Former Long Islanders vote in Israel election

By Baruch Spier

Issue of Feb. 13, 2009 / 19 Shevat 5769

Chaim Grushko, like many Israeli voters, was uncertain whom he would vote for in the Knesset elections in which Tzipi Livni and the Kadima party appeared to be the winners Tuesday night.

“There is no one party that best reflects me,” said Grushko.

Grushko is a second-year law student at Bar Ilan University. He grew up in Cedarhurst, but enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces after learning in Yeshivat Hakotel, and eventually made aliyah.

Grushko said he feared that if he were to vote for the right wing party Yisrael Beitenu, which pre-election polls indicated was in third place, then Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu might not receive the necessary number of seats to beat his rival, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni.

“The two prominent parties that fall in with my beliefs are Likud and Yisrael Beitenu,” Grushko explained. “I can vote for the party that best reflects my personal views, or I can vote for the party that will bring the government to best reflect my views.”

Final polls before the vote had reported Netanyahu leading Kadima by two seats. Pollsters claimed he was losing votes to the suddenly popular Yisrael Beitenu.

With Kadima having apparently received more seats than Likud, according to exit polls, Tzipi Livni will have the first chance to form a coalition of 61 Knesset seats.

With continuing rocket fire on southern Israeli cities like Sderot and Ashkelon, security is the pressing issue on many voters’ minds.

“I want the candidate who will support the widest and strongest military defense of southern residents,” declared Grushko.

The threat of a nuclear Iran was also a major campaign issue.

“We are very much between a rock and a hard place there,” said Sharon Kahn. “There isn’t going to be a choice except to preemptively strike.”

Kahn was a science teacher in Cedarhurst before moving to Israel with her husband and four children in 2002. They live in Moshav Yonatan in the Golan.

Several days before the election, Kahn was unsure of which party she would pick, but said the right wing National Union Party was a strong possibility.

"I don’t trust Livni,” Kahn noted, in relation to security. “Netanyahu is probably the one I would trust the most” out of the popular candidates.

Netanyahu is currently the leader of the opposition in the Knesset, with previous experience as prime minister. He was finance minister from 2003 to 2005.

“I think he was an excellent finance minister. He also is an excellent representative to the foreign arena,” Kahn said of Netanyahu. “He may be more effective when he’s not a prime minister.”

Ari Singer, who lived in Far Rockaway before making aliyah in 2005, was confident in his vote for the National Union Party.

“I feel they would prevent any pullouts from Judea and Samaria,” said Singer.

Singer and his wife live in Beit-El, in the West Bank, and he is studying to be a tour guide.

Singer likes National Union’s education and security platform, but he was also voting for the party because he doesn’t trust the more popular candidates.

“They have no stance,” he said. “They are just saying ‘let’s wait and see.’”

Baruch Spier grew up in the Five Towns and recently was discharged from the IDF. He is now begining a career as a journalist in Israel.