A new ‘Ihr Hatorah’ is being planned in Mexico to cater specifically to Orthodox Jews. The town will work similarly to Lakewood, NJ in the United States and Modi’in Illit in Israel, and will seek to attract both Mexican and non-Mexican Jews, according to people involved in the initiative.
In the first stage of the plan, the town will house roughly 400 yeshiva bochurim from Mexico, as well as hundreds of avreichim from Central and South American countries.
The initiative reportedly took off after the Toras Eliyahu yeshiva in Mexico purchased a ranch outside of Mexico City where bochurim could learn in “capsules” during the coronavirus pandemic. The Toras Eliyahu model worked, and more yeshivos began moving out of Mexico City, which led Jewish developers to purchase more than 100 acres of land near Ixtapan de la Sal, a town about an hour’s drive from Mexico City.
Dozens of homes, shuls, schools, mikvahs, a shopping center, and public buildings are expected to go up over the next year.
The Toras Eliyahu yeshiva, headed by Harav Yehoshua Gertzulin, has purchased land to build a yeshiva in the area, setting an anchor for the town, similar to what BMG was for Lakewood.
The project is supported by numerous gedolei yisroel, including Harav Gershon Edelstein and Harav Shmuel Kamenetzky.
{Matzav.com}
and will need a big fence and many guns and security personnel. let’s not delude ourselves
very interesting.
my recommendation here is to build out security infrastructure (cameras, guard booths,anti ramming measures etc.) from the beginning as Mexico is an inherently unstable country and the cartels take advantage of any area that does not have their own protection
How many pizza shops?
As I’ve said in the past, when these kinds of stories regarding “new” out ot town communities/developments spring up and are instantly labeled “Ihr Hatorah”, I pause. Take a breath for a moment. Are they really an Ihr Hatorah or is it really an “Ihr shel affordable housing”? Brooklyn, for years, was a real Ihr Hatorah. Every major Yeshiva was established here. Kimat every Rosh Yeshiva/Rav can trace his roots back to Brooklyn. But yet, many young Bnei Torah were “forced” to move over the last 20 – 30 years because housing costs became almost impossible here in Brooklyn. So the real deciding factor to move to Lakewood and other such towns/cities labeled as Ihr Torah (which they definitely are) IS BECAUSE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING. Why do you think even non-kollel families are also flocking to these towns? Because of affordable housing. If the prices of homes in Lakewood and these other places would mirror Brooklyn, not a single avreich would move there. This is not a knock ch”v on the wonderful Bnei Torah that are shteiging in these communities, but let’s not paint an untrue picture and the real motivation.
P.S. Those that moved from Brooklyn (in the glory days) to Lakewood in the 70’s, they can truly claim that moved there strictly to be in a seviva of Torah without any distractions. Today, …………
This sounds great! Mexico loves immigrants, unlike the US under Trump. There is a huge frum Jewish community in Mexico City. The cost of living is low and so are taxes. Mexico has universal health insurance and the healthcare is quite good in the major cities. And if your kid is born in Mexico your kid is Mexican forever. May this project succeed.
way to ignore the problems. and paint a rosey picture. while ignoring the major issues. like this you attack everything but here you hear a “minority” country and boom instant praise from you?? you have some weird priorities.
Dear Charlie the Commie Clown, why don’t you follow your keyboard, and move to Mexico. Better yet, to Cuba.
Why would anyone want to move (I know there are frum communities there already) to such a crime-ridden, violent, and poverty-stricken country? In 2019, Mexico had 27 murders per 100k people, and mid-2020 was 37 on the crime index.
This is not the answer!
Great…did the mexican drug cartels agree?! What can go wrong in Mexico, right?! Why is it that all the major frum communities are located in either the socialist-fascist Dimrats-controlled areas or some other junkyard?! Even in the free Florida, we manage to have our major communities in the most Dimrats-oppressed Miami-area counties. If we are building a new community, why not build it in the conservative-controlled states, counties, and towns. Why not build a community in rural conservative counties within a 40 minutes commute to major metropolitan areas in Texas and Florida?! Why live under the socialist-fascist oppression?!
If we can sign up at least 200-300 young families, it would be enough to set up the schools. North Florida suburbs and exurbs have very nice newer-built houses for half of the Miami area prices, with lower real estate tax too. Who wants to sign up for the Jacksonville, Orlando or Tampa suburbs?
Texas suburbs are nice too, but a lot of towns jacked up their real estate taxes a couple of years ago; the state passed a law to limit the future increases, but it’s kind of too late.
Housing in Alabama is laughably cheap. I dream of starting a community there. The weather is nice, and the populace has conservative values similar to those of our community.
9:22pm, you have a point. However, some of the items I am looking for(besides the aforementioned completely-conservative environment) are: ZERO state income tax, low property taxes, good business opportunities for parnosa, and nearby top-quality medical services. So, if you want to get our heads together, let’s brainstorm. The only question is how do we connect, as no one wants to post their personal phone number for the whole world to see.
In the case of BMG and the city/town of Lakewood the yeshiva was well established for 40 years and was quickly becoming the most popular yeshiva in America for post EY bachurim and yungerliet before people started gravitating to Lakewood. It also had the benefit of being a relatively short drive away from the other mainstream drum communities where people’s friends and relatives lived and of course the price was right. This idea in Mexico does not have any of the above benefits even if the price is right it’s a plane ticket every time you want to see family and attend a simcha so I can’t see what incentive there would be for Americans to move there. But hey Hatzlocho Raba
The vending machines won’t have soda, just drinkable filtered water.
Maybe this will help solve the Lakewood housing crises. Right now it’s insane. There is almost nothing for sale and prices are literally going up on average 5% a MONTH.
Move to Kansas City. Cheaper to live and friendly.
9:18pm, the only way to stop the Lakewood housing crisis, is to start other communities, either satellite or further away. Each town has a limit, based on roads and infrastructure, of how many people can fit in. So, unless you like to overbuild everything and have miserable Boropark-style traffic jams and pay through the nose for this dubious honor, just move elsewhere. There are plenty of great places out there.
If our community had more seichel, we would set up the new communities in the no state income tax & low property tax, conservative states & counties & towns, with cheap real estate prices, within 30-40 minutes commute from the urban areas. All it takes is to organize a few hundred families, recruit a certain number of talmidei chachomim who’ll serve as school teachers by day, and learning with balabatim in evenings, purchase or rent some community buildings – and that’s a vibrant Bnei Torah community right there.
There are no traffic jams in Brooklyn. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Maybe Manhattan. Unlike out-of-town, we have street grids here. If one particular street is held up by a bus or UPS truck, you can always go 1 – 2 blocks more and come around a few Avenues farther. You can’t do that in Monsey or most parts of Lakewood. You can wait an hour behind one car trying to make a left turn. So don’t tell us that we have “miserable” traffic jams, you ignoramus.
Dear 11:58 Brooklyn Ignoramus, obviously they took away your drivers license due to whatever you are smoking. You obviously haven’t been driving in Boropoark or Flatbush in the last 5 years or so, since they brought down the speed limit to 25, fine-tuned the traffic lights to cause as many clogs as possible, installed new no-turn signs to maximize cars going around in circles, and installed the gotcha cameras everywhere – this results in cars moving at an average speed of 5 mph and the street traffic-moving capacity has been overwhelmed. Besides, apparently you lack reading comprehension, as my original post was against overbuilding as was done in Monsey and Lakewood recently in addition to was done to Boropark decades ago – my point was to spread out, preferably away from the socialist-fascist controlled northeast, to the locations that value individual freedoms and quality of life, such as those counties in Florida and Texas that are solid conservative majority.
If there’s nothing for sale, how can prices go up?
Supply and Demand. Demand increases every year, B”H. Supply in Lakewood is limited. If you want to lower the prices, increase supply – i.e. set up other communities.