Building freeze, politics affect young couples in Yehuda and Shomron

By Baruch Spier

Issue of July 10, 2009 / 18 Tammuz 5769

Former Far Rockaway resident Ari Singer and his wife, Rivka, can’t find a suitable improvement to their small basement apartment in Beit El, in the Benjamin region in the West Bank. They have been struggling over the last five months in search of an apartment near other young couples.

“If there is a place that’s available we call up the next day and they say, ‘not available anymore,’” said Rivka about searching for apartments listed in local newspapers and on email list-serves.

The head of the Beit El council, Moshe Rosenbaum, told the Jewish Star this week that he hopes more people come to live in the communities of the West Bank. However, due to building restrictions enacted in 2005, construction of new residences has been severely impeded.

The lack of housing has not discouraged idealistic young couples from trying to move into the West Bank, said Etzion bloc real estate agent Michael Lourie. Lourie added that the influx of would-be residents has only intensified since President Barack Obama called for a freeze on settlement growth.

According to Lourie, the housing situation is unlikely to improve in Israel’s current political environment. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far ignored pressures from President Obama to freeze natural growth in the settlements, he also neither favors unnatural expansion nor establishing new communities.

Council head Rosenbaum explained that all new construction in Beit El was frozen in 2005 and new construction is only allowed under permits predating 2005. Beit El’s new residents can only find housing in a spare floor or basement that is turned into an apartment, or in the caravans found on the outskirts of many towns.

A caravan trailer is usually the size of a two-bedroom apartment, and permission is unnecessary to build the housing units now common for new couples in the community. However, Rosenbaum said that Beit El has more than enough caravans and isn’t allowing construction of new trailers.

Besides for Beit El, the Singers have also searched the Etzion block for housing. They hope to find a place close to Rivka’s parents who live in Efrat.

“I grew up in the settlements, it’s the quality of life that I am used to,” said Rivka about her and her husband’s refusal to move to Jerusalem or another nearby city. The Singers have tried to find a caravan for rent in a suitable community. Costing its tenants only 1300 NIS per month in a city like Efrat, the caravan is a cheaper option than neighborhood housing. Unfortunately, the Singers have been left disgruntled by the process to obtain a caravan.

“You have to be on a waiting list,” Ari Singer said of the requirements to move into a municipality-owned caravan, “you have to pay, you have to come for Shabbat.” A few communities even asked for a handwriting analysis, he said.