Jerusalem – Following the near derailment of a discounted Jerusalem housing center for Lone Soldiers in the capital due to haredi opposition to a secular management company, the Jerusalem City Council unanimously approved a special budget for the center Tuesday night.
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The five-story residential complex, called Beit Giora and located in Kiryat Yoevel, is intended to provide affordable housing to nearly 200 of the nation’s 6,000 Lone Soldiers who cannot afford prohibitive residential costs in between training.
However, last Thursday when the city’s finance committee voted on providing NIS 170,000 to the Yovlim neighborhood administration, which manages the center, ultra-Orthodox council members voted to scrap the project due to the organization’s secularity.
“The project is operated by the municipality’s Youth Authority and Yovlim, and the haredi council members think both groups are anti-haredi, which of course, is not true,” a municipal official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks, explained.
In response to the controversy surrounding haredi opposition to funding the center, United Torah Judaism Councilman Yitzhak Pindrus said the decision is not intended to punish Lone Soldiers, but rather the disparity in funding among secular and ultra-Orthodox groups.
Nonetheless, opposition to the funding incensed a number of prominent politicians, including former ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, who described the move as “shameful” and “anti-Zionist.”
Oren later called an emergency meeting with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who vowed to pass the budget, noting that the housing center transcended politics.
“Lone male and female soldiers are beyond political or factional dispute, and we will continue to help them,” he said after the budget was passed.
“Their choice to serve, contribute and fight for national security is an example to us all, and we will continue to strengthen and embrace the troops and the Lone Soldiers in Jerusalem during their service and help them to integrate into the city at the end of their military service.”
According to the municipality, currently more than 50 Lone Soldiers reside in Beit Giora, while many others seeking residence are on a waiting list.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Kol hakovod to the members of the Council who voted the needed funding for this vital project and shame on the chareidi political hacks on the finance committee who tried to block the funding. Hopefully, they will be the first to suffer the consequences if c’v there should be a lapse in security because of any limits imposed on the brave chayalim of the IDF
We need it our bucrim sleeping in the yeshivos & not going to the tumna IDF.
to number 2, you are a Kofoy Tov
To the haredim everything is coming to “us”. It is no coincidence that the word for “us” in Hebrew as pronounced by the chassidim, loony, is the same as the English slang for crazy “loony”. For that is indeed what they are. And I know because I used to be one of them.