The best analysis I’ve seen of Nir Barkat’s election victory in Jerusalem, and how the press has misreported it as a “secular upheaval,” is Amos Goldberg’s at Ynet. Unfortunately, it’s only up in Hebrew. If you read from right to left, click the link. If not, here’s a taste.
…In Jerusalem, this strict and destructive dichotomy between “religious” and “secular” as two options that exclude each other doesn’t exist.
Jerusalem is a city of daily interactions that allow countless possibility across a wide range of identities. The distinction between “religious” and “secular” in Jerusalem is a soft one, not polar and compartmentalized…