Mt Herzl on last year's Remembrance Day
Photo: AFP
Jerusalem neighborhood to cancel children’s choir for Remembrance Day
Har Homa, attempting to organize a ceremony for all the community’s members, announced the planned children choir, which includes girls, will not perform.
The community council of Jerusalem's Har Homa neighborhood decided on Sunday to cancel a performance by a children's choir at the upcoming Remembrance Day ceremony to avoid offending the ultra-Orthodox residents.
A statement from the council chairman, Shlomo Golbury, stated that he had consulted with several interested parties and had decided "to cancel all singing of any kind," which he wrote would be replaced with prerecorded or live instrumental music.
Har Homa (Photo: AFP)
Har Homa, officially called "Homat Shmuel," is a mixed Jewish neighborhood that has secular, religious and ultra-Orthodox residents. This month, the neighborhood council's youth committee held a meeting intended to set the parameters for one group ceremony for Remembrance Day, rather than a variety of ceremonies for the different sectors as have been held in previous years.
All the representatives at the conference understood that such an undertaking would require compromises. During the meeting, the idea was floated that the secular sector would agree to give up any female singing in exchange for the religious sector’s giving up a rabbi’s speaking at the ceremony.
This agreement was presented to Golbury when he addressed the youth committee’s latest meeting and suggested that a representative of the secular committee make a speech alongside the rabbi. Somebody suggested a children’s choir as another option.
Golbery, who belongs to the Zionist Haredi movement, wrote in his letter that this option “would not be acceptable to all residents.”
Rabbi Aaron Liebowitz, a Jerusalem city councilor, was infuriated by the decision. He wrote, “The exclusion of children from the stage is the embodiment of exaggeration and extremism… The moderate public in Israel and in the capital are under attack. We see this in pronouncements about IDF service and in topics related to Shabbat.
“Extremist and delusional elements cannot set the agenda and control the nature of the public space.”
The City of Jerusalem released a statement in response that condemned the decision, rejected “any kind of exclusion” and said that they would not “permit exclusion at municipal events.”
The city further announced that it had informed the neighborhood council that its plans were unacceptable and would not receive municipal funding if the event takes place as outlined in Golbery’s letter.
(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
