An amended version of a bill to allow the state to confiscate land sold by churches to anonymous private developers and to pay the new owners compensation is due to go before the Knesset Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday.
The bill’s author, Rachel Azaria (Kulanu), drafted her original version after it was revealed last summer that the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem had sold land in central Jerusalem to anonymous investors.
Some 1,500 homes are built on the land under a 99-year lease, but the sale has put homeowners’ future in jeopardy.
Azaria’s bill infuriated church leaders, who said it would impact negatively upon their rights to buy and sell land — their one real source of income — and that it constituted a threat to the delicate status quo between the state and non-Jewish institutions.
The measure was cited as a prime reason for locking the doors to the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem in February, a move that drew international attention.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus lll announces the closure of the Holy Sepulchre Church in protest at Israeli policies, February 25, 2018. (Courtesy)
Azaria tried to reassure church leaders that her bill was aimed at realtors and not the clergy.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nonetheless froze the legislation until a newly formed committee — to be headed by Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi — could work out the issues with the churches. The decision came on the heels of pressure from the Vatican, Orthodox countries like Russia and Greece, and from Evangelical Christian groups that are normally staunch supporters of Israel.
Hanegbi’s committee subsequently merged with another established by the Justice Minister and headed by Deputy Attorney General Erez Kamenitz.
The Kamenitz Committee has yet to issue its recommendations.
To alleviate the churches’ fears, Azaria has removed any reference to the churches from the bill — which is supported by 40 Knesset members — and has titled it “Leased land that has been sold.”
A statement said Azaria had discussed the bill with the foreign and justice ministries and with various embassies. Asked whether Kamenitz had approved it, a spokeswoman for Azaria stated that the Justice Ministry supported the bill “with reservations, which will be discussed when the bill gets to the committee.”
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation decides on whether to give coalition backing to new bills, and is seen as a key step toward getting measures through the Knesset,
A view of Marcus Street in Talbieh, one of the Jerusalem neighborhoods in which the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate has sold land to private investors. (Courtesy Eiferman Realty)
Azaria has stated that the bill aims to protect hundreds of mainly Jerusalem residents whose homes are located on land which, until recently, was owned and leased to them by the churches, principally the Greek Orthodox Church — in most cases under contracts signed in the 1950s between the church and the state, via the Jewish National Fund.
The contracts state that when the leases run out, any buildings on them will revert back to the church.
Residents expected that the leases would be extended.
But in recent years, in order to erase massive debts, the Greek Orthodox Church has sold vast areas of real estate to private investors, and nobody knows whether they will renew the leases once they run out, and if so, under what conditions.