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David M. Weinberg

Israel If I Forget to Build in

Insight
Thee, O Jerusalem

hank God a thousand times that
the streets of Jerusalem are no
T longer empty. They are filled daily
with close to one million residents and
tourists. Darchei Tzion einan aveilot – the
roads to Zion are no longer in mourning!

Keeping it this way requires constant
renewal. Jerusalem needs 6,000 new
apartments a year just to meet the demands
of natural growth. Unfortunately, there Yeshivat HaKotel (MathKnight-Ma’ale HaYetzira, Wikipedia 2.5)
has been almost no major residential
construction in Jerusalem for two decades,
mainly because of diplomatic constraints. Haredi Jews. This has grim implications for Under the deanship of Rabbi Hadari, who
the attachment of mainstream Israelis to passed away this year, Yeshivat Hakotel
Jerusalem already abuts Ramallah in Jerusalem. grew into a powerhouse of scholarship and
the north and Bethlehem in the south. leadership training, with alumni active in
Environmental lobbies have stymied plans .Jerusalem must grow in order to remain a all walks of Israeli and Diaspora Jewish life.
for housing projects in the green mountains pluralistic and modern metropolis; a city
west of the city. So the only direction to for all Jews – and E-1 is the right solution. Rabbi Hadari’s powerful personality
grow is eastwards, beyond the Mount and spiritual worldview were what drew
of Olives and Mount Scopus into the Just 50 years ago, naysayers said that it me and so many others to the yeshiva.
quadrant known as E-1, along the road to was insane to build over the Green Line, He uniquely combined Volozhin with
Ma’ale Adumim. This is the last significant or to move back into the mainly-Arab Old Zionism. He was questing for “Cossacks
piece of unsettled land in the Jerusalem City of Jerusalem. Pioneers like Rabbis with shtreimels,” as he once picturesquely
envelope, and some 50,000 homes can be Aryeh Bina and Yeshayahu Hadari, the described it; meaning that he was seeking
built there. founders of Yeshivat Hakotel, defied such to raise a generation of soldiers who were
opposition. also scholars deeply entrenched in Jewish
Every Israeli prime minister since learning. Specifically, this was Torah
Yitzhak Rabin has promised to expand They waded into the ruins wrought by 19 flavored by the Hassidic thought of the Sfat
Jerusalem into E-1, but has been blocked years of Jordanian occupation, intent on Emet and Rav Zadok, and infused with Rav
by successive American administrations. bringing Torah study back to the Temple A.Y. Kook’s Zionist-transformational bent.
Washington argues that Israeli settlement precinct. The first classes were held on
of E-1 interferes with Palestinian territorial Tisha B’Av, our day of lamentation for the He was a true boneh Tzion, a builder of
contiguity. Israel argues that a system of destruction of the First and Second Jewish Jerusalem. May his memory be a blessing.
road underpasses is sufficient to connect Temples. It was more than symbolic that
Palestinian autonomous areas. davka on this day modern Israel’s Religious
Zionist frontiersmen trail-blazed their way
The result of this standoff is that upwardly- back into ancient Jerusalem.
mobile young Israeli families have few David M. Weinberg is the Vice-
affordable housing options in Jerusalem, Great philanthropists like Kurt Rothschild President of the Jerusalem
and they have been moving elsewhere. This of Canada and Maurice Wohl of England Institute for Strategic Studies
leaves Jerusalem primarily with a socio- later helped build the yeshiva’s colossal www.davidmweinberg.com
economically poor population – Arabs and building. www.jiss.org.il

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