Vodka, Nesting Dolls and Balalaikas

One of the groups that Tom Selleck lookalike Amir Peretz most needs to appeal to is working class Russian-Israelis, who generally vote Likud for its hard line on security, but might conceivably be wooed away over issues of poverty and austerity measures. So I intend over the next few months to post periodic translations from Israel's Russian-language press, following Peretz's success (or otherwise) in making inroads with that group.

I thought I’d start out with this somewhat tongue-in-cheek offering from Novosti Izrailya, on Peretz’s first attempt to reach out to Russian voters: Амир Перец заговорит по-русски (Amir Perets Learns Russian).

The website Ynet reports that Amir Peretz, the new Avoda party chairman, has decided to learn the basics of the Russian language on the eve of the Knesset elections. Peretz will take lessons, hoping that knowing the words “vodka”, “nesting dolls”, and “balalaika” will elicit the sympathy of the voters, ex-pats from the former-USSR. He took his first lesson Friday. It lasted about an hour. Peretz’s inner circle reports that it will be an intensive course, since the Avoda chairman intends to learn the language before he begins meeting with his consituents.

According to Ynet, a recent poll showed that many Russians agree with the political course that Peretz intends to follow, though only a small percentage is prepared to cast their vote for him. An unnamed journalist from a Russian language publication told Ynet that the number of Peretz supporters increased significantly amongst the ex-pats after his victory in the primaries. “The poll showed that 70% would not vote for him, although 54% were satisfied with his selection as Avoda chairman,” she said. Ynet also credits an anonymous journalist with the following statement: “First and foremost, Russians lean to the right. They are put off by the fact that he is a socialist. The final straw is that he is a Moroccan”.

Peretz's associates also agree that it will be no easy matter for him to win the sympathy of the Russians. “They don’t like his mustache. They don’t like that he reminds them of Stalin, that he heads the Histadrut (a consortium of labor unions), which reminds them of the Soviet Union. Amir, however, is sure that he can break all the stereotypes and convince the ex-pats to vote for him. He thinks that addressing them in Russian will enable him to show how important they are to him.”

Ynet also reports that Peretz has begun learning English.

We are reminded that attempts to learn Russian launched many of his predecessors, including Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, into the Avoda chairmanship, though there is simply no concrete evidence that [their learning Russian] influenced the ex-pats’ votes.

Translation, and all errors therein, brought to you by Lawrence of Cyberia.