The Mayor of Tzfat, Yishai Maimon, Berates Those Who Remain as "The Poor and Unfortunate Who Have Nowhere to Go"

I just read in TzfatLine, the e-mail newsletter that is sent out to subscribers in Tzfat and the environs, that some 70% of Tzfat's residents have left the city. I do not know if the figure is accurate. I do know that many have left.

I certainly do not judge those people, but neither will I, who choses to remain out of conviction sit in silence while the mayor, Yishai Maimon, represents those who stay as "the poor and unfortunate who have nowhere to go".

Just for the record: Our daughter in Tel Aviv has a reinforced room and has urged us repeatedly to come stay with her, Dan's family is in Binyamina, we have friends in Kiryat Gat and Ra'anana who have extended open invitations and we have relatives in the States and England.

We ***choose*** to stay in Tzfat. We renew that choice every day.

We don't expect to be treated like heroes by the municipality for making that decision. We consider it just doing our bit for the sake of keeping Israel's northern area populated.
But we certainly do not wish to be insulted and misrepresented by our mayor either.

I realize that he said that to schnor, but let him make himself look pathetic in order to grub money from the government, not me and mine.

To heap calumny on the bravest and most loyal of Tzfat's residents, if I may be frank and tell it like it is, was really an all-time low, even for this mayor who had already racked up quite a track record of unwise pronouncements and decisions.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat (Safed), Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com