Grapevine October 23, 2024: Rights and rules

Last week, in view of the forthcoming American presidential elections, there was an item in Grapevine regarding rights and obligations of dual nationals in Israel to the country in which they held citizenship before they emigrated.

Adding to information about America and Australia, author, essayist and translator Michelle Mazel, who is a proud dual national, writes that in her native country of France, there are slots in the national assembly for French citizens who are established abroad. They can also vote in the presidential elections. 

Mazel, who is married to retired diplomat Zvi Mazel, who was ambassador to Egypt, Romania and Sweden, did not have to relinquish her French citizenship because of her husband’s status. 

It was he, not she, who was employed by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Under French law, she explains, the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of French citizens can get French citizenship without ever having been to France or speaking French – and they can vote under the same conditions as people born in France. 

“The idea is that French citizenship is transmitted Jure sanguinis – that is, by blood.”

The Reform Movement in Judaism has a similar example of recognition in that offspring of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother are accepted as Jews.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, who is Orthodox, has long been advocating for full recognition of people who come within the category of Zera Yisrael – the seed of Israel. As the seed or the sperm comes from males, the idea is that anyone of proven Jewish ancestry should be accepted as Jewish if that is the faith they want to live by.

The Bible is full of characters whose fathers are Jewish and whose mothers are not. But this does not prevent them from being recognized as great Jewish scholars, prophets and heroes.

■ B’NAI B’RITH International this month hosted Father Patrick Desbois, a preeminent global leader in promoting human rights and documenting mass atrocities. He arrived in Israel on the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and just days after the largest-ever direct Iranian missile strikes on Israel. 

Wanting to make his own assessments and assemble his own reports, Desbois visited the terror sites, had personal encounters with those most directly impacted by the Hamas and Hezbollah onslaught in northern and southern Israel, and held meetings with key officials, analysts and civil society figures. This was his first visit to Israel since the violent rampage last year.

Desbois is the author of The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews and The Terrorist Factory: ISIS, the Yazidi Genocide, and Exporting Terror. 

A former head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops’ Conference and a consultant to the Vatican, Desbois is a recipient of France’s highest award, the Légion d’honneur, as well as the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cross of Merit which 1st Class), Germany’s highest honor. He has received awards from B’nai B’rith among many others.

The human rights leader’s arrival was immediately marked by multiple sirens, requiring him to shelter at Ben-Gurion International Airport from new incoming fire by Iran’s regional proxies. 

Nonetheless, accompanied by B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem Director Alan Schneider and B’nai B’rith International UN and Intercommunal Affairs Director David Michaels, he attended the national memorial ceremony led by families of the 101 Israeli and international hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. In Tel Aviv, the booms of Israeli interceptions of hostile projectiles were repeatedly felt and heard.

In the days that followed, Desbois observed the devastation of Kibbutz Be’eri, the harrowing scene of burnt-out cars in T’kuma and the site of the Nova music festival massacre. 

He met with Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, a Bedouin Israeli hostage freed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Hamas captivity, and with Mirjam Bait Talmi, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who survived the Palestinian invasion near Kibbutz Zikim, where she has lived since 1955. 

Desbois inspected weapons confiscated from the terrorists; spoke with personnel at the Shura Base where the IDF rabbinate tended to an unprecedented number of bodies of slain victims, many of them mutilated; and met privately with close relatives of hostages Omri Miran and Gadi Moses.

He also held discussions with the director of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s human rights department, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, the chairwoman of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes Against Women and Children, leaders of research institutions specializing in terrorism and strategic affairs, and the founder of Palestinian Media Watch, who detailed official Palestinian incitement to and incentivizing of jihadist violence against Israeli civilians.

Additionally, Desbois learned about efforts by Israel’s National Library to document the October 7 atrocities, and at Sheba Medical Center he met Israeli soldiers who have undergone amputations after sustaining grave injuries during Israel’s ongoing defensive campaigns over the past year.

“Without having visited the scenes of the horrific crimes perpetrated by members of Hamas against the civilians of the southern kibbutz; without having contemplated the devastated and ransacked houses; without witnessing the tears shed by thousands of young people at the October 7 ceremonies; without having taken the time to visit the hospital where many young people are trying to rebuild their lives despite the amputation of a leg or an arm; without having heard the shrill sound of sirens as soon as we landed, announcing a missile from Yemen, I realized, from all sides, how Hamas and its allies have united to destroy the people of Israel,” Desbois said.

“Hamas, entrenched in its tunnels under schools and hospitals, has never protected Palestinian civilians, who are also perishing without even having access to underground shelters,” he continued. “Despite everything, I remain hopeful of a peaceful future in which all peoples can live in harmony and security.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Desbois’s founding of Yahad – In Unum (together in one), an organization that uncovered widely unknown or forgotten Holocaust-era mass shooting sites across Eastern Europe. Over the course of the past two decades, it identified more than 2,900 such massacre sites and documented over 7,000 witness testimonies related to the war crimes of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads.

Desbois subsequently expanded his focus to address modern-day violence, group hatred and antisemitism. 

Since 2015, his organization has extended its research to northern Iraq in order to expose perpetrators behind ISIS genocide against Yazidis in 2014. Recently, the organization’s activity has also extended to Ukraine.

Through its global educational programs training both students and educators in Europe, the United States and Latin America, Yahad – In Unum gives grassroots individuals an understanding of the horrific consequences of fanatic ideologies.

Schneider noted that the visit of Desbois was highly valuable, having raised new potential avenues for the prosecution of anti-Israel terrorists. 

Michaels welcomed the opportunity to highlight fundamental realities in the region, while bolstering solidarity with Israel’s diverse citizens at one of their most difficult hours.

Book launch galore 

■ THERE’S BEEN a glut of book launches in recent weeks. Among them was The Assault on Judaism by Gol Kalev, who like several others before him, chose Jerusalem’s Begin Center as the venue for his discussion with London Times columnist Melanie Phillips. Kalev is an occasional essayist whose writing has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, and Phillips is a former JP columnist. 

The author said that the contemporary path toward the destruction of Judaism is not through war, but through war crime indictments. Until a year ago, that path was theoretical. “War crimes need a war,” he said. On October 7 it went live, and “we are now in a well-advanced [Western] attempt to negate the idea of the Jewish state, and through that to negate the idea of Judaism,” he stated.

Kalev quoted some of the key arguments in his book, which analyzes the ideological assault from the West that followed October 7, and compares it to previous attempts to eradicate Judaism. He explained that the Western assault on Judaism is also a proxy assault on America, and presents a strategic threat to US national security.

He addressed push backs that this is not the right time to deal with an abstract threat coming from “polite Europeans in suits,” when Jews are being killed, missiles are coming in, and Israeli soldiers are fighting a brutal war: “People say, let us fight the physical war now…. and afterwards, in a few years, we can address the ideological assault from the West…. Well, in a few years, it is going to be too late,” he cautioned.

Kalev pointed to the trajectory of the rapidly-expanding Western assault that he describes in the book, which includes actions by the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, sanctions by Western governments, indoctrination of global public opinion, and the instilling of Jewish insecurity. He said that through his book, he hopes to “refocus world public opinion to this existential threat,” offering new long- and short-term strategies to counter it.

Phillips said that she read the book with great joy and interest. She found it to be “a very effective description of the forces that have come together to wage assault on the Jewish people.”

Reacting to Kalev’s claim that American Jews cannot carve themselves out of the assault, she pointed to the obsessive nature and glee of the attackers, and said: “I think it is absolutely right to cast it, as Gol does, as an assault on Judaism.”

In Phillips’ view, the assault is committed by three primary sources: “The ideological far Left; Islamists who wish to colonize the non-Islam world; supporters of Palestinian rights in the West, who are not ideological, but have bought into a particular narrative that Israel is the bad guy – always, and the Palestinians are the victims – always.”

Begin Center Senior Fellow Paul Gross, who moderated the event, said that the book has already made quite a splash, noting that “influential figures from around the world view this book as revolutionary.”

Kalev is readying for a US book tour in November and December where he is likely to hear a diversity of opinions in response to some of his theories.

Justice served

■ ON RECEIVING confirmation of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Amb. Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, released the following statement:

“The world is safer today than it was yesterday. After more than a year of fighting to honor the victims of October 7, Israel has delivered justice by eliminating Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas.

“This marks a critical moment in the global war on terror, and it is vital that world leaders recognize and support Israel’s efforts to confront the threat of extremist ideologies,” he said.

“Terrorism is not just Israel’s challenge; it endangers us all. We urge members of the international community to stand with Israel, reaffirm their commitment to defeating terror wherever it exists, and demand the release of the 101 remaining hostages.”

A Sukkah that stands out 

■ THE SUKKAH on the corner of Jabotinsky and Marcus Streets in Jerusalem attracted a lot of attention from passersby, especially at meal times when joyful singing on the part of the Canterman family and their guests could be heard from quite some distance away. 

Rabbi Eli Canterman and his wife Chana are the co-directors of the Talbiya Mamilla Chabad activities, and she also heads the Jerusalem branch of the Friendship Circle, which helps families of children with disabilities and provides numerous activities for the children themselves to add to the quality of their lives.

Some of these activities have proved to be mentally and physically therapeutic. 

She is also involved on a daily basis with bereaved parents of victims of the October 7 Hamas invasion and massacre, and families and individuals who have been displaced from their homes for security reasons, and have in many cases been living in Jerusalem hotel rooms for many months, sometimes as long as a whole year.

Many of the passersby who stopped for a moment to look at the sukkah and to listen to the singing, were seen by one or another of the Canterman family or those of their guests who are Chabadniks, and such passersby were immediately invited inside and offered food and drink.

In most cases, they had never recited a blessing inside a sukkah, nor had they recited a blessing over a lulav and etrog (palm branch and citron). 

When invited to do so, most were reluctant until Chana Canterman explained to them that no one knows which blessing will be received in Heaven as the key to open a door. It was possible that their blessing would be the key to bring home the hostages, she said, her voice breaking with tears. 

These were emotional moments that won over everyone who had initially declined, and every passerby who accepted the invitation to recite the blessings, did so with a hint of embarrassment at the start, followed by a glow of satisfaction after having successfully shaken the lulav in all directions. 

The lulav along with the other three species is a symbol of togetherness despite diversity. There is simply a stronger bond that unites people of different backgrounds and outlooks, than all that separates them. 

Whoever entered the sukkah was made to feel welcome regardless of whether they were religious or not.

Fighting antisemitism 

■ RETIRED VETERAN Nazi hunter Efraim Zoureff, who for many years headed the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has now dedicated himself to researching distortions and denials of Holocaust history, which he says is a form of antisemitism and should be combated no less than its active and unmistakably obvious form.

A solemn memorial 

■ BRITISH AMBASSADOR Simon Walters conducted a solemn memorial ceremony last week to honor the memories of British nationals whose lives were lost in the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The commemorative event was also in support of the families of British and other UK subjects still held in captivity. 

The gathering served as a means of paying tribute to the victims and extending support to their families as they cope with unimaginable loss and pain. 

It was attended by families of the British nationals who were murdered in the attack, as well as the families of the British and UK-linked hostages. Those who worked tirelessly to bring those murdered to their final resting place and embassy staff also attended. 

The ceremony opened with remarks by Ambassador Walters, who said: “Today, we remember and honor the British nationals who were brutally slain in the attack and who died in captivity, as well as families of the British hostages. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and friends who have endured unimaginable loss. 

“This has been a difficult and painful year, a year of unimaginable pain and horrifying uncertainty,” he said. “We are grieving the lives of those who were taken brutally and are awaiting the return of those who are still hostage in Gaza. We cannot and must not forget them, and we must do everything to bring them home.”

A prayer led by Rabbi Chananel Rosen followed, offering comfort and reflection for those present. Attendees heard moving testimonies from survivors and family members of those who were murdered. 

The commemoration included a candle-lighting ceremony for British nationals who were murdered in the attack and a tree was planted in their memory. 

The gathering concluded with a speech by Charles Hay, the director responsible for the Gaza hostages at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, who emphasized the UK’s commitment to securing the release of the hostages and supporting the people of Israel. 

The British Embassy remains dedicated to fostering support for those deeply impacted by the events of 7 October. “This ceremony stands as a testament to the strength of the partnership and solidarity between the UK and Israel,” Hay declared.

An emotional farewell 

■ ARGENTINA’S POPULAR Chargé d’Affaires Francisco P. Tropepi, who also served as acting ambassador, was feted at an emotional farewell on completion of his post in Israel.

One of several diplomats who took an active interest in the fate of the hostages in Gaza, and who put themselves at the disposal of their families, Tropepi stood out for his humanitarian work in attempts to secure their release from Hamas captivity.

Yanky Fachler 

■ BRITISH BORN and Ireland-based author, historian and international public speaker Yanky Fachler, who lived in Israel for many years and still has many relatives here, is an avid reader of global publications. 

He frequently extracts items about Jews, Judaism and Israel that catch his eye, and publishes them in a column that he calls Yanky’s Morale Boosting Doodles. One of his most recent columns included a list of people to whom he will not be sending Christmas cards.These include:

• Asif Kapadia, the Oscar-winning director of the 2015 documentary film Amy about the late Jewish singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, for posting anti-Israel and antisemitic posts on X/Twitter.

• The jerks at Cork City Council who voted to ban any future entry to Cork City by the prime minister of Israel, the president of Israel or any member of the Israeli government including its ambassadors.

• French President Emmanuel Macron, for falsely claiming that “the UN made Israel.” Non, Monsieur le President. Israel was established through the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France.

• Activist lawyer Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu for calling Israel a “sh*t stain on the human race.” She was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by Newcastle University for her “contribution to race equality, combating discrimination and promoting diversity and inclusion.”

• The executives at the CBS TV network who circulated a memo to journalists, urging them to “be careful with some terms when we talk or write about the news. Do not refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel.”

• The jerks at the IDF recruitment website Metgaisim who published maps of bases, including labeling of critical assets, which allowed Hezbollah to successfully pinpoint their bombing targets.

Facing criticism 

■ FINANCE MINISTER Bezalel Smotrich has incurred considerable criticism in relation to his fiscal policies as well as his attitude toward families of the hostages.

Moreover, in surveys taken as to how people might vote if the Knesset elections were held now, he has consistently scored a very low number of mandates, which indicates that his popularity has dwindled even in the National Religious Camp. 

But not everyone finds fault with him. Full page advertisements in the religious Hebrew media laud him excessively for the assistance that he and his ministerial team have given to followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslau, who wanted to visit his grave on Rosh Hashanah. 

Rabbi Nachman was very particular about having his disciples visit him on the Jewish New Year, and on his final Rosh Hashanah, declared that they should visit his grave in Uman after his death. He died on the fourth day of Sukkot in 1810. 

Although he was only 38 years old, he has made a tremendous reputation for himself in the hassidic world. On his mother’s side, he was a direct descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of hassidism, and on his father’s side, he was descended from the Maharal of Prague. One couldn’t have a better DNA. 

Despite the fact that their leader was no longer living, the Breslau Hassidim greatly increased in number, and every year, thousands of them from Israel and abroad flock to Uman. People who are neither Breslau nor hassidic also flock to the Ukrainian city at least once in their lives for the experience. 

Ever since COVID, however, getting to Uman has become increasingly difficult, especially for Israelis because so many airline companies have suspended flights to and from Israel. 

Nonetheless, with the help of Smotrich and his team, many Breslau Hassidim did manage the journey. As a result, Natan Ben Nun, on behalf of the Breslau in Uman Association and its volunteer workers, published full-page advertisements of appreciation in which Smotrich was praised for his dedication to all of Israel and to the thousands of pilgrims whom he enabled to get to Uman. Maybe he’s affiliated with the wrong party.

Ben Shapiro's musical 

■ OCTOBER 7, 2023, and events of the year that followed have inspired books, songs, poems and works of visual art. Now there’s also a musical that links the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with post–October 7. 

Written by Ben Shapiro with music and lyrics by his father David Shapiro, the production will have only eight performances, beginning at Cinema City Beersheba on October 28, then moving to Beit Shemesh Cultural Center on November 5, Petah Tikva Golda Auditorium on November 11, Jerusalem Theater on November 20 and December 11, Ariel Cultural Center on November 28, Dohal Center Tel Aviv December 2, and Yad Lebanim Auditorium Ra’anana on December 17.

The production, in Hebrew with English subtitles, is under the auspices of the Espaclaria Theater, and is directed by Yoav Michaeli with the participation of the Beersheba Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rani Calderon.

An introduction to the performances at The Jerusalem Theater will be given in person by Ben Shapiro.

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