11 Adar I 5774 – 15:36: The Supreme Court has handed down its verdict in the appeal challenging a lower court ruling compelling new municipal elections in Beit Shemesh. The High Court rejected the appeal from Beit Shemesh Mayor Rabbi Moshe Abutbul and others, upholding the ruling of the Jerusalem District Court. The district court ruled new municipal elections must be held in Beit Shemesh in light of sufficient evidence of widespread election fraud.
Court President Asher Grunis headed the three-justice panel that ruled in the matter, adjudicating the case with Justices Elyakim Rubinstein and Uzi Fogelman.
In line with the court’s instructions, the Ministry of the Interior has 90 days to set a date for new elections in Beit Shemesh.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
16 Responses
It will be funny when the winner is again Abutbul but the Chareidim will also pickup a seat in the city council giving them an outright majority.
Then the sonei yisroel will regret having pushed for new election.
May Hashem Protect Us From Another Round of Loshon Hara and Sinas Chinam from Every Faction!!!
#1 Toras Moshe – Maybe Abutbul will win, maybe he’ll lose – but at least (we hope) it will be a clean election that will be accepted by all. After all, in the previous election, Abutbul’s victory was accepted by all since it was viewed as legitimate – unlike the current election, which was clearly marred by significant fraud.
“V’heyisem Neki’im me’Hashem u’miYisrael” seems to show that not only does a leader need to BE clean, he needs to be SEEN to be clean.
And as to your comment on “sonei Yisrael” – you have some chutzpa calling the many Shmrei Torah uMitzvos who opposed Abutbul and the fraud committed by his supporters “sonei Yisrael”. It’s a pity that there are those – such as yourself – that seem to lack the ability to disagree civilly and have to resort to name-calling. Is that the way that Bnei Torah should be speaking?
an Israeli Yid
#2 EY Yid – Amen. I can tell you that in my Shul in RBS, the Rav had a sign put up declaring the Shul a “No Politics Zone”, despite his own personal strong views on the candidates. If the cost of being right is such a massive Chilul Hashem, is it worth it?
an Israeli Yid
israeli yid: they may be not “sonei yisroel”, but they’re certainly “sonei torah” – anyone who supports a chiloni candidate is void of ahavas torah, period
Toras Moshe: +1
#5 Vuckovicher Chosid – You’re dead wrong. When you’re dealing with an election for mayor, you should be looking for someone who can run the city effectively and provide necessary services. I agree that if you have two equally qualified candidates, one Frum and one not, you should support the Frum candidate. However, the current mayor of Beit Shemesh has shown himself to be incompetent at keeping the city running smoothly – so therefore, regardless of his being frum, he should not be re-elected.
As to the other candidate – you are correct that he personally is not Shomer Shabbos, though he is not a Mechalel Shabbos b’Farhesi’a. He is a traditional Sefardi (“Masorati” in Israeli parlance) who has great respect for Yiddishkeit. Therefore, though I, too, would support a qualified Frum candidate, I see nothing wrong with supporting this candidate – and neither do the many local Beit Shemesh rabbonim who support him as well.
an Israeli Yid
to #5,
Committing fraud causes a great Chillul Hashem and Sinat haTorah.
People that use Torah for their own political and social agenda are more disrespectful to Torah and cause greater Chillul Hashem and sina than those who are just ignorant.
May a winner win without help from fraud.
AMEN!!
#7 & 8:
abutbul was cleared of wrong-doing in the election
it was only some sikrikim or whatever you wanna call them that acted on their own
do you really think the city will function effectively with cohen? the chassidim will do anything & everything to stop his authority, in their quest to make the city a frum bastion
cohen will not push to allow more mosdos in, rather he’ll push to add more “biluyim” (entertainment), and much of it will be on friday nites
“many local Beit Shemesh rabbonim who support him as well”
these are probably the “rabbonim” who have no problems with husbands kissing their wives right after giving birth, בגלל שצריך להיות בן אדם – !!!
please don’t tell me names, as i’ll get sick hearing them
“abutbul was cleared of wrong-doing in the election
it was only some sikrikim or whatever you wanna call them that acted on their own”
In any event, you are saying there was fraud. Therefore the election should be redone.
____________
“do you really think the city will function effectively with Cohen?”
I don’t know and you don’t either. Jerusalem has a non-frum mayor, and it hasn’t fallen apart.
_____________
“the chassidim will do anything & everything to stop his authority”
I guess that includes fraud, lying, cheating, chillul Hashem, etc – like we have seen already.
#10 and 11 Vuckovicher Chossid – While Abutbul himself may not have been personally involved in the fraud (the court did not rule one way or the other on this, so I have no issue with giving him the benefit of the doubt), there’s no question that there were others – including at least one of his advisors – who committed fraud that he benefited from on a scale that made the true results unknowable. As such, the election has to be rerun.
As to the reaction of the so-called Sikrikim – one of the main issues with Abutbul was the fact that he failed to confront the Sikrikim when they threatened or carried out violence against others in Beit Shemesh (and caused a massive Chilul Hashem while they were at it). The role of the mayor of a city is to improve the lives of ALL residents, not only his supporters – and that’s something Abutbul had been a dismal failure at.
As to the Rabbonim who supported Cohen – you are being Motzi Shem Ra on them with your false allegations. Just because you disagree with them on one point or another does not give you the right to spout lies about them. Is that the way of Torah? I thought that “Chosomo shel HKB”H Emes”. I’ve (almost – I’m not perfect) always endeavored to express my opinions civilly and to not distort the facts of a situation; is it too much to ask from you?
an Israeli Yid
Our Manhigim have always supported the most capable, efficient, professional city leaders. Many the best man win and lead the city well!!
Beit Shemesh is an early taste of what the entire Eretz Yisroel can expect as Chareidim become the majority and win democratically at the ballot box. While this election was somewhat close, it is clear that by the next election Chareidim will be an outright and unassailable electoral majority in Beit Shemesh. This Chareidi electoral majority will quickly repeat itself city-by-city across Eretz Yisroel as each new election occurs.
israeli yid,
i’m very sorry, i was very upset about this, and spoke out in a way which i regret. i hope you accept my apology
but i’m not sure if that’s called motzi shem ra, since i didn’t say anyone’s name (in fact, i said there that i have no idea who they are, and i don’t want to find out any names) – it’s just a concept
לב שרים ומלכים ביד ה’ – so let that be our motto