Grapevine: He’s walking the walk

Rabbi Engelman, an Anglo Israeli, has been the spiritual mentor of Yakar in Tel Aviv since its inception, has done more than just talk.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Grapevine 521 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Grapevine 521
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
■ WHILE POPULAR Jerusalem teacher and lecturer Rabbi Benny Lau – who is also a radio and television personality and the nephew of Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau – has been seen and heard among the speakers at demonstrations in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, Rabbi Yehoshua Engelman, an Anglo Israeli who was the rabbi of Yakar in the UK for several years and has been the spiritual mentor of Yakar in Tel Aviv since its inception, has done more than just talk. Like so many other Tel Avivians, he has been living in a tent since the beginning of the nationwide struggle for social justice; and as a qualified and practicing psychotherapist, he has been quietly helping some demonstrators for whom the whole experience has been mentally unnerving.
Because he is also a talented singer and guitarist, Engelman has attracted a large following of young people, who like to sing along with him and gravitate in droves to his orange tent on Nordau Boulevard on Friday afternoons for his Kabbalat Shabbat service. He is also a member of Rabbis for Human Rights, who believes that the most positive example of solidarity is to be an active part of a movement, and not just a sympathetic onlooker.
■ IN ADDITION to all the demonstrations and demands by various sectors throughout the country, there was one toward the end of last week outside the Tel Aviv Museum, where local artists, art lovers, art critics and curators gathered to protest the absence of local artists on the head-hunting team looking for a successor to Mordechai Omer, the museum’s director and chief curator, who died in June after a brief battle with cancer.
The demonstrators charged that the museum, which in essence was created for the benefit of the public, had become the private domain of art collectors and major donors who loaned or financed retrospectives by major artists of world renown, but did little to encourage Israeli art.
According to Hadas Reshef, a well-known curator and artist, wealthy people financed competitions for local artists, but the winners were then expected to donate to the museum instead of the museum rewarding their talents by buying works from them. Following an inquiry by Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet, a spokesperson for the Tel Aviv Museum said that artist Ofer Lalush would be invited to sit on the committee that will recommend the appointment of a new museum director.
■ IF YOU thought the cottage cheese protest was over, think again. On the same night that people were protesting outside the Tel Aviv Museum, another group of demonstrators that included people from different parts of the country gathered outside the home of Shufersal controlling shareholder Nochi Dankner in Herzliya Pituah to protest the cost not only of cottage cheese and other dairy products, but of many food items which are much cheaper in the United States and Europe, where salaries and wages are generally higher than those of Israel.
The same products also cost less in many haredi supermarkets, and prices are lower still in Arab towns and villages. “It’s all because there’s no competition in mainstream Israel,” said Benny Groberman, one of the people behind the cottage cheese revolution. “We don’t want tzedaka (charity) – we want tzedek (justice),” shouted a female demonstrator from Holon.
■ PEOPLE LIVING in and around Tel Aviv’s prestigious Gan Ha’ir apartment complex were somewhat surprised to see a cascade of balloons floating through the air from the direction of the penthouse belonging to Eitan Wertheimer and his wife, Ariela, who had planned a gala surprise party for his 60th birthday. The event was to have taken place at the Tefen Museum in the Galilee established by Wertheimer’s famous father, Stef, who celebrated his 85th birthday in mid-July; but the younger Wertheimer got wind of it, and said that at a time when the public was drawing attention to the extreme gaps between the haves and have-nots, it was unseemly to have a birthday party – even a milestone one – of such grandiose proportions. The guest list was then trimmed down to something far more intimate, and the venue changed to Tel Aviv.
■ IN KEEPING with the last wishes of veteran Army Radio news presenter Adi Talmor, whose death by choice shocked his family and his colleagues at Army Radio and other media outlets, a memorial gathering was held on Thursday of last week on the Tel Aviv beach promenade, alongside Talmor’s favorite bench. The event was attended by his brother Yitzhak Manor and past and present Army Radio personnel. Psalms were recited and some of the songs Talmor loved most were sung. Last Saturday, also in accordance with his wishes, a memorial program was broadcast on Army Radio with songs he had personally selected. Israel Radio interrupted its own program to announce the program being relayed on the other station.
There was only one deviation from Talmor’s final instructions, and that was at the Thursday event, when Yitzhak Tunik, commander-in-chief of Army Radio, announced that the station’s newsroom would be named for Talmor, who had spent more than 30 years of his life in it.
Talmor had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and told he had only a few months left to live. Rather than be a burden to himself and his family, he went to Switzerland and ended his life in assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic.