The Union of Jewish Students of France and an antisemitism and human rights watchdog group called J’Accuse said they are taking legal steps against Zemmour in connection with text messages sent Sunday, Le Monde reported Tuesday.

The messages, which went out the night of the first round of the elections, read: “Hello, I’ve written a text for you: Will we be able to live much longer in peace in France? Sign up on EZ2022.fr your children are counting on you.”

According to the two groups taking legal steps against Zemmour, a firebrand who has been convicted of hate speech for saying most drug dealers are Arabs or African in France, the message appeared mostly on cellphones of Jews. The complainants are alleging that Zemmour had illegally obtained a list of French Jews.

Approached by Le Monde for a comment, Zemmour’s campaign denied any wrongdoing. The campaign neither denied nor confirmed the group’s allegations, saying only that the recipients for that text came from a targeted marketing firm. Among other sources, the firm collected the data that led to the addressing of text messages to the recipients’ phone number from mining publicly available data on forums devoted to fighting antisemitism, the campaign said.

Zemmour shook up the last days of the race by revealing that the family of a Jewish man who died after being hit by a tram in February believed that the incident stemmed from an antisemitic attack. While French Jewish groups opposed his candidacy, he fared well among French Jews living in Israel, winning a majority of votes among the 10% of eligible voters who cast ballots.

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The two squared off in 2017, when Macron handily defeated Le Pen. This year’s election appears likely to be far more competitive, with Le Pen polling within points of Macron, a centrist.

Eric Zemmour, another far-right politician who is Jewish, received only 7% of the vote in the first round, eliminating him from this year’s election. Under the French electoral system, the top two vote-getters square off in a second election, this year set for April 24.

With 98% of the votes in Sunday’s first round counted, Macron received the largest share of votes, 28%, according to French elections data. But Le Pen of the National Rally party — founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a convicted Holocaust denier — garnered 23% of the vote.

In third place was Jean-Luc Melenchon, a far-left politician who supports boycotting Israel and has condemned French Jews for supporting Israel. Jewish leaders in 2017 said that Le Pen and Melenchon both posed threats to French Jews.

In 2017, Le Pen received a third of the vote, her party’s best performance yet in a presidential elections. But her efforts to soften her image, combined with public dissatisfaction over Macron’s leadership, has her poised to do far better this time around.

Still, Le Pen is accused by her critics of anti-Muslim racism. She recently said she would ban the wearing of all head scarves in public if she is elected president.

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Shemini Atzeret comes out this year on Election Day, Oct. 21, which would prevent observant Jews from casting their ballots. Of the four advance polling days, three are on other Jewish holidays or Shabbat.

The lawsuit, called an application, was filed last week in federal court and asks that the election date be changed to Oct. 28.

Chani Aryeh-Bain, the Conservative Party candidate for the Toronto-area district of Eglington-Lawrence, and voter Ira Walfish of York Centre, also a Toronto-area district, filed the suit claiming that the election date discriminates against observant Canadian Jews.

Aryeh-Bain is an observant Jew and therefore would not be able to campaign on Election Day, the lawsuit says.

Both York Centre and Eglinton-Lawrence are represented by Liberal Party members who defeated Jewish Conservative incumbents in the last election, according to the Canadian Jewish News.

Canada’s 2008 federal election fell on the first day of Sukkot.

“There should have been no need for this litigation,” said Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “The Chief Electoral Officer has the discretion to shift election day to avoid ‘a day of cultural or religious significance’ under Section 56.2(1) of the Elections Act, but he has inexplicably failed to take that entirely logical step.”

Shemini Atzeret falls at the end of the week of Sukkot.

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Dave Sharma, the former ambassador to Israel, was beaten Saturday in the vote to fill a vacant House of Representatives seat near Sydney. Independent Party candidate Kerry Phelps, a convert to Judaism, won the Wentworth seat, which has gone traditionally to the Liberal Party. Wentworth is home to a Jewish community of 20,000, or 12.5 percent of its population.

Days before the election, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had announced that he was considering officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the Australian Embassy there. Morrison had credited Sharma with suggesting the embassy move, a major departure from Australia’s foreign policy on Israel.

Critics suggested that Morrison was playing politics with the announcement by pandering to the Jewish community in order to maintain his one-seat majority.

The seat was open following the resignation in August of Malcolm Turnbull, a Liberal lawmaker and former prime minister who was replaced by Morrison.

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The primary is usually held seven weeks before the general election. That means the primary ahead of the November 2018 general election would fall on September 18, when Yom Kippur starts on at sundown. Ordinarily the primary would be moved up one week, in 2018 to September 11, but it would then fall on Rosh Hashanah.

According to Massachusetts state law, a primary must be move when it conflicts with a religious holiday, according to the Associated Press.

Secretary of State William Galvin has reached out to the public, including voters and candidates, for advice on how to handle the 2018 primary in light of the restrictions of the Jewish holidays. The day before Yom Kippur is not a holy day, but observant Jews often begin their preparations then and the polls would remain open after the onset of the 25-hour holiday at sundown.

Galvin will hold a public meeting in Boston on January 2, 2018 on the issue, and also is accepting comments in writing, according to the AP.

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Florida has been known as a place where candidates of diverse backgrounds make a name for themselves. But in statewide races it generally hasn’t included Jews, at least in recent decades.

Former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, a wealthy businessman with a knack for drawing attention to himself and his city’s struggles with climate change, is hoping to become the exception. With Florida set to elect a new governor in 2018, Levine is the only candidate among the serious contenders who is Jewish.

While some political observers question whether a Jew from liberal Miami Beach can win in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1994, Levine sees that as nonsense.

“I knew this African-American guy, believe it or not, who won the state twice and was elected president of the United States twice, and an older Jewish guy almost got the Democratic nomination for president,” he says. (Barack Obama carried the state in the 2008 and 2012 elections. In the 2016 Florida Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in a landslide.)

The last Jews elected statewide were in the 1970s: U.S. Sen. Richard Stone and Attorney General Robert Shevin.

Stone, now 89 and living in Maryland, says being Jewish wasn’t an obstacle to running statewide — the main hurdle was being from Miami Beach.

“It can be done, as I’ve shown, but people are normally more comfortable with a nearby neighbor running for office than someone from a longer way away,” he said.

The saying in Florida is that the more north you go, the more south you go — which means voters in the conservative northern part of the Sunshine State may not relate to candidates from liberal South Florida.

Successful candidates must appeal to the factions of voters across the state, said Ashley Walker, who ran Obama’s 2012 campaign in Florida.

“A candidate’s ability to appeal to diverse voters across the state is more important than their racial or religious background,” she says.

About 3.3 percent of the population in Florida is Jewish. Since half the Jews in Florida are over 65 and Jews historically vote in higher numbers than other groups, the percent who vote is higher, around 5 to 7 percent, says University of Miami demographer Ira Sheskin, who studies the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish voters are Democrats.

Florida has had only one governor with Jewish roots, according to the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. David Sholtz, who served as governor in 1933-37, was born to Jewish parents but considered himself Congregationalist, according to an article in the Jewish Daily Bulletin in 1932.

Philip Levine with Yisrael Meir Lau, the former chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Israel, on board El Al’s first direct Miami-Tel Aviv flight in nine years, Nov. 4, 2017. (Courtesy of Levine)

A few Jewish Democrats have run statewide in recent years but lost. In the 2014 Democratic primary for governor, former state Sen. Nan Rich of Broward County in the south lost to former Gov. Charlie Crist, a former Republican, who then lost to Republican Gov. Rick Scott in the general election. In 2010, two Jewish Democrats competed in the primary for attorney general: The winner, Dan Gelber, lost in the general election to Republican Pam Bondi.

Gelber, who is now the Miami Beach mayor, says Democratic voters look for a candidate who checks certain progressive boxes — such as favoring abortion rights — and won’t make a decision based on religion.

Levine “is a successful businessman. That will be more defining to him than his religion,” Gelber says.

Levine had his bar mitzvah at Temple Solel in Hollywood and is now a member of Temple Beth Sholom, a Reform synagogue in Miami Beach. He says religion won’t play a role in his campaign.

“I believe that the most important tenet of my philosophy is to do the right thing,” he says. “I attribute it to my inner core — my inner compass, not to religion.”

In 1990, with $500 capital, Levine launched a business from a studio apartment on Ocean Drive that provided magazines and TV programming on cruise ships. The company later grew to amass a revenue of about $400 million. He later sold the company and is now CEO of Royal Media Partners, which provides media to Royal Caribbean Cruises.

After spending $2 million of his own money and winning the Miami Beach mayor’s race in 2013, Levine grew a national profile by becoming an expert on how local government can respond to climate change — and calling out President Donald Trump to do more.

Shortly before Trump took office, Levine wrote an op-ed in Time calling on the president-elect to protect Florida’s coastline.

“As I have said many times, the ocean is not Republican or Democrat,” he wrote. “While we bicker over the science and solutions, it will only continue to rise.”

In June, Levine hosted the U.S. Mayors Conference and showed off the city’s efforts to curb flooding by investing $500 million on pumps and raising streets. Levine, who is friendly with the Clintons and was a Hillary Clinton surrogate during the campaign, brought former President Bill Clinton to speak at the event.

Levine has a gift for drawing attention to himself. He landed an interview on CNN after he chartered a flight with 7,000 pounds of supplies to help San Juan following a hurricane that slammed Puerto Rico and bashed Trump’s response to the island. Democrats are courting Puerto Rican voters because they are a growing population in Florida.

“Where is the federal government and the leadership at the top, like Dwight Eisenhower and FDR?” he said on CNN. “This was an invasion. This is a war. Our territory was attacked by a natural disaster. Treat it like a war. Help these people.”

Levine says he is a strong supporter of Israel — a relationship that began one summer when he visited there while studying at the London School of Economics.

“I landed in Tel Aviv. I had no place to stay. I had a telephone number of a distant cousin I never met,” he recalls. “I had to close the deal on one call. If I didn’t close the deal I would be sleeping on Tel Aviv Beach. I spent two weeks on their couch. That was the beginning of my first experience in Israel. I had the most remarkable two weeks.”

He has returned to Israel multiple times — most recently in November after helping convince El Al to start offering a direct flight from Miami to Tel Aviv after a nine-year hiatus.

“It began in my conference room and culminated in the inaugural flight Saturday night,” Nov. 4, he said. “I had the owner of El Al sitting to my right, and the chief rabbi of Israel sitting on my left.” 

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, took part in the inaugural festivities. David Maimon, who was president and CEO of the publicly traded El Al, announced his resignation earlier this month.

The Democratic primary field for Florida governor was already crowded with contenders when Levine officially announced his candidacy Nov. 1. He faces former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, who represented northern Florida for one term and is the daughter of Bob Graham, a former U.S. senator and governor of Florida; Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum; and Orlando businessman Chris King. John Morgan, a wealthy trial lawyer who bankrolled the state’s medical marijuana amendment, may enter the race.

No candidate has emerged as a clear favorite, but Levine leads the pack in fundraising. He launched his All About Florida PAC in June 2016, more than a year before he officially became a candidate. He has raised about $5.7 million through October — slightly less than half from himself.

“I’m very comfortable putting in $50 million,” he says.

The Democrat who emerges from the August 2018 primary will face an uphill battle to beat the Republican. The GOP front-runner, state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, has raised more than $16 million since 2015 through his committee.

Although Democrats hold a slight edge in registration over Republicans in Florida, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is the lone Democratic statewide office holder. But Democrats see signs of hope in the swing state where Trump won by a percentage point and now has negative approval ratings.

Levine’s main liability is his temperament — he has lashed out at the media, blocked access to critics on social media and went on a Facebook rant against Airbnb earlier this year. He also pushed for a ban on liquor sales after 2 a.m. on Miami Beach, which voters overwhelmingly rejected.

Levine says voters are looking for a candidate who has a track record of getting things done.

“It doesn’t matter if the right candidate for governor is Chinese, African-American or Jewish,” he says. “It’s not a matter of religion or ethnicity — it’s a matter of being the right candidate.”

(Amy Sherman is a freelance writer in Fort Lauderdale. She can be reached at amyshermanwriter.com or amysherman72@yahoo.com)

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Haim Korsia’s office issued the endorsement Thursday, a day after an acrimonious televised debate between the two candidates ahead of Sunday’s runoff.

Titled “Call to Vote for Mr. Emmanuel Macron,” the endorsement was co-signed by Pastor François Clavairoly, president of the Protestant Federation of France, and Anouar Kbibech, who holds the same title with the French Council of the Muslim Faith.

An explicit show of support for any particular candidate is highly unusual for all three clergymen.

“Fully aware that our roles require us to be non-partisan, we are, however, first and foremost responsible citizens and therefore openly are calling for a vote in favor of Emmanuel Macron,” they wrote.

The debate was heated for most of its nearly three hours, with both candidates throwing personal insults at each other.

Le Pen, 48, called Macron “the candidate of unchecked globalization,” who is happy to sell off France’s assets and relinquish control of the country. Macron, 39, accused the National Front leader of being “the high priestess of fear,” saying she talked a lot but “proposed nothing.”

Le Pen accused her rival of being complacent about Islamic fundamentalism, while he said her plans played into the hands of terrorists and their desire for a “civil war.”

Polls predict Macron will beat Le Pen 60 percent to 40 percent, but approximately 18 percent of voters said they are still not fully decided.

National Front, which was founded in the 1970s by Marine Le Pen’s father, a Holocaust denier with convictions for inciting racial hatred against Jews, is considered anti-Islam for its plan to ban public prayer, limit the construction of mosques and impose a shutdown on immigration from Muslims countries.

Le Pen has vowed to ban the wearing both of Muslim garb and Jewish symbols in public if elected. She has distanced herself from the anti-Semitic rhetoric of her father, though she said earlier this month France was “not responsible” for the rounding up of Jews by French officers during the Nazi occupation.

“It is no longer enough to defeat National Front,’ the clergymen wrote in their statement. “We must remind [Frenchmen], speaking in one voice, the humanist foundations that animate us, and toward which we work today.”

Peace, they also wrote, “supersedes all other things and only a vote for Emmanuel Macron guarantees a France that is stronger for its history, confident in its future and its ability to shine throughout our world.”

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Ten residents of the Catskills village of Bloomingburg, New York, which has a total population of about 420, filed a lawsuit against the Sullivan County Board of Elections in March after the board requested proof of residency from the Hasidic voters.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan accused the elections board of “engaging in an unyielding discriminatory campaign to deprive Hasidic Jewish residents … of the fundamental right to vote,” the New York Post reported.

The board continues to deny discriminating against Hasidic Jewish residents, but settled to avoid the soaring costs of the lawsuit, the local Times Herald-Record reported.

The settlement requires the county to pay legal fees topping $55,000 and a total of $25,000 to the 10 residents who signed on to the lawsuit ($2,500 each). The monitor, which will oversee voting in the county for the next five years, is to be appointed jointly by both sides.

Also as part of the settlement, voting materials, as well as signs advising voters of their rights, will be posted in both Yiddish and English, according to the Post.

In 2014, a $25 million lawsuit still pending in Manhattan federal court was filed against Bloomingburg accusing the villaget of trying to block members of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidic community from relocating there by tying up approvals for a school and a townhouse project.

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Brianne Nadeau (Courtesy Brianne Nadeau campaign)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Brianne Nadeau, who is prominent in Washington-area Jewish advocacy, won a seat on the capital’s City Council.

Nadeau, a Democrat, on Tuesday secured the seat representing Ward 1, a diverse and youthful area in the city’s Northwest known for its alternative culture, with 86 percent of the vote. She unseated longtime incumbent Jim Graham in April in a primary.

She is one of 13 councilors who will serve four-year terms.

Nadeau, 34, until her election worked with Rabinowitz Communications, a public relations firm that handles the accounts of major Jewish organizations as well as a number of groups affiliated with the Democratic Party. She also was a board member of Jews United for Justice.

Her campaign focused on a range of issues, including school quality, better policing, affordable housing, and rights for immigrants and LGBT.

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The first polling booth opened Jan. 20 at the Kirya, the main army base in Tel Aviv. Soldiers and officers who will be unable to vote Jan. 22 because of their duties began voting. Navy personnel also started voting the same day.

In all, 750 special polling stations will be set up for Israel Defense Forces personnel, including 100 portable stations, according to the IDF.

Early voting for Israelis in the military is allowed by law up to 72 hours before Election Day.

The military is hoping for an 80 percent to 90 percent turnout. Soldiers have been reminded to bring their national identification cards from home in order to be eligible to vote.

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Israel is having its general election on January 22, in case you wonder and don’t happen to have Israeli friends who repetitively post obnoxious political statuses on Facebook.

The Israeli Election Committee wants everyone to vote, so they have been producing massive voting encouragement campaign, and has made it as far as reaching even the most apathetic demographic – Israeli hipsters.

Yes, Israeli hipsters do exist, and yes, they were cool before you knew about them (but they probably are a little less cool now because the government knows too).

The campaign video features a ridiculously hipstery couple (the girl looks like Garth Algar from “Wayne’s World” and the guy looks like a denim version of “Where is Waldo”) sitting at a Tel Aviv cafe and keeps complaining that only when coming back from Berlin (a very trendy destination for Israelis nowadays) you understand how much of a third, fourth of even fifth world Israel is. They are even complaining about the cafe offering Crème anglaise(?).

Suddenly the “Complaining (or Bitching) Police” pulls over, and the officer approaches the couple and asks them if they voted in the last election. The couple responds, “No way, in a country with one of the lowest video art budgets in the world?” and the officer gives them a ticket and tells them that their bitching right is revoked for four years.

The slogan: “Not voting? Don’t bitch!”

Only in Israel.

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Dear Erica,

The election is over, and it is no secret that I am a Republican on a Jewish board filled with — you should excuse me — liberals. The people on this board are good-hearted and really committed to the work we do on behalf of Israel, but I have to tell you that I just don’t get how they could sell out on Israel this way. I am so frustrated and confused that I am thinking of leaving the board. Our last meeting was right before the election, and I didn’t even want to be in the room. As far as I see it, there is no one to talk to who understands me and just how big an issue this is. There are plenty of other Jewish organizations out there that could use my time and money. How should I tell the president that, like Romney, I am finished with politics?

Signed,
I really stand with Israel

Dear Stand,

Don’t send in the resignation letter yet. Please. Take a deep breath and repeat after me: “Other people are not me. Other people make the world interesting.” Your brief letter contained the word “I” 10 times.

One of the great problems in Jewish leadership and in all leadership today is that it has become harder to hear the voice of the other. Today you can listen to talk radio, watch news and read newspapers that support your particular bias, making us believe that the whole world thinks the way we do when it’s only one small slice of a complex universe. When you are in a leadership role, the degree to which you can speak should be secondary to the degree to which you can listen. Take someone out to coffee who does not vote like you and ask them to explain why without judgment.

Your board is lucky to have you because Jewish boards today are not diverse enough politically, professionally or financially. If others make you feel uncomfortable because of your politics, then your boardroom is not a safe place, and your president needs to be made aware of this and change the conversation. If, however, you can express yourself safely but just don’t want be with people who aren’t like you, there will be no other board to join. Healthy boards invite, respect and make room for diversity — and so should you. If this is a cause you believe in, then staying will ensure your organization is well represented on both sides of the aisle.

Dr. Erica Brown is the scholar in residence at The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Her new book is “Return: Daily Inspiration for the Days of Awe” (OU/Koren). Are you a Jewish organizational or synagogue leader wrestling with a tough issue? Send your question to LeadershipMatters@jta.org.

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Katty Kay used the term in a question-and-answer session on Twitter, raising the ire of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Kay was asked by a tweeter late last month why U.S presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney became defensive when their commitment to Israel was questioned. She replied, "US sees #Israel as key ally in MidEast but no one running for Pres wants to alienate the power and money of the Jewish lobby."

Board of Deputies head Jon Benjamin told the British newspaper The Jewish Chronicle that the reporter’s “loose use of language really has to be seen in a context where support for America’s key ally in the Middle East is cynically questioned — and the motives of Israel’s supporters are seen as suspect."

A BBC spokesman told the newspaper that Kay’s “primary point in responding was that the U.S. regards Israel as a key ally in the Middle East and also recognizes the importance and influence of this relationship on the voting."
 

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"In each call, he thanked his counterpart for their friendship and partnership thus far and expressed his desire to continue close cooperation moving ahead," the White House said Thursday in a statement.

In his own statement, Netanyahu said he told Obama that his reelection was "a vote of confidence in your leadership."

Netanyahu and Obama have had a relationship notable both for enhanced defense cooperation between their countries and for some tense periods, particularly over Israel’s settlement building and what red lines are appropriate in dealing with Iran.

Middle Eastern leaders in addition to Netanyahu who were called included President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The Obama administration is coordinating closely with Turkey on how to deal with the unrest in Syria, and Saudi Arabia, like Israel, is a principal regional ally in the bid to isolate Iran until it stands down from a suspected nuclear weapons program.

Obama is navigating an uneasy course with Morsi, the former Muslim Brotherhood leader who has demonstrated ambivalence if not hostility toward sustaining the peace treaty with Israel.  

The other leaders on Obama’s call list mostly included allies, including from Germany, France and Britain, as well as the secretary-general of the NATO alliance.

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A district court judge on Wednesday called the first work stoppage in the newspaper’s 64-year history a "wildcat" strike and told the employees to file a complaint against the new management instead of making "their own rules."

The Hebrew-language paper was not printed Wednesday and its website NRG also was not updated.

The lead story on the NRG website on Wednesday reported on the employee strike. There was no mention of the U.S. presidential election.

The action comes following the newspaper’s sale to Shlomo Ben Zvi, who the strikers say has violated the collective agreement he signed with them.

Ben Zvi said Tuesday that a percentage of the current employees would be absorbed into the new ownership’s operation, but at a lower salary to be determined.

The workers said they would file a complaint in labor court. 
 

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Adelson’s remarks, reported Wednesday by the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, were made informally to a small group on Monday at a Las Vegas hotel and casino owned by Adelson. They came on the sidelines of The Jewish Federations of North America’s second annual TribeFest, a three-day leadership and networking retreat attended by about 1,400 Jewish professionals. 

Adelson, who with his wife has donated more than $16 million to Winning Our Future, an independent committee, or Super PAC, that is run by former Gingrich associates in support of the candidate, also criticized the two Republican front-runners, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, according to the Jewish Journal.

The chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. also reportedly predicted that it was unlikely that Gingrich would be a vice-presidential candidate.

Adelson is worth more than $21 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He is a major giver to Birthright Israel, which provides free 10-day trips to Israel for Jews aged 18 to 26.

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Mofaz received 62 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s Kadima primary to unseat Livni as the leader of Israel’s main opposition party. Forty-five percent of the party’s 95,000 registered members voted in the primary.

The Iranian-born Mofaz is a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Mofaz and Livni, who both were members of the right-wing Likud Party before joining Kadima, have been fierce rivals for the past several years. In 2008 Livni narrowly beat Mofaz to become Kadima’s leader. Previous party heads were founder Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

In a late-night victory speech, Mofaz called on Livni to remain in the party, saying "Tzipi, your place is with us."

Recent polls suggested that Kadima, which has 28 seats in the current Knesset, likely will see its support plunge dramatically in the next elections. That would be the case, the polls noted, regardless of whether Mofaz or Livni was the party’s leader.

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The Get Out the Vote 2012 campaign is a nonpartisan guide to assist Jewish community organizations and individuals with advice on promoting voter registration drives and to educate voters about the election. 

The list of groups participating includes the Union for Reform Judaism, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. 

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, in a statement released Wednesday called the guide "an invaluable tool to educate voters and encourage higher voter participation in November."

"There is clearly so much at stake in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections, including vital political, economic, and moral issues important to all Americans and the Jewish community in particular," he said.

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Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News, is considering running for the New York Senate seat held by Kirsten Gillibrand, who in January 2009 filled the unexpired term of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The New York Times cited two unnamed sources who were told of Zuckerman’s discussions on the idea.

Zuckerman spokesman Ken Frydman told the Times that Zuckerman “is not interested in running for public office.”

One of the sources said Zuckerman, whose fortune is estimated to be about $2 billion, was considering commissioning a poll to see if a candidacy was viable.

Though Zuckerman is known to be a Democrat, he is not registered with a political party and likely would run as a Republican or an independent in order to avoid a primary, according to the newspaper.

He would likely have to turn management of the Daily News over to a third party in order to enter the race.

A naturalized American citizen who was born in Canada, he is a staunch supporter of Israel.
 

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But she exercises her right to vote only in the country in which she lives — at a polling station near her home in Norman, Okla.

If Israel’s Yisrael Beiteinu party has its way, however, Levenson soon could be eligible to vote from the United States in Israeli elections.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fulfilled a coalition pledge to Yisrael Beiteinu in proposing a bill last week to grant Israelis overseas the right to vote. Current law requires Israelis to be in country to vote, diplomatic staff excepted.

Even if the bill passes, Levenson says she wouldn’t vote in Israeli elections.

“I would not vote from outside of Israel,” Levenson said this week in Israel during a family visit. “Each vote affects everybody here. I’m not living here anymore or bringing up kids here anymore.”

The exact contours of the bill are still under debate, and the chances of its passage are slim. One version would limit voting rights to those who hold Israeli passports and have been abroad for less than 10 years. Netanyahu is said to favor a time limit of four to six years — about the length of time it takes to achieve one or two academic degrees.

To a large extent, the debate over the bill is about the legitimacy of Israelis spending time overseas. In a country this small, going abroad is not just a rite of passage but, in many professions, a virtual requirement. Academics are encouraged to do post-doctoral studies overseas, and doctors are urged to take fellowships and train outside the country.

The question for Zionists is how much time abroad is too much.

Giving Israelis who live overseas the right to vote from abroad “legitimizes leaving the country,” said Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political science at Hebrew University who served as director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry under Yitzhak Rabin.

“It’s a very bad idea,” he said. “It’s a matter of principle. If you don’t live here, you don’t vote. Participation in the political process while you are not going to have to live with the consequences is immoral and undemocratic.”

A Yisrael Beiteinu spokesman, Danny Hershtal, noted that the current law allows even Israelis who haven’t lived in Israel for decades to vote — they just have to come to Israel to cast their ballot.

“Every Israeli has a right to vote. What prevents most Israeli citizens from voting is that they do not have enough money to fly to Israel on Election Day,” Hershtal said of Israelis overseas. “A person who cares about Israel has a basic right as a citizen to vote. We simply want to equalize it and make it more convenient.”

In theory, because of the unique nature of Israeli immigration laws that grant any Jew the right to immigrate, the prospect of such a bill raises the possibility that Diaspora Jews could obtain Israeli citizenship simply to get a say in Israeli elections without going through the trouble of actually living in Israel, even on Election Day. Several versions of the bill under consideration aim to eliminate that possibility.

The bill seems to be gaining little traction, though it has served as fodder for newspaper editorialists and columnists to opine about the subject. Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post both wrote editorials against it.

Columnist Michael Freund, writing in the Jerusalem Post, said he thought it was a good idea.

“To be sure, Israelis who choose to live abroad have elected to cast their fate elsewhere, for whatever reason,” he wrote. “But the choice we face is whether to write them off or seek ways to strengthen their bonds to this country, in the hope that one day they or their children will return.

“Giving them the right to vote seems like a good place to start,” Freund wrote.

Avineri called such thinking “nonsense,” arguing that it destroys the distinction between the Diaspora and Israel.

The Absorption Ministry estimates that 750,000 Israelis are living overseas — about equal to 10 percent of the population in Israel. But many of them do not have valid passports and would be unlikely to win eligibility to vote.

During recent highly contentious elections in Israel, political activists arranged for subsidized charter flights to bring Israelis living in the United States to Israel to vote on Election Day. The proposed bill to allow voting without going through the hassle of getting on a plane to come to Israel is seen as favoring Israel’s right wing because Israelis living overseas trend to the right.

The president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, who opposes the proposed bill, dismissed that notion.

“Israelis that I know living in America are very left wing, very secular,” he said. “People who are nationalistic live in Israel.”

Israel’s left-wing parties are against the proposed bill, but so are some members of right-wing parties, including Shas. Knesset members from the centrist Kadima Party are divided; party leader Tzipi Livni is staunchly opposed.

“I believe that we must encourage Israelis to return to Israel, but the right to determine what will happen in the state needs to be reserved only for those who chose to base their future here,” Livni said. “The privilege of determining the fate of Israel must be in the hands of those living in Israel and are willing to pay the price of their decisions in elections, for better or for worse.”

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