Jerusalem parties feud over haredi schools in secular neighborhoods

Last week, the city administration chose to hold a meeting of the Allocations Committee, despite protests from members of both the opposition and the coalition. Is this a hint to the shape of things to come?

Two members of Mayor Moshe Lion’s coalition, Laura Warton and Yossi Havilio, believed it was inappropriate to convene this committee so close to the elections for the council and the mayor. After a petition, the court ruled that it was indeed unethical to convene the committee at this time, but the committee had already convened to discuss sensitive issues related to the city’s pluralistic – and therefore the court’s ruling had become irrelevant.

The first item debated at the committee meeting was the decision to get rid of Ginat Shmorak, a small neighborhood small park in Kiryat Yovel near the quarters of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, to make room for a synagogue.

An explosive political topic in Jerusalem: Haredi schools in secular neighborhoods

The second item on the committee’s agenda was even more explosive: After months of discussion, protest and debate, the committee decided that the Lady Davis School (of the Amal network) in Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood would be closed down and the building adjudicated to a haredi seminary for girls. The neighborhood’s secular residents consider the decision an example of things to come as far as the neighborhood’s future and believe these types of moves will eventually affect the entire city.

Meanwhile, the municipality claimed that the District Court had rejected the petition regarding the Allocations Committee, allowed it to convene and approved its decisions.

However, this is not just another – particularly dramatic – case in which the city administration managed to overcome opposition of one kind or another. Here we are dealing with a committee whose agenda includes extremely sensitive proposals for both camps – the haredim and the liberals – that met at a very sensitive time, less than four months before the elections for city council and mayor.

What is on the agenda now is no longer a just controversial decision but a feeling among some of the city’s residents that the ultra-Orthodox representatives are establishing facts on the ground and preparing to deepen their influence in the city after the elections.

Currently, the haredi factions are cooperating toward a common goal (as usual), while among the variety of factions and lists representing the pluralistic public, there are arguments and divisions (as usual).

The Amal Lady Davis school which was founded in 1965 and trained tens of thousands of students, closed its Kiryat Yovel location last week and will move to its new residence next to the Denmark school in Gonenim neighborhood on September 1. This decision will bring 1,000 haredi girls, from across several parts of the city to the neighborhood that has become the center of the struggle between the haredi public and the secular zone of influence.

Residents and social activists petitioned against the decision, considering it a resounding slap in the face, arguing that politics is changing the identity of the neighborhood and turning it into an ultra-Orthodox enclave – but to no avail.

Additionally, Hitorerut chairman Adir Schwartz last week called on “every Jerusalemite who believes that Jerusalem belongs to everyone to come to Safra Square during the City Council meeting [held last Thursday],” when these decisions were to be submitted and get final approval – and “shout out the cry of the liberal voice in the city.” Nevertheless, as expected, last Thursday, the City Council meeting approved both decisions.

Some see this latest case as a heavy hint of what is to be expected after the elections. If, once again, the ultra-Orthodox camp is to gain wide representation in the city council while pluralist factions continue to be split on the benches, Lion – likely be elected without any effort – will have a very difficult time between his desire to be the “mayor of everyone” and his commitment to the ultra-Orthodox coalition.

Sources at Safra Square say that unless there is a public and official declaration against haredi educational institutions being opened in secular neighborhoods, such cases will occur again and again.

“If you enable a haredi school to open in a secular neighborhood, you simply plant the seeds of the next clash,” explained the source, a high-ranking official at the municipal Education Administration. ❖