Victory in Kiryat Yovel: Haredim took over the kindergartens

For several years, a passionate and serious clash has taken place on the identity of the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood of Jerusalem.


Haredi representatives at the Jerusalem municipality are fighting for haredim who live there and claim that the ultra-Orthodox population is large. Secular representatives claim in contrast that their number is negligible and that, "The Haredim are taking power by force."


Official data recently published on the official website of the Jerusalem Municipality presents reality: the number of kindergartens of the state education is much smaller than the Haredi kindergartens.

21 kindergartens belong to the Haredi educational administration while only 16 kindergartens operating in the neighborhood are public.


The surprising numbers appear in a special booklet on kindergarten registration for the next school year with a precise list of the kindergartens in the city.


Despite the encouraging data, Yitzchak Pindrus, deputy mayor in charge of the ultra-Orthodox education portfolio says that there is much to promote on haredi education terms in the neighborhood, "children in these kindergartens, study in sub-conditions," he says. "Buildings which should be used by them were allocated by the municipality to a Reform synagogue and pre-nursery playgroups, less important uses and some not consumed by kindergartens."

Pindrus also points out another problem: "There are 700 elementary-aged children who are forced to leave the neighborhood every morning to study in nearby neighborhoods since there is no organized structure in the neighborhood and so we are working hard these days."


Pepe Alalu, a city councilman from Meretz claims that when he calls against haredi takeover of the neighborhood he is aiming at these data, "the numbers do not surprise me, they indicate that the Haredim took over the neighborhood."

"Kiryat Yovel was considered a secular neighborhood until the ultra-Orthodox Jews came to it although it does not even have a primary institution for them, and although it does not meet all their needs. Now they want to declare that it is an orthodox neighborhood.


"Imagine a situation," says Alalu, "that the secularists would arrive at the Bukharan neighborhood to come and take over it. The Mayor must ensure that there will be units also for Orthodox and secular. It is not good that they live within each other, it's bad for all of us."

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!