The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"Populism didn't bother me" Israel today

2020-06-06T06:54:14.424Z


| Israel This Week - Political SupplementYossi Sharabi, outgoing chief executive of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, reveals what the job looked like alongside the controversial shooting of Regev • “What do you expect - will you shut up?” • Interview Sharabi. "I saw what share Tel Aviv took and what share they took in the periphery" Photo:  Eric Sultan On the table in the outgoing Director General of the Ministry of Culture, Yossi...


Yossi Sharabi, outgoing chief executive of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, reveals what the job looked like alongside the controversial shooting of Regev • “What do you expect - will you shut up?” • Interview

  • Sharabi. "I saw what share Tel Aviv took and what share they took in the periphery"

    Photo: 

    Eric Sultan

On the table in the outgoing Director General of the Ministry of Culture, Yossi Sharabi, lies a thick booklet: "Overlap with the incoming CEO". Graphs, detailed budgets, vision. Everything needed to continue from where it stops. 

It is not easy to be an act man in Miri Regev's office. However, the "fidelity in culture" school seems to have permeated even those who exerted their controversial policies, to say the least of the outgoing minister. "We also had disagreements, but we always solved them among the office walls," Sharabi (58) relates, confessing to the central one: the law of books. "We were seventy-eight people on the committee, each said his opinion, I said the law should be repealed and only two counts left. That is the recommendation I gave Sarah. We did not vote."

The "Law for the Protection of Literature and Writers in Israel," which began in the Limor Livnat period, was enacted in advance as a three-year directive that would end the system's examination of its feasibility. Big spending lobbyists feared the losses and stomped around the decision-makers, and Regev canceled it before the trial ended. This is in spite of data presented by the professionals who pointed to an increase in writer's wages, without decreasing the amount of books sold. Editors and translators report that during the period of application of the law they were able to earn a living for the first time. "The findings were deceptive and inconclusive," says Sharabi. "The premiere writers were hit dramatically, the sales volume dropped." 

Professionals point to the collapse of most of the Corona-era projects as proof of the law's cancellation. 

"True, there was no inventory of books, and so there were no offers," Sharabi protects the minister. "But children's literature is almost extinct, and I said that the goals were wrong. Only the popular writers enjoyed. What new books did David Grossman buy?"

Of the surplus left over from Grossman's sales, it might have been possible to fund the first books.

"On the contrary. Now David Grossman's books are being sold for NIS 80, and a few other books for NIS 20, which will reach people's shelves and maybe someday someone will read." 

The networks sell more mobile chargers and games because of the cancellation of the law.

"That was before, too. The sections that mattered to me, and I also said this to Miri, are that the chain should not have any expense to put its books on the front of the store. We have set a certain percentage of books that they are allowed to put on the shelves, which will be controlled." 

But after a year, she canceled your position and the law. 

"If a decision was made by a committee in the Knesset, it was a great lobbying to cancel both sections."

Whose lobby?

"Of people who wanted to do a free market. She recommended."

She got an opinion from lobbyists?

"There was a discussion in her room. There was even an argument between me and people who thought differently. People who wanted competition and not regulation put pressure."

No Mizrahim in the Philharmonic?

Sharabi, an advocate with his education who went into the public shower and was not yet in the profession ("In every chapter I almost open a law office - and then something pops up"), lived the cultural world from an early career. He led the cultural and leisure systems in Jerusalem during the days of Olmert and Barkat, and among other things he founded the Authority for Young People, led the Jerusalem Marathon and became the first director of cultural, social, recreational and sports administration in the capital. From there he came to Regev's office.

A heated argument in the room. Miri Regev // Photo: Coco

"I didn't know Miri. When she interviewed me for the job, she said defiantly: 'They say you know how to talk.' I replied: 'It will only help you.'" We said, and we didn't know what we were saying. Policy, to interpret what lies behind her statements. "

How did you explain the Minister's policy?

"Kelly Clotto. Why, after all, did Miri approach me? They told her, 'You never came to the culture and sports world, it wasn't your natural choice, in the first term - take a professional CEO.' I told her that I do not see culture and sports in their own right, but as an engine for social change. This music was a surprise to her, because it was her music; In the social view we come from the same place. There was a trusting relationship between Miri and me that went through many tests. Not everything she did was loved by everyone, and not everything I did to fulfill her policy was loved. 

"There was an opportunity to get money from the Creative Europe program. The problem was that they did not recognize Judea and Samaria. On the morning of the vote, an article was posted, and Miri decided to take it off the agenda. " 

Did the populist decision bother you? 

"No, most ministers objected. Maybe they did not understand the meaning to the end. Look, Miri has a strong inner truth that drives her. She came with an urge to make a change. She felt that she turned her back on heritage and roots, like many people who grew up in development towns and felt they relate to their culture. As an inferior culture. "

Firm activity was influenced by early deprivation sense? And recruited to promote such an agenda?

"No, it is telling the story of Israel as Shamiri believes. There was also an immigration from Arab countries, which had a big contribution to the establishment of the state, which is part of the Zionist story."

How does this relate to the ministry of culture? 

"She wanted to give more room to Eastern music, she founded an Andalusian national orchestra. In establishing the state, we adopted Western culture, which is considered an educated culture. Tel Aviv and what share they took in the periphery. There were huge gaps. "

Why do you differentiate between Western and Eastern culture?

"There are Western musical instruments, and there are Oriental instruments. It is not exactly right to say Oriental, because some are instruments that not only grew in Arab countries but also see them in China and India. Not instruments played in the Philharmonic, but in other orchestras."

No Mizrahi listening to the Philharmonic?

"That's not what I said. I talked about an orchestra, not an audience. I like everything and hear it too. But, factually, 50 percent of the budget went to institutions in Tel Aviv. 25 percent went to Jerusalem, and the rest split between Beer Sheva and Haifa and other places. There was a deliberate policy; it was a reality stemming from office support tests. The criterion is that a body that proves active for two years gets budgeted in its third year. But which institution can meet that demand?

There are cultural beers all over the world. Paris, London. 

"We are a small country. We can say that the whole country is centered, or the whole periphery. We changed the criteria and revolutionized: We invented the SLA regulation - an urban culture basket. We gave money without a tender and without competition, we put in NIS 40 million - every peripheral settlement can hold a festival, provided it lasts two days and consists of at least 40 percent of local producers, and each authority will paint the festival in its color.

"One of the first moves in the office was to double the culture budget for the Arab sector. That's why I was very attached to its agenda. ". 

"We increased the budget"

Were you a Likudnik when you came to Miri?

"Not at all. Tell her" your red CEO ". I haven't been in politics for many years, at the age of 27 I chose not to deal with it. But when I was a student at the Hebrew University, I was a parliamentary adviser to Micha Harish who was secretary of the Labor Party, and I was active in the university student body. I also ran the University Social Engagement Unit. I wanted to be part of the public system. Finally, I came to Micah after two years and told him: "Not for me. I work with the community center."

So you didn't vote for Likud?

"No matter what I voted for, it didn't matter. I was not a Likud center member, not a Likud activist, and I did not come from the Likud ranks."

Regev slayed Foxtrot without watching it. 

Sharabi is debating and finally says: "You have to understand the public, from their throats the voice of people talking to them. As a minister, you get a flood of arguments and inquiries, so you talk about things that you think are problematic even if you haven't watched. Sher can't go to see anything So shut up and say nothing? "

That too is an option.

"I'll keep my mind to the artistic value of the film. But I said to Miri, 'You deserve dividends. There are artists who, if you didn't talk about them, wouldn't be fired in the newspaper.' I said to her jokingly: Did you get a percentage? It became a method, anyone who wanted to A newspaper headline attacked Miri. " 

Sharabi says that when Regev took office, there were those in the cultural world who feared that they would hit the Israeli Opera. "I remember that their budget was about NIS 18 million when I came in. Today they are in the region of 22-23 million. Miri has nothing against opera, I know of at least two cases she went to opera. What she said about Chekhov was defiance, her way To send a message". 

What message?

"There's another culture she wants to put on the map."

But the people who consume Cedar Biton also call Chekhov.

"When you look at a civilian, you examine a public discourse, and she was able to produce that kind of thing. Chili said to me, 'You don't know what battles were on the ministry.' It's thanks to Miri. Suddenly you realize that this ministry can be influenced. If Miri was censored, I had a problem with that. "But that is not what it was. There are five grounds for disqualification of funding in the law, and we just exercised them against bodies that are undermining the State of Israel."

You disqualified from the left, but did you give funding to the right-wing entities? Uri Zvi Greenberg's house is in difficulties, as is the theater of Aspcleria.

"For her, the right-wing culture is no less good. I know these bodies from the period in Jerusalem. The problem of Uri Zvi Greenberg's house was different. Asclaria grew three times and four times. They are today where they were not before. Phone calls to Yossi Ahimair, ask him What will we become of Jabotinsky in our time? We renovated the Romano and Hadassah houses in Hebron, we set up the founding house in Maalot Tarshiha and Sderot. "

Inside the Turkish military

"Talk to me about the sport?" Asks Sharabi with gleaming eyes. Obviously, here, for him, lies true happiness. He proudly recounts how he promoted Wingate Law, designed to make the Institute of Excellence in Sport a government corporation. 

You like podiums. Have you also traveled to un-shot competitions?

"Miri traveled to two important competitions. Beyond that, we traveled with Hapoel Nahariya to Gaziantep in Turkey. The GSS has forbidden us to travel. I spoke to FIBA ​​and the Basketball Association, everyone said there was no specific alert. I gave the NSC my speech to Jerusalem about life in the State of Israel and how to manage risks. For years we fought to be in a normal country. Do not travel. I received a letter from the Gaziantep municipality which was very hurt, the Foreign Ministry said a crisis was created with Turkey. The Prime Minister called and confirmed, but a few hours later the confirmation was revoked that the Turks did not allow weapons to be entered. I called Miri, I told her: 'Say to Gaziantep, you have a political role.' Sarah comes with security Personally by definition. We drove there, landed and led us to the BIG. 

Where to now?

"I want to do valuable things. I don't mean to disappear from the public arena."

politics?

"No. It's not me."

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2020-06-06

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.