Beit Shemesh voters speak about the elections

Record numbers of people turned out for one of the most fiercely and bitterly contested municipal elections ever experienced.

By JEREMY SHARON
Abutbul votes in Beit Shemesh election (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Abutbul votes in Beit Shemesh election
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
With the declarations and exhortations of mayoral candidates, rabbis, Members of Knesset and other sundry politicians filling the airwaves with all manner of declarations and exhortations about the critical importance of going out to vote in Beit Shemesh, the residents of this storm-tossed city did indeed heed this call and went out to vote in their droves.
Record numbers of people turned out for one of the most fiercely and bitterly contested municipal elections ever experienced, between incumbent mayor Moshe Abutbul of Shas and his challenger Eli Cohen of the local Beit Shemesh is Returning party.
And the tone of the rhetoric coming from both haredi and non-haredi voters reflects the  divisions and arguments that have taken hold of the city.
“I’m voting and campaigning for Eli Cohen because he will treat everyone the same here,” said Gavriel Haluf, a volunteer for the Cohen campaign and resident of Old Beit Shemesh.
Haluf focused on the critical issue of housing construction in the city and decried Abutbul for failing to provide sufficient housing for the non-haredi sector.
“They’re only building for the haredim, in [the new and planned neighborhoods of Ramat Beit Shemesh] Gimmel, Daled and Hey it’s all for haredim,” Haluf claimed. “Members of my family just can’t find anywhere to live and grow here.”
He also complained that Old Beit Shemesh has been neglected in terms of municipal amenities and the municipal tax breaks that many haredim receive, in Beit Shemesh as well as across the country.
But David, a haredi activist for Abutbul, said a “war of religion” was being waged against the haredi community in the city.
“Anyone with their head on the shoulders knows that the courts, the media, and other state institutions have got together to fight against the haredi community in Beit Shemesh,” he said.
“They don’t like that we have developed our community here and are doing so well, so they took a few fraudulent votes and created this situation of repeat elections.
And Shimon, a Belz hassid from the haredi neighborhood of Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, said that non-haredi residents had been subjected to incitement against the haredi community.
“They think we have something against them, that we want to take the city away from them but this isn’t the case,” he said.
“We want to live here in peace, without arguments. Maybe there are a small group of extremists but in principle they too just want to be left alone. The idea that we threaten the non-haredi community comes from those with political interests,” said Shimon, pointing the finger at Cohen and his political supporters.
And Shimon, like Haluf, also complained of neglect in terms of municipal services provided in his neighborhood, saying that the non-haredi parts of the city were much more developed than the haredi areas.
He also said that the broader national picture, and the feeling that the haredi community is under seige, was influencing the atmosphere in the city.
“With everything that is going on, in particular with the actions of Yesh Atid, we feel like we need to save ourselves. This is why we are coming out in such high numbers to vote. But at the end of everything we also want peace and love to take root here.”
Yael Strenger, 18, who was voting in the non-haredi side of town said the repeat elections were critical because of the importance of the rule of law and that the city’s mayor be elected in a just and legitimate manner.
But she also pointed to the issue of housing in the city as a symbol of the wider problems in the city.
“The discrimination against the non-haredi sector in the city in terms of housing isn’t just, and there’s less room for members of the national-religious community to move in,” she said.
Strenger added however that despite negative sentiment in the city there were points of positive relations between the haredi and non-haredi community, noting that she takes part in a dance workshop with haredi women, and said that many people simply wanted to be able to live according to their own lifestyle without interfering with each other.