A plea was submitted to the High Court of Justice demanding that the work of Project HEART - the task force for restitution of Jewish property from the period of the Holocaust - be renewed, as reported on Thursday.
The petition also demanded to provide the public with the database that was built within the project, in a way that would allow the public and Holocaust scientists to track Jewish property looted during the Holocaust.
The requisition was petitioned against Social Equality Minister Meirav Cohen and the Jewish Agency. And it was handed in by six Holocaust survivors and their families along with Shurat HaDin NGO - Israel Law Center.
Project HEART was shut down eight years ago, and Israel didn't bother to properly inform the hundreds of thousands of families who participated in it, that it ceased to operate.
The petition explains that Project HEART was established by the Israeli government in 2011 in collaboration with the Jewish Agency under the aegis of the Social Equality Ministry. The project had a budget of NIS 25 million at its disposal, and the strategy that was mapped out was to work toward gathering a critical mass of queries and information regarding Jewish property that had been seized or lost during the course of the Holocaust.
After the data was collected, wield the influence of the State of Israel vis-à-vis other countries and bodies for the restitution of such property with the caveat that if they do not succeed in achieving cooperation, the information that will be gathered will be used as the basis for lawsuits around the world against those entities holding such property and interests.
The petitioners allege that "Project HEART had been designed to be the jewel of the crown in the efforts of Israel to aid Holocaust survivors and the family members of Holocaust victims - in Israel and throughout the entire Jewish world - to return to their families at least a smidgen of the interests and rights that were seized from them during the course of the Holocaust."
"Instead, Project HEART turned into the symbol of Israel’s negligence and neglect regarding this underprivileged part of the population."
The petitioners further claimed that "Israel has acted unfairly, unreasonably, and in breach of express assurances and representations that had been made when it contacted survivors and family members. Over eight years following the project's termination, it had still not bothered to provide proper notice of this move to the families who participated in it."
Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center and filer of the petition said: "The project was closed without any explanation, under unclear circumstances, and without informing the victims who still believe that the state is handling their claims."
In response to the query, the Social Equality Ministry legal advisor stated in an official letter: "The Social Equality Ministry was the first to take personal and professional responsibility for this project upon its founding. It demanded budgets and provided resources. The ministry counts among its achievements the initiation of the project and the establishment of a website in 13 languages and a 24-hour call center, all of which lead to some 70,000 queries that were received."
"Progress was made on the subject in numerous countries. And the ministry continues to work toward raising the issue of property restitution on an international level," he said.
A ministry staff member added: "The information that was collected is raw, general information, which makes it difficult to use it as a basis for legal proceedings. Therefore, the ministry is trying to assess what can be done with the information that was gathered, such as transferring it to Yad Vashem. However, at the moment, there seems to be no justification for investing more resources in a project that was closed many years ago, and we prefer to invest the money somewhere else."
The Jewish Agency has not submitted a response.