The Jerusalem District Court issued a comprehensive injunction against Hebrew University, banning it from selling two dormitory buildings on Rechov Stern in Jerusalem's Kiryat Yovel neighborhood. The court order was issued following a petition by the attorneys representing an organization that is suing the university for canceling the tender illegally.
The Hebrew University withdrew the tender for a second time when a chareidi housing organization was poised to win, apparently to prevent chareidi couples from moving into the neighborhood. The decision may have been influenced by the wave of mainstream media coverage of the "charedization" of Kiryat Yovel. The petitioners, who invested a large amount of money to vie for the tender, are asking the court to reverse the cancellation of the tender and even to declare the group the winner.
"The court order is broad and it prohibits the Hebrew University and the university administration from making any changes, including sale, rental, transfer of ownership or demolition of these buildings," Attorney Yossi Cohen, who is representing the group together with his partner, Atty. Gidon Segal, told Yated Ne'eman.
Cohen and Segal argued that after the university asked participants to raise their bids and they submitted monetary guarantees, the university cannot suddenly withdraw the tender in a manner lacking all integrity, without offering any explanation backed by formal declarations.
In addition to a notice placed in newspapers, the university contacted Atty. Cohen directly, suggesting that he take part in the tender, based on his involvement in the first tender for the buildings the university issued two years ago — which was also eventually cancelled.
Cohen told Yated Ne'eman that he decided to participate in the current tender only after verifying with a Hebrew University official that this time the tender would be carried out through completion. "Following the notification the tender had been cancelled we submitted a request to the court to declare their cancellation improper, and at the same time we requested an injunction until the case was clarified," said Cohen.
The court has given Hebrew University until September 13 to submit a substantiated declaration regarding the main case. The university will have to explain how just days after it contacted the group and asked it to raise its bid and just days after a court hearing following this demand and in which the university stood behind the tender, it was suddenly cancelled unilaterally, causing the bidders significant losses.
