of a Hassid to begin only on August 1, 1971 (and this is indeed recorded in the draft contract) and only after he agreed to sign P/8 (in the wording brought by my esteemed colleague Justice Ben Porat) was the date for the start of the lease changed and set for May 1, 1971. The lease and P/8 were signed on February 11, 1971; On February 22, 1971, Knopf's counsel wrote to Ben Shachar the letter P/6, in which there is no mention that the leased property had already been rented 11 days earlier to a Hassid, and only stated that since the lease was about to expire on April 30, 1971, "my client wishes to rent the leased property to a new tenant and my client is about to do so". Although the letter goes on to say that "failure to return the leased property on time to my client will cause serious damage to both my client and the new tenant", from the continuation of the next paragraph, Ben-Shahar is entitled to assume that Knopf does not insist on evicting the tenant at the end of the lease, but rather that new conditions will be required and higher usage fees will be demanded instead of rent. Thus it was stated there: "For each period of delay in the return of a tenant, my clients will demand usage fees, which, according to precedents and customs, will be much higher than the sums that the honorable has paid in rent to date."
- Ben Shahar was in no hurry to reply to letter P/6 and in the reminder sent to him by Knopf's counsel on April 4, 1971 (Exhibit N/2/11) there is no mention of signing a lease contract with a Hassid or with anyone else, and it was only noted that the letter P/6 remained unanswered. Ben Shahar was entitled to hold the leased property until April 30, 1971, and we have seen that already on May 2, 1971, a new relationship was established with Knopf, in which only the amount of payment for the holding of the premises in the future changed, but in terms of the possession itself, there is continuous continuity with the previous lease that had ended, and this is also consistent with what was stated at the end of P/6 that for the continued possession of the premises, Ben Shahar would have to pay higher usage fees. However, what is important for our matter is that even in this case, of another engagement between Ben Shachar and Knopf, the latter did not say a word or a half, because at some previous time he entered into a lease contract with a Chassid regarding that tenant. Based on these evidence and circumstances, I do not see how it is possible to attribute to Ben Shachar knowledge of the contract signed between Knopf and Hassid; Such information does not arise even from the negotiations between Hassid and Ben Shachar that Hassid will in the meantime be allowed to store wood in a certain part of the leased property, to the extent that he becomes free of Ben Shahar's belongings. At most, it can be concluded that a Chassid wishes or is interested in renting the place if and when it becomes vacant, and until then he is looking for a solution of intermediate storage.
- In these negotiations, my esteemed colleague, Justice Ben Porat, wishes to see a kind of "turning a blind eye", which is equivalent to actual knowledge, since a reasonable person would have deduced from this the existence of a contract; My colleague adds that Ben Shahar "refrained from drawing the necessary conclusion from the facts and asking the parties concerned whether there was a contract between them." I have already hinted that in my opinion the circumstances do not necessarily lead to such a conclusion. Mainly because logic dictates that in such circumstances, it is precisely those concerned (Knopf or Chassid) who will reveal Ben Shachar's ear to what is happening between them. And when one suffices with a letter in the form of P/6 and the other is interested in the intermediate storage of trees, and the fact that a contract has already been signed is kept secret from the main owner, why attribute it to Ben Shachar