Artist Demands NIS 600,000 Over Memorial Credit Dispute
Translated & summarized from Ynet by baba
Artist Sarah Konforti is suing the Kfar Yona municipality for NIS 600,000, claiming her name was removed from a memorial she created for the Beit Lid bombing victims. She alleges defamation and lack of proper credit, which she believes violates copyright law. The municipality is preparing its defense.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Artist Sarah Konforti is suing for NIS 600,000 over memorial credit.
- She claims her name was removed from the Beit Lid bombing memorial.
- Konforti states her sole authorship is not being recognized.
- The Kfar Yona municipality is preparing a defense.
- This follows a previous legal dispute over the memorial.
Artist Sarah Konforti is suing the Kfar Yona municipality and its mayor, Albert Tayeb, for NIS 600,000, alleging defamation and the removal of her name from a memorial she created. Konforti designed and built the memorial in memory of the victims of the 1995 Beit Lid suicide bombing, a project she worked on for three years. She claims her name is not properly credited, stating that while her name appears on a sign with 12 other contributors, it is not prominently displayed at the entrance as befits the sole creator. She argues that copyright law mandates that the artist's name be displayed on the work itself.
Konforti won a tender in 1996 to create the memorial, with an agreement signed two years later for her to design and build it. She states that a sign with her name as the sole creator was temporarily erected in 2023 after Susi Kehalon Kidron became mayor, funded by Konforti herself. However, she alleges that when Albert Tayeb was elected mayor in 2025, this sign was removed, and he has refused to return it. Konforti feels this constitutes a deliberate erasure of her identity as the creator, causing her significant distress.
This is not Konforti's first legal battle over the memorial. In 2003, she lost a lawsuit against victims' families regarding proposed changes to the site, though the court at the time indicated she could pursue further action if the agreement was breached after the site's completion. Her attorney, Yaniv Kehat, stated that the defendants are unreasonably refusing to provide Konforti with proper credit for her work on the memorial. The Kfar Yona municipality has acknowledged receipt of the lawsuit and is preparing its defense.