Stormy in Bnei BrakDuring the city council meeting held today (Tuesday), a conflict developed within the local Shas faction, after the deputy mayor on behalf of the Shas faction, Attorney Gedalyahu Ben Shimon, raised a 'proposal for order' in the municipality: salary for Sephardic neighborhood rabbis who are discriminated against compared to Ashkenazi rabbis.
The deputy is angry: The local Shas is afraid of Rubinstein, doesn't care about our rabbis
During the discussion, council member Yaakov Zechariah "stung" Deputy Ben Shimon, and there was a harsh exchange between the parties. Gedaliah even slammed the faction chairman, Deputy Mayor Rabbi Eliyahu Dadon, as "a liar.".
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As revealed in Haredim 10, Attorney Ben Shimon accused that "the local Shas in Bnei Brak is working against the rabbis of the Sephardic neighborhoods, who do not receive any salary at all. The main thing is to shout about discrimination in the health funds - and all this when there is still no Sephardic city rabbi. They are working against the will of the Maran Rosh Ha-Yeshiva, Chacham Shalom, may God have mercy on him.".
About six months ago, Deputy Mayor Ben Shimon sent Mayor Avraham Rubinstein a 'proposal for order', in which he wrote: "At the previous city council meeting, religious budgets were approved and, God willing, they will be increased for the needs of strengthening and creating religious walls in the city of Bnei Brak. Unfortunately, it has become known that the place of the city's Sephardic rabbis in the neighborhoods has been absent from these budgets for over twenty years.".
“These days, there is talk of promotions for (differentiating) municipal employees. There is no doubt that this is important, but the Sephardic neighborhood rabbis do not receive any salary at all, and therefore there is no doubt that the Torah scholars are given priority over municipal employees.”.
Ben Shimon proposed to the City Council that it establish a committee to deal with this issue, with the mayor as its head and members being Deputy Mayor Hanoch Seibert, Shas faction chairman Eliyahu Dadon, and the legal advisor.
But so far, even though six months have passed, nothing has been done.
At the end of the discussion, Mayor Avraham Rubinstein accepted the proposal and established a steering committee to investigate the discrimination against Sephardic rabbis in Bnei Brak. The members of the committee will be Mayor Hanoch Seibert, Deputy Mayor Eliyahu Dadon, and Council Member Yaakov Zachariahu.
Deputy Mayor Hanoch Seibert, who is in isolation due to his return from the US, participated in the council meeting via Zoom.
