Plots of land in Bet Shemesh

The latest fight in Bet Shemesh is over a plot of land. The background info I have on this is kind of sketchy, so I was hesitant to write about it, but this is a blog not a newspaper, so it doesn't really need to stop me. I read articles in all the local papers over Shabbos about this and my opinion is so far formed based on the knowledge from the local papers.

The dati leumi community in Bet Shemesh was promised a plot of land adjacent to the new community of Nofei Shemesh. The promise of the plot was given before the elections 5 years ago, as far as I can make out. The intentions for the plot of land were that it was meant to be used for a shul for Rabbi Rosners community, and eventually for building the building for the new Hesder Yeshiva of Bet Shemesh.

That plot of land is now being taken away and reallocated for use by haredi institutions, as the plot is also adjacent, on the other side, to a haredi community.

The DL community held a hafgana the other day and is very upset over losing this plot. They claim that Abutbol is only concerned about providing for the needs of the haredi community and does whatever he can to chase other communities away by making it difficult for them to exist in Bet Shemesh. And he does this while at the same time publicly calling for all types of people to move to Bet Shemesh, yet on the ground he only moves forward the progress of the haredi community and hampers the progress of other communities.

Mayor Moshe Abutbol's response is that the plot has been sitting empty all this time and other communities need it. the DL community has no intention to build on it in the near future, they have neither the money nor the need as the hesder yeshiva is very small right now and is housed within another complex elsewhere in bet Shemesh. When the hesder yeshiva will get its approval from the Defense Ministry to act as a hesder yeshiva, they will be happy to reallocate land for it to build upon.

In the meantime, the community meant to use the plot is only 30-40 families instead of the 700 it was meant for. Rabbi Rosner's community has not yet occupied the neighborhood except in small numbers, and again they have shown no intention to build in the near future.

It seems also, if I understood correctly, that the plot is only being taken over temporarily. There is another plot of haredi schools housed in caravans, and they want to start building real buildings. They need this plot to temporarily house the caravans while the real buildings get built.

That is the background as I understand it.

I am no fan of our mayor, and the sentiment expressed that he only progresses the advancement of the haredi, and mostly only of the extreme haredi, community is mostly true.

that being said, I disagree, based on my understanding of the events, that this case is another example of that. Plots of land cannot sit around empty forever. They need to be used. if the yeshiva is not going to be using it, then it needs to be used by others.

I understand that even using it as a temporary solution is likely to mean it will become permanent and will not be given back to the DL community, not in 2 years, not in 5 years and not when ever the yeshiva is ready to build. But a city in motion, which Bet Shemesh is trying to be (for good or for bad) cannot afford to let its plots sit in disuse for so long. The city, under Vaknin as well, has threatened (I don't know if they ever actually did take back plots because of disuse, but I know they threatened) on numerous occasions to take back and reallocate plots when they were found to be sitting empty with no plans for the foreseeable future.

The only part of this that disturbs me is that they are not even leaving a piece of the plot for Rabbi Rosners shul. The community needs a shul and cannot remain in someone's basement or living room for a long time. Part of the plot should have been left for the community to have a shul. They could easily put down a caravan and start using it right away, and I don't know why they didn't do so until now.

I hope to have a guest post from someone in the DL community on this issue in the next few days who can perhaps explain more some of the background and also explain why they think they should keep the plot even though they seem to not have any intention to use it (perhaps they do have intention to use it) anytime soon..