It’s been said before, and it will be said again. Considering that many of the invitees to diplomatic events are on the invitation lists of several ambassadors, there should be better coordination on reception dates for very important events. For instance, at least three ambassadors whose countries are members of the European Union hosted significant events on Tuesday, which caused a lot of frustration to those members of the diplomatic community and Israeli dignitaries who were invited to all three.
German Ambassador Steffen Siebert hosted a reception in the garden of his residence in Herzliya Pituah in celebration of the 35th anniversary of German Unity Day and the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel. President Isaac Herzog was among the many dignitaries who attended.
Further south, at the Hilton hotel in Tel Aviv, Kornelios Korneliou, the ambassador of Cyprus, hosted a reception in celebration of his country’s 65th anniversary of independence, while in Jaffa, French Ambassador Frédéric Journès conferred honors on four people who had been recognized for their contributions to France-Israel relations.
Pianist, composer, and poet Orit Wolf was honored with the Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Yitzhak Eldan, former chief of state protocol and before that ambassador to UNESCO and the Council of Europe, was elevated to Grade Comandeur dans L’Ordre des Palmes académiques. He had been instrumental in the creation of Maison France-Israel and in the development of cultural dialogue between the two countries.
David Maimon, an educator and a pedagogic legend, who for 30 years was principal at the Kfar Maimon School, was also conferred with the Ordre des Palmes académiques.
Sister Manar Sony, director of the School for Nuns of the Order of Saint Joseph in Nazareth, where French is taught as a second language and the values of friendship are imparted, was also honored.
Tuesday was altogether a heavy day for diplomats, with six envoys presenting credentials, diplomats participating in The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference, a vin d’honneur for the new ambassadors, which unfortunately flopped, as their colleagues were engaged elsewhere, and then the evening’s events, where many of them once again got together.
■ IF CONVERSATION around the dinner table is stilted and lapses into awkward silence, one way of getting everyone talking is to ask each person to name their favorite invention over the past two or three centuries. Everyone will have to put on their thinking caps, and the answers are bound to be interesting and trigger a bevy of lively conversations.
My own favorite is video with sound that enables the preservation of the images and voices of loved ones so that future generations can know what their forebears looked like and sounded like.
This is also a valuable tool for national archives and national libraries, as has already been proven.
A case in point is Yossi Alfi’s storytelling programs, which have run for more than three decades. They are all recorded by KAN, the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation, and were previously recorded by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, whose collection was transferred to IPBC.
These themed programs are broadcast every week and not necessarily in chronological order. Last week, for instance, the theme was history, and at least two of the participants, historian Yitzhak Noy and educator Zvi Tzameret, are no longer living but were highly respected in their time for their contributions to Israeli culture and education.
One of Noy’s comments will forever remain valid. “There is no such thing as authentic history,” he said. “History is in the eye of the beholder.”
The same actually applies to journalism. You can have a half dozen journalists attending an event, and although the key factors in the reports will be more or less along the same lines, each report will contain points of difference. When all the reports are identical – but with different bylines – the reader should be aware that the journalists have simply done a cut-and-paste job on a press release.
A prime example of eye-of-the-beholder history taken as gospel is Josephus Flavius, whose record of the historic events of his time is quoted by Jews and non-Jews alike, but considering that he had minimal competition, who’s to know whether or not his legacy is an early example of fake news?
Historian Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, who appeared on the same program, recited a string of historical inaccuracies that have been handed down as fact from generation to generation but are actually myths masquerading as history. She also backed up her contentions with reliable references.
■ THE SLOGAN of The New York Times, ‘All the news that’s fit to print,’ is a fallacy – depending on the interpretation of the word ‘fit.’ If it means all that can be fit into the available space, then it’s not a fallacy. If it means that everything considered newsworthy is published in the NYT, then it is a fallacy because no newspaper has room to publish everything.
That’s why, when comparing daily publications, most will have versions of international headline news, such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but not all will have the same local news items, such as a robbery, the vandalization of an official building, or a traffic accident. That’s why there are many items in different publications that may appear in one or two but not in all of them. The same goes for feature stories.
In last Friday’s Grapevine, there was an item related to a Hadassah award and fundraising event, with the focus on the Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Mount Scopus.
Coincidentally, on the same day, there was a feature story in the weekend edition of Israel Hayom about a young man who had been shown on a video presentation at the fundraiser.
His name is Itzik Perat. A 23-year-old lone soldier from New Jersey, he got married last week to Nechama, a fellow lone soldier from Chicago. But it’s not your usual boy-meets-girl story. Itzik is a member of the elite Egoz unit, and after fighting in Gaza, the unit moved North, where Itzik was critically wounded in Lebanon. One of his legs was shattered, and his life hung in the balance.
He was in a coma for months before he finally opened his eyes. Even then, there was some fear of permanent negative aftereffects that might have affected his brain. Fortunately, that did not happen. He was transferred from Hadassah Ein Kerem to the Gandel Rehabilitation Center on Mount Scopus. Therapists patiently worked with him, and Nechama was frequently at his side.
One of his big dreams was to be able to walk unaided to the bridal canopy and stomp on the glass at his wedding. That happened, partially because he stubbornly kept up his exercises no matter how tiring and painful they were and partially because he had a highly trained and caring medical staff for whom healing is both a mission and a passion. Some people call the results of their combined efforts a miracle.
■ WITH THE issue of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft still unresolved, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week attended a ceremony in the Western Wall tunnels to mark the start of the year for Netzah Mechinot, the main training track of haredi youth who have enlisted for military service.
The event was under the auspices of the Shomer Yisrael Union, which encompasses all Haredi military programs.
The ceremony was attended by over 300 young haredi men beginning their study year in preparation for significant combat service in the IDF, alongside students from the Derech Chaim haredi hesder yeshiva, which is considered the flagship institution for haredi-technological service, combining high-level Torah studies with service in elite technological units.
In addition to the prime minister, the ceremony was attended by Yossi Levy, CEO of the Shomer Yisrael Union and founder of the Netzah Mechinot network; Education Minister Yoav Kisch; chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee MK Boaz Bismuth; Brig.-Gen. Shai Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division; Maj.-Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa, head of the Personnel Directorate; Lt.-Col. L, battalion commander of Netzah Yehuda; and Col. Avinoam Emunah, commander of the Hashmonaim Brigade.
Also in attendance were Udi Dror from the Social-Security Division of the Ministry of Defense; Border Police Commander Berick Yitzhak; Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yehuda Duvdevani, founder of Nahal Haredi; rabbis of the Netzah Yehuda Organization; Tzvika Cohen, CEO of the National Insurance Institute; and other senior officials. The event also featured a performance by singer Ishay Lapidot, produced by Tzvaim Productions.
Officials at Netzah Yehuda stated that the participation of the prime minister constitutes a statement on the national importance that the political echelon attaches to recruiting haredim into the IDF.