Eli Cohen is no Messiah. Surely he has faults. Surely there must be issues that Abutbol and Chadash could attack him on, points in his plans for the city that maybe Abutbol thinks are wrong or bad for the city. One thing he is not, is anti-haredi. I have heard him numerous times talk about fair distribution of funds and he is quick to point out that everybody deserves an equal part of the pie, haredi need their classrooms to be proper classrooms, they need shuls and yeshivot, while the hilonim need their heichal hatarbut and matnas and other things, and each will get what each community needs. I have never heard him say a bad word about haredim. He talks about respect for religion, he talks about how Bet Shemesh opened its doors to the haredi community with warmth and nostalgia. Surely he has faults, but he is not anti-haredi.
That being said, with Abutbol's repeated claims that Cohen is anti-haredi and is running an anti-haredi campaign, I decided to revisit the matter and take another look. For the past 3 weeks I have been paying attention to all articles about Bet Shemesh elections, no matter from what source - I have been getting all the local newspapers, along with articles in the national press, both haredi and not-haredi, and reading every article.
Here is what I found:
In the non-haredi media, there has been not a word about haredim from the perspective of the Eli Cohen campaign. Not anything negative and not anything positive. he talks about the city, proper administration, his plans, his "5 mems", his political activities, etc. Nothing about the haredim, nothing about the need to stop them, nothign about them taking over, nothing about closing their schools and stopping their funding - all those claims are fictitious, because he never says any such things. The people making these claims might be good prophets and are predicting the future, despite the lack of any such statements, but they are not based on the reality painted in the non-haredi media.
In the haredi media, there have been regular articles and interviews claiming that Eli Cohen is anti-haredi. Most of the time any "proof" is included, it is using quotes from Naftali Bennet rather than from Eli Cohen. Moshe Abutbol also regularly claims that he is connected to the people and running a clean, quiet campaign while Eli Cohen is anti-haredi and is full of hatred. The haredi media attacks Eli Cohen as being anti-haredi, and they attack him for his anti-haredi campaign and his soon to be anti-haredi campaign. Open the past 3 weeks of Chadash and see for yourself. Mishpacha has stayed away from the details, and focuses more on the haredi parties. Kol Hai and Kol BeRama interviews are full of such attacks with regularity.
My conclusion is that the anti-haredi campaign is one that is being fictitiously made up by Moshe Abutbol and the haredi media in order to rile up things in his favor, to motivate haredim to not be complacent, and to try to prevent haredim from supporting Eli Cohen.
An example of this is this most-recent interview on Radio Kol Hai with Moshe Abutbol. Watch and listen for yourself. On the one hand I am not sure what he means when he calls himself a "street cat", and I am unimpressed when he denigrates degrees and management experience as if saying that is a fault - true it might not be necessary for public service, but it is not a fault. On the other hand, Kahn asks about whether the campaign will deteriorate to anti-haredi attacks. Abutbol says it definitely will, and the other side will rile things up to vote against the torani candidate... Funnily enough, shortly after that in the same interview Abutbol goes on to talk about haredi rabbonim supporting him and it being a chilul hashem to support a secular candidate - he himself becomes divisive about the issue, after he attacks Eli Cohen for being the one to turn it into an issue!Eli Cohen has not made this election into an issue of haredim vs general. Eli Cohen has only spoken about the issues - how his opponent has failed on various aspects of city management, and what his plans are for the future of city management. Moshe Abutbol has.mostly spoken about haredi vs general, he has accused his opponent wrongly of doing just that, and only recently has he started talking about his plans for the future/
Again, surely Eli Cohen is not perfect, and surely his plans for the future are not perfect and could be debated. He is not anti-haredi. I have no problem is someone wants to vote Moshe Abutbol because that person likes him, thinks he has done a great job, thinks he will do a great job, or for any other reason that might make a person want to vote for him. Don't just vote for him though because he says Eli Cohen is anti-haredi.
And you do not need to take my word for it. You can meet Eli Cohen yourself, ask him all your questions, question him on his plans and what he will do or won't do for the haredi community and for Bet Shemesh in general, and decide for yourself. Find a chug bayit to go to, and see for yourself if he is anti-haredi or not. Contact me, and I can try to arrange a meeting, if you prefer to talk more privately with him. Go to one of his events where he is talking to tens or hundreds of his non-haredi supporters and hear him not say one bad word, and even a few positive ones, about the haredi community - I have heard him say such things to non-haredi crowds many times.
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