Dozens of young activists from Jerusalem dressed as ghosts on Sunday and walked through town holding signs saying “Don’t Turn Jerusalem into a Ghost Town/City” and “I Don’t Want to Leave Jerusalem.” The activists, many of them students in their 20s, were protesting the increasing cost of housing and the related phenomenon of housing being purchased by foreign buyers.
Approximately 9,200 apartments in the capital city are now owned by foreigners, most of them Jews who visit their Jerusalem homes only during holidays. In neighborhoods such as Romema and Talbieh, 20 to 30 percent of the apartments are owned by foreigners and are not rented out. 33 percent of the apartments sold in Talbieh last year were sold to foreigners, and in some neighborhoods up to 40 percent of apartment sales were to non-Israelis.
Activists called on the city council to approve building plans, and to push for the construction of housing for the middle class. Some pushed to renew the recently rejected Safdie plan to build on the hills west of the city.