In reading New York Times and Washington Post dispatches about Israel's election, I was struck by the fact that neither paper seems to recognize that there are Orthodox Jews in the Jewish state's political firmament Take for example, Joel Greenberg's day-after account in the Post, which mentions that a rising new centrist party demands an end to preferential treatment for tens out of thousands of "ultra-Orthodox" Jews. But not to "Orthodox Jews," it would seem. It will be difficult for Prime Minister Netanyahu, in cobbling together a governing coalition, to square centrist demands with those of "the ultra-Orthodox parties," Greenberg writes. Again, not a hint that there could be "Orthodox" Jewish leaders also vying for post-election advantages. Curiously, no such "ultra" label is attached by Greenberg to centrist and leftist parties. For example, he reports that the new centrist party's platform resonated with "secular Israelis." And on the left, there is a resurgent ultra-less...(Read Full Post)