94-Year-Old Man Has Voted In All Of Israel’s Elections – And Plans To Vote Tuesday

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — As Israel goes to the 25th election in its 75-year history, there are still some people who have voted in every one of the elections. One of them is 94-year-old Yossi Barash, a resident of Moshav Kfar Yehoshua in the Jezreel valley. Barash told Ynet that “I always voted, in rain, storms and intense heat, I always arrived at the polling station where I lived.” He also urged all Israelis to go to the polls: ‘We must vote, it’s the most important civic duty,’ he says.

Barash was born in Tel Aviv in 1927, and in 1928, his family moved to Kfar Yehoshua, where he resides to this day. Barash has two children, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

“When I turned out to vote for the first time, I wasn’t excited, but worried about the future of the state,” Barsh said. “The situation was scary then, we were a small country with less than a million residents surrounded by much larger Arab states. I was too worried to get excited,” he said.

Some 30% of Israelis on average shirk the election booths and take Election Day as a vacation day but Barash is determined to keep voting as long as he can

“I never prioritized my vacation plans over voting. It was always important to me to cast my vote at the ballot box,” he stresses.

Barash revealed that he remained steadfastly devoted to his voting preference: “I’ve voted for the Labor party for as long as I can remember, even when it was still Mapai. I kept voting for it, and today I vote for the Labor party because I believe in its path and ideology. I’m saddened by the fact it became such a small party today.” Barash is also concerned about the political impasse in Israel which has led to five elections in three years but stressed that the important thing is to vote, “not who they vote for but they should vote.”