Monday morning, the company holding Hebrew University’s properties abruptly canceled a tender for two apartment buildings in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat HaYovel. Religious elements charge the university with not wanting to sell to religious groups.
Nine bids had been received by the original deadline of June 30 for the two buildings, which formerly served as dormitories and which each have 32 not-large apartments. No minimum purchase price was demanded, although the apartments are estimated at a worth of approximately 450,000 to 500,000 shekels each – for a total of 28-32 million shekels for the whole deal.
A week after the bids were received, Hebrew University changed its mind and set a minimum bid of 35 million shekels. One group sued, but the court ruled that HU was not subject to the rules of tenders and could sell its properties at its own whim.
Several of the groups quickly prepared to submit bids of more than 35 million shekels, when they suddenly learned that the sale had been called off altogether.
Kiryat HaYovel is a neighborhood that has been becoming more hareidi-religious over the past 2-3 years, and has been the scene of tensions on this score. Last September, a Hebrew University professor was caught red-handed cutting down Sabbath-eruv poles erected by the growing hareidi community in the neighborhood.
Though HU has not explained why it canceled the tender, it is generally assumed that it is because the lone secular group among the bidders was not able to match the price offered by the hareidi groups. HU has said that it now wishes to refurbish the buildings for its students.
However, another one of the groups says it is neither hareidi nor secular, but rather a mixed bag of hareidi, secular and national-religious. Attorney Avi Weinrot, representing the group, said he is considering suing the university for “negotiating in bad faith.”
“There are rumors,” Weinrot told News-1, “that the university does not wish to sell to hareidi families. I hereby declare that our group had secular and hareidi Jews, among national-religious, who were the majority. We got together to meet each other, and we got along well. We were prepared to offer a relatively high price in order to win and provide an example of peaceful co-existence in this neighborhood of tensions.”
“I cannot understand why the university stopped the tender, which could have been not only a good real estate deal, but also a good source of income for the university and a contribution to peaceful living in the neighborhood.”