas, Shimon Batito, 45, an unemployed former construction worker and the father of five, promises that he'll vote for "Gaydi" as he affectionately and idiosyncratically refers to him. "People who live in rich neighborhoods, who have jobs and can feed their kids - they laugh at Gaydi. They think he's a clown. But I know that he's a generous man. He's the only one who got anything done during the [Second Lebanon] war, when the people were suffering in the shelters. And he's come around here and handed out money to poor people. I don't need some fancy-shmancy mayor. I need someone who cares about people like me."
As for pro-cannabis candidate Dan Biron, no one, least of all himself, expects him to make any kind of a showing. After all, he has said in private meetings, who would vote for him besides his friends and relatives. For this fun-loving septuagenarian, the campaign is just that, and possibly a chance to get some free publicity for his downtown Jerusalem watering hole.
The candidate who would have been most interesting of all, and a probable winner to boot, is the one who was barred from running. Arye Deri, former interior minister and leader of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas, a consummate politician, popular with blue-collar voters, religious and secular alike, wanted to run. But having been convicted and jailed for accepting bribes, fraud, and breach of public trust, crimes that involve "moral turpitude," he is barred from running for political office for seven years from the date of his release from prison. Deri served 22 months of his three-year sentence, and, since he was released in 2002, he cannot run before 2009.
Another non-starter was Zuheir Hamdan, mukhtar of the Palestinian village of Sur Baher in southern Jerusalem. He contemplated running, but changed his mind, apparently under pressure from Palestinian public figures, and was reportedly contemplating endorsing Barkat.
Only Porush is running as the representative of a national party. Likud, Kadima, and Labor, the front-runners on the national scene, never even suggested a candidate, and Shas never seriously promoted Deri or anyone else in his stead. And of the 15 parties running for council, only 5 are allied with national parties, while the other ten are independent local organizations.
It is not a new situation. Ever since the days of Teddy Kollek, who was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, when he lost to Olmert, none of the national parties have offered candidates for mayor of Israel's capital city.
It is as though the city, which once produced not only local politicians with the stature of Kollek but also many of Israel's best-regarded national politicians, has simply run out of steam, able only to produce minor-leaguers.
Bambi Sheleg, editor of the influential Eretz Aheret, a political and cultural commentary magazine, says that the lack of leadership in Jerusalem reflects the situation throughout the country. "People in Israel are reluctant to become part of something larger than themselves and have no enthusiasm for large national projects. People are not mobilized to do anything that does not affect their own small world. If there's nothing in it for them, then they aren't willing to bother at all."
Downtown Jerusalem, on a hot, late-October afternoon: Construction for the light rail, begun way back in Olmert's administration, has turned Jerusalem's once-busy, historical commercial center along Jaffa Road into an obstacle course. Against the din of the bulldozers, a few teenagers try to hand out glossy flyers for the candidates, but passersby seem too concerned about not falling into construction ditches to pay them much attention.
Maital Brosh, 51, a dark-haired secretary from the Katamon neighborhood, picks her way gingerly through the dust, ditches and fences. "I never come downtown anymore," she says, "but, unfortunately, my mortgage bank is located here, so I had no choice."
She gestures widely at the mess. "This was once a beautiful area, and we loved to come here. But Jerusalem is dying," she complains, overlooking the fact that the light rail, due for completion in 2010 (at least two years behind schedule) is one of the few attempts being made to revive the city. "That's pretty sad, isn't it - the eternal city is dying. My friends have left the city. My children will leave the city when they grow up. And me - I've left the city, too - at least emotionally.
"Elections? None of the candidates have any plans for this city, any vision. I don't even think they love the city the way I once did. I guess I'll vote for Barkat, but I don't think it matters much."
A long, articulated city bus tries to maneuver through the narrow detours. Plastered with posters for Barkat, Porush, and Gaydamak, it tries to navigate a turn, backs up and tries again, barely succeeding, as pedestrians scatter. Brosh grimaces. "That should be the symbol of the city!" she grumbles, her voice rising again. "Not the Old City walls. Not the Jerusalem Theater. Not any of the wonderful things we have! A bus going nowhere. That's what we are.
"It's not that I'm anti-religious," insists Brosh. "I am actually quite traditional. But I want my lifestyle to be appreciated, too. I voted for Lupolianski in 2003. And then I found out that he won't even shake a woman's hand because he's so religious. So how am I, a modern woman, supposed to feel?"
Brosh also refers to a municipal ceremony held in late summer, for the dedication of the Calatrava Bridge, the ultra-modern suspension bridge, that is intended to carry the light rail (whenever it's finished) over the tangle of traffic at the entrance to the city. "They invited a group of young girls to dance, as part of the ceremony. Then, in order 'not to offend the sensitivities' of the ultra-Orthodox" - she is almost snarling now - "they forced these sweet girls, most of whom were probably only about 12 or 15, to cover themselves up with long, ugly robes. What does that say about the city I live in? What about my sensitivities as a traditionalist and as a woman? How much longer can I continue to live like this?
"This city is extremist, conservative, and dark-spirited. I know there are plenty of places open on the Sabbath, and lots of culture and good restaurants, but I feel besieged," she sighs despondently.
Yet, in contrast to Brosh's despondence, the Hitorerut! Yerushalmim ("Awake! Jerusalemites") list is trying to motivate voters. They represent the first time that a list composed of both modern Orthodox and secular, young and old, middle class as well as some wealthy and some blue-collar residents is running. Most of them were galvanized into action by the incident at the Calatrava Bridge.
Says Noa Minko, a 29-year-old student and volunteer activist with the group, "We are calling on people to get out and vote. Secular people who live in Jerusalem are ashamed to admit they live here. I love this city. And I'm not willing to abandon it to apathy or to the ultra-Orthodox."
And in the process, Hitorerut! Yerushalmim has generated some additional campaign buzz. According to a press release sent out in late October, the group's campaign managers were "appalled" to discover that the Egged bus company will not accept advertisements for their buses that feature pictures of women; two of the lists' top three candidates are women. The group has turned to the national supervisor of public transportation in the Transportation Ministry, protesting gender discrimination and unfair electoral procedures, and they are threatening to petition the High Court of Justice.
"Educated people leave the city because
they can't find work, the housing is too expensive, and the educational system is deteriorating," says Prof. Shlomo Hasson, a Hebrew University geographer. "Jerusalem is a poor city that cannot supply adequate services. And as more qualified, young families leave - those who could contribute to the city's vitality and economy - the city becomes even poorer and less attractive."
Indeed, studies by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS), an independent think tank, show that 32 percent of families in Jerusalem live below the poverty line, compared to less than 14 percent in Tel Aviv and 21 percent countrywide. And with its large haredi population, in which many of the men do not work due to religious belief, and large Arab population, in which many of the women do not work due to cultural taboos, the percentage of the population in the workforce is exceedingly low, so that Jerusalem's future economic base is shaky at best.
The exodus of Jews is not confined to the secular and modern Orthodox and in fact more haredim are leaving, due to the high cost of housing for their large families.
Over the past 20 years, the city has lost more than 100,000 Jewish residents according to an as yet unreleased report by the JIIS. The city faces a constant erosion of its Jewish majority - from 75 percent in 1967 to 66 percent today, which is expected to drop to 58 percent by the year 2020, the report found. By 2030, the JIIS predicts, unless clear steps are taken to counter the negative migration, Jerusalem will have an Arab majority.
In solving these problems, one thing that whoever is eventually elected mayor cannot count on is governmental support. No fewer than 330 Cabinet and Knesset decisions and enactments regarding the status and future of Jerusalem have been passed since 1975, but very little has been done. Says Ora Ahimeir, JIIS executive director, "Forty-one years after the Six-Day War, it seems that nobody in government understands what the real needs of this city are."
The unity of Jerusalem - which, in Israeli politics, means not surrendering Arab sections captured and annexed in 1967 to the Palestinians or the establishment of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state - is a highly emotional issue on the national and local political scene. "So-and-so will divide Jerusalem" is a potent election slogan.
But neither municipal nor central governments have done much more than pay lip service to the need to maintain a strong Jewish majority in the city. Neither is much thought given to, or money spent on, the well-being of the Palestinian population and the implications that blatant discrimination has on their willingness to live as peaceful and law-abiding citizens, according to Israel Kimhi, a senior researcher at JIIS.
Yet, the questions of the division of Jerusalem and policies towards its Arab residents have not even been raised during this election.
"The fault line that's clear in these elections is the secular-ultra-Orthodox division," says Arik Pratterman, 34, an electrician with his own business. "But what about the left-right fault line? All of the candidates are right-wing in terms of the Palestinian issue. I'm going to vote for Barkat because I agree with him on economics and secularism, but I really hate his position on the Palestinians."
Indeed, Barkat, who at one point led Jerusalem's chapter of Kadima, quit the party and has led and financed a private campaign against Olmert, ever since the prime minister proposed to negotiate over a possible division of Jerusalem. In fact, Barkat is so firmly on the right that the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, headed by Avigdor Lieberman, has endorsed his candidacy.
The confusion in the left-wing Meretz party, which is running for city council, is emblematic of the dilemmas that left-wing voters face. Head of the party in Jerusalem, Pepe Alalu, initially thought of running for mayor himself in order to block Barkat, due to his right-wing positions, but decided not to in order not to split the secular vote. He has refused to endorse any candidate. No. 2 on the list, radical activist Meir Margalit, says that only Barkat can block Gaydamak. And Saar Netanel, a former Meretz councilor who recently disassociated himself from the party, announced that he will vote for Biron and even handed him his campaign budget, some 750,000 shekels (approximately $200,000).
Ultimately, the elections may come down, then, to voter turnout and whether the secular, traditional and modern Orthodox sectors of the city will be motivated more by their fear of ultra-Orthodox control - and their outrage at incidents such as the dancers at the Calatrava Bridge and the refusal to sell advertising space on buses in the city - or by their own self-fulfilling apathy and alienation. •
Cover story in Issue 15, November 10, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
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