A look at the Anglos running for a spot on the Likud Party’s list

Unlike past races for the Likud’s Knesset slate, there are no candidates who spent much of their lives in English-speaking countries.

Past Likud primaries featured unsuccessful runs by basketball star Tal Brody, who was born in New Jersey, Yechiel Leiter of Pennsylvania, Californian Fred Moncharsh, and New Yorkers Mitchell Barak, Daniel Tauber, Mordechai Taub, Yossi Fuchs and Shmuel Sackett.

In the December 9, 2008, Likud Knesset race, there were five candidates with American citizenship. In Tuesday’s primary, there is New York-born MK Yehudah Glick, who made aliyah at age nine and had to renounce his American citizenship when he entered the Knesset, and three candidates who currently hold US citizenship.

The most well-known is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former bureau chief David Sharan, who was born in Israel to American parents who immigrated in the 1960s, lived in the US on and off as a youth, and studied in Los Angeles.

There is former Jerusalem city councilman Yair Gabay, who was born in Israel to a mother from New York and a father from Baghdad, Eliyahu Gabay, who formerly served as an MK for the National Religious Party.

The only Likud Knesset candidate who was both born in America and currently holds American citizenship is Chicago-born attorney Ziv Agmon, who made aliyah at age 13 and is running for the 21st slot that is reserved for a candidate who lives in the Galilee.

When he was growing up in Chicago, Agmon’s family was close to the Emanuel family, including future mayor Rahm Emanuel. Agmon maintains ties with AIPAC and stays connected to friends he grew up with who now work in Congress and the Senate.

MK Sharren Haskel, who is running for re-election, was born in Toronto, Canada, made aliyah as a baby and earned a veterinary degree in Australia. Her father lives in Toronto, and came to Israel to help her campaign.

There are other candidates with Anglo ties, like Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, whose wife Randi is from Florida, and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, whose grandparents made aliyah from South Africa. Other advocates of Diaspora Jewry are running, most notably Knesset Speaker and former Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, and former Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, whose wife Beverly was born in Johannesburg.

There are also candidates running on Tuesday who have insulted Diaspora Jews.

Levin angered American Jews in February 2016, when he said a pluralistic prayer site at the Western Wall would not be needed in two or three generations because there would no longer be Reform Jews due to assimilation. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefly appointed Levin immigrant absorption minister, the Reform Movement said Levin should not be given the post until he apologized.

Coalition chairman David Amsalem, who is vying for a top slot on the list, also upset US Jews during the dispute over egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

“With all due respect to the Americans and American Jews, they cannot be influencing what goes on here,” Amsalem said. “Let them get insulted if they want. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

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