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9 Elul 5774 - September 4, 2014 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Substandard Conditions in Chareidi Schools in Mixed Neighborhoods

By Yisrael Rosner

"There is no Third World country which treats its children thus; I have never seen the likes of this," declared MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni on Monday in the course of a tour throughout Jerusalem by MKs and members of the Jerusalem Municipal Council of Degel HaTorah with the opening of this school year of 5775.

Particular emphasis was given to so-called "mixed" neighborhoods where there are substantial chareidi communities together with many non-religious residents. Housing in these areas tends to be cheaper than in established chareidi communities, plus the fact that not enough housing is available in established communities to meet the demand, means that many chareidi families move in to non-religious neighborhoods. Over time they become a larger and larger proportion of the community, and their growing families have a need for education resources. Local residents who object to the increasing chareidi presence often try to prevent more chareidim from moving in by limiting the education resources available for them.

There are many empty school rooms throughout Jerusalem that could be used by chareidi students, but non-religious people of all kinds are very reluctant to allow the use of school buildings built for the general Israeli non-religious system to be used by chareidi institutions, even when these empty buildings are located within neighborhoods that have become very chareidi.

In Jerusalem, Mayor Barakat has tried to maintain good relations with the chareidi community, which is the single largest community in Jerusalem, while at the same time reassure non-religious residents that he will do what he can to prevent chareidi Jews from moving to non-religious neighborhoods. Thus, in mixed neighborhoods, chareidi schools often suffer.

The tour encompassed the chareidi educational institutions of Ramot, Bayit Vegan and Kiryat Yovel. Students of chareidi schools in Givat Mordechai opened their school year in a demonstration in the Safra Square in front of the municipality buildings, protesting the lack of a budget for suitable accommodations for the students. Concurrently, parents of students of the Beis Yisrael neighborhood girls' school announced a strike against the beginning of the school year, also protesting lack of facilities for the students.

The tour also included a visit to a kindergarten of the Bais Yaakov network in Ramot B, whose substandard conditions utterly shocked the visitors. The kindergarten is located in a private apartment during the afternoon hours, which serves a family in the evening. The solution the city plans is to place two prefabs in the yards of other kindergartens serving the chareidi neighborhood population. This will obviously leave those kindergartens without adequate play areas. This is despite the fact that there exist kindergarten facilities in the neighborhood which stand empty for lack of demand for secular education. But the city refuses to allocate them for chareidi schools.

The committee's next visit was at a new cheder in Ramot B. The very sight of this improvised building put together by the neighborhood avreichim utterly shocked the MKs. In this case, the city did not even agree to study the need and the possibility of opening schools for girls/boys in the neighborhood. And yet, a mere 150 meters away, the group was astounded to discover a municipal building serving as a storeroom for junk — so long as chareidi children will not have access to it.

The group continued on to Bayit Vegan where, again, they were repulsed to discover a school facility that resembled a concentration camp. On one side stood a large building housing classrooms while on the opposite side were shelters designed to serve classes of hundreds of first grade students, part of who are eligible for their own school building in Kiryat Yovel, where they reside.

If this was not shocking enough, when they entered the building and saw the educational conditions, with students seated on plastic chairs the height of their desks, the single word that escaped MK Rabbi Gafni was `disgraceful'. One word said it all.

 

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