Letters about letters
Reader Hila Tamir’s comments regarding the disgraceful state of the harbor-front in Tiberias (“Tiberias waterfront,” Letters, March 26) precipitate my own contribution, which has been building up in the back of my mind for months.
I feel sure that most people brought up in an English-speaking environment would have had pounded into their heads a number idioms, sayings and aphorisms, of which “Waste not, want not” was high on the list. However, it seems that here in Israel, this has been mistranslated into “Waste lots, demand more.”
Here where I live, in another waterfront city, I can count within about a kilometer radius of my home near the beach at least seven major building sites that have been abandoned in various stages of completion. They range from decrepit army barracks through shopping and residential complexes to what was intended to be a five-star hotel.
There’s no reason to suppose that this is peculiar to where I live. I’m sure this represents just a small proportion of the total in the city, and barely a smidgen in the whole of the country. The waste in land value must run to several hundred billions of shekels, with a proportional loss of revenue equaling a substantial percentage of the total currently being earned. The loss of revenue to both the city and the government just in taxes is mind-boggling.
Unlike most of the letters that complain about something without offering a remedy, I would like to propose a simple solution to be taken up by our Knesset: Building projects that do not reach completion within a set timetable (agreed to by the owners when started) will forfeit all elements to a central government body, which can sell the project to benefit its own coffers. Further, since our current Knesset seems to have no inhibition about passing retroactive laws, the same conditions could be applied to existing abandoned projects, with immediate effect.
Hopefully, the opportunity for the government to lay its hands on the billions of shekels lying fallow will precipitate early action. HENRY KAYE Ashkelon
I would like to add to reader Gabe Goldberg’s comments (“A letter uncalled for,” Letters, March 16).
On March 15, I attended a symposium at Yad Vashem introducing the translation into Hebrew of Such a Beautiful Sunny Day, written by Barbara Engelking, head of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw. The book recounts in painful detail the atrocities committed by “neighbor against neighbor” in the Polish countryside from 1942 to 1945.
The distinguished panel analyzed the brutality perpetrated on Jews by their neighbors throughout Europe as part of an endemic antisemitism and perception of Jews as the “other,” contrasting this “intimate” hate to the mass industrialized and anonymous murder organized and perpetrated by the Nazi regime.
One of the most telling insights was presented by the venerable Holocaust scholar Prof. Yehuda Bauer, who pointed out that in light of this “unprecedented” cruelty, the good deeds of the rescuers (such as those described by Mr. Goldberg) stand out even more in their expression of humanity. The actions of the rescuers were also, according to Prof. Bauer, part of the “unprecedentedness” of the Holocaust. MARION REISS Beit Shemesh