Jerusalem homeowners distressed by Greek Orthodox Church’s land sales
The financially strapped church sold property to private investors in a way that critics see as secretive.
Six years ago, when Irene Grossman purchased her home in Talbiyeh, an upscale neighborhood in central Jerusalem, she knew that the Greek Orthodox Church owned the land.
But she never dreamed that the church, the second largest landowner in the country after the Israeli government, would quietly sell the land out from under her.
Like thousands of Israeli property owners, Grossman believed that the church, which in 1950 leased the land to the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael Jewish National Fund, a Jewish land procurement agency, would renew the lease once it expired in 2051.
