Next Wednesday you will be able to read the election results with a host of political commentary and analysis.<\/p>\r\n
For about a dozen years in which I have been posting my thoughts every week, I have been very careful not to 'recycle' material, and any topic that has been posted and written about will never be discussed again, except for a few cases in which I have deemed them 'the need of the hour' and felt the need to publish them again.<\/p>\r\n
As part of the ongoing news that flows into our minds during the election period, we are exposed to the fact that a party needs hundreds of thousands of votes to pass the threshold, and tens of thousands more to win another mandate, which leads us to complacency and mistaken thinking, saying: 'Well....so what is my single vote compared to what the party needs.'.<\/p>\r\n
The story you will read today was written and published by me about nine years ago, just days after the results of the municipal elections in the city of Ramat Gan were announced.<\/p>\r\n
I carry the scars of the story like a scar on my flesh to this day, but with a clear conclusion and message - in an election campaign and at the ballot box: 'Every vote counts.'.<\/p>\r\n
\u2022<\/p>\r\n
Since the majority of Ramat Gan residents belong to the general public, while the ultra-Orthodox religious community is a minority, a unified religious list ran for the City Council at the time under the name 'United Religious Front', whose representatives were drawn from United Torah Judaism, Shas, and the Jewish Home, because only through a unified list could the ultra-Orthodox religious community in Ramat Gan gain representation and presence on the City Council.<\/p>\r\n
Although I am a resident of Ramat Gan, I do not feel 'Ramat Gan'. I live on Hazon Ish Street on the border of the city, my home is in the first building built on Ramat Gan territory, after the border with Bnei Brak was completed, I decided to pray in the synagogue on my residential street, which already belongs to the jurisdiction of Bnei Brak, which is located a few minutes' walk from my home.<\/p>\r\n
I feel no physical or emotional attachment to Ramat Gan, except for paying property taxes, and therefore, that day, I did not feel any need to exercise my democratic right and vote.<\/p>\r\n
Even when one of my friends tried to persuade me to go to the polls, I dismissed him with a shrug: 'A vote here or there won't change the picture...''<\/p>\r\n
\u2022<\/p>\r\n
Election day was over, the votes were counted, and it turned out that within the framework of the surplus agreement signed between the list of Zvi Bar, the mayor at the time, and the 'United Religious Front', exactly the same number of 'surplus' votes were counted for each party, which led to a situation where it was impossible to decide which of the two would enter an additional representative into the city council.<\/p>\r\n
The court before which the issue was brought decided that the matter would be decided by a 'coin toss', which would be held by majority vote in the City Council meeting hall, in the presence of representatives of the Elections Committee and the parties.<\/p>\r\n
The battle was decided, the coin fell exactly on the wrong side - and Zvi Bar's list won another seat, while the third representative from the 'United Religious Front' list was forced to return home in despair.<\/p>\r\n
No one knew what I knew - because the one who decided the election results was none other than myself. If I had dedicated a few minutes, if I had been sensitive enough to the importance of the Haredi-religious representation on the Ramat Gan City Council, my lone vote would have tipped the scales and the third Haredi-religious representative would have entered the City Council on the tip of a vote - my vote.<\/p>\r\n
I then asked for forgiveness from Amnon Chen, the third representative of the 'United Religious List', on the cover of the newspaper. I asked for forgiveness from its ultra-Orthodox religious residents living in Ramat Gan, for my laziness and heartbreak, leaving the third representative out of the city council, and the less powerful religious representation in the city.<\/p>\r\n\u05db\u05dc \u05e7\u05d5\u05dc \u05e7\u05d5\u05d1\u05e2 - \u05d6\u05d5 \u05de\u05e6\u05d9\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea \u05d5\u05dc\u05d0 \u05e8\u05e7 \u05e1\u05d9\u05e1\u05de\u05d4.\r\n\r\n\u2022 \u05d4\u05d8\u05d5\u05e8 \u05de\u05ea\u05e4\u05e8\u05e1\u05dd \u05d1\u05e7\u05d5 \u05e2\u05d9\u05ea\u05d5\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea \u05d3\u05ea\u05d9\u05ea","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The battle was decided, the coin fell exactly on the wrong side \u2022 The third representative from the 'United Religious Front' list was forced to return home in despair \u2022 But no one knew what I knew - because the one who decided the election results was none other than me","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-138"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n