Many Israeli cities have partnerships with other cities around the world. They call them twin cities or sister cities. Bet Shemesh has a lot of sister cities. It promotes development, business ties and tourism between the cities. I do not know how a city chooses which city to partner with, based on what criteria.

Bet Shemesh has "sisterships" with a number of cities around the world. According to the Bet Shemesh municipal website, they have twinning programs with 9 cities. The countries include the USA, England, Germany, China, South America and Croatia.

A city that has been considering entering into such a partnership with Bet Shemesh, and recently passed the decision to do so, is Montogomery County in Maryland. Unfortunately, they read the news out in Montgomery County. Bet Shemesh has been the subject of a letter to the editor calling into question the decision to twin with Bet Shemesh considering the recent bad press.

From the Gazette:

Last summer, The Gazette published a glowing article about Montgomery County's Sister City Program, extolling the good works done in the impoverished city of Morazan, El Salvador.


Briefly, the same article mentioned that the program would next move into Beit Shemesh in Israel, with county officials explaining that it was chosen because the Jewish community there already had a relationship with the city. However, that same city is recently in the news — the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and others — for its ultra-orthodox residents' extreme harassment of children who they say are dressing "immodestly."


The Christian Science Monitor article reported: "In Beit Shemesh, prominent signs calling for modest dress and excluding women from certain sidewalks near synagogues have been tolerated for years in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood near the elementary school, which happens to serve a less strict group of Orthodox Jews ... For months now, 8-year-old Na'ama Margolis and her classmates have endured insults and spitting ..."


Even other Israelis have reacted with outrage. Einat Horovitz, a spokeswoman for Israel's nonprofit Religious Action Center, was quoted as saying, "This ties into whether we are a democratic liberal state that protects women's rights, or whether we're not going to be a democracy in the future."


So, we have to ask, why is Montgomery County twinning with such a city? Did it do any research, other than the recommendation of the local "Jewish community?” (Note that the more liberal Jewish Voice for Peace condemns this choice.)


When residents inquired by phone, we learned that the decision was made behind closed doors, without even county council involvement, and that "human rights" was not a consideration. It's also worth asking why a town in Israel — which ranks as the fourth largest arms exporter in the world and has the eighth largest military — needs the support of Montgomery County (compared to the obviously needy El Salvador).


Pam Bailey, Washington, D.C.

(Tip of the Hat to Joel)