Beit Shemesh Mayor (Shas) Rabbi Shlomo Abutbul responds to the recent resignation of the Tov Party (The New Chareidim) from the city’s coalition.

Abutbul told Kikar Shabbat that the city is more or less the same as others in the nation, and the representation of Tov in the city is nothing unusual as Beit Shemesh and other cities host an array of lifestyles and political representation as well as many schools representative of the different hashkofos of city residents.

In response to Tov’s charges of allegations in city schools and the girls who remain at home because they have no school to attend, the mayor denies the accuracy of the allegations against him. He also rejects the demands by Tov to establish a rabbinical vaad to address the alleged discrimination, a vaad like the one existing in Betar Illit, explaining the vaad of Betar is simply not appropriate in Beit Shemesh. Abutbul feels in Beit Shemesh working directly with school directors is far more effective than forming a vaad, and he is confident a vaad will not produce results.

Kikar reports that “sources” in Beit Shemesh in the know attest to the fact that school directors were called to City Hall during Tishrei and told that discriminatory policies are illegal and intolerable, seemingly supporting the mayor’s claim that he does not back or support such a policy in the city despite Tov’s claims to the contrary.

Abutbul alleges that Tov “takes problems impacting the chareidi tzibur around the country and brings them to Beit Shemesh when in fact some of these problems do not exist in the city”, seeking to discredit the party’s resignation letter from the coalition.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)