5 Anglo candidates seen sure to win seats in local elections

Anglo candidates across the country are busy with last minute campaign efforts this week to attract voters ahead of the almost nationwide local elections on Tuesday. Among them, at least five native English-speakers are believed sure to win a seat on their local council.

British-born Dr. Zvi Sachs of the Segal party in Netanya is one of those who is "100 percent sure" he will retain the seat he has held on the city council for the last five years. Ahead of Tuesday's elections, his Orthodox/ultra-Orthodox independent party Gal joined forces with Shas to form Segal, which has pushed Sachs from second to third on the party slate. Yet, as Sachs hopes the joint list will bring in more than five mandates, he is very confident of hanging onto his seat - as well as his health portfolio on the council.

Sachs, who has lived in Netanya since he was seven and now heads the ear, nose and throat unit at Laniado Hospital, says his priorities for the next five years will be the health, welfare and education of Netanya's citizens.

Another Anglo sure to hang on to her seat is the National Religious Party (NRP) number two candidate in Ra'anana, Oshra Koren. The former New Yorker, who heads the Sharon branch of Matan, a women's yeshiva, this week lashed out at Darchei Noam, the newly-established religious party in Ra'anana. "I'm very against the establishment of another party which divides the religious establishment, religious power and religious influence in the city. Their platform is very similar to ours, so why did they need another party? It destroys unity," says Koren, adding that unity between the religious and secular is also one of her priorities.

Close to Ra'anana, Boston-born mayor of Kochav Yair, Jonathan Rimon, will not be competing again for his current post, but rather will run in second place on the Yachad independent party list, which should still guarantee him a seat on the newly-merged Kochav Yair-Tzur Yigal council.

A newcomer to local politics, who has his sights set high, is American-born Alex Weinreb of Modi'in. The 45-year-old New Yorker, who moved to Israel when he was 13 and owns Alex's Invitation Shop in Jerusalem, is hoping to end up in the position of deputy mayor. Weinreb, who originally planned to run for mayor of the city, decided that following last month's decision to merge the council in Modi'in with that of nearby Maccabim and Re'ut, he would throw his hat in with current Maccabim-Re'ut mayor, Moshe Spector, and run as his number two. Spector's party, Modi'in-Mor, which is doing well in the polls, is expected to get at least three seats, leaving Weinreb - who has a track record of environmental activism - with a very strong chance of taking a seat. "We're non-political, we're honest and we'll run the city like a business," says Weinreb of his party.

But perhaps the most definite of all the Anglo candidates in the country to join his local council is Shalom Lerner, who heads the National Religious Party (NRP) list in Beit Shemesh. "We're the bridge between the Haredi population and the traditional secular population," says Lerner, who grew up in New York and Belgium and has lived in Israel since 1974. Lerner, who works in real estate and is considered instrumental in having brought the Anglo community to Beit Shemesh, this week revealed that the NRP have cut a deal with the current mayor Danny Vaknin, just a week after Lerner told Anglo File that he considered Vaknin to be a "poor choice" to lead the city. "But he's the only one who stands up to the Haredim," says Lerner, who hopes to become deputy mayor of the city for half of the council's five-year term if Vaknin wins the mayorship.

Other native English-speakers in with a fighting chance of making the Beit Shemesh council include the number three candidate on the Likud list, former-Chicagoan Sholom Menora and its number four candidate, Canadian-born Mimi Kamilar. The Anglo-led Chen party is expected to push at least its number one candidate Zvi Wolicki past the post and there is hope that the South African-born United Torah Judaism candidate Shai Climer will squeeze onto the council, even though he is only number five on the list.

"It's hard for anyone to predict what's going to happen because [the strongly-Haredi suburb] of Ramat Beit Shemesh did not exist during the last elections five years ago," says New York-born political consultant Chevy Weiss, who is working with UTJ on its local campaign. She believes that the huge influx of Haredi residents to the area - and the high voter turnout of 82 percent for the general elections in the suburb - means that UTJ's two seats in the last local elections could be at least doubled this time round.

Over in Modi'in, the much expanded population since the last local elections could mean bad news for London-born Nicole Hanany Adler, who is third on the party slate for Ir Hofshit (Free City), which won four seats on the city council five years ago and was the largest party in the coalition (which it later left). Since then, the population of the city has at least tripled - and the city council has merged with nearby Maccabim and Re'ut - which leaves Adler's seat far from secure. Adler is still fuming about an article in Anglo File two weeks ago, when her party was accused by a candidate from the newly-established Shahar party, whose central platform is education, of fueling sectorial interests and fighting "phantom battles" with non-existent religious extremists.

"Now they're sectorial - they are a one-issue party," says Adler of Shahar. "We are a party trying to represent the needs of the majority by dealing with a range of issues. And that's what our track record shows." Adler says her goal if she wins a seat is to "make sure that the huge amount of taxes we pay to the city are spent transparently."

Other Anglos desperately trying to firm up support for their parties this week include former Londoner Simon Monk of the NRP in Netanya - who is still in with a chance of a seat in the number four slot - and former Chicagoan Rabbi Stuart Weiss, number three on Darchei Noam's list in Ra'anana.

L.A.-born Judith Hanania, Shinui's number two candidate in Pardes Hannah-Karkur is hopeful of being elected. Although Shinui has no seats on the council at present, the Bar-Ilan University biologist believes the strong showing for her party in the general elections in January bodes well.

Former New Yorker Karen Katzman, who is standing as an independent mayoral candidate in Even Yehuda, says the race is still "up in the air" and her party's polls have shown that 40 percent of local voters are still undecided between the two local mayoral candidates.

Anglo candidates who may need a miracle in order to get elected include Brooklyn-born clinical psychologist Daniel Gottlieb, number six on the NRP slate in Ra'anana, former Londoner and electrical engineer David Posner, who is the number seven candidate with the new, non-politically aligned Sabras party in Hod Hasharon, and Manchester-born Elise Rynhold, who works in public relations and holds the number seven slot on Shahar's list. Two Anglo candidates in Ra'anana, who need not give up their day jobs just yet, are London-born management consultant Stephen Jacobs, in third place on the Shinui slate - the party currently has no seats on the city council - and Illinois native, Yehudit Katzin, number eight on the Meretz list.