"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.
