Golda Meir. Soon to appear on Jerusalem street sign
Photo: Knesset website
Jerusalem streets to put a face to name
Capital's municipality to replace all street signs named after famous people with new signs featuring personality's image, story
You're driving through the city and you pass by all kinds of streets - Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Henrietta Szold, Golda Meir, Yigal Alon. How many of you actually know who these people are and what they look like?
Well, a new Jerusalem initiative will enable passersby to get better acquainted with the personality behind the street name.
Israel's cities are full of boulevards and streets named after various personalities, both Israeli and foreign. Sometimes you know exactly who the name behind the street is and what they looked like, in other cases you may just have a general idea, and there are times when you have no idea whatsoever who the street is referring to.
This is why the Jerusalem Municipality has decided to embark on an operation, the first of its kind in Israel, that will allow residents to enrich their general knowledge on significant personalities.
In the near future, the city will start replacing all signs of streets named after people with new and more detailed ones.
Each sign will feature the name of the street and a black-and-white portrait of the personality on one side, while exhibiting the person's details, such as date of birth, date of death, and activities the personality is best known for on the other side.
The idea for the new signs was recently proposed to Mayor Nir Barkat by Zion Turjeman, director-general of the Ariel company, a subsidiary of the Jerusalem Municipality. The mayor loved the idea and appointed artist Yotam Kuperberg and entrepreneur Maya Fogel to be in charge of preparing the new street signs.
A Jerusalem Municipality source said, "Finally the citizens will be able to connect between the name and what it represents."
The only thing that may disrupt the new initiative is the possibility that members of the ultra-Orthodox community may not appreciate seeing pictures of woman appearing on street signs all over the city.
