Jerusalem's new mayor
Commentary from my father, Ira Sharkansky, a Hebrew University political scientist and long-time resident of Jerusalem
Uri Lupolianski is the new mayor of Jerusalem. He is chubby, wears a modest beard, and a perpetual angelic smile. He is the first ultra-Orthodox head of the city. He comes to the job more or less automatically, from a prior position as deputy mayor, on account of the resignation of Ehud Olmert. Olmert had to resign due to his election to the Knesset, where he hopes to be tapped for a major ministerial position by Ariel Sharon.
Lupolianski may not remain mayor for long. The ultra-Orthodox do not relish the task of a general election campaign, where they will come up against the substantial suspicion of the religious by the secular. Jerusalem is the most religious of Israel's major cities. Perhaps a quarter of the residents are ultra-Orthodox, but a majority are not, and many of the secular are set against what they perceive the growing power of intense religiosity. This is not only a holy city. It is also a political city.
The betting, or the hope, is that Lupolianski will only serve out Olmert's term. Lupolianski promised to be the mayor of "all the people," but they all say that.
Lupolianski's reputation rests on his development of Yad Sarah, a non-profit organization that operates in cities and towns of Israel, Jewish and Arab. Its work is to loan medical appliances to those who need them: from simple canes to the sophisticated and expensive. It also operates dental clinics, provides home service, does laundry for the incontinent and many other blessings. See it at www.yadsarah.org.il. It's an interesting site, equipped with pop-ups that will ask for donations. Be warned.
The idea is great. Some years ago the organization received an Israel Prize, an honor awarded to distinguished individuals and organizations by the government each year on Independence Day. From all signs, it's also a gold mine that attracts a small flood of contributions from overseas.
The smiling cherub is not all saint. He was not only deputy mayor but chair of the local planning commission. That commission had a role in approving the plans for a massive building that would serve as Yad Sarah's headquarters. The building is several times the height of nearby residential buildings. It blocks the sun and funnels the wind into what had been quiet streets. Despite the fact that much of the existing building is empty, the commission has approved a major expansion. A group of neighborhood residents sought to prevent the new construction, but could not find a Jerusalem attorney with experience in property law who would agree to represent them.
Property developers and their lawyers depend on cooperation from the planning commission. The chairman formally absented himself from the consideration of his own case, but his spirit remained dominant. What lawyer interested in representing property developers would challenge the chair of the planning commission on a case so close to his heart? None.
Most planning crawls from one committee to another before obtaining approval. In the words of a municipal official, the expansion plans for Yad Sarah's project got their approval "with the speed of the Concorde."
We have a stake in this. The small building closest to Yad Sarah is the house where my wife Varda's family has lived since the early 1940s. Yad Sarah occupies what used to be an empty field where Varda and her sister Gabi, and more recently Gabi's children and ours' chased butterflys, collected stones, played in the dust or mud, and lit bonfires on Lag B'Omer. Gabi and her husband live in an apartment that they built on top of her parents'. Gabi's daughter and her husband now live on the ground floor. In other words, it's a small family home, surrounding by a small garden. For those familiar with North American lot sizes, this one is 1/12 of an acre. Some of the characters in the neighborhood have been there as long as Varda's family. Jerusalem is not a small town. It has perhaps 650,000 in the municipal boundaries. Not everyone knows everyone. But when I went to a protest meeting about Lupolianski's project, I found a former student. He and his wife live in the apartment where his parents lived, around the corner from Varda's family; his uncle lives in another apartment in the same building. Together with Varda's parents, their ancestor was one of the first residents of the neighborhood.
Nobody in their right mind would argue that an empty field should be preserved for yet another generation to chase butterflys and light bonfires. Some kind of development was inevitable. I would have preferred something more modest than what has been built, and much more modest than the plans for an addition. I would especially have liked the opportunity to express reservations about the plans, without the futility of coming up against a planning commission chaired by the person whose plans were on the table for decision.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 19, 2003 09:54 AM