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NEWS
Mayor Lupoliansky Says Government Should Fund
Neighborhoods Based on Number of Residents, Not Families
By Betzalel Kahn
The City of Jerusalem and the Construction and Housing
Ministry inaugurated a chareidi community center — the
first of its kind — which will serve the residents of
the city's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood and will be operated
under the close oversight of local rabbonim.
In a speech given during the opening ceremony, where Housing
Minister Meir Shetreet was also in attendance, Mayor
Lupoliansky discussed the difficulty involved in raising
funds for neighborhoods blessed with a large number of
children. The Mayor said following a meeting the government
held last week to discuss the problem of the reduction in the
percentage of Jews in the world, he met with one of the
ministers and cited Ramat Shlomo, which has 2,000 families
with a total of 20,000 people. The minister was greatly
impressed by the figure and said such neighborhoods certainly
offer a real answer to the problem of demographic competition
with the Arabs.
"In Ramat Shlomo," said Mayor Lupoliansky, "we have indeed
seen government officials take up the cause and build a large
community center, but not always does the standard set for
the amount of footage in public facilities for neighborhoods
with 2,000 families meet the needs of another 18,000 children
and teenagers living in them. I call on the government to
fund these neighborhoods based on the number of residents
living in them and not on the number of families or housing
units, as in other neighborhoods."
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