Grapevine August 2, 2024: Women at the helm

 IF THE name Miri Eisin rings a bell, many people may remember her from the time of the Second Lebanon War, when she served as the foreign media adviser to then prime minister Ehud Olmert.

A native Californian who graduated high school in Israel, Eisin is equally at home with Hebrew and English and can gravitate seamlessly between one and the other.

During the Second Lebanon War, Eisin frequently appeared on television, updating viewers on security-related events.

A retired IDF colonel, Eisin was recently named chair of the Taub Center’s board of directors. She succeeds Jim Angell, who, after three years of tenure, will continue to serve on the board.

Eisin has been a board member for several years and worked concurrently as a lecturer at Reichman University in Herzliya. She is also a fellow at the International Institute for Counterterrorism and actively involved with other organizations dealing with women’s contributions to foreign policy and National Security, Cyberwall, and fighting antisemitism on social media.

She received her degrees at Tel Aviv University, where she earned a BA, and at the University of Haifa, where she earned an MA. She is also a graduate of the National Security College.

Before retiring from the army, Eisin worked for 20 years in various capacities, primarily in military intelligence, where she held senior positions including deputy head of the Combat Intelligence Corps., personal assistant to the director of Military Intelligence, and intelligence officer in combat units and research departments.

In 2012, during Operation Defensive Shield, Eisin presented intelligence findings to the international community. During the Second Lebanon War, she served as government spokesperson to foreign media, after which she became the prime minister’s adviser on foreign media.

Since then, Eisin has been much in demand as a public speaker, presenting the facts as she knows them in an unvarnished and easily understood manner.

Eisin is married with three children.

The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel is a Jerusalem-based, independent, non-partisan socioeconomic research institute that develops innovative, equitable, and practical options for macro-public policies.

Making a difference after October 7 

■ THIS WEEK, the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute (JDC), Israel’s foremost institute for applied social research and consulting, welcomed its new director: Professor Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Ph.D. A highly reputed social researcher and academic, Grinstein-Weiss will join the JDC team in devising innovative means to confront new challenges.

Social needs have skyrocketed since October 7, says Ariel Zwang, JDC’s CEO, who is thrilled at the thought of working with Grinstein-Weiss, who is the Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also served as associate dean for policy initiatives, director of the university’s Social Policy Institute, and founding director of the Centene Center for Health Transformation. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Grinstein Weiss’s work is focused on improving health and socioeconomic mobility for vulnerable populations, particularly those in low-income households.

Throughout her career, she has received more than 50 research grants and $50+ million in funding as a principal investigator alone.

Women artists work together 

■ SIX WOMEN artists of the Sha’annot Collective opened their newest exhibition this week at the former President Hotel in Jerusalem. The artists – Helen Borowski, Miryam Adler, Shani Katz, Ruth Magal, Irit Makov, and Pnina Shalvi – are all based in Jerusalem, and they work and exhibit together. They also support each other in their diverse artistic endeavors.

The exhibition includes photographs, drawings, and three-dimensional works, both abstract and representational, but all based on the interplay of photographs and memory. One of the abstract works, titled Vertigo, is based on an interpretation of photographs  published in The Jerusalem Post and was inspired by the dizzying pace at which news changes on a daily basis and sometimes with even greater frequency.

The exhibition will remain on view until August 29.

Until the owner is ready to develop the space into a new hotel plus residential complexes, the former President Hotel at 3 Ahad Ha’am Street serves as a social venue.

It serves as a model for how to make good use of abandoned or neglected buildings until development plans are implemented. It is also a fine example for serving the needs of groups and organizations, helping them to keep their act together until they can move into permanent premises.

Shedding light on survivors around the world 

■ IN THE US, the documentary film Screams before Silence continues to be screened at sold-out venues where audiences are both Jewish and non-Jewish. In the film, former Meta (Facebook) COO Sheryl Sandberg conducts on-site interviews with survivors of the October 7 Hamas massacre and released hostages.

They tell of witnessing or experiencing rape, sadism, torture, and more at the hands of the terrorists. Sometimes, with painfully vivid memories recaptured in their minds, they break down while talking. At times, the expression on Sandberg’s face reveals what a difficult time she is having holding herself together while listening to testimony that makes her cringe.

Reaction is strong among males and females in audiences across America. They can barely imagine themselves or their loved ones as captives or being subjected to the harrowing experiences that the hostages in Gaza suffered for over 300 days.

Dr. Marcy Gringlas and Alexii Meyers of the Believe Israeli Women delegation hosted a screening at Martha’s Vineyard Center in Massachusetts this week. The event was a joint initiative with the Seed the Dream Foundation and Jewish Women International, which promotes action and advocacy on behalf of  Israeli survivors and victims of sexual violence on October 7.

Participants in a panel discussion following the screening included Shari Mendes, an IDF reservist whose unit identified and processed female victims from the October 7 massacre, and Remo Salman El-Hozayel, a Muslim-Israeli Bedouin police officer who heroically rescued hundreds at the Nova Peace Festival.

Meyers, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, said that she had been raised with the understanding that injustice is perpetuated when people are silent.

'We want peace' 

■ TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Adam al-Shaer, one of the youngsters injured in the Hezbollah attack on the  Majdal Shams soccer pitch that claimed the lives of 12 other Druze children, did not expect a bedside visit from the head of state. After condemning the attack and offering his condolences to the Druze community, President Isaac Herzog thought it important to visit at least some of the children who were hospitalized.

He went to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariy, where he met Adam and his parents, Khaled and Amal, who had experienced the same horrific fear as all the other parents whose children were playing at that soccer field. Khaled knew that Adam was there and rushed over upon hearing the explosion, which came three seconds after the siren.

There was total chaos; no one knew what was happening. Khaled kept looking for Adam’s jersey with the number 10 on the back. In his quest, he turned over the bodies of children, thinking all the time that he had lost his son and that Adam was one of the victims. Suddenly, someone said to him, “Listen! Here is your son.” Although Adam was hurt, the relief was overwhelming.

“We want peace, not war,” said Amal. “The whole country wants peace.”

Herzog also spoke to Adam, who all things considered was in reasonably good spirits.

While in Nahariya Herzog toured the hospital accompanied by the hospital’s Director General  Prof. Masad Barhoum.

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