This week in Jerusalem: Peggy Cidor’s round-up of city affairs 354726

As Shavuot draws closer, list of organizations and venues holding study nights in accordance with “Tikun Leil Shavuot” tradition getting longer.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Thousands celebrate Jerusalem Day (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Thousands celebrate Jerusalem Day
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Kiryat Hayovel supermarket wars
What started about two years ago as a modest protest by a group of Kiryat Hayovel residents against the high prices in the neighborhood supermarket has taken a new and dramatic turn: A new, privately owned supermarket opened last Saturday night in the shopping center on Uruguay Street, offering lower prices and discounts on a wide variety of items.
The newcomer has also established, right from the beginning, an agreement with the Yuvalim local council and community center, offering additional discounts to neighborhood residents who are on the council’s welfare department lists. People listed as needy receive a card that enables them to get the merchandise at very low prices – something the local council has been unable to achieve with the large supermarket.
The residents had been holding protest vigils almost every Friday at noon at the entrance to the large supermarket, but without success. The residents hope that now, with the new store having opened in the same shopping center, things might improve.
Awakening the housing market
Hitorerut B’Yerushalayim, which won four seats in the 2013 city council elections, is very active when it comes to affordable housing for young families. Last week, the movement joined a tender for purchasing plots in the Ramot neighborhood.
Hitorerut representatives acquired the fourth plot up for sale in the neighborhood’s Country development, on which 734 units are expected to be built. The prices for the units run from NIS 1.15 million for a three-room apartment to NIS 1.56m. for five rooms.
Hitorerut has joined the Manos Group investment company on this project, which it hopes will enable young secular families to build homes in Ramot – and thereby increase the pluralistic character of the city’s largest neighborhood.
Shabbos, Shabbos
For the second week in a row, a haredi protest expected last Shabbat against the opening of a grocery store on Eliash Street did not take place – leaving a group of Meretz activists, led by Tzaphira Stern and city councillor Laura Wharton, with nothing to do.
While the secular activists rapidly concluded they were apparently the winners on this front, the Cinema City issue is far from reaching their hoped-for solution: having it open on Shabbat.
For now, the complex is closed between Friday afternoon and Saturday night, but it seems that the secular activists – mainly from Hitorerut B’yerushalayim and Meretz – are not letting the matter drop. A new request to open it over the weekend has been sent to the mayor, the finance minister and the company that operates the complex.
Night of White studies
As the festival of Shavuot draws closer, the list of organizations and venues holding pluralistic study nights in accordance with the “Tikun Leil Shavuot” tradition is getting longer. The custom, which started about a decade ago as a local and innovative way to bring together secular, traditional and observant men and women to study throughout the night, has by now become a “must” observed by a growing numbers of residents.
Beit Avi Chai is opening its gates that night (June 3) for a multidisciplinary series of sessions, focusing on various aspects of the major question: “What is ‘Jewish Time?’” It will include philosophical and scientific looks at the issue, and how Israeli society manages its time, alongside themes like musical time.
Among the speakers: Profs. Rachel Elior, Moshe Halbertal, Rabbi Benny Lau and Bilha Ben-Eliyahu; and in English, Dr.
Aviva Zornberg and Prof. James Kugel. Talks will be moderated by Beit Avi Chai director Dr. David Rozenson; entrance is free.
You’ve got a friend, Serbia
Lev Echad and the Shalem Center have joined together for a special aid task force to be sent to Serbia, which was hit by a flood that caused considerable damage to the country’s infrastructure in electricity, water and other vital areas. The task force will help in mapping specific and more urgent needs. Dr. Stephen Hazan Arnoff of the Shalem Center explained that participating in the task force is an integral part of the curriculum of the students in the Center of Excellence program, “who are taught to be the next generation of leaders in society, in that their primary engagement is to act out of solidarity.”
Letters canceled
The Israel Festival “Love Letters” event scheduled for June 19-20 featuring French actors Gerard Depardieu and Anouk Aimee has been scrapped. The French producers announced they had to cancel because of the unexpectedly high cost of transferring the show to Israel. The reading of an exchange of love letters over 50 years was brought to the stage in January in Paris, where it enjoyed great success.
Israeli ticket buyers will be refunded.
Fashionable bus stops
Phase B in the plan to make Jerusalem public transportation accessible and even efficacious has arrived, with special attention to bus stops across the city. Fifty brand-new shelters will replace the old – and very non-efficient – ones still standing in many neighborhoods, and at all the stops new and accurate electronic signboards will be added, bringing an end to the pilot phase that characterized some 300 such bus signs and shelters.
The signs and modern shelters will join the already existing light rail stops – creating, in accordance with the city’s Mass Transportation Master Plan, continuity across the capital. Last to be changed and upgraded will be the bus stops beside and in front of the central bus station. The cost of the whole project is NIS 70 million, shared by the Transportation Ministry and the municipality.
Legacy and more
Want to write a will, but not really sure of its necessity? Certain you want to write one but don’t know how? Here is your answer: Ken LaZaken, the association by senior citizens for seniors, is running a special day in the capital for that purpose. On Sunday, June 1 from 11 a.m., at the Jerusalem International Convention Center (room 314), anyone can come and get information regarding the local regulations and laws on this matter, at no charge. Over coffee and cookies, participants will have the opportunity to consult with attorney Yael Waxman of the Yad Riva nonprofit.
Oh, Jerusalem!
Seventy units and departments of various government offices are based outside the capital, and despite a government decision to move them to Jerusalem, they will remain there for at least a few more years. According to that decision, these departments were to complete their moving here by the end of 2015. But at a government meeting of May 18, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu passed a redress postponing the moving to the end of 2018. The main reason seems to be the high cost of relocating to Jerusalem, but also the objection of the employees, most of whom are based in the Center of the country. The municipality, on the other hand, is promoting the move in the hopes of encouraging working families to relocate to the capital, which is exactly the reason why the city’s leadership is highly interested in their moving in, by adding strong and working families to the city’s population. As a reaction to the government decision, Deputy Mayor Ofer Berkovitch (Hitorerut B’yerushalayim) announced that on Jerusalem Day, during the traditional festive meeting of the government at Ammunition Hill to mark the 47th anniversary of the reunification of the city, he would stand outside in protest.


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