It was amazing how much US President Joe Biden was able to pack into a solidarity visit of just a few hours. Among the many people whom he met – however briefly – was Eli Beer, the president and founder of United Hatzalah. Beer, accompanied by United Hatzalah EMS responders, met with Biden following POTUS’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet.
Beer was moved to tears when Biden embraced him and asked Beer what he had been told by UH volunteers who had been tending the wounded in the conflict zones from day one.
Beer told him about UH’s 7,000 volunteer “orange angels,” many of whom are US citizens and who collectively represent the diversity of Israeli society, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, both religious and secular, men and women, who risked their own lives to save others. Some of them were wounded and others kidnapped. Two of them, one Arab and one Jewish, lost their lives while providing assistance to the injured. Biden was deeply moved and said that he personally knows the pain of loss and feels the pain of the people of Israel in a personal way.
Political changes in Europe
■ POLITICAL CHANGES often turn yesterday’s foes into today’s friends and vice versa. Germany, which sought to resolve the Jewish problem, has become Israel’s closest ally in Europe. Similarly, Croatia, whose notorious Ustase sadistically murdered the bulk of Croatia’s Jewish community, is today fighting antisemitism and is in support of Israel.
Thus Zagreb was the venue last week for an emergency session of the executive committee of the World Jewish Congress attended by leaders of Jewish communities from 40 countries who met with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. Israel was represented by Colette Avital.
“Let it be known that the Jewish Diaspora stands unequivocally in unwavering support of the citizens of Israel and the IDF during these challenging times,” said WJC President Ronald S. Lauder. “In unity lies our indomitable strength.”
In thanking Croatia for having the courage to stand with the Jewish people, Lauder said: “As history has shown us over and over, the Jewish people may be the first victims of totalitarian genocide, but they certainly are never the last.” Croatia currently serves as the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Lauder was in the news in the United States last week, as being yet another billionaire philanthropist who is withdrawing support from an Ivy League university due to failure to curb racist intolerance on campus. Lauder, who has been a generous donor to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, has accused its president Liz Magill of failing to fight antisemitism on campus. Even non-Jewish philanthropists such as Jon Huntsman Jr., another Penn alumnus, who like Lauder, is a former ambassador, is withdrawing support. Huntsman has said that his family foundation, which has donated tens of millions of dollars to the university, will close its checkbook on future donations.
Huntsman was disappointed by Penn’s silence over the heinous Hamas war crimes.
Similarly, earlier in the month, Leslie Wexner and his wife, Abigail, severed the ties of the Wexner Foundation with Harvard University.
Antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments are rife on American university campuses, and Jewish students are being harassed and even physically attacked. Many are afraid to admit to being Jewish, though some are betrayed by their surnames.
Eyal Golan visits hospital
■ POPULAR SINGER Eyal Golan visited Sheba Medical Center and its Tel Hashomer wing last week not to sing to the wounded but to sit with them and hear the stories of soldiers and civilians. It was an emotionally draining experience for Golan, especially in the case of one particular family that was miraculously saved from the clutches of the grim reaper.
New Zealand museum apologizes for showing solidarity with Israel
■ AMONG THE many countries that lit up iconic buildings and monuments in the colors of the Israeli flag as a symbol of solidarity with Israel and protest against Hamas barbarity, were Georgia and Lithuania to the north and Australia and New Zealand to the south, though sadly, the latter subsequently backtracked. In Georgia, the Tbilisi TV Tower was illuminated in blue and white, as was the Palanga Bridge in Lithuania; and in Australia, it was the Sydney Opera House and in New Zealand, it was the New Zealand War Memorial Museum, a factor that rankled with the local Palestinian community. Pressure from Palestinian activists prompted the museum’s chief executive David Reeves to issue an apology for the distress and hurt caused to members of the community.
If the Palestinians were distressed, it should have been over the inhumanity displayed by their fellow countrymen. Holding demonstrations that call for Palestinian independence and a sovereign state of their own is legitimate. Supporting terror, especially in its cruelest forms, is not only illegitimate, but immoral. The Palestinian citizens of New Zealand, Australia, and certain European countries are living in liberal democracies, but it appears that the values of these democracies have not rubbed off on their Palestinian immigrants.
Support for soldiers and refugees
■ ANYONE WHO has the time to monitor the different kinds of support that are being given to soldiers and to individuals and families who have been evacuated from vulnerable areas in the South and North of the country, and those who missed out on being evacuated, because they live only a few meters away from the cut-off distance for evacuation, will be surprised by some of the ways that volunteers are helping the war effort. For instance, Emet V’Yatziv, a religious organization, working out of Jerusalem, is aware that there are thousands of soldiers who are religiously observant, and who wear a garment with ritual fringes known as tzitzit under their shirt. The knots and tassels in the fringes symbolize the commandments in the Torah, and the command to wear them is in the Shema in which men are instructed to wear them on all four corners of their garments. Emet V’Yatziv, aware that in war time soldiers cannot pay proper attention to their tzitzit, launched Operation Tzitzit among its many other activities. This is a multi-purpose mission run in conjunction with the Eretz Hemdah congregation, which received numerous khaki undershirts with holes at all four corners for the insertion of the tzitzit. The strings were acquired separately, and the correct number were placed in small, sealed bags, which were forwarded by Emet V’Yatziv to Eretz Hemdah for the knots to be correctly made and inserted in the corners of the undershirts. Emet V’Yatziv also works closely with Chabad of Talbiya, the Ohel Nechama congregation, and with the Friendship Circle. Rabbanit Atara Ote, whose husband is the spiritual leader of Ohel Nechama, monitors numerous volunteer activities on her WhatsApp account, and provides valuable information about activities such as a challah bake with women of the South; providing meals for evacuees with special needs who have been placed in a guest house in which meals are not served; a special event for children of the South with entertainment and lots of pizza; places for donations of good quality used clothing; and much more.
Inadequate emergency funds
■ AS GRATIFYING as it is to see how Jewish communities and individuals in Israel and around the world have rallied in solidarity with the IDF and with civilian victims of the war between Israel and Iranian-sponsored Hamas, the emergency funds established to provide for immediate needs such as food, clothing, toiletries, warm underwear, and temporary accommodation are inadequate when it comes to the real, long-range needs.
Numerous families, both Jewish and Bedouin, have lost their homes. The Bedouin have no bomb shelters and nowhere to find protection when rockets strike. They have lost loved ones and they have lost their homes. In addition, many fight in the army.
They are the sacrificial lambs on the altars of Hamas.
No one in Israel, regardless of their faith or ethnicity, is immune to the perils of war. When it’s all over there will be many more people whose homes have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
There used to be Jewish jokes about “my son the doctor” or “my son the lawyer,” who was the pride and joy of semi-literate parents.
Today there is greater pride in “my son the real estate investor,” who is building huge residential complexes and even whole neighborhoods.
There is no shortage of big-time real estate investors in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.
If they really want to help, let them all band together, to take on a joint multiple housing project as their combined gift to those rendered homeless by war.
Past experience has taught that neither the government of Israel nor the insurance companies are in a hurry to compensate families who have lost their homes through natural disasters.
War is not a natural disaster, but it is a disaster beyond the control of the ordinary homeowner.
If all the Jewish real estate investors, as a group took it upon themselves to list the total number of homes required to replace those destroyed in the war, and then divided that number among all the participating companies everyone who lost a home, would get a new one in a relatively short time, and would not have to go through the bureaucratic and often unproductive and disappointing hassles involved in getting replacements for what was destroyed or damaged.
Think of the challenge of rebuilding a kibbutz, or a neighborhood in what was once characterized as a development town. What a rewarding project that would be, especially in the knowledge of how much hope and joy it would bring to hapless victims of war.
Entrepreneurs Barak Rosen and Asaf Touchmayer, who founded the Israel-Canada Group, which has gigantic projects all over Israel, could lead such an initiative.
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