in Bnei Brak After Mayor Gottlieb of the
National Religious Party was defeated, Haredi parties grew in status and influence; since then they have governed the city. As the Haredi population grew, the demand for public religious observance increased and more residents requested the closure of their neighbourhoods to vehicular traffic on
Shabbat. In a short period, most of Bnei Brak's secular and
Religious Zionist residents migrated elsewhere, and the city has become almost homogeneously Haredi. The city had one non-Haredi neighborhood, Pardes Katz, but it too has had an influx of Haredim and is today predominantly Haredi. Some names of streets with a Zionist connotation were renamed for prominent Haredi figures, such as
Herzl Street south of Jabotinsky Street, which was changed to
HaRav Shach Street. Bnei Brak is one of the two poorest
cities in Israel. A street in Bnei Brak was named after one of the town's founders who was a great-grandfather of murdered journalist
Daniel Pearl. Bnei Brak is home to Israel's first women-only
department store, only one example of gender segregation in what is viewed as an ultra-orthodox city. Bnei Brak was home to one of the original gender-segregated bus lines that Israel's courts ruled were illegal.
Mehadrin bus lines are a type of
bus line in Israel that mostly ran in and/or between major Haredi population centers and in which
gender segregation and other rigid religious rules observed by some ultra-Orthodox Jews were applied until 2011. In these sex-segregated buses, female passengers sat in the back of the bus and entered and exited the bus through the back door if possible, while the male passengers sat in the front part of the bus and entered and exited through the front door. Additionally,
tzniut (modest dress) was often required for women, playing a radio or secular music on the bus was avoided, and advertisements were censored. The Bnei Brak municipality set up an alternative
water supply, for use on Shabbat and
Jewish holidays. This supply, which does not require intervention by Jews on days of rest, avoids the problems associated with Jews
working on the day of rest at
Mekorot, the national water company. Most of the streets are closed on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. Bnei Brak won national attention when it lost a battle to remove the photos of women candidates from
Likud election ads. Orly Erez-Likhovski, legal advisor of the
Israel Religious Action Center declared it a victory for gender equality: In 2023, the Bnei Brak municipality made a loan of 20 million shekels to deal with the city's rat issue. Earlier that year in June, a toddler was bitten throughout by rats in bed and found covered by blood. She was then rushed to the hospital
Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center (MHMC). According to a city councilor, Yaakov Vidar of Likud, who ranked the city as one of the dirtiest in Israel, the mayor first denied there was a rat issue then had to admit the problem after the pressure from him and
Idit Silman, the Minister of Environmental Protection, but the mayor claimed his words were merely a sarcastic joke. The causes of the rodents were attributed to mishandling of garbage and sewage, and the creepy feature of limestone and brittle concrete that were used to build the city. The municipality also blamed the construction of
Tel Aviv Light Rail disturbed the underground rats and forced them to move to the city. ==Notable people of Bnei Brak==