Video: Promotional videos of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon (Photo: Jerusalem Municipality)
This coming Wednesday, the Jerusalem Municipality is expected to hold the annual award ceremony for the "Distinguished Citizen of the City" award, in which the 14 recipients of the award will take part. Among them is Dr. Mahmoud Halil, a senior ophthalmologist and surgeon, who will be the fifth Arab resident of the city to receive the award in the past 20 years. Walla's examination shows that only 1.8% of the recipients of the city's most important social award are Arabs – even though they make up about 40% of the city's residents.
The Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem Award is the most important award in the Israeli capital, given to people who have made significant contributions to society, and who have deliberated on many years of public activity for the state and the city. In the past five years, only 4.5% of all recipients are Arabs, 3 of the 66 city darlings selected, and only one of them is a resident of East Jerusalem. In the past 20 years, only 1.8% of all recipients are Arabs, 5 winners out of a total of 272, two of them residents of East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem Municipality Building, Archive (Photo: Walla! NEWS, photo from Wikipedia, Adriana Lobba @ CC BY-SA 3.0)
The examination also shows that over the past three years, the Jerusalem Municipality has made a slight attempt to elect more representatives from Arab society. Two years ago, Mukhtar Abu Tor was elected "as a bridge between religions." And last year, Nadim Sheiban, former director general of the Museum of Islamic Art, was also chosen to receive the award.
Immediately after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967, it was decided to establish a special committee to select 12 dear ones each year to receive the prize, and the mayor may add three more candidates. The criteria set by the committee for selecting people stated: "The committee shall take into account, as much as possible, the special fabric of the city's population and the various fields of activity of the candidates," but a large sector of the city has been particularly forgotten.
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Among the winners over the years are some of Israel's iron sheep assets: the late Supreme Court Justice Prof. Ruth Gavison, Yehoram Gaon, Galila Ron-Feder Amit and many other personalities from the worlds of culture, education, law and academia.
The Jerusalem Municipality said in response that "the application to apply for the 'darling of the city' award is published in all media, for all sectors in the city and in all languages. In recent years, it has been even expanded. Despite these efforts, over the years only a few recommendations have been received for candidates from East Jerusalem, and we regret this. The municipality will continue its efforts to identify worthy candidates for this award in the coming years. The Jerusalem Municipality sees great importance in representing all the populations in the city and in appreciating the work of all the city's residents."
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