CHEN - the party you should have heard of, but probably didn't

CHEN is a party that has done some great work in the Bet Shemesh City Council. Their problem is really in marketing, because based on their performance, based on their success, and based on their integrity, they should be a much larger party. (And perhaps some better marketing of themselves would also help...)

CHEN only had one seat in the outgoing City Council. Their one mandate has been threatened with Rav Alon leaving CHEN and merging with TOV. That left a nice hole that CHEN has to figure how they will fill, if they plan to make it past the minimum threshold in the upcoming elections.

It is possible. Zvi and David are optimistic about their chances. I don't like relying on polls (polls are giving CHEN low numbers), because everybody uses the numbers differently and polls have always been unreliable, but CHEN's numbers have been going up recently, and according to the basic count Zvi detailed for me, it looks like they will surpass the minimum threshold. I hope they do, because it would be a great loss if we did not have them fighting for the city in City Hall.

Some people are worried about the overlap between CHEN and TOV. While it would have been nice to see a merger between the two parties, ensuring the joint success, it did not happen, for whatever reasons. An interesting piece of irony I noted is a point that was mentioned in a recent interview in a local newspaper Tmura with Zvi Wolicki. The article mentioned that Zvi was always a supporter of the (now defunct) Poalei Agudat Yisrael, and would be again if they made a comeback. TOV is a reincarnation, of sorts, of the Poalei Agudat Yisrael party.

I say the more the merrier. If they can both get in, we gain that much more by having more people fighting for us.

Look at the flyers below put out by CHEN, and you can see they are non-partisan. They work to improve the quality of life of Bet Shemesh residents, no matter who or what group you are affiliated with. I personally know of numerous cases in which CHEN simply helped people solve problems, even though they knew that the petitioner had not voted for them and would not vote for them in the future. They just want to improve our quality of life.

And with Ephrayim Naiman joining the CHEN list, it made an already great team even better. there is nobody in RBS, and I mean literally nobody - not a single individual, who I would prefer to have as a representative over Ephrayim.


(this should also remove any preconceptions generated by previous posts that I work for TOV or that I fully endorse TOV. I support TOV. I like TOV. But I also like other parties. not every party is for every person. In addition, there are still other parties I like and support. I might write about some of them, I might not. Maybe more on this idea in a later post.)

If you have any questions about CHEN - who they are, what they do, what they want to do, what they have done, whatever, ask them in the comments. Either I will try to get answers, or hopefully I will try to get a chen person to answer directly...