Grapevine August 6, 2024: Jimmy is rooting for Kamala

Jimmy is rooting for Kamala

On October 1, Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States will celebrate his 100th birthday. That’s a milestone in anyone’s book, but Carter wants to hang in there for at least another few weeks after making it to the triple-digit age, so that he can cast his vote for Kamala Harris.

The information came from his grandson, who told it to New York Daily News reporters Jami Ganz and Jager Weatherby.

That’s yet another example of party loyalty and putting national interests ahead of one’s own.

President Isaac Herzog will arrive in America soon after the elections and during the period of transition, which will afford him the opportunity to bid a fond farewell and a personal expression of appreciation to President Joe Biden, whom he greatly admires.

That will not be Herzog’s main purpose in traveling to the US. He is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is taking place in Washington on November 10-12.

Changes to the Defense Ministry

JUST A few years back, Gideon Sa’ar was treated as the golden boy of the Likud, and did well for himself in the primaries – too well, in fact, meaning that he posed a threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made life so uncomfortable for him that he left the Likud, and he eventually formed his own party, but not before standing against Netanyahu in a contest for the party leadership, he which lost by a humiliating margin.

There is now talk that Netanyahu wants to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with Sa’ar. So far, Sa’ar has not indicated a willingness to return to Netanyahu’s stable, although he has not exactly ruled it out. It may be the only way to ensure his political future, as surveys indicate that if elections were held in the immediate future, his party would not pass the threshold.

But the Likud is not exactly what it was when he left, and whether there are new elections or whether the government manages to last a full term, there is no guarantee that Sa’ar would make the grade in the primaries. Look what happened to another golden boy – Tzachi Hanegbi. But Hanegbi, a staunch Netanyahu loyalist who, unlike Sa’ar, never stood against him in a contest for the Likud leadership, was duly compensated and appointed head of the National Security Council, and remains part of Netanyahu’s inner circle.

Should Scherf continue to serve?

THE ATTITUDE of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli toward the IDF permitting Brothers in Arms leader Lt.-Col. (res.) Ron Scherf to continue serving is nothing short of ludicrous.

Even at a time when Scherf, in his battle against judicial reform, was calling for reservists to discontinue their service if the proposed judicial reform bill was passed, it was common knowledge that if a war were to break out, anyone associated with Brothers in Arms, including Scherf himself, would immediately return to his unit to defend the homeland.

At a time when there is a major shortage of trained military personnel, it is ridiculous to deny someone like Scherf, who is past mandatory reservist age, the right to play his part in national defense.

If Netanyahu can be permitted to hold off on a state commission of inquiry into who was responsible for the lack of preparedness that made possible the Hamas attack and the atrocities perpetrated on October 7, 2023, surely the same rule can apply to Scherf. If he is to be penalized in any way, let it wait until the war is over.

MK Simcha Rothman interview

APROPOS JUDICIAL reform, MK Simcha Rothman, who is one of its key advocates for its implementation, and who heads the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, was interviewed on KAN Reshet Bet by Ran Binyamini and Yigal Gueta.

Judicial reform was not the subject of the interview. The reason they wanted to interview him was to get his opinion on whether it had been legitimate for legislators to join in the storming of the Sde Teiman and Beit Lid army bases in protest of soldiers being under investigation and arrest for allegedly torturing and committing sodomy against a terrorist prisoner, who had to be hospitalized due to his injuries.

Rothman thought it was legitimate, but barely got a chance to say why. He was fiercely attacked (albeit verbally) by both Binyamini and the usually mild-mannered Gueta. It’s no secret that both are opposed to judicial reform, but that’s no reason to act as they did toward Rothman, whose opinion they claimed to seek. It was totally uncivilized behavior.

But they’re not the only ones who use interviewees as verbal punching bags. It’s a bad habit, especially when the interviewers keep interrupting the interviewee, and then abruptly end the interview when the interviewee is mid-sentence and saying something that is relevant and important.

Someone else who does this far too often is Arieh Golan, who habitually interrupts interviewees, and when he disagrees with them he simply takes control of the microphone and drowns them out with his loud, sonorous voice with its patriarchal tone.

Foreign journalists come to Israel

■ OVER THE past 10 months, thousands of foreign journalists have made their way to the region to report from the various battlefronts and to interview wounded soldiers and those still on active duty, politicians, diplomats, foreign workers, evacuees, relatives of hostages, and more.

They also come across news stories in Israeli media that may not necessarily receive extensive coverage or be published at all in their home countries. Jewish journalists, particularly those familiar with their heritage, may look at situations quite differently from the way they are perceived by their non-Jewish colleagues.

One such journalist was Rob Eshman, a senior columnist with The Forward, who, after returning to the US last week, wrote: “If you look carefully at the images of Israeli citizens storming a prison and a military base, in defense of IDF soldiers accused of torturing Palestinians, you’ll notice something disturbing: many of them are wearing yarmulkes.

“It’s not a coincidence. The deeply religious population of Israel is growing – in some cases exponentially. A good portion of that population has thrown its support behind anti-liberal causes.

“What Monday’s disturbing protests revealed was that the country’s deep and growing divide is not just about policy but about Judaism itself.”

Whether a non-Jewish reporter would have picked up on that remains debatable. However, the manner in which ultra-Orthodox young men tried to dissuade those of their ilk who had responded to call-up notices is more than disturbing. They put Israel’s very existence at risk.

On the other hand, to quote the old Chinese proverb: the longest journey starts with the first step. Even though a small number of ultra-Orthodox young men obeyed the call-up summons this week, the fact that some did is a positive sign that more will do so in the future because they feel a sense of obligation to their country, regardless of which government may be in office.

Mangled "Hatikvah" at gold medal ceremony

■ THE JOY and the number of Israeli flags waving in Marseilles when windsurfer Tom Reuveny was awarded his gold medal at the Paris Olympics on Saturday were definitely heartwarming, but the singing of Israel’s national anthem was somewhat embarrassing because so many of those who raised their voices in triumph could not carry the tune of “Hatikvah.”

It wasn’t only the Olympic team members who mangled the melody. It happens quite frequently at large-scale public events. Perhaps the next time a large group of Israeli representatives goes abroad, they can practice singing the right tune during the flight, so they can sing in harmony once they hit the ground.

If so many people are getting it wrong, perhaps it isn’t being sung sufficiently in schools. The tunes we learn as children usually stay with us.

Judo: Israel's sport of champions

THE ISRAELI team has done better at the Paris Olympics than at any previous Olympic Games, especially in judo, which somehow became Israel’s sport of champions.

Quipping on the subject, prominent linguist and radio personality Avshalom Kor attributes it to the linguistic connection between judo and Judaism.

It’s probably more likely to be connected to the fact that it’s a martial art in which neither guns, nor swords, nor daggers are used. The outcome always depends on the winner’s skill and strength.

Out with the old, in with the new

THERE SHOULD be a law regarding the frequency with which the same commercial can be broadcast on radio or television.

In promoting his latest book about the ongoing war, author and journalist Ari Shavit pontificates about how we need to rethink old ideas and come up with a completely new strategy to overcome existential threats. It would be bad enough if his commercial was aired once an hour, but it is broadcast several times an hour – often back-to-back.

At least in the print media, one can either not look or turn the page. But there’s no point switching to another station on radio, because by the time one does so, the commercial is over. Brief though it may be, it is nerve-racking to hear it again and again, delivered in an authoritarian tone.

El Al's consistency through crisis

IT MAY be more expensive, and it doesn’t always leave or arrive on time, but during periods of crisis, whether state-owned or privately owned, El Al always comes to the rescue. It did so during the pandemic, and is doing so now, after thousands of Israelis were stranded because foreign airlines are, one after another, canceling flights to Israel.

Today, although the State of Israel holds a small number of shares, the controlling interest in El Al is held by Eli Rozenberg, who four years ago acquired more than 40% of the national carrier through his Kanfei Nesharim company.

El Al is now bringing Israelis home from Greece and Cyprus, where they arrived from numerous cities since their return flights to Israel were canceled.

In some cases, money initially spent on fares will be refunded in terms of the cost of the return flight. But traveling from wherever to Greece or Cyprus costs a lot more than the reimbursements, and then the El Al fares are also costing much more than they would have cost a month ago.

Arkia is also flying Israelis home from Athens and Larnaca, but the Arkia fleet is only a small fraction of that of El Al, in addition to which most of its seats were booked well ahead of the crisis. Happily, Wizz Air has resumed flights to Israel, which will help to reduce some of the burden.

It’s ironic that prior to the cancellation of flights, newspapers and magazines were advertising all-inclusive low-cost vacations to European destinations for as little as $800 for a round trip plus four nights in a hotel. Now it costs significantly more than the cost of a regular fare to get a seat on the two-hour, one-way flight from Greece to Israel. And there’s also the cost of flying to Cyprus or Greece from wherever people were stranded, plus paying for accommodation if they have to wait for more than a day to catch a flight back home.

During the pandemic, the cost of bringing stranded Israelis home was funded by the government. Now the costs are borne by the passengers. One wonders what happens to those people who simply can’t afford to pay what it will cost for tickets for a husband and wife and two children.

On the bright side is the possibility of taking domestic tourism to new heights. People who want to get away but can’t fly or sail out of the country may choose to explore areas where they’ve never been before. This will provide work and income for taxi drivers, tour guides, restaurants, hotel staff, and gift stores in these areas, and will enable beauty parlors to reopen.

Meanwhile, Eilat is reportedly not suffering from a lack of hotel occupancies. Most hotels are full of Israelis who have flocked to the southern resort city.

Coming home

MANY HOMESICK evacuees have begun returning to the places in which they lived prior to October 7. Some are returning despite the danger; some are returning because they believe that despite the pampering they’ve received in hotels, the time has come to rebuild for the future; and others who stayed in hotels in which management was less gracious, just couldn’t wait to get out. There’s also the upcoming High Holy Days period in which some hotels have heavy reservations and can no longer accommodate evacuees, though it’s not certain that the anticipated influx of foreign tourists will arrive, given the difficulties in securing seats with those airlines that are still flying to Israel.

Among the hotels in which management and staff went to incredible lengths to make evacuees feel welcome was the Dan Accadia Herzliya Hotel, and a warm relationship developed between all concerned.

Thus, when it came time for the evacuees to leave at the end of last month, the departure was a very emotional affair. The community of Kibbutz Mefalsim near the Gaza Strip in the northern Negev, which had been living in Herzliya for 10 months since October 7, was going home. The hotel management organized a farewell reception, at which guests included Yariv Fisher, the mayor of Herzliya.

During the period in which the Dan Accadia became a second home for hundreds of members of the kibbutz, the hotel management established an educational framework for the children, in addition to a myriad of activities for them; a utilities store; and other amenities.

At the farewell reception,the hotel’s general manager, Matan Lerner, and the leading figures of Kibbutz Mefalsim, together with other members of the kibbutz, planted a tree in the grounds of the hotel as a living monument to the period of the national ordeal, and also produced a brief video that summed up their experiences during their long stay at the hotel.

Liat Koren Litvinoff, who heads the Kibbutz Mefalsim community, speaking on behalf of all the members, thanked the staff of the hotel and the board of management of the Dan chain for opening not just the doors of the hotel, but their hearts to the needs of so many displaced people, and for giving them such exceptionally good care during a span of 10 months.

Fisher declared that the only way to end the war was to bring about the return of the hostages. He wished the kibbutzniks a speedy return to life as they had known it before October 7. He was particularly proud to be present on this occasion, he said, because as a youth he had worked at the Dan Accadia as a waiter.

Lerner said that it had been a privilege to host the kibbutzniks. “It was important for us to embrace you and make you feel at home,” he asserted, as he echoed Fisher in wishing them a return to normal life.

Orna Datz's new role

SINGER, ACTRESS, and moderator Orna Datz now has a new role. Out of a large number of possible candidates, some of whom were young enough to be her son or daughter, the 60-year-old Datz, who looks considerably younger than her biological age, was chosen to be the presenter of the Doc Channel’s new health news program.

The Doc Channel operates in partnership with the RGE Communications Group and Assuta Medical Centers.

Datz and her former husband, Moshe Datz, were a longtime singing duo prior to the split in their marriage, and represented Israel in the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Kan” (Here), written and composed by the late Uzi Hitman.

A nostalgically patriotic song which is entirely appropriate for the current period, it highlights the individual and national connection to Israel, the place in which Hitman was born, as were Orna and Moshe Datz. It’s where they had their homes, where their children were born, and for them there is no other place on earth. The song had been written three years earlier, but when chosen at the tail end of the Gulf War as Israel’s Eurovision entry, it became extremely popular, as it reflected so much national feeling.

Under the umbrella heading of Doctualia (a Hebrew hybrid for documentary and actuality), the weekly program will be broadcast on Thursdays and will deal with news on important issues in the world of medicine and health.

Although she has stood on many stages and spoken or sung on many microphones in the course of a very long career, Orna Datz confessed that while she was understandably excited, she was also a little nervous, but was grateful to Assuta and RGE for giving her the opportunity to help present such an important subject.

Israeli graduate to receive award in Singapore

STUDENTS, FACULTY, and graduates of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have been the recipients of numerous prestigious prizes over the years, and continue to reap awards.

Among the most recent is industrial design graduate Maayan Kinsbursky, who completed the advanced degree program in industrial design. Kinsbursky won the Red Dot Design Award for her master’s project, for which many women in Israel and beyond will bless her.

Her project, named the U-Bra, is an innovative bra designed for women who have undergone a mastectomy and cannot have reconstruction surgery. Some of these women opt for a silicone prosthesis inserted into a special bra. Although this may look natural underneath blouses, dresses, and T-shirts, it often causes excessive perspiration, rashes, pressure, and shoulder pain. Other than this, the prosthesis may move around and even pop out over the neckline, causing needless embarrassment and discomfort.

Through her research, Kinsbursky reached the conclusion that the bra and prosthesis should be designed as an integrated unit, and customized for the women who intend to use it. The customization is based on 3D scanning, design processing and printing, implementing a unique method developed at the Technion. The resultant product is a soft, airy, and lightweight textile item of lingerie specifically tailored to meet the needs and shape of the wearer.

The project was supervised by Yoav Sterman, former innovation manager at Nike, and currently a member of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning in the industrial design program headed by Prof. Ezri Tarazi.

The award ceremony will take place in Singapore on October 10, and the product will subsequently be exhibited in Singapore’s Red Dot Design Museum.

Hutzot Hayotzer fair returns

TIME SEEMS to move very slowly when we are looking forward, and very quickly when we are looking back. A case in point is Jerusalem’s annual Hutzot Hayotzer International Arts and Crafts Fair, which takes place every August.

This year, it is being held for the 48th time, and it’s amazing how it has grown over the years and continues to attract both exhibitors and visitors.

It’s not just a matter of arts and crafts from many countries, and an ideal opportunity for people with a taste for ethnic jewelry, attire, and decorative items to indulge in many and varied ethnic objects in one place. The fair is also a culinary treat, offering a wide choice of palate pleasers, including foods not common to the Israeli menu.

To top it off there are performances by some of Israel’s leading singers and musicians. This year, the entertainment lineup includes: Aviv Geffen and the Mercedes Band; Rami and Rita; Friends of Natasha; Sarit Hadad and the Teapacks Band; Osher Cohen; Odeya and Shrek; Yehuda Poliker and the T-Slam Band; Shlomi Shabat and the Revivo Project; Danny Sanderson and the Hatikva 6 Band; Itay Levi and Nasrin; and, last but not least, Ishay Ribo.

The fair runs in the evenings, August 14-26.

Visitors from outside Jerusalem should be aware that on one side Hutzot Hayotzer is very close to the Old City, and on the other quite close to Yemin Moshe and Montefiore’s windmill. It is also within easy walking distance of the Mamilla Mall.

Israel and Thailand celebrate 70 years of relations

IN JUNE of this year, Israel and Thailand marked the 70th anniversary of diplomatic and cultural relations. In celebration of the 70th anniversary year, Thai Ambassador Pannabha Chandraramya will host the opening of a photo exhibition by Thai photographer Nat Prakobsantisuk at the Jerusalem Theater on Friday, September 6, at 11 a.m.

This is not the first time that she has hosted an event in Jerusalem, though it is unlikely that Thailand will move its embassy to the capital.

Other than those embassies already located in Jerusalem, those whose ambassadors who over the years have hosted VIP, cultural and national day events in the capital include Georgia, Hungary, Japan, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, and Australia.

Aside from that, all visiting heads of state and government are hosted at dinners and receptions in Jerusalem by their Israeli counterparts. Such receptions are attended by ambassadors, military attachés, and other high-ranking embassy personnel, as well as members of the visitor’s entourage.

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