The mayor is following a policy of discrimination against the
chareidim and seeks to establish ghettos for their community,
claim chareidi officials in Beit Shemesh. These claims are a
result of Mayor Dani Vaknin's continual abuse of the chareidi
community of the city and his stubborn refusal to allocate
areas for building chareidi schools.
Thousands of people bought apartments in Ramat Beit Shemesh
Aleph, 50% of whom are chareidi, 45% of whom are National
Religious and 5% of whom are secular. Recently about a
hundred dunams of land were allocated for educational
institutions for the new residents of the up-and-coming
neighborhood. In a very baffling step, the mayor refused to
allocate any of these lots for chareidi institutions. Only
secular and government-religious schools are on the list of
institutions which will be built, except for a negligible
amount of classrooms and some very tiny areas which were
granted to a few Torah institutions.
An additional scandal, which is linked to the educational
institutions, involves 12 classrooms which stand empty in the
chareidi district, yet Vaknin refuses to transfer them to
chareidi institutions claiming that the construction budget
is for the general educational system and not the chareidi
one. Now, it seems as if the structure will be given in part
to the secular schools system and in part to the government
religious system, even though the building is located in the
heart of the chareidi neighborhoods.
Near this building, also in the heart of the chareidi
neighborhoods, are two empty buildings for kindergartens,
including playgrounds and similar facilities. Nonetheless,
Eitz Hadaas and Beis Yaakov are forced to rent apartments in
the area for their kindergartens, since Vaknin refuses to
transfer those buildings to the Chinuch Atzmai.
When the occupants move into the Beit Shemesh Aleph, half of
its residents will be chareidi. However, as far as Mayor Dani
Vaknin is concerned, the chareidim are simply nonexistent.
All of the efforts of the UTJ representatives in the
municipality to change this serious trend have been in
vain
Last week, Rabbi Eliezer Greenbaum, UTJ's representative in
the city council, sent a sharp letter to Vaknin, in which he
demanded to receive a list of the institutions which will be
built in the neighborhood and the sectors for which they are
earmarked. In this letter, Rabbi Greenbaum said that
according to the law, Vaknin was obligated to respond to the
letter no later than three days after its receipt. However,
so far no reply has been received.
It was learned that Vaknin instructed his senior secretaries
in the municipality not to transmit any data to the UTJ
representatives in the city, and to prevent them from
receiving any information whatsoever on the topic.
Last week, Rabbi Greenbaum entered a meeting of the Authority
for Public Structures held at city hall. As a member of the
city council Rabbi Greenbaum is legally entitled to
participate in such a meeting as an observer. However Vaknin
demanded that Rabbi Greenbaum leave the room. "If you differ
with me, you can file a complaint with the Interior
Ministry," Vaknin brashly called out to Greenbaum.
A short while ago, Rabbi Greenbaum asked that the chareidi
community's request for new classrooms for '99 be sent to the
Education Ministry. However, the official in charge of this
in the Beit Shemesh Municipality was reprimanded by Vaknin
for having bypassed him and not informed him of the
matter.
Senior activists in the city note that while Ramat Beit
Shemesh Aleph was in its building stages, Vaknin declared
before TV cameras: "I'll stop the chareidim with my very
body."
The sense of betrayal of the chareidi community is compounded
by the fact that they supported Vaknin in the recent
municipal elections.
Yehuda Gur-Aryeh, the spokesman of the Beit Shemesh
municipality relayed the following reaction: "The educational
system in the city gives expression to various lifestyles and
espouses the principle of equal rights for those of different
world views and beliefs. The educational system is dependent
on administrative arrangements and existing channels and
patterns between the municipal establishment and the
nationwide establishment.
"Each and every one of the various chareidi systems receives
a nationwide quota of classes earmarked for them, and the
authorities divide them among the various regions and
districts, according to their considerations and the criteria
which seem right to them."
