 Hi friends and subscribers, welcome back to my YouTube channel. My name is Daniel Rosal. This channel is all about life on the ground in Jerusalem and Israel. It's a new Jewish year, the year 5784 to be exact, and from today there are 43 days to go until municipal elections take place throughout Israel, including here in Jerusalem. I thought that I'd take a look today at the composition of the outgoing 16th Jerusalem city council. These are the public representatives that are being replaced at the end of October when the new 17th city council will be voted into office. Some of these officials will be re-elected, for instance it's almost certain that Moshe Leon will win a second term as mayor of the city. Others like Flora Hassan Nahum are not running for election, in Flora's case she is stepping into her new role as a government special envoy for innovation. Making the transition from local to national politics is a well trod path after all, and for others I really have no idea. In total there are 31 elected members on Jerusalem city council. These representatives have been serving since 2018 when the last elections were held, including a mayoral run-off. The term of office and local politics in Israel is fixed at a maximum of five years by statutes. One of the peculiarities of the Jerusalem city council is the number of deputy mayors there are, as well as Mishneh Roshair, which is a closely related position, although an English attempt to have the same translation. In the normal course of affairs you'd expect there to be one or possibly two deputies to a mayor, however in Jerusalem there are eight local council members with the title deputy mayor and two with the title Mishneh Roshair, which translates to the same thing in English. This means that in this particular legislative chamber more than a third of the representatives are either the mayor himself or formally styled as his or her deputy. There's one more remarkable fact about the Jerusalem city council that it would be remiss to pass over. Despite the fact that Palestinians constitute about 40% of Jerusalem's population, you won't find a single Arab Palestinian among the council's 31 members. As I've explained in previous videos, Palestinian Muslims traditionally boycott the elections because they see them as legitimizing an unjust occupation, however it does also mean that they have no elected officials representing their interests in city government. If the city were to offer a counter to this piece it would probably say that in reality the city does engage with the Arab population by working with grass roots leaders and village heads known in Arabic as Muhtar. Women are also underrepresented in local Jerusalem politics. Of the outgoing council's 31 members, just 5, 16% of the total are women. Some members of the council like Yusuf Avileo hold disproportionate significance. Avileo for example is often seen as informally leading the non-Haredi membership of the council and others like Khatorut leader Adir Schwartz who is in his late 20s are unusually young. But if I can offer some blunt stereotyping of your average Jerusalem city council member based on perusing the current crop, it would be a male conservative kippah wearing religious Jew in his 40s to 50s. Like the population the city council represents, or at least a part of it, the Jerusalem city council is conservative and religious. Two facts which make it a very different body from other city councils like those of Tel Aviv. Besides sitting in general plenary the city council also operates a number of committees devoted to examining specific themes. An example of one of these is Va Adat Ikhut Hasviva. In English this translates to the committee for the quality of the environment. This committee is chaired by deputy mayor R.E.A. King, firebrands nationalistic politician and associate of Itamar Ben-Gir who once advocated schemes to pay non-Jews to leave Israel. Other members include left leaning Laura Wharton, Yossi Havillio and Jovav Soor. When Jerusalemites go to vote for their local representatives on October 31st they will vote twice. Once for the electoral list they wish to endorse and a second time for which candidate they wish to see elected mayor. The ultimate composition of the city government will be determined by the popularity of each party and the list ranking they have chosen internally. If you're also interested in local politics and Jerusalem and want to continue receiving more videos from me then please consider liking this video and subscribing to this YouTube channel.