Religious Council - Evil Intentions?

I was checking out the word "Moatzah" (as in council) in the Alkalai dictionary, and found out that a different spelling "Moetzah" means evil intentions.

I thought that was a bit of a laugh, because the local papers (Zman Maale and Maale Adumim) have been writing about the petty politicking and "Macherai" going on around the Religious Council.

Anyone who takes an interest, will know that the council has been chaired for the last five years, by an amazing person called David Tzarfaty, who does this thankless task on a purely volunteer basis.
Why thankless? Because given the requirements of a city of 39,000 inhabitants (maybe more) and the lack of funds (No help from the Ministry of Religion), the fact that there are Mikvaot, Kashrut supervisors etc is no mean feat.

Unfortunately, there are not a few people, who see this job as a meal ticket, and there has been a smear campaign against Tzarfaty, with all sorts of criticisms levelled. And this from people who have no organisational track record whatsoever, but do belong to the same parties that have so fucked up our national politics (like Shas for example).

The "Maale Adumim" paper this week, has an article about a bloke called Yitzchak Avidani, who has come up with a rehash of the function of a lobbyist.
He proposes setting up a parrallel group of people, from the City Council and from the private sector, who will meet on a regular basis, and propose all sorts of ideas and "solutions" to what he describes as the dismal state of the religious council. Then to "lobby" the City Council members so to get what they want.

As one who has had to deal with the Jerusalem Municipalty for the last few years and suffered (at least with the previous administration) the machinations of the "Machers" who wander the halls of Kikar Safra. I can only hope that this venture will fail.
I would not like to see Maale Adumim turning into what happened to Jerusalem. Maale Adumim is a pluralistic city, which has been and is a fabulous place to live.

Benny Cashriel has a choice over the next few months, to either disband the present religious council, or to delay this decision, keep David Tzarfaty (who is more than willing and able) in position, and help him with any number of projects that he is working on.

There are people on the City Council (like Nuriel Getz - I think) who support Tzarfaty. But where is the opposition? What about the Anglo-Forum and our keen community activists, or for that matter, our blogists that for the last however many years have been painting Maale Adumim as the most ideal place in the world.

I hope that the opposition will not, in the time honoured principal of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (look at Neturei Karta/Satmar and how they suck up to Hamas), screw over Benny Cashriel and then stick us with a religious council that will make Maale Adumim look like Beit Shemesh. Not that I think that Benny has no faults. I did promise to tell you about my house (hopefully to be finished soon) on HaKatross and the MOST interesting history behind the three plots of land that were sold through the Israel Land Administration - and that might open some eyes on how things work here.
But I'm leaving that for a different occasion


As usual, these opinions, as badly written as they are, are my own

Shabbat Shalom

Ches