BNEI BRAK Rabbonim Oppose Relocation Of Religious Zionist School Into Chareidi Neighborhood

 

In Brooklyn and five towns chareidi institutions are surrounded by mosques, strip clubs, billboards and all of Sodom and Amora but G-d forbid a chareidi kid in bnei brak should ever see a less religious kid walk down the same street.

A dispute over the location of a Religious Zionist school in Bnei Brak has intensified after the city’s rabbonim issued a letter opposing the school’s relocation into the predominantly Chareidi Kiryat Herzog neighborhood.

The controversy centers on the Afikim state religious school on Neufeld Street, which serves both boys and girls, including children with special educational needs. Local rabbonim have expressed concerns about the school’s proximity to Chareidi educational institutions and the interactions between students during arrival and dismissal times.

The latest letter follows a series of incidents that have heightened tensions in the neighborhood, including an episode in which the school’s entrance gate was welded shut overnight.

Parents and students arriving at the school discovered that the gate had been sealed, preventing children from entering the building. Police were called to the scene, and parents ultimately brought a cutting tool to remove the welded section and reopen the entrance.

Authorities suspected that extremists opposed to the school’s presence in the neighborhood were responsible for the incident, although the perpetrators were not identified in the report.

The episode drew attention to the longstanding opposition among some neighborhood residents to the school’s location.

The dispute had already prompted a letter from the neighborhood’s Rav, HaGaon HaRav Yehuda Aryeh Schwartz, addressed to the administrations of nearby Talmudei Torah.

In his letter, HaRav Schwartz described the encounters between students from the different educational institutions during morning arrival and afternoon dismissal as causing “terrible anguish” to yeshiva bochurim and younger students.

He explained that Bnei Brak’s municipal education department was working to find a solution, but that the matter had not yet been fully resolved.

The letter also revealed that, following instructions from HaGaon HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, Rosh Yeshivas Slabodka, local Chareidi institutions were compelled to delay the beginning of their school day by half an hour to minimize contact between the students.

The newly published letter from Bnei Brak’s rabbonim renews the demand that the Religious Zionist school not be relocated into Kiryat Herzog and calls attention to the need for a permanent arrangement addressing the concerns of neighboring educational institutions.

The dispute dates back at least a decade.

In 2016, rabbonim in Kiryat Herzog protested plans to relocate a Religious Zionist girls’ school from central Bnei Brak into the Chareidi neighborhood.

At the time, the rabbonim met with then-Mayor Chanoch Zeibert to express their opposition and propose alternative locations, arguing that the move could affect the neighborhood’s established Chareidi character.