Budget passed for Arab street names in Jaffa
Arab protest in Jaffa is successful. After two years of struggle, six streets to be named after Arab figures. Municipal budget passed for their inauguration. Council member Ahmad Masharawi: 'Gap is still big, we will continue demanding more streets named after Arabs'
The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality authorized a budget to inaugurate Arab street names in Jaffa. Four days after Jaffa residents protested against the municipality's plan to inaugurate a street named after the Jewish couple, Tajir, who were among the founders of Tel Aviv, as opposed to naming streets after Arab figures, the municipal finance committee passed a budget of NIS 50,000 (about $13,350) for funding the inauguration ceremonies for streets named after Arab figures in Jaffa.
The six streets that will be named after Arab figures, one of them a woman, are currently indicated only by numbers. They are all small streets that branch off of Jaffa's main street, Yefet Street.
Following are the new names of the streets: Khalil Gibran, Emile Habibi, Ibn Khaldoun, Naguib Mahfouz, Adele Azar, Harun al-Rashid. Chairwoman of the municipal names committee, Haviva Avi-Guy, promised, "There are more names of Arab figures that are waiting for authorization that we will commemorate in the future."
The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality took great pride in recent years that the municipal names committee chose to commemorate six Arab figures in the streets of Jaffa. However, the decision remained on paper only. This did not particularly bother the municipality, much to the chagrin of Jaffa's Arabs. For example, the municipality recently named a street near Jaffa Port after the Tajir couple, Jews who helped found the city.
The Arab protest, spearheaded by Meretz and Councilman Ahmad Masharawi, was a success. The budget was passed that would finally make it possible to inaugurate the streets under their new names in the coming months.
Councilwoman and Meretz representative, Tami Zandberg, said to Mynet: "Our demands from the municipality on this subject went on for a long time. The money finally passed yesterday (Tuesday). The budget authorization was for the current year, so we expect to see the streets' inauguration soon."
Councilman Masharawi said, "This was not a game, but an essential matter of principle. Yesterday I counted how many streets in Jaffa have Arab names, and didn't count more than one hand's worth. We will continue to demand that more streets be named after Arab figures. It is a nice and welcomed move, but the gap is still big."
