Committed to continuing its bridge-building efforts, ITEC is breaking new ground in a major outreach to, and collaboration with, the Arab city of Taiba and the Bedouin city of Rahat. On Thursday, ITEC will host a cross-cultural exchange and hospitality day to mark the announcement of the new partnerships.
People involved in this initiative include ITEC CEO Erez Vider; Taiba Mayor Shuaa Masarwa Mansour; Galal Safadi, director, Arab Society Division, Society and Youth Administration, Education Ministry; Eyal Taoz; Alam Ibrahem; Dan Diker; Ronen Morelli; and Andy Ram.
■ IT’S A terrible thing to say especially straight after Shavuot, but more than Shabbat or the Torah, what has preserved the unity of the Jewish people is antisemitism. Every time there is any kind of existential threat to Israel or a fresh outbreak of global antisemitism, Jews close ranks, and the greatest assimilationists come out of the woodwork, because suddenly that tiny spark of identity that is left in them begins to itch.
At the same time, new organizations are formed to fight antisemitism, and in the process there is a lot of rubbishing of Israel’s public diplomacy, and its alleged failure to make an impact. All the pro-Israel, pro-Jewish organizations are convinced that they know how to do it better. Their contributions should not be denigrated, but if they are sincere in what they are doing, everything they do should be coordinated with the Foreign Ministry, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization and the World Jewish Congress. Otherwise, the most well-meaning individuals and organizations can unwittingly do a lot of damage.
It is only to be expected that former citizens of Arab and Muslim countries who are now living in the West will hold volatile protest demonstrations against Israel. That doesn’t mean that the governments of their host countries agree with them. Germany is a perfect example. The German government agrees that Israel has a right to defend itself. Yet at the same time, it permits a powerful anti-Israel demonstration by former citizens of Muslim countries.
In addition to speaking three times to US President Joe Biden in recent days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and to other world leaders. In Britain, Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely is running from studio to studio to give interviews. She is not entirely sure how effective they are, she told Liat Regev on Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet, “but at least our voice is being heard.”
Sacha Roytman Dratwa, the executive director of the US-based Combat Anti-Semitism Movement, is inviting individuals to become digital diplomats and stand up to hate. Close to 340,000 people of different faiths, color and nationalities, including quite a few with Arabic surnames, have signed the pledge to do so. Dratwa is a former director of digital advocacy at the World Jewish Congress, and former head of digital media for the Israel Defense Forces.
■ ONE OF the first countries to demonstrate its support for Israel was Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose Ambassador Dusko Kovacevic proudly posted a photograph of the Palace of the Republic, the official residence of the president of Republika Srpska in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which on the evening of May 13 was illuminated with the colors of the Israeli flag,” in solidarity with our friends in Israel.”
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai has made it a practice to illuminate city hall with the colors of the flag on the national day of any country whose embassy is in Tel Aviv. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion did the same last year when Georgian Ambassador Lasha Zhvania decided to hold his national day celebration in the courtyard of Jerusalem’s Tower of David. Lion ordered that the flag of Georgia be illuminated on the walls of the Old City.
Huldai came in for severe criticism from right-wing elements, including the prime minister’s son Yair Netanyahu, for showing solidarity with Lebanon, following a fatal explosion in Beirut. They did not take kindly to seeing the enemy flag lit up on the main municipal building
■ BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA was not the only country to demonstrate solidarity with Israel during this time of turmoil. The Slovenian government raised the Israeli flag alongside its own and that of the EU on the main government building, and similar action was taken in Austria and the Czech Republic.
Palestinian Ambassador to Slovenia Salahem Abdel-Shafi was indignant over the flag-raising in Ljublijana, and even angrier about a tweet posted on the government’s Twitter account stating: “We condemn the terrorist attacks, and we stand by Israel.”
■ SWEDISH AMBASSADOR Erik Ullenhag had planned to have a roundtable discussion this Thursday with Rabbi Moshe-David HaCohen and Imam Salahuddin Barakat, but due to the uncertainty of the security situation, has decided to postpone it to a later date which is yet to be announced.
■ BRITISH AMBASSADOR Neil Wigan’s official residence is in Ramat Gan, the city where Gershon Franco was among the first casualties of Hamas rockets in Israel’s heartland. Franco suffered from numerous medical disabilities, and was unable to run to a bomb shelter. Even before he knew all this, but was aware that someone had been struck by a rocket, Wigan tweeted: “A man my age was killed by a missile a few streets from my house this afternoon. My deepest condolences to his family at this terrible time for them. May his memory be a blessing.”
Only a few days earlier, Wigan hosted an iftar dinner attended by the embassy’s friends and partners from the Arab community. In addressing his guests, Wigan spoke of the power of Ramadan in bringing people together during this special time.
This week, to mark the International Day of Fighting anti-LGBT phobia in the UK, the pride flag was hoisted at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, with the message that the UK works with countries around the world to protect the rights of (gay) community members. It should be remembered that Wigan’s immediate predecessor, David Quarrey, was openly gay and participated with his partner in the Gay Pride Parade.
Among the responses to the UK Embassy announcement about hoisting the pride flag was one that stated that it was a shame that the UK government could not have raised the Israeli flag in support of Israel. Wigan is in a bit of a bind on this score, as his wife is an Israeli, and his children are dual nationals, having both British and Israeli citizenship.
■ THE CHANGING status of Arabs in Israeli society is something that should be recognized sooner rather than later, because it can have a drastic effect on the economy. Israeli-Arabs have more confidence in themselves and in their abilities than they did in the past, and proof of this was seen in Tuesday’s nationwide strike by Arabs in all professions, including medicine.
Strike action has long been one of Israel’s holy of holies. People seldom got fired for striking, But as it says in Bob Dylan’s famous song ‘The times they are a changing.’ Strike action, at least where Arabs are concerned, can mean job loss. Many Arabs who informed their employers that they were not coming to work because they were on strike were promptly notified on WhatsApp that they were fired.
■ RADIO PERSONALITY and citizens’ rights activist Prof. Yuval Elbashan, dean of the Law Faculty at Ono Academic College, is also a practicing lawyer, who does a considerable amount of pro bono work, for which he was recently recognized by the Israel Bar Association.
In reaction to the riots and other forms of violence that have infiltrated into Israeli society, Elbashan has organized an emergency conference of educational leaders from across the country for Wednesday, May 19, aimed at promoting meaningful educational activities to change the situation.
“We are witnessing the crossing of moral borders, to escalation, to an extremism that takes over our hope, discourse, classrooms and streets. There is no room for silence in the face of this,” he wrote on his Facebook account, adding that together educators have a tremendous influential ability that must be manifested now in the discourse space.
Elbashan noted wryly that Arab and Jewish drug dealers and other criminal elements in Lod refuse to join in the spate of hostilities taking place in Lod, because to do so would not be good for business
■ THERE IS no doubt that there is life after the Knesset. Some former legislators go back to their previous professions, others become company directors, some become academics, and some are given plum jobs in organizations and institutions. But many retain an interest in current affairs, and are frequently called on by radio stations and television channels to give their assessments on whatever the hot news situation of the day may be.
In addition, in response to the recent upheaval in relations between Jews and Arabs, quite a number of ex-MKs, mostly from the Left of Center, have formed a Parliament of Peace, which they advertised last week in Haaretz. They run from octogenarians to people in their early forties.
Among the more senior group are Moshe Shahal, who on May 20 celebrates his 86th birthday, Shevah Weiss, Colette Avital, Haim Oron, Tamar Gozansky and Avraham Shochat. Somewhat younger are Ghaleb Majadle, 68, Zehava Gal-On, 65, Dov Henin, 63, Eitan Cabel, 62, Tzipi Livni, 62, Hosniya Jabarra, 63, who in 1999 was the first Arab woman elected to the Knesset, having entered on a Meretz ticket, Ophir Pines-Paz, 59, Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, 50, and Ksenia Svetlova, 43.
There are too many others to name them all, but conspicuously absent from the list are Ehud Barak, Isaac Herzog and Shelly Yacimovich, who are all former heads of the Labor Party, and Barak is also a former prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister.
■ IN THEIR efforts to keep the news on track even during occasional lulls in rocket fire from Gaza, media outlets focused on Israel’s destruction of the 12-story al-Jalaa building in Gaza City, which Israel claimed was used by Hamas, without furnishing proof of such. What had media organizations in Israel and around the world fuming was that the building also housed the offices of the American-headquartered Associated Press in Gaza, and Qatar-based global media outlet Al Jazeera.
Among the people interviewed about the building was Dan Perry, a veteran journalist who is the former AP bureau chief in Jerusalem as well as the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press, and a former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Israel. Early in his career, he also worked for The Jerusalem Post. A technologist by education, he is the chief business development officer of the innovative ad tech company Engageya, and managing partner of the award-winning communications firm Thunder11. He continues to contribute to a number of publications and writes a blog for The Times of Israel.
The Israeli journalist who was interviewing Perry tried to get him to say that news from Gaza was unreliable because journalists in Gaza were constantly under threat.
Perry said that local reporters for AP in Gaza were bona fide journalists and quite heroic in their efforts to bring accurate news to the public. It was not easy, and there were times when they were being intimidated, he conceded, but they persevered and presented a truthful version of the news.
In protesting the destruction of the building, the Foreign Press Association in Israel wrote of its grave concern and dismay at a decision by the Israel Defense Forces to target a building housing the offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.
“Knowingly causing the destruction of some of the world’s largest and most influential news organizations raises deeply worrying questions about Israel’s willingness to interfere with the freedom of the press to operate,” the FPA statement continued.
“The safety of other news bureaus in Gaza is now in question. At a time when Israel’s border crossing is closed, those companies with a bureau in Gaza are more important than ever in reporting events to the world.”
The statement also notes that Israel has not presented any evidence to support its claim that the building was used by Hamas, and stresses that at no point did Israel AP view the very real prospect that its Gaza operation could one day become an Israeli military target.
■ THROUGH ITS social banking program, Bank Hapoalim is supporting a start-up by the name of Sign Now, which has developed an emergency application for the deaf and hearing impaired who cannot hear a Color Red rocket-warning siren during Operation Guardian of the Walls. The application sends a sign message in real time to the deaf. The application is free of charge. Additional information is available at sos.signnow.co.il
■ THOUGH SOME people are suspicious of Evangelical support of Israel, it must be admitted that there are times when the Evangelicals fill yawning gaps that are essentially the responsibility of the government and local and regional municipalities, all of which have failed in the task.
The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has in the past built homes for Holocaust survivors, erected bomb shelters and sponsored large groups of emigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Over the years it has brought tens of thousands of Evangelicals from many countries to Israel to participate in the annual Feast of Tabernacles, through which various components of the tourist industry receive a considerable boost to their income.
On May 11, David Parsons, vice president and senior international spokesman for ICEJ, released a statement in which it was declared: “The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem stands in solidarity with Israel in the face of the reckless Palestinian rioting, terror attacks and rocket barrages over recent days, and condemns Palestinian leaders for intentionally enflaming Muslim passions during Ramadan to ignite a dangerous religious conflict over Jerusalem.
“Through the courageous decisions of both Arab and Israeli leaders, the Middle East region has recently experienced a significant and unprecedented momentum towards normalization and peace through the Abrahamic Accords. However, from the start both Fatah and Hamas have deliberately sought to undermine these developments and incited Palestinians towards the current escalation of violence and terror.
“Besides their efforts to disrupt this newfound dynamic of peace for the entire Middle East, their actions also are meant to cover for their own failures, such as the canceling of Palestinian elections. Together with their backers in Iran and Turkey, they share full responsibility for this current escalation.
“By ratcheting up their attacks on Yom Yerushalayim in particular, Fatah and Hamas also viciously display that neither accepts any Jewish claim to historic, biblical Jerusalem. They instead have threatened to ignite a regional conflagration over the city, and thus we call upon world leaders to firmly stand against the inflammatory Palestinian rhetoric and actions.
“We also call upon Christians around the world to earnestly pray that peace and calm will be restored quickly to Jerusalem, the Land of Israel, and the entire Middle East.”
The ICEJ, which consistently stands in solidarity with Israel, last week announced that together with gifts from Christians worldwide, it is adding 15 new portable bomb shelters to areas around the Gaza border, which will bring the total number of bomb shelters it has donated since 2008 to 132. Most of these bomb shelters are located in the south of the country, but others can be found in the North along the Lebanese border.
Why is it left to Evangelists to do the job of the government or local municipalities?
■ ASIDE FROM funding numerous projects in Israel or for Israel, the Evangelists, through their extensive broadcasting networks, keep promoting all the positive aspects of Israel and also mount pro-Israel rallies. Earl Cox, a long-standing supporter of Israel, has organized a rally Wednesday evening, May 19, at the Chabad of Charleston Center for Jewish Life, with US Senator Lindsey Graham as the featured speaker.
■ IT’S NOT often that Karlin-Stolin Hassidim appear in the general media, but Sunday’s tragic events propelled the main Jerusalem branch into international headlines.
Karlin-Stolin Hassidim originated under the leadership of Rabbi Aaron Perlow in what is today Belarus. They first came to the Land of Israel in the mid-19th century, settling initially in Hebron, Tiberias and Safed, and then moving to Jerusalem’s Old City in the latter half of the 19th century.
Though decimated by the Holocaust, Karlin-Stolin Hassidim, like so many other hassidic movements, have risen like the phoenix out of the ashes, and today can be found in many parts of Israel, as well as in different parts of the globe.
Stoliner Rebbe Baruch Meir Yaakov Shochet is headquartered in Jerusalem in Givat Ze’ev, where Sunday’s tragic collapse of the bleachers resulted in two deaths and 184 injured people, including some in critical condition. One can only imagine with what joy 13-year-old Meir Gloiberman and 23-year-old Mordechai Binyamin Rubinstein left home to celebrate the Shavuot dedication of the new Karlin-Stolin synagogue, and how devastated their grief-stricken families were only a few hours later. Gloiberman celebrated his bar mitzvah on the last day of Passover.
Many people have compared this tragedy to that of Meron on Lag Ba’omer. Both tragedies are red alerts which in all probability will not be heeded.
Most major hassidic synagogues have bleachers on which hundreds of hassidim of all ages assemble to be able to look directly at their rebbe – their chief spiritual leader – when he is speaking or dancing at a family wedding. The bleacher system eliminates any blocking of the view. In some places, there are also bleachers in the women’s gallery.
Now is the time to test the safety of all bleachers. Few enterprises are better qualified to do this than Lavi Furniture Industries on Kibbutz Lavi, which specializes in synagogue furniture, which it exports to synagogues in some 70 countries. With years of expertise, Lavi engineers could inspect bleachers throughout the country and supervise the proper installation of those that are faulty. However, it is doubtful that any political figure will initiate such a move.
■ WILL THE #MeToo movement have an effect on Microsoft? Following the announcement by Bill and Melinda Gates that they were getting divorced due to irreconcilable differences, the American and international media have run juicy stories about marital infidelities and alleged sexual harassment by Bill Gates, in addition to which he had a close relationship with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which Melinda Gates had unsuccessfully urged him to terminate. Despite their differences, the two will continue to work together on charitable projects, and intend to give away much of their immense wealth. Nonetheless, the unwelcome publicity about Gates could directly impact on Microsoft’s profitability.
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