Arad's identity dispute and Dimona's shifting loyalties frame Israel's election
A journey through neighboring desert cities connects religious change, restaurant closures and former Likud voters reconsidering their support.
IsraelWhy this story? One of כאן | חדשות - תאגיד השידור הישראלי's most watched videos since yesterday, with 39,170 views.
כאן | חדשות - תאגיד השידור הישראלי: The news division of Kan, Israel's public broadcaster. 806K subscribers and 1.8B views.
בין ערד לדימונה: הערים השכנות שמצביעות בקלפי עם פתקים שונים לגמרי
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- 2:40Arad's growing Gur Hasidic community brings questions about the city's changing identity.
- 3:31Opera's owner and manager attribute the restaurant's closure to stricter kosher requirements and changes at the mall.
- 5:14Gur residents emphasize charitable work and unity; Feldinger then shows the local burial society's facilities.
- 7:12The report contrasts United Torah Judaism's strength in Arad with Likud's support in Dimona using 2022 results.
- 8:18Dimona residents debate Netanyahu and Eisenkot, including a former longtime Likud supporter switching his vote.
- 10:12Wage comparisons and young people's departure connect the political discussion to economic opportunities.
In Arad, the argument concerns who shapes the city's public life. In neighboring Dimona, it is whether longstanding loyalty to Benjamin Netanyahu should survive another election. Through restaurants, homes and café debates, reporter Alon Sharvit explores how nearby communities arrive at different political choices.
The report comes from Kan News, the news division of Israel's Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. Its Hebrew title, "בין ערד לדימונה: הערים השכנות שמצביעות בקלפי עם פתקים שונים לגמרי", means "Between Arad and Dimona: Neighboring cities casting very different ballots." Broadcast before the election, it examines local tensions rather than the results of the vote.
In Arad, in southern Israel's Negev region, Sharvit investigates changes accompanying the growth of the Gur Hasidic community, part of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. At the Opera restaurant, owner Yigal Gurevich and manager Yarden Soav attribute its closure in the city's mall to stricter kosher-certification requirements and the mall's changing character. The report says the mall was bought by two members of the Gur community.
Gur residents Avraham Eisenberg and David Feldinger offer a different perspective, emphasizing charitable work and unity with secular neighbors. Feldinger also takes Sharvit through the local burial society's facilities and a burial section for people whose Jewish status is not recognized under Orthodox religious law. These encounters show how demographic change reaches beyond election campaigns into commerce, community services and religious boundaries.
The electoral comparison uses results from 2022, not the new election: United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox alliance, received 31% in Arad, while Netanyahu's Likud took 51% in Dimona.
But Dimona's political conversations are not uniformly Likud. Resident Yossi Assayag says he is voting for Gadi Eisenkot after two decades supporting Likud. Eisenkot, a former military chief, leads the Yashar party and is Netanyahu's main challenger in this election. Other residents remain committed to Likud, producing a heated café discussion about leadership and social divisions.
Sharvit also compares wages and examines young people's departure from the cities, meeting the Buchbut family and Dimona's Simona restaurant along the way. The final café exchange ends not with agreement, but with an embrace and a shared photograph.
An Israeli political party whose members chose its candidate list for the 26th Knesset in a primary on 17 August 2026.
More on Wikipedia ›Leader of the Yashar party and Netanyahu’s main challenger in the 2026 election. He served as Israel’s military chief from 2015 to 2019 and as a minister from 2023 to 2024.
More on Wikipedia ›Published on Trari
Where next?
- Channel
- כאן | חדשות - תאגיד השידור הישראלי
- Subscribers
- 806,000 ▲ 1,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 8,628,428
- Channel views, pace per day
- 1,087,688 (on a normal day: 1,150,353)
- Video published
- October 27, 2026
- Video views so far
- 39,170 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 41,719
The numbers
The report drew about 39,000 views since yesterday, the highest total among the new videos on Israel's leading news channels.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which party received a majority of Dimona's votes in the 2022 results shown in the report?
The report shows Likud receiving 51% of Dimona's vote in 2022.