The City of Beit Shemesh agreed to the majority of requests
by chareidi directors of educational institutions and United
Torah Jewry city councilmen to allocate classrooms and other
facilities in various neighborhoods, based on the needs of
the institutions and the composition of the neighborhoods. At
a press conference called by Mayor Daniel Vaknin, a list of
the new allocations was released, including 161 classrooms
designated for the chareidi sector, compared to just 40 new
classrooms for national-religious and secular schools.
Two years ago, while MK Rabbi Avrohom Ravitz was serving as
deputy education minister, City Councilman Rabbi Eliezer
Greenbaum (UTJ) asked him to approve the construction of a
large number of classrooms for the city's chareidi sector, in
response to the strain on the chareidi education system
resulting from the high rate of natural growth in the
chareidi sector.
Following numerous meetings held in Rabbi Ravitz' office, the
City of Beit Shemesh received a large number of new
classrooms for construction. Last year over 190 classrooms
were built, mostly in new neighborhoods of Ramat Beit
Shemesh.
Several months ago, Mayor Vaknin ask UTJ representatives on
the city council to compile and organize the classroom
requests from all of the chareidi educational institutions.
The councilmen held numerous meetings with educational
institution directors and Deputy Mayor Shalom Edri. Recently
City Councilman Rabbi Moshe Montag compiled the figures and
classroom requests.
In according with the lists generated, Rabbi Montag met with
the Mayor and with officials from the municipality's
Education Department and together numerous efforts were made
to solve the classroom shortage. However, just when it seemed
that all would work out fine, three weeks ago a list of
classroom allocations very different from the preliminary
agreements between UTJ and the Mayor was publicized.
Subsequently, chareidi representatives held numerous meetings
with municipality officials and the Mayor, telling them the
list was not acceptable to any of the directors of
educational institutions. A decision was reached to organize
a mass meeting of institution directors and UTJ
representatives along with ranking jurists in order to
contend with the municipality's decision.
The municipality then began to engage in dialogue with the
representatives and directors until eventually the Mayor
notified City Councilman Rabbi Moshe Montag the City would
honor the original agreement. The mass meeting was then
cancelled at the last moment.
"I asked the chareidi representatives to bring the list of
requests in writing and I instructed the officials at the
municipality's Education Department to allocate the
classrooms in accordance," said Mayor Daniel Vaknin at a
press conference.
Starting this year, the vast majority of chareidi
institutions will be housed in splendid, permanent
facilities. Mayor Vaknin also honored requests by the city's
rabbonim not to bring non-chareidi institutions into the
chareidi neighborhoods.
