New Business Zone to be Established in Emanuel

The Economy Ministry will establish a new industrial zone in the Shomron town of Emanuel. At a meeting last week between the economy minister and Emanuel local council head Rabbi Eliyahu Gafni, the two discussed funding for the project, which will feature an advanced technology park that the ministry believes can be an economic anchor for the growth of the town.

The park will include offices, retail, and social spaces. As a chareidi community, Emanuel has a high percentage of residents who learn full time, and businesses in the industrial zone will be established to hire women to work in technology jobs. Currently Emanuel has three industrial zones, employing about a thousand workers in sixty different factories and offices.

Emanuel was established in the early 1980s as a town for the chareidi community in the center of the Shomron. A number of factors, including a large-scale bankruptcy by a major builder of homes in the town, worked against the expansion of the town, but in recent years, with the price of housing high throughout the country, Emanuel has had a revival, and new projects are currently under construction.