From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
In Beit Shemesh, Goldknopf hopes former mayor Abutbul wrests back Haredi control
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf arrives at the local campaign headquarters of his Agudat Yisrael party in Beit Shemesh to voice support for Deputy Agriculture Minister Moshe Abutbul of Shas, the former mayor, who is fighting to regain his old position in the municipal election.
Abutbul is running against national religious incumbent and former school principal Aliza Bloch and Degel Hatorah candidate Shmuel Greenberg — who despite being Haredi is a former former IDF serviceman with a masters degree in public policy.
“We are supporting Moshe Abutbul [because] he has 10 years of experience here in Beit Shemesh leading the city,” Goldknopf tells The Times of Israel — explaining why his party, which generally runs together with Degel Hatorah as part of the United Torah Judaism list in national elections, supports the Shas candidate rather than Greenberg.
“Now he is returning to continue what he was doing in the past with even more strength. He was also in the Knesset and learned the parliamentary side of things,” he continues, calling the former mayor “a major Torah scholar, observant and God-fearing.”
Asked if he believes the ultra-Orthodox will regain control of the city following their defeat in the 2018 election, Goldknopf replies that he hopes so because “the last time Abutbul was in power nobody had any complaints and everybody worked well together.”
Abutbul has in fact been at times a divisive figure in the city. His term in office coincided with a series of violent attacks by extremists seeking to enforce their stringent standards of modesty and gender segregation on the wider public.
