Jerusalem mayor and ultra-Orthodox carve up capital
Barkat denies deal, which specifies the religious character of individual neighborhoods, is aimed at ensiring Haredi support when he runs for reelection; deputy mayor calls it ‘unethical, illegal’
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat has reached a deal with ultra-Orthodox leaders to carve up the city’s neighborhoods along religious lines, in a move which critics say is aimed at guaranteeing him ultra-Orthodox support for the next mayoral elections, due 2018.
The deal was reached with a committee of rabbis, the Haaretz newspaper reported Wednesday. It sets out what will happen in mixed neighborhoods — ultra-Orthodox and non-Orthodox, where ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods will be built in the future, and where cultural centers, which primarily serve secular and non-Orthodox religious residents, will be created.
Avraham Kreuzer, Barkat’s adviser on Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, affairs, and the city’s director general Amnon Merhav spent 10 months negotiating with a committee established by the rabbinical leader of the Degel HaTorah party in Jerusalem, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman.
The agreement specifies that the council will provide full educational and community services in neighborhoods that have already undergone what is known as “haredization,” Haaretz said. In those neighborhoods, the city will encourage more ultra-Orthodox people to move in.
Where haredization is just beginning, basic services for the community, such as preschools, will be provided but residents will have to go to nearby Haredi neighborhoods or to seam areas between their neighborhoods and Haredi ones for more advanced services.
The accord specifies that new housing projects will be built in the Ramot neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, which already has a Haredi majority. One part of it, Ramot Bet, however, will remain more secular and ultra-Orthodox families will be encouraged not to move in.
Ramat Eshkol, also in the north of the city, will get a large ultra-Orthodox educational campus, cementing its ultra-Orthodox status; but nearby French Hill, where they has been a partial influx of ultra-Orthodox residents of late, will be kept free of Haredi institutions to preserve its more secular character.
In Kiryat Hayovel, in southern Jerusalem, where the ultra-Orthodox have been expanding for years, the Haredi community will get preschools only. To serve the non-Haredi public, the existing experimental elementary school will be expanded to include a junior high school.
Tensions between the two communities in Kiryat Yovel exploded in February when Yehiel Levy, head of the Yovelim community center, described a plan to “choke” the ultra-Orthodox out of the neighborhood by planning cultural events, such as movie screenings, for the community’s secular citizens specifically in areas where there is a large Haredi presence.
“When you choke them, they leave… This is the mechanism that works today,” Levi told Army Radio at the time.
Roundly condemned, Levy later apologized and said that his words had been taken out of context.
In December 2015, Barkat announced that he was joining the Likud Party, adding to speculation that he plans to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the future for leadership of the party.
He has not yet publically declared whether he will run for mayor a third time.
Deputy Mayor Ofer Berkovitch, head of the Hitorerut (“Awakening”) party, the biggest nonreligious faction in the council, said the deal with the Haredim was “unethical, illegal and illegitimate” and was really aimed at guaranteeing Barkat’s political future. He said it signified a new “strategic partnership” which saw the Ashkenazi Haredim [Ashkenazim describes Jews with origins in northern Europe] replacing the council’s national religious bloc as his electoral allies, Berkovitch went on.
Kreuzer said this was not a political agreement but rather a series of understandings that would help advance decisions on Tuesday by the Jerusalem regional planning and building committee on plans for a new Haredi educational complex in Ramat Eshkol and would also help secure Haredi agreement for the approval of plans for a secular cultural and recreational complex in Kiryat Hayovel.
Barkat described as “nonsense” claims that he had reached a political agreement. “Anybody who knows how the Haredi sector works knows that they decide [whom to support] at the last minute,” he told Haaretz.
While stressing that he had met with all the heads of the neighborhood councils, he agreed that most of the discussions had taken place solely with the rabbinic committee.
“The moment that you open all the discussions to everyone, the extremists always pop up,” Haaretz quoted him saying.
Tensions run high between the capital’s Haredi population, which makes up a third of the city, and its non-Orthodox communities, particularly where religious observance of the Sabbath is concerned.
In Jerusalem, the Sabbath is observed far more strictly than in secular Tel Aviv. Few restaurants and cultural facilities are open on Saturdays.
Each opening of a new corner store or facility on Shabbat is met by Haredi protests and secular complaints that the religious are trying to impose their beliefs on the whole city.
Secular residents who drive into ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods on the Sabbath risk having their cars stoned.
The rift is exacerbated by the fact that ultra-Orthodox Jews across the country do not serve in the army.
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