Whose town?
At a meeting last week between members of Jerusalem’s Talbiyeh Community Council and residents of the neighborhood, to discuss inter alia the effect of a luxury hotel that is to be built on the corner of Keren Hayesod and Ahad Ha’am Streets, one of the residents asked “who needs so many hotels in Jerusalem when there are so few tourists?”
The truth is that although Jerusalem is regarded as sacred to three faiths, and that most visitors to Israel do try to get to Jerusalem’s Old City, the fact is that statistically, Israel cannot compete with Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, Turkey or even Croatia in pre-pandemic annual incoming tourism figures. But having passed the long-elusive four million tourists barrier, which is only a fraction of the numbers in the above mentioned countries, both Israeli and foreign property developers are optimistic about the post-coronavirus future, and there has been a glut of hotel construction around the country. Several Israeli hotel owners who also own or manage hotels abroad have also acquired additional hotels in foreign countries. Earlier this month, Leon Avigad – who founded the Brown Hotel Chain together with Nitzan Perry and then brought in Nir Waizman, the son of hotel tycoon Meni Weizman, who operates mainly in Germany – announced that the Tel Aviv-headquartered Brown Hotels Group is acquiring 24hotels in Greece, and plans to expand to other countries as well, with the aim of becoming one of the largest hotel chains in the world. It still has some catching up to do with hotel owners and managers such as David Fattal of the Fattal Hotels Chain; Eli Papoushado, founder of the Red Sea Hotels Group and Leslie Adler, founder of the Atlas Hotel Chain. Among other leading hotel owners in Israel are the Federman family, headed by Michael Federmann, who are the principal shareholders in the Dan Chain; the Nimrodi family, which owns the Israel Land Development Company – which has several hotels among its properties; Alfred Akirov, whose Alrov Group owns luxury hotels in Israel, Western Europe and New York and the Israeli Nakash brothers, who live in America, but are on a frequent commute to Israel. The above mentioned are not the only ones, but are among the best known.
■ BETTER TO be safe than to be sorry. Mindful of the fire hazards that are part and parcel of Lag Ba’omer, which will be celebrated on Thursday night of this week, the Jerusalem Municipal Council headed by Moshe Lion has published a list of suitable places where bonfires can be held, plus a long list of important safety measures that should be taken, and emergency phone numbers in the event that bonfires get out of control. The municipality is working in conjunction with neighborhood community councils to ensure that residents of the capital can properly celebrate Lag Ba’omer. Hopefully, other municipalities are on the same wavelength.
■ MANY PEOPLE have a frustrated attitude toward their banks. Interest is too high. The rate of exchange is too low. The bureaucracy is mind-boggling, and the service is often slow. For all that, banks do a lot of good by encouraging employees to engage in volunteer work in various communities, funding scholarships and creating possibilities for employment. In the latter case, Bank Hapoalim is running a project to help people in the entertainment industry to not only get back on stage but to get back on their feet economically. The project, known as UNMUTE, is a series of concerts at the initiative of the bank’s chairman, Reuven Krupik, and CEO, Dov Kotler. Bank Hapoalim sponsors these concerts at Zappa facilities and invites all the bank’s administrative staff as well as leading business people who are among its clients. The first such event at Zappa Herzliya featured singer Amir Dadon and, in addition to senior Bank Hapoalim personnel, was attended by cultural icons and many well known figures from Israel’s business world. Other similar events featured Miri Mesika, Gidi Gov, Keren Peles, Harel Skaat, Mosh Ben Ari, Kobi Aflalo and many other popular entertainers.
All the events are held in accordance with Health Ministry guidelines and only holders of the “Green Pass” are permitted to enter.
■ THE STATE of Israel has 108 diplomatic missions abroad, of which 81 are embassies, 21 consulates and six economic offices. These figures were not released by the Foreign Ministry, but by the Alumni Association of Tel University, which counts several of its members amongst Israel’s diplomatic corps. Four of them joined Prof. Hanna Lerner, head of TAU’s School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs, in a Zoom event, in which they discussed various issues related to the countries in which they serve. None of them, as it happens, was a political science graduate. Yaffa Ben Ari, the ambassador to Japan, is an alumna of the Faculty of Social Sciences, as is Shani Cooper Zubida, the ambassador to Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, who also has a degree in humanities. Ran Peleg, consulate-general in Western China, and Sandra Simovich, consulate-general in Munich, are both graduates of the Buchman Faculty of Law. The most common subject of their discussion was of course the pandemic, the toll it took in each country, the way it is treated and the current situation.
Peleg said that in China (where it all started), everything is open to the Chinese, but closed to the world. The situation is such, he said, that diplomacy is returning to its former definition whereby a foreign representative went out into the field and reported on what was seen and heard instead of surveying the scene through digital devices.
■ AMONG THE various things that he does in Israel these
days, former US ambassador Dan Shapiro acts as an adviser to the Ion Tech Fund, which on Tuesday, April 27, at 4 p.m. will host a webinar at which Shapiro will be one of the speakers. He will present a brief overview of the current status of negotiations between the US and Iran regarding a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
■ IT WILL be interesting to see what happens to plans to create new haredi (ultra-Orthodox) neighborhoods in Dimona and in Jerusalem – the latter on the site of the former Atarot Airport, which when that part of the city was under Jordanian rule was actually an international airport. It continued to operate as an airport for several years after the 1967 war, but fell into disuse early this century. It was the first airport opened by the British Mandate authorities in 1924 in what was then Palestine. After the British left, Royal Jordanian Airlines and Middle East Airlines operated daily commercial flights from Atarot, and after Israel took control of the area, flights were operated by Arkia and El Al. The Second Intifada in 2000 prompted the closure of Atarot Airport to civilian flights in 2001, when control was transferred to the IDF.
Other than the Palestinians, there are few people to raise objections to a haredi neighborhood in Atarot, but in Dimona, Mayor Benny Biton has already raised objections for fear of a community takeover by Gur Hassidim. Housing and Construction Minister Ya’acov Litzman is a Gur Hassid, and if he remains in office, Biton will have a very tough fight on his hands.
■ ALUT MEMBERS on the autism spectrum together with JNF-UK’s volunteer network and Amichai pre-military preparatory program trainees have re-planted a therapeutic
garden at Kibbutz Kramin, in the northern Negev, after it fell into disuse and neglect during the coronavirus period.
“We are finally returning to nature and we are nurturing our garden ourselves,” said Rotem Malka, a Beersheba member of ALUT: The Israeli Society for Children and Adults with Autism, who was at the communal green space for the first time since the coronavirus lockdown ended.
Sporting white smocks and observing the “Green Pass” social distancing rules, the trainees and friends hoed and planted. Shirel Asos, 18, from the Amichai program, was excited and said, “We have been walking by this garden since the beginning of the year, and it was in bad shape. We are glad we are now able to help our friends fix it up.”
Yotam Ben-Yishai, 18, also from the preparatory program, said, “It’s a great privilege for us to help people with disabilities and here it’s a double privilege because these are guys we’ll see alongside us when they enjoy the garden.”
Natalie Avitan, coordinator for integration and community relations at ALUT Beersheba, said, “During the coronavirus period, our three centers at Kibbutz Kramin, Kibbutz Hatzerim, and Ben-Gurion University were all closed. It hurt ALUT members who so badly need to get back to routine.” The center at Kramin is the first to come back to life, and the others are expected to resume activity soon.
Yonatan Galon, CEO of JNF UK, concluded: “We work for the residents of the ‘Gaza envelope’ communities and the entire Negev all year long, among all populations, and are proud of the connection we have forged between our volunteer network and special populations.”