We are a country with an attention deficit disorder. Topic followed topic in this election, and all at record volume. The topic didn't change every day here, but several times a day. The pace won the attention. If both Eli Ohana and Barack Obama are headlines — what is the difference between them? The important and the marginal have mixed up, and the high and the low. It seemed that there was no difference between the corruption investigation in Yisrael Beitenu and the Likud video with the Hamasnik.
Everything is a "scandal", everything is an "affair", everything is exciting, but only for a few moments, until the next storm.
Remember for a moment how many emotions the following topics aroused in us, and how quickly they evaporated: the State Comptroller's report. The confrontation between the candidates. Moshik Galamin. Yair Garbuz. The speech at Congress. The Israel Prize for Literature. The tape of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Netanyahu at the Mahane Yehuda Market. The recycled bottles. The V-15 organization. .
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When the threshold for excitement is so high, everything is quickly swallowed up in the depths of the feed, in favor of the new "share." In all this mess, even the ugly Israeli's videos look like election videos. With such a short public memory, is it any wonder that Lapid talks at his conferences about achievements that didn't exist?
Two weeks ago I met a United Torah Judaism MK and was flattered that at least they were sparing us gimmicks. "Yes," he said, "we are an ideological, social, ultra-Orthodox party, with a clear voice. Who needs such gimmicks?".
Two days later, his party also began bombarding him with its own entertaining videos.
The media itself has become an issue. In the past, it only provided candidates. Last time, Yair Lapid, Ofer Shelah, Mickey Rosenthal and Merv Michaeli moved from the press to the Knesset, and this time it's Sharon Gal, Zuhair Bahloul and Yinon Magal. But slowly the main issue has become the media. It doesn't report on things, it is the thing itself. Is it left-wing or right-wing? Objective or with an agenda? Netanyahu is not presenting himself as a competitor against Bouji, but against the media.
Many politicians came to the studios this time, in advance, to argue with the interviewer (and then quickly upload the video to Facebook). Contrary to the perception that everything happens online, it turned out that the established media is still here.
Judaism and Zionism are still here, too. It's not for nothing that the left-wing party called itself "The Zionist Camp" and the right-wing party "The Jewish Home." Without being cynical, these are brands that are worth a lot. Judaism and Zionism are things that most of the Israeli public wants to identify with, on the right and the left.
It was amusing to follow the mutual complaints of the parties: The Jewish Home petitioned against the use of the name Zionist Camp, claiming that it was an anti-Zionist party. In response, a petition was filed from the left stating that the Jewish Home is extremist and does not represent the true values of Judaism. And the person who sat and discussed these petitions, and of course also rejected them, was the Arab-Israeli judge Salim Gibran.
Youth is alert. Contrary to what is often said about it, Israeli youth were very interested in the elections. Most of the headlines came from high school panels. Most of the interesting events took place before the eyes of captivated teenagers. One candidate who moved between high schools told me that the sound he will remember from this race is the sound of the school bell.
We forgot that it is a right to vote. This week I met the members of the largest party in Israel — the ones who vote. They are more than 30 percent of the population. If they form a party, they could form a government, but they don’t come to the polls.
On Tuesday evening, President Rivlin summoned such a group to him, to convince him that every vote counts. As I left the President's residence, I was reminded of the text that was also brought here on the eve of the previous elections.
The Alpert family then sent me the diary of their grandfather, Moshe Yekutiel Alpert, an ultra-Orthodox from the old settlement of Jerusalem, which was the "mukhtar" of several neighborhoods before the establishment of the state.
This year, the diary was published as a book, "Mukhtar's Diary in Jerusalem," by Bar-Ilan University Press. In it, Alpert describes the first Knesset elections in 1949.
Here is the passage, which reminds us how much it is not obvious to go to vote this coming Tuesday, in a 67-year-old Jewish and democratic state: "At 5:35, early in the morning, I woke up with my wife and my brother Rabbi Shimon Leib, and my brother-in-law Rabbi Netanel Saladovin and my sons Dov. After drinking coffee, we put on Shabbat clothes in honor of this great and holy day. For this is the day that G-d has made manifest and we rejoice in it.
Because after two thousand years of exile or more, and one could say from the six days of Genesis to this day, we have not been blessed with such a day, when we would go to elections for a Jewish state, and blessed that we have lived and sustained and reached this time. Benny Dov left home at 05:45, and he left when he left, because he is a great supporter of the Etzel list, and he did not come all day and all night. .
""And my wife and I and my brother-in-law went to the polling station in the Habashim Street area, with the State of Israel's identity cards in our hands. With great and immense joy we walked the short way, and all the way I walked like on Simchat Torah, in circles with a Torah scroll, because I had the Israel identity card in my hand. There was no limit to the happiness and joy I had. The sun brought the ballot box, and the chairman called me and said, 'And honor my old face,' and told me that since I am the oldest of all the people here, then I will be the first to vote.".
With a tremor of holiness and awe, I handed the chairman my identity card, and he read my name from my card. And the vice chairman wrote my name on paper, and gave me number one. He handed me an envelope and I entered the second room, where all the notes from all the lists were placed. .
""And with a trembling hand and a feeling of holiness, I took one ballot, number B, the Religious Unity list, and put it into the envelope that I had received from the chairman. And I entered the polling room again, and showed everyone that I only had one envelope. And the most sacred moment of my life arrived, the moment that my father and my grandfather did not receive. Only I, in my time, in my life, received a moment of such holiness and purity. Blessed be me and blessed be my share.".
I said the blessing "Shehayinu," and put the envelope in the ballot box. I shook hands with the chairman and deputy chairman and the rest of the committee members and left. I waited in the hallway for my wife, who was the second, followed by my brother number three, and then my brother-in-law Nathaniel Saldovin number four, and at 6:28 we returned home, and I went to pray. A big holiday.".
Jewish status: ""It is a bad sign for a party if it thinks that only with it is the source of life of all wisdom and all honesty, and that everything else is vanity and evil spirit" (Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook)
• The column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth
