Grapevine: Speaking frankly

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
n THE GENIAL Frank Stein, who for several years has headed the Jerusalem-based office of the Australian Zionist Federation in Israel, and has been a lifeline for many young Australians coming on volunteer programs ranging from a few weeks to a year, is vacating his post. Officially, he finished February 14, but no successor has yet been named. Stein will drop into the office next week to tie up loose ends and in the near future will travel to Bangkok and then to Australia to spend six weeks touring the country, going to places that he has never seen. Stein has applied to be a Jewish Agency emissary. Through his work for the Australian Zionist Federation, he has had a close involvement with the Jewish Agency, so it was more or less in the cards that the application would be accepted. And indeed it has been, but the Jewish Agency has not yet decided where to send him. n THERE ARE sports fans who just jump up and down and yell, and there are those who really know how to celebrate when their team scores a major victory. Case in point is Moti Teperberg, the CEO of the veteran Teperberg Wineries now known as Teperberg 1870, signifying the year in which the company was founded in Jerusalem. Following Hapoel Jerusalem's triumph over Maccabi Tel Avi, Teperberg hosted a gala dinner in honor of Hapoel chairman Danny Klein, coach Dan Shamir and some 100 Hapoel Jerusalem club members, players and fans at the Holiday Inn Jerusalem. Among the merry-makers were Rami Mandel, CEO of Co-Op Israel; Eli Gonen, CEO of the Sheraton Moriah Hotel Chain and president of the Israel Hotels Association; Rami Levi, who runs various supermarket chains; and Danny Levinton, deputy CEO of Unilever. Needless to say, there was plenty of wine on hand for the toasts. And at the end of the evening Teperberg announced that he would become a sponsor of the club. n THE DAN Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv also appreciates sports champions and hosted Israel's tennis ambassadress to the world Shahar Pe'er, who was recently honored by the Israel Olympic Committee, Sportsman of the Year Doron Shazir, Trainer of the Year Guy Strick and award-winning swimmer Inbal Pazar. They were welcomed to the hotel by Rafi Beri, who is the deputy manager for marketing and sales of all Dan Panorama hotels. Pe'er and other athletes posed this week for photos in The Council for a Beautiful Israel's campaign to get rid of plastic bags. n AFTER ALL the hype connected to Haim Yavin's departure from Mabat - albeit not from Israel Television - and the number of farewell parties including one at the Mink Club in Tel Aviv last Thursday attended by the Who's Who of Israel's electronic media, the farewell luncheon for outgoing Ma'ariv editor Amnon Dankner was a very tame, low-key affair. Admittedly, Dankner is a little younger than Yavin and hasn't been in the business quite as long, but he has been on radio, television and the print media for all of his adult life, and he is in himself a more colorful character than Yavin. Meanwhile Yavin is getting offers to do his own radio show, to appear in commercials and to produce documentaries. It's a safe bet to say that he will not retreat into total retirement, but we'll have to wait and see what else he will do. n WHILE ONE shouldn't necessarily believe everything one reads in the newspapers, when a particular subject is written about repeatedly in much the same vein, there has to be some fire as well as smoke. One of the subjects that is frequently revisited is the cavalier way in which children and adults are subjected to psychiatric evaluations and are often misdiagnosed, and worse still, forcibly hospitalized against their will, and sometimes with absolutely no justification. Although society tends to take a much more liberal attitude to people with mental illnesses than in the past, and mental illness is longer an everlasting mark of shame, no one who is mentally healthy wants to be branded forever. To highlight this problem, the Mis'hak Hamazal (Game of Chance) Street Theater will perform under the auspices of the Association for Human Rights, today, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Haifa's Sderot Hanassi in the Carmel Center near McDonald's. For further information about the performance or about the problem itself contact Yehuda Korn at 052-335-0928. n THERE'S STILL a little arm twisting going on in the effort to persuade former MK and former government minister Yossi Sarid to run for mayor of Tel Aviv. If he agrees and wins, and Yael Dayan romps in again as deputy mayor, it will be an interesting situation. Their children are married to each other and they have grandchildren in common. Moreover Dayan and Sarid served in the Knesset at the same time, albeit in different parties, although he did start out in Labor. n HAIFA MAYOR Yona Yahav was in Paris this week to receive the French Legion of Honor in recognition of his important contribution toward the enhancement of economic relations between France and Israel. In the course of his visit to France, Yahav took the opportunity to meet with various French dignitaries with a view to enhancing relations between the two countries on other levels as well.