This week in Jerusalem: Election fever

Election fever

This week, as the elections get closer, tensions have ramped up in the city. Beit Hakerem community local council chairwoman Hila Ronan Debi received threats after hanging a sign on the window of her home on Rosh Hashanah eve. The sign read “Free, egalitarian, and liberal” in protest against the defacing of women’s images in the public space.

It took only a few hours before the threatening phone calls began, and the sign was even torn down. “There is no place for people like you and lesbians like you in the Holy City,” an anonymous caller told her. Ronan filed a complaint with the police and clarified that she will continue to hang the signs. 

Then, less than a day later, the Jerusalem Union list uniting the opposition launched its municipal election bus campaign on major routes. Just a few hours later, on line 50, a poster with the faces of Ya’ala Bitton de Langa (Yesh Atid) and councilwoman Laura Wharton (Yerushalyim Democratit) were vandalized. 

In both cases, complaints were filed with the police. 

“It’s time for equality. We are done being afraid and silent,” Hila Ronan Debi said. “We will fight to the bitter end against anyone who defaces images of women and tries to take us backwards. No one can corrupt the strength of the Jerusalem Union in the fight to return a moderate majority to the city leadership and the mayorship. Only together, will we succeed in fighting the fanatics and extremists who are destroying Jerusalem.”

A prestigious award

Orit Bergman and Anat Warshavsky, lecturers in the Visual Communication Department at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, won first place in the prestigious World Illustration Awards competition of the English Association of Illustrators (AOI). The exhibition “What Is More, Yellow or an Elephant?” designed by Bergman and Warshavsky is the winning work from among 5,000 illustrators who submitted their entries from all over the world. 

In the children’s exhibition created for the Hansen House gallery space, Bergman and Warshavsky created a new and playful language that encourages the viewer to actively observe with the help of cutting and connecting flat panels in primary colors. The exhibition features a hovering yellow monster accompanied by a band of three-dimensional creatures scattered across the walls in a merry parade. Visiting the exhibition allows young viewers to view illustrations outside of a book’s covers and to focus on the relationships between the characters; unravel the close connection between the written word and the accompanying illustration; and rewrite it in their minds. This competition, in its various versions, has been held for 48 years, during which over 5,000 illustrators have submitted nominations from which 20 winning works were selected. The winning illustration is currently being exhibited at the Train Theater.

Let’s decorate a sukkah

The renovated Valero Square will host this year’s Fours Species Market. The municipality has made all the arrangements necessary for the city’s residents and visitors to access the largest Four Species market in Israel for the best produce of the Four Species: etrog (citron); lulav (palm branch); hadas (myrtle branch); and arava (willow branch). They are on sale individually; in sets; according to varieties; and in accordance with the traditions and the customs of varying communities. The colorful market, now in its 25th year, this year hosts some 40 stalls where the Four Species can be purchased, along with sukkah decorations. It is open to everyone. There are also stalls that specialize in fancy and special produce, such as etrogs costing hundreds of shekels, some of which are imported from Italy and Morocco. “Anyone who hasn’t seen the “Etrog Exchange” in the Four Species Market in Jerusalem, hasn’t seen action-packed trading reminiscent of New York’s Wall Street,” city officials claim.jerusalem.muni.il/he/experience/allevents/the-four-species/

And here it is

The construction of the sukkah at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Jerusalem, the largest indoor hanging sukkah in the world, measuring 400 square meters and standing five meters high, has begun. The sukkah is located on the ground floor under a glass roof that can be opened and closed, depending on the weather. It was specially designed in such a way that it will be used as a living sukkah for guests during Sukkot. The work on the sukkah began many weeks before the holiday, with a team of engineers and designers working on its planning and design; formulating the safety measures; putting up the decorations; designing the sukkah as an ancient vineyard; and installing the thatch. A team of professional installers hangs on abseiling ropes from the roof and strengthens the huge thatch with 70 metal cables and dozens of wooden beams. The sukkah will be strictly kosher so that the many visitors expected to visit the hotel will be able to observe the mitzvah of sitting in the sukkah. CEO of the Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem, 

Avner On, says: “The Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem Hotel was originally designed so that the hotel’s interior lobby would serve as a living sukkah, with an opening glass roof, and thus we achieve every year what every hotel in Israel and the world tries to do.”

And now a garden

The Gan Hataz complex was inaugurated in Wadi Haasbestonim Park. Just before Rosh Hashanah, the municipality and the residents of Kiryat Hayovel celebrated the opening of Phase One of the park with state-of-the-art play facilities, a spacious lawn, and the restoration of the Bostaniya Park Ganim that existed there for many years before the Azbestonim caravans were installed to host the new olim of the 1950s and ‘60s. In 10 months, the park is expected to be open to the public, featuring a spectacular lake, a cafe, and more. ❖