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Last update - 06:00 10/11/2008
Porush, Barkat vie for decisive national-religious vote in Jerusalem election
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Meir Porush, Nir Barkat 

The feud between the two leading mayoral candidates over Jerusalem's national-religious vote reached a peak on Sunday, as the clock ticks down before Tuesday's poll.

Sources from the campaigns of the ultra-Orthodox Meir Porush and the secular Nir Barkat say the national-religious sector could swing the election in either man's favor.

Porush supporters have begun portraying Barkat as a supporter of Peace Now, the Oslo Accords and the Gaza Strip disengagement.
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However, Makor Rishon, a newspaper affiliated with the national-religious right, recently published a letter written 54 years ago by Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Hacohen Kook, the head of Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, describing the scorn that Porush's home movement Agudat Israel had for his father, the legendary rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook.

Meanwhile, leading rabbis continue fighting over the candidates. This weekend, Barkat's campaign announced that Rabbi Haim Druckman, the head of the city's Bnei Akiva Yeshiva, had backed its candidate.

Druckman rushed to emphasize that he merely "was impressed by Barkat's loyalty to the unity of Jerusalem," but that this should not be construed as an endorsement. On Sunday, Porush staffers released a letter from Druckman backing their candidate.

Rabbi Moshe Loewenthal, who leads the national-religious community in Har Nof, one of the largest in the capital, told residents that the community needs support from the Jerusalem municipality and mayor, in order to maintain public institutions such as synagogues, schools and youth movements.

"Porush will feel committed first and foremost to Hasidic activities, and after that Degel Hatorah," Loewenthal said, referring to the ultra-Orthodox party allied with Agudat Israel. "After that will come Shas, and what's left will fall into our hands."

"With Barkat, however, we may be senior partners, and our institutions may be better rewarded," he said.

West Bank local council heads and some other leading rabbis are presenting things quite differently, however, emphasizing the non-sectarian nature of Porush's activities as deputy housing minister from 2001 to 2003.

Rabbi Dov Lior, head of the Judea and Samaria rabbinic committee, has already given Porush his backing. Elyakim Levanon, the rabbi of the Elon Moreh settlement in the northern West Bank, has also expressed support for Porush, saying he hopes he will strengthen the bonds between the capital's national-religious and ultra-Orthodox communities
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