Grapevine

Jerusalem in the center

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Grapevine 521 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Grapevine 521
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
■YOU DON’T eulogize people on Shabbat – and certainly not on Rosh Hodesh Sivan, said Israel Prize laureate Prof. Abraham Steinberg last Saturday afternoon. Steinberg spoke after David Zwebner, president of the Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue, had introduced him, and had mentioned only a few of the many important positions he has held and some of the numerous prizes he has been awarded.
Steinberg was addressing congregants of the Talbiyeh synagogue on the significance of Jerusalem, from the very beginning of creation to the present day. He said he could not understand why Greenwich is regarded as the center of the world, when that honor clearly belongs to Israel’s capital. He then gave several biblical examples of the place that Jerusalem occupies not only in Jewish history, but in the history of creation and of mankind. Creation began at Jerusalem’s Mount Moriah, Steinberg explained, and the dust of even hashtiya, the foundation stone that comes from the bedrock of the mountain, was used to fashion Adam, the progenitor of all humankind. Moriah was the place where Adam offered his first sacrifice, as did Cain and Abel, and Noah and Abraham found their way there as well. Abraham was blessed by King Melchizedek, in the city of Shalem, in what later became known as Jerusalem. The binding of Isaac took place on Moriah, and it was there that Jacob dreamt of the ladder leading to heaven; it was also the site of the First and Second Temples. There are actually even more biblical references, though Steinberg did not go into them.
■SEVERAL FOREIGN diplomats were invited to join AKIMJerusalem’s 11th annual sponsored trek “Miles for Smiles,” but the only one who showed up was Australian Ambassador Andrea Faulkner, who is completing her tour of duty at the end of the month. Faulkner was responding to a request by Australian expatriate Ian Brown. Despite the unusually wet and wintry weather, the ambassador hiked up the mountain from Ein Ayala in the foothills of the Carmel Forest, together with more than 40 trekkers from all over Israel – as well as some who flew in from England especially for the event. Included in the group was the chairman of Friends of AKIMJerusalem in the UK, Julian Bier, and chairman of the association, David Schottenfels.
Funds raised through this year’s trek will be used for a number of important projects that will improve the lives of Jerusalem residents with intellectual disabilities, and will provide for an increase in the number of families with at least one member with an intellectual disability that may access the Batsheva Chai Home Care Support Program. This support will help in both granting the parents opportunities to rest and spend time with their other children, as well as giving the family member with disabilities opportunities to have fun and reduce their social isolation.
Proceeds from the trek will also be used to renovate and refurbish some of AKIM-Jerusalem’s smaller apartments that are not eligible for funding through the National Insurance Institute, and likewise will provide additional services and equipment for the increasing number of the association’s elderly residents.
■THE ESTABLISHMENT of an English-speaking chapter in the capital’s northern neighborhoods was a longtime dream of Hadassah stalwart Roz Soltz, who has been living and breathing Hadassah since 1947.
Ten years ago, the dream came true with the establishment of the Nechama Chapter, named for the late Nechama Glick, a veteran Hadassah activist originally from Philadelphia and the mother of Miriam Wernik, one of the Nechama Chapter’s first co-presidents.
It quickly grew into a group of women dedicated to two important goals: providing programs for advancing information about health issues, and fund-raising to help the Hadassah Medical Organization do their important, impressive and innovative work in such fields as osteoporosis, pediatric intensive care, orthopedics and pediatric oncology – to name just a few.
To celebrate their first successful decade, the members of the Nechama Chapter will get together on Tuesday evening, May 28, at the Berman Auditorium at Hadassah University Medical Center on Mount Scopus to pay tribute to Soltz, and to listen to singer and storyteller Yael Badihi weave a musical tale about women in Israel, including songs written by women.