Grapevine, July 15, 2020: When history meets reality

A round up of news from around Israel.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
TZUR DABUSH (left) presents a check to Meni Mendel. (photo credit: Courtesy)
TZUR DABUSH (left) presents a check to Meni Mendel.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
In one of those strange historic coincidences, the runoff for the Polish presidential elections took place two days after the 79th anniversary of the notorious Jedwabne pogrom, in which Poles massacred more than 300 of their Jewish neighbors. Poland was then under German occupation, but this slaughter was not at the behest of the Nazis. It was an initiative of the Polish Catholic residents of Jedwabne.
At the end of the same month, there was a similar pogrom in Lviv. Soon after the Second World War, there was a pogrom in Kielce on July 4, 1946, carried out by Poles.
There were many more such incidents, but there were not always survivors to tell of them or to record them in their diaries, says Shevah Weiss, a child Holocaust survivor and a former Israel ambassador to Poland.
A series of post-Communist Polish presidents have apologized for Polish persecution of Jews, and in particular have related to Jedwabne. The apologies began with Lech Walesa, the first of such presidents of free Poland, who in May 1991, speaking from the Knesset podium, asked for forgiveness from the Jewish people for centuries of antisemitism. Others include president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who in July 2001 said at Jedwabne: “For this crime we should beg the souls of the dead and their families for forgiveness.” In July 2011 president Bronislaw Komorowski publicly apologized for the wholesale killing of Jews by their Polish neighbors.
Current president Andrzej Duda, who is a staunch conservative Polish nationalist who does not believe in restoring Jewish property to the heirs of the wartime owners or to the Jewish community of Poland, even though his wife is of Jewish descent, was the candidate of the ruling Law and Justice Party in 2015, and again this time around, as he won the election by a very narrow 2.5% margin over rival liberal candidate Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who scored amazingly well considering the lateness with which he entered the race. Duda lost points due to his homophobic rantings against the LGBT community.
Polish leaders are more inclined to apologize or half apologize for Polish antisemitism than for any atrocities Poles may have committed against Jews.
One of Duda’s predecessors, Lech Kaczynski, when he was mayor of Warsaw, provided the land for the Polin Museum of Jewish History. Kaczynski, who visited Israel both as mayor and as president, preferred to focus more on the Jewish contribution to Polish culture and on the heroism of Jewish soldiers in the Polish army, than on Polish persecution of Jews.
Duda, in March 2018, speaking at the University of Warsaw, apologized for the 1968 Communist purge against the Jews, the stripping of their citizenship and their eviction from the country, saying “I want to ask forgiveness of those who were expelled. To those who were thrown out, I say ‘Forgive us.’”
■ FREEDOM OF speech and freedom to protest are among the rights accorded to citizens in a democratic society. But these rights are accompanied by the responsibility to behave in a civilized manner, to refrain from incitement, and to avoid verbal or physical violence or vandalism. Unfortunately, most of these responsibilities have been absent in recent global protest demonstrations against racism, the handling of the pandemic and the disintegration of economies. It’s difficult to say whether the behavior of certain demonstrators provokes police brutality, or whether police brutality brings out the worst characteristics in demonstrators. In Israel, there has been evidence of both.
Even when demonstrators believe that their cause is just, and their actions are directed against a particular political leader or civil servant, it does not excuse the headache and heartache that such demonstrations bring to the family and neighbors of their target. This was evident in the frequent demonstrations held against Attorney-General Amichai Mandelblit and even more so in the daily demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Sunday of this week, there was a Black Flag demonstration around the corner from the Prime Minister’s Residence; and down the road, there was a demonstration by social workers who have been underpaid for years.
The decision for the prime minister to live in a residential neighborhood was not Netanyahu’s. From David Ben-Gurion to Golda Meir, the prime minister’s official residence was in Rehavia, but when Yitzhak Rabin first served as prime minister, his wife refused to live in the Prime Minister’s Residence, which was in a state of neglect, and so the residence of the foreign minister, which was two short blocks away in Talbiyeh, became the Prime Minister’s Residence, and remains so to this day.
Among the neighbors are young families with babies and many senior citizens, some of whom are Holocaust survivors who really don’t need these deafening day and night disturbances in the twilight of their lives. Speakers with raucous voices scream through megaphones and can be heard four streets and more away in each direction. Members of the crowd come with horns, which they blow long and loud at each mention of corruption or of Netanyahu’s name. It’s a bit like the gragers on Purim – but much louder. If babies and elderly people are suffering from the cacophony, it’s pure hell for members of Netanyahu’s security detail, who have to constantly patrol the area.
The lack of consideration for other people is exacerbated on Saturdays, when demonstrators arrive while it is still daylight and disrupt the peace and tranquility of the Sabbath with their yelling and their horn blowing. There are many religiously observant people in the area, who in normal times attend services at one of more than a dozen synagogues within a five- to 15-minute walk from the Prime Minister’s Residence. To invade their neighborhood and ruin their Sabbath is the height of chutzpah.
Given all the psychological problems that pile up in periods of crisis, one could assume that some of the demonstrators are there simply for the excuse to leave home, mingle with other human bodies and to scream at the top of their lungs, because at a demonstration, that’s acceptable and no one will look at them askance.
■ THE CLOSURE of most cultural institutions has resulted in increased publicity for the few that are open. Leading the field in this respect is the Tower of David Museum, whose current exhibition “The Banai Family – This Is Our Song: A Musical Journey from Persia to Jerusalem” is not only a tribute to a five-generation musical family, but is in the same breath the story of Jerusalem. Although the talented Banais have spread out to different parts of the country, Jerusalem continues to play on their heartstrings and creativity, and draws them back like a magnet for important family celebrations.
Inasmuch as the Banais were, are and will be, associated with Jerusalem, they are not solely the cultural cobblestones of Jerusalem but national icons, a factor that has also contributed to the wealth of publicity that the exhibition has received.
Arguably, more has been published in The Jerusalem Post about this exhibition than in any other publication. But that did not prevent Caroline Shapiro, the museum’s public relations director, from inviting Post reporters who had not yet seen the exhibition to come on a private tour guided by the museum’s director, Eilat Lieber, who explained that the Tower of David is the only museum in the world that deals not only with ancient Jerusalem but also with modern Jerusalem, of which the Banais are an intrinsic part.
Relating to the history of the family and their long journey from Persia to Jerusalem, Lieber said that their story is one of hope, depicting how they found their place in a new country and a new culture, and how they got to where they are.
As Israel went into lockdown, Lieber was urged by her executive board and by donors to the museum to close all activity, but she refused. The exhibition was almost completed, and it was something that she felt that Israelis needed at a time like this. Admittedly, there are nowhere near as many visitors as there used to be, but people do come. The museum will soon receive a face-lift within the context of an ambitious conservation, preservation, renovation and expansion project that will enable it to provide more for the public than it has to date.
■ AS HAPPENS in many religiously observant Jewish families, some members, from generation to generation, become increasingly secular. That also happened with the Banais, but some returned to religion, such as Eviatar Banai, who is the brother of comedienne Orna Banai and the late singer-songwriter and musician Meir Banai, whose Jerusalem-based daughter Noga, who is a musician in her own right, wandered into the Banai exhibition while the Post people were there. When asked what it was like to grow up in such a talented family, she replied that when it’s a constant part of your life, you don’t think of it as unique.
As for Eviatar, he was asked by his good friend singer Aviv Gefen to help prepare Gefen’s son Dylan for his recent bar mitzvah. Gefen, once the bad boy of Israel’s entertainment industry who railed against army service and excoriated the practices of pious Jewish communities, has matured and mellowed. Even though he is still an atheist and completely secular in his lifestyle, Gefen has become a proponent for Jewish unity and has set an example for bridging the many divides by last year giving a concert in Elkana, whereas many entertainers have refused to perform in any of the communities in Judea and Samaria.
In an interview that Gefen gave to Israel Hayom during the period in which Dylan was learning his Torah portion, he explained that he had raised no objections to Dylan having a bar mitzvah and reading from the Torah, because there is a connection deeper than any ideology or political belief, and this connection is something that has to be revived and experienced together.
■ APPARENTLY, THE apple fell far from the tree where Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef is concerned. The present chief rabbi does not seem to identify with the spirit of the blessings his late father, former chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, gave to his daughter (Yitzhak Yosef’s sister) Adina Bar Shalom for her various revolutionary projects, including fighting gender discrimination in the haredi community. Yitzhak Yosef seems unable to grasp the fact that the absorption of knowledge has nothing to do with gender, but with brainpower and perseverance. Yosef may have inherited his father’s extraordinary gift for absorbing knowledge, but not his gift for wisdom and compassion in dealing with halachic issues.
As first reported by the Kikar Shabbat ultra-Orthodox news site, Yosef adamantly refused to obey a court order for granting accreditation to women who, after being separately tested, would pass the same exceedingly difficult examinations in advanced Jewish law that were given to men. It’s really strange that a person’s Jewish identity is determined by whether the mother is Jewish, but at the same time Yitzhak Yosef will not give that mother accreditation for her Jewish learning. Yosef ridiculed the idea that women might have an in-depth knowledge of all the laws pertaining to kashrut – this despite the fact that a woman is in charge of the kitchen in every kosher home. He also accused women seeking such accreditation of imitating Reform Judaism, and dismissed Reform Judaism as fake. Yitzhak Yosef might be surprised to learn how well versed in Judaism many Reform and Conservative Jews are.
The late Rabbi Herman Sanger, a German-born seventh-generation rabbi, who defied the Nazis, got out of Germany just in time, went to London and from there to Australia, where he became the spiritual leader of the first non-Orthodox congregation that had been established six years prior to his arrival. Highly educated, both Jewishly and academically, Sanger quickly made his mark in the Jewish community, where he was also a proponent for Zionism. His most frequently aired argument with the Orthodox rabbinate was “you always see us as the last door on the way out instead of the first door on the way back.” That’s something that Yitzhak Yosef and others who have a horse-with-blinkers attitude to their particular brand of Judaism should think about.
■ MEANWHILE, IN New York, the Orthodox Union has launched an online summer beit midrash for women through the OU Women’s Initiative. Participants have the options of an intensive learning program that includes, Halacha, Bible and refinement of character, or a lecture series examining the Torah through the lens of architecture, literature and history. The teachers and lecturers are all highly qualified female scholars who will inspire Jewish women worldwide, said OU president Moishe Bane. For further information or to register: https://www.ou.org/women/3weeks/.
■ NOTWITHSTANDING ALL the criticism leveled at the government for mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis, there is no reason to believe that its members are not sincere in trying to find both economic and health solutions. Unfortunately, the result is similar to that of the camel that surfaced from the committee that was appointed to design a horse. Such errors are not uncommon even in the Start-Up Nation with all its individual and collective genius.
One of the worst mistakes in trying to manage the second wave of the crisis was to deny Roni Numa, a former chief of the IDF’s Central Command, a free hand in heading a special committee under the auspices of the Health Ministry to fight the pandemic. Numa did a superb job in winning not only the confidence but the friendship and cooperation of the residents of Bnei Brak when a lockdown was imposed on them during the first coronavirus wave. Numa is a strong believer in dialogue, which leads to cooperation when the other side feels that you are taking its needs and opinions into consideration. Numa was willing to come aboard again in a voluntary capacity, providing that he was not subject to bureaucratic restrictions. The response was “nyet,” and so the man best qualified for the job, with the possible exception of former acting defense minister Naftali Bennett, is not part of the solution to the problem, and the problem keeps growing.
■ AUSTRALIA IS home to one of the most far-flung but most diverse Jewish communities in the world, which in the last official national census numbered just under 100,000, though estimates contend that the actual figure is much higher. Jewish day schools range from ultra-Orthodox to Reform. Among the secular Jewish day schools is Melbourne’s Sholem Aleichem school, in which part of the curriculum is in Yiddish. Jewish community organizations cover every aspect of Jewish welfare, in addition to a variety of Zionist youth groups, adult friends organizations that support numerous Israeli institutions and organizations, as well as many local cultural and sporting organizations.
Over the years, organizations such as United Israel Appeal and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund have brought scores of well-known Israeli personalities to Australia to address Jewish communities in the different states. During the pandemic, they have introduced even more Israelis from many walks of life to Australian Jewry via the Zionist Federation of Australia’s Lockdown Learning program, in which prominent Israelis participate in lectures, conferences and interviews on Zoom. The Lockdown Learning events, designed to keep the Jewish community connected, are held every Sunday. A similar series is held on Wednesdays by UIA.
On this coming Sunday, Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz will be engaged in conversation with former ZFA president Ron Weiser. Among other things, they will discuss how the Israel government is dealing with the pandemic and what the future holds with regard to Israel extending sovereignty to certain parts of the West Bank. There is no need to register with Zoom. The event will also be relayed on the ZFA Facebook page. It begins at 1 p.m. Israel time.
■ BIOLOGICAL AGE should no longer be a factor in determining capabilities. While it is true that some people over the age of 70 tend to slow down both mentally and physically, that doesn’t apply to everyone. There are plenty of people in their 80s and 90s whose brains are still sharp and who are active in many spheres.
One such example can be found among the residents of Protea Hills, a delightful retirement village located at Moshav Shoresh, which is approximately a 10-15 minute drive from Jerusalem. Within the ever-increasing variety of activities that go on at Protea Hills is an annual charity bazaar on behalf of a worthy organization. This year, the organization selected was OneFamily, which puts purpose and enjoyment back into the lives of victims of terrorist attacks, and relatives of people killed in terrorist attacks.
Like all bazaars, this one included various contributed items, in this case mostly by residents. There were a lot of clothes and accessories among the contributions, which prompted the bazaar committee, comprising Levanna Elkeslassy, Jedidjah Gross, Judith Nachmias, Judy Aronson, Miriam Yankelevitch, Becky Mevorach, Channan Sommerfield and Orit Maor to organize a fashion show. They didn’t want to lose any money from the proceeds of sales by hiring professional models, so they asked some of the caregivers of residents to do the honors. The response was, of course, enthusiastically affirmative. It was such a pleasant experience for them to be the stars of the show.
Dina Kit, representing OneFamily, gave an impassioned address, stressing the importance of its work and thanking Protea residents for their financial support.
The elegantly attired models also sported designer masks specially created by resident artist Becky Mevorach. Although the outdoor event, in accordance with Health Ministry regulations, was a fun thing, the models took their roles seriously, and strutted their stuff as if to the manor born.
Even Protea Hills manager Yehiel Nisselnholz got into the spirit with his display of gentlemen’s apparel, in tandem with his thespian inclinations. Another male who was part of the overall show was male caregiver Alex Tasoro.
The integrated Protea Hills community, despite background differences, is very cohesive, with a warm and friendly relationship between residents and staff.
Throughout the pandemic, nursing homes, retirement villages and sheltered living facilities have been given a bad name. Too many residents in such places have succumbed to the virus, and not enough publicity has been given to nursing homes, retirement villages and sheltered living facilities in which there have been no, or hardly any cases of, infection. Protea Hills is but one example.
■ WHILE THE government is taking its time to honor pledges to send financial aid to the bank accounts of businesspeople whose profits have diminished and whose expenses have piled up, as well as to people who have lost their jobs, some large business enterprises that are still afloat are giving a helping hand to small businesses to enable them to survive the crisis.
Klil Aluminum and Window Industries chairman Tzur Dabush responded to an appeal by radio and television personality Menachem Horowitz to help Meni and Ronale Mendel of the Ronale Bakery which is located in the Nahariya Railway Station. During the period in which the trains were not running, the Mendels suffered greatly, and were in danger of going bankrupt. To help tide them over, Dabush presented Meni Mendel with a check for NIS 17,550 in order to renew his operations, plus an agreement that Ronale Bakery would supply Klil Industries with baked goods for all their future events. The check was not a handout but a deposit. So many proprietors of small businesses that had to close during lockdown have said that they don’t want charity, they just want to get back to work. Dabush understood this and, in Mendel’s case, made it possible.
■ NO ONE likes errors, but when journalists make mistakes and are corrected by readers, they at least have the comfort of knowing that what they wrote was read. In last Wednesday’s Grapevine, an item about police mistreatment of British athlete Bianca Williams mistakenly listed Linford Christie as the person with whom she had been in the car from which police had removed her. In fact, as reader Sally Shaw of Kfar Saba noted, Williams had been in the car with her partner, Ricardo dos Santos.
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