On culture wars and holy wars

It’s a slow news day this Friday, and Israel’s two main daily print papers resort to playing up old stories and adding bits and pieces of information to the past week’s most burning reports.

Yedioth Ahronoth leads with Culture Minister Miri Regev’s ongoing clash with the Israeli artistic community, highlighting her rather blunt comments that the country’s artists were “tight-assed, hypocritical and ungrateful,” no less. Artists from various fields have accused the new minister of seeking to limit freedom of expression in the country through anti-democratic measures, and have expressed outrage at her stated intention to defund institutions and subversive works that in her opinion “delegitimize” Israel.

Yedioth analyst Yoaz Hendel, usually a proponent of Regev’s ruling Likud party, writes that while he believes most of the culture minister’s claims are justified, her style is not befitting of an Israeli parliamentarian. “She is acting like an elephant in a China shop,” Hendel offers, “or maybe a bear among ballerinas.”

Nevertheless, Hendel continues, Israeli artists have shown an unacceptable level of contempt and arrogance toward the minister as well. The Yedioth writer stresses that while he is proud to live in a country where freedom of speech is respected and the right to express oneself without fear of legal retribution is guaranteed, the state does not owe the country’s artistic community anything, and therefore has no obligation to fund its creative endeavors.

“We should bankroll critical culture, not hurtful culture,” he writes, referencing the play A Parallel Time, based on the life of the killer of an Israeli soldier and produced by the Arabic-language al-Midan Theater in Haifa. On Tuesday, Regev froze state funding for the theater over its controversial play. “It is unheard of that someone who wants to write a play against the state should receive funding,” Hendel concludes.

In Israel Hayom, the focus is on the torching of the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha, on the Sea of Galilee, on Thursday. According to the paper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally ordered the Shin Bet security service to investigate the suspected arson, which, the Israeli leader said, was an attack on all of us. The paper goes as far as to assert that the suspected arsonists attempted to “ignite a religious war” in the region.

In an entrance corridor of the building, which is believed by Christians to be the site of Jesus’s miracle of multiplying two fish and five loaves to feed 5,000 people, Hebrew graffiti was found, reading, “The false gods will be eliminated” — a quote from the Aleinu prayer, leading authorities to assert that the blaze was the work of Jewish extremists. The church, which is run by the Catholic Benedictine Order, is best known for its fifth-century mosaics, including one depicting two fish flanking a basket of loaves.

Haaretz expands on the torching of the holy site with a report regarding attacks on churches and mosques over the past four years. According to the daily, none of the past 17 cases of assaults on non-Jewish religious buildings or institutions has been solved by police, and no indictments have been filed to the courts.

Also in Haaretz, the paper’s West Bank reporter Chaim Levinson broke an alleged case of nepotism at the nuclear reactor in Dimona. According to Levinson, nine family members of the reactor’s deputy head of human resources work at the site. All nine workers were hired after the deputy head had been appointed to key positions in the department. Employees at the reactor receive a salary significantly higher than the average Israeli worker, Levinson notes, adding that several representatives at the site had complained about the suspected hiring of the deputy head’s family members.

On a lighter note, Yedioth reports on the return of drive-in movie theaters to Tel Aviv as part of the upcoming White Night events next week. John Travolta fans can watch their favorite star on the big screen and sing along to some of Hollywood’s most memorable tunes, as the 1978 classic musical Grease is set to be broadcast on the western wall of the city’s Urban Sports Center.