Residents of Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood, along with
chareidi representatives in Jerusalem's Municipality, are
irate over a permit granted by the Jerusalem Regional
Building and Planning Committee to build two cinemas within
their mainly religious and chareidi neighborhood.
This decision contradicts that of the Local Building and
Planning Committee, headed by Rabbi Uri Lapolianski, which
approved a construction project a number of months ago with
the reservation that the area be used to build "educational
and cultural" institutions, and not for cinemas. By making
such reservations, the members of the committee hoped to
ensure the future building of educational institutions,
instead of the cinemas the promoters of the project
wanted.
For the past ten years, chareidi residents of Ramot have been
trying to prevent the building of the cinemas. The entire
project will include residential homes for the elderly,
offices and places of commerce. According to the plan, the
slated center will be annexed to the existing commercial one
by a broad bridge, on which two levels for "commerce and
entertainment" will be built.
Despite the decision of the local committee not to approve
the cinemas, but rather to build educational and cultural
institutions, members of the regional committee decided to
approve the project, the last word on the decision being
"cinema."
Reports about the approval of the project in this format have
sparked anger amid the chareidi residents of Ramot and the
chareidi representatives in the municipality. Rabbi Uri
Lapolianski, chairman of the local committee who made
extensive efforts to change the commercial center, told
Yated Ne'eman that Ramot residents will soon file
thousands of petitions opposing the project, in an attempt to
void the license granted for building cinemas in the planned
commercial center.
