Chareidim Delay Plan to Open Yerushalayim Parking Lot On Shabbos

Yerushalayim Mayor Nir Barkat’s plan to allow a public parking lot in the city to remain open on Shabbos was postponed by a week, due to “fears of demonstrations by chareidim,” a municipal spokesperson said. According to the statement, the mayor decided to postpone the move until next weekend, following a specific request by the police, which feared its forces would be spread too thin in the event of protests during an already busy Yom Tov season. Chareidi sources in Yerushalayim, however, said that the postponement was due to talks between the mayor and members of the chareidi community, who required more time to “look into the decision.”

The plan was first announced at the Yerushalayim council meeting earlier last week. It wasn’t opposed by the chareidi council members present, after Barkat agreed to certain conditions; this included limiting the number of parking lots operating on Shabbos to one, making it free of charge and having it managed by non-Jewish workers.

However, the decision also drew threats of protests from the Eidah Hachareidis.

In recent days, posters proclaiming “a great battle” against the opening were seen around chareidi neighborhoods. The chareidi members of the council were denounced in the Eidah Hachareidis newspaper as destructive and corrupt, leading council member Shlomo Rozenstein of Yahadus Hatorah-United Torah Judaism to deny his caucus had agreed to the opening of the parking lot. “We have never agreed and never will agree to that,” he said. “The only real question is how great a crisis we are heading for.

“As soon as the demands to lessen the damage to the Shabbos were accepted,” he continued, “we decided – unlike the idah Hachareidis – that there was no reason to launch an all-out war. The question is whether or not we go to war [at all].”

{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel/Haaretz Daily}