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.
“Post-October 7, whatever the government does impacts Jews and Israelis. They are affecting how we live and what we can do.”
Ritter is one of tens of thousands of voters set to return to cast their ballots.
More than 700,000 Israelis live abroad, accounting for around 7 per cent of the country’s population. Unlike the UK, Israel has no postal or proxy voting system, meaning those determined to have their say must physically return to the Jewish state.
More than 50,000 are expected to make the journey, with demand reportedly up 300 per cent for flights to Ben Gurion in the days before polling on October 27.
For Dr Hagai van der Horst, a London-based media researcher who moved to Britain in 2000, the decision is about civic responsibility.
“If you have the right to vote, you have the responsibility,” he says.
He is concerned about the rise of populism, which he sees as a threat extending far beyond Israel’s borders.
“It is on the rise all over the world; Hungary, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom. In Israel it is as bad as it is anywhere.”
Despite living in Britain for 26 years, his emotional home is still Israel.
“For me, home is where your internal dialogue is. When I think, the voices responding to me are not in Greece, Japan or Vienna; it is my family and friends in Israel.
"My body might be here, but my psyche is in Israel, my inner compass.”
Describing himself as an “avid peacenik”, both “pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian”, and a “patriot, not a nationalist”, he sees criticism of Israel as an expression of love for his country.
“I am not asking to wave the flag and not ask questions. I am proud to be critical of Israel and I love my country.”
In Manchester, Shlomit Cohen, 41, is preparing to fly to Israel to vote. She moved to Britain in September 2023 with her British-Israeli husband and young son, leaving Ra’anana in search of a better quality of life amid rising cost of living and growing political divisions.
But Israel was never intended to be a closed chapter for the family.
“We said at the time, we are leaving in order to miss Israel.”
Before leaving, she said Israel felt like “a ticking time bomb,” with increased “aggression, polarisation, cost of living; everything felt like it was about to climax.
“We could feel it bubbling. We just did not imagine it would come to this,” she says, referring to October 7.
For Cohen, who works in talent acquisition, this election is “crunch time”. Initially unsure whether living abroad disqualified her from voting, she discovered Fly&Vote, an initiative started by the US-based AID Coalition that helps eligible Israelis overseas exercise their democratic rights.
“It is super important Israelis vote even if they live abroad because you never stop being Israeli,” she says.
“People want to be able to come back. We want to make sure that our children and our children’s children have the ability to go back.”
She believes turnout is as important as the eventual result, particularly in Israel’s coalition system, where relatively few votes can wield considerable influence in the makeup of government.
She is frustrated by Israelis who treat election day, a public holiday, as an opportunity to travel rather than vote.
“People need to get organised and get off their butt and vote. I am very proud to say I am coming to vote.”
Helping Israelis make those journeys is New York-based tech executive and lawyer Batell Blaish-Sultanik, chief executive of Fly&Vote.
A former Israeli naval officer, she sees the initiative as a way of strengthening the democracy she once served in uniform.
“Democracy is all about people showing up. Democracy requires civic participation,” she says.
“We don’t care who you vote for. We don’t pick a side. We just help check eligibility.”
With 20 paid employees and dozens of volunteers worldwide, the organisation helps voters navigate eligibility requirements and arrange travel, although it does not cover ticket costs.
When a flight from Lisbon to Tel Aviv was cancelled, Fly&Vote chartered a replacement.
The initiative initially faced a legal challenge from Likud, who accused it of election interference, but the petition against it was dismissed by Israel’s High Court. Fly&Vote does not tell voters how to cast their ballot and nor does it pay for their trip.
Of the 35,000 Israelis registered by Fly&Vote to cast their ballot, roughly 11 per cent are Israelis living in the UK.
For Blaish-Sultanik, the motivation is deeply personal.
“My grandparents came from countries that were not democracies, where Jews suffered. They taught me to always fight for a Jewish state.”
For Ritter, too, the election is bigger than party politics.
After 25 years of watching from Britain, she no longer feels that voting in Israel is interfering in a country where she does not live.
Instead, it is an obligation to a country whose decisions she believes shape Jewish lives everywhere.
“If you have the right to cast your vote, to have your opinion make an impact, as little as one vote counts, then that’s a duty.
“You can’t complain about the result if you do not vote.”
Perhaps there is no more Israeli reason to travel thousands of miles to cast a ballot than that.
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