March 28/06..........Election Day

Well, who are you going to vote for? Who? Why?............Who are you going to vote for? And so on, and so on and so on............and you can't answer I don't know yet, because whoever is asking will proceed into a discertation about who and why you should vote for! And if you even dare say, I rather not say............well, you're asking for it.............then EVERYONE will know that you are from North America (as if they didn't already know!). It was a huge day for us new olim, to cast your vote and be counted among the jewish people in the jewish nation. At the same time, it was a difficult time for us because we sort of felt that this year, it didn't mean much! The writing was on the wall, and our vote wasn't going to change anything. We felt frustrated with the whole electoral system here, that made us feel powerless. There is a disconnect between how votes are cast to what ends up in the knesset, it feels somewhat like a will you dance with me and in return for what sort of process. We also felt saddened by the pre-election hullabaloo and the rifts and lack of any real understanding between different segments of Israeli society. Some of the ads were downright disgusting and untrue........on both sides. As we have felt many times over the year, there was a saddness we couldn't beat about the lack of knowledge and connection that so many people here feel. There was also this worry, about the results, and how this would affect are day in and day out regular lives..........in other words, it was all so real and so intense!


In Israel, voting day, is a day off! Darrell, wouldn't commit to having the day off, until the day before, only because he couldn't believe he was going to get the whole day off to go into the ulam on our yishuv and vote, which would take maybe 5 minutes. Well, he realized that this was going to happen and we would vote in the morning and .................have a SUNDAY!!!!


In ulpan, we had gotten a lesson on the how to's of voting which I had given over to Darrell. You go in, show your teudat zehut, they cross your name off, you go behind the curtain, where you will find a hodge podge of white pieces of paper, many many pieces of paper, each with a letter or group of letters on it in black ink(each piece represents a different party). You choose your letters, fold it, put it in the envelope provided to you by the people who crossed your name off, and seal it. You come out from behind the divider and put your envelope in the box! Ve Zehu! You may now go and have your Sunday.At six in the morning , Darrell was up and anxious..........okay, let's get ready, gotta go vote, it opens at 7:00, get up , get ready............we're voting today!! Okay, okay Darrell, it's only six the poll is a 5 minute walk from the house. No that wasn't good enough.......every five minutes I got a countdown to the poll opening hour...........I felt like Mufasa in lion King when simba wakes up at the crack of dawn and is jumping all over simba to get up and get going on their little tiyul together.....come on Dad , come on let's go. We finally did get out of the house at the more decent hour of 8:00 am. We waited in line with everyone else, and had to endure many comments about "oh, first time voters, how do you feel?" It was exciting and monumental for us, and although we knew the results would not be to our likingthe fact that we were standing up and somehow were being counted was important. We cast our votes, and then we were off to Wadi Kelt with the Beit Sefer Sadeh (field school) of Gush Etzion, who had organized many election day tiyulim.


It was a great day, beautiful and fun. We spent the day in the Judean Hills/desert with our fellow Israelis and we had a great time. We wouldn't know the results to the next day............maybe..........and then how long would it be until we knew who was in the cabinet ..........???