A GUTSY ISRAELI DEFIES THE ARTISTS THAT BOYCOTT ARIEL’S ARTS CENTER
Leading Stage Props Firm Boycotts Ariel Boycotters
by Gil Ronen
Follow Israel news . http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140593
Hayik Bamot, a veteran stage props firm that is one of the best known names in the field, has announced that it will boycott all productions that employ the artists who initiated the boycott of Ariel’s newly-opened cultural center.
“I am one of the veterans of the theater and stage props branch in Israel,” announced the company’s owner, Yitzchak Hayik, in a statement to the his clients, suppliers and friends. “I have taken an active part in the construction and and display of ‘Festigal’ musicals, huge ceremonies, plays and films. Presidents and leaders from all over the world have delivered speeches on my stages and I have built sets for the best artists and singers.”
“Today, in the midst of the public storm over the artists’ boycott of the Ariel Cultural Hall, I have decided to turn to you directly and to announce, without fear or regret, that just as artists, playwrights and actors refuse to perform before our brothers, neighbors and and friends in Ariel, so do I refuse to take part in any play, production or musical that has the initiators of this boycott among its creators and participants.
“I am unwilling to create stages for them; I will not let them step upon my stages; I will not supply them with stage elements and props and you are hereby requested in no uncertain terms not to send our firm any price offer or tender to a play whose creators include that bunch of holier-than-thou bleeding hearts who are tearing our nation apart.”
“I never thought that I would say this and I have always refrained from mixing politics and business since it is not the businesslike thing to do in our small country, and just as I built stages and sets beyond the Green Line, I was proud to set up and build the stages in the rallies and conventions of the peace camp. As I built scenery for the speeches of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, I put up podiums and Israel flags for the late Yitzchak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yossi Sarid. But at this point I must say – no more! The time has come when we as citizens in this torn land, must speak our minds.
“After years of boycotts, disputes over religion, politics, ethnicity an what not – it is inconceivable that some of our citizens will be considered ‘untouchable’ by the same elite of self-knighted intellectual aristocrats who believe they have the right to determine what is moral and what is not.”
“After all,” writes Hayik, “many of Israel’s cities are at least partly situated atop areas that Arabs were evicted from, or ‘occupied land’ as these wondrous playwrights and artists call it. Do these humanistic playwrights know that the coffee shops in Ramat Aviv where they spend their afternoons sit atop the ruins of the Arab village Sheikh Munis whose inhabitants fled in 1948? Is it simply easier to boycott Ariel?”
“My sons served in elite units in the IDF, and when we hosted their comrades in our home – including soldiers from Ariel, Alfei Menashe, Ofra and the communities of Gush Etzion – I was moved to see ‘the salt of the Land’, the finest boys, who supply the state with an abundance of will and spirit that ensures our eternal presence here as long as it flows. Are these good enough to fight and defend the nation’s borders, to risk their lives without blinking, but not good enough to view the plays of [playwrights] Sobol and Hasfari?”
Hayik calls upon other professionals in his field to join his boycott of the boycotters and ends his missive with hearty well-wishes to the residents of Ariel, “the pioneers of our generation.”
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
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