48% of Jerusalem students attend haredi schools

Jerusalem city hall says nearly half of all students in capital are ultra-Orthodox
Tzipi Malkov

The trend of growing numbers of ultra-Orthodox students in Jerusalem continues, with 48% of all students in the capital this year set to attend the haredi school system, according to a Jerusalem city hall press release.

The press release, which was sent to the media by the municipality's spokesperson's office, made headlines at haredi newspaper. Overall, 87,020 students will begin their studies at Orthodox institutions this year, in addition to roughly 13,000 who also attend haredi schools, albeit ones unrecognized by the state.

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Meanwhile, 56,550 students will be studying at Jewish non-Orthodox schools, and another 41,140 students will attend Arab schools. Some thousands of other Arab students study at unofficial schools.

"These figures join the impressive rise in the number of students in the ultra-Orthodox education system in the past five years – roughly 11%," the press release asid.

Notably, both secular and religious (non-Orthodox) Jerusalem residents have been fighting in recent years against the intention to close down non-haredi schools because of low registration numbers. In other cases, secular residents fought against city hall's attempt to hand over land designated for non-Orthodox schools for the purpose of building haredi schools.