Haaretz
Cheshvan 5, 5766
Israel is to give the Vatican
control over one of the most sacred Christian sites in Jerusalem, several
European newspapers have reported recently.
According to the
reports, Israel will give the Holy See possession of the Coenaculum, or
the Room of the Last Supper (also known as the Upper Room or the Cenacle),
on Mount Zion. In exchange, Israel is to gain control of a 12th-century
synagogue in Toledo, Spain, which is currently the Santa Maria la Blanca
Church, says the Times of London. The synagogue became a church during the
15th-century expulsion of Jews from Spain.
President Moshe Katsav
and Pope Benedict XVI are to announce the historic real estate deal during
their upcoming meeting in Rome, the reports claimed.
The Foreign
Ministry has dismissed the reports as "nonsense," but they have already
aroused stormy reactions from religious factions warning against a change
in the fragile status quo in relations among Christians, Jews and
Muslims.
Israeli government sources said the report recycles an old
proposal that came up during more than a decade of Israel-Vatican talks on
bilateral ties. They called the Catholic proposal "insulting and
unreasonable," and said an Israeli investigation indicated that the
Vatican does not even own the Toledo church.
The ministry said
Israel rejected the proposal in 2003 and that the issue has not been
raised since.
The only Israeli official who has publicly spoken
about this issue is former interior minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui), who
said during a visit to the Vatican last September that from Israel's
perspective, the exchange could take place if the relevant parties were to
agree.
In the last few days, officials in the Greek Orthodox Church
have asked the Jerusalem municipality for an explanation, since it claims
ownership of all of Mount Zion. The Diaspora Yeshiva, which uses several
buildings on Mount Zion, asked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday to
intervene in an effort to prevent "the Tomb of David from getting into
Christian hands."
In a letter to Sharon, Diaspora Yeshiva
representative Shmuel Berkovitz said, "Turning the Coenaculum into an
active church is a way of desecrating the holiness of the Tomb of David"
and is offensive to Jews. Berkovitz, an expert on holy places, said the
hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who could be expected to visit the
Coenaculum would make the lives of the yeshiva students
intolerable.
In a letter to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski,
Diaspora Yeshiva head Rabbi Mordechai Goldstein said the yeshiva would not
let such an agreement pass quietly. Diaspora Yeshiva students have been
involved in several violent conflicts with their neighbors, and in 1978
took control of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, which is near the Room of
the Last Supper.
The two rooms are considered the fourth-holiest
site in the Christian world. The Room of the Last Supper, where, as the
name indicates, the Last Supper is said to have taken place, is on the
second floor of the building in question. The first floor houses the Tomb
of David, a holy site for Jews and Muslims, where King David is said to be
buried.