The cabinet on Sunday approved the community of Charish, and has established a committee of senior officials to push the project along, instructing the committee to respond to the cabinet with its findings within 90 days.

The move was welcomed by many with the realization the housing shortage in the chareidi community has reached a critical level and the Charish solution is a step in the right direction.

The left-wing Meretz party does not oppose the construction of a new city, but opposes Charish becoming a chareidi city. Meretz officials fear the new community will endanger the good relations that exist in the Nachal I’ron area today between Israeli Arabs and secular Jews.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)