JERUSALEM — An Israeli town with close ties to MetroWest New Jersey is facing a political crisis.

Last week, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit fired Ofakim Mayor Avi Asraf and his city council, saying that Asraf had failed at managing his budget and implementing a financial recovery plan. Sheetrit also charged that Asraf had hired and fired municipal workers improperly.

Asraf, a member of the Likud Party, countered that his firing was political and that he had done much good for his development city of 28,000 in the northern Negev.

The municipality is a sister community to United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey under the Jewish Agency Partnership 2000, or P2K, program. Partnership officials said the relationship, which includes financial support and exchange programs, would go on as normal despite the firings.

The dismissals took effect immediately after Asraf was summoned to a hearing at the Jerusalem office of Interior Ministry director-general Aryeh Bar. Bar adopted the recommendations of a ministry task force that had been investigating the city since March; it proposed forming a committee of professionals to run the city temporarily.

An interim mayor and committee members to be named by Sheetrit next month will serve for a two-year recovery period. Meanwhile, the city will be run by Ilan Sagi, the building supervisor of the ministry's southern region.

UJC MetroWest's Israel operations director, Amir Shacham, said that all of the federation's allocations in the city are properly supervised by the P2K office in Ofakim and the UJC MetroWest Israel office to ensure that they are handled smoothly and in an accountable way.

"The task force criticized many people but none of the people whom we work with regularly," Shacham said. "[P2K] activities in Ofakim are totally disconnected from the municipal structure. We work with various organizations and operators and nonprofit organizations to run our projects," including The Joint Distribution Committee, the Sacta-Rashi Foundation, the local community center, Yedid, and Israeli government ministries.

Asraf, who was elected in 2004, had been to MetroWest many times, the last time for P2K steering committee meetings in November.

An advisory board of 10 Israeli and 10 MetroWest leaders is currently working on a year-long process of reevaluating the partnership's operations and goals for the next decade. Shacham said that in the face of the political turmoil, the evaluation represents ongoing evidence of UJC MetroWest's commitment to the region and to its staying and working with the local leadership, whoever the next mayor might be.

Asraf hired former Israeli Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman to represent him in an appeal to the Supreme Court against the Interior Ministry, asking the court to overturn the ministry's decision and reinstate him as mayor. But Asraf's chances are slim, because the court has a history of refraining from interfering in such decisions made at the ministerial level. The court is expected to respond as early as next week.

Asraf told NJJN that he was shocked by the ministry's decision. He said he had done wonders to improve the condition of the city and that the move to oust him was political. "I don't understand how the country works," Asraf said. "I received a city in a difficult situation that was suffering from problems with education and unemployment and a huge city debt. I tried over nearly four years to fix things."

Listing his successes as mayor, he said the city had a balanced budget for the first time in some 20 years, thousands of square feet of commercial space had opened, the percentage of residents paying property taxes rose from 50 to 78 percent, and matriculation test scores of high school students jumped from 27 to 61 percent.

Asraf said the P2K partnership had helped the city's upswing. He said one of the worst things about losing his job was that he would no longer be in contact with the people of MetroWest.

"I enjoyed every moment of working with the terrific and amazing people of MetroWest, who are so warm and loving to Israel and Ofakim," Asraf said. "Instead of giving me a hand like MetroWest does, the Interior Ministry did the opposite. They looked at the cup half empty. I refused to give out political patronage positions, and people got upset. I fought corruption and paid a heavy price for it."

In the summer of 2005, Asraf made national news in Israel when he supported carrying out the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, even though Eliko Asraf, one of the mayor's nine siblings, lived in the Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar Darom.

Asraf blamed his bad fortune on his former deputy mayor, Ronnie Ben-Hamo, who was a member of Likud until former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formed the Kadima Party. Asraf remained in Likud while Ben-Hamo jumped ship to the party of Sharon, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Sheetrit.

"If I were in Kadima, this wouldn't have happened to me," Asraf said. "Sharon personally asked me to move but ideologically I couldn't. The Kadima leaders want to get their people in by force. They are trampling democracy. The next municipal election was coming up anyway. The people should have been allowed to decide."

Ben-Hamo told a different story. He said the company that manages projects in Ofakim, the city's old-age home, and the community center all crashed financially due to Asraf's faulty management.

"The two main problems with Asraf are that he lies and that he believes his lies," Ben-Hamo said. "The investigative task force did comprehensive work and decided that Asraf was not worthy to be mayor. Beyond the conclusions of the task force, there is testimony that proves his mismanagement. If that's not enough to fire Avi, I don't know what is."

Shacham said politicians did try to bring down Asraf, but the professional recommendation of the Interior Ministry task force to replace him with a committee of professionals could not be ignored.

"An appointed committee could allow the city to be run professionally and not politically," Shacham said. "It could help Ofakim rise above its political struggles and become financially stable. Ofakim needs stability and professional leadership and not continuous political turmoil."