The housing shortage in Jerusalem is leading increasingly more hareidi-religious families to move in to neighborhoods heretofore known as “secular,” warns Chaim Miller, Chairman of the hareidi “Movement for Jerusalem and its Residents.” Within a few years, he says, “a major demographic change will come over these neighborhoods.”
“It is a direct result of the frustration that is so prevalent in the hareidi public,” Miller told Ladaat.net, “in light of the freeze ordered by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and in light of the court decisions [blocking] the new housing tenders in Beit Shemesh.”
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“Tenders for hareidi housing apartments in N’vei Yaakov, Pisgat Ze’ev, Givat Ze’ev, Tel Tzion and Beitar Illit have been frozen by municipal bodies by direct order of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office,” Miller said. “This is the basis and source of the phenomenon we see happening in front of our eyes.”
Just last week, as well, the Jerusalem District Court accepted a petition by members of the Beit Shemesh Municipal Council to freeze bids on a hareidi-religious housing project in the city. A meeting between the parties in the dispute is planned for next week.
Miller listed Beit HaKerem, Kiryat Yovel, Kiryat Menachem, Rechavia, the German Colony and Talbieh as neighborhoods that are becoming increasingly hareidi. “This is not a phenomenon that should be welcomed,” Miller said candidly, “and it can be stopped by decisions that will enable the hareidi public to build appropriate neighborhoods for itself.”
“Blocking the natural development of the hareidi public will not succeed,” Miller continued. “It might be temporarily delayed by nuisance court petitions of one type of another, or because of political decisions rooted in American pressure. But things are happening ‘on the ground,’ and they bypass the impediments, and we see what’s happening in the Jerusalem neighborhoods. If Mayor Nir Barkat doesn’t apply pressure on the Prime Minister and make sure to unfreeze the appropriate alternatives, the hareidi presence in the secular neighborhoods will simply get stronger.”