The winner of Jerusalem's image campaign

What's the big story of the week? Forget world economic meltdown. Forget Ahmedinejad's version of the blood libel on steroids. Forget road carnage, family brutality, re-enactments of The Godfather on the mean streets of Netanya. All of this pales into insignificance. Even the Day of Judgment, the Season of Repentance, the Days of Awe are Days of Ordinary in comparison with the scoop of scoops. It is of course, the extraordinary decision to allow a cartoon figure to run for Mayor of Jerusalem.

For those of you not privileged to share the delights of Jerusalem living - the uplifted souls and the upturned sidewalks, the exhaust fumes, the exhausted, the fuming, the magical vistas and the tragic missed opportunities, the sheer beauty, the Wall, the Barrier, and all the rest - an explanation is necessary.

Like other cities in Israel, we are in the throes of a Municipal election campaign. Over the last few months a number of candidates have thrown their hats into the ring. One black hat recently thrown into that ring is a former government minister. He has been recognized across the political spectrum as a supremely able manager and go-getter - although I am not sure that an unsolicited testimonial from a Reform rabbi will help him with his core constituency. And there is the small matter of a criminal record which may count against him in some quarters.

Another leading candidate is an entrepreneur whose rugged and handsome features beam out at an alarming size on posters all over the city, surprising unsuspecting passers-by. One on-again off-again candidate owns the large soccer team here, and promises to buy up much more of the city (and probably many of the citizens), if the regulatory bodies agree to leave him to his own devices.

But the slam-dunk, hands-down winner of the image campaign is a seasoned Haredi politician. I would have given much money (almost as much as our municipal taxes) to have witnessed the conversation between the candidate and his image consultants when they managed to persuade him that the best way to endear him to non-Haredi voters was to present himself as a diminutive caricature from the coloring book version of  Fiddler on the Roof, complete with a Santa Claus expression and cheerful colors. Hundreds of thousands of households have had flyers delivered in which this figure beams out alongside a slogan promising that Jerusalem will love him. [Actual advertisement]

I have followed the career of the cartoon candidate with some interest over the last few years - although I am not sure that my interest is reciprocated. I have certainly never seen him adopt the beatific smile which has been affixed to his cartoon likeness - indeed, this is hardly a likeness at all. This is the man who recently insisted that the young girls who danced in honor of Jerusalem's new bridge wear Taliban costumes to preserve their modesty and keep their elbows, ankles and hair under wraps. He's a little less benign than one of the seven dwarves.

The idea behind the caricature is clear: for Jerusalemites who are not ultra-Orthodox, the only chance of voting for Porush is a sudden rush of imagined nostalgia for Orthodox authenticity - the notion that he stands for traditional values and against the general slide into oblivion. If they look too closely at what he says and stands for, his chances will plummet. In order to vote for him they will have to believe he is someone else.

Some Jerusalemites are leaving Jerusalem, fleeing the ridiculous prices and the pressure-cooker atmosphere. The new mayor will have a serious job on his hands, and there is more at stake than the trivial question of which posters look most attractive. The most powerful opponent any of us faces in this election race is apathy: Jerusalemites stay away in droves from the voting booth - in the case of many Palestinians, this is an ideological statement, but for the Jews it is about inertia, insensitivity and inanity. If Jerusalemites took the trouble to put their votes where their mouths are, the prospects for the city would be immeasurably strengthened.

As a Reform Jew living and working in Jerusalem, part of an institution that expects efficient co-operation from the municipality, I do have some views about who should run the city. I want to live in a city which wants me and people like me as part of its mosaic. Beyond my partisan opinions, I hope that at this season of reflection and return, my neighbors will return to social involvement and responsibility. If you think that the cartoon character in the hat - looking like a leprechaun's long-lost Ultra-Orthodox relative – is right for the city, go out and vote for him. If you think we need another kind of leader to take the city into the next phase of its development, it's up to you to do something about it.

Fatalism and apathy are the polar opposites to the spirit of these Days of Awe. Like voters in an election, we are faced with the uncomfortable truth that what happens in the future is not solely in our hands. But just like Jerusalemites at election time, we are confronted by the fact that if we decline or abstain, if we refuse to take responsibility for our lives and that which is going on around us, we can have no one but ourselves to blame if the results are not as we would have liked.

Maybe all the candidates should be cartoon figures, battling superheroes or imps and elves. If it will make voters more animated, I'm all in favor.