In the video: Haifa/Walla municipality employee meeting
Last night (Thursday) in Haifa, the launch of Colum McCann's book called 'Epirogon' in the Hebrew version took place, contrary to the directive of the municipality, which responded to the appeal of Shai Glick and the organization "Betzalmo" not to hold it in the urban Jewish-Arab cultural center Beit Hafen.
The event took place under the auspices of the Israeli-Palestinian "Forum of the Bereaved Families" and the book publishing house "November Books", which published the book in Hebrew.
In recent weeks, the Haifa Municipality claimed against Beit Hagafen that in light of the public announcements about the holding of the event, it had received many complaints, including from the families of those killed in the attack on line 37 on Moriah Boulevard in Carmel, who complained that holding the event at this time was hurting the city's residents, including hundreds of bereaved families.
"We are in difficult times of war, in which we are required to take extra care to ensure the public interest in public peace, and this with respect and mutual tolerance," the municipality claimed, "Normal operations and events require us to strike a delicate balance between the various considerations, presenting us with a double and redoubled difficulty in times of war." .
So the event took place 300 meters from Beit Hagafen, in the Musawa Center - for the rights of the Arab citizens in Israel, and the one who was surprised by her presence was actually the mayor of Haifa, Einat Kalish Rotem, to whom Beit Hagafen attributes the directive to cancel the event at the municipal facility.
"I never objected," she told Walla!.
When she entered the event, she promised that she would speak to explain her appearance despite her objection, but the organizers of the event did not invite her to the stage and 40 minutes later she left the place.
An event for the launch of which the Haifa municipality forbade the existence of Beit Hagafen / Yoav Itiel
After the event, Mayor Kalish said to Walla!, "I will probably also read the book. You can't accuse me of not preaching a shared life or not living a shared life. I don't just speak in slogans. We need to separate the substance from the way."
According to her, "For five years I have received hundreds of letters about the content and do not respond. It turned out that a few months ago, our legal counsel started to check and as much as I want this event to take place, I cannot tell them to turn a blind eye to proper administration."
"One of the things I'm doing now is to arrange with the legal counsel everything that is needed in Beit Hafen so that they can't harm the place," Mayor Kalish continued.
"The Vineyard needs to work properly more than anyone else so that people like Shay Glick can't hurt it. That's what happened. There was a problem and we will fix it so things like this don't happen again," she said.
The mayor continued to address coexistence in the city: "This month I opened a bilingual school that had never been here before, last week I sat down with officials from the Ministry of Education who will renovate a school that has not been renovated for many years, Arab of course, and establish a new Arab school. I appointed the deputy head The city for the first time in history, I'm the one who wanted to establish an Arab theater in the Krieger Center and, unfortunately, internal factors also within the Arab public put sticks in the wheels."
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An event for the launch of which the Haifa municipality forbade the existence of Beit Hagafen / Yoav Itiel
'Epirogon' is a novel by Colum McCann that was published in English in February 2020. The book, which was nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize, is based on two real characters - Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, who are members of the Israeli "Bereavement Families Forum" Palestinians who lost a daughter, one Israeli and one Palestinian.
About two hundred people, including the CEO of Beit Hagafen, Asaf Ron, who was sitting separately, crowded the Musa'a event hall and another hall where the launch was screened
. will be held a few meters away.
We support open discourse and freedom of expression and oppose the gagging that extremist organizations are trying to impose on the Haifa people," he said. According to him, "Our compound is always open to peace and human rights organizations." The CEO of the "November Books" publishing house, Yishai Menuhin, said, "We have a disagreement, but I am happy She came. We are ready to listen even to people we don't like."
CEO of "Tselmo", Shay Glick, said in response: "It is unfortunate that Einat Kalish chose tonight to participate in a conference together with those who call for IDF soldiers to be killed and only today! He announced that he is calling on the United States and the European Union to stop transferring weapons to Israel."
Glick added, "It turns out that Klish is still on Friday, October. Instead of her showing true leadership and being proud of her Zionist decision that the city of Haifa does not cooperate with those who harm IDF soldiers and the State of Israel, she zigzags and of course no one supports her because of that."
I am sure that the next mayor will work to close Beit Hagafen in its current form and turn it into a proud Zionist home in the State of Israel and the IDF."
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