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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Activism Home page  back Print  Send To friend Right wingers furious at Haifa`s bid to honour Egyptian diva https://www.ynetnews.com/culture/article/ryMfTDTev Haifa town council head defends the decision name one of the city`s streets in honor of Umm Kulthum, who was adored by Jews and performed in the city in 1930s, while critics, amongst whom is PM`s son, call the move `shameful and crazy` | Published: 07.28.20 , 12:27 Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum (Photo: AFP) Haifa - Israel`s third largest city, where roughly 10 percent of its 300,000 residents are Arab - decided earlier this month to honour the woman whose deep, resonant voice was also adored by many Jews. Advertisement The decision After the Umm Kulthum honour was announced, Haifa newspaper Kol Po published a front page black-and-white picture of the singer with some of her lyrics scrawled across the image. Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum (Photo: AFP) Advertisement `Now I have a gun, take me in, Palestine, with you,` were the printed lines from one of her songs dedicated to the Palestinians. During the 1967 Six Day War, the artist sometimes dubbed Egypt`s `Fourth Pyramid`, also performed a song that willed her nation to victory against Israel. Writing in Kol Po, a lawmaker from the right-wing Likud party, Ariel Kallner, said he was `saddened` by Haifa`s decision to honour a woman `who called for the destruction of the Jewish state`. He vowed to find ways to block the street-naming. And Prime Minister Benjamin`s Netanyahu son Yair, a vocal and often bombastic social media commentator, tweeted that the honour was `shameful and crazy`. Despite Netanyahu`s outrage, his father`s government supported a festival in 2013 that included a night devoted to Umm Kulthum`s work. And Haifa is not the first Israeli city to honour `the Lady of Cairo`. In 2011, the mainly Arab Beit Hanina neighbourhood in east Jerusalem named a street after her and a similar move is planned in the central city of Ramla. But as the trend has spread, Jewish outrage appears to have grown. Writing in the Israel Hayom newspaper, commentator Eldad Beck sounded an alarm about the string of Umm Kulthum honours. `It started with Jerusalem, then Ramla and has ended up in Haifa,` Beck wrote, blasting the push `to commemorate one of the biggest and most influential enemies of Israel, who wanted to annihilate the state`. Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum (Photo: AFP) Advertisement Reducing the controversy surrounding Umm Kulthum to tensions between Arabs and Jews underestimates her wide array of devotees, said Jonathan Mandel, an Arabic language and culture researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He stressed that Mizrahi Jews, meaning those from North Africa and the Middle East, are equally attached to her music. Cohen told AFP that the former chief Sephardic rabbi, Iraqi-born Ovadia Yosef, used to play Umm Kulthum`s music during parties and would sing along to her Arabic lyrics. Links to the latest articles in this section Israelis support Russian opposition to the Ukraine War All to Burin this Friday! Stand with the Palestinians against settler violence! The burial of ashes - an emotionally loaded day