Soldiers’ votes tip Beit Shemesh election for Dr. Aliza Bloch

Jerusalem, 1 November, 2018 (TPS) -- Following the counting of the votes of soldiers and prisoners, Dr. Aliza Bloch, a religious-Zionist former high-school principal and the first woman to ever run for mayor of the city, edged out the incumbent Moshe Abutbul of Shas by a few hundreds votes. Bloch received 22,464 votes to 21,931 for Abutbul. Beit Shemesh has become increasingly ultra-orthodox in recent year, but several hundred Haredi voters are believed to have cast their ballots for Bloch in defiance of religious leaders.