Save the Nature Museum
Doctors are striking.
Protest tents are popping up like mushrooms in the parks.
The price of gas, electricity and temperatures are rising.
With so many serious issues at once, it was easy to miss a protest meeting
to save the Nature Museum in Jerusalem.
Thousands of visitors drive down this little street leading
to the Moshava Germanit, German Colony parking lot,
and probably never noticed the main entrance to the Nature Museum.
This old Armenian house and sprawling grounds are home to the Nature Museum,
where thousands of children have been exposed to nature and animal life.
In spite of the heat, a crowd gathered in the afternoon on July 26, 2011
to protest its threatened closure.
Professor Ariel Hershfeld was the first of several speakers.
City council member Meir Turgeman, who grew up in the neighborhood,
was the last speaker, and all called for the city to listen to the needs of its residents.
It was hard to gauge the attendance at the protest, as the many activities,
entertainment,
and animals provided constant distractions.
The soft music of this protest was quite a contrast to the loud demonstrations.
If the Shalem Center is to get this beautiful piece of property from the city
for its planned college, then the Nature Museum must be relocated, at the very least.
The grounds of the Hanson Hospital are near by and could be restored
to offer a new and improved Nature Museum for Jerusalem.
There was mumbling in the crowd of another Holyland…
where the interests of business and money win over the interests of the people.
More photos are posted on the Facebook page of The Real Jerusalem Streets.
The Nature Center is a little, sparkling gem in Yerushalayim. It needs better publicity, marketing and it also needs a “hook” – a special something that makes it unique and “valuable” for tourism. Sweetness, pureness, and light fall before big bucks and profits. The government’s priorities are truly skewed in so many areas and the people in Yerushalayim suffer for the government’s gluttinous appetite for control, power and putting money in a relative’s or “owe a favor” to a fat cat friend’s pocket. We Jews have not learned our lesson yet.