O pinion
It’s Time for Electoral Reform in Israel Tobin
BY DANIEL J. SAMET
ON APRIL 9, Israeli voters
will head to the polls to select
the 21st Knesset. This cam-
paign, as in past years, features
many parties vying for 120
seats — a whopping 12 parlia-
mentary groups are currently
represented in the Knesset.

Polling indicates that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
conservative Likud Party will
win between 25 and 29 seats,
well below the 61 needed for
a parliamentary majority. The
Israel Resilience Party, a new
faction led by ex-general Benny
Gantz, should pose a strong
center-left challenge to Likud,
whereas the country’s once-for-
midable Labor Party may pick
up only seven or eight seats.

Following the elections,
Israel will find itself in a
familiar quagmire: The prime
minister will cobble together
disparate parties in a ruling
coalition that shares few legis-
lative priorities.

Israel’s volatile political
scene results from a low elec-
toral threshold. Parties need to
take only 3.25 percent of the
vote to return a member of the
Knesset (MK). Such a system
ensures the gamut of political
parties will be represented.

Israel is a divided nation, and
the electoral system worsens
its divisions.

A raise in the minimum
threshold would force parties
to appeal to large swaths of the
country, not just small voting
blocs. If Israel is to eliminate its
political dysfunction and elect
working governments, elec-
toral reform is sorely needed.

In comparison to other
parliamentary democracies,
Israeli politics is tremendously
volatile. The Jewish State has
endured more than 30 coali-
tion governments since 1948,
many of which united ideo-
logically opposed factions. The
House of Commons, in con-
trast, has seen only a handful
of coalitions throughout the
16 FEBRUARY 14, 2019
United Kingdom’s long history.

Likud, currently the most rep-
resented party in the Knesset, has
just 30 seats. To form the cur-
rent government, Netanyahu
has culled a razor-thin 61-seat
majority that includes centrist,
right-wing, National Religious,
Ashkenazi Haredi and Sephardic
Haredi parties in addition to
his secular conservative Likud.

Netanyahu’s government has seen
vicious infighting on everything
from the ceasefire with Hamas,
which compelled the hawkish
Avigdor Liberman to remove his
Jewish Home party from the coa-
lition, to Haredi conscription.

Under the current system,
small parties can make the
survival of a ruling coalition
conditional on its promotion
of niche interests that detract
from the greater national
agenda. It is almost impos-
sible to govern effectively in
arrangements like this.

Electoral reform has enjoyed
popular backing in the past.

In 2014, the Knesset raised
the minimum threshold from
2 percent to 3.25 percent. Prior
to 1992, it was only 1 percent.

Though detractors claimed that
the increase targeted Arab and
Haredi blocs, they were incorrect
in arguing that the change imper-
iled representative democracy.

Many parliaments in Europe
have thresholds, and few would
claim these countries are undem-
ocratic. Israel’s low threshold may
have functioned well in the coun-
try’s nascent years, but it has long
outlasted its expiration date.

There is widespread agree-
ment that reform is necessary,
yet change does not transpire.

Part of the problem is that any
revision to Israel’s Basic Laws,
the country’s effective consti-
tution, requires a supermajor-
ity vote in the Knesset. The
prospect of increasing the elec-
toral threshold and potentially
liming their power is a tough
sell for smaller parties.

Despite brushback from some
corners, MKs should once again
raise the threshold in the interest
of a functional state as they did
five years ago. A higher threshold
would strengthen big-tent par-
ties, reduce political fragmenta-
tion and deliver more effective
governments. However, recent
reports suggest the opposite may
occur — the government is con-
sidering lowering the threshold
to ensure the election of MKs
from small right-wing parties. So
much for a way forward.

Another route of reform is
to implement a district-based
system. Israel has no elec-
toral districts, meaning voters
select parties based on national
considerations. The Israeli system is unlike
that of the United Kingdom,
for instance, where candi-
dates run in specific districts
and are directly accountable
to the constituents they rep-
resent. Advocates say that
fixed-boundary constituencies
would reduce the influence of
the party establishment while
favoring greater local repre-
sentation. Right now, voters in
Herzliya receive the same bal-
lots as those in Mea Shearim.

A district-based system would
probably bolster parties that
have broad appeal.

It’s true that raising the elec-
toral threshold or moving to
a constituency system would
curb the power of certain blocs.

Yet the status quo in Israeli pol-
itics is untenable. Demographic
changes will further widen
Israel’s social cleavages and
produce an even more divided
legislative body. Israel’s polit-
ical dysfunction is well-docu-
mented, and its electoral system
is the root cause. Coalition gov-
ernments are inherently bad,
but in Israel’s case they’re unsta-
ble to an unacceptable degree.

No matter what happens
on April 9, we can expect a
fractured vote. It’s clear that
MKs should come together to
reform an outdated electoral
system. l
Daniel J. Samet is a foreign affairs
researcher in Washington, D.C.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Continued from Page 14
slaughter Jews and Israelis. It
deserves to be held accountable
for those killed by these mur-
derers. Yet it’s clever enough
to pose as an intermediary
between Hamas and Israel
through which its funding can
be falsely represented as a ges-
ture towards peace.

Qatar is also deeply involved
with the Islamist government
of Turkey and that of Iran.

Indeed, it has served as Iran’s
agent in the Arabian Peninsula
— something that has led other
nations there to seek to iso-
late it. And it has been a vital
source of foreign currency to
Tehran as the Trump admin-
istration has sought to tighten
the screws on a dangerous
regime that is determined to
achieve regional hegemony and
inch its way towards acquiring
nuclear weapons.

But unlike Iran, which is
still viewed with distaste
even by many who favored
President Barack Obama’s pol-
icy of appeasement, Qatar has
acquired a misleading image as
a force for modernity.

Qatar controls a global
media empire in the form of
the Al Jazeera network (and
other efforts to influence the
press, such as helping to fund
Khashoggi’s work), which
operates not so much as a news
source, but as a powerful agent
of influence that undermines
efforts to shine a spotlight on
the way it supports radical
Islam and terror.

The really difficult aspect of
dealing with Qatar is that it is
so adept at playing a double
game with the United States.

While serving as a regional
clearinghouse for radicalism
and funding terror, it also hosts
a U.S. airbase. Yet rather than
this being a source of U.S. lever-
age over Qatar, it has become
an argument for ignoring the
regime’s flaws and crimes.

As former U.S. intelligence
expert and current Hudson
Institute analyst Michael
Pregent noted, the Qatari capi-
tal of Doha is the moral equiv-
alent of the bar in the original
Star Wars movie, where ter-
rorists and bad guys of every
variety gather with impunity
even though American forces
are stationed nearby.

America needs to start try-
ing to hold Qatar accountable
for its bad behavior and make
it clear that it will lose the U.S.

base if it doesn’t do so. After
all, there is plenty of flat land
in the Middle East from which
planes can take off and land.

Even worse, as long as so
many Americans allow them-
selves to have their heads turned
by Qatari agents of influence —
a term that includes friendly
media, paid lobbyists and use-
ful idiots who were impressed
by the free trips to the emirate
that they received — nothing
will change. l
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief
of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate.

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JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L ifestyles /C ulture
Books: Exploring Grief, Remembering Potok
BO OKS
Grieving with a
Modern Twist
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
kaddish.com Nathan Englander
Alfdred A. Knopf
THE SIMPLEST RESPONSE
to being taught the story of Jacob
and Esau as a child is to wonder
which of them you are. Are you
sensitive, thoughtful Jacob, who
cleverly — perhaps sneakily —
acquires his brother’s birthright?
Or are you the virile, dull Esau,
a physical genius who neverthle-
less gives up his birthright for a
bowl of lentil soup?
The answer, as Nathan
Englander posits in his newest
novel, kaddish.com, is that you
are, in fact, both. Even at the
peak of Jacob-ness, Esau lurks,
and vice versa.

It’s 1999. Larry, who left the
Orthodox Judaism of his fam-
ily, arrives sullen, surly and
(worst of all) tattooed to his
father’s shiva, held in the house
of his sister Dina, who stayed
on the derech, in the parlance
of Larry’s former life.

Following the predictable
clashes, Larry is cornered by
Dina and their religious betters
with a request. Will Larry take
on the responsibility of saying
Kaddish for their father? He
hems and haws, screams back
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM and forth with Dina, until the
rabbi steps in to offer a solu-
tion: what if Larry found “a
kind of shaliach mitzvah — like
an emissary. A proxy to say it
in your stead.”
Though he loved his father
dearly, Larry is more than
ready to give up his birthright,
and like any good modern
man, he looks to the inter-
net for a solution, where he
stumbles upon an answer to
his bitter prayer: kaddish.com.

The site offers its customers the
chance to pay dedicated, hon-
est-to-God yeshiva boys to say
Kaddish on your behalf for the
requisite 11 months.

What’s an Esau to do? He
signs a digital kinyan, symbol-
ically giving away his right to
the Kaddish. If the book ended
right here, it would have already
been an excellent read, which
speaks to Englander’s strength
as a writer of short stories.

But there’s too much of
Larry’s story left to tell.

Twenty years later, Larry is
now Reb Shuli, a ba’al teshuva
who uses his former life as a
cautionary tale for whoever
happens to crowd his Shabbos
table that night. He’s a rabbi,
a teacher, a husband and a
father, and he couldn’t be
happier. With regards to the
story, Shuli says, “I only share
it to say, it’s never too late to
live one’s true life.”
We’ve spent too much time
at Shuli/Larry’s nadir to believe
that this is his one “true” life,
whatever that means. Soon, he’s
tasked with finding the root
of some un-yeshivish behavior
from Gavriel, a pre-Bar Mitzvah
boy in his class. He stumbles
on a terrible conclusion: though
he’s been saying Kaddish for
his father all these years now,
the kinyan he signed away,
even if it was in Flash, renders
his prayers irrelevant. Shuli,
who thought that he left the
world of obsession and impulse
behind with Larry, soon finds
himself consumed with a need
FANS OF CHAIM POTOK,
author of the bestselling The
Chosen and My Name is Asher
Lev, now have a chance to
explore another side of the late
novelist’s work.

His daughter, Rena Potok,
has compiled five of her father’s
plays in a new book, The
Collected Plays of Chaim Potok,
which came out in October.

Many of the plays, all
of which premiered in
Philadelphia, draw on Potok’s
lived experiences.

Born to a Chasidic fam-
ily in New York, Potok came
of age during World War II,
then went on to become a
Conservative rabbi.

He served in the Army as
a chaplain in South Korea,
where he faced the cultural
confrontation central to
his writing. He found that
Judaism, so fundamental to
his identity, had no place in
Korean culture.

Potok also has roots in
Philadelphia, where he attended
the University of Pennsylvania
Collection of Plays
and was a scholar-in-residence
Explores Playwright
at Har Zion Temple.

This collection includes
SELAH MAYA ZIGHELBOIM | JE STAFF
Out of the Depths, an origi-
nal work about Russian Jewish
ethnographer S. Ansky; Sins
of the Father, a combination
of the two one-act plays The
Carnival and The Gallery, the
former based on The Promise
and the latter based on My
Name is Asher Lev; The Play
of Lights, based on The Book of
Lights about two young Jewish
men serving in Korea; and The
Chosen, based on the novel of
the same name about a friend-
ship between two young men
coming of age during and after
World War II.

The collection includes
The Collected Plays of
stage notes and prefaces for the
Chaim Potok
plays. It also includes a tran-
Edited with an introduction by script of an Out of the Depths
Rena Potok; contributions by post-performance panel dis-
David Bassuk, Carol Rocamora cussion with Potok, which is
and Aaron Posner
probably the most fascinating
Adam Kadmon Books
section of the entire book. An
to re-obtain his birthright.

Englander’s sense of humor
and willingness to wallow in
Shuli/Larry’s basest moments
aren’t out of the ordinary
for him, and neither are the
extended dream sequences.

What does feel new is the ste-
reoscopic effect of breaking the
story up into 28 chapters over
just a scant 200 pages. Just as
everything starts to settle into
3-D, click! Next slide. It’s an
interesting effect.

One quibble. Though
the title seems to promise a
more thorough interrogation
of what the internet has done
to Judaism (and to everyone),
Englander, so wordy and will-
ing to take his time on other
themes, seems to want to let
the reader do the work when
it comes to the Web. This task,
in some ways, feels not unlike
the experience of furiously
Googling in search of a single
result, only to be stymied by a
simple fact: you’re gonna have
to figure it out yourself.

JEWISH EXPONENT
introduction written by Rena
Potok connects Potok’s life to
the plays’ themes and analyzes
how each explores his ideas.

These additions elevate the
book, from simply a collection
of plays to an in-depth look at
the author himself.

In both his novels and plays,
Potok’s protagonists struggle
with what was maybe the big-
gest question of postwar 20th
century American Jewish life:
How do you live in a secu-
lar world without letting go of
your Judaism?
The plays explore the idea
of what Potok called “core-to-
core culture confrontation,”
when one grows up in the heart
of a subculture and confronts
an element at the heart of the
umbrella culture. Characters
face art, politics and other
religions that challenge their
Jewish identities.

Relationships between male
friends and between fathers
and sons serve as another
theme in Potok’s writing.

Fathers play important roles
in symbolizing one side of the
cultural confrontation, while
friends serve as confidantes in
the midst of this conflict and
even sometimes as narrators.

Women are noticeably absent
from Potok’s work and, when
they do appear, they are not
given the same depth as the
male characters.

The collection’s standout
play is Out of the Depths, which
is grander and more epic than
the others. While the other
plays tend to feel like they’re
more about the ideas the char-
acters represent rather than the
characters themselves, Out of
the Depths breaks from that
trend, making for a much more
interesting read.

Overall, the collection is
intellectual and will provide
plenty of material to muse
on. If you’re looking to bet-
ter understand Chaim Potok,
this collection is a good place
to start. l
FEBRUARY 14, 2019
17