Recently, there has been a flood of requests for monetary help on serious health issues; widowed mothers of large families left destitute; a haredi man who naively agreed to put an extra parcel in his luggage, not knowing that it contained cocaine, is languishing in prison, with his wife claiming that he is dying there; and a whole bunch of other requests for aid.
Most are truly heartbreaking, but they raise certain doubts. In nearly all cases, they appear to be from members of haredi communities. They are written in perfect English, even though they come from people who supposedly learned minimal English at school. The personal address of the sender is omitted, so there’s no way to check the authenticity of the story, which makes receivers of such messages – some of which come at the rate of three or four a day – feel guilty when the request is to save the life of a baby with a brain tumor or a severe heart problem.
But the ones that really arouse suspicion are posts from brides who, on the day before the wedding, still don’t have the money to purchase a wedding dress, let alone refreshments for the guests.
First of all, in haredi and also non-haredi circles, there’s a traditional charitable outlet called a gemah (an abbreviation of gemilut hassadim, meaning giving charity, doing good deeds) which provides wedding dresses and formal wear free of charge, or at a symbolic rental cost to all and sundry. In the case of an orphan bride or one who comes from a needy family, in the haredi community neighbors band together to provide a modest repast to celebrate the occasion. So there is no need for alleged brides to ask for help in purchasing a wedding gown, when they can get one gratis.
But there are genuine cases, which should have where to turn, in addition to any help they may receive from local and government welfare services.
An example is a same-sex couple, Michal and Rotem and their four-year-old daughter, Omer, who were rescued from the atrocities surrounding their home on Kibbutz Be’eri. One of the women was six months pregnant and subsequently gave birth to twins. The babies brought much light and joy into the lives of their parents, but unfortunately, one of them, Shahar, was born with a severe heart defect that urgently requires surgery.
The surgery he needs is not available in Israel and can be performed only in Boston. The cost is prohibitive, and there is nothing that either of the mothers owns that can be sold to pay for the expenses involved. While the Boston Jewish community might be of some assistance, it is unlikely that it could cover all the costs. Anyone who wants to help, may do so via https://yanshufim.giveback.co.il/Our_Heart_He
Looking into newly-elected Mexican president's Jewish past
MOST PEOPLE who are second- or third-generation Holocaust survivors make a point of telling the stories of parents or grandparents who were actual survivors. Apparently, this does not apply to Mexico’s recently elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is her country’s first female and first Jewish president-elect.
Writing in The Forward, Andrew Silverstein noted that Sheinbaum has stated that her mother was born in Mexico, whereas records suggest she was born in Bulgaria and survived the Holocaust. One wonders why Sheinbaum would want to hide such a fact.
ALTHOUGH HE spent a large part of his life away from his native Jerusalem, novelist and playwright A.B. Yehoshua, a graduate of Gymnasia Rehavia and the Hebrew University, will be commemorated in the city of his birth on the second anniversary of his death.
The title of a tribute evening at Mishkenot Sha’ananim, “We had a Lover,” is based on lines from his 1977 novel, The Lover: “We lost a lover in the last war. We had a lover, but since that war, we haven’t had one. He simply disappeared.”
The evening, moderated by Avi Gil, will be completely dedicated to the admiration and yearning for Yehoshua and will feature the launch of Gil’s biography, The Mission of A.B. Yehoshua, which covers the different stages in the life of the man considered to be the backbone of contemporary Hebrew literature.
Among other participants will be actress Michal Bat-Adam, who directed and starred in the film The Lover; Yair Kedar, who directed the film The Last Chapter of A.B. Yehoshua, parts of which will be screened during the evening; book reviewer Dan Meron, who was also a close friend of Yehoshua; and Prof. Eilat Shamir, who was a student and friend of the author’s son Gidi Yehoshua.
WITH REGARD to films, Roni Mahadav-Levin, the CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque, is giving film buffs ample notice to save the date for the 41st annual Jerusalem Film Festival, which traditionally takes place in the summer, while the annual Jewish film festival takes place in the winter.
The Jerusalem Film Festival will be held July 18-27, 2024, in an effort to restore what used to be perceived as normal life.
The festival is being held with the support of the Culture Ministry, the Van Leer Foundation, and the Jerusalem Foundation.
“Sadly, this is not the first time that the festival is being held in the shadow of war,” said Mahadav-Levin. “But both in good times and difficult times, we believe in the need to create and screen good films, in the belief in the power of the art of film in strengthening, healing, and giving hope that a different reality is possible.“This can be seen through the myriad of films that will be shown during the festival.”
VP Harris views Oct. 7 documentary
FOLLOWING SCREENINGS in Israel of Screams Before Silence, the moving documentary in which philanthropist and former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg meets Supernova music festival survivors and returned hostages, the film was shown in part at the White House this week, where it was viewed by Vice President Kamila Harris, who was joined by Sandberg and returned hostage Amit Soussana.
Soussana said that, while in captivity, she had no control over her mind, body, or soul. Although it was difficult for her to tell her story of sexual abuse and violence by Hamas, she said, it was more difficult to remain silent.“We cannot look away,” said Harris. “We must not be silent.”
A PHOTO exhibition designed to draw attention to the hostages still waiting to return from Gaza can be seen at Tel Aviv’s Charles Bronfman Auditorium, and will remain on view till June 29.
Hundreds of amateur and professional photographers from across the country submitted photos, and paring down the choice was extremely difficult.
Perhaps photos not chosen can be sent to other cities, so that, in the final analysis, most will be seen by a wider public.
Among people attending the opening were representatives of the hostage families, executive members of Bank Hapoalim and Yoman Masa (Travelog), which sponsored the exhibition, and survivors of the October 7 Hamas assault, including Sharon Sharabi, whose brothers Yossi and Eli, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri. Yossi was subsequently murdered. Eli’s fate is unknown. His wife and two daughters were murdered.
Merav Berger, the mother of Agam Berger, one of the IDF lookout team of observers who was abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, came with other members of the Berger family. A photo by Dana Draznin under the title Homage to Agam features Agam’s parents, Shlomo and Merav, holding the violin that Agam loved to play.
The exhibition was the brainchild of Igal Bareket, Hapoalim’s chief marketing officer, who happens to be an avid amateur photographer. Bareket was on hand with Hapoalim CEO Dov Kotler and Yoman Masa owner Itamar Peleg.
AS ONE of his final ceremonial deeds in office, Australian Governor-General David Hurley, as the representative in Australia of King Charles, conferred King Charles Birthday honors on more than 700 people, among them South African-born Prof. Vernon Van Heerden, director of the department of general intensive care at Hadassah Medical Center, in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Van Heerden was awarded the Order of Australia for “significant service to intensive care medicine, to professional associations, and to tertiary education.”
Hurley will be succeeded on July 1 by Samantha Mostyn, who will become Australia’s 28th governor-general.A truly remarkable woman, Mostyn’s CV is absolutely mind-boggling.
Known for her exceptional service to the Australian community, Mostyn is a businesswoman and community leader with a long history in executive and governance roles across diverse sectors.
In 2021, she was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to business, the community, and women. She has been a member of the Australian Faculty of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Program for 12 years, and a senior associate in the international program.
The daughter of an army officer, Mostyn is a lawyer by training, who launched her career as an associate in the Court of Appeal of the New South Wales Supreme Court, and has worked at law firms Freehills and Gilbert and Tobin. She has more recently been awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from the Australian National University.
Mostyn has also had an extensive career in the Australian business community, including working at senior levels in telecommunications and insurance companies in Australia and globally. She has also held senior nonexecutive roles on boards, including Transurban and Virgin Australia, and has been chairwoman of Citibank Australia. She currently chairs AWARE Super and Alberts Music Group and is on the board of Mirvac.
In addition, she has been a commissioner with the Australian Football League and a driving force behind the AFL Women’s football.
As if all that is not enough, Mostyn has chaired multiple not-for-profit boards, including Beyond Blue, the Foundation of Young Australians, Australians Investing in Women, Ausfilm, the Australian National Research Organization for Women’s Safety, and Australian Volunteers International. She has been president of the Australian Council for International Development and president of Chief Executive Women, as well as a National Mental Health Commission commissioner.
The governor-general holds office at the pleasure of the king. However, the term is usually understood to be five years. It will be interesting to see what Mostyn will accomplish during that period.
IT’S DIFFICULT to measure patriotism or even to define it. People of totally opposing views may regard themselves as patriots and the others as traitors. In Israel, the latter connotation usually goes hand in hand with being called a leftist, whereas, when the boot is on the other foot, one of the unsavory epithets is “fascist.”
A battle over patriotism is brewing between two social media combatants, Yair Netanyahu, the elder son of the prime minister, and Ran Rahav, one of Israel’s leading public relations executives.
In recent days, Yair Netanyahu released a video in which he denigrates IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, Israel Security Agency head Ronen Bar, and former head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva, who resigned after acknowledging the intelligence failure that led to the October 7 massacre.
Accompanying a montage of the trio is a caption: “Who appointed you?” Further along is an attack on Benny Gantz, who has previously been targeted by Netanyahu Jr.
Did his father not tell him that things like that are not done in a time of war? Many influential political, diplomatic, and military experts have attributed the Hamas assault on Israel to the perception that a divided society is weak and vulnerable. What was Netanyahu Jr. thinking in driving the wedge further than it is already?Rahav, who never hesitates to speak his mind over what he considers to be injustice, was fast in using his X account and his own brand of scorn. He suggested that Netanyahu Jr. desist from opening his mouth against the defense establishment during the war for as long as the State of Israel pays for him to have a bodyguard.
“It costs millions,” wrote Rahav. “The least you can do is respect the Israeli taxpayer. After the war, there will be a State Commission of inquiry, headed by an emeritus president of the Supreme Court, and you can testify before it. But until then, someone protected by his state cannot open his mouth in a time of war.”
A THREE-DAY day festival of tours and literary activities for the junior generation will be held at the National Library of Israel in celebration of Hebrew Book Week.
Events will be held Monday through Wednesday, June 24-26, 4 p.m.-11 p.m., and will include musical performances, meetings, tours, and various activities for children – all dedicated to Hebrew literature and creativity.
Among the events will be a musical performance on Monday, hosted by Lior Ashkenazi, to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Israel’s poet laureate Yehuda Amichai. An outdoor event, presented in the plaza of the Idan and Batia Ofer Park, it will feature Shlomi Shaban, Assaf Amdursky, Alon Eder, Shai Tsabari, Rona Kenan, and others.
On Tuesday, there will be concurrent events: “Naomi Shemer, An Israeli Biography,” marking the 20th anniversary of the death of Israel’s premier songwriter, with the participation of Lely Shemer, Kenan, Yuval Mendelson, Amir Benayoun, and Avigayil Koevary, who will present Shemer’s best-loved compositions.
At the same time, there will be a tour of the library’s best treasures – a rare glimpse of drafts authored by Hebrew literature’s greatest writers and poets.
Also on Tuesday, there will be a conversation with Yishai Sarid about the soldiers in the books he writes, and in Hebrew literature in general.
There will also be another conversation, with authors Haim Be’er, Yaniv Iczkovits, Yael Neeman, and Judith Kagan, who will discuss with Yuval Avivi texts that took on new meaning after October 7.
In addition to all this, the library’s bookmobile, Ir-Meow-hu, will offer a theater show, books, and games throughout the three days, and the library bookstore will be open. The book 101 Treasures From the National Library of Israel is available in English and Hebrew.
Ticket prices for Hebrew Book Week events at the library range from NIS 30 to NIS 160, with discounts for soldiers and evacuees. For more details and to purchase tickets, visit the National Library of Israel website (in Hebrew): https://book-week.nli.org.il
DALIAT AL-Carmel Mayor Rafik Halabi, who in another lifetime was a prizewinning radio and television journalist, added his voice to those of Sheikh Muafak Tarif, the head of the Druze community, and Nazih Dabbour, the head of the Beit Jann local authority, in response to the death of fallen soldier Capt. Wassem Mahmoud, who was due to be released from the Army on April 1, but insisted on going back into Gaza to fight with his comrades.
It is part of the Druze tradition to be absolutely loyal to the host country of which they are citizens, but the Israel government does not respect this, and in the opinion of members of the Druze community, they are treated as second-class citizens.
Halabi said that heads of Druze local councils had met with Netanyahu last week to express their concerns about receiving inadequate budgets from the state, and to continue their protests against the Nation-State Law.Halabi and Dabbour also made the point that on a percentage basis, Beit Jann has the highest army casualty rate in the country.
They could not understand why a community that has given so much receives so little in return. Dabbour also noted that soldiers who fall behind in paying their mortgages, or who have built homes without the proper legal permission, go to fight in Gaza, and return to find their homes destroyed on orders by the Israeli authorities.Bedouin trackers, who are among the best in the country and are also serving in the IDF, if they live in illegal villages may not find their homes when they return from the army. Their homes may have been bulldozed.
How does Israel expect to maintain the loyalty of its minority communities, if it treats them in such an insensitive and disrespectful manner?
THE BIG question on the minds of many Israelis is will Israel recover fully from October 7? To anyone who experienced the Yom Kippur War, the answer is yes. The misery and uncertainty that now encompass the country were in a sense even more horrific then than now, because there were no mobile phones, no fax, and not every home possessed a ground line telephone. The IDF death toll was 2,691 during a war that lasted for less than a month. As painful as the current IDF casualty rate is, there are far fewer fallen soldiers over a much longer period, though there have been a larger number of civilian casualties, particularly on October 7 itself.
In the early days after the Hamas massacre, Shani Louk, a pretty 22-year-old dual national who carried German as well as Israeli citizenship, became the global symbol of Hamas tyranny and inhumanity.
Kidnapped at the Supernova music festival by Hamas terrorists wearing body cams, a video of her unconscious body on the back of a truck was circulated around the globe.
Her family clung to the hope that she was still alive, especially after information filtered through that she was being treated in a Gaza hospital.
German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert maintained close contact with the Louk family and helped to publicize its ordeal and Germany’s concern.
On October 30, Shani Louk’s death was confirmed.
On Wednesday, June 19, at 7 p.m., her parents, Ricarda and Nissim Louk, will talk about the beloved, happy-go-lucky, music-loving daughter they remember at a special evening honoring Shani’s memory. Sharing in that conversation, organized by Tribe Israel, will be Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
The venue is Capella, Hagag Tower, 28 Ha’arba Street, Tel Aviv. Admission is free of charge. The event is reserved for people in Shani Louk’s age-group.
WITH THE ongoing transformation of the State of Israel that inter alia includes changes in the law, politics, the skyline, and the values we once held dear, the question arises as to whether future changes will include the establishment of a casino.
The late casino mogul Sheldon Adelson wanted to establish a casino in Eilat so that the southern resort city would truly become the Las Vegas of the Middle East. But he was strongly opposed by a cabinet minister, the late Yosef Burg, who was afraid that a casino would become a den of vice, peddling drugs and promoting prostitution. Adelson’s vision on that score was never realized.
In an interview with the writer of this column, during the period in which he was still trying to convince the Israeli authorities, Adelson said that he had never seen anyone have sex on a gambling table.
Since then, he married an Israeli and built casino empires in Singapore and Macao.
Israelis like to gamble, and when the Hilton Taba casino opened in 1994, only 200 meters from the Israeli border, gamblers crossed nightly from Eilat to Taba to place their bets. A lot of money that could have stayed in Israel ended up in Egypt.
But before then and even afterward, several illegal and well-patronized casinos opened across Israel, but were short-lived due to police raids.
The only legalized gambling in Israel is the Mifal Hapayis national lottery, which has increased the variety of games and prizes available to the public, and Toto sports gambling.
Sheldon Adelson, who died three-and-a-half years ago, was a keen supporter of the Republican Party and one of its most generous bankrollers. Following his death, his wife Dr. Miriam Adelson was a little more reserved in her donations to the party but, according to media reports, is now throwing her financial weight behind Donald Trump, who during his presidency honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Recently, Miriam Adelson and her son-in-law Patrick Dumont acquired the majority shares in the Dallas Mavericks in order to give the Las Vegas Sands Corporation a foothold in the Lone Star State, where they hope to introduce casinos. Texas is very conservative about casino gambling, so Adelson and Dumont will have a hard row to hoe.
She also poured a lot of money into the election campaign of Dade Phelan, which helped him to be reelected as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
If she succeeds in opening a casino in Texas, Adelson may turn her attention to Israel, where she is the publisher of the free, informative tabloid Israel Hayom.
She is also a generous benefactor to various Israeli causes. She and her husband gave Yad Vashem its largest-ever donations, and they did not skimp on other causes they supported.
At a time when Israel is experiencing an economic disaster, Adelson’s fiscal assistance to the nation may help to swing legislation in favor of casinos.