Grapevine August 29, 2024: Lone Soldiers

DESPITE THE  escalation of war in both the North and South, there is a surprising increase of new immigrants to Israel – many of them lone soldiers – and of files being opened for potential immigrants from Jewish communities around the world. 

Two main factors account for this sudden surge. As in every war in which Israel has been engaged, there is a heightened sense of Jewish identity and fear of what might happen if Israel should lose its independence, or worse still, cease to exist. The other is rising antisemitism. Slogans such as Never Again have become meaningless in the face of mass anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rallies and incidents.

The largest numbers of new immigrants come from the United States. On August 22, 200 North Americans arrived in the country on five different group flights. 

The total number of North American newcomers to Israel was 600 for this week alone. They are part of a larger contingent of 2,000 North American Jews, ranging in age from two months to 97 years, who arrived as immigrants throughout the summer.

Some lone soldiers, who may initially come to Israel to serve in the IDF for a year or two, may end up staying in Israel permanently as did former MK and Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, who some years ago, told a lunch gathering of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) that the most difficult thing for him was having to relinquish his US citizenship. Based on his own experiences as a lone soldier, Oren is very active in lone soldier support organizations.

A current lone soldier, Gabi Katz, a Johannesburg-born, Chicago-raised sharpshooter, who serves in the IDF’s Combat Engineering Unit, will share personal stories from the front lines with members of the Hazvi Israel Congregation in Jerusalem and with other interested individuals this coming Tuesday, September 3, at 7.45 p.m. Katz moved to Israel at age 17, and kept a daily journal which has been published under the title, Alone with God. It includes letters that he sent to family and friends throughout his service. The event is free of charge.

Topol legacy

■ LIFE IS full of strange twists. Darya Topol Margalith, the granddaughter of actor Chaim Topol, was about to make her debut as an actress in the musical made famous by her grandfather, when she learned that her grandmother, Galia Topol, had died. But in the spirit of “the show must go on,” Darya who plays Schprintze, the youngest daughter of Tevye the Milkman in the iconic musical Fiddler on the Roof, in which Topol appeared over 3,500 times on stages around the world, Darya showed up to play her part at London’s Regent’s Park Theater on opening night. It was the same theater in which Topol appeared for the last time – albeit not in Fiddler. Nonetheless, it represented links in a chain rather than the closing of one circle and the opening of another. The 99th anniversary of the birth of Topol, who died in March last year, is on September 9.

Happy Birthday Chaim Yavin!

■ YOUNGER THAN Topol by seven years, television personality Chaim Yavin, who was known as “Israel’s Walter Cronkite,” will celebrate his 92nd birthday on September 10. In 1968, Yavin started as the anchor for the first non-educational television broadcast on what began as Israel Television, then became Channel 1, and is currently KAN 11. Yavin, who was Israel’s leading news anchor for some 40 years, did not retire from making documentaries

Old school skydiving

■ ADVANCED AGE is no barrier to skydiving. In October 2018, when he was 94 years old, Walter Bingham, Israel’s oldest working journalist, made news when he went skydiving. Now, at age 100, he’s about to do so again. Bingham, who doesn’t look anywhere near his age, travels abroad, likes to eat out in Jerusalem restaurants, and hobnobs with people from all walks of life and all ages. 

As admirable and amazing as his feat will be, he still has a way to go before he can claim the record of being the world’s oldest skydiver. In May of this year, that record was claimed by the 106-year-old Texan Alfred Blaschke. But he’s not the only centenarian with whom Bingham has to catch up.  There’s also 104-year-old Dorothy Hoffner from Illinois, who says that age is just a number. There’s also another woman, the UK’s 102-year-old Manette Baillie, who at the beginning of this week jumped out of a plane in celebration of her birthday. These have all been tandem jumps with the skydivers strapped to qualified instructors. Nonetheless, it’s an admirable achievement for anyone of a triple-digit age. Clearly, there’s no age limit on participating in and getting a thrill out of extreme sports.

The life of Ephraim Kishon

■ WHILE ON the subject of centenarians, it’s worth mentioning that last week one of the most popular interviewees on cultural topics was veteran broadcaster and actor Yaron London who wrote the biography of Israel’s inimitable satirist, Ephraim Kishon, on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Kishon died in January 2005, and presumably another Kishon fest will be held in five months time, to mark the 20th anniversary of his passing. 

A Hungarian Holocaust survivor who mastered Hebrew in the space of a year, Kishon fearlessly tackled new challenges such as writing books, plays, essays, and newspaper articles in Hebrew. Without any prior experience, he also leapt into filmmaking. Extremely prolific, his books were translated into numerous languages, but it was only towards the end of his life that he was eventually awarded the Israel Prize, which he so richly deserved. But it was not for literature, it was a life achievement award. 

According to London, Kishon, finding himself incapable of writing his autobiography, contacted London. Prying information from Kishon was an arduous task, said London, who genuinely liked and admired the man and praised his ability, through his best-known work, Sallah Shabati, to illustrate the mistreatment of North African immigrants by the Ashkenazim who considered them inferior – and to provide audiences a glimpse of the corruption of the period in which the movie is set. 

At first, said London, many North Africans did not realize that Kishon was portraying an unsavory situation and thought that he was a racist. Eventually, they comprehended that he was just being critical of the system. In most interviews, a recording was played of a skit that Kishon wrote in 1954 about a minister who had failed on the job, but who refused to resign. Over half a century later, it appears that little has changed for the power-hungry.

AT THE meeting last week of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sarah with former hostages who had been captive in Gaza, one of the women reportedly turned to Sarah Netanyahu, saying: “You asked us to thank you.” Sarah denied having made such a statement, adding, “I’ve been married to this man for 35 years, and all I hear about myself are lies.” Before she met her husband, she said, she had lived a regular life as a psychology student, but after she got married, she had become the target of lies.  

There are a lot of falsehoods about the Netanyahus on the Internet. Professor Google is not always a good source of information, but both husband and wife should be careful about what they say because when they are caught out on even a tiny lapse of accuracy, the media makes a big deal out of it. Her relationship with Bibi may well go back 35 years, but considering that they celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary on July 9, her memory must have betrayed her.

DURING THE heat of the Israeli summer which continues well beyond the seasonal chart, people, especially children, want to be somewhere where they can cool off. Those living on the coastal plain can go to the beach, public pools, or hotel pools that allow in members of the general public for a fee. But Jerusalem, which has many attractions, does not have a beach and has very few pools, beyond those in hotels, which are generally too expensive for the average family. The Jerusalem Post reader Beth Hinden is a grandmother, new to Jerusalem, who has several grandchildren looking for relief from the heat. 

“Where are the pools for children?” asked Hinden, who discovered that the one in Teddy Park is free of charge, but can accommodate only a limited number of children. She may not be aware that there is another pool at the entrance to Mishkenot Sha’ananim in which Jewish and Arab children scamper around together.  Although Hinden lives near a park with an aqueduct where children can swim, she finds this an unsatisfactory solution to an ongoing problem. While her grandchildren may be able to cool off, thousands of other children do not live near a pool or a fountain, she comments – asking why there is no provision for them. 

Originally from the US, Hinden says that in the city where she was raised, outdoor pools were free for tax-paying citizens. The US city she immigrated from, she said, offers season passes to pools for a nominal fee. Jerusalem children deserve better, she says.

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