Is the punishment over? After a meeting held today (Sunday) between Tax Authority Director Shai Aharonovitz and Bnei Brak Mayor Hanoch Seibert - the Tax Authority's compensation fund will continue to provide services to Bnei Brak residents whose homes were affected by 'Am Kalavi' and 'Ari's Roar,',
The mayor hosted the Director of the Tax Authority for an official visit to his office today, along with senior officials from the authority - David Rotenberg, Senior Vice President of Customer Service, and Robbie Butbul, Senior Vice President of Assessment and Audit.
The visit was also attended by the Municipality's Director General, Israel Ironstein.
According to a statement from the municipality's spokeswoman, during the visit, a good, professional and fruitful conversation took place, in which a wide range of issues concerning the city of Bnei Brak were discussed. The parties presented the various challenges, examined the common interfaces, and discussed ways to streamline work while emphasizing providing the best, most accessible and appropriate service to the public.
The mayor emphasized in his remarks that "there is no place for violence in the city of the Torah and Hasidism, whose faith is based on the ways of kindness. And that public employees and the tax authority in general do their job faithfully, in Bnei Brak as in every city in the country.".
The Director of the Tax Authority said in his remarks that the Tax Authority will continue to provide the best service to all residents of the city of Bnei Brak, as it has done so far and will continue to do so.
However, according to a report by Shilo Fried, despite the agreement between the Bnei Brak municipality and the director of the Tax Authority, Tax Authority employees continue to shut down the service in the city.
Lawyer Ofir Alkalai, chairman of the Histadrut of State Employees, said: "A well-publicized meeting with the mayor still does not guarantee the safety of Tax Authority employees. Unfortunately, no dialogue took place with the employee representatives on the matter, and a future attack could take place tomorrow - and therefore Tax Authority employees will not return to work in the city of Bnei Brak until we know how to maintain their safety while working.".
Last Thursday, the head of the Tax Authority sent a letter to the mayor of Bnei Brak, Hanoch Seibert, informing him that he had ordered an immediate halt to all processing of damages from the wars with Iran for city residents, due to attacks on Authority personnel while performing their work in the Wiznich housing estate - on two occasions.
Aharonovitz, who was furious that the Bnei Brak city government did not condemn the violence, noted that he had ordered an immediate cessation of treatment of the war damages - until an explicit statement condemning the violence is issued by the city's leaders.
In his letter, Aharonovich recounts the sequence of events in the city of Torah and Hasidism - and wrote: "Today - Monday in Menachem Av 5775, 16.7.26 - in the afternoon, Tax Authority employees who came to a business in the city to perform their work were violently attacked. The employees were lynched by hundreds of people and were rescued with divine assistance by Israel Police officers.".
The head of the Tax Authority noted that this is the second violent incident in a row, after last week, Tax Authority employees were violently attacked and required rescue by police forces.
Aharonovitz added and wrote: "To my surprise, the Bnei Brak municipality did not see fit to condemn the violence in the two aforementioned cases.
""In light of the above, I can only conclude that the Tax Authority employees are not welcome in your city, and in light of this, I have ordered the compensation fund staff to immediately cease handling war damages that occurred to the property of city residents in the events of the 'Am Kalavi' and 'Ari's Roar' wars, until an unequivocal statement of condemnation is issued by the municipality and published in the media of the Haredi public.".
