■ POPULAR SINGER and commentator on current affairs
Yigal Bashan suggested in
his radio program on Reshet Bet last Friday that retired champion footballer
Haim Revivo would be the best person to mend fences between Israel and Turkey.
Revivo played for various Turkish teams and once succeeded in having a game
rescheduled so that he would not have to play on Yom Kippur. When he left
Turkey, one of the people who asked him to reconsider was none other than
Turkish Prime Minister
Recip Tayyip Erdogan, who happens to be a keen football
fan and who admired Revivo’s prowess on the field. In political statements
during his 2005 visit to Israel, Erdogan mentioned jokingly that he would have
been happy to compromise on several issues if Revivo had remained in
Turkey.
■ UP UNTIL last Thursday, professional and amateur bookmakers
were taking bets as to whether it would be Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu,
President
Shimon Peres or neither who would represent Israel at the United
Nations General Assembly. There were some people who were on tenterhooks in case
it was Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman who has been known to make the most
undiplomatic of statements at diplomatic gatherings.
But though he was
reportedly unwilling to go, it was Netanyahu who took up the gauntlet. What
prompted him? Who knows. But he or one of his top aides may very well have been
listening to the Israel Radio interview with former Israel ambassador to the UN
Dan Gillerman who, while certain that Peres would do a great job in presenting
Israel’s case, said that it should be Netanyahu who delivers the address because
he is the one who was invited.
Whatever faults anyone may find with the
prime minister, even Kadima leader
Tzipi Livni, the most aggressive and
vociferous of his critics, would concede that as a public speaker, he’s
top-notch, and speaks English as if it was his mother tongue. But Livni can’t
resist being acerbic where Netanyahu is concerned and in an Israel Radio
interview shortly after the announcement, she said it was not good enough for
him to speechify. He had to actually take a decision
■ NOTWITHSTANDING
GEO-POLITICAL and economic upheavals in the region and around the world,
Israel’s incoming tourism figures are only two percent below those of the first
nine months of 2010, which was a record year, Minister of Tourism
Stas
Misezhnikov said on Monday evening at the annual toast to the Jewish New Year
hosted by the Israel Hotel Association at the Tel Aviv Hilton. Misezhnikov said
Israel is sending out the message that despite events in the region, is a safe
and attractive tourism destination. He added that this message will be
intensified at upcoming world tourism fairs and exhibitions. If he had a hat,
said Misezhnikov, he would raise it to the hoteliers in admiration for what they
are doing for Israel’s economy.
IHA President
Ami Federmann also focused
on pleasing occupancy rates in the hotels, which he said never failed to
surprise given the convulsive nature of the region and the high prices in
Israeli hotels. Tourism is a very sensitive barometer, he said, and has not been
seriously affected by global and regional events. Yet despite the stability in
incoming tourism and the profitability of the industry, it does not attract new
investors, a phenomenon that Federmann said must be investigated and
resolved.
IHA director-general
Shmuel Tzurel welcomed diplomatic
representatives from 28 countries: owners and general managers of hotels,
airlines and car rental companies, travel agents, restaurant proprietors, MK
Yoel Hasson and Tiberias Mayor
Zohar Oved. He praised Misezhnikov for making an
unprecedented budget available for tourism promotion and for his role in the
cancellation of visa requirements for people coming to Israel from Russia and
Ukraine, resulting in a huge increase of visitors from those
countries.
There were new faces among the diplomats at the event,
including those of China’s ambassador designate
Gao Yanping and Philippines
ambassador designate
Generoso Calonge who had been scheduled to present their
credentials to President
Shimon Peres on September 7, but the ceremony had been
canceled due to the death of the president’s brother. They and other
ambassadors designate are waiting for it to be rescheduled.
■ DESPITE
CLAIMS to the contrary by government ministers and representatives of the
National Insurance Institute, there are starving people in Israel. An
incredulous
Peerli Shahar, who each year before Passover and Rosh Hashana
conducts a program on Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet to match people who want to be
invited for a festive dinner with those who want to host them, heard again and
again from people who distribute food to the needy that there are children who
suffer from severe stomach cramps brought on by hunger. “But surely people have
bread!” exclaimed Shahar increduolously.
Many wonderful Israelis all over
the country who quickly responded to the program. Some religious families
offered to put up as many as half a dozen strangers for the three-day holiday. A
representative of an organization that cares for Holocaust survivors offered to
transport them to and from any place to which they were invited, and stressed
how important it was for them not be alone, but not to be treated as charity
cases either. A clothing merchant called to offer dozens of new outfits to
children and teenagers. Other callers offered cash donations to pay for food
parcels.
■ THE VALUE of benefit performances by Israeli singers and
musicians is inestimable. There’s hardly a charitable organization that hasn’t
reaped the bounty of their generosity.
And it’s not just the
up-and-coming celebs who perform gratis so that they will become better known to
more people. It’s also the stars at the top of the pyramid.
Case in point
is
Yehoram Gaon, who last week sang on behalf of the Israel Cancer Association
at a gala evening hosted by
Yossi Maiman, who heads the Merhav Group and who in
the past chaired the ICA’s doorknock campaign.
The crowd, which gathered
in Maiman’s spacious garden in Herzliya Pituah, happily sang along with
Gaon. Since he knew most of the people there, it almost seemed a family
affair. Especially moving was his rendition of Jerusalem of Gold.
Among
those in attendance was the singer’s nephew
Moshe Gaon, along with Shula and
Leon Recanati, MK
Anastasia Michaeli,
Batsheva Bublil,
Tali and
Meshulam Riklis,
Bruno Landsberg, brothers
Dan and
Gad Propper,
David Franklin,
Ran Rahav, and
many other well known personalities.
Yehoram Gaon has a very special place in
his heart for ICA, which for many years was presided over by his late brother
Benny Gaon (the father of Moshe), who before becoming president had been
chairman of the ICA.
Unfortunately, Benny Gaon, who did so much to help
people with cancer, was a victim of it himself. ICA director general
Miri Ziv in
thanking donors for their generosity, reminded them that today’s research is
tomorrow’s therapy. ICA vice chairman
Leon Recanati presented Gaon with a plaque
to add to the many that already adorn the walls of his home. Now that the Habima
strike is over, Gaon can look forward to appearing with
Gila Almagor in
Friedrich Durrenmatt’s “The Visit of the Old Lady,” which is scheduled to be the
curtain raiser for the revamped Habima theater at its opening on November
15.
■ AT THIS year’s Mexican Independence Day reception hosted at his
residence by Mexican ambassador Federico Salas, Housing and Construction
minister
Ariel Atias acknowledged Mexico’s position in the Group of 20 and the
fact that Mexico will host the 2010 G-20 with the participation not only of
finance ministers of the 20 member countries but also of the heads of
government, who will discuss financial markets and world economy.
Atias
naturally hoped that Mexico would support Israel in the vote this week on the
inclusion of Palestine as a member state of the United Nations, and was quite
forthright in his expectations. He also spoke of areas of cooperation between
Israel and Mexico such as water technology, tourism and archaeology. As always
the décor of the back garden featured the traditional red, green and white
colors of Mexico. There was a rich assortment of Mexican delicacies washed down
with Corona beer. One of the highlights of the evening was a raffle, with prizes
ranging from food baskets from Tres Pesos to a roundtrip Mexican Airlines ticket
to Mexico. As always, the crowd sang along with the popular Mexican songs sung
by the Mexican musicians.
■ COSTA RICA, El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras, whose Independence Days actually fall the day before Mexico’s, this
year celebrated it a day after, and also changed their geographic location. Now
that there are no longer any embassies in Jerusalem (with the exception of the
Christian embassy), Costa Rica and El Salvador, which until a couple of years
back made a point of hosting their Independence Day festivities in the capital,
held a joint celebration at the Holon Design Museum. The Israeli government was
represented by Shas party leader
Eli Yishai.
Guests had to stand for the
national anthems of the four host countries as well as to that of Israel. But
that wasn’t the end of it. The next day, El Salvador ambassador
Susana Hasenson
hosted a fun day of Central American and Caribbean caricatures, art, music and
stories at the
Holon Mediatec, so for her it was quite an uplifting
week.
■ REPRESENTATIVES OF the Commonwealth War Graves Commission,
officers from the Israel Defense Forces, defense attaches from various
embassies, members of the Indian Jewish community in Israel, members of the
Haifa Historical Society and Deputy Mayor of Haifa Brig.
Gen. (Res)
Hedva
Almog joined Indian ambassador
Navtej Sarna and other representatives of the
Indian Embassy in the annual commemoration ceremony to honor the memories of
Indian cavalry soldiers who laid down their lives in the courageous September
23, 1918 charge to liberate Haifa. These brave soldiers are traditionally
commemorated by the Indian army at Haifa Day ceremonies far from where the
action took place. But in Israel, Haifa Day is commemorated at the Indian
cemetery, where this year Sarna sought to make the sacrifice of Indian soldiers
better known through the release of a new book produced by the Indian embassy in
cooperation with the Commonwealth Graves Commission: “Memorials of Indian
Soldiers in Israel.” Some 900 Indian soldiers were laid to rest in cemeteries
throughout the country. Sarna said the book would help to create awareness not
only of these soldiers but also of many more Indian soldiers whose names are not
in any cemetery in the region, but whose courage while fighting on this soil
formed part of the mosaic in the relationship between India and Israel.
■
WHILE MANY eyes this week are focused on New York and how the UN will react to
the Palestinian bid for statehood, New York broadcaster
John Batchelor came to
Jerusalem to “devote the new week to broadcasting about the complex security
threat to the State of Israel and the 31-year peace along the Negev desert
border with the Sinai Peninsula.”
Batchelor is the host of “The John
Batchelor Show,” a two-hour national radio show covering politics, the economy,
literature, culture, etc. During his week in Israel, Batchelor is broadcasting
live for five nights and is being joined by transplanted American 77 WABC’s
Aaron Klein. The show can be heard live on 77 WABC in New York and globally on
www.wabcradio.com, with podcasts available at
www.wabcradio.com/podcasts.
■ PEOPLE LIKE Shavei Israel founder and
Chairman
Michael Freund, who writes a regular column in
The Jerusalem Post are
not the only ones finding individuals and groups with Jewish roots and bringing
them back into the fold. Others include Rabbi
Moshe Pinchuk, head of the Jewish
Heritage Center at Netanya Academic College, Prof.
Michael Corinaldi, Head of
NAC’s new International Institute for the Study of Secret Jews (Anusim) and
Gloria Mound, the founder of Casa Shalom, who has devoted decades of her life to
studying the history of anusim and tracing their descendants scattered
throughout the world.
In recent years, after apologizing for the
Inquisition and expulsion of 1492, Spain is interested in forging links with
people whose lineage can be traced to the Jews of 15th century Spain. To this
end, the Spanish embassy in Sofia, Bulgiaria, in cooperation with Cervantes
Institute, joined forces with La Casa de Sefarad and the Bulgarian Jewish
organization Shalom to organize a three-day global meeting of representatives of
Sephardic communities from around the world, who met together in Sofia, long
recognized as a city of coexistence where Christians, Jews and Muslims live in
harmony.
Here in Israel, the event was preempted by NAC’s meeting with
ambassadors and other diplomats from Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay,
Panama, Guatemala, Honduras and Chile, which are host countries to communities
of anusim. It was hoped that through the good offices of the diplomats,
cultural bridges could be built between Israel and these
communities.
Following introductory remarks by Pinchuk, Corinaldi,
explained the background of anusim, the descendants of conversos – those Jews
who were forcibly converted to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal.
Mound,
who is a senior advisor to Corinaldi, related her experiences starting 37 years
ago visiting the Balearic Islands, where she subsequently did ground-breaking
research on the descendents of the secret Jews living there, and has even
managed to prove the Jewish ancestry of specific anusim in order for them to be
eligible to marry kohanim.
■ FEW MARKETING techniques are more successful
than a walking advertisement. While Hadassah women always do a lot of shopping
in Israel, the national presidents seem to do more, making a point of acquiring
made-in- Israel jewelry and clothing. Newly-appointed president
Marcie Natan,
who with her innate sense of fashion and superb figure always looks as though
she has just stepped out of the pages of Vogue. Although she lives in the heart
of Manhattan, surrounded by some of the most stylish fashion stores in the Big
Apple, she prefers to shop in Ramat Gan. Whenever she has a little down time
from her Hadassah business on a trip to Israel, she goes shopping.
At the
reception hosted last week by President
Shimon Peres for the Hadassah National
Board, she was wearing a gorgeous peplum suit and striking gold necklace and
earrings, all made in Israel. When she receives compliments for her attire in
the US, she loves to say that she bought her outfit in Israel. Once when
visiting with Kadima MK
Dalia Itzik, she fell in love with what Itzik was
wearing. As Itzik is of a similar build, the two headed for the powder room and
temporarily exchanged clothes.
Everyone told Natan that she looked great
in Itzik’s gear, so a call was promptly put through to the designer, who had the
garment ready for Natan on her subsequent visit
■ NO LESS a fixture on Israel’s
social scene than her late husband
Muhammad Bassiouni who was Egypt’s second and
longest-serving ambassador to Israel and who died in Cairo on Sunday,
Nagwa
Bassiouni received several condolence messages this week from friends she had
made in the International Women’s Club during the eighteen years in which she
lived in Israel. While everyone knew that both of the Bassiounis were heavily
engaged in espionage and suspected that Syrian-born Nagwa might also be spying
for Syria, the two were nonetheless extremely popular because of the sense of
joy and well-being they radiated. Bassiouni had a certain inner glow that was
reflected in his face and Nagwa’s brilliant smile was her trademark. They both
loved to party, and in addition to being entertaining guests, were excellent
hosts.
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