Bnei Brak

Bnei Brak בְּנֵי בְּרַק‎
City
Flag Coat of arms
Bnei Brak Show map of Israel Bnei Brak Show map of Central Israel
Coordinates: 32°05′N 34°50′E / 32.083°N 34.833°E / 32.083; 34.833
Country	Israel
District	Tel Aviv
Founded	1924
Government
• Mayor	Avraham Rubinstein
Area
• Total	7,088 dunams (7.088 km2 or 2.737 sq mi)
Population  (2022)[1]
• Total	218,357
• Density	31,000/km2 (80,000/sq mi)
Demonym	Bnei Brakian
Website	www.bnei-brak.muni.il

Bnei Brak or Bene Beraq (

History

Bnei Brak takes its name from the ancient Biblical city of

In 1928, the Great Synagogue was completed, and the village committee celebrated its inauguration by presenting statistics noting its development over the past four years. Bnei Brak, with a population of about 800 residents, covered about 2,000 dunams, including about 800 dunams which were citrus groves. It had 116 houses, 31 huts, six public buildings, and 48 cowsheds. In the summer of 1929, Bnei Brak was connected to the electricity grid. In the 1931 census of Palestine, the population of Benei Beraq was 956, all Jewish, in 255 houses.^[4] In 1940, it had 4,500 residents and 25 factories. In 1948, the population was 9,300.^{[citation needed]} Bnei Brak achieved city status in 1950.^{[citation needed]}

In April 2020, the entire city of Bnei Brak was placed under quarantine due to the coronavirus outbreak.^[5] On 29 March 2022, a Palestinian man killed five people in a mass shooting.^[6]

Rabbinic presence

Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz (the Chazon Ish) emigrated from Belarus to Bnei Brak in its early days, and attracted a large following there.^{[citation needed]} Leading rabbis who have lived in Bnei Brak include Yaakov Landau, Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky ("the Steipler"), Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman (Ponevezher Rov), Elazar Menachem Mann Shach, Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman,^{[citation needed]} Nissim Karelitz, Shmuel Wosner and Chaim Kanievsky. In the early 1950s, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Chaim Meir Hager, founded a large neighborhood in Bnei Brak which continued to serve as a dynastic center under his son, Moshe Yehoshua Hager, and under his grandsons, Yisrael Hager and Menachem Mendel Hager.^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in the 1960s, the rebbes of the Ukrainian Ruzhin dynasty (

According to figures by the municipality of Bnei Brak,[8] the city has a population of over 181,000 residents, the majority of whom are Haredi Jews.^[9] In the 2021 Israeli legislative election, 89% of the voters chose Haredi parties.^[10] Pardes Katz, a neighborhood of about 30,000 inhabitants in northern Bnei Brak, is the sole neighborhood of the city where the majority of residents are not Haredi. In 2022, Bnei Brak was ranked Israel's most densely-populated city, with 28,000 people per square kilometer.^[11]

Mayors

Economy

One of the landmarks of Bnei Brak is the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Kahaneman St. It is owned by the Central Bottling Company (CBC), which has held the Israeli franchise for Coca-Cola products since 1968. It is among Coca-Cola's ten largest single-plant bottling facilities worldwide.^[12]

Two major factories which dominated the centre of Bnei Brak for many years were the Dubek cigarette factory and the Osem food factory. As the town grew they found themselves in the middle of a residential area, and both companies subsequently left the area. Osem's main factory is now located on Jabotinsky Road in Petah Tikva, just next to Bnei Brak.^{[citation needed]}

In 2011 construction started on a business district, which will include 15 office towers.^[13] Several of the towers of the Bnei Brak Business Center are already built as of 2020^[update], and other buildings won't be completed until after 2021.^[14]

Healthcare

Bnei Brak is home to Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center (MHMC), a Haredi hospital. It is located on the east side of the city, on the outskirts of the Ramat Aharon and Or Haim neighborhoods. It serves the residents of Bnei Brak, along with nearby Giv'at Shmuel, Petah Tikva and Ramat Gan. Founded in 1990, MHMC's initially focus was maternity,^[15] and now it is a general care facility. It consists of 18 medical departments and 32 outpatient clinics, including 12 dialysis units,^[15] a high-risk pregnancy ward^[15] and a neonatal intensive care unit.^[16] With a 320-bed capacity, MHMC handles 13,000 births, and carries out more than 6,000 surgical procedures per annum. It features a six-story Mental Health Center, which sponsors an eating disorder clinic.^[16]

MHMC's affairs are managed in strict accordance with halakha.^[16] It has been managed by three distinct groups: A board of directors, an association of rabbis and public servants, and most influential of all, the "Halakhic Supervision Committee", a rabbinical committee consisting of Shmuel Wosner, Nissim Karelitz and Yitzchok Zilberstein, with Yisrael Rand, a confidant of Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, serving as its secretary. Chaim Kanievsky was on its board of directors,^[17] as was Moshe Lion. If during any medical procedure there might arise some halakhic doubt, the medical staff will activate the halakhic team, which is headed by the hospital's rabbi. Only after the halakhic ruling is issued can the medical activity be carried out.^[18][19] MHMC has its own beth midrash on the premises.^[16]

Culture and lifestyle

After Mayor Gottlieb of the National Religious Party was defeated, Haredi parties grew in status and influence; since then they have governed the city. As the Haredi population grew, the demand for public religious observance increased and more residents requested the closure of their neighbourhoods to vehicular traffic on Shabbat. In a short period, most of Bnei Brak's secular and Religious Zionist residents migrated elsewhere, and the city has become almost homogeneously Haredi. The city has one secular neighborhood, Pardes Katz.^[20] Some names of streets with a Zionist connotation were renamed for prominent Haredi figures, such as Herzl Street south of Jabotinsky Street, which was changed to HaRav Shach Street. Bnei Brak is one of the two poorest cities in Israel. A street in Bnei Brak was named after one of the town's founders who was a great-grandfather of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl.^[21]

Bnei Brak is home to Israel's first women-only

Bnei Brak won national attention when it lost a battle to remove the photos of women candidates from Likud election ads. Orly Erez-Likhovski, legal advisor of the Israel Religious Action Center declared it a victory for gender equality:

I am very happy that the officials from the Likud didn't give up, fought the municipality and the police who first arrived on the scene. It shows that the message is starting to penetrate on every level that exclusion of women is illegal and unacceptable. It doesn't always translate to the people on the ground but we see that great progress is being made – even in Bnei Brak, even in the ultra-Orthodox sector. This is an important message.^[25]

In 2023, the Bnei Brak municipality made a loan of 20 million shekels to deal with the city's rat issue.^[26] Earlier that year in June, a toddler was bitten throughout by rats in bed and found covered by blood. She was then rushed to the hospital MHMC.^[27] According to a city councilor, Yaakov Vidar of Likud, who ranked the city as one of the dirtiest in Israel, the mayor first denied there was a rat issue then had to admit the problem after the pressure from him and Idit Silman, the Minister of Environmental Protection, but the mayor claimed his words were merely a sarcastic joke. The causes of the rodents were attributed to mishandling of garbage and sewage, and the creepy feature of limestone and brittle concrete that were used to build the city. The municipality also blamed the construction of Tel Aviv Light Rail disturbed the underground rats and forced them to move to the city. ^[26]

Notable people

• Baruch Ashlag, kabbalist
• Chaim Meir Hager [he], Vizhnitzer Rebbe in Kiryat Vizhnitz [he]^[28]
• Chaim Kanievsky, leader of the ultra-orthodox Lithuanian Jews
• Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, worldwide posek
• Simon Leviev, conman
• Sesto Pals, writer
• Shuli Rand, actor, writer, singer
• Mary Schaps, mathematical scholar
• Elazar Menachem Man Shach, leader of the ultra orthodox Lithuanian Jews
• Dovid Shmidel, rabbi
• Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, rabbi
• Motty Steinmetz, singer
• Tuvia Tenenbom, theater director and writer
• Michal Waldiger, Knesset Member in the Religious Zionist Party
• Ariel Ze'evi (born 1977), Olympic judoka

International relations

Twin towns

Bnei Brak is

• Lakewood, New Jersey, United States, since 2011^[29]

• 
  Bnei Brak 1925: "View of Colony with the Gate of Honor"
• 
  Bnei Brak 1928
• 
  Bnei Brak, school 1931
• 
  Bnei Brak (Benei Beraq) 1928 1:20,000
• 
  Benei Beraq 1945 1:250,000

References