Grapevine: A change of scene

Former national infrastructure minister Eitam takes up residence in east Jerusalem neighborhood.

jerusalem shuk 521 (photo credit: MIRIAM ALSTER / FLASH 90)
jerusalem shuk 521
(photo credit: MIRIAM ALSTER / FLASH 90)
■ FORMER NATIONAL infrastructure minister and housing and construction minister Brig.-Gen. (res.) Effi Eitam, who is a decorated hero of the Yom Kippur War and former leader of the National Religious Party, has temporarily abandoned his home in Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights and has taken up residence in Jerusalem. No, he hasn’t opted to live in one of the east Jerusalem neighborhoods in which there are property disputes between religiously observant Jews and Arabs. His apartment is a three-minute walk from the prime minister’s residence.
■ CHANCES ARE high that council member Hilik Bar, who is secretary-general of the Labor Party, will win a Knesset seat. In that event, according to law, he has to vacate his municipal position to the next person in line, who happens to be Simi Mor, a former head of the Jerusalem branch of WIZO.
■ WHILE ON the subject of women on the Jerusalem City Council, Rachel Azaria may have created some kind of record by giving birth twice within the first four years of the council’s five-year term. Two years ago, she gave birth to her third daughter; and two weeks ago, she gave birth to her first son.
■ SHOPPERS AT the Malha mall on Tuesday will get a pleasant dose of entertainment if they are on the second-floor plaza outside Hamashbir. A flashmob featuring the Ramatayim Men’s Choir, directed by Richard Shavei Tzion, and the Jerusalem Cantors Choir, directed by Benjamin Glickman, have put together a new ear-catching program with the aim of promoting the Melabev Walkathon, the annual hiking fund-raiser for Alzheimer’s patients.
Not only is the walkathon good exercise for a good cause, but it is also a popular vehicle for camaraderie. This will be the ninth annual moonlight trek over a three-day period, beginning November 27.
■ AFTER A long relationship, singer Moshe Lahav of The Big Tisch proposed to his manager Racheli Horowitz in front of a live audience at his favorite venue, The Yellow Submarine.
Horowitz, a singer in her own right, often joins him on stage for a couple of duets or an occasional solo.
In the audience on the night of his change of status was Kadima MK Dalia Itzik, who was celebrating her 60th birthday.
Itzik may be among the last of the Kadima MKs to abandon a sinking ship. It’s seems unlikely, prior to going to press, that she will return to Labor, where she once wielded a lot of clout but where today she would have to jostle for a place on the Knesset list.
Her other option, if she wants to remain in the public eye, is to listen to those who are urging her to run for mayor in next year’s municipal elections.
■ SOME OF the people who attended the opening at the Tel Aviv Museum last week of “Roads and Byways,” a memorial exhibition highlighting the works of innovative German-Jewish artist Friedrich Adler, who perished in Auschwitz in 1942, were surprised that the exhibition was opened by German Ambassador Andreas Michaelis, especially in view of the fact that Adler’s daughter Rina Alexander Lior was present.
They might be even more surprised to learn that the works on display were borrowed from German museums. But what would really astound them most would be to learn that there are some 100 twinning agreements between German and Israeli cities.
A three-day partnership conference between the mayors of German and Israeli cities that have signed twinning agreements will bring scores of municipal leaders from both countries to the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem. The conference, which opens with a gala dinner at which the speakers will be President Shimon Peres and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, begins on the historically propitious date of November 11, which was the date on which World War I officially ended in 1918.