The Bnei Brak Municipality has
conveyed its shock at the
current despicable incitement campaign
conducted by anti-
religious elements against changing the name of
part of what
has been Herzl Street to commemorate Maran HaRav
Elozor
Menachem Man Shach, ztvk"l.
The campaign has
included stories in the press and
demonstrations in Bnei Brak, in
spite of the fact that the
decision to change the name was by a
democratic, unanimous
vote in the Bnei Brak Municipal Council that
included
representatives of Shas and Labor. Further, all the
residents
of the part of the street in question welcome the
change.
Streets throughout the country have always been renamed
at
the passing of great national figures. In addition,
Bnei Brak
Secretary and Spokesman Rabbi Avraham Tennenbaum
said that most of the
polemics against the name change lead
the public to believe that the
entire length of Herzl Street
is be renamed for HaRav Shach. In fact,
the change involves
only the part from numbers 1 thorough 60: which
extends from
Rabbi Akiva to Jabotinsky Streets and includes the
central
Itzkowitz Shul. The section from Jabotinsky to
Abarbanel
Streets, numbers 60-107, will retain the name
Herzl.
According to Tennenbaum, the decision sprung from a desire
to
name a main street after Maran HaRav Shach, ztvk"l, who
was
the spiritual leader of Torah Judaism for scores of years
while he
lived in Bnei Brak. This is why it was decided to
break up Herzl
Street as is routinely done elsewhere in Bnei
Brak and in many other
places in Israel. Other streets in
Bnei Brak that already follow this
patter include Ezra,
Maimon, and HaRav Kahaneman. As the largest
religious city in
Israel, Bnei Brak feels a responsibility to
commemorate the
names of Torah giants who do not have streets named
after
them in other cities. Moreover, that particular part of
Herzl
Street was though especially appropriate since it includes
the
Itzkowitz Tiferes Tzvi shul, whose recent remodeling
Maran
initiated.
Tennenbaum expressed his amazement at the hypocritical
uproar
against the name change. No one expressed a word of
protest
when the large square in Tel Aviv, Kikar Malchei Yisroel,
was
renamed Kikar Rabin; when Beilinson Hospital was renamed
Rabin
Medical Center; or when Tel Aviv's Rechov Gibborei
Yisroel was changed
to Yigal Allon Street, and many more.
This shows clearly that the
protest is merely an excuse to
once again target the chareidi
population.
Rabbi Tennenbaum also expressed his astonishment at
the short
memory evident in the protest by the World
Zionist
Organization. During the first, difficult days after Bnei
Brak
was formed, many appeals by it to the WZO and to Keren
Hayesod for
help went unanswered.
Tennenbaum also noted that so much publicity
was given to
this name change, while another decision by the Street
Naming
Committee at the same meeting was completely ignored: to
change
the name of Rechov Hama'apilim in the Pardes Katz
neighborhood to
commemorate the memory of city resident
Binyomin Avrohom, Hy"d,
one of the three Israeli
soldiers who were murdered in
Lebanon.
The change was decided upon at a special meeting of the
Bnei
Brak Municipal Street Naming Committee and was
unanimously
approved. Committee Chairman Rabbi Shlomo Kostelitz said,
"It
is a great zechus for Bnei Brak to perpetuate the name
of
the gaon hador, who impressed his seal on our city
and on all
Jewry."
