This week, Shimon Sheves, who served as director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office during the Rabin administration, launched his book Haver (Friend) at the Rabin Center in Tel Aviv. It may be remembered that in eulogizing Rabin immediately after his death, Bill Clinton, who was then president of the United States, said “Shalom haver.”
Recalling the incessant incitement that preceded the assassination just over a quarter of a century ago, Sheves said in comparison with the current situation, “It’s as if 25 years never passed. The same rabbis who came out with incitement then are openly doing so again with their call to do everything possible to prevent the establishment of a government.” Sheves, who worked closely with Rabin before he became prime minister, in writing his book, has shed light on a considerable amount of contemporary history.
■ THE WARNING last Saturday by Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Nadav Argaman that incitement on social media platforms could lead to violence and the possible assassination of one or more prominent politicians, actually goes beyond social media. Initiators of mass demonstrations have no way of controlling them, and even a heavy police presence does not guarantee an absence of violence, as has been seen at various demonstrations around the country. The beefing up of security around various politicians is not reported in detail, and when such skimpy reports are supported by photographic evidence, what the photographs show are security barriers that have been erected in front of and around the home of the politician whose security has been upgraded. But the public remains unaware of the extent of personal protection that the politician receives.
Journalists are also subjected to violence, and not all police seem to be aware that a press card issued by the Government Press Office is in the nature of a passport to newsworthy events. Journalists have been arrested for no valid reason; they have been punched and kicked; castigated and threatened on social media. And in other countries where there appears to be an ebb in democracy, they are even poisoned and killed.
Not only politicians and journalists are subjected to violence. Tehila Friedman, whose attire in her photograph indicates that she is religiously observant, tweeted on Saturday night that the parents of a friend had been assaulted, not by Arabs but by young men with long peyot (sidelocks), while a friend of the parents, a man of 60, had his wrist broken. It was all because while holding Israeli flags, they stood in their own neighborhood near the home of Yamina MK Nir Orbach.
Marc Israel Sellem, the chief photographer of The Jerusalem Post, is among the journalists who have been physically attacked. Other journalists, such as Channel 12’s Dana Weiss, Rina Mazliach, Yoni Levy and Guy Peleg, have been subjected to violent threats and provided with security details. KAN 11 cameraman Rolik Nowitzki was kicked and beaten, and reporter Yoav Zahavi was sufficiently seriously injured to be taken to hospital. Other KAN 11 news reporters, as well as newspaper reporters for various outlets, have been assaulted when covering demonstrations.
One of the more recent attacks on a journalist, reported by both KAN 11 and Al Jazeera, was against Givara Budeiri, an Al Jazeera reporter, who, carrying a microphone, wearing a flak jacket with “Press” attached in large letters back and front, was attacked by police on Saturday, while covering a protest demonstration at Sheikh Jarrah. Video footage shows her being attacked by a policewoman, as well doing nothing untoward prior to the attack.
When trying to resist the police who closed in on her, she was arrested, but later released.
The arrest and the way she was treated were denounced not only by Al Jazeera but also by the Foreign Press Association in Israel, which issued a statement complaining: “On Saturday, June 5, Israeli police forcefully grabbed an Al Jazeera correspondent covering a protest in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and detained her for four hours before finally releasing her. According to Al Jazeera, she was then taken to Hadassah hospital to be treated for a broken hand and bruises to her body caused by police. Her cameraman was also beaten, and his camera heavily damaged.
“According to accounts from colleagues at the scene, as well as videos captured by bystanders, she was arrested without provocation. The reporter was clearly identified as a journalist and wore protective equipment, including a vest that said ‘press,’ and police refused to allow her to return to her car to show them her Israeli-issued press card.
“This is the latest in a long line of heavy-handed tactics by Israeli police in recent weeks against clearly identified journalists – including the use of stun grenades, tear gas, sponge-tipped bullets and the spraying of skunk water.
“Unfortunately, our previous letter to police on May 26 asking them to show restraint and respect for the media was ignored.
“We call on police to punish the officers who needlessly injured an experienced journalist and broke professional equipment. And once again, we urge police to uphold Israel’s pledges to respect freedom of the press and to allow journalists to do their jobs freely and without fear of injury and intimidation.”
■ IT’S INTERESTING that two weeks before the wedding of former Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, who after five years in Hamas captivity was released in October 2011, Al Jazeera this week showed previously unseen footage of Schalit exercising in a sparsely furnished room while still a prisoner. Schalit, 35, is scheduled to marry Nitzan Shabat on June 23.
■ LAST WEEKEND, the Ra’anana Municipality inaugurated the Peres Road, which is the city’s northern bypass road, named for Israel’s ninth president. On hand were Ra’anana Mayor Chaim Broyde, members of the Peres family, and representatives of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, Yona Bartal and Efrat Duvdevani.
Chemi Peres, chairman of the Peres Center, said he was excited to see that the Naomi Shemer Road in Ra’anana connects with the bypass road named after Shimon Peres, since Shemer and Peres were neighbors and friends.
Broyde said that during the 1981 election campaign, he got to know Shimon Peres, a politician of the finest breed, a visionary and a wise man, a lover of people and an Israeli patriot.
■ WHEN PRESIDENT-ELECT Isaac Herzog completes his term, the municipal committee responsible for street names in the capital will have a real headache. There is already a Herzog Street in Jerusalem named for his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, the second Ashkenazi chief rabbi. There is a hospital named for his grandmother Rabbanit Sarah Herzog, who was the founding president of World Emunah. When it came to naming a street after Herzog’s father, municipal officials, in order to avoid confusion, named it the Sixth President of Israel Street. Somehow, it seems unlikely that there will be Bougie Street in Jerusalem, but if there is no other option, whoever will be in charge at that time may have to resort to Isaac Herzog’s nickname.
In addition to the many floral tributes that were sent to President-elect Herzog, someone sent a blue-and-white cake in the form of a presidential palace and decorated it with macaroons.
Herzog, who is still chairman of the Jewish Agency, is currently back at his desk, and in that capacity decided that the people who would most enjoy the cake would be new immigrants, so he sent it to Ulpan Etzion in Jerusalem, where it was greatly appreciated.
Herzog will not be the only senior official who will next month be leaving the agency and moving to the President’s Residence. Eyal Shviki, his chief of staff at the agency, who has been with him for many years, will continue to work with him in his new position.
■ ALSO ACCOMPANYING Herzog and his wife, Michal, to the President’s Residence will be their cat, Enyeama, named for legendary Nigerian goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.
On the first few days after Herzog’s election, so many bouquets of flowers arrived at their home in Tel Aviv’s Tzahala neighborhood that they could have opened a florist shop. Instead, Michal Herzog, who for many years has worked with Na’amat in providing shelter for battered women, took many of the flowers to the Glickman Center, a Na’amat daycare center for women who are victims of violence, and cheered up the women and the children there as well as the staff.
It was nice to be able to share the Herzog family’s new status with the less fortunate even before Herzog is inaugurated. As a former minister of social welfare, he might also be able to persuade a couple of relevant ministries to get together to provide more shelters for battered women and their children, as well as more facilities to help violent men to overcome their anger so that they can have happy family lives.
■ TAKING A top-level business delegation with him, composed largely of heads of companies manufacturing security products, President Reuven Rivlin, who on Tuesday left for Romania, has so far had a new beer named for him and a baby rhino born last week at the Ramat Gan Safari. Rivlin, who was invited by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, was supposed to visit last year, but Corona put the visit on hold.
Romania,which now holds a prominent place in the European Union, was the only Eastern Bloc country that continued to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel after the Six Day War, while others severed relations and did not resume them until the fall of the Iron Curtain.
■ ON SUNDAY, June 13, Chabadniks around the world will commemorate the 27th anniversary of the death of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died on the third of Tamuz 5754, corresponding with June 12, 1994. Traditionally, the anniversary is a day for reflection, learning, prayer, recommitment and, above all, positive action.
In advance of the anniversary, many Chabadniks in Israel will be tuning in to a Zoom lecture by Rabbi Manis Friedman, co-founder and dean of Bais Chana International, which is located in Minnesota.
A global Chabad emissary who has lectured extensively throughout the US, as well as London, Hong Kong, Cape Town, and Johannesburg in South Africa, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, and a number of South and Central American cities, he will question whether Israel is the safest place in the world. In this context, he will share the rebbe’s views on war and terrorism in Israel.
Friedman is the brother of well-known Chabad singer Avraham Fried, who frequently appears in Israel, and the father of Benny Friedman, a singer of contemporary religious music.
The live broadcast on Zoom will be at 8 p.m. on Thursday, June 10, which coincides with Rosh Hodesh Tamuz. The event is sponsored by the English-Speaking Chabad Centers across Israel: Chabad Anglo Beersheba; Chabad of Baka, Jerusalem; Chabad of Rehavia-Nahlaot, Jerusalem; Chabad of Dolev-Heichal Menachem; Chabad of Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef; and Chabad of Efrat – English Division.
■ THE ‘CHANGE’ government, whether approved by the Knesset or not, will this Thursday, June 9, have something to celebrate. One of the members of this disparate coalition is Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who on Thursday will be celebrating his 62nd birthday. Gantz has another reason to celebrate. Regardless of which way the wind blows politically, he will remain defense minister.
■ ANOTHER REASON for Blue and White to celebrate is the honor given to Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, who was chosen for the 2021 Menachem Begin Israeli leadership award.
Tamano-Shata, a lawyer, by profession, has helped pave the way for many women to advance in their careers. She is the first Ethiopian-born female member of Knesset, and the first Ethiopian-born minister in a government of Israel. She also did more than any of her predecessors to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Like Gantz, she is likely to retain her position as minister regardless of whether the new coalition government is approved.
■ AT THE rate that he’s going, Rani Rahav, one of Israel’s best-known public relations consultants, may have to open a Jerusalem branch of his office. Ran Rahav Communications, which has long handled PR for the Dan chain, of which the King David is the flagship hotel, also handles PR for the Jerusalem International Convention Center, and more recently was selected to handle PR for the 38th Jerusalem Film Festival, which opens on August 24 at the Sultan’s Pool.
Rahav also appears in television shows, and is a quasi diplomat in his capacity as honorary consul for the Marshall Islands.
■ THREE FORMER mayors of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, Uri Lupolianski and Nir Barkat, together with current Mayor Moshe Lion, came to voice their appreciation to Zion Turjeman, the former CEO of Ariel, the events company of the Jerusalem Municipality, which Turjeman headed for 15 years.
Turjeman, who has worked in a variety of positions at Jerusalem City Hall, began working there in 1968, and thought that after more than half a century, the time had come to retire. He informed Lion of his intention 18 months ago. There is consensus among his former bosses that Turjeman has left an indelible imprint on the city.
Barkat, who was barely 11 years old when Turjeman first joined the municipality, served two terms as mayor and opted to run for Knesset rather than a third mayoral term. Currently a Likud MK, he made no secret of the fact that he wants to lead Likud after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steps down.
In recent months, he stopped being a Netanyahu loyalist, and is now challenging him for the Likud leadership, as is Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, who in his former role as Knesset speaker was considered to be a leading candidate for president of the state, though political pundits said that he would rather be prime minister. If he replaces Netanyahu, he might have a good chance. Barkat has been working toward the realization of his own ambitions in that direction for more than a year.
It is still too early to say that the Netanyahu era has come to an end. Unless legislation is passed that prevents him from again running for office for at least four years, if he loses the Likud leadership he could simply form another right-wing party. Other politicians have formed new parties when things didn’t go well for them in their natural political habitat, so there is no reason that Netanyahu should not do the same.
■ A MUST for every Japanese ambassador to Israel is a visit to Haifa’s Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art. Current Ambassador Koichi Mizushima is no exception.
The recently arrived ambassador said that he had heard a lot about the Tikotin Museum, and felt it important to come to Haifa to see for himself the special museum that pays such great honor to Japanese culture and is a true bridge between Japan and Israel.
The ambassador was welcomed by Haifa Museums director-general Yotam Yakir, Dr. Ilana Singer-Blaine, who recently retired after 30 years as the museum’s curator, and Dr. Etty Glass-Gissis, the museum’s new curator.
Together they related aspects of the history of the museum and also told the ambassador of future plans, as they all toured the “Kanreki” exhibition (New Beginnings in Japanese). This exhibition celebrates the museum’s 60th anniversary. Exiting from the museum, the ambassador also saw the spectacular view of Haifa Bay from the nearby promenade.
Aiboshi spoke of the great respect that the Japanese government has for the museum, as could be seen in the special award presented by the Japanese government to Singer-Blaine.
Yakir said that the ambassador’s visit was of great importance to the museum staff. “We offer each other an embrace of friendship – an embrace which is to strengthen Japanese culture and its connection to Israel via the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, a museum with an illustrious past and a no less wonderful future,” he declared.
■ DESPITE THE hankering for live events, it seems that Zoom is here to stay. The Herzliya Cultural Group, which has been hosting regular Zoom programs throughout 2020 and most of this year, has discovered that its Zoom attendance exceeded the previous in-person attendance, and so is continuing in that vein.
On Sunday, June 13, at 8 p.m., Prof. Irwin Cotler, former Canadian minister of justice and attorney-general, will be the HCG guest speaker with the intriguing topic “Global Political Pandemic.”
■ IT CAN be safely presumed that most people have never heard of Letchworth, a British garden city in Hertfordshire, founded in 1903 by social reformer Ebenezer Howard. It seems that there was also a Jewish community in Letchworth, founded in 1939 by London Jews. The community was almost exclusively Orthodox, and had all the religious infrastructure that an Orthodox Jewish community requires. But after the Second World War, the community gradually began to dwindle until 1971, when it all but ceased to exist. Some of its former residents live in Israel, others elsewhere in the UK and in America. Some of them have stayed in touch with each other, while others lost contact and have not heard from each other in half a century and more.
Those who are interested in renewing acquaintance or finding out what happened in the lives of people they used to know can join the grand Letchworth reunion on Zoom on Monday, June 14, at 6 p.m. UK time, 8 p.m. Israel time and 10 a.m. California time. Following an introduction by Yanky Fachler and contributions from friends who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, there will be an opportunity for participants to share memories and to indulge in nostalgia. Anyone who is interested in joining the reunion should contact Carol Eini (née Roth) at +972-54-559-9370.
■ THE ISRAELI Public Broadcasting Corporation has been doing a lot of chopping and changing on its television and radio lineups, getting rid of veteran programs and their presenters, and introducing new programs and new faces. Ordinarily, something bright and new is very welcome, but not at the expense of veteran programs, which often have veteran audiences who feel bereaved when a much loved familiar program goes off the air, and when a popular presenter disappears. This is especially so with late night programs.
While protests occasionally worked with the now defunct Israel Broadcasting Authority, as was the case when they wanted to get rid of Netiva Ben Yehuda, who for 14 years ran a wee small hours phone-in program on Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet called Netiva Talks and Listens. Although she occasionally lost the plot and had a raspy voice that was far from radiophonic, Ben Yehuda was enormously popular with senior citizen night owls, who protested vehemently when it was announced that her program would be scrapped. As a result of the tumult, it was reinstated, and she kept broadcasting until the time of her death 10 years ago.
A similar niche program in the wee small hours was hosted by Jojo Abutbul, whose listeners, judging by those who phoned in, were mainly people of North African background, was dropped from the lineup. When Abutbul was removed, there was also a hue and cry, but under the current regime, it fell on deaf ears.
At the end of this month at least two more programs hosted by senior citizens will be axed. One is a Friday late night show presented for the past 25 years by Moshik Timor, which includes valuable oral essays by historians, veteran journalists, and ex-Mossad agents. Another longtime program hosted early on Saturday mornings by historian Yitzhak Noy, who focuses on milestone anniversaries of important historical events, is also about to be axed. Timor has already informed his faithful listeners. Noy has yet to do so, though the cat was let out of the bag by David Sela, the chairman of the Council for the Advancement of Israeli Heritage, who is circulating a protest petition in the hope of saving these two programs, which he says are very important in disseminating Israeli history to people who don’t necessarily read about it.
Sela also supplies material to the weekend edition of Israel Hayom, for a regular double-page nostalgia spread, which includes 70-year-old news items, photographs and advertisements which all make for interesting reading.
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