Nine Beit Shemesh councilmen are petitioning the court to prevent what they view is the ‘chareidiazation’ of their community by Minister of Housing Ariel Atias. They are turning to a Jerusalem court against the minister, Mayor Moshe Abutbul and the Israel Lands Administration. They are opposed to construction plans for exclusively chareidi housing, fearing the segregated chareidi areas will change the face of the entire community.
Attorney Daphne Holtz-Lichner is handling the petition, explaining an agreement was reached last summer for the development of the Gimmel-1 project in Ramat Beit Shemesh, which was approved by the city council in an overwhelming vote of 14-3, with two stipulations. The new area must be divided into three equal portions, to provide housing for the community’s three population groups, non-frum, dati leumi and chareidim.
The second stipulation called for forming a committee comprised of representatives of all three sectors, a committee that would work with housing ministry officials towards developing the character of the new neighborhood, decide on the tenders and advertising and marketing strategies. They allege the mayor is totally ignoring the stipulations that accompanied the decision, supported by the housing minister from Shas.
The councilmen fear if the court does not agree to intervene; it will be the beginning of the end of any future for any non-chareidim in the community, who will begin leaving en masse.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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7 Responses
Baruch Hashem!!!, as a resident of Beit Shemesh,I’m glad that the “charedim” will not be dominating this beautiful city, please, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the city to be religious but not to shove down anybody’s throat what they call “Daat Torah” and their anti-zionistic views. What they need to do is to clean up their neighborhoods from all the garbage that they throw around and to get jobs. Also to stop harassing religious women when they walk around in Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet just because they are not dressed like their wives.
Uzi — Nice to see some Ahavat Yisroel.
How many chareidim do you know?
What makes you think that the chareidim in RBS G will be like the hooligans? Did you know that MOST chareidim are not hooligans?
Oh, and another question that no one has been able to explain to me is — why do you think that there are thousands on DL or secular people who want to live in RBS G? There was a community of people designated for DL and they were not able to see it out to DL. Its called Ramat Shilo. If they couldnt fill a few streets, why do you think they can fill a whole “gimmel”
Hey kollelguy, first, you don’t know me, I have a lot of Ahavat Israel, I daven in a Charedi shtibel everyday, just because I don’t want their anti-everything to be the mayority, doesn’t mean that I hate them, also I didn’t say anything about the “charedi” hooligans. I know that there are many decent black hats out there, but also there are many hooligans in streimel harassing people all the time, specially to the same russian women that come to clean their houses.
Ahh, the wonderful toeles of blogging. No need to wait and filter our venting and ranting on each other.
To set the facts straight. Initially it was slated through the Israeli govnt (I believe the Housing Authority) specifically and only for Charedim to help with the their constantly massively increasing population growth. R’ Abutbol, to try to make everyone happy, decide to break Ramat Gimmel down for all three groups. This was accepted by all. So what is the problem? Money. The Charedi housing groups want to keep the prices down. So that they could be affordable and hopefully in the long run, lower the whole price market in RBS. So through the direction of th the Gedolei Yisroel they made a price block, They agreed to only charge a certain price which they felt was affordable. The problem is that the other contractors are not very happy wit this at all. Because they want to make money. So they have started the whole Mess specifically for selfish reasons. As the expression goes ” Money is a Yeder Zach” I’m sure with Siyat Dishmays this will all work out well in the end.
menachem – i think ‘self proclaimed’ is a key word here. why judge an entire population based on a small group of problematic people?
the immaturity displayed by some of the groups out there on this issue is appalling.
Yael.e – the individual in question is definitely “self-proclaimed”; he (and his supporters) refer to himself as the “mora d’assra” of RBS A, though he is accepted by only a minority. The problem is that he and his followers do not hesitate to resort to highly inappropriate tactics – be they violence (shoving people off a stage at a public concert in a park because there were families walking by and observing as groups – there was no formal “seating” as such; attacking a group of girls from the local Torani school because they were having a picnic in the park – though they were definitely dressed appropriately) or otherwise (protests with men marching, saying tehilim, and blowing Shofar outside a Torani girl’s high school because the building was too close to “their” area – though it was also within the area of the local Torani community) when he wants to get things his way. This makes the entire community an uncomfortable place to be for those that he is against – mainly fine, frum Jews who are at least as careful in Halacha as he claims to be, but follow a somewhat different Hashkafa. As an American living in RBS A, I _want_ there to be more than one “type” of Frum Jew in my community; isn’t that the point of Sheves Achim Gam Yachad? We don’t all need to be exactly the same, but to have respect for one another – Eilu Va’Eilu Divrei Elokim Chaim.
an Israeli Yid