Grapevine: The Angels

Long before Givat Shaul developed into an ever-expanding commercial and residential neighborhood, people used to go there to buy bread and other baked goods from either Angel’s or Berman’s bakery. There are few aromas more tantalizing than those of bread baking in the oven, and that aroma was always in the air except on Shabbat and Jewish holy days.

As of this month, Angel’s Bakery no longer operates in Jerusalem but has moved its key operations to Netivot and Lod.

Yediot Yerushalayim made the bakery’s departure its cover story last Friday, partially because the Angel family has been part and parcel of Jerusalem for at least 10 generations. Aside from the bakery, its members have been active in numerous Jerusalem-based organizations and institutions.

Kuti Fundaminsky, who also comes from a veteran Jerusalem family, which moved to the city from Hebron following the 1929 riots, interviewed Yaron Angel, a third-generation manager of the family-run business on the day that he turned off the ovens for the last time.

The obvious question put to him by Fundaminsky was whether the municipal council had made any effort to prevent Angel’s Bakery from leaving the capital. To his surprise, the answer was “No.” Yaron Angel had also been surprised, considering the deep roots that both his family and their business enterprise have in the city.

Not that Angel’s Bakery is going to suffer much in its new locations. It is still reputed to be the largest commercial bakery in Israel, with Berman’s coming a close second. In addition, Angel’s has a large export market in Europe.

But it is sad that a company that operated for so many years in Jerusalem and introduced sliced bread and new bread-making technologies to Israel should leave.

Although Angel’s has the strictest kashrut certification – that of the Eda Haredit – it lost a large share of the market when boycotted by the ultra-Orthodox after its chairman, former public security minister Omer Bar Lev, participated in a Brothers in Arms demonstration in Bnei Bark outside the home of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, the head of Ponevezh Yeshiva and spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah political party.

Edelstein died a few days later, and his followers chose to believe that the demonstrators had hastened his death, even though he was 100 years old.

Two years ago, Yaron Angel, realizing that there was no room for expansion in Jerusalem, sold his shares in the company – including two hectares of land – to a group of entrepreneurs who wanted to build residential complexes on the site. The flour mill across the road was also sold for the same purpose and was demolished a few months later.

For the time being, Berman’s Bakery is the largest in Jerusalem, but it’s possible that it, too, may move elsewhere.

The retirement age debate

■ THERE HAS been a debate for some years now as to what the retirement age should be. As things stand, some people want to retire early – at around 60, when they are still young enough to enjoy all the pleasures of life – while others want to keep going for as long as their minds and bodies are active.

The current retirement age is 67 for men and 60-65 for women. The president of the Supreme Court, regardless of gender, can continue working until age 70. There is no age limit for prime ministers, members of Knesset, the president of the state, or for several other senior positions. An example of that is the dean of the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College, an appointment recently taken up by former Diaspora affairs minister Nachman Shai, who is 77.

Shai has come a long way since his student days at Gymnasia Rehavia, which this year celebrates its 115th anniversary. He subsequently studied at universities in Israel and the US.

Among the many positions he held, not necessarily in chronological order, are those of military reporter for the now-defunct Israel Television; director of Army Radio; IDF spokesman; press secretary for the Israel delegation at the UN in New York; chairman of the Israel Broadcasting Authority; director-general of the Science, Culture, and Sport Ministry; director-general of the Second Authority for Television; senior vice president of United Jewish Communities; and visiting professor at Emory University.

He was also one of the judges on The Ambassador, a highly popular television show aimed at improving Israel’s image in the world.

All that is just the tip of the iceberg. Shai has been active in many other spheres and obviously loves new challenges.

As people are living longer and healthier lives, retirement age will either have to be raised or canceled altogether. It is unfair that certain sectors of the population are permitted to work indefinitely, while others are forced to retire.

Commemorating the death of Miriam

■ AS SHE does every year, Maureen Kushner, who lives near the Mahaneh Yehuda market, led a group of women on a musical boat trip on the Sea of Galilee to commemorate the death of Miriam, the sister of Moses.

While the anniversary of the birth and death of Moses is on the seventh of the Hebrew calendar month of Adar, there are far fewer people who give any thought to commemorating the death of Miriam, who played such a cardinal role in saving the life of Moses when he was a baby, and, in later years, leading the Children of Israel with singing and dancing as they crossed the Red Sea.

Kushner, who believes that Miriam is underrated, tries to amend that lacuna on the annual females-only boat ride, where participants sing, dance, and play musical instruments, and return to Jerusalem with their spirits uplifted.

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