Seeing the light, against all odds

‘Heroes’ who have overcome adversity inspire audience to overcome challenges at a Hanukka event hosted by a new group of activists.

By BARRY DAVIS
mennie glass_521 (photo credit: (Eden Moyal-Glass))
mennie glass_521
(photo credit: (Eden Moyal-Glass))
This week Jerusalemites got more than just Hanukka candles and doughnuts at a Jerusalem Challenge event held at Beit Yehudit in the German Colony. The organization’s founder, Lisa Barkan, says Jerusalem Challenge aims “to turn the city into a living classroom for Jewish peoplehood, offering all kinds of Jewish experiences to enhance Jewish identity.”
Sunday’s gathering was suitably entitled Against All Odds: A Hanukka Event for Young Adults, with the speakers including tsunami survivor Michal Margolis and wheelchair-bound champion dancer and sportsman Mennie Glass.
“We want to learn from these heroes who have overcome daunting challenges and who radiate light,” says Barkan. “We target Jerusalem’s dynamic young adult sector to inspire them in their efforts to build a community of purpose in this city.”
Barkan says the organization is also looking for other results. “Jerusalem Challenge aims to prevent the young adult exodus from Israel’s capital. It reaches out to Israeli university students and young professionals, soldiers, new immigrants and long- and short-term young adult visitors to Jerusalem to foster networking opportunities for social entrepreneurship and community activism.”
The first of those objectives was achieved at this week’s event, with the 100-plus audience suitably moved by Glass’s account of just some of the challenges he has had to face, and still faces, on a day-to-day basis. He is a truly inspirational character. A young-looking 57, Glass lives on Moshav Kidmat Zvi on the Golan Heights and went through a cataclysmic series of military mishaps that have left him wheelchair bound. Add to that an ongoing battle with bone-marrow cancer and avascular necrosis (AVN), the second of which he says he contracted as a result of medical negligence.
“I was given a substance to toughen up my bones, to combat the effects of the cancer, but I should not have been given it. The substance has a different effect on my bones compared with other people and it left me with more damage.”
It is safe to assume that many people with even some of Glass’s health issues to tackle would be content with managing some of life’s practicalities. Glass, on the other hand, has won medals in the European and World Wheelchair Latin Dance championships, and has also minton events around the world.
“I put on a good show for Israel at the [Wheelchair Latin Dance] World Cup in Holland in April,” he says simply. “I won two gold medals.”
Glass is evidently made of extremely stern stuff and follows the ethos sung so exquisitely by Eric Idle in the closing scene of Monty Python’s Life of Brian – always look on the bright side of life. “I always try to see the positive side of any situation,” he states, adding that that goes for his serious ailments too. “I tell people with cancer that the first thing they have to do is to accept the fact that they are sick and then to embrace the disease – then they can start to get on with things and to live their life as fully as they can.”
Glass is a doer. He finds it difficult to encounter a problem and not to do his utmost to put things right. His efforts to give himself the best chance of a quality life led him to taking Kupat Holim Clalit to court over its refusal to sanction hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) to counteract the effects of AVN – the only means left open to Glass to address that particular health problem. “Clalit rejected my request because the treatment is very expensive, about NIS 1,200 per session.”
He appeared before a special Health Ministry investigatory committee, established at the court’s directive, and achieved the desired result.
“I was very focused,” says Glass. “I was fighting for my life.”
It is not only his own issues that get Glass going on the justice warpath. A few months ago his 11-year-old twin daughters bugged him about taking them for a swim in the Kinneret.
“I initially said no – logistical considerations can be tough for me and I don’t always have the strength to deal with them. But when I saw how their faces fell I agreed.”
However, when Glass and the kids got to what is left of the lake it took him quite a while to maneuver his way into the water. “We all had a great time in the lake but I thought that if it’s so tough for me to get to the water – and I have some use of my legs – how hard must it be for people who are more handicapped than me. They simply cannot enjoy the Kinneret.”
He soon made phone calls to the relevant authorities and eventually set up a meeting with the man in charge of governing access to the lake to organize a wheelchairaccessible beach.
“This coming summer disabled people will be able to get to the water,” Glass declares with a smile. “The Kinneret should be there for everyone to enjoy.”
Glass is certainly going to enjoy a family event next month, when his daughters – he also has a 27-year-old son from a previous marriage and a 24-year-old stepdaughter – celebrate their bat mitzva.
“I was diagnosed with cancer one week before we discovered my wife was pregnant,” he recalls. “The doctor told us, because of my state of health, that we should consider whether or not to go through with the pregnancy. At the time we didn’t even know there were twins on the way. I told my wife I may not be around in a week, month or a year’s time and that she had to decide about whether to see the pregnancy through. And now I’ll be at our daughters’ bat mitzva celebrations, when I wasn’t even sure I’d be around to celebrate their first birthday.”
GLASS CERTAINLY fits the seasonal miracle bill, and Barkan could hardly have chosen a more impressive guest speaker for this week’s Against All Odds gathering.
According to Barkan, Jerusalem Challenge’s main aims are “to turn the city into a living classroom for Jewish peoplehood and to offer all kinds of Jewish experiences that enhance Jewish identity.” The organization holds Shabbat events for Jews from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life.
“We are building a community of people with a common denominator. We launched Jerusalem Challenge in July with three events. We had Shabbat dinner which we hoped would be attended by 100 people, and 150 turned up, so we knew we were addressing an important need.”
Barkan also got a volunteer event going whereby she got permission from the municipality to expand a community garden, near Derech Beit Lehem. And last Tisha Be’av, realizing the Jerusalem Cinematheque would be closed for movie screenings on the day, she got permission to use the venue to hold dialogue and panel sessions about what it means to be Jewish today, and other related topics.
“We turned the cinematheque into a living Jewish place for the day.”
For Barkan the organization’s events are about adding meaning to people’s lives.
“We don’t do parties, we do events with content and diverse things so that all Jews feel comfortable.”
The event was sponsored by ROI Community of Young Jewish Innovators, Beit Yehudit, Tzeirim Bamercaz, Bama’agalei Tzedek and Hitorerut B’yerushalayim.
“The ultimate goal is for the audience to network, bond and build Jerusalem,” says Barkan.