Praise God our congregation is expanding and growing. Our trusty old place of meeting, just isn’t able to contain us anymore, thus we must build! For more than ten years we have been struggling in legal battles and bureaucratic hurdles against the zoning and planning boards of the city of Jerusalem in order to get the building permits we need to begin the work. We must push forward, because our building is overflowing, at our Saturday morning meetings there are always people standing for the duration of the meeting due to lack of space & seats..
Netivyah has won a judgment in the district court of the State of Israel and the judge actually gave us all that we have asked for and more. The opposition appealed the judgment of the district court and the case was heard in the supreme court of Israel on October 6th, 2011. We are currently awaiting the verdict, that will decide if we build an additional floor or not. We have received the basic building license and as soon as we will have the requirements and the funds we must start to build.
The building project includes the expansion of the auditorium and the remodeling into a proper Synagogue, an addition of a safe-room (bomb shelter on every floor) a basement for storage, and a new floor with library, offices, and classrooms. We must also strengthen the foundation of the building since it was built in the 1920's and there is no iron incorporated into the structure and if there would be even a slight earthquake the building might not stand.
The whole project will cost about 2,000,000.00 US dollars (if the dollar keeps its value). We need to raise as soon as possible at least 1,600,000.00 dollars. The issues in this case are not only financial and real-estate issues. The main issue is our presence and equality and civil rights before the law of Israel. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and it has freedom of religion and conscience written in the declaration of the State of Israel. We have to win this battle for the sake of the future of the State of Israel as a democracy and also for the civil rights and building rights of Jewish Disciples of Yeshua in this land.
Please pray for this project and do your utmost best to support it financially. We hope that as soon as the Supreme Court of Israel rules in our favor we will be able to start the building project and build the first Synagogue of Jewish Disciples of Yeshua in the city of Jerusalem for near 2000 years.
Building Fund Progress
$674,500 of $2,000,000