By GREER FAY CASHMANThe train station in Macedonia from where Jews were deported to Treblinka(photo credit: ROBERT HERSOWITZ)
Of the various Jewish uprisings against the Nazis during the Second World War, the best known is that of the Warsaw Ghetto. But there was another equally important, perhaps even more important uprising on August 2 of the same year – the Treblinka uprising, the 77th anniversary of which took place this week.A commemorative ceremony is held every year on the site of the Treblinka death camp. This year, for the first time in more than 30 years, Ada Willenberg, 91, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, did not attend the Treblinka memorial ceremony, due to coronavirus travel restrictions.Her late husband, Shmuel Willenberg, who died in 2016, was one of the leaders of the revolt and the best known of the few survivors. He made a point of returning to Poland each year to mourn those murdered by the Nazis. After his death, his widow continued to attend the annual ceremony.Willenberg, a second-generation, noted artist, who was born in Czestochowa, also returned to his hometown for memorial events. A sculptor who was haunted by the images of victims of the Nazis, he committed the likenesses of many of them to bronze – the only way in which he could immortalize human beings who had been reduced to ashes.In January of this year, a traveling exhibition of 15 of Willenberg’s bronze sculptures opened in Warsaw, and from there continued on to various cities throughout Poland. The exhibition was transferred from Israel to Poland by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance.In September, at the initiative of the Association of Czestochowa Jews in Israel, and with the cooperation of the Czestochowa municipality and the Czestochowa municipal museum, the exhibition will go on display for a month to mark the 78th anniversary of the liquidation of the Czestochowa Ghetto.Most of Czestochowa’s 40,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka, and several of them participated in the revolt.■ JUST BEFORE concluding his tenure, Consul-General in New York Dani Dayan was interviewed by Jacob Kornbluh of the digital publication Jewish Insider. Kornbluh wrote that Dayan had not envisioned ending his four-year term with a series of Zoom calls, including his interview with Kornbluh. Prior to the pandemic, Dayan could be seen at events all over the city and at nearby states. But in recent months, he had been forced to work the phones, to assist in matters related to the virus and to participate in dozens of farewell Zoom calls to heads of Jewish organizations, members of Congress and other groups with which he has built close ties during his tenure.Dayan described his final months in office and the virtual goodbye parties as “bittersweet,” adding: “I feel like I was riding a train at 300 miles per hour and suddenly someone pulled the brakes.”This week, in an interview with Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet, Dayan was asked about whether Diaspora Jews should have a say in Israeli decision-making. His response was that there should be a place for Jews of every stripe to pray in accordance with their own customs at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, but with regard to decisions related to controversial issues such as annexation, if they want to be part of that process, they should come to live in Israel.He is happy to argue with them over controversial subjects, he said, but what bothers him much more than Diaspora Jews having a say in Israeli policy is apathy on the part of Diaspora Jews and a lack of interest in Israel.■ A GENERAL weak spot among Israelis is failure to see the writing on the wall. Examples in memorable history include the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995.Those political pundits who refuse to take threats against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his family with the seriousness they deserve argue that there is no comparison between the individual situations of the two prime ministers. That is only partially true. The circumstances may be different, but the hostility is not, and it is so frightening that many journalists have admitted to being afraid of covering demonstrations – both for and against Netanyahu. There is so much hatred and violence in the air that no one has the luxury of feeling safe.Some of the political pundits who try to downplay the threats against Netanyahu say they are less worried about the possibility of another Yigal Amir than they are about the possibility of another Yona Abrushmi, who in February 1983 hurled a hand grenade into a crowded Peace Now demonstration in Jerusalem, killing teacher and peace activist Emil Grunzweig and wounding many others, including Yuval Steinitz, who subsequently crossed the floor politically and is currently the energy minister, and Avraham Burg, the son of government minister Yosef Burg and Rivka Burg, née Slonim, a survivor of the August 1929 Hebron massacre. Avraham Burg later became chairman of the Jewish Agency and, after that, speaker of the Knesset.Abrushmi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, had his sentence reduced, and was released after 27 years behind bars. There is speculation that Amir, who was convicted of the killing of Rabin, will also be released within the next few years. However, he has yet to express remorse, which is a precondition for any reduction of his sentence.While many Israelis cannot grasp the possibility of yet another political killing, let’s not kid ourselves – Rabin was not the first victim of a political assassination in this country. The first political assassination after the establishment of the state was that of Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations mediator who was assassinated in Jerusalem in September 1948. Well-known political figures who were assassinated before the establishment of the state included Jacob de Haan in June 1924 and Chaim Arlosoroff in June 1933. Anyone who is sufficiently naive to believe that Jews would not kill other Jews for political reasons, only has to look at the history of the Altalena, whose passengers, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, were fired on by fellow Jews on the orders of David Ben-Gurion. The ship’s cargo of weapons and ammunition was acquired by members and supporters of the Irgun, which was under the command of Menachem Begin. When the ship was fired on, both from the air and the shore, the captain put up a white flag, but the firing continued.These examples alone are cause for threats against Netanyahu to be taken seriously, even when such threats come from a fake social media account.As for another Abrushmi, police and organizers of demonstrations should be equally concerned at the possibility that a demonstration could be infiltrated by one or more Palestinian terrorists, who really don’t care about Israeli Right or Left. They just care about killing Israelis. It should be remembered, however, that not all Palestinians are terrorists, and that a large ratio simply want to live their lives in peace and dignity, with the ability to provide for their families.As for the demonstrators, when they are labeled anarchists, it is not so far from the truth, in that the word itself derives from the Greek, and its original meaning is “without a ruler.” In the collective mélange of different groups of demonstrators, there is no single leader, though the leaders of individual groups have become public figures who have found their moments of glory, not only in the Hyde Park ambience of the prime minister’s neighborhood and on social media, but also on traditional media. Therefore it seems somewhat strange that Yair Netanyahu’s Twitter call for retaliation, in which he listed the names, phone numbers and addresses of prominent figures in the “crime minister” movement, should be considered an invasion of privacy, and that Netanyahu Jr., who celebrated his 29th birthday last week, be given a court order to remove the tweet.■ THE 25th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination may be overshadowed by the American presidential elections, which are on November 3. Media will certainly be more focused on the outcome of the presumptive Trump-Biden battle than on an event that occurred a quarter of a century earlier. Worse still is the possibility that Israel may also have elections in November, if the budget is not passed by August 25.■ THE RACE for Israel’s 11th president has already begun, with Amir Peretz and Isaac Herzog as current front-runners, but this could change in the months ahead. Peretz, 68, who has been a member of Knesset since November 1988, is currently economy minister. He has previously served as environment minister and defense minister. He is a former mayor of Sderot, where he still lives. Herzog, who will turn 60 in September, is currently chairman of the Jewish Agency. He served in the Knesset from February 2003 to July 2018. He is a former minister of construction and housing, tourism, and labor, social affairs and social services. He is also a former cabinet secretary.If Peretz wins, he will be the third non-Ashkenazi president after Yitzhak Navon and Moshe Katsav. If Herzog wins, he will be the fourth Sabra president after Yitzhak Navon, Ezer Weizman and the present incumbent, Reuven Rivlin.Peretz is also the head of the Labor Party, which, according to the polls, is unlikely to pass the threshold in the next elections, so the presidency would be his last hurrah, though not necessarily. Navon returned to politics after completing his tenure, and was appointed education minister. Herzog is a former head of the Labor Party.Aside from their political affiliations, the two are completely different in style and background. Peretz is a shouter, who seldom speaks in an even tone. Whenever he is interviewed on radio or television, he sounds as if he is making a political pitch to the crowd. Herzog is soft-spoken and unfailingly polite. Herzog is a lawyer by profession, who speaks fluent English, went to school in the United States while his father was ambassador there, and later, in addition to Tel Aviv University, attended two major American universities. Peretz finished high school, but did not continue to higher education. His command of English is poor.Herzog has an impressive pedigree. The grandfather for whom he was named was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the nascent State of Israel. His father, in addition to being a diplomat and politician, was Israel’s sixth president. His mother was the founder of the Council for a Beautiful Israel. One of his maternal aunts was married to Abba Eban, who was ambassador to both the United Nations and the United States, and who personally hoisted the Israeli flag on the UN building after Israel was accepted as a member state. Eban later served as Israel’s foreign minister. Herzog’s paternal grandmother was the founder of World Emunah. In addition, Herzog has already met many world leaders past and present, and continues to do so in his current role. These combined attributes give him an edge over other contenders.■ IN THE mid-1980s, the late Uri Wexler, who was then the treasurer of the Jerusalem Municipality, was heavily involved in planning Kiryat Ben-Gurion, the government complex, with the aim of bringing all government ministries, with the possible exception of the Defense Ministry, to Jerusalem, and placing them in close proximity to each other, because he believed that the seat of government should be architecturally solid and united, and not scattered in different places. He did not take the Prime Minister’s Residence into account at the time, even though he may have been aware that even then it was inadequate for its purpose.It was Rabin who, shortly before his death, came up with the idea of emulating the United States and having the prime minister’s workplace and residence in different wings of the same building, as they are in the White House. Nothing much was done by prime minister Shimon Peres to promote this concept, but when Netanyahu became prime minister the first time around, he was quite enthusiastic about it. So was Ariel Sharon when he assumed the premiership a few years later, but it was not a priority with him. It was Ehud Olmert, who succeeded Sharon, who in 2009, shortly before stepping down from office, ensured that a bill for the construction of a new facility for the prime minister was passed by the government.Netanyahu, who had been head of the opposition and, as such, had actively campaigned for Olmert’s resignation in the face of the court case hanging over Olmert’s head, subsequently succeeded in canceling the bill, until he came up with one of his own, by which time the cost of the project, originally estimated at $650 million, was decidedly more. A suitable site was found in the vicinity of the government complex, but with the change of the entrance to Jerusalem, the site, on which very little work was done, is no longer suitable, and construction costs have almost doubled in the interim.Now a new site has to be found, and it is to be hoped that those searching for it will consider the fact that the President’s Residence, which also serves as his place of work, is no longer adequate for its purpose. An ideal would be to find a large tract of land on which the president’s and the prime minister’s administrative offices and residential quarters would stand opposite each other, separated by an attractive garden, but with underground corridors leading from one to the other. The overall property could also include a guesthouse for visiting heads of state and prime ministers. This would save both travel time and security resources, as well as the inconvenience caused to the public by the comings and goings of the president and the prime minister.Given Israel’s current economic crisis, construction will probably be delayed for at least another decade, unless the Rothschilds or some other philanthropic family come to the rescue, as they have done so frequently in the past.Meanwhile, plans for an Israeli equivalent of Air Force One, approved during a period of the Netanyahu regime, have been frozen. The plane arrived in Israel in 2016. Its interior was being specially fitted by Israel Aerospace Industries, but the plane is still grounded, as costs have soared from an original estimate of $50m. to more than $160m. and rising. By the time the plane is airborne, it will be obsolete, and millions of dollars that could have been used for social welfare will have been wasted.■ JUST BEFORE Tisha Be’av, leading state, city and community rabbis as well as heads of yeshivot signed a document banning Jewish ascent to the Temple Mount. The document, which was placed as an advertisement in certain religious publications, included previous declarations by prominent rabbis, some of whom are no longer living. Among the signatories to the most recent document were chief rabbis Yitzhak Yosef, whose late father, Ovadia Yosef, had been an earlier signatory, and David Lau, the name of whose father, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who is a previous chief rabbi, was conspicuously absent from the list of past and present signatories.Three years ago, the senior Lau, on reaching the age of 80, retired from the position of chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, and so far, there has been no replacement. Lau, who is one of the most widely known rabbis in Israel and the Jewish world, and who is frequently interviewed on radio and television on issues that are not always of a religious nature, is still regarded by Tel Avivians as the chief rabbi of their city, and continues to perform many of the tasks that he performed in that capacity.■ ISOLATION REGULATIONS for air travelers in Israel and abroad put a prick in the balloon of Barbara Goldstein, the deputy executive director of the Hadassah office in Israel. Goldstein had been planning to go to Puerto Rico for a grandchild’s wedding. As there are no direct flights from Israel to Puerto Rico, she would have had to go into isolation en route, in New York, then again on the way back, and yet again after landing in Israel. It was just too much for someone as energetic as Goldstein.Now, one of her daughters, Shira Mushkin, is missing out on a trip to Barcelona for a gala prize-giving ceremony, after winning one of the categories in the 15th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for women photographers. The prestigious competition is named for the 19th-century photographer who was a pioneer among women in her time, and whose wonderful work can still be seen in museums and galleries. Developing and printing on glass was a much more exacting task than producing photos today. It truly was an art in those days. Mushkin was one of 910 professional and amateur photographers from 65 countries who submitted a total of 6,875 photographs. Mushkin won in the Digital Manipulation and Collage category in the nonprofessional section.■ THE LATE Dr. Hillel Blondheim, who was the founding chairman of the Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue in Jerusalem’s Talbiyeh neighborhood, left a triple-digit legacy to the congregation. Blondheim was 100 at the time of his death, as was veteran congregant Leah Globe at the time of her death. Netta Pollak, another congregant, died at 103, while Auschwitz survivor Mirjam Bolle, is now 103, and regularly attended synagogue services prior to the pandemic and could be seen on weekdays, scuttling around the supermarket and carrying her purchases home unaided. Last Friday, yet another congregant, Roz Groob, was written up in the weekend supplement of The Jerusalem Post on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Groob is the older sister of the late, delightfully eccentric journalist Diana Lerner, whose byline frequently appeared in the Post over a period that spanned more than a half a century. There are quite a few nonagenarians and octogenarians in the congregation who look as if they’ll have no trouble making it to a triple-digit birthday.■ FELLOW HAZVI Yisrael congregants Paul and Nina Freedman, who live a hop, skip and a jump from the Prime Minister’s Residence, this week celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary, and received the best possible gift. Each was separately tested for coronavirus, and in both cases, the tests came out negative.■ SEVERAL MKs have added to their families during their periods as legislators. When a new baby arrives at the home of a male MK, it’s no big deal, but if a female legislator has a baby, that’s regarded as something exceptional, even though others have done so before her. However, Tzipi Hotovely, ambassador-designate to the United Kingdom, has probably created a ripple in Knesset history by getting married and giving birth to all three of her daughters while serving as a legislator. The girls are aged six, four and two, and one suspects that Hotovely and her husband, Or Alon, a lawyer by profession, will have no trouble in finding babysitters in London.■ FORMER MK Anastasia Michaeli had seven young children when she entered the Knesset, and gave birth to her eighth, a boy, while still in office. But insofar as the size of her brood, it was not the largest. David Levy and Meir Porush hold that record so far, with 12 children each.■ FEW THINGS are more exciting to sports fans than when a team for which they root wins a state, national or international championship. The only thing that beats that kind of elation is being invited to pose with the trophy, which is what happened to veteran Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter Zvi Vilder, when Shimon Mizrahi, the legendary, longtime chairman of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball Club invited Vilder to join him in posing with the trophy after the team scored an 86-81 victory against Rishon Lezion, which guaranteed it the Israeli Basketball Premier League championship.■ EVEN IN troubling times such as these, Israelis can show generosity of spirit. Yediot Aharonot ran a delightful Tu Be’av story about immigrants from Ukraine, Alexei and Yelena Esterin of Afula, who after undergoing conversion by the Haifa Rabbinate decided to have a Jewish wedding on Tu Be’av. The couple, who have been in Israel for only two years, have no money, and put a notice on Facebook asking for help in their celebration. It came from all directions. Afula Mayor Avi Elkabetz has made a local park available to all bridal couples. In addition, the Esterins were plied with food, including wedding cakes, a bridal gown, hairdo, makeup, photographer, a car to transport them, decorated with all the usual bridal paraphernalia, a rabbi to conduct the marriage service, and more. The volume and variety of generosity were totally unexpected, especially as many of those who were moved to help are hurting financially themselves. For the Esterins, this was the most heartwarming example of acceptance.greerfc@gmail.com
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