In a surprising local development, Rabbi Dov Lipman has resigned from the Am Shalem party of Rabbi Chaim Amsalem. Lipman had headed up the Anglo division and had worked very hard to build a following among the anglo crowds in Israel. Whether the party would succeed in the elections or not is something nobody can tell, as just because people support the idea of a party, does not mean they will actually vote for that party on election day. But it was a pretty good start.

The news talks about how Am Shalem has decided to move in a different direction, which caused Lipman to decide to resign. I asked him what happened, and his response is that instead of focusing on the votes of English-speaking immigrants, Rabbi Amasalem chose to change directions and focus instead on the potential Sephardic voters, presenting himself as an alternative to Shas.

Shas is made up of a lot of sephardic haredi cotes, but it is also made up of probably even more Sephardi votes that come from traditional jews rather than haredi. Amsalem is looking to get some of those votes. With Shas appearing more and more Haredi, it seems Amsalem is expecting some of the less haredi supporters might "jump ship" if there were a more reasonable alternative that spoke to them.

I say good luck, but it probably wont happen. The traditional Sephardi voter is very obedient to Rav Ovadiah, and it would take a miracle for a significant number of them to vote against Shas. Especially when election time comes and they pull out the brachot and promises of olam ha'ba for voting Shas.

The question is what is Rabbi Lipman going to do now? He has been very active locally, but only as an activist, as his political focus was nationally for Am Shalem. Now that he is no longer running and campaigning for Am Shalem, is he going to throw himself into the local political mix? Will he prepare now to run for a spot on the city council or perhaps even present himself as a candidate for mayor in the upcoming elections next year?

I asked Lipman, and his response was "there are have been people from all populations pushing me to run for Mayor for a while. I cannot say I have ruled it out but I also am not actively pursuing. I have been actively involved in local issues all along including preparing the general population for an important election and will continue to do so".

Lipman isn't declaring himself a candidate yet, but he seems to consider himself one of the possibilities. No matter who the candidate will end up being, the only chance the general public has of unseating Moshe Abutbol (or whomever the agreed upon haredi candidate would be) is to be unified and have all groups, despite other differences, support the one candidate,

In the last election, Moshe Abutbol did not receive the majority of votes for mayor. not even close. However, the general population split their votes among two candidates - former mayor Danny Vaknin and Shalom Lerner. if they can unify the vote around one candidate and get people to support and actually go out and vote for the person, they will at least have a chance of succeeding. Lipman also said to me "the most important thing from my perspective is unity of the general population and moderate chareidim. That is the ultimate goal."

I don't know if Lipman will be that candidate, but whomever it will be is going to have a lot of work to do to keep everyone happy and motivated.


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