“You also have to scream and visit, but what will make us grow from this situation – that is the hope”
Elad Kojicro (45) led the evacuation of more than twenty thousand inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona. About half of them have returned to the city since the armistice in the north. Only a few managers of the public sector in Israel had to question such a challenge. But Kojicro, who has led the informal and municipal selection of his hometown for 15 years, strongly refuses to stick to victim history, although the end of the evacuation has not been seen on the horizon for a year and a half since October 7.
On the one hand, the state compatroller already comes to its door and asks how to learn how a city in Israel is referred: “We could not study any evacuation from anyone.” On the other hand – so that the residents return to the city, he needs many budgets. And now.
The community infrastructure can deal with the evacuation
“If there is something that teaches our past, so much less dramatic events in the city are a 20-15-year stagnation,” says Kugaro, Community Center of Kiryat Shmona. There was an important role in evacuation. This is a particularly surprising fact in view of the mixed history of the community center, which occurred in difficulties due to failed behavioral and budget cuts and was finally closed.
“The state was guilty, but we too,” says KoziCro. The closure of the community center became the best -known symbol of the failure of the city to restore the second Lebanonic war. When it was reopened a decade ago and in particular the community infrastructure around them strengthened, Kojicro hired a community of communities that came from the community center. In routine, she is responsible for communities, professional and cultural activities for neighborhoods. Emergency became the operating center of the evacuation and then accompanied the residents of the hotels in the hotels and the evacuation centers in more than 560 locations throughout Israel.
“You couldn’t help but turn.” In the end you can say that it was also successful. But its price is difficult – no neighborhoods, no communities, no families. Thousands of needs, difficulties, frustration and helpless. These stories will shape the image of the city socially, years forward. “
“Communication loves to deal with the victim”
It is difficult to imagine a negative aspect of the Kiryat Shmona evacuation that is not checked: the religious family was an hour of Sabbath without a hotel; Russian -speaking adults with luggage and cat; The residents are difficult to evacuate; Houses burn and young people who do not return to the city in front of the cameras. Something about this story feels too familiar and raises the older question: has something changed or can it change at all?
“I remember how the media came into the city during the Katyushas and the camera was only looking for the girl that leaving the house with the pajamas half -naked and starting to scream,” says Kojicro, “the media loves the victim. ‘Who cooks a meal for everyone?”
Direct injury at home in Kiryat Shmona (Photo: KC)
“The community intensity lies in our people”
What do you think you missed in the history of evacuation?
“Months after the start of the event, when we found that it would take a long time – we said that the residents had to allow something to give them power and meaning. Together with the managers of the community, we collected over 2500 community initiatives – learning groups, circles, gardeners, handicrafts, craft, countless small initiatives, as big as the evacuition.
Good news has no reviews
“I don’t want to draw a pink picture. We have put ourselves in the situation and a very difficult challenge. In the end, the light of the camera switches off and we have left.
In the absence of state community initiatives, we rely on philanthropy
There is another difficult truth that has to be said; Even deeply in the evacuation in relation to the basic needs of living space, schools and basic support from the population – the state did not speak the residents quickly. The Community initiatives cited by Kojicro were mainly due to a number of Philanthropical means that he recruited during the war, which made the community possible.
Like many of the northern leaders, he praised the Negev and Galilean Minister of Yitzhak and Sarlav, who recently returned to his position: “He did not reach the US policy. Professional network.” However, he does not criticize other high -ranking civil servants who are currently not hurried to the northern city – if their presence is necessary. Even today, one and a half years for the event, the budget laws that the rehabilitation budgets are not yet approved have not yet been approved. Although the funds moved to Kiryat Shmona and the rest of the evacuated communities, they were transferred deep into the phono in a limited format. Even then, it was not the amounts that could be answered with the needs of 22,000 people who were evacuated and certainly did not allow their return to the city to be war.
Elad Kojicro. “What enable rehabilitation is hope, mutual guarantee and the intensity of the community” (Photo: David Tversky)
Central concern: that young people will not return to the city
The budget discussions in the Knesset, representative of the north, constantly the word “swing”. It is said that this is a unique economic period that, if it is not exploited, will not return. Do you connect to this concern?
“We are a generation that has felt the inappropriate behavior of a state and a city. The initial rehabilitation must be very short.
Is there a particularly big problem?
“Our young people will not return to the city. At the moment it is almost a fact. In conversations, in meetings and surveys, a population between the ages of 20 and 35 – not here.”
Why are you?
“There is no resident of Kiryat Shmona who did not think of trying his life outside at one point or another.
“Whatever you get out of” cut ” – then take out in” Fish “”
The security situation and economic gaps – these are not just young questions. How do people produce the desire to live here?
“I think and know that the solution of the state is here. Since the center is offended, we allow a real quality of life here. It is not a slogan. The nature of the Galiläs, a work near the house, a room for traveling, the Podtch industry that has already started to get on the feet – everything requires an investment. We have to remember that our window is short.”
How short? According to Cugracho, Kiryat Shmona went at the end of the current year to understand how much money she has created a serious multi -year plan for the development of the city for the next two decades. University you already have. Now you have to see how serious the state will be in relation to statements about the establishment of the train. In addition, the city submitted an offer for a state decision with 10 billion NIS, which focuses on tax discounts and grants, the renewal of the cities and a significant promotion of cultural centers on companies.
“After our review, 40% to 50% of the business owners do not intend to open their business,” he explains. He claims that the best way to make this trend is due to committed subsidies that enable an economic pillow at least in the coming months until the city’s business situation is again an activity scope that was the eve of the war. “The state must understand that what is not going in” Waiting “will take out in this fish: unemployment benefits and national insurance.
Northern Lights School for Kiryat Shmona in Eilat (archive photo: Northern Lights)
“Don’t just draw mistakes”
The northern communities returned to their title last week, with the Hisbollah flags fired in metula on the border and the rockets. Against the background of the considerable cuts in the 2025 budget, the economic problem also increases to Kojicro’s statements. For him, however, this is not only the center flow in the form of special budgets or grants. “We have a great difficulty in absorbing social work. There are standards. Certainly there is demand – but there is no desire to come,” he demonstrates and explains: “This is a very serious problem, but not only money.
“I wonder a lot – how I could keep the philanthropy for so long. The answer is that I don’t just draw it. The philanthropic does not constantly make it constantly to help the arms.
“I’m optimistic. But for the first time in my life I have real concerns.”
They often compare them to Sderot: the population, the periphery, the war and the evacuation. Despite everything she has gone through, she is caught in a success story. Is that a fair comparison?
“There are similar stories here, but the differences are miserable and essential. There is also a train there and it is only an hour from Tel Aviv that they already understand in the 1970s what they experience from the 2000s in the 1970s. So there was no communication with everything, social networks and a world in which everyone knows everything.
“Sderot’s contemporary leadership was able to take advantage of their growth crisis. They could see the resources and budgets that they gave them a lot more than we were in the past. It has to do with the fact that we are in a different time and there is a different awareness, but also the right management.”
Can you manage to stay optimistic?
“I am also optimistic. But for the first time in my life – I have real concerns. I honestly convinced that we have been combined with the experience that we have accumulated in the past year and a half – that if we work hard, we will be successful, but I know that I live in me. If all the stars do not work, we will no longer be in mind if we let ourselves down.”
Thing today
Every morning with you by e -mail
