The monster in Kiryat Yuval or “the Golem” which is its official name, under construction, 1971
More from Once upon a time in Jerusalem.
In 1971, the French-American avant-garde artist Nikki Dove San Pal was invited by Martin Weil, who was the director general of the Israel Museum, to create a sculpture in the streets of Jerusalem.
The statue was part of a series of sculptures that were placed in Jerusalem in the 70s and 80s by leading sculptors from around the world who were brought by the Jerusalem Foundation and the Jerusalem Municipality in order to bring some life, class and culture to the developing city and the gray neighborhoods that were built in the west of the city after the War of independence.
The artist was brought to Kiryat Yuval, then a drab working-class neighborhood built mainly in long rows of drab railway buildings with several entrances, no elevators and poor construction quality.
When the statue was presented to the Jerusalem City Council for approval, the council members opposed its construction.
The late Teddy Kolek, the mythical mayor of Jerusalem, was furious, and invited the statue with her dignity to come from Paris and present the statue to the members of the council, and with a lot of personal charm and a French accent, she managed to convince the opponents.
In the end, the monster was erected, and became an icon and a landmark, and a meeting place for children from the neighborhood and nearby neighborhoods, “meeting at four in the monster”, and its strategic location turned the intersection where it was erected into the intersection of the monster, and the original name remained only with the artist and in written literature.
The official name of the garden is Rabinovitch Garden, named after the family that contributed to the establishment of the garden.
Over the years, the city and the infrastructure deteriorated in the nineties, and so did the physical condition of the poor monster, until it became a safety hazard, and the garden around it was neglected.
In the 2000s, Kiryat Yuval, which in the meantime had become a neighborhood for the middle class, began to undergo a process of deterioration in various areas of the neighborhood and the character of the neighborhood changed.
Overt and covert struggles began to develop between the old secular population, and the new population that migrated from the Orthodox Beit Vagan neighborhood.
The monster became the symbol of the secular struggle, when the first secular neighborhood pub opened on Shabbat near the garden.
Most probably today the monster or other statues would not have been erected in the city, due to a cultural clash between the various currents, and due to many objections and power struggles, at best a small sculpture made of plasticine would have been erected that did not express anything and would not have upset anyone.
and today-
In 2022, the statue was preserved and renovated for the benefit of the residents of the area.
Kiryat Yuval is currently becoming a neighborhood of high-rise towers as part of the urban renewal that is sweeping the city, quiet and sleepy buildings and streets are quietly turning into housing complexes of hundreds of units, and some claim that the monster is no longer the statue, but the tall buildings that surround it.
The neighborhood is expected to include thousands of new housing units in the coming decade, the two light rail lines are expected to meet at the monster intersection, and the innocence and naivety that characterized the neighborhood during the first decades of its construction, will be replaced by huge towers, commercial boulevards, and a diverse population, which will change the face of the neighborhood and the city.
This is our Jerusalem-
New next to old, old train houses that will be demolished in favor of progress and changing needs, global secular culture versus orthodox conservatism,
A sleepy neighborhood that changes its skin and changes into huge towers, a neighborhood pub that is open on Saturdays, and one teddy Kollek.
Shabbat of peace to far and near from Jerusalem, and may we hear B’sorot Tovot.
