The haredi capital

Despite the national real-estate downturn, demand in Bnei Brak still outstrips supply.

By JOHN BENZAQUEN
Sea of Haredim 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Sea of Haredim 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Bnei Brak is arguably the center of the country’s haredi (ultra- Orthodox) community.
Though Jerusalem has a larger number of haredim, it is primarily a secular and national-religious city with a large haredi minority. Bnei Brak, by contrast, is predominantly haredi with a small secular minority concentrated in the Pardes Katz neighborhood, east of Jabotinsky Street – more popularly known as the Tel Aviv-Petah Tikva Highway.
In this city of 174,000 people, 85 percent describe themselves as haredi. In Pardes Katz, 60% are modern Orthodox and secular, and the remaining 40% are haredi.
The site is the same as the ancient biblical city of Bnei Brak. After the Arab conquest, the echoes of the ancient name remained in the village of Ibn Ibraq, which was 4 kilometers to the south of the modern city. The present Bnei Brak was founded in 1924 as an agricultural village by a group of Polish hassidim headed by Yitzhok Gerstenkorn. In those times, the Jewish authorities were keen on promoting agriculture, which was the reason the founding fathers originally chose the agricultural option.
But the original plot of land purchased for that purpose was too small to provide a livelihood for the large families of the hassidim. As a result, they had to find other sources of income, and the settlement quickly developed urban characteristics.
The community brought over Rabbi Arye Mordechai Rabinowicz, formerly rabbi of Kurow in Poland, and from the outset established Bnei Brak as a pious settlement.
This is how the founding fathers described the way of life there: “Their souls were revived by the fact that they merited what their predecessors had not, living in the Holy Land. What particularly revived their weary souls in the mornings and toward evening was their prayers.”
The first building in the new settlement was the beit midrash (Torah study house) situated in a special shack. This served as a synagogue for communal prayers three times a day, as well as a place for the Daf Yomi shiur, the daily study of pages of Talmud.
Bnei Brak has retained its highly religious character. As such, the families who live there tend to be large, making it the most densely populated Jewish city in the country. Consequently there is a constant drift to adjacent areas that are relatively inexpensive, such as Pardes Katz and the neighboring Ramat Gan’s Ramat Amidar neighborhood. The price barrier is effectively blocking the population drift to Ramat Yitzhak, a relatively expensive area of Ramat Gan.
As in all cities, the demographic element is a determining factor in the realestate scene. The makeup of the population and its financial abilities determine the prices and quality of apartments.
Consequently real-estate prices are “moderate” for a city that is part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.
Mayor Ya’acov Asher believes that haredi English speakers will feel at home in Bnei Brak.
“We have a large community of haredi families from the USA and Great Britain. And the cultural-spiritual-religious environment is excellent,” he says. “We have Torah study groups, as well as a very supportive social network. Furthermore, the town is home to many important rabbis, such as Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wosner and more.”
Additionally, he says, “we are investing heavily in upgrading the infrastructure.
Despite the fact that there is little land for real-estate development, we are nevertheless developing real-estate projects with large new, spacious apartments suitable for families from the US who are used to such living conditions in their countries of origin.”
Menahem Ram is a well-known realestate operator who deals in marketing real estate in all its aspects and is active in Bnei Brak. He, too, notes the appeal the city has for ultra-Orthodox families.
“It is the seat of many hassidic courts and many large and famous yeshivot. It is also in the Tel Aviv metropolitan center, and this fact also has its advantages,” he says. “Demand for real estate is constant. It is less affected by the general state of the real-estate market in the country as a whole. For a family or a newlywed belonging to the ultra- Orthodox community, Bnei Brak is the preferred choice. These people need to reside in a religious environment, and this has an important bearing on the real-estate market.”
As a result, he continues, demand usually outstrips supply. “Building land is strictly limited, and there are no ‘Pinui Binui’ [projects] – tearing down old buildings and building high-rise, modern buildings in their stead – because the ultra-Orthodox do not use Shabbat elevators, [so] high rise buildings are not practical.”
Though real-estate prices in the city are much lower than in the surrounding area, demand from the non-haredi public is low. Just as a haredi family is unlikely to want to live in a secular neighborhood, secular families often do not want to live in a haredi neighborhood, whatever the prices.
An old two-room apartment on the third or fourth floor costs NIS 1 million on average, and a four-room apartment on the first floor can cost NIS 1.4m.-NIS 1.5m. New apartments can cost much more.
Yaki Reisner, the VP procurement, marketing and development for the Z. Landau Construction Group, which is involved in building projects for the haredi community, says, “We completed a compound of 150 apartments called Marom Shir of a very high quality. Six-room, ground-floor apartments sold for NIS 2.5m., while penthouses sold for much more.”