Two Aguda members of the City Council stormed out of a Council meeting Sunday night enraged at Mayor Teddy Kollek, who had just blasted them and other Orthodox factions for their exclusionary policies toward non-Orthodox and non-Jewish institutions in the capital.
The Aguda members, Avraham Leizerson and Meir Porush, drew Kollek’s anger over religious opposition to a number of major projects in the city, including a sports arena and a Mormon-sponsored educational center to be constructed adjacent to the Hebrew University campus on Mt. Scopus.
“You, the Orthodox, you have a ghetto mentality” Kollek declared. “Jerusalem is an asset for the entire Jewish people throughout the world–Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. Each and every one has a share in Jerusalem, not only the Orthodox,” the Mayor declared, adding, “My Jewishness is just as good as yours.”
Kollek also had sharp criticism for the city’s two Chief Rabbis, Yitzhak Kolitz and Yitzhak Mashan, who recently distributed leaflets warning parents not to enroll their children in the Masorati schools which are loosely affiliated with Conservative Judaism.
The City Council approved a 192 million Shekel budget for the new fiscal year. Kollek called for belttightening measures and greater efficiency in the various municipal departments.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
