Action Committee against Violence in Beit Shemesh

Meeting Minutes: August 8, 2007

Attendees: Sharon Ra’anan, Catriel Lev, Marsha and Stuart Razin, Alan Halibard, Cindy Feder, Eve Finkelstein, Renee Halpert

Description of the reality of violence: We discussed our personal experiences with haredi violence in Beit Shemesh.
Estimate: There are 500 – 1000 hooligans in RBS.
Our goals:
To create a climate of zero-tolerance for violence within Beit Shemesh.
To give the silent, non-violent majority the courage to speak up publicly and demand that the violence stop.
To push the police to punish the perpetrators.
To create a “rumble” from below that will convince our leaders – politicians, Rabbis, and police officers – that we are unhappy with the current situation, and will not stand for it.
To reverse the negative decline within Beit Shemesh: housing pricing are dropping, people are moving to Modiin, who would want to come here given the garbage, the violence, the current climate?
First Project: Citizen’s meeting with the Mayor. Action Items:
Invite the Mayor (Renee)
Once we have a date, invite other influential people: Chief of Police (Renee), Rabbis (Stuart), Shalom Lerner (Stuart), Shimon Peres (Sharon to talk to Akiva Tor), Sheetreet (Eve), Avi Dichter (Eve?)
Marsha and Alan to work on phone calls to various block representatives. (Renee will coordinate.)
Katriel and Sharon to work on a list of demands during the meeting.

NOTE: Katriel can translate from English à Hebrew, so anything we have to go out, please run it by him!