It has been decided, the general elections for the 18th Knesset will take place on Tuesday, 10 February, 16 Shvat.
Agudas Yisrael’s Rav Yaakov Litzman tried to persuade the Knesset speaker to select another date, but he was unsuccessful in his quest. He fears that many chassidim will attend Tu B’Shvat tischin the day before and the ‘lag’ will result in a low chareidi voter turnout.
In addition, on motzei Tu B’Shvat, a grandchild of the Gerre Rebbe will be getting married and this will keep tens of thousands of chassidim up late, with Litzman fearing the event may also negatively impact chareidi voter turnout.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
10 Responses
No worry for those who don’t vote anyways, per Brisk, etc. shitta…
i don’t chap the problem.
even if they daven shacharis at 11:00am the polls are still open for quite a while.
If it is important to them they ill find the time to vte. If not they deserve what they get.
No one denies that there will be plenty of time to vote once. But if you want to vote a few times…VeHameivin Yavin.
Vote early and often!
#4 moitsy shem rah !!!
What’s the problem? Do you have to take a breathalyzer test at the voting booth? Do you have to wake up by 8? The very making of this request makes Chareidim look ridiculous.
Why is this an issue? It’s the day AFTER Tu B’Shavat! Even if it was the day after Purim, they would have an entire day to sober up – and since when is getting drunk on Tu B’Shvat a minhag (except of course for many 18-year old American yeshiva students, who seem to have a minhag to get drunk whenever their Rosh Yeshiva isn’t looking, but can’t vote in Israel to begin with).
I agree with #6. This type of nonsense makes Hareidim look total fools.
Even if the Chassidim spend the whole night planting trees (ha ha) they can still make it to the polling stations by 10pm the following evening.
#1 you are such a dreamer, plently of those who learn in Brisk find time to vote and abide by the p’sok of Rav Elyashiv.
This is a bit ridiculous, really. Polls are open until the evening so even if someone was a bit “out of it” from the day before that would be irrelevant by the time evening came around. As far as the other excuse goes, if events had to be cancelled every time the relative of one sect’s Rav got married there would be no events anywhere.
Voting takes a few minutes (including waiting on line and all that). Surely a moment or two can be spared. If not, then that’s the person’s individual choice, but changing this date would set a bad precedent that would inevitably be abused in the future.