Swept up in the investigation of massive bribery and other allegations involving the large Holyland apartment project in the south of Jerusalem, former Mayor Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky was convicted of "taking" bribes and sentenced to six years in jail. The judge did note that Rabbi Lupoliansky did not personally receive any money, but he insisted that he benefited nonetheless since he is the founder of the Yad Sarah organization which received the donations.
No direct connections were shown. The only facts were that donations were made by those who needed special approvals from the Jerusalem municipality and that Rabbi Lupoliansky was the a senior municipal official during the period when the decisions were made.
The developers were convicted to giving explicit bribes to several municipal officials including former mayor (and later prime minister) Ehud Olmert.
Rabbi Lupoliansky insists that there was no connection between the donations and anything that he did with regard to the substantive issues, and he was not aware that the developers were trying to bribe him with the donations. To anyone who knows Rabbi Uri and how he has lived his life, it is absurd to suggest that he knowingly took donations as a bribe.
The Boy Who Insisted on Paying
An interesting news clip from over fifty years ago revealed the following story:
Uri Lupoliansky, a young yeshiva bochur at the time, decided to take the train home from Jerusalem to Ramle. The train was packed that day due to a special event taking place and the railway official in charge told the passengers to board and pay for their tickets to a conductor who would be making the rounds.
The car was so packed, however, that the conductor was unable to squeeze his way between the people and he decided to let things ride for lack of any solution. To the surprise of the railroad authority, a few days later a moving letter arrived from a yeshiva student with payment for his ticket enclosed and an explanation.
The letter ended up in the office of the director general of the railway authority, who was altogether astonished, especially since it had been clarified that there would be no need to pay until the conductor came to collect the fare. The CEO was so piqued by surprise and curiosity that he decided to visit the yeshiva where this student studied and meet with the author of the remarkable letter. Duly impressed by the encounter, he went and found himself a reporter who would be able to do credit to the act and publicize it in a national newspaper. Needless to say, this caused a tremendous Kiddush Hashem.
Care with Phone Calls
His entire conduct from the time he was chosen mayor was with utmost, almost unimaginable integrity.
It is known that among the privileges that go with the mayoralty is unlimited free calls from the mayor's home. From the beginning of his tenure, his family can testify that Rabbi Lupoliansky was exceptionally vigilant about the outgoing calls from his home, making sure that each one be valid and necessary. Since the municipality was footing the bill, he refused to take advantage of it.
Up until then, his sons studying in yeshiva had been accustomed to making reversed charges when calling home. Upon being voted in, the mayor told his family that this practice would have to stop since such calls had nothing to do with his job.
It could easily have been argued that an unlimited phone bill was part of the perks of the job and that he was meant to use the phone indiscriminately for his private purposes. But he stood his ground and refused to let his family make any unnecessary outgoing calls. This is only one very characteristic example of his extreme honesty and straightness.
Hotel? New Car? No thanks!
He lived his life with this same punctiliousness and truthfulness, both while in public office and outside. A city official told this columnist how, right after being voted into office, Rabbi L. had to attend a very important meeting in the U.S. to discuss subjects directly involving the government's policy vis-a-vis Jerusalem. Israeli dignitaries abroad were always booked in a de luxe hotel where security was very tight. When Rabbi Uri learned that the municipality would be paying for his stay, he refused to go there, arguing that he had relatives living in Manhattan where he could stay.
Of course, they tried to dissuade him, for reasons of security or otherwise, but he stood his ground, refusing to use public funds for personal benefit. Under no circumstances!
Shortly after his election, a new car had to be bought for the position of mayor. Rabbi Uri was given several choices but he adamantly declined them all. He asked the officials to find him an old car belonging to the city which was presently not in use. One such car was found which had been used during Teddy Kollek's tenure. This is the car he used all the time, without complaining about its lack of comfort and modern conveniences.
The Rich Man Refused
One of his close friends revealed to us amidst great admiration that the judge who passed his sentence indeed stated several times that the monies donated to Yad Sarah brought Rabbi Uri in contact with HaRav Eliashiv, a relationship which helped promote his public activities.
"This is such a ridiculous argument," he told us, "because everyone who knows Uri is familiar with the time a very wealthy man offered to donate a large sum to Yad Sarah, asking Uri to obtain a letter of thanks from HaRav Eliashiv.
"Lupoliansky was unequivocal in his refusal and declared that `as far as I am concerned, this meeting is over because I would never use my connection to him for such a purpose even if a huge donation is involved for helping others in such a major way.'"
This is only one of many such instances which were public knowledge of his refusal to use his connections with the Rav for `personal' purposes.
"Do You Hear, Arye? For E-v-e-r-y-o-n-e!
Arye Klein is another person who is familiar with Rabbi Lupoliansky's remarkable straightness. "So many were the times that the Germans attempted to hurt or kill me and yet I survived them all. I began believing in the Creator and thanked Him for my life. I promised I would use this gift only for the good and sought a way to fulfill this resolution."
From the very first days of the establishment of the organization to help the handicapped, up to these latter years when some of his children took over the management, he has been supporting senior citizen homes in the city and visiting hospitals, especially after terrorist attacks, to help the victims.
Klein recalls the first time he met the founder and president of Yad Sarah, Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky. The organization was still `in its diapers'. "`What is your opinion,' Rabbi Uri asked me, `about my desire to establish an organization to help people with functional difficulties? I want to provide such helpless people with the tools and power and every form of assistance they may need. I want to supply them with crutches, wheelchairs and respirators.'
"I said to him: Who is going to benefit from this help? Who is going to be allowed to avail himself of your services? Arabs? Secular people? Religious? Chareidi? And he replied immediately: `Everyone. Do you hear, Arye? Every resident of Jerusalem, all inclusive.'
"I liked this approach. Not only observant Jews. Not only Jews, in fact, but everyone!
"I said to him: `Rabbi Uri, count me in.' I called up Professor Mann in Hadassah and said: `Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky has come to me with a brilliant idea. You have a nice garden. We're coming over.' He told us to come and promised that his wife would bake a special cake for the occasion. I brought along some of my friends to this meeting."
Arye helped organize workmen to repair the equipment and before his eyes, year after year, he saw how Uri's idea was translated into a whole world of chessed.
"I said to Uri: `You have created something which is not duplicated anywhere else in the world! I am going to organize a Nobel Prize for your work, which is unique. Lots of Nobel Prizes are awarded for the Jewish mind but I want a Nobel Prize for you for your brilliant Jewish mind and your Jewish heart. I will not rest until I obtain this prize for you."
We were like Sodom? We Resembled Amorah?
I know of no one as outstanding in his integrity in the public scene as my friend Rabbi Uri. Even after the onset of the trial, when the judicial people with all their agendas dug into his past fifteen years in search of other misdeeds: These were the words of the judge who explicitly stated that they were amazed at his daily schedule and extraordinary honesty to the point of hardly believing that such a person exists in the world.
I would like, however, to relate to two of the judge's rulings - in paragraph 2, where Judge Rosen establishes that `Even though he did not put any bribe money directly into his pocket, still, these monies served to increase and empower him and his influence. He gained distinguished public roles because of his activities in Yad Sarah, and was privileged to be close to HaRav Eliashiv, a relationship which is of invaluable worth. And if we can vouch that he did not take bribery for personal gain, still it did enhance his position in measure far greater than gold."
Slinging mud upon Rabbi L. by stating unequivocally that the motive for his many branched chessed activities was to gain proximity to the godol hador is an irrational and illogical accusation which does not stand the test of reality. It is totally based on wild presumptions stemming from the guts of one who is ignorant of the chareidi reality and lacks the tools to be able to express an opinion in the matter.
How is it possible for a person who has no knowledge, understanding or grasp of concepts in the fabric of chareidi life, its ambience, character and certainly not in its fine nuances, to express a critical, acerbic, incisive opinion with such fateful implications?
The judge's lack of perception and his blatant boorishness in this matter are all the more obvious in his next statement which determines that "because of Rabbi L.'s activities in Yad Sarah, he was chosen to represent a significant sector in the municipality and to subsequently fill many high ranking posts therein. Due to his activities for the benefit of Yad Sarah, he met with the godol hador at least twice a week which, had he not been involved in that organization, would hardly have been possible. His stature by HaRav Eliashiv gained him tremendous prestige and power in his circles. The value of his personal meetings and proximity cannot be properly valued and were worth much more than mere money."
Whoever is familiar with the development of affairs, and these are many, knows that Yad Sarah is a famous and major chessed organization, and Rabbi L.'s energetic and indefatigable activity on its behalf predated by many years his connection to HaRav Eliashiv. Notwithstanding, Rabbi Uri toiled to develop and swell the services of this organization with the clear purpose of increasing chessed with every person in need of them. What propelled him during those early years to do everything he could to expand its services? Only and primarily the pure love of chessed which was his outstanding objective.
We can fill in with some concrete data: Rabbi L.'s closeness to the posek hador began only after he was chosen as a public representative on behalf of UTJ. Only because of the great public responsibility accompanying that position did HaRav Eliashiv agree to receive him in his home on an ongoing basis for direction and guidance in public matters. This began in 5749, thirteen years after the establishment of Yad Sarah, so that the superinflated tower of cards collapses from lack of foundation in reality.
In addition, the claim that the shul within the premises of Yad Sarah has nothing to do with the services offered to hundreds of people is again a nasty accusation removed from the truth and from the basic understanding of a definite need for such a thing within such an organization.
The quest for an excuse to incriminate Rabbi L. for having built a beis knesses on the Yad Sarah premises merely highlights the judge's warped understanding of chessed and its implications. To impose punishment on such grounds upon a man of chessed who sacrificed his body and soul and who, even by the judge's own admission, never took a penny for himself, is unparalleled.
This predisposed and prejudiced sentence is also, as it were, an act of incalculable future damage, since good-hearted people with vision may be deterred from continuing their chessed activities for the public for fear that a precedence like this of accepting donations for the public welfare be considered a crime.
Ah! Did we not resemble Sodom? Are we not compared to Amorah? Is this the justice practiced in the State of Israel?
