Until now, my posts on the big felafel have been factual and informative, but I’m gonna get a little passionate in this one, so I decided to start my own blog. I’m starting my own blog because I believe that we each have the potential to get involved and be a part of a movement that can create real change and I want to write about it. I also know from experience that all it takes is a strong, passionate group of activists and a willing group of volunteers to make a real change.

Especially with Barack Obama’s election win this morning, I feel passionate and hopeful as we get close to these Jerusalem elections. If we get involved and get our friends and family involved, if we vote and make sure our friends and family vote, we have the potential to reverse this downward trend we see in Jerusalem. Young people are leaving our city, there are no jobs and no affordable apartments, the holiest city in the world has no visible hospitality or tourism plan, and our streets are filled with garbage and endless, expensive construction. But with the right leaders, over the next 5 years, these trends could be changed. For the most part, none of the damage in Jerusalem is irreversible. The budget can be redistributed and tourism can be developed. Culture can be nurtured and the streets can be cleaned. But it starts with your vote.

So decide who you believe in. Contact them. Get involved.
Now, I don’t know about other parties, but I am involved in Hitorerut-Yerushalmim.

Here are some things you can do to make sure people get out the vote for Hitorerut-Yerushalmim:

• Attend an event
• Hang banners in apartment windows or on balconies
• Talk to people on the streets, passing out fliers and signing other people up to get involved
• Make phone calls
• Get your friends and family signed up and involved
• Volunteer all day on election day to get people to vote

There is a lot of work to do! Be a part of it!

So, what will you say when your friends and family members ask you what you did to prevent another 5 years of irresponsible leadership of the Jerusalem mayor and city council?! What will you say when your friends come to visit you in Jerusalem and ask you why the city is dirty, in shambles of construction and not at all conducive to tourists?!

Tell people that you spent all of your free time before the election trying to get people to vote, trying to build support for your party, trying to wake people up to the reality that the fate of Jerusalem’s future rests in how we cast our vote on 11.11.

Contact me, if you want to get involved in Hitorerut-Yerushalmim. If HY is not your party, or you’d rather get involved in a mayoral campaign, then decide which candidate or party is for you, contact them through their website and get involved. Whatever you do, don’t spend the next week on the couch- spend it on the streets! Most importantly, vote “הי” on the ballot for municipal council.