The light rail is called to task The Knesset State Control Committee held a special meeting about the problems regarding the light rail and came out with a tough decision. The committee ruled that in the first stage, CityPass should submit, within three weeks, a new plan on how the company intends to improve its passenger services. One of the findings of the committee was that due to the difficulty of using the light rail, senior residents have stopped shopping at Mahaneh Yehuda and thus spend more money, as they have to go to more expensive stores. In addition, the state comptroller will check to see if there was any conflict of interest in the way the CityPass contract was signed by the Transportation Ministry.“With no real competition, the light rail will never improve its services to the public,” declared the president of the committee, MK Uri Ariel (National Union). It is imperative that the services of the light rail be improved as soon as possible, before the company starts working on the additional lines planned for the northern and southern parts of the city.Another committee recommendation is to reinstate bus routes that were withdrawn or changed to serve the light rail.CityPass CEO Yehuda Shoshani said we should look at the glass as half full because compared to other countries our situation is much better. He added that in certain instances, agitators incited the inspectors on the light rail cars and caused the conflicts that were reported.Changing course This summer, the Hansen Hospital compound in Talbiyeh will open its doors as a cultural venue. The plan is to turn it into a large outdoor cinema, in addition to a series of musical performances, all of which are free of charge. Every evening there will be a screening of a specific genre of movie, followed by a concert connected to the theme of the film. The program will run through July-August, starting on Thursday.Visitors are also invited to take a tour of the compound and hear about the history of the place. Over the past 200 years, Hansen was the largest hospital in the region for the treatment of leprosy and other skin diseases.Head and heart What causes a stroke and how can it be avoided? What is the connection between the condition of one’s heart and the risk of a stroke, and what can we do to raise our awareness about the risk? These and other questions will be answered and more information will be supplied by the medical team at Shaare Zedek Medical Center on Tuesday. Participation is free of charge.There will be a opportunity to hear what some of the medical center’s experts have to say about this topic, and the public can ask questions. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. and is scheduled to run until about 7 p.m. Advance registration is required. Call 666-6828.Elections, one more time For those who remember one of the fiascos of the neighborhood council elections last December, here’s some good news. The elections in Pisgat Ze’ev, whose results were first controversial and then simply canceled for lack of a quorum of participants, will be held again soon. The municipality planned to resume the procedure immediately, but the outgoing board, which was to remain in place following the poor participation of voters, thought it should not be changed.The two parties went to court (the local affairs court in the municipality), which ruled on Sunday that elections should be held again. The municipality maintained that the low participation was due to the board’s lack of legitimacy. Now, with the court’s support, residents of Pisgat Zeev will be called upon once more to decide who should take care of their neighborhood.A double-edged sword The haredi members of Mayor Nir Barkat’s coalition made it clear a few weeks ago that they are already shopping for a candidate for the next elections. “We are not in Barkat’s pocket,” Deputy Mayor Rabbi Itzhak Pindrus (United Torah Judaism) said recently.Now it’s the secular residents’ turn to send the same message to the mayor. A group of some 30 residents who feel they have something to say on the issue met last Thursday. In fact, it was not the first time most of the New Forum, as they call themselves, have met to assess the chances of finding a candidate to challenge Barkat, but this time a photographer was invited – with the clear intention that the meeting would make its way into the local media.What is really interesting about this forum is that the members are complaining about the same issues as the haredi city council members. In both cases, the major complaint is that the mayor is not taking them and their interests into consideration. The question, then, is if Barkat is not fulfilling the expectations of the haredim nor the secular, whose expectations is he answering? To the suggestion that perhaps the mayor is simply trying his best to cope in an impossible city, both sides responded that they are just not satisfied. “He is crossing the line toward the secular,” said Pindrus, the driving force behind the move to find a new candidate.“He doesn’t care about the secular residents; he works for the haredim,” said Tzvika Chernichovski, once a close supporter of Barkat and today the major power in the New Forum.The next elections are scheduled for November 2013.The next front? Is Homat Shmuel (Har Homa) becoming the next front on the battlefield between the secular and haredim? After Ramot, the Katamonim and Kiryat Hayovel, the battle over the hegemony on the neighborhood council has reached the southern neighborhood.Most of its residents are national religious or secular with a traditionalist bent. Things have reached such a high level of tension that the issue was brought to the city council meeting last Thursday.The secular population of Homat Shmuel resents the fact that not one secular resident was elected to the board of the local neighborhood council in last year’s elections. The president of the board, Herzl Yehezkel, told the assembly at Safra Square that the secular residents’ interests are well taken care of, but admitted that if not even one of the board represents them, “then their feelings of resentment are legitimate.”The problem is that once the elections are over, no one has the right to add representatives to the board unless the municipality and the Association of Community Councils and Centers agree to do so.Until that agreement is obtained – and there are no indications of that at the moment – there can be no changes to the board. For that reason, the secular residents are requesting a separate council.Musical chairs A recent municipal decision to relocate several educational institutions in the city’s northern neighborhoods is causing a lot of resentment among the residents.In the framework of the reshuffling of national- religious and haredi institutions in the Ramat Eshkol and French Hill neighborhoods, the Midreshet Tzvia religious school for girls and the Djanogli Art Center will be swapped, as of this coming school year.While Tzvia is being moved from Ramat Eshkol to French Hill, Djanogli’s students will be moving in the opposite direction.Until now, Tzvia students have enjoyed the campus of the Pardes compound, which, as a result of all these changes, will now be given to the Djanogli school. While Ramat Eshkol and French Hill are not too far from one another, these changes are not welcome by the residents and parents concerned, nor is this the solution that was promised by the education administration at Safra Square. A few weeks ago, the municipality explained that these decisions are part of a larger change designed to retain as much of a non-haredi presence as possible in the northern neighborhoods. Within the framework of these changes, a synagogue used by the religious community in Ramat Eshkol will have to relocate from the Pardes campus as well. However, many religious families, who say they continue to live in Ramat Eshkol only because of this synagogue, say that if this happens they will leave Ramat Eshkol and maybe even Jerusalem altogether.Year’s end The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design is celebrating the end of the academic year with a series of exhibitions of its various departments. Last week it held an acclaimed presentation by the graduates of the fashion and jewelry departments, and soon we will have the opportunity to enjoy the end-of-year exhibitions of all of the school’s departments. Bezalel will also be presenting an international architecture symposium and a selection of works of 10 of the outstanding students of each of Bezalel’s 10 departments. The exhibition will take place at the Bezalel campus on Mount Scopus, and will open to the public on Thursday at 7 p.m. The symposium on “National Perspectives,” with the participation of young architects and critics from Germany, Turkey, Norway, Spain and Belgium, will take place next Friday at the old campus on Bezalel Street. (In Hebrew with translations.) Sign me up Whether or not it has to do with the threat of full army service hanging over the heads of the ultra- Orthodox community, last week the city saw the highest number of young haredim signing up to do National Service. On Thursday, more than 200 yeshiva students turned up at the Civil Service Center (of the Welfare and Social Services Ministry), which operates out of the main building of Yad Sarah in Beit Hakerem.The new volunteers listened to a few lectures about rights and obligations in a civil society and received an introduction to what constitutes a healthy family budget and the various opportunities available for haredim who want to pursue academic studies. The civil service path has been open to young haredim since 2008. According to the organizers, last week’s enrollment figures set a record for Jerusalem and the country as a whole.
