Seniors celebrate: The club in B.B. will return to activity • Wider: Justice has prevailed

December 16, 2021   

After a long public struggle against the closure of the long-standing club for Holocaust survivors and veterans of the city of Bnei Brak, which provides a social framework and a hot meal - the public struggle was successful and the club will return to full activity this week. The club has been operating in the city for decades and serves hundreds of elderly women and Holocaust survivors, some of whom are lonely - this is the only place they go to leave the house. About a year ago, at the height of the Corona crisis, a group of businessmen decided to take over the club's building and expel the women to the street. Since then, there has been a widespread public struggle against the closure of the club. As part of the struggle, the women of the club demonstrated, along with many residents, in front of the city hall. Last month, a riot broke out at a Bnei Brak city council meeting after a group of women from the club arrived at the council meeting. After Mayor Avraham Rubinstein refused to allow them to speak, council member Yaakov Wider announced that he was granting them his right to speak. Following the series of demonstrations, and after Councilman Widar contacted the Veterans Administration at the Ministry of Social Affairs, which oversees the municipality on this issue, and the ministry's extraordinary announcement that it would take strong measures against the municipality if it did not immediately resolve the issue, the municipality announced this evening (Thursday) that the club would return to activity immediately. Yaakov Widar, chairman of the Likud faction in the Bnei Brak municipality, who led the public struggle against the club's closure: "The justified public struggle that we led on behalf of the city's founders and Holocaust survivors received enormous resonance and ultimately succeeded, first and foremost because the residents of Bnei Brak are a symbol of the commandment 'Honor your father and your mother' and were not willing to allow the usurpation of the small women's club by a handful of opaque and unscrupulous businessmen. "We did not win, justice won." Mayor Avraham Rubinstein responded to the turnaround: "Bnei Brak has proven to the people and the world that there is no place for misuse of public spaces, and that the rights of the city's elderly population are sacred and everything will be done for them.".