What - if anything - does Jerusalem stand to gain from the transfer of Sergei's Courtyard to Russia?
By DAVID STROMBERGsergei 224.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Sergei's Courtyard - a picturesque 19th-century fortress-like building and courtyard in downtown Jerusalem - has been all but signed over to Russia by Israel after a vote by the cabinet earlier this month to transfer ownership to the Kremlin.
Once a hostel for Russian aristocratic pilgrims, it presently houses government offices including the Ministry of Agriculture and the Jerusalem branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
The cabinet's decision, which ends years of negotiations over the matter between the two governments, is a source of contention for several reasons. First, it isn't clear what, if anything, Israel will get in return for relinquishing a property to which it had gained custodianship and eventually ownership. Second, the agreement was made without a vote in the Knesset. Third, there is no guarantee that the site will remain open to the public once the ownership transfer is complete. And finally, the move could set a precedent for land claims by other foreign entities, which either own or have owned property in Jerusalem.
"This is a complicated geopolitical zone," says Naomi Tsur, coordinator of the environmental Coalition for a Sustainable Jerusalem and former SPNI director of urban communities. "There are a lot of eyes looking to see what's going to happen to Jerusalem."
Eight years ago, Tsur recruited Pazit Schweid, current director of the local SPNI branch, to transform Sergei's Courtyard into an active, public space.
"The vision was to make this into Jerusalem's urban environmental center," says Schweid. It wasn't enough to just open the courtyard doors, she says. "We needed to bring the public in."
Actualizing this vision has included organizing concerts in the courtyard, and making it the starting point of various Jerusalem tours. Sergei's Courtyard is also at the center of Jerusalem's "green map," which documents environmental and social sites and activities in the capital.
Over SPNI's 35 years at the site, donors have helped renovate the lush courtyard and parts of the complex - investments that will seemingly be lost in the transfer. "Three years ago we renovated two additional spaces: a lecture hall, where we hold conferences, workshops and courses, and a library, both of which are also open to the public," says Schweid.
At the core of the giveaway is the building's complicated history of ownership.
Completed in 1890, Sergei's Courtyard was commissioned by Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the infamous Moscow mayor who carried out the expulsion of the city's Jews in 1892, and brother of Tsar Alexander III. Though Sergei is believed to have paid for the building, neither this claim nor that of his alleged heirs can be proved.
At the end of World War I, the British took over the site from the Turks. During the mandate, there were competing claims for the property between the Red Church, which continued to run under the Soviet government, and the White Church, which was exiled after the Russian Revolution. The British eventually sided with the White Church. But in 1948, because of the Soviet Union's support of Israel's establishment, the new Jewish state, whose general custodian had control of the building, evicted the White Church tenants and allowed the Soviet government to set up the Red Church's Russian Mission in the building.
In 1964, Israel purchased some 90 percent of the Russian Compound, including what is now the Museum of Underground Prisoners and the police headquarters,for $3.5 million worth of citrus fruit in what became known as the Orange Deal. Sergei's Courtyard, however, was part of the remaining 10% not covered in the deal. In 1967, following the Six Day War and the break in diplomatic ties between Israel and the USSR, the Russian tenants of the Sergei Building left the northeast wing of the building, which remains vacant to this day.
THOUGH THE Olmert government is taking most of the heat for "giving away" Sergei's Courtyard, plans for returning the property go back almost 20 years. In the Eighties, the Soviet Union expressed its wish to reclaim ownership of Sergei's Courtyard, and by 1990, talks were in progress, but fell apart after the collapse of the USSR. In the early Nineties, the Russian Orthodox Church was reinstated, and the Russian Federation picked up the claim for Russian ownership.
In 1994, a joint committee of Russian and Israeli officials was established to prepare the hand-over of the property. According to a source at the Foreign Ministry, the committee decided to accept the previous policy of returning the property to the Russians, which had been seeking to be registered as its owners since the 1950s.
In April 2005, then-president of Russia Vladimir Putin toured Sergei's Courtyard with prime minister Ariel Sharon, who promised to speed up negotiations, but the process was stalled after Sharon fell into a coma. Putin later received reassurances from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, culminating this past January in the form of a letter promising to finish the deal within six months.
The result was less a formal agreement than a declaration, on which the cabinet voted at the beginning of the month. Since the January letter, control of the property was transferred from the custodian general to the Finance Ministry, a necessary technicality that will allow Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On to sign over the property without any other approval. At that point, the Russian Federation will be free to immediately occupy the wing that is currently vacant.
An appeal filed in the High Court of Justice by the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, claiming that the cabinet decision should be made with a vote in the Knesset, was dropped this week.
Gary Koren, director of the Eurasia Department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, calls the move a "political and legal obligation," adding that the issue has always been on the agenda during high-level political meetings. It's important to understand Russian interests as they relate to a symbolic presence in Jerusalem dating back to the 19th century, he says.
He adds that in light of the decision Israel might be able to expect "Russia to be equally alert and attentive to Israeli interests." According to the anonymous source at the Foreign Ministry, once ownership has been transferred, negotiations between the two governments will begin over sections of the building that are not currently available, but that no changes will be made in the foreseeable future.
Under the current understanding there will be "no immediate change in occupancy or usage in the rest [non-empty] of the compound and the inner garden, which will continue to be open to the public," the source says.
This is the SPNI's main worry. "We weren't asked about the giving away of the property," says Schweid, "so we're not sure they'll discuss this with us either."
She says that several thousand people came through the courtyard on a single weekend as part of the Houses From Within event in late September. Because of such successes, she continues, the SPNI initiated a petition to ensure that the courtyard will remain accessible regardless of who owns it.
"We're trying to press and involve people who will tell the government that even if they give away the land, Israel can still make sure that the courtyard will stay open."
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