Israel Holding Municipal Elections Across Country
Profiles: Jerusalem’s Top Mayoral Candidates
Jerusalem by the Numbers
Israelis and Palestinians are scheduled to go to the polls Tuesday to choose a new mayor and city council for Jerusalem and decide new leaders for cities throughout the country. [1]
Unlike U.S. elections, in Israel the mayor and city council members run under the banner of political parties. The three major candidates vying for the Jerusalem mayor’s seat are high-tech entrepreneur Nir Barkat, running as an independent; Russian émigré and philanthropist Arkadi Gaydamak for the Social Justice party; and Meir Porush, a Knesset (Israeli parliament) member and ultra-Orthodox rabbi, for the United Torah Judaism party. The mayor serves a five-year term.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, a rabbi and the city’s first ultra-Orthodox Jewish mayor, is completing his first term[2] and is not running for reelection. Lupolianski, a member of the United Torah Judaism party, is founder of one of the largest volunteer organizations in Israel, Yad Sarah, which provides free and low-cost medical services for those in need.[3]
Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, is home to three of the world's major religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The 48-square-mile city – Israel’s largest – has a population of 733,000.[4] Some of the city’s most pressing concerns are the high cost of housing; poverty; scarcity of employment; and its diminishing Jewish middle class.[5] All men and women have freedom of speech, the press, religion and access to holy sites.
All citizens and permanent residents of Jerusalem are eligible to vote in the municipal elections, including Palestinians. The minimum voting age in Israel is 18.[6]
Elections also are being held in cities throughout Israel such as Tel Aviv, where Mayor Ron Huldai, a member of the “One Tel Aviv” list, a partnership between the Labor and Kadima parties, has three challengers: Knesset Member Dov Khenin, a member of the Hadash party running on the “Ir Lekulanu” (A City For All) list; Maj. Gen. (res.) Oren Shahor, an independent; and Peer Visner, deputy mayor and chairman of the Green party.[7]
Israel’s former mayors are Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (1993-2003); Teddy Kollek (1965-1993); Mordechai Ish Shalom (1959-1965); Gershon Agron (1955-1959); Yitzhak Kariv (1952-1955); Shlomo Zalman Shragai (1951-1952); and Daniel Auster (1948-1950).[8]
Profiles: Jerusalem’s Top Mayoral Candidates
Nir Barkat
Nir Barkat, along with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded “Snunit,” a non-profit organization in Israel that encourages using computers and targeted learning in elementary schools. Barkat also is a successful businessman who founded BRM, a computer software company and one of the first companies in the world to develop anti-virus software. In 2000 he was a founding partner of BRM Capital, a $150 million venture capital fund that focuses on software and communication infrastructure.
In 2003, Barkat ran for mayor of Jerusalem, gaining 43 percent of the vote but losing to Uri Lupolianski of the religious United Torah Judaism party. Barkat currently serves as a Jerusalem city council member heading up the opposition. During his tenure on the city council, Barkat helped establish “Start Up Jerusalem” which promotes job creation in areas where Jerusalem has a competitive edge and assists in the development of economic growth.[9] Barkat is emphasizing his economic experience in his pledge to alleviate poverty in Jerusalem.[10] He has promised to overhaul the city’s troubled light rail project, make housing more affordable and promote job creation. Barkat has also billed himself as the ‘secular candidate’ in opposition to ‘religious candidate’ Meir Porush.[11]
Arkadi Gaydamak
Russian-born entrepreneur Arkadi Gaydamak first came to Israel in 1972, returning in 2000 after spending time in France. He owns several newspapers in Russia and France and recently became involved in the sports business, buying Beitar Jerusalem soccer club and investing in several other teams. Gaydamak has been one of the largest individual charitable donors in Israel since his return to the country, giving millions of dollars to aid organizations. In 2006, Gaydamak set up a tent city outside Nitzanim in southern Israel as a refuge for northern citizens fleeing the Hezbollah rocket bombardment during Israel’s defensive war against Hezbollah, also known as the Second Lebanon War. He also funded a week-long vacation in Eilat in 2006 for hundreds of Sderot residents to give them respite from the ongoing rocket fire by Iran-backed terrorists in Gaza.[12]
Gaydamak founded his own party, Social Justice, in early 2007.[13] In his bid to become mayor of Jerusalem he is focusing on outreach and non-partisanship and is promising equal opportunities for education, housing and healthcare for the secular and religious, Arab and Jewish populations alike. Gaydamak is popular among Arabs in East Jerusalem, promising them “paradise” if he is elected; he also has made plans to build an international airport for Muslim pilgrims. He has met with several prominent East Jerusalemites to try to convince more Palestinians, who traditionally boycott Jerusalem’s municipal elections, to vote. Gaydamak’s campaign focuses on education reform within the city, providing housing assistance for young couples and vulnerable sectors of Jerusalem’s citizens, and improvement of the city’s infrastructure.[14]
Meir Porush
Rabbi Meir Porush is running for the religious Agudat Israel (Union of Israel) party, part of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party. He has been a member of Knesset (Israeli parliament) representing UTJ since 1996 and served two years in former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s cabinet as deputy minister of housing and construction. Porush has the backing of the city’s large ultra-religious Jewish population and also is trying to win support from the dwindling number of secular Jerusalem residents by promising to fix the city’s “central problems”: education, employment, housing and aesthetics. He said he not only intends to stop the exodus of secular Israelis from Jerusalem, but will work to bring 100,000 new residents, religious and secular, to the city within the next decade.[15]
Porush also has plans to revive the cultural and artistic character of Jerusalem that he says has been lost in the past few decades of heavy emigration. He cites his family’s long history in Jerusalem – seven generations by some accounts – as evidence that he knows the “true” Jerusalem and will be able to bring it back to its former cultural and religious glory. Porush is planning to solve the city’s economic and housing problems through substantial government involvement; he is proposing tax breaks for large corporations and enticements for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Porush cites his decade of service in the Knesset as fitting experience to implement these proposals.[16]
Topic: Jerusalem to Elect New Mayor Nov. 11 (Read 928 times)