Local elections get international attention

Israel’s local elections are getting some international attention, specifically in places where candidates are breaking new ground or a larger societal shift is being detected.

NPR reporter Emily Harris camped out in the ultra-Orthodox city of Elad, where a group of mothers are running for town council and hoping to change the way things are run.

“Because there are just men now, a lot of issues get lost,” says Michal Chernovitsy, who leads the Forever God faction.

Getting a seat, though, will be an uphill battle in the town, where conservative mores still rule, the outlet reports.

“I’ve never heard of women running for council,” a female voter says. “It’s a new thing. I hope it will be accepted, but I’m not so sure. Here women who express themselves aren’t seen as a good thing.”

Meanwhile, Jodi Rudorin of The New York Times weighs in on Arab Jerusalemites’ decision to boycott elections.

The practice, she says, deprives a chunk of Jerusalem’s population from being able to influence, and some Palestinians agree.

“The whole thing is not really rational,” Sari Nusseibeh, president of al-Quds University, tells the paper. “It’s not by reason that people are guided; it’s by sentiments and feelings and fears and histories.”