Kosher coffee saga The coffee shop in the renovated leisure area of Independence Park has only been open for a few days, and already there are black clouds overshadowing the owners' decision to keep it open on Shabbat and holidays. After the announcement of that decision last week following heavy pressure from Deputy Mayor Ofer Berkovitch (Hitorerut), there is a new problem emerging: The local religious council has issued a warning to the Landwer Café owners that opening on Shabbat will lead to a revocation of the entire chain's kosher certification. Although the chain has another branch at the First Station that is open seven days a week, the warning indicates that the struggle over Independence Park's character has caused a general awakening in the haredi sector. For the moment, Landwer has no intention of withdrawing its decision, but the cancellation of kosher certification for all the company's products might be too much of a threat to business – certainly compared to whatever income a small coffee shop in a park might be expected to generate. Save the trees Mayor Nir Barkat's decision to move the IDF colleges to the Zippori Center in the middle of the Jerusalem Forest is raising wall-to-wall opposition from city council members, from Meretz's Laura Wharton to United Jerusalem's Arieh King. Led by some of the activists trying to prevent the plan, three members of the council – including King, who is a member of the mayor's coalition – visited the site last Wednesday and heard about the threat to one of the city's most important green lungs. Although the municipality has repeatedly announced that the project will not harm the forest, the fear is that while the project itself is a good thing for the city's development, the work of modifying the Zippori Center to fit the needs of the colleges will cause harm to the area. Water for Jerusalem The shortage of water in some of the city's Arab neighborhoods has reached a critical point. Residents of the Shuafat refugee camp have appealed to the High Court of Justice, which ruled last week that a solution must be found immediately. In his response to the court, Avi Balashnikov, general manager of Jerusalem's Hagihon water company, has admitted that the situation is worsening and that if nothing significant is done soon, the result might be a humanitarian disaster. One of the reasons for the shortage in those neighborhoods during most hours of the day is the lack of modern infrastructure, such as pipelines and a connection to the city's central water provider. During the past 15 years, a lot of work has been done to improve the water supply and its infrastructure in the city, but in some Arab neighborhoods – and in all three of the neighborhoods located beyond the security fence – nothing has been done yet. The court's decision sheds light on the deep concern about the low water supply, especially during the hot summer months. The court has ruled that the National Security Council, which works under the Prime Minister's Office, must submit ways to deal with the situation. However, the court has not given a deadline for submitting such a program.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)