Before the elections, my husband and I spent evenings curled up on our couch watching election ads. Government funding gives every party a few minutes to share their agenda on national TV. This means that parties with no chance of making it into the knesset-- featuring ads made on their nephew's imac-- are featured alongside the heavy-hitters like Likud and Kadima. Hilarity ensues.
The merger of the Holocaust Survivors' Party with the Mature Green Leaf Supporters is the most special Israeli party of all time (except for maybe the Men's Party, which for a while had zayin as its letter for voting and now uses fey-kuf. I'll leave people with good Hebrew skills to figure out those). My guess is that the merger of these two groups resulted from schisms within both the Retired People's Party and the other (presumably immature) Legalize Marijuana Party. This is their actual election ad, and there's something endearing about it. I repeat: this is not a spoof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFoimWJTroQ
Sadly, these idealistic individuals didn't make it into the knesset.
This election ad parody is actually LESS ridiculous, but it captures the essence of the more serious ads on TV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbf2T9OmOA
The jingle hits on every platitude possible: Israel wants Change, Leadership, and a Future for our Children! Avi Etinger loves peace, but he hates the Holocaust. He follows in the footsteps of Begin and Rabin and Sharon and plenty of other people who died in recent years. (Never mind that Sharon is, technically, still alive. I'm pretty sure.) So vote for Avi Etinger, because ma ze meshaneh: what difference does it make?
Right, that other Israeli characteristic-- cynicism about our leaders. I'm slowly starting to get that.
Update: I was trying to find a clip from one of the nephew-in-uncle's-basement style campaign ads, and I wasn't successful. However, I just found a good summary of all the election ads (and the way Israeli elections work) here: http://lisagoldman.net/2009/01/31/israeli-election-campaign-clips-seriously-hilarious/
Update #2: Ok, so for my Hebrew challenge of the day I decided to try to translate all of the parody election ad that I posted above. This is my best attempt. Er... yes... did I mention I've lived here less than a year? Also, the ad was a lot dirtier than I realized at first... ah the innocence of poor Hebrew skills. Read on at your own discretion. Please correct any glaring errors and PLEASE tell me what the fourth line means! :)
Song:
Israel is in need of change
Israel is in need of leadership
For the sake of a future for our children
We need a spicy step? We need on your march lions? We need mountains next to us? Er, I didn't understand this line. Help from better Hebrew speakers is appreciated.
Avi Ettinger speaking:
This is the knesset (parliament).
On a survey of international fun/pleasure,
that was advertised recently,
the knesset was ranked in the second-to-last spot.
This situation MUST be stopped.
Song:
It's time so say "cusomo" (I'm pretty sure that cusomo is a swear word relating to a certain body part of one's mother, or possibly of a male of homosexual persuasion? Either way, it's not in the dictionary:)
To the election of a different candidate
So vote for Avi Etinger
Because what difference does it make?
Avi Ettinger speaking:
Citizens of Israel
People, children, and tots,
(aside) children and tots are the same thing, no?
Habitu bi... habitu bi b'kipat havdela --hmm. The most I get from this is "look at me in a hat from havdela." Except that he seems to be gesturing at the dome of the rock, so I'm confused.
Who is more cute/precious?
You will have that responsiblity (or you will decide?) in the polls.
Song:
He is on the side of peace
But against the Holocaust
He loves the nation
That hates fecal examinations (maybe this means prostate exams?)
He supports Judaism and sodomy (!)
He will wage war with "avtala" and Chaim Etgar. Hmm. I'm not sure what "avtala" means. Maybe "purity" or "virginity" (betulah?) Chaim Etgar is a humorous writer.
He continues the voice of Rabin
And of Begin and Sharon
And many others who passed away in recent times
Avi Ettinger speaking:
The females (?) of sexual relations (Maybe another sodomy reference?)
We can put in order the goings on
In legislation, with pleasure (with "kef," the party's name)
Song:
So when you are at the polls
go to a different canditate
and vote for Avi Ettinger
Because what difference does it make?
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
22.2.09
Vote
I technically became an Israeli about a half hour after landing in Ben Gurion Airport. So even though I've lived here less than a year, I've already voted twice!
First, I voted in the most hard-fought mayoral election I've ever seen. In Kiryat Bialik, posters hung from balconies and papered fences in April, even though voting wasn't until mid-November. I was harrassed by candidates on my way into to the supermarket. My mikvah lady-- after she'd watched me dunk naked into water each month as part of a religious ritual-- took advantage of this vulnerable state by asking me to vote her son onto the city council. "He's a good boy. Will you vote for him?" she asked every month from May on. "Yes!" I would yelp. "Please hand me my towel!" Instead, she'd give me a glossy campaign flyer. (For the record, she is a lovely woman and she said "hi" to me one time at the fish monger's, which impressed me because I wasn't sure she'd recognize me with clothes on.)
Those elections reflected Kiryat Bialik's horror that it is being replaced by our neighboring town-- Kiryat Motzkin-- as the nicest one of the clump of towns called "Kiryat Something" just north of Haifa. A representative campaign flyer featured pictures Kiryat Bialik Now (trash at the side of storm drains) next to pictures of Kiryat Bialik Future (flowering traffic islands... in Kiryat Motzkin). Another ad trumpeted the fact that Candidate X was running second in the polls!! Even our mayoral candidates suffered from an inferiority complex.
When we walked to our polling station for the national elections early this month, the streets were wet and deserted. National elections are holidays here, and so the entire country emptied into the malls for election day sales. A few banners dripped outside polling stations.
Israelis literally cast ballots-- or rather seal our votes into envelopes and cast them into a locked box. No hanging chads here, but plenty of room fun kinds of voter fraud! (At one polling station, someone replaced the stack of paper for one party with paper that had another party's symbol printed on the back side!)
After presenting ID to the people manning our polling station (what a novel concept! I never had to do that in America!), I stepped behind a cardboard screen and chose a piece of paper with my party's "letter" on it. (I stole one; it's in the picture above.) Then I sealed the piece of paper into an envelope and brought my envelope out of the booth to deposit in the lockbox up front. I felt so sure of myself because I'd already voted once, as opposed to the municipal election when I got yelled at for possible attempted terrorism (I brought my bag into the polling room) until the polling people heard my accent, at which point they decided I was a dimwitted olah chadasha who deserved a bit of coddling, and a nice woman showed me what to do.
My husband's Israeli-Polish grandfather just said "Jews always lie about who they vote for" when we tried to ask him which way he leaned. (He lived through the Holocaust AND spent time in the Gulag, so his attitude is understandable.) I won't tell you who I voted for either-- but it wasn't Tsipi Livni or Bibi Netanyahu. Now I'm just trying to figure out who won the election...
65% of Israelis voted in the last elections, so if you want to be Israeli, definitely vote. Who would you have voted for? Do Jews always lie about who they vote for? Discuss. :)
First, I voted in the most hard-fought mayoral election I've ever seen. In Kiryat Bialik, posters hung from balconies and papered fences in April, even though voting wasn't until mid-November. I was harrassed by candidates on my way into to the supermarket. My mikvah lady-- after she'd watched me dunk naked into water each month as part of a religious ritual-- took advantage of this vulnerable state by asking me to vote her son onto the city council. "He's a good boy. Will you vote for him?" she asked every month from May on. "Yes!" I would yelp. "Please hand me my towel!" Instead, she'd give me a glossy campaign flyer. (For the record, she is a lovely woman and she said "hi" to me one time at the fish monger's, which impressed me because I wasn't sure she'd recognize me with clothes on.)
Those elections reflected Kiryat Bialik's horror that it is being replaced by our neighboring town-- Kiryat Motzkin-- as the nicest one of the clump of towns called "Kiryat Something" just north of Haifa. A representative campaign flyer featured pictures Kiryat Bialik Now (trash at the side of storm drains) next to pictures of Kiryat Bialik Future (flowering traffic islands... in Kiryat Motzkin). Another ad trumpeted the fact that Candidate X was running second in the polls!! Even our mayoral candidates suffered from an inferiority complex.
When we walked to our polling station for the national elections early this month, the streets were wet and deserted. National elections are holidays here, and so the entire country emptied into the malls for election day sales. A few banners dripped outside polling stations.
Israelis literally cast ballots-- or rather seal our votes into envelopes and cast them into a locked box. No hanging chads here, but plenty of room fun kinds of voter fraud! (At one polling station, someone replaced the stack of paper for one party with paper that had another party's symbol printed on the back side!)
After presenting ID to the people manning our polling station (what a novel concept! I never had to do that in America!), I stepped behind a cardboard screen and chose a piece of paper with my party's "letter" on it. (I stole one; it's in the picture above.) Then I sealed the piece of paper into an envelope and brought my envelope out of the booth to deposit in the lockbox up front. I felt so sure of myself because I'd already voted once, as opposed to the municipal election when I got yelled at for possible attempted terrorism (I brought my bag into the polling room) until the polling people heard my accent, at which point they decided I was a dimwitted olah chadasha who deserved a bit of coddling, and a nice woman showed me what to do.
My husband's Israeli-Polish grandfather just said "Jews always lie about who they vote for" when we tried to ask him which way he leaned. (He lived through the Holocaust AND spent time in the Gulag, so his attitude is understandable.) I won't tell you who I voted for either-- but it wasn't Tsipi Livni or Bibi Netanyahu. Now I'm just trying to figure out who won the election...
65% of Israelis voted in the last elections, so if you want to be Israeli, definitely vote. Who would you have voted for? Do Jews always lie about who they vote for? Discuss. :)
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