Grapevine July 22, 2020: A new business venture during COVID-19

A round up of news from around Israel.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Sol Green with the KKL-JNF tree certificate testifying that a 99-tree grove bears his name. (photo credit: JAY SOLOMONT)
Sol Green with the KKL-JNF tree certificate testifying that a 99-tree grove bears his name.
(photo credit: JAY SOLOMONT)
There’s an old theory that the best time to buy stocks and shares is when the market hits rock bottom. Many businesses that flourished in the past and have struck a bad patch may well thrive again. Cases where this theory has been proven obviously do not apply to opening a new business.
But then Israelis, according to the Bible, are a stiff-necked people, who don’t bow in the wind of oppression or depression.
That explains the opening next week in Neveh Zedek of a new concept in the realm of hospitality.
Selina is not a hotel, not a hostel, not a guesthouse or a boardinghouse in the conventional sense. It’s an affordable, multipurpose experience for backpackers and anyone else who may be looking for an inexpensive roof over their heads coupled with opportunities to eat good, healthy food, be entertained, integrate with the local population, work to make enough money to pay for accommodation at the next destination, volunteer for a charity or a project, and in fact do a lot of things that go beyond the scope of traditional tourism.
Selina is the brainchild of Rafi Museri and Daniel Rudasevski, who each went to South America after completing their mandatory army service. In Costa Rica, they were introduced to each other by a mutual friend, and one thing led to another with the pleasant discovery that they were on the same page when envisaging tourism of the future.
For their pilot enterprise they needed the right destination, a place somewhat off the beaten track of the tourist map, close to the beach and with a friendly local population. They looked at a lot of possibilities throughout Latin America, and finally settled on a delightful village in Panama.
That was back in 2012. Since then they’ve opened some 75 hospitality enterprises in many parts of the world, and have a lot more in the pipeline, including in Israel. Along the way, they’ve also collected some hefty investors, such as Adam Neumann, the co-founder of WeWork, from which he left with a very nice severance package; British entrepreneur Sir Ronald Cohen; and Len Blavatnik, the principal shareholder in Channel 13 and Clal Industries.
Heading Selina’s Israel operations is Yossi Mautner, who is a qualified lawyer, but who has spent most of his professional career in managerial positions in the hospitality and food and beverage industries. He also managed the estate of Ruth Ofer, widow of the late business tycoon Yuli Ofer. The estate included valuable items of art and archaeology.
Museri and Rudasevski have set up their headquarters in London, which is close enough to Israel for frequent visits to family and friends, though not as frequent these days, because it means periods of isolation in both directions.
■ STILL ON the subject of hotels, hostels, inns, etc., hot on the heels of the retirement of Haim Shkedi, the longtime general manager of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, is that of Noah Greenwald, the chief financial officer of the Dan Hotel chain, who has spent almost half a century in the chain’s employ, beginning with the founders, the late brothers Yekutiel and Samuel Federmann, and continuing with their sons Michael and Ami. At an intimate farewell in his honor, Greenwald, who has held several positions in the company’s finance department, said that he had spent most of his adult life there, and that it had truly been a second home, but he felt that the time had come for him to relax. Michael Federmann, who chairs the chain’s board of directors, characterized Greenwald as one of the pillars of the Dan chain, and credited him with much of its development and success. Dan Hotels president and CEO Ronen Nissenbaum praised Greenwald’s financial management abilities and his integrity.
As busy as Greenwald was with the load of responsibilities that he carried on his shoulders, he still made room in his life for cultural and social welfare activities in a voluntary capacity. These included being a member of the board of management of the Yuval Israeli ensemble for the promotion of cantorial and Jewish music; a member of the executive board of AMHA, which works for the well-being of Holocaust survivors; a member of the Kochav Yair local council; and a member of the executive of Midreshet Noam.
■ IN OTHER news about the Dan Hotels, five of the hotels in the chain – the King David, the Dan Caesarea, the Dan Accadia Herzliya, and the Dan Carmel Haifa – have entered into a special project with American Express whereby some of Israel’s top-line celebrity chefs will join forces with their colleagues who are working as executive chefs in the above-mentioned hotels, to create new menus that include Mediterranean- and Asian-inspired dishes plus Israeli street food, all presented along the lines stipulated in the Health Ministry’s purple standard.
The celebrity chefs include Moshik Roth, a two-star Michelin holder, Yossi Shitrit, Yuval Ben Neriah (Taizu), Sharon Cohen (Shila), Yaron Kastenbaum (M25 and Meat Market), Avivit Priel Avichai (Ouzeria), Tomer Agai (Santa Katarina), Idan Fainburg (Panda Pita) and Ariel Rosenthal (The Magician). There will be opportunities to meet with the various chefs, to learn their personal stories, what motivates them, what inspires them and what they themselves like to eat.
Special dining occasions have been planned for this week at the Dan Caesarea, and for the other hotels mentioned above at various dates in August, beginning with the Dan Accadia on August 4-6, where Roth will be the visiting chef.
■ ONE LAST mention of the Dan chain: Jerusalem-born, ultra-left-wing, pro-Palestinian journalist Amira Hass, who writes for Haaretz and whose beat is what she calls the occupied territories, returned to Israel from the United States and had to go into isolation Even though she has an apartment in El-Bireh near Ramallah, and her friends had stocked her refrigerator with an abundance of fruits and vegetables, she was nonetheless sent from the airport to an isolation hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel was the Dan Jerusalem, originally known as the Hyatt, which, as far as Hass is concerned, is located in “occupied territory.”
What was interesting about her story in Haaretz was how the title changed, plus the fact that Hass actually enjoyed herself, and met people she might otherwise never have come across. In the original Hebrew version, it was called “In isolation, but not isolated.” In the English print edition it was called “Staying in an isolation hotel in a Jerusalem settlement,” and in the English-language digital version the title was extended to “How I ended up staying at an isolation hotel in a ‘Jerusalem settlement.’” With the present glut in hotel construction, the title may give impetus to West Bank developers to build boutique hotels in the larger settlements. It would probably work out well, as so many of the residents have relatives who come from abroad for family celebrations and often stay in hotels in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, but in some cases would be very pleased if there was a hotel at the settlement where the celebration is being held.
■ NONE OF us can read everything, and even stories on subjects that may come close to an obsession with any of us escape our attention. As someone who lost aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents in the Holocaust, and who was raised in a Jewish community that had one of the highest percentages of Holocaust survivors in the world, Holocaust history is part of my DNA. Though more familiar with the Holocaust history of Poland, I am naturally interested in that of any country, and am therefore indebted to fellow Australian Joan Fisher of Jerusalem for drawing my attention to an article about Leica, the famous German camera company, and the relationship of its owner to the Jews. The article she sent had no byline and seeking to reprint it and give credit to the writer, I googled it and discovered that the Internet has quite a collection of articles on the subject.
Another reason that I was instantly caught up in the subject was that Israel’s great photojournalist David Rubinger, who captured the nation’s evolving history through the lens of his Leica camera, was never seen without it, right up to the time of his death a little over three years ago. Rubinger relied on Leica for some 70 years. Very soon after the Second World War, he was gifted with his first Leica camera in 1946, and Leica served him well for the rest of his life.
The gist of the story of Leica and the Jews is that after the Nazis came to power, Ernst Leitz, who headed the family-owned Leica business, began receiving urgent messages from Jewish friends and associates, who were terrified of the new regime. They implored him to help get them and their families out of the country. Leitz was a good Christian in every sense of the word. He gave employment to many Jews, and then sent them abroad on assignment to Leica sales offices in France, England, Hong Kong and the United States. These contrived assignments were their passports out of Germany, and thus many lives were saved. As a parting gift, he gave each of them a new Leica camera. He paid each of them a stipend until they could find work in their new place of domicile.
Leitz’s family and senior staff were also involved in helping Jews cross the border out of Germany, and in some cases paid a heavy price for their decency and courage when arrested by the Gestapo.
Although Leitz’s daughter received many honors after the war, very little was written about what the family had done, primarily because they asked that no publicity be given to them. The story began to resurface only 13 years ago. Those people who still boycott products made in Germany should know that it’s okay to buy a Leica camera. It’s an honor and an ongoing symbol of the fact that not all Germans were caught up in the Nazi death machine.
■ FOLLOWING THE recent resignation of Prof. Ron Robin, president of the University of Haifa, from the chairmanship of the association of heads of Israeli universities, the new man in the hot seat is Prof. Asher Cohen, the president of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Robin resigned over what he perceived as the attempt by Ze’ev Elkin, the higher and secondary education minister, to interfere with the academic agenda and to deprive Israeli scientists of their academic freedom by trying to force on them a representative of Ariel University.
Elkin has denied this, but most of the heads of Israeli universities are politically on the left side of the line of demarcation, and have consistently raised objections to anything related to Ariel. They put up a fuss in 1982, when Ariel was first recognized as a college of higher education, and were even more opposed when the college was recognized as a university in 2012. Then, in 2018, when Ariel opened a medical school, there was yet another attempt to block the university’s progress. The fact that Ariel’s student body of 15,000 includes Arabs, and not just Israeli Arabs but also Palestinians, is of no consequence to members of the Council for Higher Education. They just don’t want the representatives of a West Bank Israeli university in their ranks. MK Naftali Bennett tried to change the attitude toward Ariel when he was education minister, and Elkin is doing the same.
Nonetheless, there is a realization that Ariel cannot be ostracized forever. On Sunday, in its early morning program, Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet played part of a recording of a conversation between Robin and other university heads and students in which he said that Ariel cannot be excluded indefinitely without alienating a large segment of the public.
Ariel’s main focus has been science and engineering, a factor that creates better employment opportunities for its graduates, including Palestinian and Israeli Arabs, and contributes to the economy.
In taking over from Robin, Cohen said that the organization cannot allow the harming of research and science. It’s possible that Elkin could inflict harm by interfering with the planning and budgets committee of the Council for Higher Education, but it is difficult to understand how the inclusion of an Ariel representative would be harmful, unless mega donors of the various universities would withdraw their support for political reasons. This could well be the underlying reason, given that Ariel meets the academic criteria for inclusion.
■ INTERIOR MINISTER Arye Deri has added his voice to that of Public Security Minister Amir Ohana in calling for special protection for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family in view of the growing number of death threats against them. Because the situation has become so volatile, each of the two ministers is fearful of another assassination of a prime minister. Ohana sent a letter to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit in which he urged him to take the threats against Netanyahu seriously, and Deri sent a letter to Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Nadav Argaman in which he wrote that as a member of the government headed by Yitzhak Rabin, he could not stand idly by and ignore the escalating incitement against Netanyahu and his family. In requesting that the Shin Bet intensify its already stringent efforts to protect Netanyahu, Deri wrote that if there is another murder, “we will not be able to say again that our hands did not spill his blood.”
■ MOST ASHKENAZI Jews, regardless of their immediate backgrounds, can somewhere along the line trace their lineage to Poland, where Jews have lived for a thousand years. While this is generally known, the Jewish public is far less familiar with the actual history of Jewish life in Poland, which has been alternately mythologized and demonized. Much of the true story of what Jews contributed to Poland has been lost, though there is more common knowledge about what Polish Jews contributed to the countries to which they migrated.
On Wednesday, July 22, at 9 p.m., the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv will host an online conversation between Antony Polonsky, professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at Brandeis University and chief historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and Marcin Wodzinski, the chairman of the Taube department of Jewish studies at the University of Wroclaw.
They will discuss the legacy of Polish Jews and Why Polish-Jewish history matters. Given recent distortions of this history, the subject is extremely relevant. The discussion will be in English. Preregistration is required. Details are available on the Facebook page of the Polish Institute.
■ A REGULAR, active member of Jerusalem’s Migdal Hashoshanim synagogue, better known as the Pinsker synagogue, Sol Green is one year away from his first triple-digit birthday. Last week, he celebrated his 99th birthday and was given a Zoom party, to which nearly a hundred family members and friends from around the world sent birthday greetings. There was one problem. What do you give a 99-year-old man as a birthday gift? The Pinsker congregation decided that a Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund grove of 99 trees in his name would be appropriate.
It’s not surprising that Green received congratulatory messages from around the globe. His professional career has a tri-continent history. He was the founder of the School of Social Work at Bar-Ilan University. Together with his late wife, Julia, and their children Natan and Ezra, Green spent summers in Canada, where he headed the Y camps in Montreal. They spent a year in Melbourne, where Green taught social work at the University of Melbourne and worked with the Jewish community there. Green was also the founder and dean of the Block Program of Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work, a unique program that gives students the opportunity to study over three summers at the WSSW campus and complete their field placements where they live. Green and his wife immigrated to Israel in 1990 and became involved in volunteer work for several organizations, including Melabev, the Israel Museum, OneFamily and Pardes.
Despite his advanced age, Green continues to be an active volunteer. In recent months, as COVID-19 forced so many people to stay at home, Green became a keen participant in many Zoom classes and events. One of his great joys is that his four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren all live in Israel.
■ ON MONDAY of this week, Colombia celebrated its Independence Day. Colombian Ambassador Margarita Manjarrez Herrera had planned to have a small reception at her residence in Kfar Shmaryahu to celebrate the occasion, and sent out invitations to a very limited number of people. But then, in the flip-flop of government decisions on preventing the spread of the coronavirus, restrictions were tightened, and it seemed as if there was no point in going ahead with the reception. Then restrictions were eased, but guests had already been informed that the reception was canceled, and so the Colombians followed the example of those of their colleagues who have celebrated the national days of their respective countries online. Inasmuch as video and Zoom takeovers are annoying, life would be a lot bleaker without them.
■ WHILE SOME people have become allergic to Zoom, others have become addicted and spend their days going from one Zoom event to another. One organization that has really blossomed as a result of Zoom is the Jerusalem Press Club, which now has many more events than it did in pre-coronavirus times. Not only that, but the programs are recorded and distributed to JPC members by the JPC’s press director, Talia Dekel Fleissig. JPC also streams events by other organizations and institutions, and on Thursday, July 23, will stream the Future Med 2020 online conference, which is cohosted by Clalit Health Services and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, at https://www.futuremed2020.org/ from 11 a.m  to 3:30 p.m. in Israel, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in London, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Los Angeles and 12 noon to 4:30 p.m. in New York.
The conference themes will include Crisis management and tackling uncertainty; Writing the playbook: preparing for the next wave; The pluralism of approaches around the globe to pandemic response; Self-reliance in a global crunch: what to do when globalization falls apart; Innovating fast: partnerships, convergence and repurposing; Adapting regulation and practices for real-time healthcare transformation; and Can we accelerate science and scientific publication? At what cost? Speakers will include international medical experts, world leaders, decision-makers and thought leaders.
A familiar figure to many Israelis will be Matthew Gould, who was Britain’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel. Gould is currently CEO for NHSX, a joint unit between the Department of Health and Social Care and National Health Services in England. It was set up to ensure that staff and patients have the technology they need. Gould was previously the government’s director-general for digital and media policy and the government’s director of cybersecurity.
■ ONE OF the themes of the conference, the pluralism of approaches around the globe, may well be a euphemism for the trial and error practices in most countries. Just as Israelis blame Netanyahu for coronavirus mismanagement, Americans blame President Donald Trump, the French blame President Emmanuel Macron, the British blame Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Pakistanis blame Prime Minister Imran Khan and so it goes from country to country, because no one has come up with a magic formula. Even when leaders try to do something positive, it turns out to be negative.
greerfc@gmail.com


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