New ambassadors to Israel usually make their initial connections in the country with the Chief of State Protocol (currently Gil Haskel) and various officials in the Foreign Ministry, embassy staff and people engaged in promoting bilateral relations with the countries they represent. The latter help introduce the ambassadors to bilateral projects, as well as to specifically Israeli organizations and institutions, such as Yad Vashem, the kibbutz, the moshav, the Volcani Institute and more. Yet it took Australian Ambassador Paul Griffiths, who arrived in September, 2020, almost a whole year to visit Gan Garoo, the Australian zoological transplant located in Nir David near Gan Hashlosha and the Beit She’an National Park. At Gan Garoo, kangaroos roam free, like to be scratched and will eat from the palm of the hand of whomever wants to feed them. There are also colorful parrots, emus, flying foxes and more. In an era in which people are becoming more nature conscious, Gan Garoo is a great place for a family outing. It is now celebrating its 25th anniversary year, which is the reason that Griffiths, who as Australian ambassador is automatically one of its patrons, decided to visit. Accompanied by Rami Degani, chairman of the board of the Nir David Tourism Corporation; Heli Yaakovs, CEO of the Nir David Tourism Corporation; Oded Ben Ari, director of Gan Garoo; and Yehuda Gat, Gan Garoo co-founder, Griffiths toured the area, making friends with the animals and birds.
“This is my first visit here and I could feel from the start that it was a magical place.. I had to remind myself that I was in Israel, not Australia,” he said, adding that he was honored to be a patron and was confident that Gan Garoo will continue to grow.”
■ IT’S BEEN a busy week for Haskel attending the trilateral meeting in Jerusalem between Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and his Greek and Cypriot counterparts, Nikos Dendias and Nikos Christodoulides, followed by the visit of Slovenian Foreign Minister Dr. Anže Logar
Next week, Haskel will be escorting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to her various meetings. A press release emanating from Berlin stated that it was her intention to meet members of the new government. It is hard to imagine that opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu will not be included in her list of meetings, considering that over the years she has met and spoken to him more than any other Israeli leader. It is customary for opposition leaders to meet visiting heads of state and/or government and other visiting dignitaries. Merkel herself is due to leave office following Germany’s September 26 election.
While in Israel, she will receive an honorary doctorate from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, which is somehow appropriate considering that when the Technion was established in 1912, the language of instruction was German.
■ IN THE pecking order of protocol rankings, a president is obviously higher than a foreign minister. Thus, when a visiting foreign minister comes to Israel, he or she meets the head of state at the President’s Residence. However when Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his delegation came to Israel this week, it was the other way around. Dendias was booked into the Dan Tel Aviv, where President Isaac Herzog came to meet him. Ordinarily, it would have sufficed for Dan Hotel general manager Rama Oram to greet the visiting dignitaries, but considering that Herzog was coming to the hotel to meet with Dendias, Dan Chain President and CEO Ronen Nissenbaum thought it was his duty to be present to welcome both Herzog and Dendias, but didn’t quite steal the limelight from Oram, who was on hand to see that everything ran smoothly. Although she wore her mask when she greeted the Greek delegation, she removed it for her photograph with Herzog, and the president removed his.
■ AMONG THE many present and past politicians and other dignitaries who attended the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival was former president Reuven Rivlin, who has been a movie buff since childhood, when he used to sneak into movie theaters when he should have been practicing on his violin. He didn’t much relish violin studies, but he loved movies. He came to the Sultan’s Pool on Tuesday, accompanied by his daughter Rivi, who has been standing in for her late mother Nechama, who died June 2019. Nechama Rivlin loved movies and was an ardent supporter of the Jerusalem Film Festival, which she attended unfailingly until the last one before her death. Following her demise, Reuven Rivlin, together with the Jerusalem Foundation, established the Nechama Rivlin International Competition for the best international film by filmmakers in the early stages of their careers. He announced the competition at the July 2019 Film Festival. At the time he also spoke of how differently he and Nechama viewed films and were touched by them. She had her first taste of cinema under the open sky on Moshav Herut. Until he met her, he had always sat inside a cinema hall. When he began watching films outdoors as well as indoors, he discovered a different magic from a different perspective.
■ TWO NEW elementary schools that will open in Tel Aviv in September will be named in memory of two of Israel’s greatest female singers Shoshana Damari and Yaffa Yarkoni. Both were in high demand around the world, especially in the US, which has the largest Jewish population in the Western world outside of Israel. But they are best remembered as having gone to battlefields to sing to the troops in all the wars in which Israel was engaged. Damari died in February 2006 at the age of 83, just as she was embarking on a new career with Idan Raichel. Yarkoni died in 2011 at age 86. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said that Damari and Yarkoni had made memorable contributions to Israeli culture, both in their professional and their personal lives, and were role models worth emulating. In naming schools after them, Tel Aviv was helping to preserve their legacies, said Huldai. It is only in recent years that municipalities have begun to pay more attention to naming streets and public buildings after women of achievement. But the gap between commemorating men and women in this manner is still very wide. Curiously, one of the women who was commemorated widely well before the recent spate, had asked that nothing be named after her. But it was somewhat difficult to accede to the request of Golda Meir. As she was no longer in the land of the living, she could not object to the projects named in her memory. Another woman who was honored early in the piece was Henrietta Szold, without whom health services would be as scarce and as primitive as they come.
■ ON THE subject of health, sometimes drastic measures are needed to ensure that regulations are maintained. Actor Avi Kushnir was performing in the Beit Lessin production of Abullah Schwartz, a comedy about a man who switches identity backwards and forwards without remembering Schwartz when he’s Abdullah or Abdullah when he’s Schwartz. From his position on the stage, Kushnir’s eye caught a bare face. One woman in the audience at the Rishon Lezion Palace of Culture was not wearing a mask. Kushnir descended from the stage, walked up to her and politely informed her that unless she put on a mask, the performance could not continue. “Please let us get on with the show,” he entreated. The woman remained adamant. She was not going to put on a mask. At this point, the ushers intervened and escorted her out of the auditorium. Kushnir returned to the stage, and proved that one way or another, the play must go on.
■ ALTHOUGH IT appears at this moment in time that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services will be held in synagogues, albeit in strict adherence to Health Ministry regulations, a lot of water can flow under the bridge in the interim, and until a day or two before Rosh Hashanah, we won’t know what the real situation is. Last year, senior citizens and others living alone were denied the opportunity to be guests in someone’s home for Rosh Hashanah. So for this year, the Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services Ministry is allegedly trying to amend that situation. Social worker Gili Tamir runs a nightly program “You’re Entitled” on Reshet Bet in which she informs citizens of their rights, often helps them to get past bureaucratic hurdles and occasionally brings on officials from various welfare services. This week she brought on the director-general of the above-mentioned ministry, who said that people living alone, especially seniors, should get in touch if they wanted free meals and accommodation during Rosh Hashanah. She also urged people living in apartment buildings to knock on the doors of neighbors living alone to see if they are ill or in need and if necessary to call the ministry hotline by dialing 118. That’s the number the seniors were also asked to call. Anyone who eagerly rushed to respond, discovered that the hotline was not being manned by a live person, but contained a recorded message. There’s an old adage that states: if you’re not going to do it properly, then don’t do it at all.
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