The Sons Of Rav Elyashiv, The Kotel Classrooms

The rav of the Kotel (and other holy sites), Rav Shmuel Rabinovitch, has designed a plan to build a large complex in the Kotel plaza. The building will be 5 stories high, reaching to an equal height with the Kotel, and will house offices, conference rooms, classrooms for presentations and groups and rooms to host events. The plans have been under works for a long time and have already been approved.

Adding to the list of those opposing the complex, a list that already includes local residents and the Waqf due to their claims that this changes the face of the Kotel area, is Rav Elyashiv's family and other rabbonim.

In a letter signed by Rav Kanievsky, the sons of Rav Elyashiv, and the Gaavad of the Eida among others, the rabbonim have declared that these plans must be opposed and anybody who can protest it and prevent it from happening must do so. They express concern that the structure will cause an increase in activity that will harm the holiness of the place, and they question how this could have been planned without first asking the gedolei yisroel. They want a rabbinic committee established that will analyze any plan to make changes in the area so they can determine if it will harm the holiness of the place or not.

Rav Rabinovitch responds that the structure is meant to be a solution for the needs of the many visitors to the place, especially those thousands of groups that come from all over the country and need such classrooms. He says that unfortunately people with agendas have been spreading information that has no connection to reality and are attempting to harm the administration of the Kotel area... (source: Mynet)

I don't see how this will work, as on crowded days the Kotel plaza is so busy and often full that grabbing a lot of that space for a building that they probably wont let anybody into without arranging months in advance for hefty fees seems impossible.

As a curiosity, have the "children of Rav Elyashiv" already inherited his place on the list of gedolim that now they are signing on pashkevilim instead of him? I am sure they are respectable and honorable rabbonim, but just because they are his children do they automatically become the next leaders? I know nothing about them and have nothing for or against them - it just seems interesting that "the sons of Rav Elyashiv" signed on such a pashkevil.

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