Eli Cohen, who led the opposition in Beit Shemesh against Mayor Moshe Abutbul, has resigned from the Bayit Yehudi party after two members of the party decided to join the coalition.
Bayit Yehudi opposition members Chaim ben Margi and Elyasaf Warman decided to join the Shas-led coalition in the city council. Cohen, who objected to the move, opted to resign.
Cohen led the opposition against Shas, hoping to unseat him and become the city’s next mayor. Cohen disputed the outcome of the elections, challenging the results in a court of law. He alleged there was chareidi fraud in favor of the Shas candidate. A reelection was ordered and Cohen and his allies lost again. He and his Bayit Yehudi colleagues have been in opposition since Abutbul set up his coalition.
A protest was held in the city on Wednesday, 28 Tammuz, led by Eli Cohen. He expressed his opposition to his party colleagues entering the coalition. Clearly the party is split in the city as the protest was organized by leading Bayit Yehudi officials in the city.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Abutbol has destroyed this city. It’s bankrupt – vital services have been cut including therapies for children with special needs. Streets are filthy. Arnona is going up by 30%+ for businesses, driving more out of the city & causing deeper debt. Chayalim who visit or live in the new area, Gimmel, see their front doors smeared with feces (no outcry from the Mayor.) Many men are looking for second or even 3rd jobs. I was told yesterday by someone I know that her husband was offered a job as a security guard – at 28 shekels an hour (about $6.75) on the books. She gets 50 sh cash cleaning houses & she is gradually selling off things she owns to survive.
Abutbol is owned & paid for by the Chareidim. I wish Eli Cohen had stayed, he couldn’t do worse than our fat cat Mayor.
Unfortunately there are a large number of residents of Beit Shemesh who live their lives in a virtual World of Sinas chinam and Lashon Hara perpetuated by a Beit Shemesh email group. They don’t actually know what goes on in the city just what they ‘hear’ from friends who say whatever they want. Anyone in real world Beit Shemesh sees the city prospering and much more than the back water town it was before Abutbol. They should take off the dark glasses and stop creating strife and machlokes especially in these days before Tisha B’Av.
Lies!
The Mayor want’s to up taxes by 5%.
Since 2009 Beit Shemesh is second to last in upping the taxes(survey in Yediot Achronot).
It is sad to say that the Anglo Dati Leumi communities lead the sinat chinam in our city. A center for child therapies was behind a disgusting personal smear campaign against the mayor and who was behind it? Anglo dati leumi. I wish these people had stayed in america rather than coming to israel to spread hatred.
CRITCIZING A POLITICIAN FOR HIS FAILED AND DISASTEROUS POLICIES IS NOT SINAS CHINAM!!!
I am intimately aware of what goes on in this city.
It is bankrupt of income, but has no shortage of bearded city counsel men who want to bulldoze every green hill to build towers for incomeless large families from Benei brak. Anyone who publicly criticizes the mayor or his mafia are accused of “creating strife and machlokes in the days before Tisha B’Av” .Have mayor Abuttball and his supporters stopped and thought of the sina against frum people that they have caused? By engineering a hostile chareidi take over in this city, whether in housing, votes, education and even healthcare(merkaz rakefet and Terem closing), he and his men in black have shown the world what happens when you pollute Torah with politics.
I suggest to #2 that he look beyond the tabloid trash of the chadash “chareidi” newspaper and get in touch with reality. There are many people suffering in this city, and your ignorance and apathy to their plight in the name of circling the wagons around your anointed mayor is only one example among many of how far he has taken this city from where a true Torah city should be.