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3 Nissan 5764 - March 25, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Yad Vashem Cancelled Prize to Tumarkin Following Yated Ne'eman Expose
By Betzalel Kahn

Israeli artist Yigal Tumarkin is currently slated to receive the Israeli Prize awarded every year on Independence Day of the State of Israel. Though Tumarkin has expressed himself in ways that deeply insulted most of the citizenry of Israel at one time or another, the prize committee decided to award him anyway. The Movement for Decent Government filed a motion with the High Court to change the award.

If the High Court searches for a precedent to cancel a publicly award prize in the State of Israel it will not have to look far: Yigal Tumarkin himself can serve as an example. Six years ago Yad Vashem decided not to award him its Zussman Prize following a Yated Ne'eman report on extreme remarks Tumarkin had made previously. The prize he had been slated to receive is designated for Israeli artists "who give creative expression to the horrors of the Holocaust."

Members of the prize committee had been unaware of Tumarkin's remarks against the chareidi public and against the Holocaust itself. Just days before the prize ceremony was scheduled, disturbing quotes by Tumarkin were printed in Yated Ne'eman including, "Seeing them [the chareidim] makes one understand why the Holocaust happened, why Jews are not liked" -- a remark that led the committee to cancel the prize.

Chareidi Holocaust survivors were baffled by the thought that a prize was about to be awarded to an individual who expressed such harsh, anti-Jewish sentiments. The Yated Ne'eman report sent storm waves through the media and the general public. Knesset members from every party were infuriated and some even threatened to petition the High Court if the prize was awarded to Tumarkin. Even the Education Ministry contacted Yad Vashem to request the prize be cancelled. A group of Holocaust survivors called Dor Sheini hired a lawyer to demand that Yad Vashem not award the prize, threatening to petition the High Court.

That same day the Yad Vashem board chairman convened the Executive Committee which, after long hours of debate, decided not to award the prize to Tumarkin. "After the Executive Committee gathered all of the details about Yigal Tumarkin's remarks, which were made known to Yad Vashem only recently, and after examining hundreds of requests, the organization received from a wide segment of the public, particularly Holocaust survivors, the Executive Committee decided, following an in-depth and prolonged discussion on the issue, that after weighing all perspectives there is no alternative other than to cancel the decision to award him the Zussman Prize," said the announcement by the Yad Vashem spokeswoman.

Previously there was a court indictment against Tumarkin for his extreme remarks. The indictment was only issued after a delay of several years due repeated efforts by the State legal system to protect him. Eventually the case was brought to court more than six years after the remarks were publicized. When the hearings began Judge David Rosen said he is instructing the Prosecutor's Office to close the case without finding the accused guilty for the sole reason that more than seven years had passed since Tumarkin's original article was published, and the delay is unconscionable.

 

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