City Notes: Interfaith group donates NIS 1m. for Haifa fire restoration

News briefs from around the nation.

By COMPILEDJULIE STEIGERWALD
The Chamber Music Festival (photo credit: FACEBOOK)
The Chamber Music Festival
(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
NORTH
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews donated NIS 1 million for the restoration of a children’s playground that was ravaged by flames in a string of fires that struck Haifa in November, the Haifa Municipality announced Sunday.
In a ceremony with Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, the charity organization’s president, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, presented the donation, which is intended to go toward rebuilding a playground complex in the city’s Romema neighborhood.
The funds are to be used to restore facilities that include swings, slides, climbing towers and various other attractions for children. The donation will also help fund the installation of a soft, colorful turf ground surface, structures to shade playground- goers from the sun and asphalt trails. The municipality has also pledged to assist in the landscaping and lighting.
Hundreds of homes in Haifa were destroyed as a result of the blazes, prompting thousands of residents to evacuate their homes and schools. Damage from the fires was estimated at more than $200m., with the total cost to the national economy totaling more than half a billion dollars
CENTER
Take part in art in Kiryat Hamelacha
Tel Aviv’s southern Kiryat Hamelacha neighborhood is hosting colorful art and culture events throughout the month of January.
Until January 21, the Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Center is presenting an exhibition titled “Post-colonialism?” featuring more than a dozen Israeli and international artists. Curated by Wendy Gers, the show explores the role of colonialism in social and cultural relations around the world and the questions that arise from the complex interrelationships between the personal and the political, and the conqueror and the conquered.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Israel’s Ayelet Zohar, Canada’s Corwyn Lund, Anthony Stellaccio from the US, Palestinian artist Manal Morcos, Neha Kudchadkar from India and Holland’s Pablo Ponce.
In addition, the Tel Aviv neighborhood’s decades-old Artspace complex is offering an array of workshops, lectures and exhibitions to ring in the new year. One such exhibition is the group mixed-media display “Flood,” featuring works by Israeli artists Amir Nave, Goni Harlap, Vered Nissim, Yaniv Cohen, Nachum Gutman, Raffi Lavie and Simcha Shirman. The exhibition is open until January 21.
Raise a glass, and your spirits, at White City wine fair
All those seeking shelter from Tel Aviv’s (not so) harsh winter weather, or those simply looking to raise their spirits, are welcome to raise a glass at the Derech Hayayin (Wineroute) winter alcohol and spirits fair at Dizengoff Center.
Quality wines, beers and other seasonal alcohols will be served at the January 19 event, which is open to the general public aged 18 and up. Doors open at 7 p.m. at the Derech Hayayin branch located at 50 Dizengoff Street in the Dizengoff Center mall.
Tickets cost NIS 50 and are available at bit.ly/2hN7FiX.
Ramat Gan adds new services for olim
An interdepartmental office that assists new immigrants in Ramat Gan has added an employment and volunteer coordinator to its services, the office told Metro.
The Olim Department, which operates in coordination with the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, the Ramat Gan Municipality and the Education Ministry, is part of a wider Idud Aliya project that works to help olim integrate within their municipalities.
Along with the new employment and volunteer coordinator, the Ramat Gan department consists of three educational guidance counselors, who work with families and students through 12th grade; two post-aliya advisers who help with navigating the bureaucratic system of governmental offices; and a recreational activities coordinator.
Staff members speak various languages, including Russian and English, and they have all made aliya or are first-generation Israelis.
For more information about the department and its services, visit www.ramat-gan.info/olim-rg/.
SOUTH
Chamber music festival coming to Eilat in February
The Eilat Chamber Music Festival is to be held in the first week of February. During the festival, running from February 1 to 4, various concerts will be held at the Big Blue Hall and Tarshish Hall at the Dan Eilat Hotel.
Featured artists include the Geneva Camerata, conductor David Greilsammer, the Gabrieli Consort & Players, the Van Kuijk Quartet, pianist Rena Shereshevkaya and cellist Hillel Zori.
The festival will also offer master classes from January 29 to February 4, with a focus on string instruments, piano and trumpet.
In addition, teachers from the Vienna-Tel Aviv Vocal Connection will offer a master class for singers seeking to develop and refine their sound. An application form for master classes is available at www.eilat-festival.co.il/en/masterclass/.
Tickets are available for individual concerts and in package deals at a discounted price. Single concert tickets range in price from NIS 148 to NIS 195. A 10% discount is available for the purchase of three to five concert tickets, and a 20% discount is available for the purchase of six or more concert tickets. Tickets are available at www.eventim.co.il/ or by calling *9066 or (03) 511-1777.


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