It is customary for presidents of the United States, on their last day in office, to sign pardons as Bill Clinton famously did for the late Marc Rich, who after being indicted for tax evasion and violating US trade sanctions, had been self-exiled for many years in Switzerland. Rich did not dare return to America – not even for his daughter’s funeral – but was pardoned by Clinton in 2001 on the president’s final day in office.
President Reuven Rivlin’s last day in office is looming.
The question is will he pardon Erica Frishkin, who has served 18 years of a life sentence for murdering her abusive husband?
In November 2020, Rivlin, on the basis of a professional assessment of her case, rejected Frishkin’s appeal for a pardon, but said that he would consider reducing her sentence if she appealed again six months later. It is possible that during that interim, Frishkin overcame the issues which prevented her from receiving a pardon or reduction of sentence when she appealed last year. It will be interesting to see if Rivlin’s final official act before passing the baton to Isaac Herzog will be to grant Frishkin her freedom. In Jewish tradition, after all, 18 is the gematria (numerical equivalent) for life. Rivlin could give Frishkin the chance to start her life over.
■ PHOTOGRAPHS OF people with President-elect Herzog have featured strongly on social media platforms ever since the results of the presidential election were announced earlier this month. It seems that almost everyone who ever had a photo taken with Herzog is keen to publish a connection, including leaders of organizations and institutions.
But there was also another connection among the congratulatory messages that he received. Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote that he was happy that Israel will have a president whose family roots stem from the rich cultural history of Polish-Jewish relations. He assured Herzog of his goodwill and readiness to develop dialogue.
He added that Poland increasingly sees Israel as one of its key partners in the Middle East
Relating to the special ties between Poland and Israel, Duda concluded his lengthy message by assuring Herzog that the Republic of Poland understands the security challenges facing the State of Israel and supports the international efforts to establish a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
The truth is that Herzog’s family has cultural roots in so many countries that he is a virtual walking United Nations.
Yet for all that, despite the wanderings of his ancestors, Herzog on both sides of his family can trace his lineage to Poland. On his mother’s side it goes back to the 16th century.
Her family came from Zamosc, a renaissance city that was once part of an impressive trade route, replete with palaces and built in the style of the Italian city of Padua. To achieve that splendor, Prince Jan Zamoyski, the founder of Zamosc, invited artisans and builders from various countries to join forces in bringing the beauty of Italy to Poland. Herzog’s forebears on his mother’s side fell into that category, and thus journeyed from Italy to Poland, where they remained for several centuries.
Just over a decade ago, Herzog was invited to come to Zamosc for the inauguration of the restored Zamosc Synagogue, which is one of the most significant synagogue structures in Poland to survive the Second World War.
During the war, it was looted by the Nazis, and over the years since then, it had succumbed to neglect and decay, which did not quite destroy its natural beauty.
Following a seven-year restoration process, a magnificent inauguration ceremony was held in March 2011, attended by various ambassadors, including those of Israel and Germany. That in itself was historic, but perhaps even more historic was the fact that the then-mayor of Zamosc, Marcin Zamoyski, one of the principal figures at the dedication ceremony, was a direct descendant of the founder of the city, and Herzog was a direct descendant of one of the artisans who came from Italy to help beautify the city.
■ THE OLD joke about two Jews, three opinions applies to non-Jews as well. In Australia, the Queensland branch of the Labor Party passed a resolution at its State Conference accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing, while the New South Wales branch of the party lambasted NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell over her failure to condemn a department employee who made vile antisemitic, pro-Hitler remarks.
■ THE HEBREW media contains numerous articles about how not-for-profit organizations are suffering due to a severe decline in donations during the coronavirus pandemic. This means that many of the beneficiaries of charitable organizations in this category are receiving a lot less than before, and in some cases nothing, because the number of people in need has grown considerably, and there simply isn’t enough money to go around.
This may change if Avigdor Liberman becomes Finance Minister as planned. Liberman has announced that there will be no relief payments to unemployed people under the age of 45. That means that a lot of people who have declined to go back to work, because they’re living quite nicely on relief, will have to rejoin the workforce, as a result of which there will be a boost to the national economy and more money will be floating around.
This may go further with regard to donations to nonprofits. But with all the corruption that has been discovered in recent months, there is concern about the nonprofits that operate without any sense of accountability, monitoring or supervision. In an interview with Globes last week, Eyal Globus, who until recently was head of the Corporations Authority that operates within the Justice Ministry, and who was also the registrar of companies, organizations and partnerships including not-for-profits, said that there are numerous nonprofit organizations operating under the radar. While not suggesting that they are all corrupt, Globus said many of these organizations do not understand that their operations more or less fall into the category of a business, and therefore should be reporting on income and expenses.
But it’s not only organizations that don’t report. Beggars who hang around markets and main streets, jingling coins in a paper cup, quickly pocket five and ten shekel donations so that only copper coins show up in the cup to enhance the impression of poverty. Some of the beggars are quite rich, but don’t report their income.
Their best trick is to approach a group of diners in a restaurant. If one person in the group gives them a donation, the others are often too embarrassed not to follow suit. The beggars also move up and down the carriages of the light rail, and are sometimes obnoxious in their demands. However, passengers find it easier to give them a coin or two than to be subjected to their rants.
Of course, no one knows whether these people are genuinely in need, and in the case of those not-for-profit organizations that do not produce proof of their bona fides, no one knows exactly where the money is going, and whether or not it is lining the pockets of those who claim to be collecting for the poor, or for Holocaust survivors.
■ INSPIRATION COMES in many ways, from many people and many events that a writer might witness. For British immigrant Madelaine Black, whose inspiration for her children’s book, Meir Carrot and the Happy Shopper, came from volunteering at the Meir Panim Food Bank, where she saw people queuing up like regular shoppers, and volunteers either secretly taking food items for themselves or asking permission to do so. It was a life-changing experience in the preservation of dignity and in the realization that the volunteers taking food for themselves did all that they could to remain givers instead of receivers. It occurred to her that the receivers should simply be shoppers who do not need to pay. The overall experience fired her imagination and she was thus inspired to write a book currently available at Katamon Books and Emek Refaim Books in Jerusalem, and on Amazon.
Launch events for the book are being held in the US and UK, and French and Hebrew translations are in the works.
■ GOSSIP WRITERS for Hebrew tabloids are almost in mourning over the break-up of the marriage of actor and male model Yehuda Levi, who will celebrate his 42nd birthday on June 29, and model Shlomit Malka, 27. The age difference notwithstanding, the two were a power couple in Israel’s modeling and entertainment circles. And because they are each so attractive, they were constantly photographed by paparazzi and featured in social columns in magazines and newspapers.
According to reports of comments by their friends, the two started to drift apart when Levi wanted to start a family, and Malka wanted to pursue her career. Starting a family didn’t interfere with Bar Refaeli’s modeling and acting career, but apparently Malka was reluctant to take time out during her pregnancy – though there’s no reason why she could not model fashionable maternity clothes.
Levi has been unlucky in romance. Some 20-plus years ago, he had a passionate affair with model and actress Yael Bar Zohar, who subsequently married actor and singer Guy Zu-Aretz in 2005, and they are still together.
Levi later had an eight-year romance with singer Ninet Tayeb, who left another relationship with actor Ran Danker to be with Levy. But shortly after getting engaged to Levy in a blaze of publicity, she left him for musician Yossi Mizrachi, whom she married in 2014, and with whom she has a daughter. Levi was despondent after the break-up with Tayeb, until he started dating Malka six years ago. They were married in May 2017, and now that romance has also become history.
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