Uzi Cohen's family fights city over how to remember him

The Ra'anana city council has decided to commemorate its colorful late deputy mayor Uzi Cohen by naming a new residential area after him.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
uzi cohen 88 224 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
uzi cohen 88 224
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Ra'anana city council has decided to commemorate its colorful late deputy mayor Uzi Cohen by naming a new residential area after him, reports the Hebrew weekly Ha'ir-Tzomet Hasharon. But the decision is not finding favor with Cohen's family and with some residents, who say the city's park should be named after him instead. According to the report, at the city council's most recent meeting, Mayor Nahum Hofree announced that the new residential neighborhood being planned for the northwestern corner of the city would be named "Ne'ot Uzi" in memory of Cohen, the city's long-serving deputy mayor and nationally known Likud party powerbroker who died suddenly of a heart attack in January. The neighborhood is being planned to contain 380 apartments, with 242 of them to be sold at subsidized prices to young couples. The plans are expected to come up before the district planning and construction committee later this year and the new housing is expected to be completed and ready for occupation in 2014. Hofree told the council that Cohen had worked hard to create more affordable housing for young couples in the city and had set the wheels in motion for the planned new neighborhood. "I am convinced that if he had only been with us today, he would have given his blessings to this choice (to name the area after him)," Hofree said. But Cohen's brother Ilan, who took his place in the council after his death, said the mayor had not even consulted the family before proposing the idea of the "Ne'ot Uzi" neighborhood, and that the popular city park should be named after his brother. He said his brother had been responsible for creating and maintaining the park, and that it was the place most people identified with him. "No one in the municipality asked our advice on the subject of the commemoration," Ilan Cohen said. "It is not only my suggestion to name the park after Uzi, but also that of the family and many residents. I think the park is the place most identified with him … we are of one opinion, to name the park after Uzi."