A modest proposal

The project reveals the depth of the abyss that divides the haredi sector from the rest of the Jewish residents represented on the council.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Kiryat Hayovel is one of the city’s still-affordable pockets. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Kiryat Hayovel is one of the city’s still-affordable pockets.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Last week, the city council witnessed some of its stormiest meetings to date – all focused on a relatively not-so-crucial issue.
A proposal was on the table to create homes for lone soldiers wishing to spend their free time in the city, a project that at first glance should have garnered support from all sides.
In fact, this modest project revealed the depth of the abyss that divides the haredi sector from the rest of the Jewish residents represented on the council.
The original proposal – to install two such homes, one in Kiryat Hayovel and the other in Ramot; and approve half the budget necessary, about NIS 90 million – has since been approved, but the bad blood it caused is still burning on both sides.
For Deputy Mayor Ofer Berkovitch of Hitorerut B’yerushalayim, the story is mostly about the unprecedented selfishness of the ultra-Orthodox representatives, who didn’t hesitate to vote against something that is “close to holy – the welfare of the IDF soldiers,” with all the accompanying allusions to haredim not serving in the army. For the haredi representatives (mostly of United Torah Judaism), this was just another case of bashing their community, a way to inflame already existing antagonism.
“They depicted us as the usual defectors, who do not serve in the army and do not care about soldiers,” said city councilman Yitzhak Pindrus of UTJ, adding that he has become used to it. Yet Pindrus pointed to a very different reason for his party’s vote against: The Kiryat Hayovel building was intended for use as classrooms, badly needed for haredi children in the neighborhood, who study in rented apartments under unfit conditions.
But there is more to it: “The Kiryat Hayovel local council is so hostile towards us [the haredim] that even when budgets are approved for our needs, they refuse to accept the money. And so, anything that serves the haredi community in that neighborhood comes through the local council of Har Nof – a combination I doubt is legal!” Pindrus, who stresses that he hosts many religious and haredi soldiers every Shabbat in his home, doesn’t hide his anger at what he describes as persecution of his sector.
“There are haredim living in Kiryat Hayovel, whether the local council likes it or not, and they are entitled to the services a local council should provide with the public moneys they receive. But the fact is that there are no programs at all for our community there; it all comes through Har Nof, and it is not right.”
Pindrus is not alone – a growing number of haredi activists feel they have been targeted by the representatives of the secular activist movements in the city, especially in Kiryat Hayovel. A source inside the community says there was, about a year and a half ago, an understanding with the municipality that mayoral representatives on the newly elected board of the neighborhood’s local council would comprise the most anti-haredi activists, but the reality on the ground has proven to be the opposite.
Today there are about 1,000 haredi families living in Kiryat Hayovel, and while it is definitely untrue to say they do not enjoy any services from the local council, the fact is that all afternoon programs usually accessible in community centers operating within local councils across the city are delivered to haredi children and youth through the Har Nof local council. Since the major change introduced in local councils some three years ago, the community centers are all connected with the municipality under the auspices of Deputy Mayor Meir Turgeman, who holds the Local Councils and Community Centers portfolio.