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.