Votes of no-confidence

The upcoming community council elections are yet another issue that centers around the eternal secular-haredi struggle.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Ramot 521 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Ramot 521
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Grads in the South, tent protests around the country, a hurricane in the US – Safra Square is way above all these earthly problems. The buzz of elections is in the air, and moderation or self-restraint is now out of the question. Just to be clear – we’re not talking about the elections for mayor and the city council and but for some community councils, which should take place soon in six neighborhoods. (The exact date has yet to be decided, but it seems that these elections will take place within the next three months.) Considering the lack – to put it mildly – of success or interest the last round of elections obtained four months ago, one can sincerely ask what is causing all this excitement.
Elections are elections. Whether they are held for parliament or for the head of a building committee, it’s always a matter of life and death. Well, almost. In this particular case, it is yet another issue that centers around the eternal secular-haredi struggle.
The special committee has decided that in addition to Gilo, Baka, Pisgat Ze’ev and Beit Hanina, Ramot will also get to elect a new neighborhood leadership.
It sounds simple enough. But a closer look will reveal the drama behind the scenes.
Ramot is both secular and haredi, and for the past 20 years or so there has been an ongoing struggle over the character of the neighborhood, and there are no indications that a resolution is nigh.
The large neighborhood – about 45,000 residents – has two community centers, but only the secular one also serves as the community council for the two populations.
The haredim are opposed to this situation and say they require one local council for all of Ramot, with a strong haredi presence, arguing that they deserve it, since the present situation deprives them of many of their rights. The secular and national religious residents, represented by the current council, say it is out of the question, and demand two separate councils. “Not on my watch and over my dead body,” council president Ze’ev Landner has asserted many times. He is a religious Zionist, fiercely opposed to haredi hegemony.
But there’s more. On the committee that decides about the elections and writes the rules is none other than city council member Rachel Azaria, the thorn in the side of the haredi city council members. Trust and friendship do not exactly characterize the kind of relationship that exists between her and the haredi members, who announced at the beginning of last week’s city council meeting that if there are not two separate council elections in Ramot, then there would be no elections at all, not in Ramot or anywhere else.
And perhaps to make their point even clearer, they walked out of the meeting, leaving Azaria rather speechless. A few hours later, Deputy Mayor Itzhak Pindrus issued a press release on behalf of his party, United Torah Judaism, and Shas saying that “The haredi majority in Ramot is not fairly represented and suffers from persecution by the current secular management of the local council, a minority that prevents the haredi residents from having their most basic rights.”
The truth is that both sides are acting out of defiance and fear. The majority of Ramot residents are haredi. At the same time, there is a large secular or religious-traditionalist community in Ramot, who openly say they don’t trust a haredi leadership to respect the rights of secular residents. The haredim, from both UTJ and Shas, fiercely reject the option of two separate councils.
Pindrus adds that the rules of the elections, which include a place for a woman among the candidates, are a clear example of how the haredim are mistreated.
He explains that it is not so much the fact that women have a secure position but the fact that nobody consulted them before deciding on this rule.
To which representatives of the secular residents in Ramot immediately responded, “See? They don’t want women to take part in the elections!” At least one change has been effected. In these coming elections (if they do take place), candidates won’t be prevented from having some connection with existing political parties. The reason? At Safra Square there is a realization that the haredi candidates were openly connected to the two haredi parties, so now every candidate will be allowed to have some level of connection with any existing party.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, we used to call this.