On a busy holiday: Who expropriated a parking lot for Rabbi Berland's events?

October 13, 2022   

Rabbi Eliezer Berland, leader of the Shuvo Banim community, held mass events during the Sukkot holiday in a municipal parking lot in Jerusalem - with the permission of the municipality. Coming to Jerusalem? All Sukkot events and places to spend time on Hol HaMoed According to a report by Inbar Toizer on Channel 12, the events took place in a licensed parking lot, which is strategically located near the Nablus Gate and the Old City, a place bustling with visitors during the holidays. A statement from Shuvo Banim reads: "After 3 years in which we were not able to hold the holy celebration of our holy rabbi... after great efforts, we were able to obtain a very large area for holding all the Sukkot holiday events. "All the organizing for the construction requires a lot of money, because the costs are very high to set up this huge array. This is a huge area of ​​five thousand square meters that needs to be built from the ground up. For comparison, this is a complex ten times larger than the sukkah we built in the past." A Jerusalem resident who spoke to News 12 said: "Berland held an event with loud music until the morning, with thousands of Hasidim, while causing immense suffering to the residents." According to him, the huge parking lot in the city center is still being expropriated in favor of 'Shuvu Banim' - probably until the end of the holiday. "It is not clear who in the Jerusalem Municipality expropriated hundreds of parking spaces from residents and visitors to the city for more than a week of the holiday, and all for the benefit of a cult headed by a convicted felon of serious offenses," the resident said. The Jerusalem Municipality responded: "The parking lot in question on Ha-Ach Street is used by municipal employees, most of whom are on vacation during the Sukkot holiday. Therefore, the Jerusalem Municipality approved the construction of a sukkah in the parking lot, after the builders of the sukkah met all the conditions required for its construction in an orderly manner and undertook to dismantle it at the end of the holiday. The builders of the sukkah also received permission from the Israel Police to erect the sukkah there.".