As interfaith, interracial and inter-political tensions in Israel reflect both religious and nationalist components, religious leaders have now decided to sign a treaty of coexistence in the presence of President Isaac Herzog and Federation of Local Authorities Chairman Haim Bibas.
Billed as a peace summit for coexistence, the signing ceremony will be preceded by a unity conference aimed at eliminating violence from the various sectors of Israeli society. Participants will include the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Israel Archbishop Youssef Matta, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau and Sheikh Nadr Haib representing the Muslim community. The signing ceremony of the Treaty of Coexistence is scheduled for Monday morning, August 2, at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Haifa.
■ IN NEW YORK on Thursday, July 29, even people who are not religious and don’t usually rise early for morning prayers were up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. to ensure they would be at the Bagel Breakfast Gathering at the Ronald S. Lauder JNF House on East 69th Street in Manhattan to watch the Israeli baseball team’s Olympic Games debut in a live broadcast from Tokyo. The breakfast was hosted by the American Zionist Movement (AZM) in partnership with Israel’s Consulate General in New York, JNF-USA and Maccabi USA.
Baseball is America’s national pastime, and so many of the people in the 39 major Zionist organizations under the umbrella of the AZM thought that even cheering the Israeli team from afar would be a fun way to demonstrate the US Jewish connection to Israel and Zionism. They also felt it would demonstrate the importance of Jewish unity by bringing together Left, Right and center, religious and secular, to collectively root for the Israeli baseball team.
Participants in the breakfast paid $18 each, which in itself is a significant figure in Jewish tradition.
■ THERE ARE some things on which the government and the opposition agree. Exactly a year ago, when she was appointed head of public health in the Health Ministry, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis was hailed by then-health minister Yuli Edelstein as a “significant strength to the Health Ministry in general and its efforts to cut off the chains of infection.” That opinion is shared by current Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who has described Alroy-Preis as “an excellent public servant who works day and night for the health of all of us.”
That opinion is shared by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who rushed to defend Alroy-Preis after she was maligned by members of the “Corona Cabinet,” in particular by Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, who gives all signs of being negatively disposed toward her and who reportedly asked Bennett to remove her from office. Shasha-Biton is opposed to what would be a very convenient means of vaccinating school children, namely, on school premises. But that’s not her only gripe against Alroy-Preis, who has categorically denied a malicious rumor that she is on the Pfizer payroll.
Bennett came to her defense on Wednesday morning with a statement that said, “Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis is a dedicated and professional public servant who works around the clock for the health of the citizens of Israel. She is working responsibly and practically, and is helping us to lead the response to the pandemic. The personal attack against her is unworthy and unacceptable. Sharon has full backing for her activity.”
Shasha-Biton, when she was still a member of Likud and chairing the Knesset Special Committee on the novel coronavirus, was a thorn in the side of then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, constantly defying Health Ministry directives. At that time, she was the darling of the media, as was anyone who stood up to or opposed Netanyahu. But she’s less of a darling now, and some political pundits say if the government falls apart, it will be because Shasha-Biton represents the non-stick part of the glue holding it together.
■ AFTER A long and frustrating wait during the worst of the pandemic, hundreds of Bnei Akiva members from across the United States will be coming to Israel to attend summer camps through an initiative organized by the Israel Experience company, a subsidiary of the Jewish Agency that specializes in educational group tours to Israel. Many of the youngsters, who recently completed their 10th-grade studies, wanted to come last year, but that was impossible due to coronavirus restrictions.
Participants must all be vaccinated. As this is not currently possible in the US for children younger than 16, many of those who planned to participate will have to wait until next year. However, efforts are being made to include as many participants as possible, resulting in 150 campers in the initial cohort. Others have come since then.
Zehava Seidman, 23, from New Jersey, was a member of Bnei Akiva as a youngster and attended an affiliated summer camp in 2014. Today she’s a group instructor at the same camp.
“We have a few weeks of trips and activities left in Israel, but for me, it also represents closure,” she said excitedly. “Until the last minute, it was unclear whether we would make it, but in the end we succeeded. The thing that has moved me the most so far was our standing 400 campers on the Armon Hanatziv [Haas] Promenade across from the walls of the Old City on Tisha Be’av, and seeing the buildings of Jerusalem before our eyes.”
Israel Experience chairwoman Hanna Pri-Zan said, “Despite all the difficulties and obstacles along the way, we managed to bring these teenagers to Israel this summer for a one-of -a-kind visit. It is this unmediated connection of Jews to their homeland that will enable the preservation of the spark of Jewish identity.”
Coming at a time when there are few foreign tourists provides the youngsters with an opportunity to absorb more of what they see and hear without being jostled by crowds to disturb their concentration. Of course, Israeli hoteliers would rather have the crowds, but you can’t please all the people all the time.
■ THE ISRAEL National Council for the Child has urged Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli to reconsider her decision to delay the implementation of legislation that requires parents of young children to install safety systems in their cars as a means of alerting them if they have forgotten that they have left young children in the back seat. Every year, particularly in summer, numerous children ages four and younger are forgotten by their parents and left in what turns out to be a death trap. The heat inside the car becomes unbearable, causing a lack of oxygen. Sometimes a passerby will notice a sleeping child, and will either break into the car or call the police to do so. Too often, it’s already too late, and the child is already in a condition beyond salvation. The law was supposed to go into effect on August 1, but has been postponed till June 2022.
The proposed means of reminding parents they have left a child in their car is the installation of sensors that send a signal of some kind to a smartphone, as long as the parent is still relatively close to the car. Then again, if someone can forget an infant, they can also forget a smartphone and leave it in the car. Alternatively, they may have the phone with them but have forgotten to recharge it. A more foolproof system is needed, and that may be part of the reason that Michaeli decided to delay implementation of the law.
What would be more effective would be to find as safe a means as possible of putting infants in the front seat next to the driver in some kind of specially designed shock-proof contraption. It is currently illegal to put very young children in the front seat, but if the infant is in a shock-proof carry-cot, even if the car is involved in a mild accident, nothing untoward will happen to the child, and the parent will actually feel a sense of relief at being able to instantly caress their child. It would be much less likely for a parent to forget a child in the front seat than if the child was in the back. Something worth thinking about is that nearly all these forgotten children must be asleep when their parents leave the car, otherwise, most would immediately start to cry because the parent was disappearing.
■ MAGEN DAVID ADOM does not like other paramedical organizations treading on what it considers to be its turf. It is particularly negatively disposed toward United Hatzalah, possibly because UH paramedics often get to the scene of an emergency well ahead of MDA paramedics. In an attempt to prevent this, MDA asked the Communications Ministry to cancel UH’s four-digit emergency number. The inter-ministerial committee that approves such numbers examined data provided by MDA, UH and the Health Ministry. Over the years, MDA has asked more than once for the cancellation of the UH emergency number, and even appealed to the High Court of Justice, without success. In February, MDA again approached the communications minister in a bid to cancel the UH emergency number, and was yet again rebuffed.
“This decision refutes many attempts by Magen David Adom to limit our effectiveness and our ability to respond to medical emergencies quickly. MDA has to learn that there is no monopoly on lifesaving, nor will there ever be,” said UH president and founder Eli Beer.
No one should need it, but for the record, the number is 1221.
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