Families of the victims of the suicide bombing at the now defunct Sbarro pizza parlor at Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road-King George Avenue intersection are this month commemorating the 20th anniversary of the murder, on August 9, 2001, of their loved ones who were among 15 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman, who lost their lives. Of the 130 people who were wounded, many still bear the physical and psychological scars.
Best known among the victims is teenager Malki Roth, whose parents established a memorial foundation in her name to provide support for families in which a child with mental and/or physical disabilities is being cared for at home.
Also known to the public through the interviews they have given to the media are surviving members of the Schijveschuurder family, whose mother and father, Tzira and Mordechai, and siblings Ra’aya, 14, Avraham Yitzhak, four, and Hemda, two, were killed. Two other sisters, Leah, then 11, and Chaya, then eight, were critically injured.
Mordechai and Tzira Schijveschuurder, immigrants from Holland, were both offspring of Holocaust survivors. Tzira’s parents had been prisoners in Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt. Mordechai’s parents successfully hid from the Nazis.
Ahlam Ramimi, who orchestrated the bombing, is living happily in Jordan, where she went following her release in a prisoner swap.
OneFamiy, an organization that cares for survivors of terrorist attacks and families of victims, will be commemorating the Sbarro bombing on Thursday, August 5, at Vista, 10 Emile Botta Street, Jerusalem. Keynote speaker will be former chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau.
The release in Israel last week of a new book, The Bloody Price of Freedom, by prominent Washington attorney Richard D. Heideman, coincided with the Hebrew calendar date of the Sbarro bombing, and the preface paid tribute to the memories of several people murdered by terrorists.
The first person named was Malki Roth, whose family Heideman has represented. Heideman represents American victims of terrorism and their families. Malki, who was born in Australia, and came with her parents to Israel when she was two, was the daughter of an Australian father and an American mother.
■ NOTWITHSTANDING THE spike in antisemitism in Australia, good things are also happening to give Australian Jewry cause for cheer. In what is believed to be a first, Rabbi Marcus Solomon, an Orthodox spiritual leader, has been appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
The appointment was announced last week by WA Attorney-General John Quigley, who said that Solomon “has a long-standing commitment to legal governance, substantive law, ethics and mastery of professional practice.” Quigley added: “He is not only an eminently qualified advocate and lawyer, but he has also demonstrated his commitment to public service through his roles in the education and mentoring of his fellow practitioners, membership of various boards and committees, and his advisory and honorary positions in a variety of Jewish educational institutions.”
Solomon, who is a barrister and legal educator, has broad experience in a variety of complex legal cases, and is an expert on commercial matters. He has acted both as counsel and arbitrator, and is also well known for handling pro bono cases.
There’s a distant Israel connection in that Solomon’s late father-in-law, Joe Berinson, who was also a lawyer, served as Australia’s minister for the environment in the Labor government headed by Gough Whitlam, after which he spent 10 years as attorney-general of Western Australia. Berinson’s parents were born in Safed. His father, Shulem, arrived in Australia in 1913, and his mother, Rivka (née Finkelstein), some 10 years later.
News of Australia that finds its way abroad usually relates to Sydney in New South Wales or Melbourne in Victoria, both in the Jewish and general sense. But in this instance, Western Australia has scored big-time over both.
However, New South Wales Jewry can boast an Olympic gold medalist in the person of Jessica Fox, who captured the gold in the canoe slalom. She’s a second-generation Olympic medalist. Her mother, Myriam Jerusalemi, who is her coach, won a bronze for France in 1996. Her father, Richard Fox, who was a member of the British Olympic team in 1992, just missed out on a bronze. But Jessica has canoes and kayaks in her DNA on both sides. As far as is known, though not the only member of the Jewish faith to represent Australia in the Olympic Games, Jessica Fox is the first Australian Jewess to win a gold medal.
■ IN ISRAEL, Australian expat brothers Paul and Danny Hakim, who have been involved in several social interaction movements aimed at acceptance of the other, are the key movers and shakers behind the Israel Lifesaving Federation, which they aim to turn into a national project with the full backing of Australian Ambassador Paul Griffiths, who last week hosted a reception to mark World Drowning Prevention Day and to highlight the work of ILF.
Danny Hakim, an international martial arts champion, is best known for Budo For Peace, which uses sports – primarily martial arts – as a platform for creating a shared society; promoting coexistence among the different sectors of Israeli society; integrating immigrant children; empowering women; and providing therapy for special needs children, including those stricken with cancer.
Hakim and his wife, Dana Azrieli, who heads the multifaceted Azrieli business group as well as the Azrieli Foundation, sponsored Olympic judoka Timna Nelson Levy, who has been active in Budo For Peace. The Azrieli Foundation is also among the sponsors of the ILF.
Among the people attending the reception at the Australian ambassador’s residence were Belgian Ambassador Jean-Luc Bodson, Gideon Shavit of JNF Australia, Paul Israel, the executive director of the Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce, Hod Hasharon Mayor Amir Kochavi, various deputy mayors and city council members, CEOs of various NGOs, representatives of the Israel Parents Association and beach managers.
Griffiths noted that, for the first time, communities around the world came together for World Drowning Prevention Day, established by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. He also underscored that of the 350 kilometers of Israeli beaches, only 17 kilometers are supervised.
He expressed regret that on the previous weekend, there were six drowning-related deaths, adding that time spent at Israel’s beautiful beaches and springs “can turn fatal in an instant.”
In commending the ILF, Griffiths said that it was bringing a 100-year-old Australian tradition of lifesaving to Israel with a commitment to significantly reduce drowning-related injury and death, by teaching greater water awareness, safety and skills. He emphasized that the ILF is not trying to replace professional lifesavers, but, rather, to train and teach youngsters who can help them in an emergency situation, or who can rescue drowning people when professional lifesavers are not present.
Toward the end of the evening, some of the ILF young men and women gave a series of lifesaving demonstrations in the ambassador’s pool, and one spoke of having recently saved the life of someone drowning.
Australians were actually practicing lifesaving on the beach in Jaffa before the establishment of the state. An old 1941 newsreel from the time that Australian soldiers were stationed in Palestine during the Second World War was screened, and showed them in action on the beach in their swimming trunks.
In Australia, children learn to swim when they are four years old, said Paul Hakim, adding that swimming is a compulsory component of school curricula. He lamented that this is not the case in Israel.
Hakim noted that while memorial services are held for war casualties, victims of terrorism and even for people who died in traffic accidents, people who died by drowning are overlooked. He asked everyone present to stand for a minute’s silence in memory of the drowned deceased.
Both Griffiths and Hakim commended the UN for introducing the annual World Drowning Prevention Day. More than a quarter-of-a-million people worldwide die from drowning every year. In Israel, the casualties keep mounting every summer. Most of the victims were children, but two people who drowned in the immediate aftermath of the ambassador’s reception were adults.
Hakim said that 60% of drownings take place when lifesavers are not present.
There is no national program for water safety, he underscored, implying that if there were one, there would be far fewer casualties.
This is one of the reasons that ILF has taken upon itself the training of children on beaches in many parts of Israel, including Arab villages. ILF is continuing the successful Australian Nippers safe swimming program, first introduced to Israel in 2015, but existing for well over a half a century Down Under.
■ A CENTURIES-OLD expression related to the expected impartiality of judges is “blind justice.” In April of this year, Israel was visited by an internationally renowned Supreme Court judge who has been blind from birth, but who has nonetheless chalked up a remarkable career as a marathon runner and triathlon athlete competing in Israel and the United States; a lawyer whose main focus has been on protecting the rights of people with disabilities; an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan and a member of the Board of Governors of Wayne State University.
The judge in question was Richard Bernstein, who initially came to Israel in 2010 through the OneFamily organization to meet with survivors of terrorist attacks. He has traveled widely in the world to advocate for better educational opportunities for children with special needs; athletic programs for people with various kinds of disabilities; and the inclusion in mainstream society of people with disabilities.
Bernstein was in Israel in April, having come from the UAE. People meeting him found it difficult to believe that he is blind. He doesn’t wear dark glasses, and his eyes are bright, giving the impression that he is not sightless. He walks with confidence even without his cane, eagerly engages people in conversation and laughs easily.
While in Jerusalem, he was escorted by Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum. As they walked together, no one would have guessed that Bernstein is blind. Israelis who have not met him or heard him will have the opportunity to learn more about him and what he does in a Zoom presentation, under the heading of “Blind Justice,” that has been organized by the Herzliya Cultural Group and is scheduled for Thursday, August 5, at 8 p.m. To register contact Austen Science at 054-761-2306.
■ ARMY RADIO journalist, film director, writer and editor Rino Tzror has mounted a campaign to save the entrance to Jaffa. The way he tells it, one side of the iconic clock tower has been sold to business tycoon Eitan Wertheimer, who plans to completely redevelop the site and is trying to evict longtime restaurateurs and storekeepers, most of whom were born and raised in Jaffa, and who in some cases are second- and third-generation proprietors of their enterprises.
Tzror has tried unsuccessfully to learn what the redevelopment plans entail, and is worried that in the final analysis, redevelopment will change the face and character of Jaffa.
Tzror has called for people to help him to save Jaffa, but in the long run, it will be yet another case of the man who pays the piper calls the tune. It is very difficult for people living on a regular salary to go up against the billionaires.
■ IN JERUSALEM, French immigrant billionaire Laurent Levy is gradually changing the face and character of the city, with the backing of Mayor Moshe Lion. Jaffa Road has already undergone a significant face-lift, and more architectural surgery is on the way as landmarks are disappearing at the hands of numerous investors and property developers who are engaged in building residential, commercial and office towers.
Renewal by definition means restoration rather than change. It means repairing the old and making it look new again. Whatever criticism anyone has of Poland and the Poles, one cannot help but admire how Warsaw, which was destroyed by the Germans, was rebuilt after the war, brick by brick, including the Old Town, which looks so authentically ancient that it’s difficult to believe that so little was left of it by the Nazis. It serves as a wonderful example of a nation that wants to preserve its history.
Apropos Warsaw, the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, currently under construction on the site of a former children’s hospital, is scheduled to open in 2023 in tandem with the 80th anniversary commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which in all probability will be attended by high-level delegations from Israel and the United States as well as representatives from all the countries whose armies fought in Europe and North Africa during the Second World War. And, of course, there will be the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto. Hopefully, by April, 2023, all travel restrictions that are virus-related will have been lifted.
■ FEW THINGS start on time in Israel or in the Middle East in general, and the overhyped booster shot for senior citizens, of which President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal, were to be the first recipients, started 12 minutes behind schedule, though the Sheba medical team chosen to administer the shots was ready and waiting, well ahead of 10:30 on Friday morning, when it was all supposed to happen.
Meanwhile, the No. 1 citizen and his wife were upstaged by lesser-known Israelis of a certain age, who showed up at their respective health insurance clinics bright and early as pioneers in the campaign to protect senior citizens from Covid and the Delta variant. The Herzogs only just scraped in for a third Pfizer shot.
Herzog is 60 years old. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, at 49, is too young to qualify for a booster, but he missed a golden public relations opportunity. Instead of using the president as a campaign presenter, Bennett should have brought his mother, saying something to the effect of: “I brought my mom for a third vaccination because I love her and my kids love her, and we want to protect her and to be able to continue to visit with her. Are you going to do the same for your mom?” That would have been a lot more effective than having the boyish-looking Herzog launch the campaign. A large sector of the public would identify more with Bennett’s mother than with the president of the state.
However, there was a subtle political message in the launch. Herzog was inoculated by nurse Lina Ahmad, whose headgear indicated that she is a Muslim Arab. At a time when the president is preaching unity and mutual cooperation regardless of religion, race and gender, nothing could serve his purpose more than getting his third shot from an Arab nurse. The Arab community has made a significant contribution to Israel’s medical profession.
■ BOTH PORTUGAL and Spain have made great strides in trying to make amends for the expulsion of Jews from their respective countries more than 500 years ago. Aside from entering into diplomatic relations with Israel, restoring citizenship to people who can prove direct descent from those who were expelled, acknowledging ancient antisemitism, permitting the revival of Jewish communities, and more, the town of Castelo de Vide in western Portugal will sponsor an initiative tracing the paths taken by Jews fleeing the Spanish inquisition in 1492 and the Portuguese Inquisition of 1496. An announcement to this effect was made last week by Castelo de Vide Mayor Antonio Pita, who also serves as vice president of the Jewish Cities Network in Portugal.
The multiyear project, which was jointly initiated with Alan Schneider, director of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, will be coordinated by Walter Wasercier, vice president of the Hispanic-Israeli Chamber of Commerce and former El Al director in Spain and Portugal.
Supporters of the project include outgoing Ambassador to Portugal Raphael Gamzou; Assumpcio Hosta Rebes, secretary-general of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage; Marta Puig Qixal, managing director of Caminos de Sefarad; and officials of the local and regional governments, among them Caceres and Tui in Spain and Braganza and Porto Alegre in Portugal.
Remnants of Castelo de Vide’s Jewish history are carefully maintained by the municipality, including a synagogue and Jewish quarter, and the town will shortly inaugurate the first museum in the world dedicated to the memory of the Inquisition that led to the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and to untold suffering of Jews who clandestinely continued to cling to their religious beliefs and practices (“conversos”).
As envisioned by its initiators, the project – titled El Kamino De Sefarad al muevo mundo (The Sepharad Route to the New World) – will eventually cover thousands of kilometers from areas of major Jewish population in Spain in the Middle Ages, over the border into Portugal, concluding in Lisbon and Porto, where Jews were forcibly converted or departed for other destinations in North Africa, Holland, the Land of Israel and the New World. The initiative was inspired by the Kamino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route.
Schneider envisioned that many Israeli and Jewish organizations would become party to the effort, and that the marked routes will be an attraction for Jewish visitors, among others.
Puig said that besides the economic development that all the participants hope the project will bring, it also will make an important institutional contribution by better transmitting Jewish history in the Iberian Peninsula.
Schneider noted that B’nai B’rith has a long history of commemorating the Inquisition. Among other things, its lodge in Jerusalem established the first sustained library in Israel in 1892, naming it for Rabbi Don Isaac Abravanel, the leader of the Jewish community in Spain at the time of the Inquisition, who led his followers into exile. This library formed the foundation of the National Library of Israel.
■ AFTER WAITING for two years to get past all the bureaucratic processes that would enable him to begin construction of a hotel on the Armon Hanatziv promenade in Jerusalem, businessman Rami Levy, whose diverse interests include tourism, was able to lay the cornerstone for the foundations of Nof Hareches, which translates roughly as “the view from the crest” or “the view from the ridge.” The promenade does indeed offer spectacular views of Jerusalem’s Old City – especially at twilight time and at night. The project is one of six new hotels that will be built along the promenade, with a total of 1,360 rooms.
Among those who attended the cornerstone-laying ceremony were Lion, who managed to handle a trowel of cement without soiling his shirt, and Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov.
Levy recently purchased the Israir airline company, and was among the passengers on its maiden flight to Morocco.
■ WOMEN’S RETIREMENT age is a recurring subject in Israel. Women engaged in low-income menial employment want it to be earlier because they are no longer strong enough to work. Women in high-paying jobs want it to be at a later age, because the longer they work, the more they will get in retirement pensions when they eventually stop working.
But there is always hope for those who left permanent employment to do something they enjoy more. Case in point is former British Embassy employee Marilyn Lyons, who retired 10 years ago after 37 years with the embassy.
Lyons has a fine singing voice and adapts easily to different genres. While at the embassy, she was often asked to sing the British national anthem at official functions. During the COVID-19 lockdown period, she had opportunities to perform on Zoom for audiences in Israel and abroad. Some of her appearances are voluntary, and some are for a fee. She was asked to record a song with the Isolation Band, which has been included in its new album, Listening Easy. She also performed for the Austrian Holocaust Center.
Out the blue she received a phone call from a former colleague at the British Embassy, who asked whether she would be willing to sing the British national anthem at the showing of the European Championship soccer final between England and Italy at Park Leumi in Ramat Gan. Lyons could hardly refuse.
“It was such an honor to sing the British anthem in front of the largest screen in Israel to such a large crowd and dignitaries,” she says. “I just wish we had won the game!”
greerfc@gmail.com