Grapevine: Remembering Dr. Hashkes

Family members will host a tribute to the late Dr. Henry Hashkes on the first anniversary of his death. A family physician who immigrated to Jerusalem from New York in 1969, when there were very few English-speaking doctors in the city, he was a pioneer in family medicine, specializing in fields that had not been developed at the time. He initiated continuing medical education for physicians and helped to pave the way for many English-speaking immigrant doctors.

A riveting lecturer, Hashkes also captivated the general public with his talks on hypertension, diabetes and lipid control.

Speakers at the tribute event, which will be held at the OU Center on Wednesday, May 17, at 6:30 p.m., will include Prof. Yonatan Halevy, president of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center; Prof. Ehud Grossman, director of the Internal Medicine Division at Sheba Medical Center; and Dr. Yaacov Klein, senior cardiologist and director of cardiac rehabilitation and prevention at Shaare Zedek. 

Celebrities in Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda

■ THE AREA in and around the Mahaneh Yehuda market is becoming increasingly popular with celebrities. 

For many years now, entertainers performing gigs in Jerusalem have stopped for a late-night meal at Hatzot on Agrippas Street not only because the food and service are good but because it stays open until the last customer leaves, whereas nearly every other restaurant or fast food outlet closes before midnight. But celebrities are not only eating in the area late at night; some are also staying overnight, such as celebrity chef and cooking contest judge Israel Aharoni and Michal Ansky, who was a longtime judge on televised cooking contests but has stepped back from Master Chef in order to spend more time with her family. Unbeknown to each other, Ansky and Aharoni were staying at the Brown Hotel, where, to their mutual delight, they happened to bump into each other.

Israel's Remembrance Day at the Friends of Zion Museum

■ ON REMEMBRANCE DAY, the Friends of Zion Museum hosted a high-level international delegation comprising ambassadors, consuls and diplomats of other ranks, as well as top-echelon police commanders from Canada and the US, who arrived in an unofficial capacity directly from Poland, where they had participated in the March of the Living. The delegations toured the museum and participated in an on-site event that was titled The Future of Israel and its Defenders.

Among those attending were Lisa Stadelbauer, Canada’s ambassador to Israel; Rev. David Wells, general superintendent of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada; Lydia Amartey, Ghana’s ambassador to Israel; Consul Elvira Santizo of the Guatemalan Embassy; Agatha Afoekelu, deputy head of mission and consul-general of Nigeria in Israel; and Bernardo Burgos, consul of Ecuador. Stadelbauer spoke of Canada’s diplomatic efforts in the region and confirmed Canada’s commitment to support Israel’s right to full security.

Delegation members participated in a guided tour of the museum, where they heard tales of Jewish and non-Jewish heroism related to people who helped bring about the realization of the dream of a Jewish national home through the various ways in which they assisted in the establishment of the State of Israel.

Georgia's ambassador to Israel

■ AMONG THE ambassadors who not only visit but actually live in Jerusalem is Georgian Ambassador Lasha Zhvania.

Unlike the heads of the diplomatic missions of the US, Guatemala, Honduras, and Kosovo, Zhvania does not have his embassy in Jerusalem, though he is certain that the day will come when the Georgian Embassy will also be located in Israel’s capital. But he does make a point of hosting Georgia’s Independence Day reception in Jerusalem, where there is a large Georgian community of Jews and non-Jews. Georgians have lived in Jerusalem for nearly a thousand years and continue to remain true to their origins. Zhvania will host an Independence Day reception later this month with the participation of the Bartumi Chamber Orchestra and Georgian dance and folklore groups.

Herzog at Jpost conference

■ LAST WEEK, at the Independence Day celebration of the Faces of Israel, co-hosted by The Jerusalem Post and the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, President Isaac Herzog, in his address, said that when the state was declared, there was heavy fighting in Jerusalem in the vicinity of the King David Hotel, in which his father, who was an army officer at the time, was involved. After it was announced that the state had been proclaimed, the head of the French Consulate, which is just around the corner from the King David, invited the president’s father to a toast. The new state had not yet been given a name, so the toast was given to what was still a nameless state. Today, toasts at almost every diplomatic event in the country are given to the president, the people, and the State of Israel.

Jerusalem Foundation and leadership

■ YOUNG LEADERSHIP can begin as early as kindergarten. There is often some incredibly charismatic youngster who, without use of force, can make his or her peer generation do almost anything that is asked of them.

A little later in life, young people join movements and organizations that appeal to them, stand for election to committees and, if successful, begin to move up in the ranks until they reach top leadership positions, from which they lobby for certain causes.

But that’s not exactly the kind of young leadership that the New York-headquartered Jerusalem Foundation Inc. hopes to inspire. The aim is to interest upwardly mobile young Americans in their 20s and 30s in financially supporting cultural and social entrepreneurial organizations in Jerusalem. This is done through a series called Spotlight on Jerusalem, in which leaders of such organizations go to New York to tell young American adults about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what they hope to achieve.

Coming up, on May 16, just ahead of Jerusalem Day, is a rooftop meeting at the Upper West Side home of Steve and Cynthia Scheinfeld, overlooking Central Park, with Keren Brunwasser, chief strategist for Feel Beit, a bar/café on Naomi Street near Yes Planet cinema house. At Feel Beit, Jews, Christians and Muslims can relax, interact and listen to music in an inclusive space that holds discussions and lectures on a variety of subjects in Arabic, Hebrew and English. 

Brunwasser is also co-founder and current CSO of Mekudeshet, the award-winning arts organization that reimagines Jerusalem from a center of conflict to a laboratory for connections among people of all backgrounds and affiliations. She is also a writer and narrator for Mekudeshet’s popular Dissolving Boundaries production. 

She lectures regularly on Jerusalem’s ongoing civic renaissance and leads city cultural excursions.

Given her background, she will obviously have a common language in more ways than one with her New York audience.

The Spotlight on Jerusalem events also provide a platform for young professionals from all over the Big Apple to meet and get to know each other.

greerfc@gmail.com