Legal adviser stops Habayit Hayehudi primary move

Primary set to take place on November 6, the same day as the US presidential election.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Habayit Hayehudi English debate 370 (photo credit: Yehoshua Sigala)
Habayit Hayehudi English debate 370
(photo credit: Yehoshua Sigala)
The Habayit Hayehudi primary is set to take place on November 6, the same day as the US election, despite efforts by the party’s Election Committee chairman Rabbi Daniel Tropper to change the date.
Last week, the party’s legal adviser Sarah Frisch determined that it was too late to move the vote, and that there was no legal justification to do so.
Tropper said he would have liked to postpone the vote by a week, but proposed to hold it one day earlier.
“I don’t see how changing the date by one day would restrict anyone. November 5 still isn’t great, but it would be better than November 6,” he said.
The Election Committee chairman plans to continue to study the party’s regulations and to see if there is still a way for him to make the change.
A Habayit Hayehudi official said that when the date for the primary was set, the committee had no idea that the US election would be on the same day.
Party spokesman Yehoshua Mor-Yosef did not see any issue with the conflicting dates, saying that “with all due respect to the US election, there is no legal reason to make a change.
“I hope there will be room in the papers for the US election, in addition to Habayit Hayehudi,” he joked. “Maybe if [US President Barack] Obama himself asked us to, we’d change the date.”
Jeremy Gimpel, a US-born candidate for the Habayit Hayehudi Knesset candidates list. said there were no coincidences in this world, and that the shared election date showed that religious-Zionism shared the fundamental values on which America was founded.
“On this day, not only will America’s fate be decided, but the future of Israel’s nationalist camp, as well. I’m more concerned for America,” he quipped.