The two top contenders for the Israeli premiership did their best this best this week to woo supports of a fledgling political party made up mainly of Russian immigrants.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party, appeared Sunday before the founding convention of the Yisrael ba- Aliyah Party, which was meeting to elect is slate for the May 29 Knesset elections.
Natan Sharansly, the former Soviet Jewish activist and prisoner of Zion, founded the party to champion immigrants’ rights.
“Yisrael ba-Aliyah” – which has the dual meaning of “Israel for immigration” and “Israel moving upward” – has drawn its primary support from among the more than 600,000 citizens of the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel since 1989.
Recent polls suggest that the party, which has signed up some 36,000 supporters, may win at least four of the 120 Knesset seats in the upcoming elections.
More than 1,800 delegates met Sunday at Jerusalem’s Binyanei Ha’uma convention center, where they elected Sharansky party chairman and first on their Knesset slate. The next three slots on the list went to Michael Nudelman, Yuli Edelstein and Yuli Stern.
Peres, seeking the party’s support in his bid to hold on to the premiership, told immigrant audience members that they were “partners and brothers” in the building of the Jewish state.
Netanyahu pledged to bring another 2 million Jews to Israel in the coming decade.
“You, the olim, are a major catalyst in achieving a flourishing state,” the Likud.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
