Israel – Jerusalem’s new secular mayor Nir Barkat has brought an ultra-Orthodox faction into his coalition, two weeks after forging one without any Haredi members and one week after taking office.
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Barkat’s mayoral campaign was galvanized in part by the fight against what many secular Jerusalemites branded the creeping ‘haredization,’ or ultra-Orthodox takeover, of the capital.
Today, he expressed satisfaction with the addition of United Torah Judaism party members to his coalition.
“This is another stage en route to a broad, all-encompassing coalition that will enable [us] to embark on a struggle for the future of Jerusalem in a united manner,” said Barkat.
The new mayor added that his coalition would focus on achieving budgets, fundraising and reforms. He said it would do this by “channeling great energy into joint ventures to save Jerusalem, and not on internal disputes.”
Two weeks ago, Barkat put together a coalition without the ultra-Orthodox factions. The coalition consisted of Meretz, the National Religious Party, Yerushalayim Beiteinu and Hitorerut Yerushalayim.
I’m sure Ger is well represented in this coalition.
Its smart for him to bring them into the coalition; as the old man said in the Godfather…”keep your friends close and your enemies clsoer”. It will be harder for the hareidim to sabatoge Barkat efforts to restore some sanity into the Municipal policies with the frummies in the government…we should respect the hareidim in Yerushalayim but they will have to accepte the fact that this is a secular city and not their exclusive province. We are not Iran and will not have self-proclaimed religious police thelling other citizens what they can wear, where they can sit on the bus or drive on Shabbos. It will NEVER happen no matter how hard they try.
Ger is in Israel, what Satmar used to be in Williamsburg.
There is nothing wrong with saying that Yerushalayim, Ir Hakodesh, is also a secular city whose inhabitants are subject to secular (aka “civil”) laws enacted by through a democratic process. The hareidim can participate in that process if they choose to do so and if they win, they can legislate rules up to a point that conform to their beliefs and impose those rules on others. But, if they lose, and they did lose to Barkat, then they will have to accept a more “secular” set of rules. Alternatively, they could move to Tel Aviv.
As you’re 100% right about Yerushalayim being an Ir Hakodesh but how do you justify “a more secular set of rules”? Either its an Ir Hakodesh which in that case you need act that way or it’s not and in that case why live there you might as well live in china for that matter…
if u goto outlying countries with chassidishe communities they are very frum antwerp brazil and the like they are very pious but they dont expect to turn their metropolises into “disneyland´´ especially in the summer soo in short they must learn to adapt in yerushalayim and to learn that u can be one jew and learn to be pious in the face of the delights of western modernism not by going backwards but by showing how good is the torah what can i tell u im not that chassidish though soo maybe we should have a conditioned enviorment and it would help me get closer to hashem
yerushalayim is full of tumah. It is less pure than boro park or williamsburg because it has movies,tattooo shops,violation of stores on shabbos which you dont find in brooklyn chassidisha areas.It also has a gay parade so how can u call it holy.