The “Ezer L’Chinuch chareidi kindergarten in the Ramot Bet neighborhood of Jerusalem, located in the eye of the struggle between chareidim and secular Jews in the neighborhood, will be evacuated and the network’s management will have to find an alternative school for about 100 children. The chareidim registered a defeat in the committee in an attempt to save the kindergarten.
This is a kindergarten that belongs to the Ezer L’Chinuch kindergarten network in the Ramot Bet neighborhood. Until now, the children were housed in a villa rented by the chain’s management due to the shortage of buildings for institutions for the chareidi tzibur. Now that nearly 200 objections have been submitted against the use of a villa for kindergartens, the Planning & Building Committee of the Jerusalem Municipality has received a request to allow the school to continue operating in the villa.
However, even the full presence of the chareidi members of the committee did not help, and at the point of a vote it was decided to evacuate the kindergarten and vote against the continued use of the villa by the school. Among the leaders of the resistance was a resident of the neighborhood, Deputy Mayor (Bayit Yehudi) Dov Kalmonovitz.
Committee chairman Meir Turgeman decided not to discuss requests and objections and to vote. Chareidi council members Yossi Deutsch, Pini Ezra, Eliezer Ruchberger, Yisrael Kellerman and Chaim Epstein voted in favor of the use of the opposition while the remaining members of the opposition and coalition voted against.
A member of the Jerusalem city council, Yisrael Kellerman, responded angrily to the conversation, saying that “at the meeting of the city’s administration, everyone agreed that there was a shortage of buildings for the chareidi community in the neighborhood, and even decided to allow the institution to build a permanent structure in the near future, and until that time, the children’s place for learning is secure.
“It is a wonder to me that the chairman of the committee, Meir Turgeman, chose to come to the discussion himself only in order to reject outright the permit to use the building. I will ask the mayor to hold a hearing and permit the use of the building. It is impossible that 100 children will be thrown into the street because of a number of objections that they even refused to discuss.”
Chairman of the Yahadut Hatorah faction in the Jerusalem Municipality, Eliezer Ruchberger, responded to the committee’s decision and said, “I am sorry that most of the members of the committee raised a hand in favor of throwing some 200 chareidi children into the street, just because they are chareidi. This is all their crime and all their sin. If the children were not chareidi, the conduct would be different. We also wanted to summon the opponents to hear them and try to reach understandings with them, but the secular majority did not even agree. All they wanted was to throw the chareidi children into the street, no matter what.
“It’s a pity that this is the behavior, and now the municipality of Jerusalem has the responsibility to find an alternative and orderly place for these 200 children, and there are understandings with the mayor and the city director who will provide solutions. We demand that these understandings be implemented. Hundreds of children will not be allowed to go to the street. This will not be. In the Ramot Bet neighborhood there are empty school buildings, many classes available, so they will give it to the Talmud Torah and helped with education. It cannot be that on the one hand, school buildings in Ramot Bet will be empty or half empty, while a chareidi school will be thrown into the street. Chareidi children are not the third or fourth class.”
The Ramot Bet neighborhood has a chareidi majority, yet an extreme secular minority has an atmosphere of fear and hatred of chareidim, who do not want to see a chareidi school operating in its midst. That senior officials in the Jerusalem municipality are surrendering to the pressure of the secular minority.
A spokesman for Turgeman explained the children will remain in the existing structure until the end of the year despite the fact they should be out in the street tomorrow. He credits Turgeman’s concern for them with arranging to have them complete the year, adding, a new arrangement will be set into place by year’s end, adding “The plight of the children has always been in the eyes of Meir Turgeman.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
if housing the children in a villa disturbs the peace of the neighbors, then the cheder has NO right to bother people who bought their villas expecting a quiet area.
this is a pasak din also against opening a shul next door to a neighbor.