Jerusalem ultra-Orthodox deputy mayor won’t speak at Conservative movement venue

Degel Hatorah party leader Eliezer Rauchberger cancels appearance at real estate conference, saying he won’t have ’any connection to these heretical movements’

By Marcy Oster 6 March 2019, 9:27 am 6

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Eliezer Rauchberger, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem and chairman of the Degel Hatorah party branch in the capital, at the opening of Degel HaTorah's municipal election campaign offices in Jerusalem on October 10, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

JTA — A deputy mayor of Jerusalem refused to attend a real estate conference because it was held in a facility owned by the Conservative movement.

Eliezer Rauchberger, who represents the Haredi Degel Hatorah party and holds the building and planning portfolio on the capital’s city council, had committed to being a keynote speaker Monday at the national convention of the Real Estate Appraisers Association in Israel.

But he pulled out the day of the conference after realizing that it would be held at the Agron Guesthouse in downtown Jerusalem, Haaretz reported.

The guesthouse hosts delegations and youth groups affiliated with the Conservative movement.

The Agron Guest House on Agron St. in central Jerusalem. (Google Street View screen capture)

Rauchberger told Haaretz in an email that he withdrew from the event because “Reform and Conservative [Jews] champion the destruction of Judaism. The people of Israel and residents of Jerusalem, whom I have the honor to serve, are not connected to these movements and do not want them to gain a foothold in the city or within the Jewish people.”