Mayor Gershon Agron beat back two attempts in the Jerusalem Municipal Council tonight to force his resignation and counterattacked his former coalition partners now seeking his ouster by formally declaring that he can not cooperate with his two Deputy Mayors, members of the Religious Bloc. His own party. Mapai, immediately introduced a motion to elect a new Council executive.
A non-confidence motion introduced by the Herut members of the Council failed when the Religious Bloc failed to support it. The Religious Bloc then introduced its own non-confidence motion but it failed when Herut refused to support it.
Mayor Agron came under fire from his Religious Bloc partners in the coalition that rules the Council when a majority, over the opposition of the Religious Bloc, voted to grant a building permit to the School of Archeology to be constructed here by the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. The school will have provisions for Reform services in the school library.
The Council postponed a vote on Mapai’s non-confidence motion in the two Deputy Mayors, but voted to opt three additional members to the Council executive: Dr. Jacoby a Progressive; Mrs. Ashbel, of Wizo, and R, Kalentar, Hapoel Hamizrachi, who refused to follow the party in this issue and announced support of Mayor Agron.
The Council is expected to unseat the two Deputy Mayors at its next session and to replace them by two of the newly opted members.
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