At the end of October 2023, there was a Haifa initiative to place a chair to mark each of the approximately 230 abductees who were at that time. More and more residents came to Freud Road below the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood with plastic chairs for adults and children and placed them next to each other. Then print pictures of each of the abductees and attach each picture to one of the chairs.
While in the beginning the display of the chairs was very exciting and people came from all over the city to see it, in the past months the weather has taken a toll on the chairs, and they no longer look the same as they did at first. It is also not clear who is supposed to maintain the performance.
The chair exhibition on Freud Street ► Watch
Menashe Shemesh: "The municipality made at least one huge sign with the pictures of the abductees, and it looks respectable"
Head of the team to accompany the families of the kidnapped and the missing within the Department of the Abducted and the Missing of the Prime Minister's Office Menashe Shemesh: "I received a call from Nir Mariash, the CEO of the municipality, because he heard that I was dealing with the families of the kidnapped. The municipality was afraid to touch these chairs, since private people had put the chairs. The problem is that no one maintains the chairs and as a result of the weather the chairs got messed up.
He asked me what should be done. After speaking with the families of Haifa abductees, I said that I think it has exhausted itself. It had to be coordinated with the authorities. In my opinion, the chairs should be vacated and instead put signage and photos in Haifa of abductees, who have a connection to Haifa.
The municipality made at least one giant sign with the pictures of the abductees, and it looks respectable. The Directorate of Abductees and Missing Persons has 4 abductees who are considered to have ties to Haifa. For example, the late Aryeh Zalmanovitz, who was kidnapped from Nir Oz and is the father of Boaz Zalmanovitz, who is from Haifa. Elad Katzir, who was also kidnapped from Nir Oz, is the brother of Carmit Pelati Katzir, who is from Haifa. Maxim Harkin was kidnapped from the party in Kibbutz Ra'im, his father lives in Haifa and he and his mother live In the Carmel Castle and the late Anbar Hyman, who was also kidnapped from the party in Ra'im, who rented an apartment in Hadar and studied in Vitsu."
"Due to the weather, some of the chairs are no longer in place and some of the pictures are no longer on the chairs and they have been torn down. The municipality did not move the chairs in order not to hurt anyone's feelings. I am well-versed in the matter and know the families of the abductees, and they will not be harmed if they move the chairs. In my opinion , it doesn't even respect the abductees anymore. I told Mariash that if we make the signs and put them in prominent places in the city, we keep the issue of the abductees in the public consciousness. The municipality is very fine in this case and Nir Mariash is very sensitive to the issue."
The director general of the municipality Nir Mariash: "In the place representing the chairs that was damaged as a result of the weather, a sign will be placed which was designed together with the organizations of the abductees and at their request"
The director general of the municipality, Nir Mariash, who maintains continuous contact with the two organizations of the abductees, said in response:
The municipality works in full coordination with the two organizations of the abductees. In this framework, it was decided that in the place representing the chairs damaged by the weather, a sign will be placed which was designed together with the organizations of the abductees and at their request.
The display of chairs illustrating the large number of abductees also speaks to small children and in my opinion they should not be moved.
Every time I travel in Freud with my small grandchildren, the subject comes up.
It is possible and proper to display posters with pictures, but not at the performance location.
It's a shame that the cities of Haifa will not exercise discretion and from time to time will strengthen the dimension.
Eyal is right, the situation is difficult enough without polluting the public space even more, literally and metaphorically.
tying yellow ribbons on trees so that the hostages will suffocate from them and later will not bring any abducted home.
The country is already in an advanced state of disintegration, there is no need to pollute it anymore.
By the way, the yellow films from cars created another hazard, tens of tons of pollution throughout the country, including in nature reserves, on trees, animals suffocate from the yellow films.
enough.
Hi Verdina. I am looking to see meaningful action and maintenance of clean and maintained urban spaces without hazards such as chairs that block sidewalks and are abandoned with wet and torn signage.
I think my response is just right. The excess of kitsch and uncoordinated commemoration initiatives created ugliness, pollution and dirt and did no one any good.
I wrote that now is the time to channel the energies and resources in a serious and nationally coordinated manner and I do not take back any of my words.
To the writer Eyal, your response is simply repulsive. what is your purpose Looking for how to split? to cloud? To be forcefully blunt?
This is the end of all the stupid ventures in the crazy competition for public relations and an excess of kitschy and uncoordinated gestures as well as polluting, abrasive and completely unimportant.
In a culture that shows a lack of uniformity and cohesion when there are almost no national projects, there is no coordination of actions, everyone decides to take over the public space - chairs, balloons, ribbons and flags, shoes, clothes, pictures, dolls, incessant chatter and a skin that is abandoned to the dirt for the next random project.
Just stop and coordinate national, big, serious responses together with the Ministries of Information, Foreign Affairs, Communications, etc.
Who is supposed to maintain chairs - let them move them to places that need plastic chairs.