A year ago, just before the age of 60, Boaz Yosef became chairman of the convened committee of the city of Tiberias. "I have been in regular service for three years and on a regular basis," he says, "I will not run and will not run for mayor later on, because it will hurt my daily functioning and I will become one who owes it and owes it. I took the job despite the opposition of my wife and daughters, and of everyone who knows me. "Everyone around me told me I should not get into it, but I knew that with my bacterium no one would be able to change my mind."
And from a year away, what do you think?
"They were absolutely right. It was a mistake. But I do not regret it for a moment, it is the mission of my life. All my life I was part of the public service. I had a secure job at Elbit and something attracted me to public life and since then I have been there, The current position in Tiberias. "
Tiberias is often defined as one of the great misses of the State of Israel.
The city, which houses one of the most beautiful and sacred places in the Christian world, the Sea of Galilee, is 2,000 years old - but it does not have a visitor center, nor a single museum that will explain to those who come from outside how important the place is to all religions.
The infrastructure is outdated, the promenade of what is supposed to be the Israeli Ego de Garda - looks in part like after the air force bombing, new hotels are being built sparingly, and above all - Tiberias faced a tumultuous municipal election, which eventually spawned the so-called committee.
Calling committees are usually set up when a city collapses into itself, and is no longer manageable, for example as has happened in recent years in Lod or Taibeh. The case in Tiberias is different. In the last election about three years ago, Ron Kobe won. Even if you are not a topical animal, you have probably heard his name. The secular candidate with the telephones that broadcast live broadcasts, plowed the field all the way to an overwhelming election victory with six seats out of the 15 that made up the city council. Historical result on a municipal scale. Seemingly, Tiberias seemed on the way to a new future, but like so many times before, this time too something went wrong for her.
All Kobe needed was to reserve another part-time lieutenant with a guaranteed job, and he would take over the city for the next five years - an easy task in a municipal system made up of clans looking for honor and power.
But Kobe was unable to do so, did not pass a budget, and opened a window in favor of those who tried to overthrow him further in the election phase.
Aryeh Deri of Shas, then another interior minister and one who did not hide his distaste for Kobi, together with Zeev Elkin took care to overthrow the coalition of the elected head and appoint a committee called.
As we walk around the old-fashioned and neglected city, which Joseph insists is undergoing a process of urban renewal, he tells me: "I keep hearing that Tiberias is terrified. Here, we're been driving for a quarter of an hour, tell me if you saw one Haredi. What do you think, I hid "Immediately tell them that I told them you were coming from Tel Aviv so that they would not go out. We are a city that plants in the year of Shemita, so you want to come and tell me that Tiberias is ultra-Orthodox?"
I try to make it difficult, as someone who has visited Tiberias a lot in recent years as part of preparing articles and seen Kobi's work in the field, that maybe he did bring something different to the city - otherwise how could so many residents (45 percent of voters) choose him.
"They wanted something different because they were desperate and willing to take extreme measures," Joseph says, "but in real time they did not fully understand what they were doing, and took too extreme a step."
The Iron Man came to town
If there were no last minute changes, this morning the traditional and prestigious Tiberias Marathon was held with a novelty that evokes opinions here and there: Sylvan Adams, the Jewish philanthropist who often contributes to the Israeli sports world, also connected to this event and brought the city an international surfing championship. About a month in the city. Some would say that Tiberias commercializes itself to know and becomes the Jerusalem of the Arkady Gaydamak era, but Yosef waves everything with a wave of his hand: "Do you know what contribution this is to the city? How strong domestic tourism does this event bring? Strong audience.
"In the Iron Man competition, I suddenly realized this, and what it does to the city. People from a high socio-economic class came here, with bicycles worth 20,000 shekels, and spent money here. This is what Tiberias needs, and this is what these events do for the city. So Sylvan Adams "Want to shoot a gun that launches the marathon? Please, he will launch, what do I care? I know that in Tel Aviv they look at me and are jealous, they were happy that the Iron Man competition was being held with them, they are fighting for it."
So yes, as Joseph says, in the end when you are just the head of a committee called, you can do whatever you want without knocking an account for such and such political considerations.
He has a background of 25 years in local authorities, including 12 years in the municipality of Tiberias in the positions of treasurer and auditor of the municipality.
Yosef also previously served as an accompanying accountant on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior.
For the past three years, he has served as the director of the Northern District on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior, and ended his term upon his appointment as chairman of the committee in charge of Tiberias.
Yosef is considered close to Aryeh Deri, and sometimes jumps between the lines in his defense when I ask how we got to a situation where a city like Tiberias walks around with the hat so that Adams throws some coins into it: "What about the Interior Ministry? Tiberias has been neglected for so many years, it is a sin of State Governments. Once recorded Bibi tells Israel Katz that Tiberias is a dead city. So I ask the former Prime Minister, what did you do for Tiberias? You said what you said, but what did you do to promote, what did others do before you to promote?
"I have decided to put an end to this. I am demanding what comes to this city, because I and all the people around me come from a professional force. They did not choose us, we are professionals, and that is how we will do our job. Every government ministry will pay what we deserve, and even head A city does not come to take and demand our money, which we deserve. "
Takes what comes
Tiberias was once a Mapai city. In the 1977 elections, it was swept away like the whole country with the Likud, and in the mid-1980s its crushing began, which lasted until its complete collapse in the late 1990s - from a city the whole country spent in, to one based on Christian tourism in December and An ultra-Orthodox audience in July-August.
Sylvan Adams,
A combination of local corruption with the fact that it has become unattractive to many populations in Israel, in view of its neglect and abandonment, gave birth to mayors who could not knock on the table and bring money, and see how Eilat overtakes Israel's favorite resort city.
"It's very simple, for the Likud we were always in the pocket, so it did not interest them to invest in Tiberias. They knew that whatever happened, they would always vote for them," Yosef explains when we travel in a city empty of foreign tourism in the hottest season of the year. "For the others we were a city of the Likud, so we are not interested in them, and they said that the Likud will take care of you. But here, since I am in office, I bring from all the ministries what we deserve. A new Minister of Tourism, Yoel Rezbozov "Agendas and trying to help. Maybe there is an attempt for real change here."
Tiberias is littered with garbage, broken playgrounds and shattered bus stops. Yosef sees my looks and explains that dozens of new playgrounds are being built here at the same time. He shows me pictures from bus stations that have just been installed: "For years, entrepreneurs have come here, people from the center of the country who wanted to invest here, and the mayors have not found time or a place to meet with them. They will promote business here and mainly bring us high-tech. Why not Tiberias be the high-tech power of the north? You can live in Haifa and work here.
"But no one in the government thinks at all about this idea, to support the big high-tech companies that will come to Tiberias and work here. So I will do it myself. Then my opponents will come and say, 'Look how he is chasing entrepreneurs, let the police investigate him.' .
Without a coalition.
Kobi // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon,
School for public life
We arrive at the Big Ben restaurant on the boardwalk. The freshest outings from a winter day at the lake are served with pieces of lemon and vegetable salad. Everything is stuck here in the eighties, and the owner of the place, 68-year-old Moni Mizrahi, admits that "once it was impossible to get a table here, people from all over the country would come. Times have changed and mayors for generations have not understood and do not know what to do with this change. Certainly from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, then the decline began.
"Today we can not compete with Cyprus and Greece because of the prices, but yes with Tel Aviv. I was in Tel Aviv last Saturday. What does this city look like, how many people invest in it. Go get a place in a restaurant. Here who invests? Here if someone comes to invest the mayor says To 'I'm busy, I do not have time to meet you.' Believe me, I know, it's been like this for years. But I believe Boaz understands the importance of opening new hotels, of bringing a strong crowd to Tiberias. "Once again, we will see people fill the streets and the promenade."
It was sad this week in Tiberias, but Yosef's optimism is catching up with the stranger who came to visit only for a moment and has already heard promises from his predecessors.
There are several reasons for this: the construction boom and high prices as in the rest of the country do not scare investors or locals from the area, the sporting awakening with huge international events that also includes a possible return of the local football team to the center stage, new and renovated hotels on the promenade. Of Ron Kobe, who makes all parties work a little harder than the fear that the man and the phone will come back.
Maybe in the end Kobe will be just the messenger who has achieved the goal for the city that everyone is fighting for, even when outside it seems no one cares.
"What is important is that a real Jewish mayor stays here, not an Arab and not one who does not like the ultra-Orthodox," says Boaz Yosef, a local tourist from Kiryat Gat. "We have already lost the south. "Otherwise, Tiberias will disappear."
Yosef smiles at her: "Go to the promenade, the children will have a lot of fun."
But she is not impressed: "I caught you, you are a politician, you are all experts in conveying an issue."
"I'm not a politician and I'm not going to stay here one minute longer than I should," Joseph reminds me before we part, "but I've been in this system for so many years, that I know very well what I'm doing and how to do it.
"Who knows, maybe in the end we will succeed in what others have not succeeded. And when we finish, we will move to another position in the public system. After what I went through and I move in Tiberias, no one will be able to surprise me with anything anymore. It is the best school."
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