Israeli city won’t stock Arabic library books, local NGO says
Upper Nazareth municipality indicates separate library being established for town's 20% Arab community
The northern Israeli city of Upper Nazareth, which has an estimated Arab population of 19 percent, has refused to stock books in Arabic in the municipal library, according to a local NGO for civil rights.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) submitted a petition to the Nazareth District Court seeking to force the municipality to include books in the Arabic language among its collection, according to a Channel 10 report.
The municipal library holds books in other foreign languages including Spanish and Russian, ACRI said, but not one in Arabic.
ACRI said the lack of such books “harms the ability of the Arab citizens of the city to use their language and [harms] their right to equality. Municipal libraries are funded by taxpayers and should be accessible to all citizens.”
The NGO further charged that some 2,000 Arabic-speaking children in the city were denied their right to enrichment activities — story hour, lectures, assistance with homework — which are all held in Hebrew at the library.
In response, the city said it purchased 150 books in Arabic and placed them in a culture and sports center for youth in one the city’s neighborhoods. It added that a separate library for the city’s Arab community would be established.
Upper Nazareth, also known as Nazareth Illit is a city of over 40,000, mostly Jewish Israelis which sits right next to the Arab-majority city of Nazareth in the upper Galilee.