Last month, the High Court of Justice ruled on one of the most fraught and explosive real-estate petitions it has deliberated in the past decade. For seven years, the court discussed a suit by Helmut Georg Laemmle, an Australian descendant of the German Templers, demanding compensation of about NIS 1 million from the city of Tel Aviv for lands on which the two towers constituting the Weizmann Center were built.
The center, which is situated within the Ichilov Hospital compound, contains a mall offices, clinics, a convalescent home for new mothers, assisted living units and a business and commercial center that serves hospital patients, employees and the general public. However, the subject of the suit was not the towers, but rather the plot of land on which they were erected. The plot was part of the property of the Templer colony Sarona, which for the past 60 years has been at the center of controversy in the international arena, in a clash between the municipality and the government (especially the defense establishment ) and in the municipal real-estate playing field.
