Grapevine: Coming up Trumps

Former fashion model Ivanka Trump will be on a business mission in Israel soon on behalf of her tycoon father Donald.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Some women are attractive to men because of their beauty, others because of their brains and others still because they've got a rich daddy. Former fashion model Ivanka Trump has all three assets going for her, aside from which she also has good business acumen. The latter is the main reason that she's coming to Israel next week. The daughter of real estate tycoon Donald Trump, the tall, glamorous Ivanka, 26, is due to arrive on May 12 to take a close look at the local real estate scene and to check the investment potential of projects that might interest her father. Though comparatively young and only three years in the business, Ivanka Trump is Vice President of Real Estate Development and Acquisitions in her father's business - and she's not there merely for decoration or as a tax deduction. The young lady knows her stuff and is considered to be her father's right hand. Some of the big names in Israel's business community will be beating a path to her suite at the Tel Aviv Hilton, not only to try to get her interested in their businesses but to hear what she has to offer investment-wise on behalf of her father. This will be her first visit to Israel, and hopefully she'll find time for a little pleasure to take some of the sharp edges off the business. TRAFFIC CONGESTION on the main streets of Tiberias is par for the course and the locals are quite used to it. However, when they're stuck in traffic for a much longer period than usual, some of them get irritated, while others are merely curious. There are all kinds of reasons for stopping the flow of traffic, but a recent one, as reported in the religious weekly Hashavua, really took the cake. Communications Minister Ariel Attias, realizing that there was not much time left in which to say his afternoon prayers, asked his driver to stop the car so that he could get out and recite them. His bodyguards, worried about his safety even though he was talking to his Creator, decided to halt the traffic until the minister had finished with his rituals. After that, it was business as usual. ISRAEL'S FORMER Ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, and his wife Michelle celebrated the 40th birthday of their son Yossi last Friday. Yossi was born in Jerusalem on what was then the 5th of Iyar, Israel's Independence Day, causing his parents to miss the annual Independence Day March, which used to be a cardinal feature of the day's celebrations in the capital. The senior Mazels, who still live in Jerusalem, took themselves off to Tel Aviv to celebrate their son's birthday with their other children, grandchildren and in-laws who all live on the Coastal Plain. Michelle Mazel recalled that Teddy Kollek, who was then mayor of Jerusalem had promised some prize to the mothers of all the babies born on the 5th of Iyar on the 20th anniversary of the State, but it never came through. Mazel suspects that there may have been too many babies born on that date. In her section of the ward alone, she recalled, there were eight. SOMEWHAT PROVOCATIVE in her world view, Professor Hanna Yablonka, Professor of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and historian of the Ghetto Fighters Museum at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, says there's no point in sending IDF groups to Poland. It doesn't serve any useful purpose and the money spent could be directed elsewhere, she argues. Army education officers beg to differ. In fact, they are infuriated by her remarks. They're not the only ones whom Yablonka has managed to annoy. Yablonka, a panelist on a Channel One television program devoted to second generation Holocaust survivors negated the theory that survivors inflicted their own traumas on their children and said she had a perfectly normal childhood. In a program on Israel Radio, Yablonka spoke of the importance of the Eichmann trial in that it opened the door for individuals to tell their own personal stories instead of being outside the pale of the six million murdered Jews keeping their tragically painful experiences to themselves. ALTHOUGH SHE has an ongoing dispute with WIZO over the possible closure of the WIZO parent's home in Tel Aviv, WIZO Honorary Life President Raya Jaglom, who is a former world president and former treasurer of the organization for which she has raised tens of millions of dollars over the years, could not help but give another donation of her own to WIZO on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was brought to her attention that pupils at WIZO schools do not participate in the annual March of the Living in Poland, because while WIZO supports their education and their upkeep, there are not enough funds to send them abroad. Jaglom gave a handsome sum of money to WIZO in memory of her grandmother, who starved to death in Tbilisi, with the proviso that these funds be used to send at least one child from each WIZO school to Poland to participate in this meaningful march. One of the reasons that Jaglom was such a successful fundraiser was that she learned from her mentor, Rebecca Sieff, who was one of the founders of WIZO, and whose philosophy was that in order to raise money one has to set a personal example by also giving. Jaglom has done this not only for WIZO, but for the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and other organizations and institutions. MINISTER FOR Immigrant Absorption Ya'acov Edri, who was born in Morocco and came to Israel in 1959 at age eight, and Jerusalem-born-and-raised Jewish Agency Chairman Zeev Bielski were on hand at Ben-Gurion Airport on Monday to welcome some 400 new immigrants from 23 countries who arrived in Israel just in time for the nation's 60th anniversary. Bielski, a former mayor of Ra'anana where he still lives, met and married his wife Caron in South Africa while working there as an aliya emissary. As it does every year, the Jewish Agency also brought some 100 parents of lone soldiers serving in the IDF to be temporarily reunited with their sons and daughters. IT'S NOT so long ago that people were planning for Pessah and for Independence Day, and now they're busy planning for Lag Ba'pmer and Shavuot. But in Israel's academic circles they're busy planning for the annual meetings of the respective boards of governors of Israel's institutions of higher learning. One of the first off the mark with invitations was the University of Haifa, which weeks ago sent out a "Save the Date" notice for its June 4 ceremony for the awarding of honorary doctorates. Recipients will be Senator Daniel K. Inouye from the US; Yohanana Elihai, Israel; Prof. Carolyn M. Baum, US; Prof. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a member of the Polish government who has previously been honored in and by Israel; Prof. Marinus H. van I. Jzendoorn, Netherlands; June Walker, US; Itzhak Hoffi and Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Firer, both of Israel.