The decision by the Tel Aviv Municipality to suspend school visits to Jerusalem because of the security situation there is just another example of how “pampered Tel Aviv lives in its own little ghetto.” The comment was made not by the mayor of Jerusalem – but by the mayor of Haifa, Yona Yahav.
On his Facebook page Sunday, Yahav slammed Tel Aviv for its stance. “I was just in Warsaw, where millions of Jewish children were slaughtered, for a ceremony,” wrote Yahav. “Among the murdered was my mother's family. Fortunately, she had the foresight to move to Israel, to Haifa. The hotel I stayed at was just a few minutes' walk away from what was once the Warsaw Ghetto.
“Perhaps that was why I was so shocked and angry today,” Yahav wrote. “I cannot be angry at the parents who agree with the city's decision to cancel trips to Jerusalem; I too am a worried parent. But these are the same parents who don't blink when their children go to places like Turkey, Nepal, Bulgaria, and Peru. With their own hands, they have marked off the Israeli ghetto for their children, by determining that some parts of the country are 'safe,' and others aren't.
“This is the new ghetto,” Yahav wrote. “The fat, satisfied, pampered ghetto of Tel Aviv that is full of itself. This strange decision is a symptom of a dangerous process Israeli society is undergoing. I am not trying to lecture, but as a public figure it is my job to point out the warning signs.”