The 100-year anniversary celebrations for the Neve Shanan neighborhood could have served as a turning point in the history of the neighborhood and a historical milestone in the history of the city of Haifa. Instead we got a reality where the residents of the neighborhood are not involved and know nothing about any celebrations. And worse, we got a totally "celebratory" and Fartachi sign that looks like a hillbilly youth underground operation. A sign consisting of two shields of David torn from the independence celebrations next to the number "one" built from sukkah planks that ended its life a few months ago. And this is the first meeting of most of the residents of this important neighborhood with its 100-year celebrations.
A neighborhood that is a city
In the beginning, the Neve Shanan neighborhood was planned and built in the "Garden City" style. The man entrusted with its spectacular planning was none other than the famous architect Richard Kaufman who, among other things, also designed the Bat Galim and Hadar Carmel neighborhoods. The history of the neighborhood is full of stories, dramatic events and exciting political processes, and it is also often studded with architectural gems. A large part of all these were documented in the important books written and edited by many writers, including the late Dr. Eli Nachmias and other partners. And it is a well-known rule that for every milestone in the development of the neighborhood, it was expected that another book would be published about it. But there doesn't seem to be anything like that in store for her 100th anniversary celebrations. One of the reasons for this is the untimely death of Vad Neve Shanan-Ramot Ramez, who for years carried the flag of public action in the neighborhood. But since his activity was greatly reduced, the municipality's budget that was regularly and illegally transferred to him was cancelled, and he is mainly now the mayor's assistant, so salvation will probably not come from there.
The biggest miss is of course in education
The 100-year anniversary could have been celebrated in a completely different way, and first of all it should have been in the education system. This year, content about the neighborhood and its roles in the past and future of the city of Haifa should have been integrated into all classrooms in the education system in the neighborhood. It was necessary to turn male and female students from the neighborhood education system into ambassadors who would convey these contents to all residents of the city and perpetuate this in a curriculum that would be integrated into the local curricula in the future. Because if we don't know how to instill these events and their importance to the next generation and the one after that, then how are they supposed to develop a local identity, a sense of belonging and responsibility for what is happening in their environment?
A neighborhood without a vision
The processes that currently characterize the community development of the Neve Shanan neighborhood are the differentiation of the communities within it from each other, and the deepening of the physical boundaries that separate the neighborhood's factions. This year's 100th celebrations should have been an opportunity to connect and bring the hearts of the neighborhood's residents together around one common denominator - a vision for the Neve Sha'anan neighborhood. I am of course not referring to the embarrassing master plan approved by the mayor over a year and a half ago. After all, she has no vision or hope for renewing the face of the neighborhood. I mean a completely different in-depth process in which all the residents of the neighborhood will be partners, and which will define the value, human and physical path of the neighborhood in light of the vision of the communities that make it up. Such planning should, of course, oblige the city captains to truly participate with the residents of the neighborhood, the name of the fiddler at his feet, the quality of life of the residents living in the neighborhood today and in the future.
Instead of celebrations - a certificate of poverty
The 100-year celebrations should and could have been an exciting opening shot for the next hundred years of the neighborhood. But they look more and more like the swan song of the Neve Shaanan neighborhood. Even institutions that could have picked up the gauntlet, such as Beit Abba Khushi and other institutions in the neighborhood are not driven in this direction at all and it seems that there is no driver at the wheel who will understand and take advantage of the situation for the benefit of strengthening the neighborhood. And without mentioning the mayor, of course, what does it have to do with elaborate activities that connect the city to the neighborhood and its residents in a communal and smart way?
Neve Shaanan was filled with wild boars!!!
The pigs are taking over HaGilil Street, Hanita, A.H. Silver. Jezrelia neighborhood.
In short - the neighborhood has become a zoo.
You can't take a walk in the evening, you can't take a walk, you can't go out with the kids.
The municipality promised to collect the pigs and move them to a distant place.
Why is this not happening????
Why doesn't the mayor invite the Nature and Parks Authority???
What will happen to this city???
Neve Shanan neighborhood in Haifa is well maintained Dr. Yariv Sagi.
The way to save Noah Shanan:
- Addition of the National Transportation Route for public transport only Dori-Shalom Aleichem-Trumpeldor
- Exploitation of the topography for the excavation of a vehicle tunnel between Hankin and Pinsker-Dori under the Zein center intersection.
- Turning most of the area of the Ziv Center into a square on the ground level
- Tama 38 - Cancellation and construction of buildings with a ground floor for commerce and offices in every Neve Shanan.
- Creation of a cycle path ring and a wide sidewalk on Galil-Hanita-Trumpeldor-Kumoi-Malal streets
- Ziv Square: only the Hankin-Trumpeldor axis will continue above ground, all traffic from Hankin to Dori will be in the tunnel.
- Shalom Aleichem Street and the parking lot in Pinhas Ram will be a public square with markets, restaurants, an ecological pool.
- The municipality will foster the commercial activity on the spot and every Trumpeldor street as an active street with wide sidewalks and businesses
- The municipality will prohibit parking on sidewalks, and will fine any vehicle parked on a sidewalk.
- Mitzpe Street grove: a municipal library, a community center and a computer center will be built for the neighborhood with an elevator to Yaakov Hazan Street
- A pedestrian bridge will be built from David Square street at the corner of Pinsker over Dori road for bicycles and pedestrians to the athletics stadium and the sports center
Neve Shanan has become in the last decades a neighborhood with a religious/Orthodox majority. This public does not care much about the urban and historical aspect, except for what is related to religion and budgets. Therefore it is not surprising that there are no celebrations, nor is there anyone to celebrate.
A bad neighborhood with a view of the polluted bay that breathes air from oil refinery torches and sees them as an almost constant nightly display.
A bad neighborhood that is crowded in Tama 38 like the housing estates of Jezreeliya and in the end you will end up like them in real estate value
HaGalil Street and Mitzpe Rehovot are destroyed by new construction that filled them with vehicles blocking sidewalks and entrances to houses
A neighborhood that is full of an invading population whose goal is to take over the neighborhood as an ultra-orthodox neighborhood
A neighborhood whose streets are ugly and boring and it barely has 3-4 cafes and they don't survive because it has no atmosphere
Unfortunately I have to agree with every word.
A wonderful neighborhood with the potential to be the crown of the city. But instead it became a neighborhood without a vision, without a soul, without a future like it deserves.
such a shame!
The most beautiful neighborhood in Haifa with mountains and a view of the sea and the port, without vision and regret.
I was born in the neighborhood and still live there. There used to be performances, events, shows, festivals
Today there is nothing and no vision.
May the neighborhood have good luck..
Thanks Sagi for the article, at least you wrote something about the neighborhood
Because of the increase in the number of religious people in the neighborhood, it is getting worse and worse, and this is because the Jewish religion is racist, misogynistic, which denies equal rights to women and also advocates discrimination, disqualification, oppression and forcing their religious worldview on those who are not like them. This is the truth and it needs to be said boldly, and all this even before I addressed the yeshiva invalids who refuse to be educated and work, thus harming the educational, economic and social strength of the city
The level of superficiality of your response raises a suspicion that you yourself are infected with some of the things about which you wrote with such determination.
Now I understood what worrisome processes the Deputy Chief of Staff was talking about in the past and the current member of the Knesset.
Neve Shanan suffers from the same problem that all of Haifa suffers from: transportation has taken over the neighborhoods. Piles and piles of vehicles, crowding sidewalks, turning every piece of green into more parking lots, and preventing the fun and contact of a quiet and pleasant neighborhood. That's why it shouldn't be surprising that instead of decorated and festive squares, everything goes to traffic circles and roadside signs. The cars have taken over the human space. See during elections in Ziv Square, where the signs and the activists are directed - whether to the square and the sidewalks or to the thousands of vehicles passing through the center of Ziv as if it were Ayalon lanes. Instead of Ziv Square, there is an intersection - an intersection full of traffic with cars, and the people who risk their lives to cross from one side of the sidewalk to the other barely get between them. The Haifa curse is the addiction to the private car. The private vehicle blocks sidewalks, prevents meetings, creates a noise nuisance that interferes with enjoying the public space, comes at the expense of sidewalks for pedestrians and bicycles (Neve Shanan is the flattest neighborhood in Carmel, and it does not have a single bicycle path..).
Haifa residents take the car from HaGalil Street and drive to the Grand Canyon parking lot. They don't go to the mall 200 meters away, they drive to it. This is how the atmosphere in Neve Shanan was ruined. In contrast to the Givatayim Mall, for example, or the Ramat Aviv Mall, Mitzna Hadogol planted a mall far from all the city's neighborhoods, the only way to get to it is by driving. People even drive from Abba Hillel Silver Street ("There's parking, why just walk").
Until Haifa's planners, including one of the worst city engineers in the country's history, I have nothing more to say beyond that - and with him planners of the lowest quality, who time and again approve outdated neighborhoods and plans, traffic jams and not people, did not know how to create a community through a built space. I don't know what else can be said and how to cry out against the worst damages that the Waterman and Liebman programs have caused here.
Neve Shanan has become a road that you drive to another place. Right? The residents of Carmel cross it to the Technion, cross it to Check Post, cross it to Nesher, pass through it to the lower city. In short, from a place they come to, it has become another main road that is the purpose of the trip to it (Hankin, Trumpeldor, the Heroes' Road, Derech Yaakov Dori).
The vehicle culture has led to a total neglect of the public space in all Haifa neighborhoods. More and more parking. Parking and more parking and some more parking. 20 minutes move. First two hours free. Without parking, there is no commerce, they say in the stores. Who will come by bus to park? Not even the matron will save her spear. Only if you parked with a spear, you bought. In this way, Haifa increases even more the urban damage to its neighborhoods, which turn into a crowded, noisy, congested, crowded parking lot, shouting at the entrance to the neighborhood from vehicles that "only stop to drop off". and more. The quality of life becomes zero but the residents of Haifa do not give up. They purchase a second and third car for the family. Soon wholesale destruction and fumes will begin for more "escape routes". No escape by bus, or in a bus bus, God forbid. No, no. Normal roads, which will serve thousands more vehicles in Carmel. More parking lots are dug into the poor mountain instead of trees. The lots are emptied of vegetation and trees for the kingdom of vehicles. Above ground, below ground, next to the building, Inside the building on the mezzanine level. Humans are no longer important in this city. Only providing roads and parking lots.
Since it is so convenient for cars here, residents of other cities come with their cars into Haifa and contribute to the celebration. This is how they arrive by car to the train stations, the beaches, the stadium, the cultural halls and events and celebrations. Huge traffic jams, sirens. Haifa taught them, educated them, that it is fun to come to her by private car. Tel Aviv educates people who come to her by public transport. That's all the difference, gentlemen.
Tel Aviv takes Knesset Square, the Opera Square at the end of Allenby Street, and closes it to vehicles. Imagine that in the center of Ziv, the municipality of Haifa will cancel the large parking lot in Pinchas Ram, and for the benefit of the hundreds of new residents in Berel Katznelson, for whom of course a large part of Hoaadi was destroyed for - access roads and parking lots, of course, it decides that the parking lot will disappear. And in its place - a large square for neighborhood events, celebrations, the expansion of the playground, maybe some kind of ecological pool (just like Rabin Square).
First, the business owners will shout to the heavens that their business is being harmed. Shop owners on Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv also shouted like this, when parking and stopping lanes were eliminated, and today even a driving lane is turned into a sidewalk and bike path. They shouted, and saw what a miracle. The street was filled with people, and they shop and spend more time there than before. Because it is quieter, more pleasant (at least until the light rail works, but they too will be finished in two years). Crowds of tourists walked around it when in the past it was desolate and full of explosions where, to them, vehicles drove for a short stop. fill tutu and continue. Tel Aviv has understood what Haifa refuses to understand: in order to rehabilitate the city's neighborhoods, in order to raise the quality of urban life, precisely in an era of flooding of private vehicles - action must be taken to remove them from the neighborhood centers and the city center. The city must be returned to the people. That we can talk without shouting over hundreds of vehicles flying to another place. That we can arrive more slowly, stay longer and enjoy walking from house to house without the interruption of a car parked on the sidewalk. It's a quality of life. Neve Shanan was fatally damaged by the failed decisions of planners, to rule the private car over the public space for people, which remains neglected and broken. Trumpeldor sidewalks are just that. Small, narrow, close to fast passing traffic. It's scary to cross Trumpeldor Street, isn't it? But why does it have to be this way…
And on Hanita Street, elderly people are killed just trying to cross from side to side. Why does it have to be this way? Why did Hanita Street turn into a freeway street between the Yad Leibniz and Neve Paz neighborhoods and the center of Carmel? Why did this happen, and how do you change this situation?
When there is a city engineer and a mayor with the courage to reintroduce humans back into the public space instead of vehicle solutions and master plans for more transportation, roadology and traffic lights and tunnels, then we will have a great city. Until then, we can only grumble and try to ignore the real problem.
"It won't be far today and Shabbat checkpoints will surround the neighborhood.."
Woe is us.
Just thinking about it is shocking!
how sad. I understood that you avoid emphasizing the anxiety of the neighborhood. A process that perpetuates differentiation and environmental indifference to everything that is not religious...
Every time I come to visit my mother Benoit Shanan, I feel like I'm going back through the time tunnel to some kind of Eastern European tunnel. This neighborhood was the essence of the Zionist enterprise. With four Zionist youth movements, a great many permanent people, entrepreneurs, hardworking people, a multi-denominational melting pot, magnificent Independence Day celebrations and a bit of religious Judaism for those who desire it.
Neve Shanan is slowly becoming the Bnei Brak of Haifa. The day will not be far away and Shabbat checkpoints will surround the neighborhood. Zionism was a healthy heart transplanted into the body of a sick people. Neve Shanan illustrates how the diseased body rejects the transplant and her exile takes over the people again.
Even though I am not a resident of the neighborhood, I spent my youth in Urban High School C and in the immigrant camps, and I felt at home in the neighborhood. I read the article and was moved to my heart.
And I, who grew up in Neve Shaanan, who taught in Neve Shaanan, who guided the educational teams in Neve Shaanan, want to raise a very sad point for us.
14 years ago, a digital commemoration project called "Ben Yaffe was born on the shoulder of the Carmel" was launched. A project whose goal was a digital commemoration of the martyrs of the IDF and victims of hostilities and graduates of the schools in Neve Shanan. This tradition included the Memorial Day ceremony, with the cooperation of the schools in the neighborhood and the families.
The elementary schools and the high school.
The project received an award from the Fund for Educational Initiatives in the Ministry of Education.
This is the fourth year that there is no trace of this project and even the neighborhood ceremony, held regularly at "Beit Abba Khushi", has faded.
Welcome to meet.
https://haipo.co.il/item/93196
Thank you very much Hana for the information.. My heart aches for the shallow approach to the heritage of the neighborhood and the city in general...