Aliza Block will on Wednesday, 18 Tammuz 5773, announce her candidacy in the Beit Shemesh mayoral race. The 46-year-old mother of four and member of the dati leumi community will try to unseat the chareidi incumbent, Mayor Rav Moshe Abutbul as the endorsed candidate of the Bayit Yehudi party.
Block is well known in the field of education and has been the recipient of numerous awards.
Block enters backed by her party as well as Likud and is likely to gain support among other parties that would be pleased to unseat the chareidi leadership in the city. While the chareidim represent a sizable population in Beit Shemesh today, the dati leumi, traditional and non-frum populations are still significant.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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12 Responses
There are alot of people running – the forerunner by far is a fellow named eli cohen.
Might be time for this Mayor to try out a new career.
What strange article. Bloch (in the local papers her name is spelled this way) is one of 6 (as of now) challengers to Abutbul, and she is not even the frontrunner — as of last polls both Eli Cohen and Meir Balayish were ahead of her (although both of them were also behind Abutbul.) And it has been known for ages that she intends to be in the race. Why does this article make it sound like this is big news, and that she is THE challenger? Just strange as a “news” item.
And the rishus continues we reap what we sow
What a wonderful country Israel would be if the two largest parties were “Bayit Yehudi” and “Yahadut ha-Torah”, and parties such as Likud, Yesh Atid and Labor were minor factions offering to sell their souls for patronage crumbs.
Go ELI go..
A professional with experience to govern a city of that size.
takingabreak, what rishus? A DL person is not allowed to run for mayor? The current mayor has been horrible for BS. Most segments, including charedim would agree with that.
Also, not sure why the article has a picture of the current mayor, it should have a picture of the subject of the article.
Mayor Rav Moshe Abutbul is a shoe-in for reelection. The daati crowd is a minority long outnumbered by the majority Chareidim (Sefardim and Ashkenazim).
Block, Cohen et al have no change even if they weren’t splitting their minority vote.
Unfortunately the daati crowd in RBS opposes democracy and tried to oust the current Mayor mid-term despite his legitimate democratic victory at the polls.
They are simply sore losers who cannot accept their loss. Unfortunately for themselves they scared away potential new daati people from moving into RBS over the last few years when they were making media pograms out of Beit Shemesh, causing the outside world to think BS is some kind of monsterous place no one would live in. That scared away new blood of their own types, all the while large new Chareidi families continued their influx into the town unabated, increasing their democratic majority both by their influx and, of course, via their natural growth K”H of their large mishpachos — something the modern crowd eschews.
There are Charedim who are interested in a professional, well-run city with zoning laws observed and upheld. People want a safe city with parks, nature areas and cleanliness, the MAYOR has not been on top of any of these issues #8.
Look at how Raanana and Rechovot are managed…a change is necessary. Stop falling for candidates depending on their political connections, look for quality.
Toras Moshe, I am presuming you don’t live in BS or know anything about BS.
There’s a reason why BS has a grassroots charedi party not aligned with UTJ and that party may actually go national next election. If you think the current mayor is a sure thing, that just shows how out of touch with the average man on the street you are.
#10: “That” party is a joke. It won’t make the election threshold in the Mayor’s race or nationally. They are a small ragtag group without much backing or supporters.
There is a reason why Mayor Rav Moshe Abutbul won last time. I explained the reason in my previous comment. And those reasons have strengthened since the last election so there is all the more reasons he will not only win reelction but will win an even larger majority.
she is not going to win..if anything she is going to cause a split in the vote…she should run along side eli cohen and it will help everyone….. she needs to learn from the lesson of last election when Lerner and vaknin split the vote which in turn gave Abutbul victory….
Abutbul represents only got 44% of the vote last time… after mess of last 4 years predictions show he will get 35-40%…as long as the other candidates dont split the vote abutbul will lose….