The Chief Rabbinate and the Agudat Israel Council of Sages have called off the boycott of Bank Leumi. The Aguda newspaper, Hamodia, announced that a satisfactory arrangement has been made with the bank and its subsidiary, the Africa-Israel Investment Co. which is building a luxury hotel, the Ganei Hamat, near Tiberias.
The boycott was imposed by the religious establishment some months ago on grounds that a wing of the hotel was being built on the graves of Jewish sages buried many centuries ago. Orthodox Jews in Israel and abroad were exhorted to withdraw their deposits from the Bank Leumi and to cease doing business with it. Many complied.
But the arrangement, details of which were not disclosed, did not satisfy the ultra-Orthodox Atara Kadisha (Holy Site) faction, the principal activity of which appears to be guarding the sanctity of Jewish graves. It declared that the boycott will continue because the hotel would be the scene of “revelry and licentiousness over the graves of venerable rabbis.”
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