I understood that to influence my society, I needed to go into politics. If I thought that I could do that from the classroom, I would have continued to do that. Most of my decisions have been about influencing society. That is why I became a teacher, a principle, earned a Ph.D., and wrote a book. When I saw that working in education was not enough to make a big difference in society, I decided to run for mayor. After I became mayor, I saw that many of the same things that I saw as an educator. People are people, processes are processes, and decisions are decisions.

First, I talk to everybody. There is no one group that will say that I am on the outside. It does not matter whether or not they like me or not, vote for me or not, or want me to succeed or not. I tell everybody that they are my residents and I need to do everything I can to help them. I think that when you tell everybody that you respect them, they must feel that; it’s not enough to say it. Second, I am always talking. Saying something once or twice is not enough. You need to say your message again and again and again, like smoothing a stone with water. I have made many meetings with my residents to hear from them, what they want, and what they feel. Though I cannot always solve all of their problems, it is very important for them to know that I am here for them.

I think Beit Shemesh is a model right now. We have all the communities of Israel in our city. It’s like a big laboratory: it is very complicated, it’s very fragile, and there are no instructions on how to work in it. But Beit Shemesh is small enough that we can make the change, yet big enough to be the model. I think that if we take a poor city with all of these groups and change it, invest money, build factories, promote sports and culture, and tell the youth that they can build their futures here, then we will succeed.

We are working on it. I tried to get money for it and encourage the people to support it because it is a symbol. It’s a symbol that sports is one of the common goods for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are Haredi or secular. A symbol says that tradition and modernity can go together, and you do not need to choose one or the other. This is the story of Beit Shemesh. One of my big issues in Beit Shemesh is to change the image of our city. I want to make the change so that when people hear the name Beit Shemesh they think of it as a modern city, an interesting city, full of good people. But making that change is more difficult than building a sports field. We need to work on it step by step, together.

In the past ten years, no new factories opened in Beit Shemesh. I am trying to bring new factories to Beit Shemesh to bring money into the city and employment to all its citizens. It influences the entire economy of my city. I have worked with the managers of the factories and told them that if they have a problem, they can talk directly with me. I also worked with them to accommodate the Haredim in their factories, if they need to separate men and women, offer kosher food, or allow time to pray. If you want people to work at your factory, you must help them some. It is not easy, but I don’t think that it is a compromise. If we want to succeed, we need to work with everybody. 

That is a very good question, because it is interesting to wonder when the end of my time will be. I need to be an excellent mayor. At the end of my time, I want Beit Shemesh to not be poor like it is now. I want our municipality to be able to give good service to our citizens. I want to change the image of the city. I want the young people to stay here, and to do that I need to build places for them to work and live. If I accomplish these goals, maybe I will feel that I have succeeded. I am working on building a hospital and hotels, but these are only the means towards accomplishing my goals. If in 5 years, when someone hears the name Beit Shemesh and doesn’t talk about conflict between the religious and secular residents, then I will feel that I won.