The event apparently came in protest against “loyalty bill” that passed this week in the Knesset’s first reading, initiated by Regev.

Statue of Minister of Culture and Sports Miri Regev on HaBima square in Tel Aviv, November 8, 2018
Statue of Minister of Culture and Sports Miri Regev on HaBima square in Tel Aviv, November 8, 2018. (photo credit: EYTAN HALON)

 

A statue of the Minister of Culture and Sports Miri Regev was put up in Habima square in Tel Aviv on Thursday morning. The statute, placed by the artist Itai Zalait, shows the minister in a dress standing in front of a mirror, next to a sign that read “In the heart of the nation.”

The event apparently came in protest of the “loyalty bill,” initiated by Regev, which passed a first reading this week in the Knesset.

“It’s my right as an artist to free expression in the public square,” said Zalait in an interview to the Army Radio. “We are not sure we’ll be able to do it in a few years.”

Regev thanked Zalait for the statue. “In the past three years,” Regev said, “I have done a great deal of placing a mirror in front of the Israeli cultural world, revealing the exclusion of entire populations and the patronage of those who think of themselves as the heart of the nation.

“Well, the people, in all its parts, is my mirror,” she added. “The principles of cultural justice are what is reflected before my eyes in the face of Cinderella’s story and the legendary statement ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, what are the ugliest injustices of them all?’ ”

In a similar incident, in August 2017, the Jerusalem Municipality removed a golden statue of Supreme Court President Miriam Naor, which was placed by unknown artist in front of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, and removed by the police.

As reported by The Jerusalem Post