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The real story behind Jewish family comedy ‘iMordecai’ and its unusual path to the big screen
(JTA) — The real Mordecai Samel, at the time in his late 70s, really didn’t want an iPhone in 2015.
The Holocaust survivor who had been living in South Florida since 2004 didn’t see a need. His taped-together flip phone worked fine. But his son Marvin insisted.
One thing that helped convince Mordecai to give in: the ability to listen to the klezmer music of his youth that the iPhone provided.
“One day I got off a plane, and I called my dad, and all I could hear was static,” Marvin Samel said.
Soon Mordecai was going to iPhone lessons at a local store six times a week.
“It’s there that I see my father holding court, telling stories,” Marvin said about the lessons, “and I said, this is it. This is the vehicle to tell the story as a screenplay.”
Thus sprung an unusual comedy film that hits theaters Friday inspired directly by first-time director Marvin Samel’s life, centered on a Jewish family that is split by a stark generational divide.
In the film — as in the Samels’ real lives — Marvin (played by Sean Astin) attempts to sell his cigar company while his father’s antics continually get in the way and his mother (Carol Kane), who has Alzheimer’s Disease, sometimes wanders off.
“I had to tone him down for the movie, because no one would believe me if I actually printed the truth. He’s always getting himself into trouble,” Samel said of the real Mordecai, a retired plumber who is played onscreen by Tony and Emmy Award winner Judd Hirsch.
At the same time, Marvin’s wife, who has just given birth to twins, is upset with him about delays in the company sale and the family’s resulting cash crunch. Mordecai agrees to take the iPhone lessons and befriends the instructor (Azia Dinea Hale) who he calls “Einstein Nina,” someone with a surprising family backstory of her own.
Mordecai tells her some stories about his family’s escape from the Nazis when he was a child, showing her family pictures from before the war and noting that he can’t remember his mother’s face. These stories, Marvin Samel said, were inspired more by the stories told by Mordecai’s brother, who was older when the family fled, than by his own. The family left Poland in 1939, when Mordecai was three and his older brother was six. They first went to the Soviet Union and eventually to Brooklyn.
Mordecai’s family was from Janów Podlaski, a small town in Poland at the center of the territory split by Hitler and Stalin in 1939. Some flashback sequences are presented in animation.
Marvin Samel sold his company, Drew Estate Cigars, back in 2014. The film was mostly self-financed, in part from the proceeds of the cigar company’s sale, “all the way through distribution.” While Samel has always loved the movies, even seeing movies like “Taxi Driver” and “Hair” when he was much too young to do so — “my Temple, growing up, was the movie theater,” he said — he had never before set foot on a movie set prior to the first day of filming of “iMordecai.”
Samel taught himself filmmaking, in part, by taking online courses through MasterClass from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Jodie Foster, and he also had a chance meeting at a dinner with retired basketball star Ray Allen, who had made a novice acting appearance in Spike Lee’s “He Got Game” when he was in his early 20s. Allen’s advice was to spend some time on movie sets to get a feel for things, but not much was filming in South Florida at the time.
Sean Astin, right, plays Marvin Samel’s character. (FeMor Productions)
“iMordecai” was shot in 23 days in late 2019, meaning that Samel filmed a movie that starred Hirsch as a heavily-accented, old-world Jewish immigrant inspired by a relative of the filmmaker at least a year before Steven Spielberg did the same for “The Fabelmans.” Hirsch is nominated for an Oscar for his role in that movie, his first Academy Award nomination since “Ordinary People” more than 40 years earlier.
Samel’s film, which features the city of Miami extensively, has been a hit so far in Florida. It had its world premiere in January 2022 at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, where it won the audience award for best narrative film.
“I think that this film has the capacity to possibly impact and resonate with people of all ages,” said Igor Shteyrenberg, executive director of the festival.
Samel is taking the film on a tour that criss-crossed the Sunshine State this month, including a run of 10 shows at The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community. That tour, in which the real Mordecai has been on stage at times, headed to New York’s Quad Cinemas this week, and a limited theatrical release — also heavy in Florida — starts Friday. Tour dates in such markets as Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago are next, prior to a return to Florida, Samel said.
Perhaps the success with the older Florida crowd has to do with the universality of the film’s subject matter. Even Warren Buffett, the famed investor, turned in his flip phone for an iPhone back in 2020, when he was nearly 90, even though he had bought many billions of dollars in Apple stock by that point.
Yvette Miro, a 99-year-old who lives in Tamarac, Florida, said it’s “hard to remember not having” an iPhone after getting one to replace her flip phone about 10 years ago. A Brooklyn native — she attended Eastern District High School at the same time as Mel Brooks, who was a couple of years younger — Miro has lived in Florida since 1999, and even at her age continues to host weekly Shabbat dinners with her family, including her nine grandchildren and more than 30 great-grandchildren.
But unlike Mordecai, rather than badgered into getting the iPhone, she got one herself.
“I heard about it, I wanted it. I’m old, but I had to keep up with the times,” she said.
She now uses it for “everything… especially FaceTime, where I can see [the kids]. I use it even more than my regular phone.”
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The post The real story behind Jewish family comedy ‘iMordecai’ and its unusual path to the big screen appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Could a foie gras ban remove chopped liver from the deli menu?
Could an effort to defend ducks and curb the cruelty that some believe creates foie gras accidentally outlaw a favorite staple in Jewish delis? One Jewish resident of Washington D.C. fears that could be the case.
A measure on the ballot in Washington next Tuesday would bar the sale or distribution of “any fattened bird liver product within the District of Columbia.”
Activists say the legislation aims to ban the sale of any product resulting from force-feeding a bird, including foie gras. But the D.C. ordinance defines “fattened bird liver product” as “any food product or by-product made from the livers of birds fattened through any method or practice … regardless of marketing terminology.” It includes foie gras, pâtés, spreads, and processed meat products derived from the livers of “ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys, guineas, or squabs.”
“I am a fan of all things liver,” said Jordan Weissmann, an editor at the Progressive Policy Institute, who calls himself a libertarian when it comes to gastronomic matters. “I grew up eating chopped liver. I’m a fan of schmaltz and all pâtés, but there are much bigger issues facing Washington D.C. right now. So I was not going to get too fired up about this.”
Then a friend suggested he look at the language of the ordinance. Its lack of specificity, leaving enforcement up to interpretation, ruffled his feathers.
“My eyes popped out of my head,” he told the Forward. “It sounds like a sweeping ban. I immediately fired off a tweet.” That post and the conversation it generated has since gone viral, garnering thousands of views and hundreds of comments.
Pro-Animal DC, the campaign that drafted the ban, insists that’s not the intention. The law simply seeks to end the torture of farm-raised fowl.
“When laws are enforced this would not affect Jewish delis or chopped chicken liver,” said Natalie Fulton, media and content lead for Pro-Animal DC. She said when regulators enforce laws, they look at their entirety. They don’t look at “a sentence taken out of context.”
In addition to ending the sale of poultry products, the proposed ordinance also makes force-feeding birds illegal within the District. It doesn’t regulate possession of force-fed products or affect what Bubbe puts in the blender.
Fulton acknowledges that the definition of poultry, including chickens, is quite broad.
“We basically put that in there to make sure foie gras producers wouldn’t just shift to chickens. I’m not even sure it’s possible biologically. It safeguards if someone tries to get around the law that way.” If the initiative passes, she said, the City Council can clarify the language to prevent any confusion.
French for “fatty liver,” foie gras is the liver of a duck or goose that has been deliberately fattened by force-feeding, a process the industry calls gavage.
Workers insert a tube down the bird’s esophagus to pump in grain and fat, causing the liver to swell with fat until it is many times its normal size. The organ is then harvested, deveined, and seasoned in a variety of ways before it is baked in a terrine or pan-seared.
Mark Caro, author of The Foie Gras Wars, a book about a local war between Chicago chefs that escalated into a nationwide and international debate and a citywide ban of foie gras that lasted two years before it was repealed, writes that chopped liver is in fact a direct descendant of foie gras, which was once central to Jewish cuisine.
“The most-repeated theory is that foie gras survived thanks to Jews who had learned of force-feeding practices while under Roman rule and carried the tradition around Europe as they kept getting kicked out of countries,” Caro wrote. It even became the topic of a Talmudic commentary on animal cruelty by 11th Century French rabbi Rashi, as Judaic law prohibits tza’ar ba’alei chayim, or the suffering of animals.
But there were practical reasons to force feed geese at the time, Caro wrote. In the Mediterranean, Jews could cook with olive oil. In Babylonia, they could use sesame oil. But as Jews migrated north and west across Europe, they needed something besides pork fat, beef fat and butter to conduct heat in their skillets. The chosen alternative was poultry fat, or schmaltz, extracted from fattened goose livers.
In his book, Caro also includes the story of Holocaust survivor and third-generation Hungarian goose farmer Moshe Friedman, who in 1948 began producing fat goose livers on a kibbutz in the new Jewish state, and made it one of Israel’s first exports.
Israel is now one of 20 countries that bans foie gras produced by force feeding. California, New York City, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., and Brookline, Mass. all prohibit stores and restaurants from selling products from force-fed ducks and geese. A similar measure is on the ballot this fall in Denver.
Weissmann just hopes the Denver ordinance is more precise.
“You’d have to be an overzealous vegan to throw all the pâté out of Whole Foods,” he said. “You never know.”
The post Could a foie gras ban remove chopped liver from the deli menu? appeared first on The Forward.
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DSA to LA mayoral favorite Nithya Raman: BDS or our endorsement — pick one
When Nithya Raman told Jewish Angelenos last month that she believed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was a “legitimate” form of protest, she didn’t go far enough for the Democratic Socialists of America, whose national leadership threatened to expel her for not championing the Israel boycott outright.
The organization’s staunchly anti-Zionist politics have long clashed with Raman, a progressive councilmember who is running for mayor of Los Angeles — and in a dead heat with incumbent Karen Bass in a recent L.A. Times poll. Though she has called the war in Gaza a genocide, Raman has never been a hardliner on Israel, raising the question of whether the DSA would dig in its heels or back a popular candidate who doesn’t meet all of its criteria.
The answer arrived on Monday night in a pair of resolutions by the DSA’s National Political Committee, which together struck some form of compromise. The committee voted not to expel Raman — at least not before the election. But it threatened to revoke the LA chapter’s earlier endorsement if she does not commit to supporting BDS in a town hall that the LA chapter is expected to convene on Saturday.
Even that measure, though, may not have teeth. It’s unclear whether the LA chapter will actually convene for such a meeting — or whether the national organization even could pull the local group’s endorsement. In a statement following the vote, DSA-LA co-chair Leslie Chang said the chapter was standing by its endorsement.
”Our members voted in a supermajority, democratic decision to support her campaign and we are excited to continue knocking on doors for Nithya and our entire slate through Nov. 3,” Chang said.
The expulsion timeline, on the other hand, gives her until Jan. 1 to endorse BDS and sign on to DSA’s campaign to stop the shipment of weapons for Israel out of Los Angeles International Airport. (Municipal authorities have limited direct legal jurisdiction over international aviation and cargo regulations.)
The lengthy resolutions reflect the fierce competition between ideology and pragmatism inside the DSA as its members increasingly run for and win public office. With Zohran Mamdani at the helm of New York City, a Raman victory would mean DSA members run City Hall in the country’s two largest cities. But many in the organization believe Raman’s politics dilute the brand.
Raman, who in 2020 became the first DSA member elected to LA’s City Council, has sought to thread a needle on Israel during her time in office and on the campaign trail. DSA’s Los Angeles chapter voted to censure her after she accepted an endorsement from Democrats for Israel–Los Angeles, a liberal Zionist group. At the time, Raman told DFI-LA she believed Israel had a right to exist, departing from DSA dogma.
She also touts her support for the Jewish community after Oct. 7. In the wake of the attack, Raman — whose district includes some of the city’s largest Jewish neighborhoods — criticized the DSA for a statement she said was “unacceptably devoid of empathy.”
She has also disappointed some Jewish constituents by supporting a ceasefire in Gaza in early 2024 and by telling controversial left-wing influencer Hasan Piker earlier this year she believed the war was a genocide. She reiterated the genocide remark at the Jewish community forum Sept. 29, crossing what the local Jewish federation said was a “red line” for political candidates.
Thanks to a wave of support from less-active DSA members, the Los Angeles chapter endorsed Raman Sept. 2 by a 937 to 484 vote.
The Raman campaign declined to comment for this story.
‘For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA’
DSA-LA’s endorsement came under the microscope of the National Political Committee after it was revealed that the chapter had failed to include a question about BDS in its candidate questionnaire.
The omission of BDS violated a rule about pro-Palestinian policy the national organization passed last year. Known as R22, the rule outlines conditions for revoking endorsements or expelling a member if they make certain pro-Israel statements, such as saying that Israel has “a right to defend itself” or opposing BDS.
Chapter leaders called the missing question an “oversight.”
Meanwhile, Raman’s language on the Israel boycott — if not her stance on the issue — has changed over time.
Back in 2020, when she was running for council, Raman told the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, “I absolutely do not support BDS,” adding, “At a time when hate crimes are rising in LA and across the world, it is dangerous for a candidate to be so closely aligned with a political movement bent on demonizing Israel and the Jewish people.”
She has spoken less forcefully against boycotting during her campaign. In the Jewish community forum last month, she said that while BDS was a legitimate form of peaceful protest, it was not part of her platform or her focus on LA.
Massive groans in the Skirball auditorium when Nithya Raman defends BDS as a “legitimate form of protest.” Question from @AJCGlobal. https://t.co/W2Uml0lPMI
— Louis Keene (@thislouis) September 30, 2026
In a statement to LA’s DSA chapter sent in advance of Monday’s vote, Raman’s stance on BDS was vague, seemingly supporting BDS as a form of pressure on Israel but stopping short of adopting it herself.
“I believe the best way for working Angelenos to stand in solidarity with Gaza is through non-violent protest, legislative action and diplomatic pressure, including BDS,” Raman said.
DSA members on X appeared split on whether the statement satisfied the requirements of R22.
A second round of questions
The questions Raman will be expected to answer at an Oct. 31 town hall are a familiar list of anti-Zionist litmus tests. In addition to receiving a point-blank question about her support for BDS, she will be asked to make two commitments: to refrain from any affiliation with “Zionist lobby groups” and to oppose any legislation that harms Palestinians.
She will also be asked to oppose legislation “that would allow direct financial donations of any kind to Israel and/or settler NGOs who carry out the mission of Israeli settlement and Palestinian dispossession/displacement, such as the Jewish National Fund,” and to condemn weapons shipments from LAX.
If the meeting doesn’t happen by Oct. 31, the resolution says, the national committee will order DSA-LA to pull the endorsement. And if DSA-LA refuses to comply — either by not holding a meeting or maintaining its endorsement — the chapter and its leadership could be censured.
DSA-LA leadership didn’t seem particularly troubled by the possibility of a break from the national committee.
“As DSA-LA is a membership-driven organization,” Chang, its co-chair, said, “any decision around our electoral strategy lies with our members and we will be maintaining our endorsement of Nithya and all our candidates.”
Meanwhile, the resolution calling for Raman’s expulsion if she has not complied by Jan. 1 adds that if she doesn’t win Nov. 3, “all deadlines and proposed disciplinary votes for CM Raman and the LA chapter in this proposal shall be null and void.”
If she does not win the election, Raman’s council term will end in 2028.
The post DSA to LA mayoral favorite Nithya Raman: BDS or our endorsement — pick one appeared first on The Forward.
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What can we make of the initial results of the Israeli elections?
אַ גרױסער יום-טובֿ איז געפֿײַערט געװאָרן אין ישׂראל, דעם 27סטן אָקטאָבער — אַ יום-טובֿ פֿאַר דעמאָקראַטיע און אַ יום-טובֿ פֿאַר ייִדן.
דאָ האָבן אַלע רעגיסטרירטע בירגער פֿון 18 יאָר און עלטער געהאַט די מעגלעכקײט צו שטימען פֿאַר אײנער פֿון 35 פּאָליטישע פּאַרטײען: סײַ ייִדישע און סײַ ניט-ייִדישע פּאַרטײען, כּדי אױסצוקלײַבן אַ נײַע רעגירונג פֿאַר אַ קאַדענץ װאָס — לױטן געזעץ — דאַרף אױסהאַלטן 4 יאָר. אין דער אמתן איז זעלטן װען עס האַלט אַזױ לאַנג אױס, נאָר אין די װאַלן פֿון 2022 האָט בנימין נתניהוס רעגירונג טאַקע אױסגעהאַלטן.
עטלעכע פֿאַקטן וועגן די איצטיקע װאַלן
- איבער 12,000 שטימערטער זײַנען געװען צעשפּרײט איבער אַרום 1,200 ייִשובים.
- טױזנטער ישׂראלים מיט שטימרעכט זײַנען ספּעציעל אָנגעפֿלױגן פֿון אַנדערע לענדער, כּדי אָנטײלצונעמען אין די װאַלן. צװישן זײ — די װעלט-באַרימטע אַקטריסע גל גדוט (גאַל גאַדאָט) װאָס האָט לעצטנס באַקומען אַן ערן־דאָקטאָראַט פֿון בר־אילן אוניװערסיטעט.
- צענדליקער טױזנטער סאָלדאַטן האָבן געשטימט פֿאַרן וואַלטאָג, דעם 27סטן. די רעזולטאַטן װעלן שפּעטער צוגעגעבן װערן און קענען האָבן אַ ממשתדיקע השפּעה אױף דעם אַרױסקום.
- עס האָבן געשטימט 5,695,682 פֿון די בירגער מיט שטימרעכט (7,331,981). דאָס איז אַרום 77.7% — דער העכסטער פּראָצענט מענטשן וואָס האָבן געשטימט במשך פֿון לאַנגע יאָרן.
די פּרעלימינאַרע רעזולטאַטן מיט אַ טאָג שפּעטער
לױט די אַנקעטעס פֿון עטלעכע טעג פֿאַר די װאַלן האָט מען פֿאָרױסגעזאָגט אַז פֿון די מעגלעכע 120 כּנסת־ערטער װעלן בערך 52 גיין פֿאַר די שותּפֿים פֿון נתניהון; 54 פֿאַר די קעגנערס פֿון נתניהו, און 14 פֿאַר די אַראַבישע פּאַרטײען.
װי נאָר דאָס װײלן האָט זיך געשלאָסן 10 אַ זייגער אין אָוונט , האָבן די פֿאַרשײדענע אױספֿרעג-פֿירמעס שױן אָנגעהױבן אַרױסזאָגן זײערע נבֿיאות. עס איז שוין אָנגענומען, אַז זײַט-בײַ-זײַט מיט אַ צאָל וויכטיקע שטימערטער, שטעלט מען אױס שטימקעסטלעך, און מע בעט די װײלער אַרײַנװאַרפֿן אין קעסטל אַ קאָפּיע פֿון זײער אױסװײל. בערך 600 אַזעלכע שטימקעסטלעך האָט מען אויפֿגעשטעלט איבער אַ צאָל ייִשובים. די אויספרעג-פֿירמעס באַאַרבעטן די דאָזיקע „פּאַראַלעלע“ רעזולטאַטן צוזאַמען מיט געװיסע אַנדערע פֿאַקטאָרן און מאַכן אַ סך-הכּל פֿון װי עס װעלן אפֿשר אױסזען די לעצטגילטיקע רעזולטאַטן.
די פֿיר הױפּט טעלעװיזיע־סטאַנציעס האָבן אַלע געהאַט אָנגעשטעלט אױספֿרעג-פֿירמעס, און דרײַ פֿון זײ האָבן געהאַט מער אָדער װײניקער די זעלבע רעזולטאַטן: אַז נתניהוס בלאָק האָט פֿאַרשפּילט. די פֿערטע טעלעװיזיע־סטאַנציע, ארוץ 14, װאָס רעכנט זיך פֿאַר אַ גרױסן שטיצער פֿון די רעכטע און פֿון נתניהון – האָט לרובֿ געגעבן ענלעכע רעזולטאַטן, אָבער אָנגעװיזן אַז נתניהו װעט זײַן דער געװינער.
װי אַ רעזולטאַט פֿון די דאָזיקע מוסטער-שטימען, האָבן נאָך האַלבער נאַכט געמאָלדן סײַ גדי אײַזנקאָט פֿון דער „ישר“ פּאַרטײ, װאָס האָט באַװיזן 23 שטימען, סײַ נפֿתּלי בענעט פֿון דער „ביחד“ פּאַרטײ מיט יאיר לפּיד (מיט 12 שטימען) — אַז נתניהו און זײַן בלאָק האָט פֿאַרשפּילט.
נתניהו, דאַקעגן, האָט זיך ניט אונטערגעגעבן, און דעקלאַרירט אַז ער האָט די גרעסטע פּאַרטײ, און אַז מע דאַרף װאַרטן אױף די אמתע שטימען, װאָס מע װעט צומאָרגנס דערגאַנצן. און מיט דעם איז מען געגאַנגען שלאָפֿן – אַז נתניהוס קעגנערס האָבן געװוּנען.
אַ גאַנצע נאַכט האָט מען געציילט די אמתע שטימען. אין דער פֿרי האָבן מענטשן זיך אױפֿגעװעקט צו גאָר אַן אַנדער רעאַליטעט. סײַ נאָכן אױססאָרטירן און אָפּצײלן בערך אַ דריטל פֿון די שטימען 7 אַ זייגער אין דער פֿרי, סײַ ווען מע האָט שוין איבערגעציילט 50% מיט צוויי שעה שפּעטער, האָט אױסגעזען אַז נתניהו און זײַן בלאָק פֿון דער איצטיקער רעגירונגס קאָאַליציע װעט האָבן די מערסטע ערטער אין דער כּנסת און װעט קענען צוריק װערן די אָנפירענדיקע פּאַרטיי אין לאַנד.
די אַראַבישע פּאַרטײען האָבן אויך געהאַט גרױס דערפֿאָלג. זײערע שטיצערס זײַנען אַרױס אין די טױזנטער צו שטימען (מע זאָגט אַז בן-גבֿיר און זײַן פּאַרטײ האָט זײ אָנגעבייזערט) און באַקומען אַ גרעסערע צאָל ערטער אין כּנסת װי װען עס איז. די פֿאַרגרעסערטע צאָל אַראַבישע װײלער האָבן אױך פֿאַרגרעסערט דעם מינימום צאָל שטימען װאָס אַ קלענערע פּאַרטײ האָט געמוזט אָנזאַמלען כּדי צו דערגרייכן דעם מינימום פֿון 4 ערטער. אױב אין די פֿריִערדיקע װאַלן פֿון 2022 האָט אַ פּאַרטײ באַדאַרפֿט אַרײַנציִען 155,000 שטימען, איז שאַרף געװאַקסן דער מינימום נעענטער צו 184,000 צוליב דער הױכער צאָל װײלער (ייִדן און ניט-ייִדן) װאָס זײַנען אַרױס שטימען.
נאָכן איבערציילן בערך 77% פון די שטימען הײַנט ביז 2 אַ זייגער נאָך מיטאָג, ווערן די 120 כּנסת־מיטגלידער אײַנגעטיילט אַזוי: נתניהוס בלאָק — 54, די קעגנער — 49 און די אַראַבישע פּאַרטייען — 17.
צי די רעזולטאַטן וועלן זיך בײַטן נאָך דעם ווי מע האָט איבערגעציילט 100% וועט מען נאָך זען. מע דאַרף אויך אין זינען האָבן די עטלעכע הונדערט טױזנט שטימען פֿון די סאָלדאַטן. דאָס קען נאָך אַרױסראַטעװען יועז הענדעלס „מילואימניקים“ פּאַרטײ, וואָס איך האָב באַשריבן אין אַ פֿריִערדיקן אַרטיקל.
סך-הכּלען און מעגלעכע אױסקומען
געװיסע פּאַרטײען פֿון נתניהוס בלאָק האָבן פֿאָדערונגען װאָס קענען זײַן פֿאַר אים שװער אױסצופֿירן. למשל, די חרדים האָבן געזאָגט אַז זײ װעלן זיך דאָס מאָל ניט פֿאַראײניקן מיטן ליכּוד, כּל־זמן מע װעט ניט באַפֿרײַען צענדליקער טױזנטער פֿרומע יונגעלײַט פֿון מיליטער-דינסט. בן-גבֿיר האָט געפֿאָדערט אַז ער זאָל זײַן דער פֿאַרטײדיקונג־מיניסטער. אַנדערע פּאַרטײען װעלן זיכער האָבן נאָך פֿאָדערונגען.
עס קען זײַן, אַז נתניהו װעט װעלן זיך אָפּטשעפּענען פֿון די קאָפּװײטיקן פֿון זײַנע ביז-איצטיקע שותּפֿים, און זוכן זיך צו פֿאַראײניקן מיט געװיסע פּאַרטײען פֿון זײַנע פּאָליטישע קעגנערס.
די מערסטע ציוניסטישע פּאַרטײען װאָס האָבן זיך קעגנגעשטעלט נתניהוס בלאָק, װעלן זיכער ניט װעלן זיך פֿאַראײניקן מיטן ליכּוד כּל־זמן נתניהו איז אין דער שפּיץ. צי װעט ער זײַן גרײט צו זײַן אויפֿן צװײטן אָרט? לױט די איצטיקע געזעצן קען ער ניט װערן אַ מיניסטער אַזוי לאַנג ווי מע פֿירט קעגן אים אַ משפּט. צי װעט עמעצער צוליב דעם אײַנפֿירן אַן ענדערונג אינעם געזעץ?
די װאָס האָבן הײַנט אפֿשר דעם גרעסטן כּוח זײַנען די צװײ אַראַבישע פּאַרטײען. װי פּראַגמאַטיש װעלן זײ קענען זײַן? זײ װעלן כּמעט װי זיכער זיך ניט פֿאַראײניקן מיט אַ טײל פֿון נתניהוס בלאָק. די גרעסערע גרופּע האָט זיך אױסגעדריקט אַז זײ זײַנען גרײט אַלץ צו טאָן כּדי נתניהו זאָל ניט קענען צוריק װערן דער פּרעמיער. פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט זײַנען ליכּודס אײנציקע מעגלעכע שותּפֿים די פּאַרטייען אין דער אַנטי-נתניהו מחנה. די מערסטע פֿון זײ האָבן צוגעזאָגט זײערע װײלער אַז זײ װעלן קײנמאָל ניט װערן שותּפֿים פֿון די אַראַבישע פּאַרטײען.
אין מײַן פֿריִערדיקן אַרטיקל האָב איך דערציילט וועגן דעם קאַנדידאַט יואבֿ סעגאַלאָװיטש – דעם געוועזענעם, פֿאַרדינסטפֿולן הויפּט פֿון דער ישׂראל־פּאָליציי וואָס פֿיגורירט אויפֿן צווייטן אָרט אין דער איסלאַמישער רע״ם פּאַרטײ. איז מעגלעך אַז די ציוניסטישע פּאַרטייען וועלן זײַן גרייט צו מאַכן אַ קאָאַליציע מיט זיי? ס׳קלינגט אוממעגלעך אָבער אין דער ישׂראל־פּאָליטיק קענען תּמיד פֿאָרקומען סורפּריזן.
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