Leavers

It has been reported that more Jews left Israel in the last year than the number who made aliyah. A recent article in the Jerusalem report interviewed a few of those who left. This may not have been a representative sample, but those featured all seemed to be left wing, and mentioned one and probably their main reason for leaving  was the attempt by the government  to reform the method for selecting judges. Basically judicial reform in Israel is an attempt to remove the power of the judiciary’s veto on the appointment of new judges to the Supreme Court, and thus replicate itself indefinitely. One ‘yored’ moved to the US, others to Italy, the UK and Japan. It is interesting that in none of these countries does the Judiciary have a monopoly, or even the major say in the selection of new judges. In the US new judges are appointed by the President, in the UK the Chancellor, a member of the cabinet has the final say; in Japan judges are appointed by the government: in Italy there is an independent committee that makes the selection. None of them mentioned that they had examined the  judicial system in the countries they were moving to. I got the impression that those who left are no great loss to Israel.