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With 30 hours to go to national municipal elections in Israel, Beit Shemesh held a Mayoralty debate on Sunday night in the Simcha Hall of Beit Knesset Beit Tefillah Yona Avraham between the two main candidates, Shalom Lerner of B’Yachad and the Shas/Gimmel candidate Moshe Abutbul. The debate was extremely well organized despite having been chiselled together at the last minute.
The debate came on the heels of a controversial 14 page glossy promo piece by Abutbul’s campaign which was distributed by their campaign activists (ostensibly frum) during mid-afternoon on Friday afternoon, Erev Shabbos while most other observant Jews were cleaning, cooking and preparing for Shabbos.