Renovated Hebrew University dorms open for students
10/31/2012 03:36
The NIS 13 million renovation for two student dormitories will provide housing for 200 students.
Hebrew U Pres. Menachem Ben-Sasson at ribbon cutti Photo: Miriam Alster/Flash 90
Almost a year after homeless activists broke into abandoned student dormitories
in Kiryat Hayovel for a two week-long standoff with police and university
officials, Hebrew University reopened the buildings for students on
Tuesday.
The NIS 13 million renovation for two student dormitories will
provide housing for 200 students, including those learning nursing at the
Hadassah Ein Kerem Campus.
The dorms had stood empty on Stern Street for
over a decade. Hebrew University president Menachem Ben-Sasson presided over the
rededication ceremony for the two buildings with a total of 64
apartments.
After Jerusalem’s major tent encampments were dismantled last
year at the end of the summer of social justice protests, homeless activists and
families barricaded themselves inside one of the buildings. They were furious
that they could find nowhere to live when there are so many abandoned buildings
in Jerusalem. The group, which threatened to use violence if police tried to
evict them, swelled to 120 people at its largest. Police evicted the group after
two weeks when only 30 people were left inside, and arrested four of them.