The settler population is growing twice as fast as the rest of the country every year, and the ultra-Orthodox community is responsible for approximately half its annual growth, according to Haaretz’s analysis of Interior Ministry figures for 2006. In the last year, the settler population has grown by 5.45 percent, from 260,932 to 275,156.
The growth rate in the ultra-Orthodox Beitar Ilit and Modi’in Ilit is higher than most places in Israel. Modi’in Ilit’s population, some 40,000, grows annually by about 11 percent (this year it has grown by 12.5 percent).
Beitar Ilit’s population, some 35,000, grows annually by some 10 percent – five to six times more than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’s population growth respectively and twice as much as the growth of many other settlements.
By the end of June, 72,106 people – more than a quarter of the West Bank settlers – were concentrated in Beitar Ilit, Modi’in Ilit and Kochav Yaakov, another ultra-Orthodox settlement, according to Interior Ministry figures.
Most of the ultra-Orthodox settlers – young couples or young families with numerous children – do not live in the West Bank for ideological reasons. They moved to the settlements due to the soaring real estate prices in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, which created an acute housing shortage.
The local authorities predict that in 10 to 15 years Betar Ilit’s population may consist of some 17,500 families totaling some 100,000 residents. Today the town has 5,828 occupied housing units, 1,102 units are under construction and another 5,800 are being planned. Modi’in Ilit has 6,800 occupied housing units and its population is expected to reach 150,000 in the near future.
Every year 60 new classrooms open in Beitar Ilit, where the children make up 63 percent of the population. In Jerusalem, by comparison, the children make up 45 percent of the population.
Some 48 babies are born in Modi’in Ilit weekly – some 2,700 a year – and every year an average of 57 new first-grade classes open.
Between the end of June 2006 and June 2007, the number of settlers in the West Bank grew by 5.45 percent. Last year the growth of the ultra-Orthodox population made up 40 percent of the increase in the settlers’ numbers, and this year its contribution is bigger.
(Complete article HERE)
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10 Responses
Kein yirbu.
ACCORDING TO THE MATH 48BABIES X’S 52WEEKS =2496 BABIES K”AH DEVIDED BY 57 CLASSES WORKS OUT TO 43.78CHILDREN PER CLASS THATS AN EXTRA LARGE AMOUNT OF KIDS PER CLASS WHICH MORAH OR REBBE CAN REACH THAT AMOUNT OF KIDS GIVING EACH CHILD THE PERSONAL ATTENTION NEEDED FOR HIM OR HER TO GROW??
ITS NOT ENOUGH HAVING CHILDREN WE MUST MAKE SURE THEY GROWUP HEALTHY BOTH IN GASHMIUS AS WELL AS RUCHNIOUS
Reply to DWKL1: The population today is perhaps not the same as it was 6 years ago, when today’s new first graders were being born.
DWKL1 – Your logic and math is flawed. Kids don’t go into first grade as soon as their born. I’m sure in 5 years from now there will be more than 57 classes opening up. The 57 new classes are based on the amount of kids born five years ago.
Given the growth rate stated in the article there were probably about 1500 kids born 5 years ago which works out to about 27 per class.
Fill up the ‘West Bank’ with beautiful Torah families, the way to go. Derech Avos starts in Beersheva, goes through Chevron and continues north in Shilo, Bet El, etc. Our Avos and Immahos are shepping nachas.
Let’s not forget that Maran HaRav Shach was very against the Charedi populauiton moving into the territories. While exceptions were made for Beitar and Modiin (Kiryat Sefer) based on how close they are to the Green Line, we are NOT settlers (with all due respect to the Bostoner Rebbe quoted above).
Most people in Beitar and Kiryat Sefer would cringe at being called settlers.
#7 No reason for them to cringe at all, instead the Hamas, Fatah, Arab League, EU, & the USA State Department will cringe at them and those in Efrat, Nvei Yaakov, French Hill etc..
The article’s words that “most of the ultra-Orthodox settlers…do not live in the West Bank for ideological reasons” is an understatement. Actually these are Jews who are opposed to the existence of the Zionist state. However, the appearance of these statistics should serve as their wake-up call to realize that the world – both Zionist and non-Jewish – sees them as part of the West Bank settler population, the extremist wing of the Zionist movement. A person can believe one thing but with his actions make a very different statement. Jews who have chosen to live in Kiryas Sefer and Beitar, however good their intentions may be, should be aware of the way their actions are being interpreted.
“should be aware of the way their actions are being interpreted”. — How are they interpreted, and by who?
In reply to 10, in case I wasn’t clear enough, their actions are being interpreted by the writer and readers of this article in Haaretz (see complete article for the parts that the Yeshiva World editor clipped out of it) as advocating annexing the areas where they live, if not the whole West Bank, to the State of Israel.