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Hirsh Goodman: A ï¿½Nebechdikï¿½ Race
Hirsh Goodman

The paucity of candidates to run the worldï¿½s most sensitive city is astonishing

Think about the June 3 Mayoral race for Jerusalem, the world's most sensitive and unique city; a jewel on a powder keg. The paucity of candidates is astonishing.The Likud nominee is Yigal Amedi, a man who has been nothing in life other than a Tammany Hall politician, riding on ex-mayor Ehud Olmertï¿½s coattails, cutting deals as a minor party apparatchik. There is not a single thing one could point to that this man has achieved in his years at City Hall.

To get the Likud nomination, Amedi defeated Ronnie Bar-On, a lawyer turned politician who Benjamin Netanyahu and his cohorts wanted to make attorney general in 1997 simply because he was one of "them." Bar-On is brand new in the Knesset and still giddy from his meteoric rise to the chairmanship of the powerful House

Committee, a post "they" gave him undoubtedly because they knew he would do what "they" want. Bar-On decided to risk his Knesset seat and run what he thought was a risk-free race for mayor, and for the power to help the real-estate developers with whom he associates. But he lost to Amedi (which says a lot in itself) in the Likud mayoral primaries, where less than 10 per cent of eligible voters turned out (which also says something).

Stunningly, the other main party, the Labor party, has not yet found a candidate. That leaves the field open to independent candidate Nir Barkat. Though his face has been on billboards and buses all over the city for months now, no one knows who he is. We know he made a fortune in high-tech, is a son of the city and comes from a real Jerusalem family, that he says he cares about the city and thinks he can do a good apolitical job. Sounds good, but being mayor is all politics. Teddy Kollek was a genius politician who managed to sell the world the notion that the best thing that ever happened to the city was its unification in 1967 and that the Palestinians loved it as much as the Israelis. Ehud Olmert was all politics, but at the small and petty level that did little for the city and much for his political supporters. Just go to any park in the city, any public space that is not privately maintained. Itï¿½s a disgrace.

Barkat should look at the political careers of Ehud Barak and Amram Mitzna, two people who also thought that they could beat the system and govern without politics. Barak became paralyzed because he could neither schmooze the Knesset nor work the numbers, not even in his own party. Mitzna thought being Mr. Clean, above politics, would endear him to the masses. They saw him as a naive fool and dumped him and the Labor party unceremoniously at the ballot box in January. The same could happen to Barkat, unless he becomes street-wise and politically aggressive, cutting deals, looking like a winner and pounding the pavements a lot harder himself -- rather than sending out legions of paid kids with smart Barkat T-shirts and dyed-blond spiky hair to hand out glossy pictures of him.

The others in or at the fringes of the race include Yossi Tal-Gan, a former city manager who is running with no political backing, and Uri Lupoliansky, who has not formally entered the race. As the former Olmert deputy who has become acting mayor, Lupoliansky, a born-again ultra-Orthodox Jew, is familiar with the secular world. He has done an admirable job in the serious City Hall committees he has headed at various times, never showing overt favoritism to his religious community. And he is the founder of Yad Sarah, a truly magnificent organization that voluntarily provides medical services and equipment to those who need it. Whatï¿½s more, he is politically savvy, understands his audience and sings their tune, knows the corridors of power at the municipal level and is as smart as they come.

But his ultra-Orthodoxy is a problem. If he becomes the elected mayor, he will not be able to sanction things that are anathema to his own community -- like joint male and female swimming at municipal pools, or even coeducational schools. To do so would be against his faith, and his faith is above all. As a consequence, he will not be able to allow institutions to continue to be open on the Sabbath, or be sensitive or supportive of the Reform and Conservative movements in the city or their institutions.

It is unrealistic to expect him to be pluralistic. From an ultra-Orthodox point of view a Reform Jew is worse than a non-believing Jew. The impact of this on Jerusalemï¿½s ties with Diaspora Jewry and their support for the city, on which so much depends, could be ruinous. Lupoliansky is an excellent man. It is because we respect him that we must take his beliefs seriously.

Until now, the ultra-Orthodox in city politics have been happy to be in the shadows of power, not in the limelight, and have their dues paid by a secular mayor politically beholden to them. Lupoliansky would be wise to continue the tradition. This is a universal city, which cannot be allowed to slide back into being an Eastern European ghetto.

The only good news here is that Bar-On is out of the running. Hopefully Lupoliansky's rabbis will tell him to take a back seat, precluding collateral damage that none of us needs. That leaves Amedi and Barkat. Amedi has the Likud, key cabinet ministers, and a grass-roots organization going for him in this predominantly Sephardi, Likud city. Barkat has a gorgeous smile on his face, his teeth perfect white, in the posters. Who knows if it will still be there by the time this race is over?