The JSO, whose home is the Henry Crown Auditorium, which in the late 1980s was built as an annex to the Jerusalem Theater, has hosted some of the world’s top conductors, musicians and singers.
By GREER FAY CASHMANThe Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Andres Mustonen(photo credit: SASSON TIRAM)
In March of this year, then-Romanian prime minister Viorica Dancila declared that she would move her country’s embassy to Jerusalem. She was contradicted by President Klaus Iohannis, who apparently has the final say on such matters, and not long after she found herself out of office, and the embassy remains in Tel Aviv.Nonetheless, Romania’s Unification Day will be celebrated in Jerusalem on December 1, with a gala concert by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra plus several leading Romanian musicians.The JSO, whose home is the Henry Crown Auditorium, which in the late 1980s was built as an annex to the Jerusalem Theater, has hosted some of the world’s top conductors, musicians and singers.However, according to Yair Stern, who for the past 10 years has been the chairman and CEO of the JSO, the orchestra could very well play its last note in some 18 months’ time. Like other veteran cultural icons, such as Habimah Theater, the JSO is under threat of closure due to its financial predicament.When it was founded in 1936, the JSO was the orchestra of the music division of the Hebrew-language radio station Kol Yerushalayim (Voice of Jerusalem), which after the establishment of the state became Kol Yisrael, the Voice of Israel.The now defunct Israel Broadcasting Authority was established soon after in 1948, and the JSO was an integral part of the IBA, although in the course of time it moved out of the studio and into the concert hall.There were always fiscal problems, because the IBA, due to its haphazard structure, suffered permanent, massive deficits. This was one of the major reasons that the Knesset eventually voted for its demise and decided to replace it with the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, which went to air in May, 2017, after a futile three-year struggle by IBA employees to save their home away from home.With all the marathon sessions that led to the final decision to close down the IBA, none of the legislators took any notice of the IBA’s responsibility for the JSO, and as a result, no budgetary allocation was made for it.Concert revenues do not bring in sufficient funds for all the operational needs, especially salaries.Somehow the powers that be at the JSO managed to wheedle enough money out of the Finance Ministry to keep going for four years. That period will soon expire.The JSO has just 18 months in which to find funds to prevent a permanent cessation of the music.Given the money wasted in elections, along with cutbacks by the Culture and Sport Ministry, it is most unlikely that any government source will come to the rescue.Unless a group of private music lovers establishes some kind of providence fund, it looks as if the JSO’s days are numbered.On the other hand, Mayor Moshe Lion is a great lover of music, so perhaps the municipality may find a creative way to keep the JSO afloat.■ AT THE annual Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference last week, Lion spoke about developing Jerusalem and bringing more foreign embassies to the capital, while Ilanit Melchior, director of tourism for the Jerusalem Development Authority, focused on the correct balance between tourism and sustainability, acknowledging that many Jerusalemites are unhappy about the glut in tourism which encroaches on their daily lives.Anyone who visits the Mahaneh Yehuda market on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning can testify to that. Of course, there are tourists in the market from Sunday to Friday inclusive, but never as many as there are on a Friday morning, coming in large groups and annoying the locals who are there to do their weekend shopping; and the stall keepers around whose merchandise they congregate without buying anything, while impeding access to bona fide shoppers.But even if they don’t spend much in the market, they do spend money in hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops – and they’re coming in ever greater numbers, which accounts for the ever-increasing number of hotels in the downtown area.The Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee, headed by Eliezer Rauchberger, has given the green light to the construction of a six-story, 89-room hotel on Ben Sira Street.The Shani Hotel, originally constructed on the site of the former post office in the passage between Hillel and Shammai streets, keeps expanding sideways and upward, and is currently constructing an additional floor.A new hotel for budget-conscious tourists, the Jeru Cap, has opened on the site of the former Ron Cinema on the corner of Hillel and Rabbi Akiva streets, in which the 82 rooms are actually tiny cabins, which would give claustrophobia to a basketball player, but which are available at the bargain price of NIS 140 a night. The veteran Jerusalem Tower Hotel across the road on Hillel Street has undergone a major facelift.
Related Tagssingerjerusalem theater
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
