Grapevine, May 24, 2024: Cultural influx

While towns and cities in the North and the South have experienced a population exodus as rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas continue to fall on Israeli territory, causing damage and destruction, Jerusalem is experiencing an influx.

In addition to new immigrants, the city is hosting many Israeli and foreign visitors at conferences and festive events – something that must give great satisfaction to the people at city hall.

Coming up very soon is Jerusalem Day, which, despite decisions to downplay merriment until such time as all the hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza are returned to Israel, will feature the usual crowds of singing, dancing, and flag-bearing youth from all over the country.

But before that, there is the Jerusalem International Writers Festival, which always includes conversations among writers of different countries on subjects that affect them in different ways.

Some of these events have been sold out. One, which is free of charge and will be held on Monday, May 27, at the De Bottom Gallery in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, will be a conversation between artist Michal Rovner and renowned, prizewinning writer, historian, and former art critic for The New Yorker Sir Simon Schama on the meaning of art and contemporary creation during times of war and crisis.

Schama, who is a professor at Columbia University, is best known for his popular BBC documentary series A History of Britain. More recently, he wrote the three-volume The Story of the Jews.

■ ALSO NEXT week, on May 29, mayors, deputy mayors, CEOs, legal counselors, city engineers, and other high-ranking officials from municipalities across the country will converge on the Jerusalem International Convention Center to discuss urban renewal. While there are well over a dozen women listed among the presenters, only one, Michal Rosenshein, is a mayor. She heads the Kiryat Ono Municipality.

The event is organized by the Israel Building Center; therefore, it includes a number of property developers such as Rami Levy, who, in addition to owning a chain of supermarkets, builds hotels, sheltered living facilities, shopping malls, and residential complexes; Yossi Avrahami, who is turning the former Eden Hotel on Hillel Street into a luxury residential complex; and Micha Klein, director-general of Africa Israel, which has built and owns a number of properties in Jerusalem. There are, of course, several other property developers.

■ THE ELI Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society took place this week at the Orient Hotel in the German Colony, hosted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in cooperation with the Dalia and Eli Hurvitz Foundation.

Eli Hurvitz, a leading Israeli industrialist, died in 2011 at the age of 79. He was founding chairman of the board and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. He was born in Jerusalem and was a graduate of the Hebrew University.

His wife, Dalia Solomon, was the daughter of the managing partner of Assia Chemical Labs, a small company that later merged with Zori and in 1969 acquired a controlling interest in Teva. The three firms merged into Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which became a global giant.

Hurvitz was also chairman of the Israel Export Institute, chairman of Bank Leumi, chairman of the Jerusalem Development Authority, a member of the advisory committee of the Bank of Israel, a director of Koor Industries and of Magal Security Systems, chairman of the executive committee of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a director of Vishay Technologies, and chairman of the IDI.

He was an Israel Prize laureate and received honorary doctorates from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Tel Aviv University. He was also the recipient of many other honors and prizes.

Given his relationship with the IDI, it is not surprising that IDI should host the conference in his memory.

Many of the IDI researchers are distinguished in their own fields, such as conference chairwoman Karnit Flug, an economist, who is a former governor of the Bank of Israel and the first and so far only woman in that role.

It was strange that the list of participants did not include Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat, and Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem.

The only ministers of the present government at the conference were Gila Gamliel and Idit Silman, although there were current and former MKs who had held ministerial portfolios in previous governments – namely, Avigdor Liberman, Yair Lapid (who heads the opposition), and Orna Barbivay.

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