Orthodox Jews have begun a boycott of the Bank Leumi, Israel’s largest bank, because a luxury hotel now under construction by an affiliate of the bank, the Africa-Israel Investment Corp., allegedly is located atop an ancient cemetery near Tiberias where Jewish sages were buried centuries ago.
The bank acknowledged today that $10 million have been withdrawn to date by some 400 Orthodox depositors. Banks officials said this represented a very small portion of its total deposits and turnover.
PROBING ARSON ATTACKS
The police, meanwhile, are investigating the latest in a series of arson attacks on Bank Leumi branches in Jerusalem. A fire early last Thursday morning did an estimated $100,000 damage to the bank’s branch in the Ramot Eshkol neighborhood, a single story building in the middle of a shopping center. The police are holding a suspect, a resident of the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim quarter.
Although they have not officially linked the arson to the dispute over the hotel construction site, the police apparently consider it the most likely motive. The arsonist broke a window in the bank office at about 4:30 a.m. local time Thursday and tossed in burning rags.
An arson attempt was made against a Bank Leumi branch on Saladin Street in Jerusalem last June 5. Late last month, the office of the manager of the Mea Shearim branch was set on fire. According to the fire department, the same arsonist was responsible for all of the fires.
BASIS FOR THE BOYCOTT
The Orthodox are boycotting the bank on orders from the Agudat Israel party’s Council of Sages and other religious elements. The Agudat Israel first complained last year when construction of the hotel, to be called Ganei Hamat, began.
Officials of the bank and the Africa-Israel Corp. negotiated with the Agudat Israel party and agreed to certain structural changes. But a compromise proved impossible because other religious factions convinced the Aguda politicians that they had better demonstrate their zeal over the sanctity of the site.
Bank officials who spent Saturday night in further negotiations with rabbinical authorities said they thought they had reached an agreement. But the boycott order went out when the bank opened Sunday morning. Orthodox spokesmen boasted that their disciples were prepared to lose money to uphold their religious beliefs. They will sustain financial penalties for closing term accounts that have not yet matured.
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