The 2015 Israeli election is over.
President Reuven Rivlin has sent letters to the various
political parties inviting their leaders to come to Beit Hanassi,
starting on Sunday, March 22, 2015
to indicate their preferences for forming a new government.
Over 4,250,000 of these little slips of paper,
each with Hebrew letters representing a political party,
were put into little blue envelopes
which were then inserted into a slot in
cardboard boxes,
and were counted by hand.
What a low-tech method for a Start-up Nation!
Some emerging facts are surprising.
Who would think that an Arab village would have
the highest percentage of voters for Bibi?
77% of voters in Al Naim voted Likud.
We knew that the head of elections was an Arab Supreme Court Judge,
and now the Joint Arab list has even more than the
10% representation than they had in the last Knesset–
so much for apartheid.
The last RJS post with 30 photos broke all the rules
of blogging, it was very long,
but the marathon was such a big and colorful event.
Photographers waited at the marathon starting and finish lines
and all along the routes, so that millions of photos were taken.
This photo was by far my most popular in the social media.
Some people may be tired of seeing pictures of runners,
but there is one photo I want to make sure gets seen.
Team ALEH posed for photos on the track
at the start of the Community Race.
For this special 800 meter event,
5000 people participated representing many organizations.
Police officers were lined up ready to “run” with
children, all with severe disabilities, from ALEH,
One police officer was holding a child’s hands,
ready to be the first off the starting line.
Then he stepped off on his way,
using a special harness called “Upsee.”
This child was able to “run” in the Jerusalem Marathon.
We may still be using paper ballots,
but one Israeli mother invented this device,
got it manufactured,
and changed a child’s life-one step at a time.
She has more clever devices on the way,
and I cannot wait to see what Debby comes up with next.
Start Up Nation at its best.
Now that that the marathon is over, it is time to prepare for Passover,
but there is more than just cleaning to look forward to next week.
There is the Jerusalem Arts Festival
and the long-awaited new nature reserve,
The Valley of the Gazelles, is slated to open.
As always, there is so much happening in Jerusalem,
however, the more things change,
the more some seem the same.
