By GREER FAY CASHMANAMBASSADOR ANNE Dorte Riggelson of Denmark meets with President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem.(photo credit: AMOS BEN GERSHOM, GPO)
The best that a male diplomat can do by way of nationalist, as distinct from national attire, is to wear a bow tie or a regular tie in the most dominant color of his country’s flag. It’s easier if he wants to be casual because he can get pants or a T-shirt or both in that color. But for women, it’s a lot easier, especially when the national flag is multi-colored, such as that of Colombia.When presenting her credentials to President Reuven Rivlin this week, Colombia’s Ambassador Margarita Eliana Mannjarrez Herrera, her country’s first woman ambassador to Israel in 63 years of diplomatic ties, wore a striking bright-yellow couture skirt with an exquisitely designed peacock blue blouse. Yellow is the most dominant color in the Colombian flag, and the blue, though deep, is a somewhat different shade from peacock but the message got across. There is also a red stripe.Mannajarrez left the red to her Danish colleague Anne Dorte Riggelsen, whose flag features a white cross on a red background. Riggelsen, wearing a red pants suit, arrived with her daughter at the President’s Residence. Her daughter was, of course, dressed in a white pants suit. Together, they made a national fashion statement.■ IT’S CUSTOMARY for new ambassadors, after presenting their credentials, to host what is known as a vin d’honneur at the King David Hotel. The usual practice is for the ambassadors to join forces to pay for the cost of the lavish, multi-course buffet luncheon. Non-resident ambassadors tend not to join in, because for them the cost factor is a waste of money.They are sometimes invited to come anyway because all the new ambassadors, while sitting around in the lounge of the King David waiting for their turn to be taken to the president, get to know each other. Some already know each other quite well because they have been in the country for a couple of months before the presentation ceremony. The Foreign Ministry likes to wait until there are at least three or four ambassadors waiting for official recognition.At the vin d’honneur, each of the participating ambassadors has a guest list that includes all the ambassadors from their region of the world, plus other ambassadors whose countries have important economic, military, scientific or other ties to their country, plus host-country business people who have invested in their country or engage in extensive trade with their country, plus a few expatriates, sometimes a rabbi, and clergy of different Christian faiths. The total number by far exceeds the permissible number of people at a social gathering.For Mannajarrez, the presentation of credentials was not just a special occasion but a historic milestone in her life. So, she decided to hold a small vin d’honneur within the limits of the Health Ministry’s regulations. Most of the guests had a connection of some kind to Colombia, and not all the people she wanted to invite – including ambassadors – agreed to come.A notable exception was the Ambassador of Zambia and head of the African diplomatic group Martin Chungu Mwanambale, who happens to be Mannajarrez’s next-door neighbor. In the end, she had what she called family, which included representatives of the Foreign Ministry, honorary consuls and people with strong connections to Colombia.Although Latin Americans have a mañana reputation, the vin d’honneur started exactly on time, and Mannajarrez shared with her guests what had transpired at her meeting with Rivlin.She was also very excited about another important upcoming event that will take place either in the last week of July or the first week in August. Following 18 months of tough negotiations, a free-trade agreement between Colombia and Israel was signed on September 30, 2013, but never fully ratified. That lacuna will be amended within the next three to four weeks when Colombian President Ivan Duque and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an on-line ceremony, will give the agreement their final stamp of approval to enable implementation.According to Mannajarrez, there have been a lot of calls to her president from both Rivlin and Netanyahu.Foreign Ministry Chief of Protocol Meron Reuben, who is a former Israel ambassador to Colombia, said he regards Mannajarrez as “one of the corona ambassadors” who in March received accreditation from the Foreign Ministry so they could fulfill their duties, and received accreditation a second time this week from President Rivlin. Mannajarrez had returned to Colombia in order to properly say farewell to her mother and to bring her two daughters to be with her in Israel.Due to international airport restrictions, Reuben had feared that Mannajarrez might not be able to return for many months, but happily, she succeeded in returning sooner than anticipated. Reuben himself will be leaving Israel in a few months to take up the post of Israel consul-general in Boston, and is not sure whether he will still be in office in Israel for the next round of presentation of credentials by new ambassadors, which he doubts will happen before October.Prior to this week, the last presentation was in January. Meanwhile, Reuben is saying goodbye to ambassadors who are completing their tenure. The Belgian ambassador has already left, the Serbian ambassador is leaving, and over the summer, 11 other ambassadors will be saying au revoir to Israel.■ IF IT was thought that Health Minister Yuli Edelstein had forfeited his chances of becoming the next president of Israel by defying the Supreme Court while still serving as speaker of the Knesset, this was compounded this week by the revelation that immediately after emphasizing the need for social distancing and congregating in minimal numbers, Edelstein had gone off to host a birthday party for his wife at someone’s home in Herzliya Pituah.The message of “Do as I say, don’t do as I do” rang so loud and clear that it was repeated again and again by the electronic media and received more than ample coverage in the print and digital media. Edelstein might be redeemed if the Health Ministry comes up with a miracle vaccine for coronavirus while he is at its helm, but it seems that he is falling into the syndrome of “the higher they rise, the harder they fall.”■ ALTHOUGH IT houses the main buildings of the national institutions of Israel, the large complex built around a huge courtyard on the corner of King George and Keren Kayemet streets in Jerusalem is generally known as the Jewish Agency building. This may derive from the fact that the Jewish Agency was the shadow government in the pre-state era of the British Mandate.The Jewish Agency recently celebrated its 90th anniversary, in honor of which historian Dr. Mordechai Naor wrote a book that in Hebrew is called HaBinyan shebo Nolda Hamedina – Beit Mosdot Haleumim, which literally translates as “The Building in which the State was Born – The House of the National Institutions,” but which has been given the English title of Israel’s Cradle – The National Institutions Building.Most of Israel’s historical figures have walked through the corridors of this building, many have worked in it, and some of the most fateful decisions of the state-in-the-making took place within its walls. The launch of the book was attended by Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog, World Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal chairman Sam Grundwerg, CEO for the Society of the Preservation of Israel’s Heritage Sites Omri Shalmon, and businessman Boaz Dekel, whose late father Yehuda Dekel founded SPIHS, and pushed through the Historic Sites Preservation Law.Boaz Dekel works to preserve his father’s legacy through the Yehuda Dekel Library, containing books about historic sites of which Boaz Dekel is the publisher. In addition to his passion for preserving historic sites, Yehuda Dekel spent 38 years as the driving force in the Jewish Agency’s Settlement Department. He was the son-in-law of Eliahu Dobkin, who was one of the signatories to Israel’s Declaration of Independence.While some people believe that institutions such as the Jewish Agency are now passé, Herzog pointed out that the opposite is true. He noted that the Jewish Agency has its work cut out in dealing with global antisemitism, which has also given impetus to aliyah, immigration to Israel, as has the pandemic, as many Jews around the world believe that they will be safer from both antisemitic incidents and the coronavirus if they move to Israel. Although Herzog would prefer them to come for more positive reasons, he believes that within the next three to five years, some 250,000 new immigrants will arrive in Israel.■ PEOPLE’S NAMES are important. In last Friday’s Grapevine, one of the owners of a Stradivarius violin that had previously belonged to Bronislaw Huberman was incorrectly listed as Norman Brainin. The real Norman Brainin, who lives in Ashkelon, informed us that the violinist was Norbert Brainin.greerfc@gmail.com
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