I INSIGHT
come tax on rent, the coun-
try is quickly approaching
the end of its available stock
of rental apartments. And,
although the government
provides mortgage assis-
tance, the purchase price of
apartments is high and get-
ting higher. According to
realtors, a two bedroom flat
in Jerusalem now goes for
about $100,000, while a
similar apartment in the Tel
Aviv area is approximately
25 percent higher.
ZE'EV CHAFETS
Israel Correspondent
T
his week, for the first
time, the Israeli
government adopted a
comprehensive program for
housing the tidal wave of
Russian immigrants now
flowing into the country. Ac-
cording to the plan, 70,000
apartments will be built in
the coming year, more than
enough to accommodate the
150,000 that are now ex-
pected to arrive in 1990.
The program, which envi-
sions the sale of 200,000
dunams of government-
controlled land to private
contractors, is expected to
cost the treasury approx-
imately half a billion
dollars. This, in turn, will
put an added burden on the
already over-taxed Israeli.
"This year we have no
choice,"said David Boaz, di-
rector of the budget depart-
ment that drew up the pro-
gram. "Every single one of
us will have to accept the
fact that our personal stan-
dard of living will decline in
the next year."
Despite the fact that the
plan was adopted
unamimously, there are
significant disagreements
about its implementation.
These revolve primarily on
where to settle the
newcomers, and how best to
integrate them into society.
In this context, Housing
Minister David Levy has re-
peatedly warned about the
danger of repeating "the
mistakes of the 1950s,"
when immigrants were
assigned to temporary hous-
ing camps, called Ma'abarot.
Some of these camps even-
tually became semi-
permanent slums; others
were eventually replaced by
substandard housing pro-
jects that quickly de-
teriorated into breeding
grounds of poverty and
frustration.
Artwork from Newsday by Anthony D'Adamo. Copyright * 1989, Newsday.
Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
70,000 Flats
The tremendous influx of immigrants from
the USSR will undoubtedly have a deep and
long-lasting effect on Israel. Can the Jewish
state cope with housing the immigrants?
The government hopes to
avoid a repeat of the 1950s
experience by demanding
high building standards, and
by augmenting local con-
struction with imported,
high quality pre- fabricated
homes. But some experts
have warned that hasty
building all but insures
failure. Financial cor-
respondent Sever Plotzker,
himself a product of a 1950s
camp, sounded the alarm in
an article in Yediot Ahronot.
"In order to make the
apartments affordable [to
the immigrants] and
profitable to the contrac-
tors," wrote Plotzker," they
will be built cheaply and
quickly. Quick, cheap hous-
ing attracts social problems
the way a swamp attracts
mosquitoes."
Another pitfall of the
1950s was the decision to
settle many of the immi-
grants in bleak, remote
"development towns,"
where employment was not
available. Experts have
warned against such a policy
for the Soviet immigrants,
who place an extremely high
priority on their professional
lives. Prof. Yeremiahu
Branover, a former Russian
immigrant now active in
Soviet absorption, argues
that employment, not hous-
ing, should be the govern-
ment's primary considera-
tion.
"For 70 years, Russian
Jews were deprived of every-
thing except a profession,"
notes Branover. "That's
why, to them, work is of such
critical importance."
Despite this cautionary
note, there is little doubt
that the housing problem is
Israel's most immediate con-
cern. It takes time to create
jobs, and in the meanwhile,
the newcomers must be
given housing, which is
becoming more scarce by the
day.
Despite a recent govern-
ment initiative to exempt
landlords from paying in-
The question of where to
settle the immigrants has
political, as well as social
and economic connotations.
The Likud is committed, in
principle, to the right of
Jews to live "anywhere in the
Land of Israel," a formula
that includes the West Bank
and Gaza. In practice, only a
tiny fraction of the olim have
actually moved to these
areas but, should the Likud
enter a narrow, right-wing
government, pressure will
mount from its hawkish co-
alition partners to direct
them to the disputed ter-
ritories.
On the other hand, the
government is acutely aware
that such a policy would en-
danger American financial
and political support, the
willingness of countries like
Finland to allow their air-
ports to serve as points of
transfer and perhaps force
the Soviets to limit the
number of Jews allowed to
immigrate.
Even within the pre-1967
Green Line borders, there is
keen competition for the
olim. Most of the newcomers
prefer to settle in the center
of the country, "between
Hedara and Gedara" where
employment is more plen-
tiful. But development
towns in the Negev and the
Galilee are lobbying hard for
building projects which, they
believe, would stimulate
their flagging economies.
To some extent this is al-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
37