Several news outlets have in recent days focused on two stories other than a hostage exchange agreement, the size of protest demonstrations, and the teachers’ strike. One was the story of Noa Goldenberg, who was arrested for throwing a wet sandball at National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the other was about the dismissal of Yulia Shamalov Berkovich from her role as CEO of Channel 13.
Ordinarily, neither story would have attracted so much attention, but other than more of the same that has been published for months, there wasn’t much in the way of fresh news.
Channel 13, apparently has a very strong workers’ committee which was determined to get rid of Shamalov Berkovich, claiming that she had no journalistic experience.
In fact, she has close to three decades of experience, having been among the founders of the Russian-language television station Channel 9 and editor-in-chief of Vesty, an Israeli Russian-language newspaper.
But she happens to be a former right-wing MK, as are most of the present and former legislators who were citizens of the former Soviet Union. She has never made a secret of her politics, but has not permitted her politics to intrude on her professional life in journalism. She is a strong believer in balance, she said, and wanted a more balanced program lineup on Channel 13 than she was permitted to implement. She was maligned from day one – and the journalists succeeded in having her ousted.
Raviv Drucker
That particular story was drawn out through August-September because she had dared to downgrade controversial investigative reporter Raviv Drucker. This was like holding a red flag before a bull, and Drucker literally mounted a stampede against her.
■ THE OTHER story, involving Goldenberg, who police claimed threw wet sand at Ben-Gvir when he visited the Geula Beach in Tel Aviv, raised the inevitable comparison to Ben-Gvir’s own exploits. At age 19, he appeared on television brandishing a Cadillac emblem from the car of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, boasting later in a television interview: “We reached Rabin’s car. We can get to him, too.” A few weeks later, on November 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, who was also affiliated with the extreme Right.
Police arrested and interrogated Goldenberg, after which she was taken to Neveh Tirza women’s prison. When an appeal was made to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court for her release, she was taken there with her hands and feet in chains, with the police claiming that she was a danger to society. The judge was not convinced and ordered her to be under house arrest for 48 hours.
The police were unhappy, saying that Goldenberg had been arrested because she had violated the law forbidding throwing objects at public servants.
Before he became president, Shimon Peres had eggs and tomatoes thrown at him when he attended a Mimouna celebration in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park. No one was arrested.
In 1986, when, as prime minister, Peres spoke in Ashkelon at a ceremony honoring Morocco’s King Mohammed V, tomatoes were thrown at him, and again no one was arrested.
Yet there have been frequent arrests at protest demonstrations against judicial reform, and more recently at demonstrations demanding the return of the hostages. Police have also been more aggressive in their general behavior toward demonstrators.
There is widespread belief that police attitudes are governed by political considerations aimed at keeping the government in office despite its perceived inflexibility over any agreement that would bring home the hostages.
Bezalel Smotrich
■ SOME GOVERNMENT ministers appear to be playing political Russian roulette. Aside from breaking his word on payments to be made to reservists who lost income due to the prolonged period they spent in the army, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has also decided to introduce cuts in the pensions and stipends of the weakest sectors of society. Members of Knesset earn in excess of NIS 50,000 per month. Did Smotrich even attempt to cut their salaries, including his own, by 10%? Of course not.
Michal Herzog
■ ASIDE FROM joining her husband in campaigning for the release of the hostages, there are two key issues to which Michal Herzog devotes the bulk of her attention. One is mental health, and the other is creating greater awareness of the evils of sexual abuse.
Last week, she hosted an event at the President’s Residence in which she brought together Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking media influencers from around the world for a screening of the powerful documentary Screams Before the Silence so that they could hear firsthand testimony of the rapes and other acts of violent sexual assault carried out on October 7 by Hamas against helpless women.
The event was organized in cooperation with the Combat Antisemitism Movement. In addition to the in-person audience, the event, which was broadcast, was viewed by more than 800 social media influencers around the world.
Ilana Gritzewsky and Matan Zangauker
Also present was former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky, who, together with her partner, Matan Zangauker, was taken captive from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and transported to Gaza by Hamas terrorists. Zangauker is still there. Given the circumstances and purpose of the meeting, the atmosphere was emotionally charged.
In thanking everyone for their efforts in raising awareness and understanding of the severity of the horrendous, premeditated crimes committed against women, Herzog also lauded Gritzewsky for her astounding bravery, adding: “We must stand firm. Rape is not an act of resistance. Women’s bodies are not a weapon of war. Sexual violence has no place in conflict. It is our mission to speak for the victims whose voices were taken away. It is our duty to speak out in the face of systematic failure of so many international bodies charged with supporting the rights of women. It is our obligation to speak out for the sake of all women around the globe to prevent such horrors from being repeated in conflicts wherever they may occur.”
Herzog reiterated Israel’s commitment to bring the hostages home and to continue to stand up for the rights of women everywhere.
Pannabha Chandraramya
■ THAI AMBASSADOR Pannabha Chandraramya has apparently reserved Fridays to promote her country within the framework of events marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Thailand.
Last Friday she was in Jerusalem at the Jerusalem Theater for the opening of a photo exhibition by celebrated Thai photographer Nat Prakobsantisuk, and this coming Friday, September 13, she will be in the Gan Ha’ir Mall in Tel Aviv to preside over a tourism fair that will highlight the many and varied offerings of Thailand’s tourism industry.
Thailand is a popular destination for Israeli tourists, and, more recently, Israelis are increasingly moving to Thailand in order to get themselves geographically removed from the war.
As for the photo exhibition last week, it was organized in memory of the 41 Thai citizens murdered by Hamas, which is still holding six Thai citizens as hostages. Chandraramya wants to sell the photographs at the conclusion of the exhibition and present the money to Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund for the planting of 41 trees in memory of the slain Thai citizens. She also wants to do something to honor the Thai hostages.
Yellow and gold are important colors in Thai tradition. Chandraramya wore a jacket in a shade of muted gold for the opening of the exhibition, and did not forget the yellow ribbon pin which is the symbol for awaiting the return of the hostages. The exhibition, she said, was designed not only to celebrate 70 years of diplomatic relations but also to give Israelis a deeper understanding of Thailand’s rich culture.
Prakobsantisuk said that this was his second time in Israel and noted that both Thailand and Israel share holiness and a hyper-technical reality.
In travelling the world, he said, he had come to realize that it was not up to him to judge what is right and what is wrong, whether he agrees with something or not. “We all have a right to create in that which we believe, and so do others,” he said. The key word from his standpoint is “respect.” it is important to respect the background and beliefs of the other, because they are no less valid than your own.
Thus the exhibition reflects Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist people and their holy shrines, with an emphasis on the gold light which adds to the aura of holiness.
Attendees whose only experience of Thai cuisine was stirred fried noodles and vegetables had a much broader culinary experience by sampling various items from the Thai buffet which was set out for them.
Michael Shubitz
■ VISITORS TO the exhibition, which is situated on the first floor gallery of the Jerusalem Theater, cannot help but notice, when entering the lobby on the ground floor, the photographic exhibition of life-size portraits of Lithuanian Holocaust survivors of the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto photographed by Tel Aviv photographer Michael Shubitz. The exhibition was mentioned briefly in last Wednesday’s “Grapevine,” before it was seen by the writer of this column who, on the day of the opening, had been in Tel Aviv to attend the opening of another photographic exhibition, about Ukrainian refugees, photographed by another Tel Aviv photographer, Erez Kaganovitz.
Prakobsantisuk, Shubitz, and Kaganovitz are all excellent exponents of their art. While it may be true that every owner of a cellphone can play the role of photojournalist – and many do – a cellphone at this stage simply cannot equal the beauty of a properly photographed image replete with the correct lighting facilities.
One of the most striking of the photos of Lithuanian Holocaust survivors is that of 102-year-old Dita Sperlng Zupovich Katz holding a photograph of herself as a young woman. It’s incredible to see how the face of the former resistance fighter has changed in the course of time.
Francisco Duarte Lopes
■ ON Thursday, September 12, leaders and members of Portuguese American Jewish communities will celebrate the 370th anniversary of the arrival of Portuguese Jews in America. The ceremony, sponsored by Sephardi Heritage International, a cultural NGO, will be hosted by Portuguese Ambassador to the US Francisco Duarte Lopes.
According to a press release that was sent to Israel, American Jewish history began in 1654 when 23 Portuguese Jews migrated from Brazil to New Amsterdam, as New York was then called. Since then, Portuguese American Jews such as Emma Lazarus have made their mark on American society and, in the case of Emma Lazarus, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.
The event will also celebrate the revival of Jewish life in Portugal, where the Jewish population has increased from approximately 600, 10 years ago, to well over 4,000 today. The increase has been aided by a law passed in 2015 to grant citizenship to Jews who could prove that their ancestors had been Sephardi Jews expelled from Portugal during the Inquisition.
“Sephardi communities in Amsterdam, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities bear the marks of their Iberian roots,” said Rabbi Sjimon den Hollander, who is a member and teacher at Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York, whose founding members created the first Jewish congregation to be established in North America.
Jack Lew
■ US AMBASSADOR Jack Lew, in the course of a visit to Beersheba, met with families of Bedouin hostages, and posted afterward on X/Twitter that it was a sobering reminder that this ongoing tragedy affects so many communities across Israel and the world.
He also toured the Gav-Yam Negev advanced technologies park with its CEO, Avi Jacobovitz, who, at the end of the visit, presented him with a bottle of olive oil that had been produced from olives growing in the surrounding area.
The park houses branches of some 80 national and international hi-tech companies, including Nvidia, Microsoft, IBM, Dell EMC, Oracle, and other brands that have become household names.
Lew left saying that his visit to Beersheba had given him hope for a better future.
Rabbi Joy Levitt
■ THE NEW CEO of the Jerusalem Foundation Inc. is a female rabbi who helped to build the Marlene Meyerson Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, one of the largest and most successful Jewish Community Centers in North America, and one of the largest in the world, serving around 3,000 people on a daily basis. Rabbi Joy Levitt was the first female president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, serving in that role from 1987 to 1989. In 2010 and 2011, she was named by Newsweek as one of the most influential rabbis in America.
In her various roles – which have included being a pulpit rabbi and editing a journal – she created deep partnerships with cultural, political, educational, and social service organizations throughout Israel.
She was inspired to come to the Jerusalem Foundation through her contacts with its late Jerusalem-based president Shai Doron, who in turn had been inspired by founding president and Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, with whom he had worked closely during the early years of his own career.
Another recent appointment is that of Steven G. Scheinfeld as chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation in the United States. He succeeds Alan G. Hassenfeld, whose mega philanthropy family has supported the Jerusalem Foundation since its inception, helping to fund some of its major projects, such as Teddy Park and Hutzot Hayotzer, which includes the Sultan’s Pool.
James Snyder
During Hassenfeld’s term as chairman, James Snyder, the former long-term director of the Israel Museum, served as executive chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation, Inc., and frequently traveled from New York to Jerusalem to look at projects for which numerous organizations in the capital had applied for grants. His familiarity with Jerusalem’s art and culture scene is uncanny. In August of 2023, it was announced that he had been appointed as the director of the Jewish Museum of New York, which also gives him a certain ongoing contact with Jerusalem. He was in Israel earlier this year for the opening of the Jerusalem Biennale.
Scheinfeld has for more than 20 years been a member of the board of directors of the US branch of the Jerusalem Foundation and has worked closely with Hassenfeld, who will continue to provide it with his wisdom and guidance. In the present circumstances, said Scheinfeld, the mission of the Jerusalem Foundation, Inc., is more crucial than ever.
■ AMONG THE organizations and institutions with which the Jerusalem Foundation works in partnership is the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, which, despite all the humanitarian needs, has mounted a fundraising campaign.
A letter signed by the JBG executive directors Allen Berkley and Hannah Rendell, along with CEO Tom Amit, states that, due to the war, part of JBG’s committed income sources have been frozen, a factor that has had a detrimental effect on some of the therapeutic programs that JBG provides.
Once this situation is amended, JBG will expand its programming to include post-trauma relief for combat soldiers, in addition to which volunteer programming will assist the elderly residents of Jerusalem as they return to gardening at JBG, which gives them both social interaction and occupational therapy. There are also various garden-related activities planned for children and families. Planting, caring for and harvesting plants, have remarkable healing qualities for the soul.
■ REALIZING THE acute need for additional ambulances, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has presented two new mobile intensive care units (MICU) to the Shlomi local council. One of the vehicles will operate 24/7 with the assistance of the IFCJ, while the other will serve in emergencies and, if needed, at other times, and will operate with the assistance of the IFCJ.
One of the vehicles was donated by Jay Baker, and the other by Morris and Arlene Goldfarb, with the help of the American Friends of Magen David Adom.
A ceremony at which the ambulances were officially inaugurated was held last week at the MDA station in Shlomi. Among the people in attendance were Eli Peretz, director of MDA’s Asher region; Bat Sheva Guaz, deputy director, Asher region; Roni Maman, deputy director, Asher region and medical supervisor; Shiran Elbaz, paramedic at the Beit Jann station; MDA station managers from the Asher region; and volunteers and staff from the MDA Shlomi station.
Lt.-Col. (res.) Safwan Marich, director of the Security and Emergency Response Division for IFCJ, underscored that “one of the main challenges in the North, especially these days, is providing lifesaving emergency medical care. MICU vehicles are intended to offer immediate treatment, which can mean the difference between life and death. We have worked extensively in collaboration with MDA to position such essential vehicles across the region.
“Emergency medical availability joins a series of initiatives of the IFCJ, including providing armored security vehicles to local authorities near the northern border. With the help of our donors around the world, we will continue to assist in strengthening and improving Israel’s emergency preparedness.”
Gavriel “Gabi” Naaman
Gavriel “Gabi” Naaman, head of the Shlomi Council, added that the gift is “an important contribution aimed at addressing the needs on the ground to provide complete medical response to the residents of Shlomi and the surrounding area. Advancing comprehensive and advanced emergency medical infrastructure and response to urgent cases is a very important goal for us. Therefore, we are also working in parallel on obtaining a building permit for a new MDA station in Shlomi.”
Maman voiced similar sentiments. “The inauguration of the two new MICU vehicles in Shlomi is a dream come true in my eyes. For many years, we in the Western Galilee region, many of whom started as youth volunteers, have talked about this, and finally it is happening. Personally, I am excited and have a warm spot in my heart for the place, and I am glad that the dear residents of Shlomi are receiving MICU services right in their town, which is very close to the border with Lebanon.
“I want to acknowledge the cooperation with Mayor Gavriel ‘Gabi’ Naaman. On one hand, we have always had a listening ear, an open door, and assistance in all areas over the years, and on the other hand, he continuously pushes for the upgrading of the MDA station in the town for the benefit of Shlomi’s residents. To the mayor, thank you, and keep up the good work.
“I also want to thank the IFCJ, without which this project would not have happened. Their contribution to Israel’s residents is visible on the ground and is invaluable.”
MDA Director-General Eli Bin lauded the IFCJ, founded by the late Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and now headed by his daughter Yael, for its long-term assistance to MDA. “The IFCJ helps us greatly and contributes so that we can continue our mission to save lives and ensure medical security for Israel’s residents,” he said.
Daniel Peretz and Noa Kirel
■ AFTER A commuter courtship of just under a year, soccer player Daniel Peretz last Friday popped the question to international Israeli singing star and model Noa Kirel when they were aboard a yacht in Herzliya – and she replied in the affirmative.
Peretz was actually planning his proposal for two months, having already purchased the NIS 100,000 engagement ring from a well-known Israeli jeweler. The centerpiece of the ring is a beautifully cut three-carat diamond. It’s interesting to think of what would have happened to the ring if she had refused his proposal. After all, she broke up with her previous beau, whom she had been dating for two years.
Peretz, 24, plays goalkeeper for Bundesliga FC Bayern Munich. He is also a member of the Israeli National Team. The couple have not yet announced when or where the wedding will take place.
Matisyahu
■ POPULAR JEWISH reggae artist Matisyahu will perform at a benefit concert in New York on September 22 hosted by Americans for Ben-Gurion University. The event, titled One Day, mirrors Matisyahu’s song of the same name that was used by NBC as the background music while promoting the 2010 Olympic Games. The singer has also dedicated his 2004 song “Warrior” to wounded IDF soldiers.
The event on September 22 is part of a $1 billion global fundraising drive to strengthen Israel’s South in general and BGU in particular. The university has suffered the loss of both faculty and students who lost their lives in the war against Hamas.
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