Suburban D.C. County Suspends Beit Shemesh ‘Sister-City’ Talks
A community in Maryland has suspended negotiations over a sister-city agreement with Beit Shemesh following violence in the Israeli city against women by Haredi residents.
Montgomery County, which is home to a large Jewish population, was at the end of the process to ink the sister-city arrangement with the Jerusalem suburb when disturbances by Haredim outside a Modern Orthodox girls’ school and other assaults on women in the area were reported internationally.
Negotiations over a sister-city relationship began in 2007, according to the Washington Post.
Montgomery County inked its first sister-city relationship with Morazan, El Salvador, in July, and is now considering Gondar, Ethiopia, for its next sister city. The sister-city program encourages cooperation between municipalities through educational, cultural, social, economic, humanitarian and charitable exchanges.
The non-profit Montgomery Sister Cities board has proposed a public meeting on Beit Shemesh in late March, according to the Washington Post.
The negotiations were suspended after local activists met last month with County Executive Isiah Leggett over recent media reports about Beit Shemesh. Some activists had been warning Leggett about religious extremism in the city for years, according to the newspaper.
“I really support efforts to build bridges, but we have to be practical,” County Council member George Leventhal, who is Jewish, told the Post. He added, “The deeper you get into issues like this, the greater risk you run of getting your own constituents really mad.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
