Another round of the Shas movement against Rabbi Haim Amsalem, ending in a victory for Shas: The Jerusalem Municipality's Allocations Committee rejected allocating land to an association under its control.
The area in question is in the Har Nof neighborhood, opposite the house of the late Rabbi Yosef at 45 HaKablan Street, where Haim Amsalem requested to build a synagogue. In a letter that was defined as "internal" by Shas City Council member Michael Malchieli, in advance of today's committee discussion, he details the sequence of events:
""The story began with the allocation to an association called "Keter Chaim" by Rabbi Balmas, for the purpose of building a synagogue 17 years ago. A building permit was issued for the site 10 years ago, but for various reasons the construction of the synagogue did not take place, and the building permit was canceled 3 years ago. In December 2010, control of the association passed to Haim Amsalem, who, although not a member of the association, his people are members of the association and he controls it in practice.".
Here, Malchieli details the list of current members of the association, and proves that they were not members of the association at the time of the allocation, alongside the fact that most of them are members of other Amsalem associations.
In addition, Malchieli writes that Rabbi Amsalem was asked to bring a list of signatures of the synagogue's worshippers, and that "an inspection by the Religious Buildings Administration revealed that some of it was fictitious. In other words, the names of worshippers who were supposedly not residents of the neighborhood were submitted, even though they confirmed in an affidavit that they were residents of the neighborhood.".
In light of all this, Malchieli demanded, on behalf of the Shas faction in the Jerusalem Municipality, to cancel the allocation to the Keter Haim association.
As mentioned, today the political allocations committee held a discussion on this, and it was decided that despite the professional committee's recommendation to approve the allocation, the committee rejects the recommendation, and asks the professional committee to re-advertise the lot, with all ultra-Orthodox committee members from all factions joining the demand.
In a conversation with Haredim10, Council Member Malchieli said: "It is not possible for them to use straw men to receive allocations that, according to the law, have already expired. The allocation was 17 years ago and since then the needs of the Har Nof neighborhood have changed and the considerations at that time are no longer relevant. The Keter Haim Association can resubmit the application and it will be reviewed according to the current needs of the neighborhood.""
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