Give MK Boaz Toporovsky (Yesh Atid) A Break!

ערב שבת קודש פר' חקת תשע"ג

YNET: New MK falls asleep in office, wakes up online
MK Toporovsky, young new MK from Yesh Atid, causes stir after uploading suggestive picture of himself online where he's seen shirtless in his office, after plenum deliberation continues into early hours

June 12, 2013

MK Boaz Toporovsky (Yesh Atid) caused a stir both online and offline after he posted what some have called an intimate and suggestive picture of himself sleeping shirtless in his office at the end of long plenum session.

The incident joins a long line of "unparliamentary" activities and has irked Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein who called on MKs to protect the Knesset's honor.

MK Toporovsky: "From now on, I'll sleep in a suit."

---(snip)---

In it, he can be seen lying on what appears to be the couch in his office, giving the camera a "flirtatious" stare and using his shirt as a blanket.

"4:51 am, going to sleep in my office in the Knesset," he wrote alongside the picture. "This is the first time I am sleeping in my office; luckily there is a shower in the office."

Within a number of hours the picture had gone viral, inspiring a slew of internet memes poking fun at Toporovsky, the picture, and specifically his stare.

"I don’t always take semi-nude pictures of myself while I'm in the Knesset" one of the memes read, "but when I do, I make sure my eyes are deep and dreamy."

Esser Agaroth (2¢):

For Goodness Sakes! Give MK Boaz Toporovsky A Break!

K'nesseth Speaker Yuli Edelstein "called on MKs to protect the Knesset's honor." and yet, last Sukkoth, K'nesseth Speaker Yuli Edelstein spoke at a conference of Christian missionaries in the Jerusalem, even after being warned by former Jerusalem City Councilmember Mina Fenton (NRP). How is that protecting the K'nesseth's honor? In fact, it sounds pretty "unparliamentary" to me. Don't you think?

It was reported that MK Toporovsky later added, "From now on, I'll sleep in a suit."

I am certain that if I were to take a look at a list of MK Toporovsky's stances, I would take issue with most of them. In fact, I am pretty disgusted by most all of his colleagues in his Yesh Atid Party, Dov Lipman, Ruth Calderon, and Yair Lapid himself.

In contrast to those folks, MK Toporovsky is an asset. Goverment representatives of the people are supposed be just that, government representatives of the people. And MK Toporovsky represents the people.

He is real. He takes his shirt off to go to sleep on his couch, just like all other, hard-working Israelis do.

AND like most other hard-working Israeli's, he has a sense of humor. Thank The Almighty, we at least have one Member of K'nesseth, who may take his issues seriously, as evidenced by his all night K'nesseth session debate, but does not feel compelled to take himself so seriously.

I can think of at think 100 other Members of K'nesseth you could take a less from this.

OK. So, maybe not every hard-working Israeli posts about it on his or her facebook page. Nonetheless, the way I see it is that, for better or worse, he keeps in touch with his constituents, and he reminds them (us) that he is not above us, nor any better or worse than any of us.

He IS just one of us.

MK Toporovsky, I want to thank you, for being real, and for not forgetting that you're just like any other Israeli.

You're just one of us.

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I posted the following on MK Toporovsky's Facebook Page, in addition to this post, more or less a summary in Hebrew of the above:

ח"כ טופורובבסקי,

אני לא מסכים איתך רוב הזמין, אבל אחרי פרשת "שינה בספה" אני יודע שאתה ישראלי אמיתי שעובד קשה מאוד בשבילינו! אתה הראת לכל העולם שאתה לא נמצא ברמה יותר גבוה מישראלים אחרים. אלא אתה ממש אחד ממנו! אתה האח האמיתי שלנו (אפילו כשלא מסכימים.) :-)