Voting starts slow in Jerusalem’s working class Pat neighborhood

In the working-class Jerusalem neighborhood of Pat, the municipal election festivities are not yet in full swing, with just a slow trickle of voters turning up to the voting station at the beginning of the morning.

“Everyone is off eating kubbeh,” says resident Shlomo Cohen with a wry smile.

Cohen says he voted for incumbent Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, who he also voted for back in 2018, but declines to say who he voted for in the city council. He says only that although he voted for the Shas list in 2018, he changed his vote this time around.

He says his vote was not at all influenced by the national political situation, insisting that there are very different issues at stake in municipal elections.

“When you’re voting in local elections you have to look at social issues. The local authorities are not responsible for national security,” he observes, in reference to the current war.

For Cohen, the most important issue in the city is to ensure that young couples can afford to live in the city and provide them with affordable housing to stop the flight of this segment of the population from the capital. He also says that the city council needs to do more to help special needs children and their parents, an issue that is close to his heart, as the head of the Lin Association of Parents for Special Needs Children.