Jewish Surfers of the Internets vs Jewish Surfers of the Waves

I was really confused when I first saw the headline of this article from Ynet news:


Haredi surfers interfering in new party’s list

I kept trying to figure out how I’d missed that there are Haredi surfers, and also how they became such a big and influential group that they could interfere with any new party’s list. There are, in fact, lots of Jewish surfing groups, clubs and camps, from this Jewish surfing family (9 kids in a 24 foot long camper) to the surfing rabbi, to Torah/Surfing camp. Sadly, hanging ten was not the theme of the article. They were talking about surfing the Net…

Following hardliner Moshe Feiglin’s great victory in the Likud primary elections, sources in the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi (“Jewish Home”) party fear external elements will try and interfere in the new party’s election procedure as well.

In less than a week, a public council is expected to decide on the composition of the party’s Knesset list. In the meantime, the party has published the 80 names the council will be choosing from.

In order to get a feel of the public’s opinion, the council invited internet surfers to vote and exert their influence in favor of their preferred candidate on Habayit Hayehudi’s website.

Party officials fear that ultra-Orthodox surfers, who are not among the new party’s potential voters, are taking part in the internet vote. According to estimates, the haredi voters seek to prevent the entry of “as many pluralists as possible” into the Knesset.

Ultra-Orthodox internet surfers sabotaging a political party’s internal decision making structure? Way less exciting than surf camp.