Meron victims have filed a NIS 50 million class-action lawsuit against the National Center for the Development of the Holy Places, which is responsible for the Kever Rashbi site.
The lawsuit was filed to Nazareth District Court by the families of the victims and the members of Chassidus Toldos Aharon, represented by Adv. David Mana.
According to a Yisrael Hayom report on Thursday, the claim is based on the Consumer Protection Law, which protects consumers from being misled.
The claim states that “The Center,” headed by Yossi Schwinger, “misled, violated the obligation of disclosure, and restricted the exit from the compound, actively and by omission, to all visitors of the Rashbi celebrations on the day of the tragedy.”
“The Center failed to warn [visitors] regarding the risks inherent in participating in the Rashbi event – that the site’s condition was not adequate to hold the Rashbi celebrations – and did not inform [visitors] that there were [professional] opinions that did not approve holding the celebrations with tens and hundreds of thousands of participants.”
“The defendant was negligent in the failed execution of the Rashbi celebrations to the point of criminal negligence, which resulted in the heavy price of the deaths of 45 men and children, for which a national day of mourning was declared. The assistance sought is financial aid – compensation for the physical, emotional, and psychological suffering caused to each one of the plaintiffs and other members of the defined group.”
“The defendant completely failed in the fulfillment of its role to prepare the Kever Rashbi compound on Har Meron for receiving visitors, adapt it to ongoing activities and hold the Rashbi celebrations which have been held every year on Lag B’Omer at Meron for hundreds of years.”
Adv. David Mana said: “We filed a class-action lawsuit in the name of 1,000 victims who were on the ‘walkway of death’ and until today suffer from trauma and emotional and physical harm. We estimated the damage to each victim at NIS 50,000, and as mentioned, there are 1,000 victims, totaling NIS 50 million.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Have Rabbonim and Gedoilim supported this lawsuit, which could badly backfire?
Who has that money to be able to pay this amount. Unless they had an insurance umbrella policy.
Since the bottom line is, that you simply cannot compact 100,000 people into 20 acres, hence that this entire court case shall have no merit or chance of holding through, despite the awfulness of this horrifying tragedy.