An open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu:
Dear Mr. Netanyahu,
I am writing to you for a very simple reason, the reason being that I assume you would like to win the next election.
As I am sure you are more than aware, for five elections the right and left blocks ended up in a stalemate. This past election the right wing finally reached a majority – primarily due to a left-wing party missing the electoral threshold.
What if I suggested an idea that would simply increase the right-wing voter bloc? Surely it would make your life easier, and would hopefully ensure your future political legacy, and the long-term success of the right-wing.
I don’t know if you’ve taken at the number of frum Israeli yordim on your recent trips to various European capitals. Maybe in London, or Antwerp or Vienna – not to mention the tri-State area – you could have paid attention to the fact that there literally thousands of charedim who once lived in Israel but were forced to settle abroad due to the impossibility of Israel’s property market.
Perhaps when you’re flying over the charedi city of Kiryat Sefer on your way to the airport in your private helicopter, you’ll take notice that virtually nothing has been done to increase the availability of housing for the charedi sector despite skyrocketing demand.
Perhaps you’ll glance out the window at the chronic traffic situation that snarls this city and all its charedi counterparts and realize the difficulty for people who choose to live in these cities.
And while you are at the airport’s VIP lounge, pay attention to the fact that the new railway is utterly impractical for a family loaded with children and suitcases.
I do not know your opinion of charedim, or of religion in general. I do know that many believe you be a smart man, and I do know that if you would build fifty thousand accessible housing units for the charedim, and another fifty thousand for the Dati Leumi community, you will have gained yourself a lot of votes in the next election.
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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11 Responses
1. In a system of proportional representation, any added votes Bibi gets from parties likely to prefer him over (as an example) Lapid, actually hurt his chances of winning. What matters is how many seats one’s coalition gains, so convincing a Hareidi to vote for Likud would weaken parties that Netanyahu relies on for support.
2. Statistically, frumkeit negatively correlates with emigration, and positively correlates with immigration. Given the high costs of housing and tuition in frum areas in golus, the lack of options of moving outside the major cities in golus and systemic discrimination against Orthodox Jews, the only real reason a frum Jew is likely to prefer golus (other than inability to switch to Hebrew, or family ties), is that they are opposed to the medinah (in which case, they would not vote in zionist elections).
Dear author,
His daughter is charedi.
Every Chareidi who would vote for him already does. Making better elevators instead of those long tunnel escalators at Tachana Merkazit would be very nice, but isn’t gonna add any votes to his account.
“the new railway is utterly impractical for a family loaded with children and suitcases…”
I’m not aware of any light rail system in the world that was designed to accomodate a family with four or five children traveling with “suitcases” for whatever reason. Thats why we have Gett Taxi and other similiar services that come right to your door with the appropriate size van to get you and the kids and your luggage to wherever you want to go safely and on-time.
Having a roof and buying grocery cannot be a “luxury” especially in Israel, sadly I’ve seen
Israel following the American pattern, that needs to change and housing should be available for everyone not just for frums or non observant, what are we talking about here?
Akuperma, you seem to have missed the point. Creating more housing for religious people would mean fewer of them will emigrate, and all those who stay because they can find housing are likely to vote, not for Likud, but for a party that will support Likud.
And while it may be true that religious people are less likely than secular people to emigrate, it is absolutely not true that religious people don’t emigrate for economic reasons, but only for anti-zionist ones. On the contrary, the vast majority of religious emigrants, and especially of haredi emigrants, leave for economic reasons and would have stayed if they could have afforded to. Providing more housing for those sectors would do a lot to encourage them to stay, and therefore to vote.
See the issue is that people get confused , things are moving too fast, a lot of fake news everywhere, bibi knows how to set boundaries and what is at stake here? Israel sovereignty! Vote for him, stay united and once he’s fully in charge, make all your claims
For those who are in Israel, you have no idea how we are suffering in Europe, there is no leadership, we have been plundered by the USA, they just want to control pretty much everything we do and now we don’t know what to do or where to go!
“….you have no idea how we are suffering in Europe…”
Zetruth: No one forced you to travel to Europe. If things are so bad in Europe, than go back to EY or go wherever you want. It is the ultimate stupidity to say that EY has been “plundered” by the USA when Israeli companies made a fortune in the U.S. between 2015 until Covid hit in 2020 by listing over 80 tech companies on American markets and raising nearly half a trillion dollars in new Capital. Likewise, the Bank of Israel reports that more new jobs were created in EY my American companies than by any other country.
You say, “we do and now we don’t know what to do or where to go!?
Well, as a starter, get your facts straight and perhaps go to a library or the public reading room at the Bank of Israel offices across from the Rose Gardens in Yerushalayim and learn an economic vert.
The judicial over there is what tells them that arabs have rights to land and freedom of terrorist discrimination and that they can not have yeshiva in the army which could be true that you can have torah and fight in that place but if the knesset decided to make new army leaders like with likud people and some other mossad offices closed the Israeli army would stay quit
Housing prices impact every sector of Israeli society. This isn’t a chareidi issue, it’s a wider economic issue. Israelis BH have large families. We are growing faster than developers can build. This drives up prices. Israel has also seen what happens when contractors build lower quality rachmana litzlan.
Every housing minister has tried different approaches to building more in order to bring down prices. At present, the best solution is to look beyond a city. Meitsad has affordable housing, and a wonderful kehilla. As does Nachliel.
Look farther from the big cities and there are still deals to be found.