The Good, Bad And Ugly
The local reaction to the Israeli election is mixed.
HARRY KI RS BAUM
Staff Writer
D
epending on their side of the fence,
Detroit Jews voiced varied opinions on
an election that swept Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon back into office,
nearly doubling his Likud party seats from 19 to 37.
The election, with the lowest voter turnout in
Israel's history at 68.5 percent, decimated the Labbr
party with its lowest showing ever of 19 seats in the
120-seat Knesset. While the dovish Meretz party lost
all but six seats, the secular Shinui party went from
six to 15 seats, becoming the third most powerful
party in the Knesset.
Bernie Schiff, vice president of Labor Zionist
Alliance-Metropolitan Detroit, was very disappoint-
ed with the results and doesn't think Sharon will be
able to establish a stable coalition that will last.
He also blamed the Israeli media for not getting
across Labor party leader's Amram Mitzna's message.
"They did not get across to the people that he was
able to work with Arabs in Haifa," he said. "Israelis
voted their emotions in regard to the intifiula [upris-
ing]. I feel that Israel acted more in reaction than
action. The election has done nothing to further
peace, not only with the Arabs, but within Israel
between secular and fundamentalist Israelis."
Joshua Berkovitz, president of the Michigan Friends
of the Israel Defense Force, said the win was "a real
vote of confidence for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"If you look at the whole picture, it is really the
time that the people of Israel made the decision that
their security comes first," he said.
This is not the beginning of the end of the Labor
party; that already happened with the Oslo accords,
he said. "It was a little too fast and both sides
,,
weren't ready for such a big step.
Berkovitz said that peace will come from the right
wing, and he noted Prime Minister Menachem
Begin's success in a peace agreement with Egypt. "The
right wing is really the one that makes the peace and I
believe that Sharon is going to be the
leader of the next peace agreement in
the Middle East."
He also took heart in President Bush
asking for "a secure Israel and a demo-
cratically run Palestine," during the
State of the Union address on Jan. 28.
Lawrence
"No person ever described it better
Jackier
than what President Bush did last
night with that sentence," he said.
"There's a big message there for the
world. Show me one democratic Arab
country right now."
Israel Rosenberg of West
Bloomfield said the election results
were a big achievement for Sharon,
Israel
but the election is only one step in
Rosenberg
forming the government and a lot of
work still needs to be done.
'Although they are not very happy with what's
going on economically and suffered almost 1,000
casualties to terrorism last year, most of the people
think there is no other way," he said.
Without the Labor party as a coalition member,
T
❑
V.S. Fans Of Likud Elated, Nervous
New York Ci ty /JTA
he television here showed
that their Likud party was
convincingly winning the
elections in Israel, but as the
images came in, American sup-
porters of the Likud were nervous
and even a bit subdued.
Roughly 50 people from
American Friends of Likud, and
some fellow travelers, felt as
much concern as joy.
"The prime minister is going to
T
French Jewry Older, Shrinking
Paris/JTA
he most comprehensive survey
of-French Jewry in more than a
decade shows falling numbers,
an aging population and increasing
rates of intermarriage — yet the sur-
vey's results have been met with a huge
sigh of relief by French Jewish leaders.
That's because French Jews said they
felt like they belonged in. French socie-
ty, supported transferring their Jewish
heritage to future generations and
Sharon will have "a very narrow right-wing govern-
ment that probably is not going to go forward with
the Palestinians," he said. "If the Labor party is
going to join them it's going to be a different gov-
ernment, but basically no one really knows.
"Most people say that in hard times you need
unity, like Likud and Labor," he said. "I think in
hard times you probably don't need unity so you can
make the hard judgments. The unity government
didn't resolve anything. They put terrorism down a
little, but life is unbearable in Israel now. Maybe it
needs a right wing government."
To Lawrence Jackier, president of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, the poor results
of the Labor party could be a "sea change in that
side of the political spectrum in Israel."
"The entire left got blasted by the electorate.
Meretz lost half of their representation in the
Knesset, and the Labor party had their worst show-
ing ever."
Sharon will do his best to invite the left into the
government, but Mitzna said he would not join,
Jackier said. He believes some in the Labor party
might not follow his lead.
"You're going to split that party into a size that no
longer makes it the factor that it was," he said.
"Four or five other parties in the Israeli electoral
party system will have equal or greater strength than
Labor."
But Israeli politics being Israeli politics, Jackier
said, "They'll probably fool us and come up with
something that nobody thought of."
expressed solidarity with Israel.
In fact, French Jews appear to be lit-
tle different from those in other dias-
pora communities: While numbers
decline, increasing resources are need-
ed to meet the needs of an aging pop-
ulation and a community that wants
to invest in education.
Results of the survey, "The Jews of
France, Values and Identity," have
only recently been published. But the
interviews with more than 1,000
be looking to American Friends
of Likud for ideas" and "for the
pulse of the Jewish community"
in America, said Philip Rosen,
the group's president.
The group's message is "security
No. 1, 2 and 3," Rosen told JTA.
Helen Freedman, executive
director of the hawkish
Arnericans for a Safe Israel, said:
"To bring Labor into the party
and then continue to talk about
Palestinian state" means "the end
heads of households were conducted
in January 2002, a period that marked
the beginning of a wave of anti-
Semitic attacks on French Jews and
community institutions.
At the time, Jews increasingly were
concerned about their future in France
— or so were led to believe by a local
Jewish press filled with advertisements
for new communities in Israel and
other countries, most notably in
French-speaking areas of Canada.
However, while French Jews placed
terrorism, anti-Semitism and racism at
the top of their concerns, some 90 per-
of Israel."
While Jewish National Fund
staffer Karen Paiken, 29, would
like to include any party that
would embrace Likud, "I think
the people here would like to see
a right-wing government."
"Finally, the dream of the
Likud and of the right is coming
true. But while she felt she was
"watching history in the making,,
there's going to be a challenge
making a government;
cent of respondents said they were happy
and satisfied with their lives in France.
Government publication of statistics
based on religious or ethnic identity is
prohibited in France. The survey —
commissioned jointly by the country's
principal Jewish welfare organization,
the United Jewish Social Fund, or
FSJU, and France's United Jewish
Appeal — placed the French Jewish
population at around 500,000.
The figure rises to 575,000 if non-
Jewish spouses are included. The FSJU's
director, David Sdada, said that con-
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2003
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