The second mayoral election in Beit Shemesh is now behind us happily. The result was the same as the last time: Incumbent mayor Moshe Abutbul again won a narrow victory over Eli Cohen after the Jerusalem district court ordered new elections based on voter fraud in the October contest.

At one level Abutbul’s repeat victory may be a good thing for all citizens of Beit Shemesh. Had the two elections led to different results the acrimony surrounding the two campaigns would have continued to fester endlessly. Now at least supporters of Cohen have solid evidence that the Abutbul’s first victory was not the result of voter fraud. And supporters of Abutbul can stop worrying that the Israeli judicial system wrongfully intervened to deprive their candidate of the fruits of victory.

Ironically Kalman Liebskind the investigative journalist who first broke the story of the fraudulent use of identity documents in the first Beit Shemesh election agrees with the claim of Mayor Abutbul’s supporters that the court erred in ordering new elections. In a lengthy article published just before the second elections he concludes “It is hard to believe that there is another group other than the chareidi public with respect to which a court would have felt free to cancel an election victory on the basis of such weak proofs.” (Liebskind begins his lengthy analysis of the evidence of fraud before the district court by identifying himself as a religious Zionist who is interested in Beit Shemesh remaining a diverse city and who hopes that Eli Cohen will win.)

Of the total number of identification documents discovered by the police only 36 were used to vote in the first election. Those 36 known fraudulent votes represent a small fraction of Abutbul’s 956-vote margin of victory in the October race.

There is no justification for voter fraud of any kind. But absent any evidence of Abutbul’s involvement in the fraud the district court required some basis to conclude that the fraud had affected the election results in order to decree new elections. However the court failed to provide such evidence instead relying on exceedingly far-fetched reasoning.  

The court acted as if members of every chassidic group are all automatons who act in perfect tandem. Thus if two chassidim from any group handed over their identity cards it could be fairly assumed that so did all members of that group. That ignores two important facts. First very serious penalties attach to voter fraud and few people would be willing to subject themselves to those penalties just to add one vote. Nor is detection that hard given that identity documents all bear a photograph.

Second it is questionable whether many of those who are opposed to voting in Israeli elections on religious grounds nevertheless feel it is permissible to give their identification documents to others so that they can vote. Doing so constitutes in their eyes aiding the commission of a sin.

The district court had to make huge leaps of faith and logic to find that there was any plausible way that fraud had determined the original result. Mayor Abutbul’s attorney Yaakov Weinrot informed the district court that each chassidus in Beit Shemesh has lists of all its member families and presented evidence that of all those listed as affiliated with Toldos Aharon and Dushinsky — 1 200 in total — only 70 voted. Yet on the basis of the testimony of two people connected to one of those groups who had given their identity cards to allow others to vote the court acted as if all of those 1 200 were likely to have transferred their identity cards.

Similarly on the testimony of a husband and wife connected to the Monsey-Vizhnitz chassidus who said that they had debated whether to vote and ended up giving others their identity cards the court concluded that there might be 250 such instances of Monsey-Vizhnitz chassidim transferring their identity cards. Yet Monsey-Vizhnitz specifically advocated voting and even ran a candidate for the city council. So there was no reason for any of its members to give their identification cards to others.

EACH SIDE IN BEIT SHEMESH approached the elections as if the entire fate of Beit Shemesh if not the world depended on the result. Supporters of Eli Cohen feared that if Abutbul were reelected the city would become another Bnei Brak in which only chareidim can live. Supporters of Abutbul feared that Cohen’s election would bring to an end the rapid growth of the chareidi population. I hope both sides were wrong and that the new mayor will dedicate himself to serving all population groups in Beit Shemesh.

While some political events may have a huge impact on our lives — a nuclear Iran comes to mind — there is rarely anything that we as individuals can do about those big ticket items (unless one happens to be a columnist constantly in need of subjects to milk). As a consequence the counsel of wisdom is usually to focus on that which is within our control — relationships with those closest to us and with Hashem — and recognize that our satisfaction and happiness in life most often lies in realms that politics cannot touch.

Joseph Bottum describes in a new book An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America (Image 2014) how modern political correctness has become its own religion — with its own sacred texts and taboos. As David Goldman puts it in his review in this modern dispensation “How we vote is how our souls are saved.” Politics determines “our moral sense of ourselves — of whether or not we are good people of whether or not we are saved.”

Those of us who cling to old-fashioned religion however should be able to resist the tendency of enforcers of political orthodoxy to associate opposing views with evil. The happy result will be less acrimony in our interpersonal relations with those who do not share our political views and a greater ability to focus our energies on what is truly important.

In that vein Menachem Lipkin a blogger at the Times of Israel who has often been highly critical of my writings offered some wise words the day after the Beit Shemesh elections.

Lipkin who supported the losing candidate Eli Cohen began his piece “We still have our wonderful families friends and neighborhoods which are the focus of our lives.” And he offered some good rules for lowering the temperature of political arguments: (1) When you are tempted to think generally about a group first think about individuals in that group you know and are friendly with; (2) Differentiate between people and ideas. Don’t attack people but even when you question their ideas try to understand where they are coming from and appreciate their attachment to [those ideas].

I hope that those on both sides of the Beit Shemesh election will take Lipkin’s advice to heart and that this fast-growing city will witness a far greater degree of amity and cooperation among various groups and individuals in the future than in the recent past. 

Apologies to All Golden Retriever Owners

Did you ever notice that Hashem has a way of showing you when you have made a mistake — often in short order? I’ve found for instance that one of the best “segulos” for having troubles with your children is to make unfavorable inferences about the parenting of those you know based on something you see their child doing. Usually within weeks if not days your child will be doing something similar. And of course we know that could not have been the result of our parenting.
On a recent trip to Los Angeles a big fan of Mishpacha offered to drive me across the city to the UCLA campus for a lecture to a group of Jewish students. As we were shooting the breeze she mentioned that she is chairman of the Golden Retriever Club of Greater Los Angeles Rescue which saves golden retrievers from dog pounds and that she owns two golden retrievers herself.  
I was unaware that dog IQ is one of those things about which their owners care any more than mothers looking into shidduchim for their daughters are likely to ask about how much the bochur in question can bench-press. And so I blurted out a remark that I thought I had heard from my mother well over a half century ago: “Oh golden retrievers are very beautiful but they are exceptionally stupid.” I was lucky not to have ended up walking the rest of the way to UCLA and received a proper lecture on the superb intelligence and loyalty of golden retrievers (both claims subsequently confirmed by Wikipedia and veterinarian polls).
Three days later on the way to Minchah on Shabbos in Palo Alto I was passed by two dog owners walking nearly identical dogs. I inquired as to their breed and was told “golden retriever.” Until that moment I realized I had not the faintest clue as to what a golden retriever even looked like. I had confused them with Irish setters.
May we all merit having our errors revealed to us so quickly and so painlessly.