New Right brings experts in aliyah, hasbara
Yisrael Beytenu presents list with new faces, without ex-immigration minister
The New Right Party introduced more candidates and Yisrael Beytenu presented its list ahead of Thursday’s final deadline to submit lists.
Among the New Right’s candidates is Yomtov Kalfon, an attorney, activist for French and Belgian aliyah, and founder of “Aleinu,” meant to help get French-speaking immigrants involved in Israeli politics.
Kalfon, 32, grew up in a suburb of Paris and moved to Israel alone at age 18 to serve in a combat unit in the IDF.
Together with New Right leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, Kalfon presented a plan on Tuesday for how Israel can absorb 50,000 French-speaking immigrants. The plan involves helping find employment and housing, cutting bureaucracy, encouraging community life, and adapting education frameworks. Kalfon lamented that “the Israeli government has yet to realize how to help” olim from France.
“The time has come to be the voice of French-speaking olim in the Knesset,” Kalfon said, although there have been several Francophone MKs in recent years, including Kulanu’s Eli Alalouf and Likud’s Sharren Haskel.
Ran Bario Bar-Yoshafat, deputy director of the right-leaning Kohelet Policy Forum, also joined the New Right’s list. Bar-Yoshafat, 35, conducted Israel advocacy tours in the US and wrote a book about Israeli public diplomacy.
Yisrael Beytenu presented its full list on Tuesday evening, with a mix of old and new. Freshman MK Oded Forrer was bumped up to second place behind party leader Avigdor Liberman, and after him came Russian-language journalist Evgeny Sova and Eli Avidar, the former CEO of the Diamond Exchange, followed by MKs Yulia Malinovsky and Hamad Amar.
Longtime MKs Sofa Landver and Robert Ilatov are not on the list. Landver was Immigration Absorption minister for eight non-continuous years.
Though Yisrael Beytenu has been polling at four to five seats, Liberman said in his presentation that they will get eight or nine.
“We don’t care about polls, we are doing work in the field,” Liberman said. “Whoever wants a sane and real Right, will vote for us. We will face off against those who want a halachic state here and those who want to annex millions of Palestinians and give them the vote.”