Knesset September Madness 2019!

I know, it seems like we just had April Madness!  But thanks to an unprecedented second Knesset election in the same year, we're back again a few months later for our sixth Knesset prediction pool.... SEPTEMBER MADNESS 2019!!!!!

For those of you who participated in April Madness, this is going to seem repetitive, but, well, reality is seeming repetitive right now.

How to Enter: Go to the September Madness link and put in your predictions for how many seats each of the 32 parties will win.  All predictions must be non-negative integers (0 is allowed), and your predictions must add up to 120. (For reasons discussed below, it is impossible for a party to win 1 or 2 seats, and unlikely that a party will win 3 seats.  However, if you choose to hedge your bets and guess that a given party will win 1, 2, or 3 seats, that is a legal entry in the contest.) Entrance is free, but there is a suggested donation of $10 to the organization of your choice dedicated to making Israel the best it can be. (If you win, feel free to share which organization you chose and why.)  Israeli citizens are encouraged to vote in the actual election as well.

The Rules (for the real election): The 32 parties have submitted ordered lists of candidates. Here is the full list of candidates in Hebrew, and lists of the parties in Arabic and English. On election day (September 17), Israeli citizens will go to polling places in and near Israel, and vote for a party (not for individual candidates). All parties that win at least 3.25% of the vote will win seats in the Knesset, proportional to their share of the vote.  For example, suppose the Pirate Party wins 1% of the vote, Democratura wins 33%, and Adom Lavan wins 66%. Then the Pirate Party wins no seats in the Knesset (since they were below the 3.25% threshold), and the other parties will proportionally split the 120 Knesset seats: Democratura gets 40 seats (so the top 40 candidates on its list are elected), and Adom Lavan gets 80 seats. If vacancies arise later in the term, there are no special elections – the next candidate on the party’s list (e.g. #41 on the Democratura list) enters the Knesset. It is mathematically impossible for more than 30 parties to win seats in the Knesset (so at least 2 will be left out).

The Rules (for the September Madness pool): The deadline to enter is Monday, September 16, 2019, at 11:59 pm Israel Summer Time (4:59 pm EDT). When the final election results are published, each entry will receive a score based on how many Knesset seats were predicted correctly. For example, suppose the results are as in the above example (Adom Lavan 80, Democratura 40). I predicted 60 seats for Democratura, 50 for Adom Lavan, and 10 for the Bible Bloc Party. Then my score is 90, since I correctly predicted 40 seats for Democratura and 50 seats for Adom Lavan.  The entry with the highest score wins!

Ties will be broken based on two tiebreaker questions:
1) Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?
2) Which party will get the FEWEST votes?

The tiebreakers will be resolved in this order: exact match on question 1; exact match on question 2; closest on question 1 (if you picked a party that DOES win seats, you’re out of consideration for this one); closest on question 2.

Sometime soon, we’ll put up a post with descriptions of all the parties and links to their websites.

Good luck!!!!

(UPDATE: Zehut has dropped out, so there are only 31 parties.)

April Madness results!

Thanks to all who participated in April Madness 2019!

Here are the final election results:

1. Likud 35
2. Blue & White 35
3. Shas 8
4. United Torah Judaism 8
5. Hadash-Ta'al 6
6. Labor 6
7. Yisrael Beiteinu 5
8. Union of Right-Wing Parties 5
9. Meretz 4
10. Kulanu 4
11. United Arab List (Ra'am)-Balad 4
12. New Right
13. Zehut
14. Gesher
15. Betach - Social Security
16. Arab List
17. Social Justice
18. Magen
19. Justice for All
20. Tzomet
21. Yashar
22. Zechuyoteinu B'Koleinu
23. Older Citizens' Party
24. Kol Yisrael Achim / Pe'ulah L'Yisrael
25. Pirate Party
26. Pashut Ahavah
27. Eretz Yisrael Shelanu
28. Na Nach
29. Mehatchalah
30. Hatikvah L'Shinui
31. Kalkalah Yerukah - Medinah Achat
32. Education
33. Achrayut Lameyasdim
34. Kevod HaAdam
35. Shavim
36. Manhigut Hevratit
37. Ani v'Atah
38. Mifleget HaGush HaTanachi
39. Ichud B'nei HaB'rit
40. B'rit Olam

Even though the broad strokes of the results (the fraction of votes that went to the Likud-led coalition vs. everyone else) look very similar to other recent elections, there were still plenty of surprises at the individual party level.  As a result, everyone had a harder time making predictions, and the top scores this time were noticeably lower than in past prediction pools.  For example, literally no one (who entered April Madness) predicted that the New Right wouldn't make the threshold.  For the tiebreaker question that asked "Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?", the overwhelming choice was Gesher, and there were a few votes for Yisrael Beiteinu, Zehut, and Kulanu, but none for the New Right.

All that said, we had two entrants who tied for the winning score, correctly predicting 105 out of 120 Knesset seats: Melanie M in California, and Aaron Weinberg in Washington DC.  Congratulations to both!  What do they have in common?  They were the first two people to complete their contest entries.  Those who had access to more recent poll results did worse.  The earlier polls showed Blue & White riding high, before the pendulum started swinging back to the Likud.  But those early polls were correct - Blue & White did in fact win a lot of seats!  It's just that Likud also won the same number.  Both parties won 35 seats, which is unusually high for the modern era.  The last time any one party won this many seats was in 2003, when the Likud under Ariel Sharon won 38, and the last time before that was Yitzchak Rabin's Labor party in 1992 (44 seats).

So to pick a winner, we'll have to go to the tiebreaker questions.  For the first tiebreaker question ("Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?"), both finalists picked Gesher, which means that we'll go to the second tiebreaker: "Which party will get the FEWEST votes?"  Excluding parties that officially dropped out before the election, the "winner" was B'rit Olam (which was also in last place for number of candidates running on their list: only 1).  Honorable mention to Sarah Nemzer Kohl in Jerusalem, who successfully predicted this.  So what did our finalists pick?  Melanie M predicted Education, which finished with 518 votes, and Aaron Weinberg predicted Shavim, which finished with 401 votes.  This means that Aaron Weinberg is our 2019 April Madness champion!  Congratulations!!!

We asked him for a statement, and he said:

I think my only message is that this election makes the dangerous possibility of annexation even more likely and I urge everyone to get involved with any organization or cause that they believe can help prevent that scary possibility from ever becoming reality.

 Thanks again to everyone for playing!  We'll see you again on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, unless by some chance early elections are called (which has been known to happen before).

April Madness 2019: Guide to the Parties

It's not too late to enter April Madness 2019!  You have until 11:59 pm Israel Summer Time on Monday April 8, 2019 (the night before the election) to make your predictions.  Once again, here is a guide to the 40 parties that are running (down from 43 when we first launched the contest! Ofek Hadash B'Chavod, Reform, and Yachad have all dropped out!).  And here are the full lists of candidates in Hebrew (official) and in English (unofficial).

Parties represented in the current Knesset:

• Blue and White: This is a union between the centrist party Yesh Atid (headed by Yair Lapid and serving in the current Knesset) and the two new parties Hosen L'Yisrael (founded by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, who is at the head of the combined list) and Telem (founded by Moshe Ya'alon, also a former IDF chief of staff).
• Gesher: (Re-)founder Orly Levy was elected to the current Knesset as a member of Yisrael Beiteinu, but she left that party in 2016 and has continued to serve as an independent.  This new party is meant to be a revival of the Gesher party founded by Levy's father David Levy in the '90s, which served in the Knesset in alliances with both Likud and Labor.
• Hadash/Ta'al: In the 2015 election, 4 Arab and Arab/Jewish parties ran together as the Joint List, and became the third-largest faction in the Knesset.  This time, the Joint List has split into 2 and 2.  This faction includes the left-wing Arab/Jewish party Hadash and the Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta'al), and is led by Ayman Odeh (who led the Joint List).
• Kulanu: This party ran for the first time in 2015, with a focus on economic issues, and now serves in the coalition, with party leader Moshe Kahlon as Minister of Finance.
• Labor: In the current Knesset, Labor is part of the Zionist Union (which includes Labor and Hatenuah).  Now, that union has fallen apart, and Hatenuah leader Tzipi Livni is retiring from politics, so now Labor is on its own, and led by relative newcomer Avi Gabbay (who leads the party from outside the Knesset).
• Likud: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to be elected to a record fifth term, while fending off indictments.
• Meretz: The left-wing Zionist party is led for the first time by Tamar Zandberg, representing a new generation.
• New Right: Led by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, this faction recently broke off from the Jewish Home, seeking to be a right-wing party that can appeal to both religious and secular voters.
• Shas: The Sephardi haredi party lost ground in the 2015 election, when it splintered into two factions (Shas, led by Aryeh Deri, and Yachad, led by Eli Yishai), and Yachad failed to meet the election threshold. Yachad just dropped out (in the last week) and endorsed United Torah Judaism.
• Tzomet: Founder Oren Hazan currently serves in the Knesset with the Likud, but he split off to run with his own party after a poor showing in the Likud primaries.  Like Gesher, the name is meant to follow in the footsteps of an old party that previously served in the Knesset with the Likud.
• Union of Right-Wing Parties: This is a new union between the religious Zionist party The Jewish Home (minus the faction that split off as the New Right - see above), the settler party Tekuma (which was already part of an alliance with the Jewish Home), and the Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit (whose leader Michael Ben-Ari was banned from running, but the party itself was not).  The combined list is led by political newcomer and former IDF chief rabbi Rafi Peretz.
• United Arab List (Ra'am) / Balad: This list includes the other 2 Arab parties that had been part of the Joint List (see above, under Hadash/Ta'al).  The new leader is Mansour Abbas of the Islamic Movement, who also represents a new generation.
• United Torah Judaism: This union of the two major Ashkenazi haredi parties (Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah) is led (for the sixth time) by Ya'akov Litzman.
• Yisrael Beiteinu: Avigdor Lieberman is running once again at the head of this secular right-wing party.

Parties not represented in the current Knesset:

• Achrayut Lameyasdim: Founded by Haim Dayan (who served in the Knesset with Tzomet in the '90s), this party focuses on issues facing senior citizens.
  
• Ani v'Atah: "A social-liberal, democratic, and Zionist party"
  
• Arab List: Not to be confused with any of the Arab parties that made up the Joint List, this list is led by Muhamad Kanan of the Arab National Party, which used to be part of the United Arab List.
  
• Betach - Social Security: Founded by Semion Grafman, who served a prison term in the US for money laundering, this party requested the letters פק because they spelled an English expletive.
  
• B'rit Olam: In the past, it ran as a Jewish/Arab party.  This time, founder Ofer Lifschitz is the sole candidate on the list.
  
• Education: This party calls for an overhaul of the educational system.
• Eretz Yisrael Shelanu: Started by the father of a terror victim, this party claims to be "a party for second-class citizens".
  
• Hatikvah L'Shinui: An Arab party that calls for equality for Arab Israelis.
  
• Ichud B'nei HaB'rit: A mostly Arab Christian party that also calls for equality for all citizens.
  
• Justice for All: Most notably an animal rights party.
  
• Kalkalah Yerukah - Medinah Achat: The name means "Green Economy - One State", and is a rebranding of Da'am, the Jewish/Arab socialist party.
  
• Kevod HaAdam: The leader is Arkadi Pogetz, and not much information is available beyond the candidates' names.
• Kol Yisrael Achim / Pe'ulah L'Yisrael: An Ethiopian-Israeli party led by former Likud MK Alali Adamso, running together with a party focusing on Mizrachi immigrants.
  
• Magen: One more new party founded by a retired general (Gal Hirsch), describing itself as right-wing on foreign affairs and left-wing on social and economic issues.
  
• Manhigut Hevratit: This party has the distinction of finishing in last place in the 2015 election, as well as the 2013 election (under the name "Moreshet Avot").  They hope to break the streak this time.
  
• Mehatchalah: A new party whose platform includes overhauling the family/juvenile court system, and establishing direct elections of Knesset members.
  
• Mifleget HaGush HaTanachi: A new Jewish-Christian party (with a message that may be anti-Muslim), trying to appeal to immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
  
• Na Nach: Breslov Hasidim who dance in the streets.
  
• Older Citizens' Party: As the name suggests, this is another party focusing on senior citizens' issues.
  
• Pashut Ahavah: "Simply Love", a multicultural Jewish/Arab party.
  
• Pirate Party: Part of the international network of Pirate Parties that supports Internet freedom and includes the current third-largest party in the Czech parliament.
  
• Shavim: Their platform is about education, particularly special education.
  
• Social Justice: Other parties have run under this name in the past (because it's easier to use an existing registered party than to start a new one), but this time there is a focus on environmental issues.
  
• Yashar: This party supports direct democracy, and has developed an app so that party members can vote on how their Knesset representatives should vote on bills.
  
• Zechuyoteinu B'Koleinu: Their signature issue is the working conditions of law-enforcement officers.
  
• Zehut: This new party, founded by former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, combines right-wing positions on some issues (annexing the West Bank) with libertarian positions on others (legalizing marijuana).
  

Knesset April Madness 2019!

I know there haven't been any posts on this blog in years, but we're bringing it out of cold storage for... APRIL MADNESS 2019!!!  The Israeli election is coming up, and in the tradition of March Madness 2006, February Madness 2009, January Madness 2013, and March Madness 2015, we announce our fifth Knesset prediction pool!

How to Enter: Go to the April Madness link and put in your predictions for how many seats each of the 43 parties will win.  All predictions must be non-negative integers (0 is allowed), and your predictions must add up to 120. (For reasons discussed below, it is impossible for a party to win 1 or 2 seats, and unlikely that a party will win 3 seats.  However, if you choose to hedge your bets and guess that a given party will win 1, 2, or 3 seats, that is a legal entry in the contest.) Entrance is free, but there is a suggested donation of $10 to the organization of your choice dedicated to making Israel the best it can be. (If you win, feel free to share which organization you chose and why.)  Israeli citizens are encouraged to vote in the actual election as well.

The Rules (for the real election): The 43 parties have submitted ordered lists of candidates. Here is the full list of candidates in Hebrew, and lists of the parties in Arabic and English (I haven't seen an official source with the lists of candidates in English, but here's an unofficial list from Wikipedia). On election day (April 9), Israeli citizens will go to polling places in and near Israel, and vote for a party (not for individual candidates). All parties that win at least 3.25% of the vote will win seats in the Knesset, proportional to their share of the vote.  For example, suppose the Pirate Party wins 1% of the vote, Na Nach wins 33%, and Justice for All wins 66%. Then the Pirate Party wins no seats in the Knesset (since they were below the 3.25% threshold), and the other parties will proportionally split the 120 Knesset seats: Na Nach gets 40 seats (so the top 40 candidates on its list are elected), and The Justice for All gets 80 seats. If vacancies arise later in the term, there are no special elections – the next candidate on the party’s list (e.g. #41 on the Na Nach list) enters the Knesset. It is mathematically impossible for more than 30 parties to win seats in the Knesset (so at least 13 will be left out).

The Rules (for the April Madness pool): The deadline to enter is Monday, April 8, 2019, at 11:59 pm Israel Summer Time (4:59 pm EDT). When the final election results are published, each entry will receive a score based on how many Knesset seats were predicted correctly. For example, suppose the results are as in the above example (Justice for All 80, Na Nach 40). I predicted 60 seats for Na Nach, 50 for Justice for All, and 10 for Yashar. Then my score is 90, since I correctly predicted 40 seats for Na Nach and 50 seats for Justice for All.  The entry with the highest score wins!

Ties will be broken based on two tiebreaker questions:
1) Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?
2) Which party will get the FEWEST votes?

The tiebreakers will be resolved in this order: exact match on question 1; exact match on question 2; closest on question 1 (if you picked a party that DOES win seats, you’re out of consideration for this one); closest on question 2.

Sometime soon, we’ll put up a post with descriptions of all the parties and links to their websites.

Good luck!!!!

#TBT: “Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism” at 10

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

Ten years ago this week, I posted “Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism” to Mah Rabu, a new blog that was just a couple months old. It was a golden age of blogging in general, and Jewish blogging in particular. Twitter didn’t exist yet; Thefacebook existed but was just for college students; blogs were where it was at.

This post, framed as a “work in progress”, defined three different “stages” of Jewish pluralism:

• Stage 1: “Frummest common denominator”
• Stage 2: “Let’s make everyone comfortable”
• Stage 3: Identity

The taxonomy came about as a result of my experiences with multiple Jewish communities that were all trying to be pluralistic, but in practice meant very different things by “pluralism”. Defining these stages was a way to articulate these different approaches to Jewish pluralism, and also a way to highlight the ways in which some views are marginalized and silenced by some forms of pluralistic discourse.

This part has often been misunderstood, but the taxonomy classifies pluralistic discourse, not pluralistic outcomes. It’s not about what the community ends up doing, but about how it gets there. So, for example, a Stage-1 pluralistic community might have identical practices to a non-pluralistic community, but the difference is that in one community, those practices are adopted because they are perceived to be a “common denominator” that is acceptable to everyone even though it is recognized that everyone has differing individual practices, while in the other community, those practices are adopted because they are seen as the norm for the community.

“Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism” seemed to arrive at a time when it was needed, and it became more influential than I ever expected; to this day I still hear about pluralistic Jewish organizations that are assigning it as required reading. It also became the backbone of the theoretical framework of the Hilchot Pluralism series, which became a place to systematically document and analyze pluralistic practices in the independent Jewish world.

So, 10 years later, do I still agree with it? Yes and no.

I still stand by almost every word in the original post. I think the categories themselves are still useful, and accurate enough as descriptions of different modes of discourse. I think the shortcomings of Stages 1 and 2, and the challenges of Stage 3, are still relevant.

Where my thinking has changed is in labeling the categories as “stages”. That’s the part of the original post that had the weakest support – I had plenty of data (from my own experiences) about how different pluralistic communities operate, but not so much longitudinal data about communities that actually changed their approaches. Two separate influences made me revisit the “stage” structure: 1) I’ve been involved in pluralistic decision-making in communities that were grappling with multiple pluralism issues, and have seen that it’s not always possible to take a uniform approach to all issues, because of the differing nature of those issues. 2) The original taxonomy was modeled after educational theories such as Piaget’s stages. Since then, my understanding of educational theory has become deeper (10 years ago I was a high school physics teacher, and now I have a Ph.D. in physics education research), and critiques of Piaget are also valid critiques of “Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism”.

Why aren’t “stages” the right description? Because this description implies that a given community is in a single stage of pluralism (or non-pluralism) at any one moment in time, and takes a single approach to pluralistic discourse around all issues that may come up. But that’s not how any community really works. Every community has issues around which it does not attempt to be pluralistic. And on issues where a community does consider itself pluralistic, it’s possible for the same community to take a Stage-1 approach to some questions and a Stage-3 approach to others. Multiple “stages” can coexist at the same time. (It’s also possible that some people in a community will try to argue for a position using discourse from one stage, while others use discourse from another. If this isn’t identified, it can lead to people talking past one another.)

For those who want to see their communities take a Stage-3 approach to pluralism, this more fragmented picture can be seen in a half-empty or a half-full way. The half-empty perspective is that even when you think you’re in a Stage-3 commmunity, the other “stages” never really go way. But the half-full perspective is that if you want to move a community towards Stage 3, you don’t have to do it all at once; this can happen one issue at a time (even if there are some issues where other “stages” are more entrenched).

What are the ways that you find it useful to think about Jewish pluralism in 2015?

March Madness 2015: Guide to the Parties

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

There's a week left until the Israeli election, which means there's less than a week to enter March Madness 2015!  To aid in the process of making your picks, here is a guide to the 26 parties running in the election, as we have done in the past.  We include links to their websites if we can find them (English if available, otherwise Hebrew if available, otherwise Arabic if available).  The full candidate lists are available in Hebrew.  Again, we're using the translations of the party names from the official election website (whether or not these are the most accurate translations).

Those who have been following past Israeli elections might notice that, while 26 sounds like a lot, this is actually the fewest parties we have seen in a long time.  There are two likely reasons for this: 1) The new election threshold of 3.25% has forced smaller parties to consolidate.  2) It has only been 2 years since the last election, so there has been less time for new parties to form.

Parties represented in the current Knesset:

• Habayit Hayehudi: This far-right party, with links to the (overlapping) settlement movement and Religious Zionist movement, first ran in its current configuration in 2013, with Naftali Bennett at the head, and he is running at the top of the list again.  Habayit Hayehudi was a key coalition partner in the current Knesset, and will likely be again if Netanyahu forms the next government.
• Joint Arab List: An alliance of 3 Arab parties (United Arab List, Ta'al, and Balad), and the left-wing Arab-Jewish party Hadash.  It was forced into existence by the new election threshold, since Hadash and Balad each got less than 3.25% of the vote in the last election, and the combined UAL-Ta'al list got slightly more, so all the parties feared for their survival.  As a result, it is diverse, comprising factions from the Islamic Movement to the Communist Party (no, Fox News, those aren't the same thing).  At the head is the new Hadash leader, former Haifa city councilmember Ayman Odeh.
• Likud: The Likud is led once again by (and strongly identified with) incumbent PM Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, who hopes to become the first person since Ben-Gurion to be elected to a fourth term as prime minister. Whether he will succeed depends not only on how many seats the Likud wins, but on whether the right-of-center (and haredi) parties collectively add up to 61 seats.
• Meretz – Israel's Left: Meretz is on the left with respect to both Israeli-Palestinian issues and domestic issues, and is led again by Zahava Gal-On.  They're hoping to block Netanyahu from forming the next government.
• Shas: It's the first election since the death of founder R. Ovadiah Yosef, and the Sephardi haredi party has been beset by internal struggles, between Eli Yishai (who led the party through the 2000s) and Aryeh Deri (who led the party through the 1990s, went to prison, and returned to the Knesset in the last election).  Deri won out, and Yishai left to start his own party (see Yachad, below).  But then posthumous recordings were released in which R. Yosef said bad things about Deri.  Humiliated, Deri resigned from the lame-duck Knesset, but he's still at the top of the Shas list for the election, so he'll be back.
• United Torah Judaism: In an election campaign filled with mergers, splits, and other excitement, the Ashkenazi haredi party is the island of stability.  They have 7 incumbent MKs, and those men (all men, of course) are filling the first 7 spots on the party list.  Yaakov Litzman is at the top of the list for the 5th time.
• Yachad: After losing the leadership of Shas (see above), Eli Yishai started a new party.  While its platform shares some issues with Shas, Yachad is more of a right-wing party than a standard haredi party, recruiting candidates such as MK Yoni Chetboun (who left Habayit Hayehudi over their support for the haredi draft bill) and Baruch Marzel (of the far-right Otzma Leyisrael party).  Its platform calls for the annexation of the territories and for a greater role for religion in the state (but also for protecting the environment and reducing economic inequality).
• Yesh Atid: This party, focusing on social and economic issues, was new in the 2013 election and came out of nowhere to win 19 seats (which actually makes them the largest party in the current lame-duck Knesset, following the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu split and some other shifts).  Party leader Yair Lapid served in the government as Finance Minister, but was fired by PM Netanyahu after public disagreements, leading to the collapse of the coalition and to this election.
• Yisrael Beiteinu: This right-wing party with a Russian immigrant base, led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, ran on a joint list with the Likud in the last election, but the two factions split last summer during the Gaza war (Lieberman was concerned that Netanyahu's response was not hardline enough).  In recent months, a number of senior party members have been implicated in a corruption scandal.
• Zionist Camp: A center-left alliance between Labor (which leads the opposition in the current Knesset) and Hatenuah (which was part of the coalition until Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was fired from the government).  Under the agreement creating the joint list, if the Zionist Camp forms the next government, Labor leader Yitzchak Herzog will serve as prime minister for 2 years, followed by Hatenuah's Livni (if, of course, the government lasts 4 years).

Parties not represented in the current Knesset:

• Arab List: Not to be confused with the Joint Arab List (whose name in Hebrew and Arabic is just the Joint List, but voters could still get confused), this party brings together other Arab Israeli factions that didn't enter the Joint List.  It was founded by former MKs Taleb a-Sana of the Arab Democratic Party (formerly one of the factions within the United Arab List) and Muhammad Kanan of the Arab National Party (a breakaway from the UAL).  However, a-Sana has since endorsed the Joint List.
• Democratura: This party, founded by Doron Hakimi (author of Who is Muhammad? and other books), proposes a new constitution for Israel that would elect each MK from a geographic district.
• Green Leaf: As usual, their signature issue is marijuana legalization, and their tag line this year is "Proud of my choice".  This time, their platform also emphasizes health care.  They broke 1% of the vote in the last election, but that didn't make the election threshold.
• Green Party: The Green Party focuses on environmental issues, and has had some success at the local level, but it has never been elected to the Knesset.  This year, they originally submitted their party list under the name "The Greens Don't Give a [possibly untranslatable]", but this name was rejected by the Central Elections Committee.
• Hope for Change: An Arab party that supports full equality and integration for Arab Israelis.  In the 2013 election, they came in second to last.
• Kulanu: In almost every election, there seems to be a new party that exceeds expectations by attracting voters who are disaffected with the conventional left-right spectrum.  It was Gil in 2006, Yesh Atid in 2013, and Kulanu hopes to be that party this year.  Kulanu was founded by former Likud MK Moshe Kahlon, who served as Communications Minister and deregulated the cell phone market.  Prominent first-time Knesset candidates include Michael Oren (former ambassador to the US) and Rachel Azaria (deputy mayor of Jerusalem).  The platform focuses on economic issues and transparency.
• Light: A secular party calling for separation of religion and state, and universal military or national service.
• Perach: Shefa, Bracha, Chaim Veshalom: The name means "Flower: Abundance, Blessing, Life, and Peace", and it's a haredi party based in Beit Shemesh.  You can join the party as a Copper Club, Silver Club, Golden Club, or global Diamond Club member.  They're not aiming high: they have only 5 candidates on their list.
• Protecting Our Children – Stopping to Feed Them Pornography:  A better translation, of course, would be "Stop Feeding Them Pornography"; amusingly, this sounds like the opposite!  The name sums up the platform.  UPDATE: The party has dropped out and endorsed Habayit Hayehudi.
• Rent with Honor: This party calls for more direct democracy, including giving voters the power to recall Knesset members and to propose Knesset bills.
• Social Leadership: It ran last time under the name "Moreshet Avot", and finished in last place.  Party leader Ilan Meshicha Yar-Zanbar has pledged to donate most of his Knesset salary to the needy, and has suggested that MKs should be paid minimum wage.
• The (Temporary) National Team: They oppose corruption and economic inequality, and call for returning wealth and power to the people.  I think the "temporary" part of the party name is meant to indicate that they don't intend to be career politicians, but it's not entirely clear to me.
• The Economics Party: This party was founded by American-born brothers Danny and Benny Goldstein.  This time around, the brothers have had some disputes, leaving Danny in the #1 spot on the list, and Benny all the way down at #5.  The platform focuses on economic reforms.
• The Pirates: ARRRR!  They're not actual pirates, but they're connected to the Pirate Parties in various European countries.  The party leader, Ohad Shem-Tov, lives in New York and is not planning to return to Israel to vote.  This time they are calling themselves the "petek lavan" (blank ballot), suggesting that they are a protest vote.
• Ubezchutan – Haredi Women Making a Change: No, that's not a typo for Uzbekistan; "uvizchutan" means "and by their (f.) merits".  This party was founded by haredi women to protest the exclusion of women candidates from the major haredi parties.  Not surprisingly, it has stirred controversy in the haredi world.
• We Are All Friends: The Na Nach party is back!  Their campaign slogan this time is "Im tirtzu" ("If you will it"), and the platform is about the power of positive thinking.  (Since the name of the party in Hebrew is "Kulanu Haveirim", will some voters mix them up with Kulanu?)

Good luck!  One more week to enter!

Knesset March Madness 2015!

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

The Israeli election is around the corner, which means that it’s time for… MARCH MADNESS 2015!  From the people who brought you March Madness 2006, February Madness 2009, and January Madness 2013, we announce our fourth Knesset prediction pool!

How to Enter: Go to the Knesset March Madness link and put in your predictions for how many seats each of the 26 parties will win. (We’re using the English names of the parties from the official Knesset website, even though some of them are ridiculous translations and transliterations.)  All predictions must be non-negative integers (0 is allowed), and your predictions must add up to 120. (For reasons discussed below, it is impossible for a party to win 1 or 2 seats, and unlikely that a party will win 3 seats.  However, if you choose to hedge your bets and guess that a given party will win 1, 2, or 3 seats, that is a legal entry in the contest.) Entrance is free, but there is a suggested donation of $10 to the organization of your choice dedicated to making Israel the best it can be. (If you win, feel free to share which organization you chose and why.)  Israeli citizens are encouraged to vote in the actual election as well.

Prizes: The winners will get to choose from among several prizes:

• A signed copy of Aryeh Bernstein’s hiphop album, A Roomful of Ottomans, which includes the anthemic Israeli politics banger, “City of David”
• Loving the Real Israel: An educational agenda for liberal Zionism by Alex Sinclair
• Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me by Harvey Pekar and JT Waldman
• A signed copy of Justice in the City: An Argument from the Sources of Rabbinic Judaism by Aryeh Cohen

In addition, the winner will be invited to make a statement to the world.

The Rules (for the real election): The 26 parties have submitted ordered lists of candidates. Here is the full list of candidates in Hebrew, and lists of the parties in Arabic and English (it’s possible that these links will be updated to include the candidates’ names as well). On election day (March 17), Israeli citizens will go to polling places in and near Israel, and vote for a party (not for individual candidates). All parties that win at least 3.25% of the vote will win seats in the Knesset, proportional to their share of the vote.  (This is a change for this election; the election threshold last time was 2%.)  For example, suppose The Pirates win 1% of the vote, Rent with Honor wins 33%, and The (Temporary) National Team wins 66%. Then The Pirates win no seats in the Knesset (since they were below the 3.25% threshold), and the other parties will proportionally split the 120 Knesset seats: Rent with Honor gets 40 seats (so the top 40 candidates on its list are elected), and The (Temporary) National Team gets 80 seats. If vacancies arise later in the term, there are no special elections – the next candidate on the party’s list (e.g. #41 on the Rent with Honor list) enters the Knesset. It is mathematically possible for all 26 parties to win seats in the Knesset; best of luck to you if you pick this outcome in the pool.

The Rules (for the March Madness pool): The deadline to enter is Monday, March 16, 2015, at 11:59 pm Israel Standard Time (4:59 pm EST). When the final election results are published, each entry will receive a score based on how many Knesset seats were predicted correctly. For example, suppose the results are as in the above example (The (Temporary) National Team 80, Rent with Honor 40). I predicted 60 seats for Rent with Honor, 50 for The (Temporary) National Team, and 10 for Perach. Then my score is 90, since I correctly predicted 40 seats for Rent with Honor and 50 seats for The (Temporary) National Team.  The entry with the highest score wins!

Ties will be broken based on two tiebreaker questions:
1) Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?
2) Which party will get the FEWEST votes?

The tiebreakers will be resolved in this order: exact match on question 1; exact match on question 2; closest on question 1 (if you picked a party that DOES win seats, you’re out of consideration for this one); closest on question 2.

Sometime soon, we’ll put up a post with descriptions of all the parties and links to their websites.

Good luck!!!!

Mid-decade update

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

Now that we're into Cheshvan, it's time for a mid-decade update!

Four years ago, we noted that for the entire decade of the 2010s, there are only two patterns of Hebrew years:  Rosh Hashanah on Monday and on Thursday.  This means that most or all of the fall holidays are on weekdays for the entire decade, and 4 of the last 5 years have included a string of 3 "3-day yom tovs" for the 2-day yom tov folks.

We made the following prediction:  This decade, and especially this half-decade, will see lots of 2-day-yom tov people switching over to 1 day.

Now that the 2010s are half over (in regard to major Jewish holidays), it's time to assess whether this prediction has been accurate so far.

I'm not claiming that this is scientific data collection methodology, but I'm calling for anecdata.

In the last 5 years, did you switch from 2-day yom tov to 1-day?  If so, post in the comments.

And to be fair (and to assess, again unscientifically, whether there has been a real shift or just a dynamic equilibrium) we'll ask the opposite question too:  In the last 5 years, did you switch from 1-day yom tov to 2-day?

A few guidelines:

• If you don't want to out yourself and post under your real name, that's fine, but then please use a pseudonym (not just "Anonymous") so that we can count unique individuals.
• Switches to or from 0 days of yom tov don't count (that's measuring something different).
• We're asking about what you do when you're outside of Israel.
• We're not asking about Rosh Hashanah.
• We realize that people aren't always completely consistent, and that practices can vary based on the situation.  Answer based on which practice you primarily identify with.

Thanks for your cooperation!  I'll ask the same questions in 5 years, if blogs are still around.

Internal monologue

Lonely (and whiny) internal monologue upon the latest of many recent widely discussed articles on streams of American Judaism:
"It's great that this discussion is happening, but why is no one writing about my form of Judaism?"
"Because I don't have time to blog anymore."

"Independent minyanim" in 1985

A late-breaking update has been added to this old post on the history of the term "independent minyan".  Scroll down to the bottom.

Notes on the Pew survey

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

The Pew Research survey, “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” released yesterday, has received a lot of attention in both the Jewish and the mainstream media. I don’t have anything more to add about the results themselves; many pages have already been written in the last 48 hours. But after reading both the data and some of the spin, I have several comments about what we can and can’t conclude from the data.

1) Orthodox Retention

There has been discussion of the retention rates among various age cohorts of Orthodox Jews, i.e. what percentage of Jews raised as Orthodox currently identify as Orthodox. This percentage is significantly higher among the younger age cohorts than among the older cohorts, leading some to conclude that the Orthodox world is more effective at retention at the present time than in the past.

This conclusion is not supported by the data. Let us consider an alternate hypothesis: The attrition rate of Orthodox Jews has remained constant over time. What results would we expect from this hypothesis? The percentage of raised-Orthodox Jews who currently identify as Orthodox should decrease with increasing age (since older people have had more time to leave Orthodoxy), and this is in fact what we see in the data. But we can be more precise in our predictions from this model: The percentage should decay exponentially.

To test this, I fit the numbers to an exponential curve. I made the following assumptions and simplifications (which were quick-and-dirty, but you can try it yourself with different assumptions): I assumed that 100% of Orthodox-raised Jews identified as Orthodox at age 18 (and all attrition occurred after this). I collapsed each age range (e.g. 18-29) to a single data point at the center of the age range. For the highest age group (65+), I assumed it went up to 90.

The result was that the data fit the exponential very closely (R² = 0.9932), with an attrition rate of about 2.4% per year:


Of course we can’t conclude that there has in fact been a steady rate of attrition either! My point is just that this would be consistent with the data. There are many possibilities – it would also be consistent with the data that everyone who leaves Orthodoxy leaves during their 20s (which would mean that the attrition rate is in fact much lower for the current 20somethings). There’s just no way to determine from these data (which only provide a snapshot of the present time) which model is correct, without data from past generations.

2) Denominational Identification

First of all, the exact question asked on the phone survey was “Thinking about Jewish religious denominations, do you consider yourself to be [RANDOMIZE: Conservative, Orthodox, Reform] something else, or no particular denomination?” (Kudos to the survey writers for randomizing the order of denominations! Shame on the report writers, who did not randomize or alphabetize the order when reporting the results.) So the survey participants were asked about denominational self-identification. Any discussion of the results (whether by Pew itself or by the media) that references denominational affiliation is not accurately reporting the results; there was no question that asked about denominational affiliation.

This distinction is particularly important when it comes to the “Reform” label. Reform Jewish identity is complex and multifaceted, but there are many people for whom the “Reform” label doesn’t mean affiliation with the Reform movement or affinity to Reform Judaism as a system of religious belief and practice; it means “I don’t do anything; I’m Reform[ed].”

This phenomenon is supported by the survey data themselves: 20% of the “Jews with no religion” category (i.e. people who first described their religion as “none”, then answered in response to a followup question that they consider themselves Jewish aside from religion) identified as “Reform”. Of all the Jews who identified as “Reform”, only 34% are synagogue members (so this category does not represent URJ members), and 16% said that they never attend Jewish services (including high holidays).

This means that any results about the “Reform” population have to be taken with a grain of salt, and can’t be translated into generalizations about Reform Judaism or the Reform movement. This goes both for the results that make Reform look bad (e.g. low rates of Hebrew literacy or of seeing being Jewish as very important) and for the results that make Reform look good (being the largest denomination and having the highest “retention” rate).

What we can conclude is not that Reform Jews are likely to be Jewishly inactive in various ways, but that people who are Jewishly inactive in various ways are much more likely to identify as “Reform” than any of the other denominational labels.

3) Intermarriage

The intermarriage rates are based on the percentage of the “net Jewish” population, i.e. those who consider themselves Jewish. Now that there has been substantial intermarriage for more than one generation, there are many people who were raised by one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent and who have gotten married themselves. Such people may identify as Jewish or as non-Jewish, or may be on the fence. It’s probably fair to assume that people who are on the fence are more likely to marry non-Jews than people who identify unequivocally as Jewish.

Therefore, in the same way that unscrupulous school administrators can improve their average test scores and graduation rates by getting rid of students who are likely to lower those stats, Jewish leaders who want to lower the intermarriage rate may be motivated (consciously or otherwise) to alienate intermarried families so that their children don’t identify as Jewish (so that if those children go on to marry non-Jews, it won’t count as an intermarriage). This may explain the behavior of some parts of the Jewish community.

Note also that the intermarriage rates by denomination are based on current self-identification. If someone was raised Orthodox and then marries a non-Jew, it is unlikely that s/he currently identifies as Orthodox. Given that, the most surprising part of the 2% Orthodox intermarriage rate is that it’s so high – these are Jews who are married to non-Jews and continue to identify as Orthodox.

Finally, the intermarriage statistics are only for current, intact marriages. Therefore, the apparent rise in intermarriage over time may be somewhat misleading. The report notes that “some research indicates that “in-marriages” (marriages between people of the same religion) tend to be more durable than intermarriages; if this is the case, then the percentage of intermarriages in the 1970s and 1980s may have been higher than it appears from looking only at intact marriages today.”

4) Money

One result that raised some eyebrows was that only 76% of Ultra-Orthodox respondents refrain from using money on Shabbat (suggesting that 24% do use money on Shabbat). The explanation for this may be simple: The question wording was “Do you personally refrain from handling or spending money on the Jewish Sabbath, or not? [INTERVIEWER NOTE: IF ASKED, “REFRAIN” MEANS TO NOT DO SOMETHING]” This double negative may have been confusing (especially for respondents whose first language wasn’t English), and the clarification was only for people who requested it. Some significant number of Ultra-Orthodox respondents may have answered “no”, thinking they were saying “No, I don’t handle or spend money on Shabbat.”

Response to H'zon

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

I hope everyone had a great New Year of the Trees! Several days ago, the Jewish environmental organization H’zon put up (and sent to their email list) a blog post defending their practice of incorrectly referring to the holiday as “Tu B’Shvat”. (h/t to commenter Joel for “H’zon”.)

A review of why this is incorrect: In Hebrew, a word may not begin with two shevas. (A sheva is the vowel that looks like a colon underneath the letter; depending on context, it is pronounced either not at all or like the English schwa.) Therefore, if one of the prefixes b-, k-, or l- is placed on a word beginning with a sheva, the prefix letter gets a chirik (the “ee” vowel, represented by a single dot under the letter) instead of a sheva. For example, the name of the month of Sh’vat (uniquely among all the Hebrew months) begins with a sheva, so when the prefix B- is attached to the month, you get Bishvat (or BiShvat or biShvat or Bi-Shvat or BeeShvat — however you want to write it).

To be clear, this is a Hebrew grammar issue; it is NOT a transliteration issue. The issue has nothing to do with the choice of which English characters are used to represent each Hebrew letter and vowel — the same issue would come up in vocalized Hebrew, in which בִּשְׁבָט is correct and בְּשְׁבָט is incorrect. (In unvocalized Hebrew, of course, the difference is invisible.) As a parallel, suppose your organization sent out an email (in English) around the new year (the tree one or any other one) saying “Shanah tov!” If someone then responded “Actually, it should be ‘shanah tovah’, since ‘shanah’ is a feminine noun, so it should take a feminine adjective”, you wouldn’t reply “Hey, you’re entitled to your preference, but there’s no right or wrong way to transliterate Hebrew into English characters.” It should be obvious that such a reply would be a non sequitur, since noun-adjective agreement is obviously unrelated to transliteration – nothing would be different if the email had been in Hebrew and said שנה טוב, and then was corrected to שנה טובה.

In short, anyone who says this is a transliteration dispute either doesn’t understand the issue (and should defer to those who do) or is intentionally obfuscating.

With that in mind, here’s the story so far:

Around this time last year, I wrote a blog post, “The War on Tu Bishvat”, enumerating and responding to the top five rationalizations for “B’Shvat”/”B’Shevat”, and explaining why they are without merit, followed by a second blog post, “Tu Bishvat Halls of Fame and Shame”, which laid out who was on each side of the issue. I then had some unfortunate online interactions with H’zon, during which one of their staffers acted unprofessionally, and I wrote it up in a third blog post, “Hazon sinks deeper into the hall of shame”.

If you haven’t read those three blog posts (or even if you have), read them now before proceeding further.

H’zon didn’t read them before responding, and as a result, most of the points they make in their defense were already anticipated, and already responded to, a year ago in “The War on Tu Bishvat”. In fact, I think they managed to hit all five. So I’m not going to rehash all of those points again (only some of them).

They referred to me only as a “Jewish blogger”, and didn’t call me out by name (which I appreciate, since this isn’t about me), and likewise I’m not calling out the author of the H’zon post by name (even though the post was signed), because I otherwise respect this individual, and want to make it clear that this isn’t personal.

To be fair, I understand that H’zon may be under a lot of stress right now: they recently merged with the Is’bella Fr’dman J’wish R’tr’t C’nt’r, and it appears to already be a rocky marriage, since H'zon has just doubled down on “Tu B’Shvat”, while IF remains committed to “Tu B’Shevat” (which is even more wrong: while “Tu B’Shvat” may be marginally defensible as a transcription of how some people pronounce the name of the holiday, “Tu B’Shevat” doesn’t even have that going for it). Still, we’ll leave H’zon and Is’bella Fr’dman to work out their own differences; this post is targeted more at those who might be inclined to follow H’zon’s lead and change their style from the correct to the incorrect name of the holiday.

The first half of H’zon’s response is a long and irrelevant digression about academic transliteration, stating that “a certain kind of foolish consistency of academic transliteration can become the hobgoblin of little minds.” The opening paragraphs of this post (and item #1 in “The War on Tu Bishvat”) should make clear why this line of argument is a red herring. Those who are defending Tu Bishvat aren’t insisting on consistency in transliteration, or on any particular transliteration scheme, but only on the rules of Hebrew grammar. H’zon’s attack on the academic transliteration straw man suggests that either they don’t understand the grammatical issue (which is unlikely, because the later part of the post indicates that they do) or they are writing to appeal to those who don’t understand the issue.

H’zon then goes on to outline its reasons for spelling it “Tu B’Shvat”:

1. Finding a way in English to give a sense of the grammar/structure of the Hebrew. My problem with the “correct” transliteration in this instance is that “Bishvat” doesn’t in any way convey to a non-hebrew speaker that בשבט – b’shvat – is a prefix followed by the Hebrew month of Shvat. Tu B’Shvat is, to my mind, a much clearer conveying of what’s going on in the Hebrew than Tu Bishvat.

The idea that one must violate Hebrew grammar in order to convey the sense of Hebrew grammar is certainly a strange one, and one that we would never think of implementing in English. (“Yes, I realize that in a technical sense, ‘went’ would be more academically ‘correct’, but ‘goed’ helps convey that it’s the past tense of ‘go.’”)

And this violation is also entirely unnecessary. As mentioned in item #4 of “The War on Tu Bishvat”, there are plenty of grammatically correct ways to indicate that בשבט is a prefix followed by a month: BiShvat, biShvat, Bi-Shvat, bi-Shvat, Bi’Shvat (if you just can’t quit that apostrophe), Bee-Shvat, and many more. (All of these options, including the incorrect B’Shvat, go above and beyond what would be provided by Hebrew itself, which makes no indication that the bet is a prefix. But as long as English allows for capital and lowercase letters, and punctuation within a word, I agree with H’zon that there’s no reason not to take advantage of these features.)

In addition, properly speaking the first vowel in the word is a long e sound (bee-), although most Hebrew speakers slur that a bit in modern pronunciation. While the proper academic way to represent this vowel is the letter i, in spoken English bi- is never pronounced as bee (think about the words bit and bite). Furthermore, most words in English with bi- as a prefix pronounce it as a long vowel, such as in bilateral, which is not at all what is intended. Therefore, Tu B’Shvat represents a transliteration that a/ is easy to read, b/ visually sets apart the prefix, and c/ allows those not familiar with Hebrew grammar to approximate the typical Hebrew pronunciation.

H’zon can’t seriously think that English speakers outside of academia would have difficulty pronouncing “Bishvat”. Plenty of English words have the letter i pronounced as “ee”. Most of these are loan words from other languages rather than coming from Anglo-Saxon roots, but they have become common English words all the same. No English speakers have trouble pronouncing machine, radio, pizza, or bikini. (Ok, most of those words don’t have the string “bi”, but is there any reason to think the consonant b should make a difference?)

Furthermore, English-speaking Jews who are accustomed to seeing Hebrew transliteration (even if they don’t speak Hebrew) know that it’s a standard convention to read the vowels as in Spanish (or other languages with similar vowel sets), rather than as in English words of older vintage. H’zon knows this – on their own website they feature programs called Siach and the Shmita Project. They don’t feel the need to spell these as “S’ach” or “Shm’ta”, nor do they appear to be concerned that English speakers might pronounce the i vowels as “eye”. (And I’ve never heard anyone pronounce the commonly used nickname of the Israeli prime minister as “bye-bye”.)

Finally, if an English speaker doesn’t pronounce the i in Bishvat as “ee”, the next likeliest pronunciation would be the first syllable rhyming with “fish”, which would still be closer to (or at least no farther from) the Hebrew pronunciation than any reading of “B’Shvat” would be.

For all these reasons, H’zon’s claim that “B’Shvat” would lead readers to the correct pronunciation, while “Bishvat” is an ivory-tower affectation (like “qydwš”) that would baffle non-academic English speakers, is simply not plausible.

2. Common usage. On Google, tu b’shvat and tu b’shevat have between them 619,000 hits, whereas tu bishvat and tu bishevat have 431,600. (This may change over time: if ten years from now the grammar-police succeed in imposing bishvat or bishevat, then there would be some argument for us to cross-over; even then, I’d prefer not to lose a sense of prefix and month, as well as reflecting how a non-native Hebrew speaker pronounces English vowels.) Tu bee-shvat in comparison has fewer than 50 hits.
3. It’s how it was spelled when I was a kid. This last is of course the least defensible academically, and the most persuasive personally. I’ve been celebrating Tu B’Shvat since I was a kid, and I’ve been to or hosted Tu B’Shvat seders every year since 1986; and along the way, I’ve always spelled it – and mostly seen it spelled – Tu b’Shvat.

The idea that practices based on ignorance are justified because most people are ignorant, or because people have been ignorant for a long time, is a troubling epistemological stance for an environmental organization to encourage. Presumably H’zon generally wants its constituents to rethink widespread and longstanding problematic practices on their merits, rather than to leave those practices in place based on their popularity and longevity. But with this irresponsible blog post, H’zon has given its epistemological stamp of approval to anyone who might say “Most Americans drive everywhere and eat factory-farmed meat, and that’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid. And ‘meat’ gets a whole lot more Google hits than ‘tofu’. So why should I even think about switching to anything different, when that would put me in the minority? If ten years from now the treehugger police succeed in imposing a carbon tax, then there would be some argument for me to think about biking or public transportation, but even then I’m not sure I’d do it.” The thread of anti-intellectualism that runs through H’zon’s response, from the “academic transliteration” straw man to the “grammar-police”, is also playing with fire: this attitude aids and abets those who say “Sure, a bunch of egghead professors may tell us that the climate is changing, but why should I believe them instead of Fox News?”

H’zon then has the audacity to quote President Obama on climate change: “The path will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition. We must lead it.” Leadership, whether on climate change or on Hebrew grammar, means having the fortitude to do what is right (which includes admitting past mistakes) and to bring others along by example, rather than following the crowd. On this count, H’zon has failed. Rather than wait passively for others to correct themselves on this issue, H’zon has the power (and therefore the responsibility), as a pillar of the Jewish environmental movement, to lead that change. They have chosen to waste this power.

Perhaps H’zon will never evolve on this matter. If so, this post isn’t directed to H’zon, but to all of the environmentally-minded organizations and individuals who respect H’zon (even though this respect is unwarranted on this issue) and follow its lead. Think about the qualities that you want to embody in order to face this generation’s greatest challenges. If H’zon won’t provide leadership on this issue, you have the power to begin on your own.

January Madness results!

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

The final Knesset election results are in! (This guide may help if you can’t remember which party is which.)

1. Likud Beiteinu 31
2. Yesh Atid 19
3. Labor 15
4. Habayit Hayehudi (The Jewish Home) 12
5. Shas 11
6. United Torah Judaism 7
7. Hatenua 6
8. Meretz 6
9. United Arab List – Ta’al 4
10. Hadash 4
11. Balad 3
12. Kadima 2
13. Otzma Leyisrael
14. Am Shalem
15. Aleh Yarok (Green Leaf)
16. Koach Lehashpia
17. Eretz Hadasha
18. Hayisraelim
19. Greens
20. Dor Bonei Haaretz
21. Chaim Bechavod
22. Da’am – Workers Party
23. Tzedek Hevrati
24. Achim Anachnu (We Are Brothers)
25. Pirates
26. Kulanu Haverim Na Nach
27. Economics Party
28. Mitkademet Liberalit Democratit (Leeder)
29. Or (Light)
30. Brit Olam
31. Hatikva Leshinui
32. Moreshet Avot

(“But wait!” you say. “This is only 32 parties! I thought there were 34!” That’s right. The breakaway haredi party Netzach dropped out last week, having resolved its differences with United Torah Judaism. Atid Echad (One Future) also dropped out two days before the election – apparently pornography wasn’t at the top of anyone’s list of issues in this election.)

So first of all, congratulations to everyone who participated in January Madness 2013! Given how unpredictable Israeli elections can be, it takes a lot of courage to make a prediction and put it out there in public. No one correctly predicted all 120 Knesset seats, but everyone got some of them right.

But even more so, congratulations to the winners!!! Both Lev Polinsky in New York NY and Eyal in Israel correctly predicted 112 of the 120 Knesset seats. (While no one predicted that Yesh Atid would win 19 seats, Lev Polinsky came the closest, with 15.)

So we had to go to tiebreakers. On the first tiebreaker (which party that doesn’t make it into the Knesset will come closest?), Lev Polinsky guessed Am Shalem and Eyal guessed the Greens. Since neither picked the right-wing Otzma Leyisrael (instead, both of them incorrectly predicted that Otzma Leyisrael would win Knesset seats), we go to the second tiebreaker (which party will come in last place?). Again, no exact matches: Lev Polinsky picked Kulanu Haverim, and Eyal picked Eretz Hadasha. So now we go back to the first tiebreaker. Since Am Shalem (2nd place among the parties that didn’t make it in) did better than the Greens (7th place), Eyal wins second place, and Lev Polinsky is the 2013 January Madness champion!

Here is a message from our champion (who also wins a copy of the Comic Torah):

I am thrilled to have won, and I will print and display my winner’s certificate proudly alongside my HRH Assassin winner’s certificate – also won under BZ’s supervision. I hope he gets a job as the head of the Multi-State Lottery Association soon.

I enjoyed having an excuse to learn about all the marginal Israeli parties, like Kadima. I look forward to repeating this exercise in a few months.

Finally, I have been negligent in making my suggested contribution, so if people want to make suggestions for places to contribute in the comments, I am all ears.

And a message from our runner-up, who also wins a copy of Ghettoblaster:

I was really surprised to win. All i did was look at Wikipedia’s list of predictions, and basically used that. I changed it a bit, adding a bit to the right, which might explain why i missed 8. But i still never expected to get 93⅓%!

They had a warning that it might not add up to 120 seats, so to check, i wrote a short program to prepare it for addition – replace whitespace with +; then i pasted into Google. I’m actually a pretty good programmer; i created typeint.com and the associated projects from scratch; and i also host a forum for programmers at coders-shed.com. Speaking of TypeINT, i’m sure that some readers have needed to type in Hebrew, but were unsure how to. TypeR, by TypeINT is the perfect solution.

I hope that the 19th Kenneset proves some early predictions wrong and doesn’t end a disaster.

Finally, honorable mention goes to everyone who got the tiebreaker questions right. On the first tiebreaker question, congratulations to James Bier in Tucson AZ, David in Philadelphia, David Meyer in College Park MD, Mike Schultz in Karmiel, Tzemah, and Eliana in DC, all of whom picked Otzma Leyisrael as the top party not to make it over the threshold. On the second question, congratulations to David W. Eisen in Bet Shemesh and Ethan Tucker in Bronx NY, who predicted that Moreshet Avot would come in last. (I never could figure out what Moreshet Avot’s story was, and apparently neither could anyone else, except for 461 voters.) And since we didn’t get the news about the two parties dropping out in time to remove them from the contest entrance form, we’ll also give honorable mention to James Bier in Tucson AZ (again) and Itamar Landau in Jerusalem, both of whom picked One Future to come in last place (since one could argue that 0 is less than 461). (The most popular choice for this question was the Pirate Party. They weren’t even in the bottom seven! The lesson is never underestimate pirates.)

Thanks for playing, everyone! The next Knesset election will be Tuesday, November 7, 2017 (yes, that’s also Election Day in US jurisdictions that hold elections in odd-numbered years), unless elections are called earlier than that (which they almost certainly will).

Thanksgivukkah FAQ

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

As many of you know by now, November 28, 2013, will be both (American) Thanksgiving and the 1st day of Chanukah! The possibilities are endless: deep-fried turkey; latkes with cranberry sauce and gravy; pumpkin sufganiot; I’m sure you have more in mind. This week an article by Jonathan Mizrahi on this calendar issue has been making the rounds. It has some excellent graphs illustrating both the rarity of Thanksgivukkah in our present era and the long-term drift of the calendar that will make Thanksgivukkah impossible in the future, but it somewhat overstates its primary claim that Chanukah and Thanksgiving are “a once in eternity overlap”. This FAQ answers some questions that this article has inspired in various other forums, and corrects a few nuances.

Many thanks to Stephen P. Morse for creating an excellent tool to answer calendar questions quickly (though if he’s reading this, I’d love to see the capability of going beyond 9999 CE, and of distinguishing between Adar and Adar I), and to Remy Landau for providing the raw data on the Rosh Hashanah drift (though if he’s reading this, what’s with the popup ads?).

If you have questions that aren’t answered here, we’ll try to answer them in the comments (and if there are a lot, we’ll put together a sequel).

1. What is causing the long-term drift in the calendar?

You’ll notice from Mizrahi’s graph that the Jewish holidays shift significantly from one year to the next (like seasonal variations in the weather), but also (on average) slowly drift later over long time periods (like climate change). The year-to-year shifts are because the Hebrew calendar is primarily a lunar calendar, and 12 lunar months are approximately 354 days – much shorter than the solar year of ~365.25 days. Without any correction, the Jewish holidays would continue to move ~11 days earlier every year. (This is what happens with the Islamic calendar, in which every year is 12 lunar months without exception, so over several decades the Muslim holidays traverse the entire solar year.) In order to keep the Jewish holidays roughly aligned with the solar year (so that Pesach is always in spring, etc.), an month is added every few years, so Jewish “leap years” have 13 lunar months instead. As the Greek astronomer Meton discovered, 235 lunar months (=19*12 + 7) are approximately equal to 19 solar years, so if we put the calendar on a 19-year cycle, and add an extra month to 7 out of every 19 years, it mostly works out.

BUT NOT EXACTLY. 235 lunar months add up to 6939 days 16 hours 595 parts. (In Jewish calendar math, “parts” are the basic subdivisions of an hour, instead of minutes and seconds. There are 1080 parts in an hour, so 595 parts is about 33 minutes.) In the Gregorian calendar, 19 solar years (on average) are 6939 days 14 hours 626 parts. That’s about a 2-hour difference. So the Jewish holidays (on average) shift about 2 hours later during each 19-year cycle, which adds up to a full day every 231 years.


2. Is this an issue of Julian vs. Gregorian calendars?

Not really. 19 Julian years (on average) are 6939 days 18 hours. So if the Gregorian calendar is closest to the actual solar year, the Jewish calendar is doing better than the Julian calendar at approximating it (but still not well enough). (Think of it this way: By definition, the Julian calendar deviates from the Gregorian calendar by 3 days every 400 years. The Jewish calendar deviates by slightly less than 2 days in the same time period.)


3. But there’s some mechanism in place to correct this drift before it gets out of hand, right?

Nope. If no action is taken, the Jewish calendar will continue to drift later and later, until Pesach is in summer, Rosh Hashanah is in winter, etc. And it’s not clear how any action could be taken, since there’s no Jewish pope or Sanhedrin or any sort of body empowered to act on behalf of the whole Jewish people. But on the bright side, (as Mizrahi mentions) if we wait tens of thousands of years, we’ll loop all the way around to where we started.

The Catholics do have a pope, and so even though Easter is on a similar 19-year cycle, they’ve instituted corrections to keep it from drifting. Easter and Pesach usually coincide, but in the years when they’re a month apart instead, let’s just say it’s not Easter’s fault.



4. If we did take action to fix the calendar drift, what would that look like?

Generally speaking, over the long term, we’d need a way to have (very) slightly fewer leap years. I’ll get into specific proposals in a future post.


5. If November 28 is the earliest possible Chanukah, does that mean all the other holidays in 2013 are the earliest they can be?

Yes! We’re also getting the earliest Purim (February 24), Pesach (March 26), Shavuot (May 15), Rosh Hashanah (September 5), and the other fall holidays.

However, because of the aforementioned calendar drift, this is true only locally, for the present couple of centuries. The earliest Rosh Hashanah used to be September 4 (which means Purim on February 23, and so on for the rest of the holidays), but that happened for the last time in 1766. The last September 5 Rosh Hashanah (until we loop all the way around, of course) will be in 2089; after that, the earliest will be September 6.


6. Chanukah is never early or late – it always starts on the 25th of Kislev! Ha ha!

Yuk yuk yuk. You’re very clever, and showing your allegiance to Jewish time rather than to the surrounding culture. But the solar year is an actual physical thing, not an arbitrary convention of the secular calendar (even if the months of January, February, etc., are arbitrary) – it corresponds to the earth’s orbit around the sun, and therefore to many readily observable features of the seasons. The architects of the Jewish calendar understood this, and that was why they instituted leap years, to make sure the season-dependent Jewish holidays ended up in their proper seasons. The concept of “the holidays are early this year” would have been very familiar to the rabbis of the Talmud (even if their response of “Do you think we should add an extra Adar?” would be unfamiliar to us).


7. Is it true that Thanksgiving has never fallen during Chanukah before?

It’s true that, since Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863, no day of Chanukah has fallen on the 4th Thursday in November. But Thanksgiving wasn’t always on the 4th Thursday in November: originally, it was on the last Thursday in November (which could be either the 4th or 5th Thursday, depending on how many Thursdays were in November). The change happened under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, starting in 1939. (The motivation was to start the Christmas shopping season a week earlier, to help stimulate the economy. Can you imagine a time when the Christmas shopping season never started before Thanksgiving?) The original range for Thanksgiving was November 24-30; the current range is November 22-28.

And sure enough, there were two Thanksgivukkahs in the late 19th century, both on the 5th Thursday in November. Thursday, November 29, 1888, was the 1st day of Chanukah, and Thursday, November 30, 1899 was the 4th day of Chanukah.


8. If November 30 was the 4th day, that means Chanukah started on November 27! How is that possible?

Good question! After all, September 5 is the earliest possible Rosh Hashanah (and indeed, September 5, 1899, was Rosh Hashanah), and has been since 1766. And as we know from 2013, September 5 Rosh Hashanah corresponds to November 28! What’s the deal?

The answer is that, while all the holidays between Adar and Cheshvan have a fixed relationship (since all the months in between have a fixed number of days), Chanukah is different, since Cheshvan can have either 29 or 30 days. In “applesauce years”, Cheshvan has 30 days, and Chanukah begins on the same day of the week as Rosh Hashanah (as it will in 2013). In “sour cream years”, Cheshvan has 29 days, and Chanukah begins one day earlier, on the same day of the week as Shavuot. 1899 was a sour cream year, so Chanukah began one day earlier, on November 27.

However, Shavuot can never fall on Thursday, so Chanukah can never fall on a November 27 Thanksgiving.


9. Have there been any other November 27 Chanukahs since then?

No. 1899 was the last one, and will be the last one (until we loop around again).


10. Is it true that Thanksgiving will never again overlap with Chanukah?

Never say never. As Mizrahi points out, it will happen again in 70,000 years or so, when the calendar loops all the way around.


11. Ok, but seriously, what about during our (or our grandchildren’s) lifetimes?

After 2013, if we ignore what happens 70,000+ years in the future (and assume the rule for the date of Thanksgiving stays the same), Thanksgiving will never again fall completely during Chanukah.
However, Chanukah begins at sundown, and my family does Thanksgiving dinner in the evening (though I know not everyone does). And though the 1st day (or any other day) of Chanukah won’t fall on Thanksgiving again in the near-to-medium future, we’ll have a couple more instances when the first night of Chanukah is on Thanksgiving night: November 27, 2070, and November 28, 2165. (The first of those will be just before my 91st birthday, and I hope to be celebrating with my grandchildren (and maybe great-grandchildren), just as my son and I got to celebrate Thanksgiving this year with my nonagenarian grandfather.) After 2165, that’s it.

The partial Thanksgiving-Chanukah overlap happened once before, on November 28, 1918. Perhaps some of our older readers remember this?


12. Wait, I wasn’t alive in 1918, and I think I remember Chanukah starting on Thanksgiving night.

No, you don’t. You’re thinking of 2002, when Chanukah started on Friday night, November 29 (the night after Thanksgiving).


13. Have we had other November 28 Chanukahs in recent memory?

Yes, most recently in 1994. But that year, Chanukah began on Sunday night (Thanksgiving was November 24). After 2013, we’ll have it again in 2032, when Chanukah begins on Saturday night (following Thanksgiving on November 25).


14. Is it fair to say that Thanksgiving repeats on a 7-year cycle?

It’s not strictly true, since the 4-year Gregorian leap year cycle interferes with this. But Mizrahi’s point is about long-term averages, so his statement that “[y]ou would therefore expect them to coincide roughly every 19×7 = 133 years” is valid to within reasonable precision. The point is that the probability of Thanksgiving falling on any of the 7 allowed days is roughly equal, and is uncorrelated with the 19-year cycle (since 7 and 19 are both prime numbers).


15. While we’re on the subject of early Jewish holidays coinciding with American holidays, can Rosh Hashanah fall on Labor Day?

Yes! Labor Day is the first Monday in September, so it can fall anywhere from September 1 to 7, and part of that range is in the allowed range for Rosh Hashanah. It won’t happen this year, when Labor Day is September 2 and Rosh Hashanah is September 5. The last time was September 7, 1964, and the next time will be September 6, 2032.

As for Rosh Hashanah starting on Labor Day evening (so that 2-day Rosh Hashanah observers get a 5-day weekend), the last time was September 5, 1994, and the next time will be September 6, 2021.

January Madness: Guide to the Parties

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

Have you entered the January Madness pool yet? Once again, here is a guide to the 34 parties running in the election, with links to their websites if we can find them (English if available, otherwise Hebrew if available, otherwise Arabic if available). In addition, here are the lists of candidates running on each party list, in Hebrew (complete), English (incomplete), and Arabic (incomplete).

Parties represented in the current Knesset:

• Am Shalem: The name of the party (“Whole Nation”) is a play on the name of the founder, MK Rabbi Haim Amsalem, who was elected as an MK from Shas, but broke with party orthodoxy (as it were) on issues such as conversion and whether haredi men should work for a living, and started his own faction. Am Shalem “seeks to unite all Jews and restore moderate Judaism to Israel”, and to integrate haredim into the workforce and the army.
• Habayit Hayehudi: After an aborted attempt in the last election, the far-right National Union and the former Mafdal (National Religious Party) have succeeded this time around in forming a combined party. At the top of the joint list is newcomer Naftali Bennett: high-tech millionaire, son of American immigrants, and former head of the settler movement. Bennett’s positions have attracted controversy, including saying he would refuse military orders to evacuate settlements, and proposing the annexation of Area C (the parts of the West Bank where the settlements are located).
• Hadash – Democratic Front for Peace and Equality: This left-wing Arab-Jewish party, which includes the Israeli Communist Party, is led once again by MK Mohammed Barakeh. Hadash has supported a two-state solution since before it was popular.
• Hatenua: After former Kadima head and opposition leader Tzipi Livni lost the Kadima leadership election to Shaul Mofaz, she resigned from the Knesset. Now she’s back with a new centrist party, “The Movement”, and has recruited 7 of her former Kadima colleagues in the Knesset. As Kadima’s 2009 candidate for prime minister, Livni has put together an impressive list of fellow also-rans: in the #2 spot is 2003 Labor candidate Amram Mitzna, and in #3 is 2006 Labor candidate Amir Peretz. Hatenua has also joined forces with the Green Movement (whose leader, Alon Tal, is #13 on the list), which ran a joint list with Meimad in 2009 (but Meimad is not running in this year’s election).
• Israel Labor Party: In the 2009 election, Labor (the center-left party going back to the beginning of the state) hit a historic low, winning only 13 seats. And then it got even smaller: Party leader (and Defense Minister) MK Ehud Barak wanted to stay part of the Netanyahu government, and the majority of the party didn’t, so Barak and 4 other MKs formed a breakaway party, Atzma’ut (Independence), reducing the Labor faction to 8. (Barak has announced his retirement from politics, and Atzma’ut is not running in this election.) Labor is now trying to rebound, with new leadership (MK Shelly Yachimovich) and a focus on domestic issues. Labor’s candidate list includes some notable new faces: At #8 is Stav Shaffir, organizer of the tent protests, and at #27 is Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Israeli Reform movement.
• Kadima: This centrist party, led at the time by Tzipi Livni, actually won the largest number of seats (28) in the 2009 election, but was unable to pull together 60 seats to form a coalition, so Netanyahu got to form the coalition and become prime minister instead, and Kadima has been leading the opposition. Kadima is now led by MK Shaul Mofaz, and has been splintered, with some of its members leaving for Hatenua and elsewhere.
• Likud Yisrael Beiteinu: The Likud, led by incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and its lead coalition partner Yisrael Beiteinu, led by MK Avigdor Lieberman, have combined to form a right-wing superparty. Lieberman recently resigned as Foreign Minister after being indicted for fraud and breach of trust, but he remains at #2 on the party list for the election. The superparty hopes to remain in power for the next Knesset, and Netanyahu hopes to be reelected for a third term as Prime Minister, unprecedented since Ben-Gurion.
• Meretz – Israel’s Left: The leftmost majority-Jewish party in the Knesset, Meretz has been shrinking in recent elections. In this election, Meretz will be led for the first time by MK Zahava Gal-On, who has been active in working against human trafficking. A number of distinguished Israelis are in symbolic positions on the Meretz list, such as writer A.B. Yehoshua in the 109th spot.
• National Democratic Assembly (Balad): One of the two major Arab parties. Once again it is led by MK Jamal Zahalka, who took over after party founder Azmi Bishara fled the country. But the candidate who has been attracting more attention is #2 candidate MK Hanin Zoabi (the first woman elected to Knesset from an Arab party), who participated in the 2010 Gaza flotilla and was banned by the Central Elections Committee from running in the election, but was reinstated by the Supreme Court.
• Otzma Leyisrael: Not everyone in the National Union went along with the Habayit Hayehudi merger. Two MKs stayed behind and started their own (also far-right) faction: the secular Jabotinskyite MK Arieh Eldad and the Kahanist MK Michael Ben-Ari. Also on the list, at #3, is Baruch Marzel, former leader of the banned Kach party.
• ShasM: This Sephardi haredi party often wins enough seats to make or break coalitions. Longtime leader MK Eli Yishai is at the top of the list once again, but the big news this year is that former leader Aryeh Deri has returned to politics (after serving time for bribery) and is running at #2. (Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef is the party’s spiritual leader, but doesn’t run in the elections.)
• United Arab List (Ra’am) – Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta’al) – Arab Democratic Party (Mada): One of the two main Arab parties, made up of multiple factions, including the southern faction of the Islamic Movement, where party leader MK Ibrahim Sarsur comes from. Another faction is the Arab Democratic Party, led by MK Taleb el-Sana (running at #5). Ta’al is MK Ahmad Tibi’s operation (Tibi is in the #2 spot), and has allied with Balad and Hadash in the past.
• United Torah Judaism: Despite haredi population growth, the main Ashkenazi haredi party’s representation in the Knesset has remained remarkably stable. It is led once again by MK Yaakov Litzman, who represents the Agudat Yisrael faction and the Ger Hasidim. At #2 is MK Moshe Gafni, representing the Degel Hatorah faction and the B’nei B’rak yeshivish crowd.

Parties not represented in the current Knesset:

• Brit Olam Legeulat Yisrael: As far as I can tell, this party is very different from the Jewish-Arab party that ran under the name Brit Olam in the last election. (A number of the parties below also have the same names as parties that ran last time, but are completely unrelated. This is because it’s easier to register if the party’s name is already on the books.) This year’s Brit Olam has biblical quotes on its home page, and the slogan “Yes! to the God of Israel”. Its platform includes Israeli sovereignty over “all the territories of Judea and Samaria”, the expansion of settlements, expanded national health care, and higher salaries for teachers.
• Chaim Bekavod: This new party is advocating on behalf of seniors living alone and in poverty.
• Da’am – Workers Party: This far-left Arab-Jewish party “views socialism as the alternative to the present capitalist regime, which has forfeited the trust of its citizens” and supports the Arab Spring. The party is headed by activist Asma Aghbarieh-Zahalka (no relation to Balad’s Jamal Zahalka as far as I know), the first Arab woman to lead an Israeli party.
• Dor Bonei Haaretz: “The generation who built the country”. This is the new incarnation of Gil (the Pensioners’ Party), which surprised everyone and won 7 Knesset seats in 2006, but then faded away in 2009. They’re still advocating for retired people.
• Eretz Hadasha: This left-wing party opposes corruption and the influence of money in politics. Its Facebook page sports a number of pictures of young supporters who have written the hashtag ארץחדשה# on their hands.
• Green Leaf – Liberal List: The Green Leaf (Aleh Yarok) party has been around for a while, supporting marijuana legalization. But by rebranding themselves as the Liberal List, they’re also emphasizing other planks of their platform “based on the principles of free market and individual freedom”. It’s “liberal” in the European sense – i.e. closer to what Americans would call “libertarian”.
• Hatikva Leshinui: A new Arab party that supports full equality for Arab Israelis and integration into Israeli society. They want to see Arab Israelis serve as a bridge in relations between Israel and Arab states.
• Hayisraelim: This party represents Russian immigrants, charging that Yisrael Beiteinu (having joined with Likud) no longer represents them.
• Koach Lehashpia: A breakaway party from Shas, led by Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak (who, like Shas’s R. Ovadiah Yosef, is not running as a candidate), founder of the kiruv (outreach) organization Shofar.
• Kulanu Haverim: It was bound to happen eventually. The Na Nach Hasidim, known for dance parties in the streets and graffiti saying “Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me’Uman” (Hebrew for “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare”), have formed a political party. Their platform calls for being happy.
• Light (Or): A secular party calling for separation of religion and state.
• Mitkademet Liberalit Democratit: This party, also known as “Leeder”, is a Russian immigrant party aligned with the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
• Moreshet Avot: Led by Ilan Meshicha Yar-Zanbar, this party says it wants to bring all the parties together to solve economic problems. Their #3 candidate is named Moshe Moses.
• Netzach: A “Lithuanian” haredi party founded by followers of Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach of Jerusalem. It’s a breakaway from Degel Hatorah (the non-Hasidic faction within United Torah Judaism).
• One Future – Fighting the New Drug: The “new drug” is Internet pornography. They want to pass legislation requiring Internet providers to filter porn, except to users who opt out of the filter.
• The Economics Party: This party was founded by American-born brothers Danny and Benny Goldstein, and is led by Russian-born Kadima MK Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich. They support a free-market economy, and Danny Goldstein calls it “the first party in Israeli politics that has American ideals and American ways”.
• The Green and Young for a Green Future in Israel: This is the latest branding for the Green Party (Hayerukim), which has been around for a while (not to be confused with the Green Movement, which is running on a joint list with Hatenuah). Like other Green parties around the world, it is an environmental party. Longtime party leader Peer Visner was convicted of forgery and fraud, so the party is now led by Amir Meltzer.
• The Pirates: ARRRR! Yes, this is a real party. It’s not the type of pirates you’re thinking of, though their logo is a skull with an eyepatch. It’s pirates in the sense of software piracy, and they’re part of an international movement of Pirate Parties that has actually gotten candidates elected to the European Parliament and the Czech Senate. They want to lift restrictions on intellectual property, and provide free Internet access as a basic right.
• Tzedek Hevrati: Despite using the same name (“Social Justice”), this is not the party founded by Russian-Israeli-Angolan billionaire Arkadi Gaydamak. It is a group of social justice activists, led by Gad Haran, who want to continue the work of the tent protests. Their platform emphasizes affordable housing, health care, and raising the minimum wage.
• We Are Brothers: This party was founded by Ethiopian and Indian immigrants, and opposes racial discrimination. Their platform includes economic measures to fight poverty.
• Yesh Atid: By far the most prominent of the parties running in the election that are not currently represented in the Knesset. This new centrist party was founded by former TV anchor Yair Lapid, and has put together an eclectic list of candidates including mayors and rabbis. Their emphasis is on domestic issues.

Enter January Madness now! Good luck!!!