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After a legal battle, the public pool in a neighborhood in Jerusalem will open on Saturday: "You will not become Mea Shearim" - Voila! news

2023-01-24T21:20:33.543Z


The court explained the decision to maintain the urban status quo, and added that at the same time one should try to reduce as much as possible the harm to the feelings of the religious and ultra-orthodox residents of the city. This, at the end of a protracted struggle of over a year, during which the residents, with the assistance of Deputy Mayor Havilio, filed a lawsuit for the opposition of the community manager


The court ruled that the public pool will be opened on Saturdays.

The pool (photo: official website, Nir Levy)

The District Court in Jerusalem ruled this morning (Tuesday) that the public neighborhood pool in Har Huma in Jerusalem will be opened on Saturdays, in order to maintain the urban status quo.

The pool was built at a cost of tens of millions of shekels and the issue of opening it on Shabbat caused a controversy that led to a long struggle.

With the decision on the opening, it was made clear in the court that at the same time, one should try to reduce as much as possible the harm to the feelings of the religious and ultra-Orthodox residents on Shabbat.



"This is an important victory in the fight for the color of Israel's capital, the liberal public in Jerusalem will not bow its head and will not be the punching bag of the ultra-Orthodox and the ultra-Orthodox," declared Deputy Mayor Yossi Havilio. "Crushing the status quo in Mount Homa will create a domino effect that will harm the secular and traditional in Jerusalem as a whole.

We cannot allow Mount Homa to become Mea Shearim," he added.



At the beginning of last year, the Jerusalem Municipality decided to open the pool on Saturdays to maintain the status quo in the city, but then, when the decision was passed to the community administration in the neighborhood, a refusal was received on the grounds that this destroys the religious standing of the neighborhood and hurts the feelings of the residents.

As a result, residents of the neighborhood filed a lawsuit against the administration's decision with the support of the deputy mayor, attorney Eli Havilio, who served as the plaintiff. The lawsuit was signed by about a thousand residents of the neighborhood.

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"Mount Huma will not be allowed to turn into Mea Shearim", Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Municipality Yossi Havilio (photo: official website, "Saving Jerusalem" faction)

This is not the first time that a public pool is at the heart of the controversy, only two years ago the High Court had to rule on a public pool in Kiryat Arba - after secular families asked the local council to open the pool for men and women to bathe together, and were refused at the end of a long public struggle, the High Court ruled that there to open the pool for 12 hours a week, and awarded the court costs of the petitioners to the council.



And in Jerusalem, during Moshe Leon's term as mayor, several more storms were recorded in the public pools.

When in May 2020 he decided to open the pool in the Ramot neighborhood - which is also mixed - on Saturdays, and was criticized by members of the ultra-orthodox city council.

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  • Yossi Havilio

Source: walla

All news articles on 2023-01-24

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