Reply To: Does anybody realize the implications?

Speaking of implications – and getting slightly off my own topic (but most of you were not answering the question anyway) – Has anyone considered the implications in Beit Shemesh?

First, I should say, now that a vote has elected Mayor Abutbul without the irregularities of the previous vote, He has full legitimacy as Mayor, and the Eli Cohen camp has rightfully conceded. Kol Hakavod to the winner.

Now that he has won though, has anyone thought of the implications of a large number of business owners and working Beit Shemesh families – I don’t know whether they number in the dozens, hundreds, or thousands – who have said they would be moving out of the city with this electoral result? I know two families who didn’t wait and have moved to the center and north of the country to small frum and mixed communities.

I am not 100% sure how the arnona system works and intersects with other municipal and national taxation, but could this flight begin to erode the Beit Shemesh tax base? Has any work been done in the Chareidi camp in Beit Shemesh to ensure that as non chareidim move out, a commensurate number of salary earning tax paying business owning chareidim move in? If not, how will social services to an increasingly chareidi city be sustained? I can’t see the manhigim going hat in hand to the government for more money and I cant see the government responding favourably if they did.

So who is going to take responsibility for solving this looming crisis? Has it even been thought through? What is the plan?