After the eruv poles installed in Jerusalem’s Beit HaKerem neighborhood were detected this week, secularists opposed to the construction of the eruv began enlisting opposition in what may become the next front in ongoing tensions between Jerusalem’s frum and secular communities.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat formed a committee to address the tensions and a decision was made to hand over the matter to the Jerusalem Religious Council and the city would remove all unauthorized poles. A budget of NIS 100,000 was allocated towards the project, Yediot Yerushalayim reports, adding the poles have yet to be taken down in Kiryat Yovel. The city expects all the mehadrin eruv poles removed by Sept.1 since they are officially unauthorized.
Now poles were detected in Beit HaKerem, adding some are supported by electric poles and opponents insist this poses “a life threatening danger”, decrying the “lack of respect and adherence to law and order” by those who are behind the installation of the eruv poles.
City officials are inspecting the situation, adding if the poles are indeed “pirate poles” they will be removed.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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5 Responses
As Jonathan Rosenblum says, Barakat sees himself as a latter-day Saracen rescuing Jerusalem from the infidel–in this case the Orthodox.
In any other country he be branded an anti-semite and run out of office.
Nobody can hate a Jew like another Jew. The umos ha’olom can take lessons from hard line Israeli secularists.
“After the eruv poles installed in Jerusalem’s Beit HaKerem neighborhood were detected this week”
BTW there has always been a KOSHER ERUV in Beit Hakerem, who is putting up poles on the sly? and for what purpose? to cause friction & tension in a lovely mixed neighborhood? Are people aware of the rules & regulations & zoning laws?
The one yeshiva in Beit HaKerem, Yeshivat Darche Noam, completely holds by the existing Jerusalem eruv. Why does the neighborhood need a “mehadrin” eruv?
Bet Hakerem is a shining example of how the frum and nonfrum can get along. There are yeshivos and kollelim, as well as a new mikvah and women’s seminary, that exisit side-by-side with the secular residents.
It was origingally constructed in the ’20s with a charter banning a shul, but the shul today lies in the center of the neighborhood.
New young frum couples are moving in to the area. It would be a terrible shame if they began a “war” with the local residents. The more seasoned mosdos and frum residents have done a great deal over the last decades to make the neighborhood a model of coexistence. Frum life flourishes there, but as soon as we start to attempt to “conquer” the neighborhood, it will understandably raise the ire of the locals.
Sh’ali Shlom Yerushalayim…