On November 10, 1938 -- exactly 84 years ago -- my great-grandfather got a call at 5 a.m.

He was a congregational rabbi in Hamburg, Germany, and he was warned against going to synagogue that morning amid the devastation of Kristallnacht.

But he went anyway. That day, he was arrested along with many other German Jews and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

His wife was terrified, his three young daughters were beside themselves.

None of them knew what his fate would be.

Time for yet another Twitter Israeli election tradition:

Exploring who would have won just within certain cities/towns across Israel.

*requests considered If only Jerusalemites got to vote, Yitzhak Goldknopf would probably end up prime minister as UTJ raked in almost 1/4 of the vote.

UTJ, Shas and Likud together would have ~a 73-seat coalition in the capital.

Meretz, Labor, Yisrael Beytenu and all 3 Arab parties would be out.

These are exit polls.

Not results.

The exit polls in 2021 were *very wrong*!

These are not results.

Even if they end up mirroring the results!

https://twitter.com/AmySpiro/status/1587521551737540610

Here are all the official results so far from the Central Elections Committee.

Zero votes counted.

I can't believe we're about to do this again for the fifth time in 3.5 years and yet here we are.

Here's what's going to happen in Israel's election over the next few hours/days/weeks.

A thread: At 10 p.m. the polls close nationwide.

Immediately, all three main TV networks (11, 12, 13) will publish their exit polls. These are not results.

They are often quite inaccurate.

Sometimes they're fairly accurate.

As per tradition, a thread of Israeli celebrities casting their votes in today's election.

Up first: Bar Refaeli Here's Aviv Alush, Ori Pfeffer and Rotem Sela casting their votes

As of 10 a.m., 15.9% of eligible voters in Israel have cast their ballots, compared to 14.8% at the same time last year. As of noon, voter turnout in Israel at 28.4%, compared to 25.4% in 2021 -- and the highest such figure since 1999 (which was 28.9%).

Members of Israel's Knesset arriving via Zoom for Ukrainian President' Volodymyr speech, beginning any minute now (the Knesset is in recess and the plenum is under construction). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in speech to Israel's Knesset:

"I want to remind you of the words of Golda Meir that I think you recognize: 'We want to live, and our neighbors want to see us dead. That doesn't leave us a lot of room for compromise.'"

At least 5,140 people in Israel tested positive for COVID today so far.

That's a figure that hasn't been seen since February.

More than 50% of them are fully vaccinated. In the entire month of June, seven people with COVID died in Israel.

In just the first nine days of August, 82 people with COVID have died.

The 36th government of the State of Israel. The new government has nine female ministers, a record for Israel (out of 27 total).

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett

https://twitter.com/AmySpiro/status/1088355849934987264

Foreign Minister and alternative Prime Minister Yair Lapid

https://twitter.com/AmySpiro/status/1112995764417019904

Smotrich is being removed from the Knesset floor for disturbing the speech of Naftali Bennett ahead of the vote on the new government. Not just Smotrich - also a few other MKs were removed from the Knesset floor for refusing to stop shouting and allow Bennett to speak.

In just a few hours, Naftali Bennett is expected to be sworn in as prime minister of Israel.

Bennett has made it clear that he has no intention of living full time in the official prime minister's residence in Jerusalem.

So will Netanyahu ever leave? Bennett expects to remain in his home in Ra'anana with his wife and kids, and use the prime minister's residence for official meetings and the like.

Israeli law does *not* give an official timeline for the handover of the residence between outgoing and incoming prime ministers.

The tragedy that unfolded overnight in Meron is horrific, senseless and, most devastatingly, completely avoidable.

As Israel mourns it should not refuse to also take a long hard look at the failings that led to this horror. I went to Meron on Lag B'Omer once, when I was a young, dumb student, and it was billed as the once-in-a-lifetime thrill everyone should experience (and school-sanctioned).

While I know that others find it a spiritual experience, I hated just about every minute of it.

Is there going to be another Israeli election in 2021? Who knows.

But what will happen sometime soon is the election of the next president of Israel, since President Reuven Rivlin's term expires in July.

The election must be held by June 9. But no date has been set yet. The president of Israel is elected by the 120 members of Knesset, who were only recently sworn in.

The date of the election is set by the Knesset speaker.

The current Knesset Speaker is Yariv Levin of Likud. How much longer will he hold the job? Unclear.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Today I want to tell you a story you probably haven't heard before. It's a personal story, but it also reveals some aspects of Holocaust history that you may have never known. 

Thanks for listening. My great grandfather, Paul Holzer, was born in Germany in the late 19th century.

He served in the German Army during World War I, received his doctorate and his rabbinic ordination in the 1920s, and served as a congregational rabbi in Hamburg.

FYI-
Israel election results timeline:
- Polls close at 10pm

- Immediately: Exit polls from 3 TV networks: these are often treated as official results; they're most definitely not.

- Overnight: Votes begin to trickle in, a clear picture likely by early Wednesday morning. (1/ (Every vote counted by hand! No electronic voting.)

-Wed. morning: Claims of voting irregularities, fraud, invalid ballots addressed.

- Sometime Wed: Votes cast by soldiers, inmates, disabled, hospitalized counted. (Potential to boost a party a seat, or affect threshold) (2/

It's official, Lorde has canceled her Tel Aviv show in Israel after pressure from BDS. Local organizers say ticket holders will be refunded. Since the singer announced two stops in Russia and one in Tel Aviv on Twitter last week, she was bombarded with calls for her to cancel the Israel show. Nobody seemed to have a problem with her concerts in Russia, that bastion of human rights.