Awarding the Legion of Honor, Macca undeterred, Japanese outreach and New York fashion that's designed in Israel.
By GREER FAY CASHMANfrank lowy 88 298(photo credit: )
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, is an auspicious date not only for the contestants in the Kadima primaries, but also for culture activist Claude Brightman, upon whom French Ambassador Jean-Michel Casa, at the behest of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, will confer the French Legion of Honor. Brightman, who chairs the organization of Friends of Netanya Academic College, also oversees all things French at NAC. She was selected for the award in recognition of her contribution to the improvement of relations between Israel and France, especially her initiative to advance French language and culture through international conferences at NAC, and also for her efforts in enabling NAC to become a member of French-speaking universities. Brightman was also responsible for organizing cultural events via NAC for Israel's French-speaking community and for arranging that 150 French students be absorbed at NAC. She also established a Friends of NAC association in France, which annually hosts an international conference in Paris. Among the many congratulatory messages that she received was one from French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Brightman is married to prominent accountant Igal Brightman and is the mother of three children.
FOLLOWING A warning by Omar Bakri, an Islamic militant leader in Lebanon, that Sir Paul McCartney could be the target of a suicide bombing unless he cancels his performance in Israel next week, Aaron Klein, who is WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, contacted leaders of several Palestinian terror groups... and said all of them claimed not to have heard of McCartney or The Beatles.
McCartney himself has rejected the various attempts to dissuade him from giving the long overdue concert in Israel, saying that he intends to follow his heart and do what he thinks is right.
WHILE ON the subject of entertainers, powerful tenor Yevgeni Shapovalov was selected to provide the entertainment at this week's Jerusalem Conference of Mayors, singing interludes between the speeches. Bearing in mind the venue of the conference, his first song was a rather surprising "Granada." The second time around, he got a little closer to home when he sung an aria from "Nabucco." The third song was "Jerusalem of Gold." This was followed by a medley of Russian folk songs, accompanied by enthusiastic clapping from the audience. However, when he asked the mayors to join him in the chorus or at least sing "la-la," they fell silent. Imagine, so many mayors at a loss for words.
EITHER THERE'S a social drought in which almost nothing of any great significance is happening, or there's a flood of events on a single date with many of the same people invited to the same event. This Thursday, September 18, is a case in point. Unless there is no outright winner in the Kadima primaries, there's bound to be a victory party somewhere. Some of the other events taking place on that date include: a tribute by the Jaffe Institute to former Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat; a farewell reception by Japanese Ambassador Yoshinori Katori and his wife Etsuko; the Air Sport cocktail party to celebrate the installation at Ben Gurion Airport of a branch of the worldwide fitness chain; the opening of the Wine Festival at Ein Hemed National Park; the opening of a new exhibition by Indian artist Rajul Mehta, and "Beit Levitus - the Story of a House," an exhibition at the Czech Embassy about the beautiful villa of a Jewish family that gathered in its entirety in Prague before the German occupation. Many members of the family were murdered in the Holocaust. The owners of the house never returned, and after the war the house was usurped by the Communist regime - a story common to so many central and eastern European families. Also that night, there is the opening event of Jerusalem Open Houses, which includes the lobby of the new boutique hotel in the Akirov Mamilla Mall, and a night of community singing with Sarele Sharon in the amphitheater of the Mamilla Mall.
LAST WEEK, versatile singer Moshe Lahav performed non-stop at the Mamilla Mall amphitheater for two-and-a-half hours. People were crowded like sardines into the amphi. The adjacent arcade was also packed with people who stood the entire time, though some joined in the spontaneous dancing. At around 10 p.m., mayoral candidate Nir Barkat showed up and was cheered and immediately dragged into a dancing circle. Lahav lauded Barkat's accomplishments and then, realizing that he might have overdone it, said: "It doesn't matter who you vote for so long as you vote." In an effort to be fair, he played some religious songs to appease an absent Meir Porush, and then some Russian songs for an absent Arkadi Gaydamak, after which he said that he really enjoyed slihot and invited anyone who wanted to sing them to come up on stage. The version was Sepharadi - in honor of an absent Aryeh Deri? - and the bulk of the audience joined in.
AT A recent memorial conference at the Institute for National Security Studies to honor the memory of internationally acclaimed Ha'aretz military commentator and reporter Zeev Schiff, INSS director Dr. Oded Eran proposed the establishment of a Zeev Schiff library that would contain all of Schiff's notes and published writings. The proposal was instantly accepted and implemented. Two adjoining rooms were set aside for the purpose. One of them was the office of INSS chairman Frank Lowy, who said that he would happily relinquish it in tribute to Schiff. Among those present at the event were Alfred Akirov, Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, Avraham Shohat, Tali and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Dalia Rabin, David Ivri, Avi Dichter, Ephraim Sneh, Amnon Strashnov, Amos Schocken and several of Schiff's media colleagues.
ALTHOUGH HE had planned to travel to the US this year, President Shimon Peres had not initially anticipated that it would be next week. One of Israel's most frequent fliers in his previous roles, Peres has been more grounded as President, although in just under 15 months in office he's still managed more than half a dozen trips abroad. This may be a lot for an average citizen, but for Peres, who occasionally chalked up more trips in a month than he has done in the past year, this is small potatoes. Traveling at the behest of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to represent Israel at the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Peres, as always, was happy to take on a challenging mission.
It will be his task to convince the General Assembly to sit up and take notice of the nuclear threat posed by Iran and to do whatever possible to thwart it. Hopefully, Israel's internal political dilemmas will be settled before mid-November so that Peres can go ahead with his plans to travel to London at the invitation of Her Majesty the Queen and the British Government. Peres was appointed deputy director general of Israel's Defense Ministry in 1952, the same year in which Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne. In a span of more than half a century, the two have never left the public arena, which should certainly give them plenty to talk about.
JAPANESE INTEREST in Israel is becoming totally mind-boggling. Aside from diplomatic overtures on political, economic and cultural issues, there are lovers of Israel from among the ordinary Japanese people. If you thought that the Makoya - or the Japanese Zionists as they are sometimes known - are the only lovers of Israel from the Land of the Rising Sun, think again. The Agon Shu, a Japanese Buddhist Organization, founded and led by 87-year old Seiryu Kiriyama, is no less enthusiastic about Israel.
Seiryu Kiriyama came to Israel early this year to explore the possibility of a arranging a ceremonial fire in Jerusalem, with participants using wooden sticks to express their wishes for world peace. He had been told that Israel was a dangerous place, but he found it to be quite safe and made his arrangements accordingly. During that first visit, he stayed at the Tel Aviv Hilton, which was also the venue for the World WIZO Conference, the opening of which was addressed by President Peres. When Peres was told that Kiriyama was in the lobby and had expressed a desire to meet him, he immediately agreed and left the conference hall.
This time around, Kiriyama brought a large following plus a thousand wheelchairs for Yad Sarah and a large number of gifts for Israeli dignitaries and people invited to a reception hosted for him at the Mount Zion Hotel by Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski. The reception was held in the hotel courtyard, where the overall color scheme was white and the palest shade of beige. The mix of sofas, chairs and tables against the Jerusalem night sky with all its winking lights was a breathtaking sight enhanced by the number of Japanese women who chose to wear traditional kimonos instead of western garb. The obis on some of the kimonos were tied in a fan shape in the back and were positively stunning. Part of the Agon Shu mission was a first step toward a major increase in Japanese tourism to Israel - but this was before the fiscal earthquake shaking the world, and it is still too early to forecast its repercussions.
Those Jerusalemites who were shocked by the cover-up demands made of female dancers at the launch of the stringed bridge at the entrance to capital may be pleased to know that Lupolianski, who was sitting at a table right in front of the stage, did not budge when the Moran female choir sang, or react to the choir members' less than conservative tops.
FASHION IS one of those areas in which even the most successful designers cannot afford to be haughty - eccentric maybe, but haughty, no - because all it takes is one appalling or simply unappealing collection to knock a haughty designer off his or her perch. Thus, designers who have hit the big time, not just at home but also abroad, approach the showing of each new collection with some degree of trepidation - as was the case with Kedem Sasson in the south Tel Aviv fringe theater setting of Teatron HaKlipa. The intimacy of the theater, said Sasson, convinced him that this was absolutely the place in which to show his new fall/winter collection. Because his designs are so theatrical, depending on precision cutting for drape and drama, the small theater was indeed the right place for his many shades of grey, livened up by occasional bright post office red. While most fashion companies started out producing small sizes and eventually added larger sizes to the range to accommodate the more well-endowed woman who wanted trendy clothes, Kedem Sasson went in the opposite direction with loose, layered looks designed explicitly for the more voluptuous woman. Because his creations are so different from mainstream, the matchstick girls also wanted them, and as a concession to them, he introduced a few items that are a little more streamlined, but are meant to be worn under something loose. The real tribute to his fertile imagination was the fact that so many of his clients came wearing his designs from seasons past and some of his colleagues, designers Yuval Caspin, Raziella Gershon, Hagar Alembik and Yaron Minkovsky, who are all big names in Israeli fashion, came to do him proud. There were signs of strain on Sasson's face as the models came down the stairs and walked barefoot across the floor to occasional ripples of applause, but then, when it was over, everyone rose to clap and cheer.
NEW YORK's Soho is becoming increasingly Israeli, not only in terms of the number of expats who have set up business there, but also because of the Rosebud Israel concept store owned by genuine New Yorker Fern Penn, who comes to Israel every two months to look for new products to add to her stock. Several Israeli designers have received a great deal of exposure through the Rosebud store.
The Soho area is also a magnet for tourists, which means that many stores are stocking New York souvenirs, including I LOVE NY T-shirts. Before her most recent trip to Israel last month, Penn decorated her window display in honor of visiting tourists with miniature dolls from around the world that her father had given her when she was a child. She also included flags from many countries purchased during family trips to Epcot in Walt Disney World and added brochures about New York attractions. Then she redesigned an I LOVE NY T-shirt, cutting off the sleeves and part of the neckline, decorating it with ribbons and pairing it with a Made in Israel evening skirt. Passersby, especially tourists, went wild and came in droves, boosting sales considerably. Based on the reaction, Penn thought that if her regular Israeli designers fashioned up the I LOVE NY T-shirts, many of the fashionistas passing her store would buy them. Realizing that it wasn't quite fair to ask Israelis to promote New York, even if there are so many Israelis living in the Big Apple, she decided to turn it into a cooperative charity project. She brought four dozen of the T-shirts to Israel and distributed them among the designers featured in her store, telling them that they could fashion them up in any way they wanted. The results, she says, are fabulous. They will be displayed in the store throughout the month of October and will sell for $100 each. All proceeds from sales will go to Shenkar College (of which some of the Israeli designers are graduates), and to Elem, which cares for youth in distress.
Participating designers and Israeli fashion houses in the project include Ronen Chen, Kedem Sasson, Yael Orgad, Katomenta, Naomi Maaravi, Comme Il Faut, Keren Mualem, Delicatessen, Maya Negri, Fishndag, Dorit Sade and Ido Recanati, though Penn says she would not be remotely surprised if more Israeli designers come on board.
WHEN SHE first came to Israel in 1975 as a television producer for Channel Seven Australia, Robbie Hare, who had been raised in the Australian outback, met a fellow Australian who was a creature of the urban jungle. Although their backgrounds were different, their accents were the same and there was an instant rapport. Hare told her new friend that she had a Jewish grandmother. "Which side?" asked her fellow Aussie. "My mother's," was the reply. "Then you're Jewish," was the response, followed by an invitation to come for a dip in the mikva (ritual bath). Hare, who had long been curious about things Jewish without quite knowing why, was more than willing, and later wrote a story in an Australian newspaper headlined "The cleanest I've ever been." She had known nothing of her Jewish background until the eve of her departure for Israel, at which time her mother confessed to her that her grandmother was Jewish, but was quick to make a distinction, saying: "She's Jewish, but I'm Australian."
The intrepid journalist, in her travels around the world, met and married an American diplomat by the name of Paul Hare. In 1982, when their daughter Jessica was two-and-a-half, the Hares came to Israel, where for four years he served as political counselor at the US Embassy. He has since risen to the rank of ambassador, following in the footsteps of his father, Ambassador Raymond Hare, who was a classical Arabist and a friend of Abba Eban's, though he always referred to Eban as "Aubrey." The senior Hare was US ambassador to Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The late Simcha Dinitz, a former Israel ambassador to the US, once remarked on God's sense of humor in "putting a good Zionist into the late Ray Hare's household."
Although they remained on good terms, Paul and Robbie Hare did not remain together. In 1986, she and Jessica returned to Israel and made aliya. When Jessica was old enough she joined the IDF, and her father proudly announced at her wedding last Friday that he and his present wife, Michelle Krisel (who works with the Washington National Opera and is the right-hand woman for Placido Domingo), have a photo of Jessica in her IDF uniform on their piano. Jessica studied for an MBA, which she achieved with flying colors, and while studying, worked in a restaurant to support herself - and that's where she met Moshe Kazimirsky, the son of Polish-born Amos Kazimirsky and his wife Rachel, whose family comes from Aleppo in Syria. The meeting some four years ago quickly blossomed into romance, and when the couple decided to get married, Robbie Hare quickly realized that she had to get documented proof of her Judaism so that Jessica could be married according to the Law of Moses and of Israel.
It might have taken someone else more than a year of searching, but perhaps her background in investigative journalism helped her in spending less than a month in tracing her Viennese-born great-grandmother Mena Ahrens who was halachically pure, and gave birth to a daughter, who gave birth to a daughter, who gave birth to a daughter who gave birth to Jessica, the beautiful bride.
A large number of guests came in from various countries in addition to Israeli guests who included Dame Shirley Porter, Doreen Gainsford, Lisa Perlman, Alice Krieger, Hadassa and Danny Kingston, Judy and Bob Goldman, former director general of the Foreign Ministry Eytan Ben Tsur and his wife Naomi, former Jerusalem Post editor Ari Rath, Dan and Ronnie Mirkin, and Michael and Rachel Sternberg.
Michael Sternberg worked with Robbie Hare's present husband James Lindsay in the MFO. Other Israelis included Ruth and Zeev Abraham, who hosted a party for all the guests from abroad in their Herzliya Pituah home, and journalist Ehud Yaari, who came with his Australian journalist wife Dagmar Strauss and translated the bride's father's speech for Hebrew speakers whose English was not sufficiently fluent.
Guests from overseas included Emmett Hare, the bride's brother who flew in from NYC for four days taking precious time out from working on the US elections. Coincidentally, Emmett celebrated his Bar Mitzva in the same Kfar Shmaryahu synagogue in which Moshe the groom had his Shabbat Hatan. The bride's cousin Heather Hare and husband Lt. Col. Mike Galppe came from Washington with the bride's aunt Merill Hare. And the groom's cousin Renee Goldman came in from the Bronx.
Guests from Australia included: lawyer Bronwyn Wells from Sydney, Brisbane-based Kerry Lonergan, Executive Producer at ABC; and eternal traveler Peter Shann Ford, a former Channel Seven anchor, the first Australian to read the news for CNN, later a news anchor at NBC, also a novelist, and now CEO of a Bionics company, who designed the computer software for Stephen Hawking's wheelchair, to enable him to communicate. Shann Ford flew in from Copenhagen and left for London and Rome before returning to Australia.
Australian expat Cathy Wadley, formerly of Brisbane who now lives in NY and Florida, and forged an indirect link to Israel years ago when she worked with Zubin Mehta at the NY Philharmonic, also flew in for the occasion, which aside from being a wedding, proved to be a wonderful reunion for many people who had not seen each other in a long time.
David Richardson, a former managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, who now lives in Entebbe, took the opportunity to look up old friends and colleagues.
EVERY MAN, HIS wife and his mother seemed to be at Gallery 39 in South Tel Aviv on Saturday night for the opening of the exhibition Sabbath Match by Eran Shakine, in which Jewish symbolism was used to express some very thought-provoking ideas. Shakine's father-in-law, renowned artist Menashe Kadishman, sat around as usual in his short shorts and an undershirt, and photographers jostled to take family photos of Shakine, his wife Maya Kadishman and his father-in-law. Some of the faces in the crowd belonged to British visitors including Lenny and Sue Gold, whose son Murray Gold is a prize winning musician who did the musical arrangement for "Dr. Who." Also present wereShmuel Flatto Sharon, Rachel Kremmerman, Nigerian Ambassador Sam Olissa and his wife, Dov Tadmor and Tzipi Recanati.
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