The Beit Shemesh municipality on Monday morning evacuated a temporary tent which had been set up to serve as a synagogue for local residents.
Shlomo Brillant, a City Council Member, responded: "I'm shocked and horrified by the demolition of a synagogue by the Beit Shemesh municipality. The unthinkable is happening again, in a haredi city in Israel; the municipality is preventing the public from carrying out the most basic thing - praying in a synagogue."
"The municipality's refusal to provide synagogues for the residents to worship in continues with the abandonment of everything the municipality is busy with in order to busy itself in evacuating a little tent that the residents set up. Anyone who lays a hand on a synagogue is not worthy of any public office in the State of Israel."
Shmuel Greenberg, a Beit Shemesh City Council Member and a candidate for the position of mayor, responded: "It pains me that we have reached a situation such as this, in which the municipality destroys a synagogue - and not for the first time. Synagogues are a holy thing, and above any political disagreement. We need to do everything in order not to reach such situations. Proper management by a well-handled municipality requires that resources be allocated and solutions provided for all of the city's residents, in a professional and respectable fashion. We must make appropriate services accessible, for all sectors which live in the city of Beit Shemesh."
The municipality responded by saying that the synagogue had been erected illegally and was therefore evacuated.
"The enforcement policy...is carried out in all neighborhoods of the city," the municipality said, adding that the policy "is independent" and results from how the responsible department prioritizes its tasks.