There is growing machlokes in chareidi areas of Petach Tikvah following a series of articles in the media against Petah Tikva Mayor Rami Greenberg, in which he was accused of persecuting the chareidi community in the city and changing the status quo on religious issues. As a result, leaders of the Litvish communities gathered in his office Tuesday and expressed their support for the mayor, taking a firm stand against the position of Yahadut Hatorah in the city.

In an article published in Yated Ne’eman, the HaGaon HaRav Yigal Rosen, head of the Ohr Yisrael Yeshiva in the city, sharply criticized the mayor and the Shas representatives in the municipality: “In the last fifty years we have taken care of everyone, including the Sephardi public. Who raised the Sephardi tzibur in the city if not our institutions,” said Rav Rosen. “Had the Shas representatives wanted to prevent this cut that harms their institutions, they would have told the mayor: ‘We are not willing to lend a hand to this severe cut. Our institutions are also being hurt by millions of shekels.’ But their main desire is if the Ashkenazim suffer more, we are willing to suffer, too, R”L.”

As a result, dozens of leaders of the Litvish communities in the city, as well as some of the institutions identified with Degel Hatorah, gathered in the city council hall late in the evening to express their protest against Greenberg’s defamation.

According to a Kikar Shabbos News report, the backing of by directors of the communities and institutions that came to Greenberg was because of HaGaon Rav David Cohen, head of the Yeshivas Chevron, who told them that “it is absolutely forbidden to entangle the chareidi tzibur in a machlokes with the mayor who has not been attacking them”.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)