Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

A New Symphony for Ramat Gan

Crossposted from Haaretz

Image by Moti Milrod

Quietly, almost imperceptibly, a new Israeli symphony orchestra is emerging. Given the minuscule government budget allocated to local musical ensembles, there will surely be some people who will be unhappy about this: Many advocate the “divide and conquer” ideology that seeks to close down orchestras or at least combine a few together, so that the meager funding available does not have to be spread among too many. Who needs another orchestra here, they say, when the existing ones are starving to death? On the other hand, some people are skeptical about the assumption that reduction of the number of entities will actually increase the share allocated to the remaining bodies — because who can guarantee that the budget will remain at its original level should the number of institutions it supports drops?

In Ramat Gan, it turns out, there has been no such speculation. Indeed, the mayor, Zvi Bar, together with the director of the city’s education department, Moshe Bodega, have set about to establish a symphony orchestra with full funding from the municipality. This is how the Ramat Gan Symphony Orchestra came into being, first as a youth ensemble, then an amateur orchestra, and now a budding professional orchestra.

Read more at Haaretz.com

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.