Grapevine, August 28, 2024: Troyumphant

The brothers Tevi and Gil Troy are both presidential historians who have written extensively on various aspects of the American presidency.

Far from being resentful or envious of each other, they are proud of each other, read each other’s books while they are still works in progress, and join each other in podcasts and in-person conversations about the contents of their respective books and essays.

Both are religiously observant and ardent Zionists. A third brother, Dan Troy, with whom they are also close, is a highly respected lawyer with expertise in health legislation. He is a former chief counsel for the FDA, where he served as primary liaison to the White House and the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Gil, who lives in Jerusalem, is well known to Jerusalem Post readers as a weekly columnist. He is also a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute and a distinguished scholar in North American history at McGill University.

Tevi is a former US deputy secretary of health and human resources. These days, among other things, he engages in regular podcasts about the Talmud. His writings are also published occasionally in the Post, but not on a regular basis.

Tevi and Gil sat down at the beginning of last week to discuss Tevi’s latest book, 'The Power and the Money: the Epic Clashes between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.' The meeting hall at the Herut Conference Center in Jerusalem was packed to capacity, so much so that extra chairs had to be brought in.

Though similar in many respects, Gil and Tevi have different characters. Tevi is very laid back, and carefully considers each word before making a statement. Gil is a jumping jack. He gets very excited when he speaks, regardless of whether he’s sitting or standing, and he was extremely excited about Tevi’s book, which he said was full of interesting anecdotes. He also mentioned his own upcoming book, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to my Students on Defending the Zionist Dream.

But the conversation was primarily about a series of US presidents and heads of corporations, for whom Tevi said there is a lot of hate. “The book speaks to where we are in America at this time,” he said.

“Corporations own everything. Both parties hate corporations.”

But the people who built the corporations, he continued, also had close relationships with presidents. “The government has become more involved in what corporations do and can do. The government has become a tool.”

He also emphasized that the government is not limiting the ability to make profit, but trying to shape the way it’s done.

Gil noted that Elon Musk has angered a lot of people by promoting Donald Trump, and cautioned that Musk is running a risk. “You shouldn’t go too far out for one party or the other.”

Loose lips sink ships

■ ONE OF the key slogans among Allied forces during the Second World War was “Loose lips sink ships.” In other words, don’t share any information that is specifically war related.

Observing self-censorship was much easier in those days because people did not have cellphones with built-in cameras, and could not send scenes from battlefields, images of officers, to be posted on Facebook or other social media outlets.

Today, soldiers take their mobile phones with them to the south and to the north and send messages, videos, and updates to relatives and friends. It’s a dangerous practice which could seriously jeopardize Israel’s security.

That’s the reason that IDF Chief Censor Brig.-Gen. Kobi Mandelblit this week issued a long directive about how to ensure that vital information does not fall into the hands of the enemy.

■ RELATIVES OF those hostages who complain that they can’t get an appointment to meet with the prime minister should be aware that Benjamin Netanyahu was even too busy a little over two weeks ago to attend the bar mitzvah of his second grandson, David Roth, who is the son of Noa Roth, his daughter from his first marriage, and her husband, Rabbi Daniel Roth.

The bar mitzvah, which took place in Mea She’arim in Jerusalem, where the Roth family lives, coincided with a cabinet meeting, which the prime minister decided not to postpone.

However, when his grandsons were born, he did attend their circumcision ceremonies. All the boys are noted for their high intelligence, which undoubtedly came from both sides of their families.

Although the prime minister is secular, and grew up in a secular environment, he does have a deep understanding of, and a love for, the Bible, which he has studied with his own sons, particularly his younger son, Avner, who was a junior Bible champion.

The prime minister’s grandfather Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky was a political activist, a fervent Zionist, and a graduate of the famed Volozhin Yeshiva, of which Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the chief rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, had also been an alumnus. In an example of what goes around comes around, the Roth children are following in the footsteps of their great-great-grandfather.

The October 7 tribute

■ IT’S NOT surprising that Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi agreed to play ball with Transportation Minister Miri Regev over the controversial state ceremony memorial tribute to the victims of the massacre by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Davidi is, after all, a member of the Likud.

Even if, in his heart of hearts, he agreed with the kibbutzim that have declared a boycott of the ceremony which Regev is organizing, he could not afford to voice such sentiments publicly, because it would mean the beginning of the end of his political career.

The solution proposed by President Isaac Herzog is, to some extent, a good one, in that each of the communities affected should be able to conduct its own ceremony in a manner that its members think best.

But he also wants the state ceremony to be held at the President’s Residence – and that is a mistake.

There was no President’s Residence when Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, took office, and he conducted many of his affairs of state from his home in Rehovot.

Israel’s second president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, worked out of a building known as the hut (hatzrif) in the capital’s Rehavia neighborhood.

The third president, Zalman Shazar, was the first to occupy the current premises on the cusp of Talbiyeh, but they are not suitable for current needs, and over the next few years a much large plot of land will have to be found in order to comfortably accommodate mass groups of participants at various functions.

Desperately needed is a proper theater-style auditorium with at least 500 seats and a means of screening off back rows when there are smaller groups of people.

The main hall of the President’s Residence used to have pillars which obscured the view of those unfortunate individuals who were seated behind them. Shimon Peres got rid of the pillars and in so doing also expanded the seating capacity in the room.

When Moshe Katsav was president, there was no designated area for a predinner reception for guests invited to state dinners. Katsav enclosed a patio at the side of the building, and it was the reception area until the present president said that in the non-rainy season, the setting up of buffets beneath the pergola of the building was preferable to the enclosed area.

Why every president or his wife finds it necessary to make major alterations defies logic, unless there is a truly valid reason, such as the collapse of water pipes during Peres’s time in office, when the floors on two levels of the building had to be raised to enable the installation of new infrastructure.

Aside from the premises being too small to accommodate all the people who should be there, the most symbolic venue for the people of Israel, be they religious or secular, is Mount Herzl, which is the final resting place of the Zionist visionary as well as of many leaders of the nation. It is also the site of Israel’s major military cemetery, and it is where Yad Vashem, the world’s most important educational facility and museum in memory of the victims of the Holocaust is situated.

For all these reasons, Mount Herzl would be the most appropriate venue for a state ceremony that would be extremely simple but meaningful, with the sole participation of bereaved families whose loved ones were murdered, or were killed fighting Hamas on October 7, as well as families whose loved ones were kidnapped and taken as hostages to Gaza.

A representative from each of these families should light a memorial candle, and any speeches that are given should be by survivors who either fought, or managed to evade, Hamas. Neither the president nor the prime minister should make speeches, but on behalf of the nation should stand together and recite kaddish. It can’t be more simple, dignified, or meaningful than that.

Diaspora

■ WHETHER OR not they are declared Zionists, American Jewish writers, actors, singers, and musicians are being identified and judged as such by anti-Israel pro-Palestinian activists who can influence the cancellation of events in which Jewish performers and other creative people are listed to appear.

A case in point involving the launch of a book by Jewish writer Joshua Leifer with Rabbi Andy Bachman as moderator was published in the Post this past Monday. Contrary to the policy of the Brooklyn bookstore where the event was initially meant to be held, it was canceled by an employee, who was subsequently fired. Meanwhile, it was moved to the Center for New Jewish Culture, whose co-founder Rabbi Matt Green said that it had been founded on the idea that “we need to have difficult conversations that impact on the Jewish people.”

Israel is desperately in need of a similar organization where people can come together to discuss their differences in a civilized manner, while simultaneously focusing on those things that unite us. It is important that we each learn to understand where the other is coming from and why, in order to at least respect concepts with which we do not agree. We also have to look introspectively to ask ourselves why we have either followed or strayed from the paths of our ancestors. When we understand ourselves better, it will help us to better understand the other.

■ MANY PHYSICIANS, along with volunteer paramedics and first responders, are in the IDF reserve forces fighting in Gaza and the North.

Among them was Oz Ocampo, 20, who in civilian life has for the past five years been a volunteer EMT with Magen David Adom. Ocampo was critically wounded last March while fighting in Gaza and was close to death. He was airlifted to Soroka Medical Center, where he was sedated and ventilated. In the same military operation in which Ocampo was wounded, his good friend Dolev Haim Malka, a fellow EMT, was killed.

During Ocampo’s long recuperation process at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv, he dreamed of the day that he would be sufficiently fit to continue volunteering with MDA. That dream was realized this month when he and his father, Adrian, who is also an MDA paramedic, were assigned to a surprise shift in a mobile intensive care ambulance, and treated wounded soldiers.

On some future occasion, one or both of them will be riding in the new bulletproof ambulance donated to MDA by the Jewish community of Munich. This ambulance will be stationed in the northern region.

At the inauguration ceremony at MDA headquarters in Ramle this month, in the presence of MDA Director-General Eli Bin and the Jewish community security officer in Munich Gilad Ben Yehuda, mention was made of other support that the Munich Jewish community has given to Israel since October 7.

Speaking on behalf of Munich Jewish community president Charlotte Knobloch, Ben Yehuda said that the Jewish community of Munich sought and seeks to strengthen Israel in time of war.

Quoting Knobloch directly, he said: “October 7th is a day that none of us can forget. The Black Sabbath was a stab to the heart of the Jewish people, not only in Nir Oz, Be’eri, or Kfar Aza. The entire Jewish world was affected that day. We were all impacted.

“It was not just a day of mourning – it was also a moment of weakness, a weakness that we all remember and that must never happen again.

“We are here today because that weakness did not last; because despite the horror of that day, it did not change the fact that Israel is a strong country.

“Israel fights not only for itself and the safety of its citizens, but also for all the Jewish people.

“Therefore we remain steadfast in our support for Israel and do everything in our power to provide the people of Israel with what they need.”

■ NUMEROUS AD HOC committees and organizations quickly came to the fore in response to new needs and challenges following the devastating events of October 7.

One such committee was the Women’s Forum of the Maccabi World Union (MWU), which in recent months conducted a two-pronged global campaign aimed firstly at increasing pressure on governments to demand the immediate release of female hostages taken by Hamas from southern Israel to Gaza, and secondly to promote awareness of sexual violence against women and girls by Hamas.

As part of the latter campaign, the forum urged the public, particularly women, to watch Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary, Screams Before Silence. Millions of people around the world have been exposed to the campaign, and tens of thousands have clicked on the link to the film.

In the course of the campaign, a strenuous effort was made to strengthen women’s leadership in more than a hundred cities around the world.

The forum – whose founding members include former MK Orly Froman, who is MWU deputy chairwoman, Shirit Haim, MWU honorary secretary, Lisa Borowick of Australia, who is an MWU vice president, and Ronit Neaman, who heads the MWU European desk – will continue to drive home the message of the evil of sexual violence and abuse.

Froman said that all the members recognize a moral obligation to promote awareness of sexual violence by Hamas, and will continue with their efforts via all social platforms until the hostages return home.

■ FROM THE mid-16th to the late-18th centuries, Poland and Lithuania lived in harmony as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This idyll was torn asunder by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Throughout their respective histories Poland and Lithuania have each lost their independence by being conquered and annexed by neighboring countries.

Following the First World War, each regained their independence, but the extreme nationalists in both countries caused friction, as did a dispute over Vilnius, which each of the two countries claimed as its own.

During the Second World War, both were invaded by the Nazis and by the Russians, and again lost their independence, which was regained close to half a century later with the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Since then Poland and Lithuania have enjoyed friendly relations, but apparently not close enough to coordinate their individual activities so that people on the guest lists of both embassies in Israel would not have the dilemma of having to decide whether to attend the Polish event or the Lithuanian event.

Some weeks ago, the Polish, Ukrainian, Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish embassies issued an invitation for the opening on September 1 of a significant photo exhibition at ANU – Museum of the Jewish People, in Tel Aviv. Last week Lithuanian Ambassador Audrius Bruzga issued an invitation to another important photo exhibition that will open on the same date at the Jerusalem Theater. The Lithuanian invitation is for 5 p.m., and the one hosted by the other embassies is for 6:30 p.m. Even if visitors to the Lithuanian exhibition stay only for the formalities, it’s doubtful that they would get to Tel Aviv in time during rush hour traffic.

September 1 is an important date for all the embassies concerned, in that it is the 85th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland (or the German invasion, as the Poles prefer to call it), which set off the Second World War in which so many millions of innocent people, including six million Jews, perished, were murdered, or killed in battle.

Admittedly, both exhibitions will remain on view after the opening, and interested parties can see them over the coming weeks. But the whole idea of attending an opening, where so many people from diverse sectors of the public rub shoulders, is quite different from browsing in a near empty gallery, especially on the anniversary of such a momentous event in human history.

The event in Tel Aviv, which comes a week and a day after Ukraine’s Independence Day, is also symbolic that Ukraine, like Israel, is marking its Independence Day during a time of war.

■ AMONG THE various reasons for Israel and Saudi Arabia to begin the process of normalization of relations is the fact that both have excellent specialists and facilities for saving a child’s heart.

Surgeons at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in June of this year performed a successful heart transplant on a two-and-a-half-year-old girl after an eight-month wait for a suitable donor. The infant was born with a severe heart muscle defect and has spent nearly all of her young life in hospital. Valiant efforts were made to keep her alive, and eventually the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation notified the hospital that a donor had been found. The Riyadh Police cleared traffic to enable a medical team to travel as quickly as possible to Tali to take possession of the heart of a four-year-old boy who had died from brain damage.

In Israel, Save a Child’s Heart surgeons have traveled to countries in the region to examine children with cardiac problems, and in numerous cases have brought them and their mothers to Israel so that the children can undergo lifesaving surgery.

Imagine what could be achieved if doctors from the two hospitals could work in cooperation. In Israel, Save a Child’s Heart, located at Wolfson Medical Center, has been saving children’s lives for almost 30 years. It was founded in 1995 by the late Dr. Amram Cohen. Its longtime executive director, Simon Fisher, is very passionate about what SACH does. That passion is shared by doctors in the US, India, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and several other countries in which pediatric cardiac surgery is performed.

■ A REGULAR reader of the Post who belongs to the Modern Orthodox sector of society, and asked not to be named, wants to know whether Michal Herzog, the wife of the president of the state, owns a dress. The question was prompted by the frequency with which Herzog is photographed in a pants suit. The reader could not recall seeing a photograph of her in a dress.

In case anyone else was wondering, Herzog does own several dresses. She simply prefers a pants suit, but does wear a dress on certain formal occasions.

For more than a decade now, wives of presidents and prime ministers and women in high-ranking government and business positions around the world have been wearing pants suits more often than dresses.

Among the ladies who have a preference for pants suits are Sara Netanyahu, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Olena Zelenska, the wife of the president of Ukraine, Brigitte Macron, the wife of the president of France, and US Vice President and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.

The pants suits worn by Michal Herzog – often with matching shoes – might be less obvious if there were not so many of them. They appear in so many colors and prints that she could easily open a boutique of gently worn clothes, which is how the UK’s upper crust describes the secondhand garments of the social elite.

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