New Blood in Moetzet YESHA (Council)?

I'm beginning to wonder if there is finally some new blood in Moetzet YESHA, the YESHA Council.  A couple of years ago, when our local council (like a county) Mateh Binyamin, the Benjamin Regional Council had elections for a new head, governor, I played good citizen and went to the meetings to meet the candidates.  I had wanted to make an intelligent, informed choice.

Before meeting the two candidates, Avi Roeh and Adi Mintz, I wasn't terribly enthused by them, and after meeting them, I still wasn't sure.  It was a discussion with Adi Mintz which decided me... against him.  Adi Mintz had worked as Director of Moetzet YESHA and touted it as one his job experiences which best qualified him for the position.  This was post-Disengagement, and I considered and still (if not more) consider the Moetzet YESHA leadership guilty of misleading its followers and contributing to Disengagement.  They claimed to be trying to prevent it, but they failed totally and completely.  The leadership not only never properly took responsibility, but they never apologized nor did they resign.

At the time Mintz was running for office here, I asked him how they could keep their positions after such a failure.  He looked at me like I was from another planet or talking in Chinese.  He insisted that they had added some new people to the leadership and that was sufficient.  To me that's no more than superficial whitewashing, cosmetics.  He still didn't get it. 

"I'm not asking you to do what the Japanese did, but you shouldn't continue in public office."

Obviously, we don't have the same moral standards.  He has never heard of Harry Truman's "The buck stops here."

Since then, I'm a fanatical cynic when it comes to Moetzet YESHA.  And when I read that it's now run by some young guy from Ra'anana, I just rolled my eyes, "a public relations stunt," was all I could say.

Yesterday, Friday morning, we had our almost annual visit by the latest American Consular official.  I generally try to ignore these little "informal informational social calls."  Last year my father was with us when the staff came.  He kept trying to figure out who those people were and why they were in our house.  The best explanation I could give him was that they were "spies," on an information gathering visit.

This time my husband informed me that the new Director of Moetzet YESHA would also be coming.  OK, big deal.

I'm pretty burnt out by all these visits.  I don't play Pat Nixon, and I'm not as good an actress as Nancy Reagan, so I figured I'd just hide out or something.  But when Moetzet YESHA director/administrator, Naftali Bennet was about to arrive, I did the polite thing and went out to hail him by our house, so he wouldn't pass by and miss it.  And I ended up in hearing distance when he started his end of the discussion.  He's very smooth.

First he did a clever thing by asking the official about himself.  Then he gave his story, the gist of it being that he made it very big in hi-tech, sold his business and then decided to fix the State of Israel after Olmert's disastrous Lebanese  War.  Not only has he taken over Moetzet YESHA, but he's involved with a new non-party Israeli political movement, ישראל שלי Yisrael Shelli, My Israel.  And, yes, I'm impressed.  I hope I'm not wrong.  It would really be good for the State of Israel to have some new leadership.  I agreed with everything I heard him say.

I'll give Naftali Bennet a chance.

Shavua Tov and Chodesh Tov

Have a Good Week and a Good Month