Tel Aviv’s Lilienblum section of pubs and nightclubs received surprise visitors Wednesday night when National Union-NRP MKs Aryeh Eldad, Effie Eitam and number 23 on the list, Yehoar Gal, sought to bring their message beyond the party’s natural constituency.
Nightlife establishments in Tel Aviv are often thought to be hubs of antipathy towards right-wing parties, and so the National Union-NRP MKs decided to talk with people out on the town in Tel Aviv. They wished to let them know that members of the right-wing party can also enjoy a cold one in a Tel Aviv pub.
"I think the main idea of coming here is to say that at the end of the day, despite our differences and the major dispute we are facing, we are one nation," said MK Eitam, who looked quite comfortable sitting at the bar.
As the MKs sat at the various pubs over beer and casual conversations with the Tel Aviv night owls, activists handed out postcards with pictures of “square"-looking right wing MKs and religious youth, with the tounge-in-cheek caption: "Do you want us to be your neighbors?" The "threat" was an allusion to the party's stance against further withdrawals and the possible results of additional disengagements, playing on the perception that Tel Avivians generally don't get along with religious Jews and Yesha residents.
"Don't you think the land of Israel is the natural place for the Jews?" Gal asked one of the youth having a drink at one bar.
"I'm a person first and then a Jew," answered the 18-year-old, voicing the disconnect many secular youth feel from Judaism.
MK Eitam thinks this disconnect stems from the embracement of secular liberal values represented by the Israeli metropolis. "From my experience," said Eitam, who became an observant Jew in his adulthood, "many Israelis adapt a very extreme version of individualism. They find after a while they don't have strong ties to the nation and to the religious sector."
Different and surprising conversations sprung up on the street with the MKs and passersby - one of them being Yoni Shaim, a senior activist for the far-left Meretz Party at Aviv High School in Ra'anana.
In a friendly tone and with some banter in between, he asked MK Eitam, "Is land more important than human life?" to which MK Eitam answered, "What's more important, your father or your mother? It's because giving up the land will cost us in blood that we don't want to give it up." Shaim was not convinced, but each wished each other well and MK Eitam praised him for at least having an ideology.
Eldad-aide Amit Barak of the mixed religious and secular Sde Boaz outpost in Gush Etzion handed out the postcards, and was met with mixed reactions from people strolling the pub-lined street. Some laughed, some said they'd be happy to have settlers as neighbors, and some even said they would vote for National Union-NRP. Most of them just took the postcard and went on their way.
Orit Arfa, for IsraelNationalNews
Nightlife establishments in Tel Aviv are often thought to be hubs of antipathy towards right-wing parties, and so the National Union-NRP MKs decided to talk with people out on the town in Tel Aviv. They wished to let them know that members of the right-wing party can also enjoy a cold one in a Tel Aviv pub.
Eitam and Eldad speaking with locals at a pub on Lilienblum.
"I think the main idea of coming here is to say that at the end of the day, despite our differences and the major dispute we are facing, we are one nation," said MK Eitam, who looked quite comfortable sitting at the bar.
As the MKs sat at the various pubs over beer and casual conversations with the Tel Aviv night owls, activists handed out postcards with pictures of “square"-looking right wing MKs and religious youth, with the tounge-in-cheek caption: "Do you want us to be your neighbors?" The "threat" was an allusion to the party's stance against further withdrawals and the possible results of additional disengagements, playing on the perception that Tel Avivians generally don't get along with religious Jews and Yesha residents.
"Don't you think the land of Israel is the natural place for the Jews?" Gal asked one of the youth having a drink at one bar.
"I'm a person first and then a Jew," answered the 18-year-old, voicing the disconnect many secular youth feel from Judaism.
MK Eitam thinks this disconnect stems from the embracement of secular liberal values represented by the Israeli metropolis. "From my experience," said Eitam, who became an observant Jew in his adulthood, "many Israelis adapt a very extreme version of individualism. They find after a while they don't have strong ties to the nation and to the religious sector."
Different and surprising conversations sprung up on the street with the MKs and passersby - one of them being Yoni Shaim, a senior activist for the far-left Meretz Party at Aviv High School in Ra'anana.
In a friendly tone and with some banter in between, he asked MK Eitam, "Is land more important than human life?" to which MK Eitam answered, "What's more important, your father or your mother? It's because giving up the land will cost us in blood that we don't want to give it up." Shaim was not convinced, but each wished each other well and MK Eitam praised him for at least having an ideology.
Eldad-aide Amit Barak of the mixed religious and secular Sde Boaz outpost in Gush Etzion handed out the postcards, and was met with mixed reactions from people strolling the pub-lined street. Some laughed, some said they'd be happy to have settlers as neighbors, and some even said they would vote for National Union-NRP. Most of them just took the postcard and went on their way.
Orit Arfa, for IsraelNationalNews