I DON'T KNOW
WHAT TO DO

CENTER from page 22

kick start his campaign, discredit Barak
and bring defectors back to mother
Likud. He assailed the "Ashkenazi elite"
and hammered away at Barak as a "left-
ist" who would "divide Jerusalem,
meaning he would give a large chunk of
it to the Palestinians. Netanyahu even
evoked the trauma of the Palestinian
bus bombings that in 1996 turned the
tide against Labor's then incumbent
Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
But as the campaign reached its
final days this week, Netanyahu
looked increasingly isolated. Polls —
which in the past have been wrong in
Israel's always-tight close races —
showed Barak up by as much as eight
percent. Daily leaks from the Likud
bunker suggested that the prime min-
ister's colleagues were already honing
knives and polishing alibis.
"What worries Bibi," said Shmuel
Sandler, a political science professor at
Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University, "is not the
gap, but the trend."
By comparison, when Barak made
mistakes, he moved quickly. Recently a
popular entertainer at a Labor rally dis-
missed Likud voters as "rabble." Barak
denounced her. Netanyahu beat him to
the punch by running television ads
with Russian subtitles, so Barak followed
suit the next day. When Likud cited the
Russian translation of Barak's biography;
in which he was said to have declined to
buy property in east Jerusalem 30 years
ago because it was 'Arab", Barak proved
that the passage was a forgery (it didn't
appear in the Hebrew original or the
approved translation).
And TV ads slammed home night
after night that voters could trust
Barak, Israel's most decorated warrior,
not to sell its security short. When
Jerusalem's Likud mayor Ehud Olmert
said on camera that Barak would "not
divide Jerusalem," Labor mercilessly
screened the footage.
All the while, both parties scrambled
for the votes of the 500,000 eligible
Russian voters who have arrived here
since the late 1980s and represent about
14 percent of the electorate. In Israel's
tribal election society, they are the least
calcified in their allegiances. In 1992,
they put Labor's Yitzhak Rabin in
power; four years later they tipped the
scales for Likud's Netanyahu.
So a Labor advertising blitz in the
rightist Russian-language media hit
the shell of ignorance over just who is
Ehud Barak. "At the start of the cur-
rent campaign, 70 percent of the
immigrants were on Netanyahu's side.
In the past four months, Barak has
pulled level," said Mina Tzemach, one
of Israel's leading pollsters.

)1

N

"Mom lives by herself. She's always been very independent but lately her
health hasn't been very good. She sometimes forgets to take her medicines.
She has even fallen a couple of times. I know she is not eating properly and
she has mentioned that she is lonely. I worry about her but I work and have
my own family to care for. I don't think a nursing home is the right place for
her but I don't know what to do."

Regent Street of West Bloomfield offers older adult assisted living that would
be just perfect for your mother. The twenty four hour staff will monitor her
health and her medications. She will receive three nutritious meals a day.
Linens and housekeeping service is provided. There is a hair salon, spa area
with pool and exercise room and a sundries shop. There are planned activi-
ties. Best of all your mom will enjoy the company of other residents and
guests. Your mother doesn't need a nursing home. She needs a place to feel
comfortable and safe. She will be happy and that will make you happy too.

Come visit Regent Street. You will be very pleased with what you see.

a

genfolreel ofc ilk,s19loomfield

4460 Orchard Lake Road

248-683-1010

Largest Selection Of Rockers and Gliders

$10.00 OFF
WITH THIS AD

Wood Rockers from
168.00
Gliders from
Child's Rockers from ...$48.00
Rocker Cushions & Accessories

FREE LAYAWAY
WE SHIP ANYWHERE

21325 Telegraph

(Between 8 & 9 Mile)

Southfield
(248) 948-1060

36539 Gratiot Ave. 3337 Auburn Rd.

(South of 16 Mile)

(Between Adams & Squirrel)

Mt Clemens
(810) 790-3065

or"

Auburn Hills
(248) 853-7440

46 YEARS IN BUSINESS AND
WE'RE STILL DEVELOPING.

Select Employees Needed To
Join The Staff of Metro Detroit's
Longest Standing Family Owned Studio

5/14
1999

Israeli Election <

Les Gorback

26 Detroit Jewish News

32731 Franklin Rd. • (248) 626-3666

But Yisrael B'aliya, the Russian politi-
cal party of Natan Sharansky, Israel's
minister of trade and industry, really
turned the tide. It launched a blistering
assault on how its members, and not
those of Shas (the Sephardi Orthodox
party and Netanyahu loyalists), must
control the Interior Ministry.
Under ShaS, whose leader was recent-
ly convicted of taking bribes, the min-
istry has challenged the Jewish residence
rights of partners, children and depen-
dent relatives of the multitude of
Russian mixed marriages. With other
religious parties, it denied them civil
marriage and divorce, and pegged con-
versions to a radical change of lifestyle.
Barak announced that Shas would not
regain the ministry in his administration,
hinting that Sharansky's party might have
it for the asking. Netanyahu hedged.
"The Russians respect Bibi," said
Semiyon Goldin, a recent Russian
immigrant and Hebrew University his-
tory professor, "but they see him as too
close to the religious."
And there has been a much-talked-
about small tilt among blue-collar Likud
supporters. After all, in Israel every vote
counts; Peres lost his job three years ago
by 30,000 votes, or less than 1 percent.
Meanwhile, perceptions of the
economy have not helped Netanyahu
either. Unemployment is up to 8.7
percent nationally and in double digits
in some areas, such as Beersheva,
thanks to factory closings.
That's impacted people such as Yehiel
Zohar, the Likud mayor of Netivot, a
neglected southern development town.
He sent a carload of Netanyahu posters
back to party headquarters.
"There is a lack of passion," noted
Daniel Ben-Simon, the Moroccan-born
author of Another Israel, a best-selling
study of the 1996 campaign. "And with-
out fire and enthusiasm, Likud is a
dying machine. Netanyahu will lose not
because people there will vote Barak, but
because his own people will stay away" Fl

The Jewish Community Council
has arranged an Elections Night
gathering from 3 to 6 p.m. (10
p.m. to I a.m. Israeli time)
Monday at the Max M. Fisher
Federation Building, 6735
Telegraph Road, to hear results
from CNN, Israel Radio, Israel's
Foreign Ministry and analysis by
Israel political expert Greg
Mahler, provost of Kalamazoo
College. The event is open to the
public; call (248) 642-5393.