Mother-of-two Effy Ritter has not lived in Israel for 25 years, and with her life firmly established in north London, it had felt wrong to vote in elections back home.
But now, a quarter of a century after leaving Israel, and in the shadow of October 7 and the global surge in antisemitism, she is flying back to cast her ballot for the first time since leaving.
“Pre-October 7, there were things I didn’t like [about Israeli election outcomes], but those were country-specific,” she says. “It wouldn’t be for Israelis living abroad to influence.”
Now, she believes, the distinction between the lives of Israelis at home and Jews around the world has been blurred.
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