Over the past month or so, all roads have led to Jerusalem as delegations representing organizations and institutions flocked to the capital to bid farewell to outgoing President Reuven Rivlin.
Among those closer to home and heart was a delegation from the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, which are located in the grounds of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Aside from coming to thank Rivlin for what he has been doing on behalf of nature and the environment, the delegation led by CEO Tom Amit came to promise the president that it would continue with an initiative begun three years ago in the name of the president’s late wife, Nechama Rivlin, who was a great nature-lover and a frequent visitor to the Botanical Gardens.
Among Nechama Rivlin’s many loves in the sphere of nature were wildflowers, especially rare varieties that were in danger of becoming extinct. Thus the initiative with which the Botanical Gardens staff and volunteers are continuing is to rescue wildflowers and to plant their cuttings until they take root, and then replant them in public and private gardens. Among the volunteers in this initiative are people with special needs. Helping to preserve Israel’s beauty puts them on an equal footing with mainstream Israel, and is the best therapy they can get.
In sharing information about the many farewell events that have taken place inside the President’s Residence and in various parts of the country, Rivlin said if his wife was still alive and participating in some of these events, given a choice, she would surely have chosen the one in which the delegation from the Botanical Gardens not only came to say goodbye, but also to bring some pots in which cuttings had been planted and are already growing at an appreciable pace. Rivlin will be able to take them to his new home in King David Street, overlooking the walls of the Old City.
Rivlin said that whenever he is abroad, he likes to visit the local botanical gardens, and when at home, when time permits, he likes to visit the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. No doubt he will be spending time there with some of his grandchildren.
■ RAMI LEVY, arguably Jerusalem’s best-known businessman, is adding to the diversity of his group that includes supermarkets, house products, fast-food pizza and hamburger outlets, low-cost clothing and shoes, real-estate development, cellular communications and the controlling interest in Israir Airlines. In recent weeks, Levy sealed a deal with Brown Hotels – owned by Leon Avigad, Nir Weitzman and Nitzan Peri – to buy resort hotels in Greece. Levy will have a 25% stake in the new venture and Brown, via a Cypriot company, will have a 75% controlling interest. The idea is for a package to Greece that includes an Israir flight and staying in one of the new company’s hotels.
■ VENTURE CAPITALIST Erel Margalit and his wife, Debbie, married off two daughters within a span of six weeks. The second wedding, of their daughter Ta’ir to Lior, was definitely a modest, casual family affair with a few close friends. It was held in the garden of the Margalit home, where the bride grew up and felt most comfortable surrounded by all that was familiar to her, including the way in which her father was dressed. No suit and tie, just jeans and matching open-necked blue shirt. He said he felt privileged to have been at both weddings.
■ ACCORDING TO a report in Yediot Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion overstepped the mark by interfering in the internal politics of Hitorerut (Wake Up), the opposition party at City Hall, which is headed by Ofer Berkowitz. It appears from the report that Hitorerut member Yamit Yoeli Ella refused to honor a rotation agreement within the party, whereby the positions she holds at the half-way term of the current City Council would be transferred to someone else. When she refused to give up her positions, Berkowitz filed a motion with the municipal secretariat calling for her dismissal from all the committees on which she sits in the name of Hitorerut. But at the council meeting, Lion dropped a bombshell by championing Yoeli Ella and refusing to accede to Berkowitz’s request. Berkowitz was understandably livid, declaring that he could not recall a time in which the mayor interfered in the internal decisions of the opposition as to who will represent it.
Before taking sides, Lion had reportedly consulted the city’s legal adviser and had been told there was nothing amiss in his support of Yoeli Ella.
Berkowitz disagreed, shouting that Lion’s action was entirely undemocratic, and insofar as the legality of Lion’s interference was concerned, rules were being constantly broken in the bid to please the mayor, he said.
■ THE MAYOR, who during his army service used to sing with the IDF Rabbinical Choir, is due to attend a festive Shabbat concert of Sephardi and North African liturgical music at the Great Synagogue on August 13. Also in attendance will be Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Shlomo Moshe Amar and City Council member Arieh King.
The singers will include Moshe Douek, Moshe Luk, Shimon Siboni, Moshe Habush and Zion Yehezkeli, who will literally be music to Lion’s Sephardi ears.
Lion, who is of Greek descent, is the city’s first Sephardi mayor.
■ ALL CHILDREN, regardless of the system of education under which they study, deserve to have a proper school, replete with the facilities of a modern educational institution. Many of the educational institutions in the haredi sector are makeshift, without proper classrooms or the continuity of a permanent building complex. That is the case of a religious girls’ school in Givat Shaul, where students have for years been studying in temporary premises and in caravans that are cold and which have leaking roofs in winter.
Deputy Mayor Rabbi Eliezer Rochberger has been working for quite some time to secure all the necessary building permits to put up a proper school on the site, and has finally succeeded in completing all the paperwork and getting approval for a six-story structure that will house 24 classrooms, 16 of which will replace the existing caravans.
Givat Shaul is by and large an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of large families, and more classrooms will be needed in the future to accommodate the growing number of students. Rochberger aimed for a building that will have more classrooms than are currently needed. By the time the building is ready to be occupied, there will undoubtedly be a need to put some of those extra classrooms to use.
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