An audit conducted by Israel’s Ministry of Justice found a trust endowed to support low-income Jews in Jerusalem is actually working in favor of Ateret Cohanim, an Israeli settler group that’s been taking over Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan for decades.

First reported in Haaretz, the audit revealed the Benvenisti Trust, established in 1899 to house Jewish immigrants from Yemen, is acting in violation of its charter and administrative rules and is not operating independently from Ateret Cohanim, which took over the endowment in 2001.1

The audit was carried out because of legal action taken by Ir Amim, an Israeli rights group monitoring Jerusalem policy, against the Benvenisti Trust and the justice ministry’s Registrar of Charitable Trusts. The group is demanding that the trustees be replaced.

Since gaining control of the trust, Ateret Cohanim has used Israel’s 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law to initiate expulsion lawsuits against Palestinian families in the Batn al-Hawa section of Silwan, claiming the properties belong to the trust and their heirs. Under this legislation, Jews can reclaim assets lost in East Jerusalem during the 1948 War while Palestinians aren’t given the same benefit in West Jerusalem. Thus far, Ateret Cohanim has expelled 17 Palestinian families from their homes in Batn al-Hawa.2 Currently, another 84 Palestinian families face forcible displacement to make way for Ateret Cohanim settlers, with the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court recently siding with the trust and ordering 131 Palestinian residents to leave their homes within six months.3

The ultimate goal of replacing the trustees is to stop the ongoing expulsion of Palestinians from Silwan.

The endowment has conflict of interests: one of its trustees, Avraham Sheferman, is also a member of Ateret Cohanim’s board of directors, and another trustee, Mordechai Zarbiv, is an Ateret Cohanim employee.6 The trust didn’t have its own bank account, so it was instead using Ateret Cohanim’s bank account to carry out financial dealings, including loans and depositing rent received from tenants in the endowment’s properties. The trust claimed that it had opened a separate account, but the auditors noted that as of January 2021, this new account hadn’t been used. From 2015 to 2020, Ateret Cohanim also carried out renovations to the trust’s properties without the endowment’s input and without a record of these renovations in the endowment’s bookkeeping ledgers.7

The trust is supposed to operate according to its founding charter, which is dedicated to providing housing for poor Jews in Jerusalem, for Jews anywhere, and (as a third priority) for the poor regardless of their religious identity. The audit found that neither the trustees nor Ateret Cohanim are verifying the income status of settlers placed in the trust’s properties. The endowment responded saying it would now rent to individuals “of lesser means."8

Both Ateret Cohanim and Avraham Moshe Segal, the attorney representing the trust, rejected the audit’s findings reported in Haaretz, telling Jerusalem Story the article’s information is false, and the registrar determined the trustees can continue to function as the trustees.9

“The report was an old report that is irrelevant today as any minor clerical issues have long been rectified and they found no conflict of interest between trust board members and Ateret Cohanim,” Daniel Luria, Ateret Cohanim’s spokesperson, told Jerusalem Story.10

Despite what the trustees and registrar say, Ir Amim is committed to getting the trustees out. Ir Amim decided to pursue a civil case against the trust, which involves testimonies, cross-examinations, and disclosure of documents like the audit report. Now with the audit’s findings in hand, Ir Amim will be heading to court in May 2025 for the case’s first hearing.

“The audit really says everything that we said in the lawsuit—like a copy-paste,” Maimon told Jerusalem Story.11 “Once you see how serious the flaws were in this trust, how can you leave them in their role?”