Grapevine October 30, 2024: November notes

November 5 is the date of the upcoming presidential elections in the United States. In the United Kingdom, it is the date of the annual Guy Fawkes Day commemoration of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of Catholic conspirators to blow up the houses of Parliament and to assassinate King James I.

In Israel, in the Netanyahu family, it is the celebration of the third birthday within the family in just under a month, beginning with the 30th birthday of younger son Avner, the 75th birthday of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and lastly the 65th birthday of the prime minister’s wife, Sara.

Coincidentally, opposition leader Yair Lapid will mark his 61st birthday on November 5, but he doesn’t celebrate, because his late sister, Michal, who was born on the same date, was killed in a car accident in 1984.

November is a month of note for Israelis, and also for people in other countries in which important November anniversaries are either commemorated or celebrated.

Among the events remembered in Israel are the Balfour Declaration of 1917 on November 2; the assassination on November 4, 1995, of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; the birth 150 years ago of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann on November 27, and his death on November 9, 1952. Israel’s second president, Izhak Ben-Zvi, was also born in 1884, three days before Weizmann, and Israel’s third president, Zalman Shazar, the first head of state to occupy the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, was born on November 24, 1889, in Mir, Belarus.

November 9, the date of Weizmann’s death, is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of shattered glass in Germany, which was the prelude to the Holocaust. It was on November 10, the date on which Kristallnacht was still raging, that the United Nations General Assembly, in 1975, adopted a resolution equating Zionism with racism. Curiously, Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, died on November 11, 2004, which is the date in 1918 when the First World War armistice agreement went into effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. On November 22, 1967, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution for establishing a just and lasting peace in the Middle East through negotiations, the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from what was termed the occupied territories, and the creation of secure and recognized boundaries.

On November 19, 1977, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat paid a historic visit to Israel which paved the way for the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

In November Israel’s Ethiopian community will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Operation Moses, which started with the November 21, secret airlift that ended in January 1985, during which time 7,000 Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel.

But the most important November date for Israelis is November 29, when, in 1947, the League of Nations voted in favor of the partition of Palestine, which led to the establishment of the State of Israel.

Another important date in November is not commemorated but should be because it sparked both the Second World War and the Holocaust. This was the assassination in Paris on November 7, 1938, of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by a German-born Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan.

Vom Rath, who was a member of the Nazi Party, died of his wounds on November 9, in response to which Jewish-owned business premises were vandalized and synagogues desecrated and burned.

As far as Americans are concerned, November not only is the presidential election month but also marks the anniversary of the assassination, on November 22, 1963, of president John F. Kennedy, the fourth US sitting president to be assassinated. The others were Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, and William McKinley in 1901.

US election looms

■ IF FORMER US president Donald Trump succeeds in being voted back to the White House, it will be interesting to see if he has an even handed foreign policy. When he first campaigned for the presidency, he was aided by his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka. This time around, he is being aided by his Lebanese son-in-law, Michael Boulos, who is married to Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, whose father-in-law, Dr. Massad Boulos, has been very active on Trump’s behalf enlisting the votes of immigrants from Lebanon and other Middle East countries. The irony is that Trump is vehemently opposed to immigration from the Middle East.

On a universal note for Americans, there’s Thanksgiving on November 28.

It is to be hoped that there will be reason by that time for Israelis as well as Americans to be thankful.

Recognizing civilian heroes

■ ON WEDNESDAY, October 30, President Isaac Herzog will award presidential citations in recognition of civilian heroes at an official state ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

On October 7, 2023, civilians demonstrated amazing courage, selflessness, and heroism in spontaneous actions in which numerous lives were saved. Some of the awards will be given posthumously, as in saving the lives of others, the heroes and heroines lost their own. These include father and son Moshe and Eliad Ohayon from Ofakim. Also from Ofakim are Yosef Ziadna, Lion Bar and his son Omer, Oz Davidan, and Tali Hadad; Amit Mann, Nirit Hunwald-Kornfeld, and Dr. Daniel Levy from Kibbutz Be’eri; brothers Noam and Yishai Slotki, Motti Ezra, Rafi and Hamad Krinawi, and Ben Binyamin Shimoni. Children will also be among the awardees and include the Idan siblings from Kfar Aza, the children of the Taasa family from Netiv Ha’asara, and the daughters of the Suissa family from Sderot. The families of the deceased will receive the citations and medals as a permanent reminder of the bravery of their loved ones.

At the beginning of this week, Herzog was among the speakers at two state memorial events for soldiers who have fallen in battle over the past year and for people murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. According to figures released at the end of last week, there were 898 fallen soldiers and other security personnel, 309 widows and 652 orphans resulting from a war that has been waged for just over a year. Unfortunately, the numbers have increased since then.

The shadow of war 

■ THE OPENING of the winter session of the Knesset this week was in the shadow of the ongoing war and the number of fallen soldiers whose funerals were held the previous day. Prominent among them were members of the National-Religious camp, which has paid a very high price. More than that, the majority of children left as orphans are those whose fathers were members of National-Religious communities. The total number of orphans who were the children of soldiers who were laid to rest on Sunday came to 27. Of these, 10 were the children of Warr. Ofc. Shaul Moyal from Karnei Shomron, and eight were the children of Capt. Avraham Yosef Goldberg of Jerusalem. Both men were reservists.

During the mega demonstrations against judicial reform, when reservists declared that they would no longer serve in the IDF if the reforms were enacted into law, pundits predicted that if Israel was again faced with an existential threat, the reservists would immediately put national defense above all other considerations. And that’s exactly what happened, including on October 7. When the army did not respond to calls for help, reservists unhesitatingly rushed to save people from the brutality of Hamas, as did former army officers who are well beyond service age.

Even though Construction and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, who heads the United Torah Judaism Party in the Knesset, has agreed that ultra-Orthodox youths of conscription age who are not yeshiva students should serve in the IDF, the matter has not been settled and remains a source of controversy which is turning many people against the most religious sectors of Israeli society.

For that matter, why does the army not set a limit on where reservists who have many children can serve? It is criminal to send them to the battlefield. If they insist on serving, let it be in the Home Front Command, so that their wives are less likely to become widows and their children orphans.

Former Knesset speaker and current chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Yuli Edelstein says that the ultra-Orthodox must change their attitude and start fighting for the country instead of for army exemptions.

Blinken meets hostage families

■ WHEN HE was in Israel last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with families of hostages who hold American citizenship. He has met with all or some of them during every visit, which is more than can be said of Israeli ministers or members of Knesset regarding the families of the hostages in general. When close relatives of the hostages are interviewed on radio and television, they are often asked whether they have been visited by ministers or MKs, and the response is overwhelmingly in the negative.

Where is the sensitivity or more appropriately the shame of our elected public officials? One can only suppose that if Israel were currently confronting Knesset elections, all those vying for seats would be regular visitors to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and France Square in Jerusalem.

The families represented at this most recent meeting with Blinken were those of American citizens Sagui Dekel-Chen, Omer Neutra, Edan Alexander, Keith Siegel, Liat Beinin, Itay Chen, Gadi Haggai, and Judith Weinstein. Among those present were released hostages and first-degree relatives of murdered hostages who have become each other’s extended families.

Yael Deckelbaum in Europe

■ IMMEDIATELY AFTER releasing her new album, Surrender, in the coming days, singer-songwriter Yael Deckelbaum will be off on what she calls her European tour. Yes, it is in Europe, but there’s more to Europe than Germany, where she will be performing all her concerts beginning in Cologne on November 9-10, Munich on November 13-14, Berlin on November 16-17, and Leipzig on November 19-20.

Deckelbaum is a permanent singer at events organized by Women Wage Peace. She may be visiting Germany in that particular spirit, though some would see it as a kind of sweet revenge for a Jewish singer from Israel to be performing in Germany on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

The Golden Age group

■ US-CERTIFIED neurologist and psychiatrist Amnon Gimpel, who is best known in Israel for his innovative multidisciplinary treatment of children with ADHD, has now turned his attention to the Golden Age group, whose brains he wants to rejuvenate.

His wife, Lynn, whom the Jerusalem-born Gimpel met at university in the US where they were both medical students, said that she and her husband had observed friends who had suffered terrible falls through lack of balance, after which they lost strength and gained weight.

So many physical and mental issues can be strengthened by working on a daily routine to focus on each person’s specific weaknesses, she said.

The first session, on Thursday, November 7, will take place at 11 a.m. at the Gvanim Community Center, 16 Nahal Dolev Street, Beit Shemesh.

Gimpel will discuss how sound therapy, Feldenkrais-style therapy, vision and pain management therapy, and goal therapy can have positive effects on balance and coordination, improved hearing and vision, weight management and insomnia, social skills and family ties, movement and strength, reduction of chronic pain, energy and optimism, and decrease of anxiety and depression.

Further workshops will be held in the near future. For additional information contact 026423365@gmail.com or telephone Ayala at 054-291-7287.

To avoid falling, it is important to lift one’s feet and not to shuffle in Israel’s badly paved streets which are full of cracks, potholes, broken tiles, uneven surfaces, and steps only two or three centimeters high at the bottom of staircases.

Religious folksinger guitarists

■ IN RECENT years there has been a proliferation of folksinger guitarists whose repertoires consist primarily of religious songs. Among them is Shlomo Lipman, the son of former MK Rabbi Dov Lipman.

The younger Lipman was not listed on the program of the concert organized by the Friendship Central Circle Jerusalem for the benefit of children with disabilities. Currently serving in Lebanon, he nevertheless made a surprise appearance and showed up at the concert at the Jerusalem Theater, wearing an army uniform. He had specially come from Lebanon for the occasion, and opened the event, to the delight of many of the beneficiaries who were seated in the VIP rows.

He returned to Lebanon almost immediately after concluding his contribution to the concert, but he did not leave empty-handed. The children plied him with handwritten goodwill messages for the soldiers, and the organizers gave him lots of honey cakes to distribute among his fellow soldiers.. He was also given a gold bracelet for his wife, inscribed with the words “Eshet Hayal” (wife of a soldier), as distinct from the traditional “Eshet Hayil” (woman of valor).

Before leaving, Lipman also sang a duet with Mordechai Shapiro, who was one of the two featured singers. The other was Amir Dadon, who is not religious but was asked to sing “Tzam’ah Nafshi” (My soul thirsts) to one of the favorite Chabad melodies. The song is about the thirst to be with God. Dadon sat down on the floor of the stage and obliged. When one of the youngsters in the audience told Dadon how much he loved his singing, Dadon invited him to join him on the stage, and the two sang together. Needless to say, the whole audience joined in.

Sukkot concerts

■ THERE WERE concerts galore during Sukkot. Among the others was a benefit concert for United Hatzalah at the Jerusalem International Convention Center. Proceeds were earmarked for a thousand protective kits for UH volunteers who work on the front lines of the battlefields.

Considering that the concert was sold out and attended by 3,000 fans of Ishay Ribo, Gad Elbaz and Shmuel, the goal was definitely in sight. The program on the one hand captured the joy of Sukkot, and on the other the sadness that the hostages in Gaza had not yet been released.

Ribo was the opening singer. His powerful performance captivated the audience, whose members visibly connected with him. Relating to the significance of the evening, Ribo stated: “United Hatzalah volunteers are on a mission throughout the year to save other people. It’s a great privilege to take part in an event like this in order to enable them to continue saving more people.”

Throughout the event, United Hatzalah volunteers who saved lives in southern Israel on October 7 were honored onstage, their courage and humanity depicted through videos and live testimonies.

Second in the entertainment lineup was Shmuel, whose vibrant energy and spiritual repertoire brought the crowd to its feet. Commenting on his participation in the event, he said: “United Hatzalah gives so much throughout the year in the moments when we need help the most. I wanted to give back what I could to this organization, which is so important.”

The concert also featured a moving performance by M., a reservist in a special forces unit who became famous after October 7 for his videos in which he sang while masked to protect his identity. His heartfelt rendition reflected the mood of the audience.

Gad Elbaz, clad in a UH vest, closed the evening with a dynamic and electrifying performance that ignited excitement throughout the audience. His passion was palpable as he expressed his feelings about performing at such a crucial time: “Performing for United Hatzalah two days before Simchat Torah, a day that now symbolizes a mix of darkness and light, is extremely significant. It’s a huge privilege to take part in an event during which so many Jews from around the world can feel what the organization’s volunteers did on that day.”

UH founder and president, Eli Beer, in thanking all involved, said: “Your presence shows that even in difficult times, we can find strength in unity. Let’s continue to stand together for our soldiers, our volunteers, and our community.”

It would be more productive if Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah stopped being rivals and implemented the togetherness which both organizations talk about. This week, spokesmen for both organizations put out press releases in which each claimed that its paramedics were the first on the scene following the critical ramming in Glilot in which there were people killed and seriously injured.

Actually, the volunteers in both organizations do cooperate with each other and often work together to save lives or to give emergency treatment in cases of serious injuries. It’s at the top of the totem pole that bitter rivalries are carried out.

Indigenous Embassy

■ “INDIGENOUS” HAS become one of the watchwords of 2024. In February of this year, the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem was inaugurated at the Friends of Zion Museum by the Indigenous Coalition for Jerusalem and the Foreign Ministry.

Since then, representatives of the Indigenous Embassy met with President Herzog this past Monday and subsequently held a Solidarity with Israel march in Jerusalem. They came together again on Tuesday at the Bible Lands Museum for an academic symposium.

Speakers at the symposium included the founder of the Indigenous Coalition, Dr. Sheree Trotter, a Maori from New Zealand who has also been active in researching and fighting antisemitism; Prof. Wayne Horowitz of the Hebrew University, who specializes in archaeology and the ancient Near East, Assyria and Canada; Prof. Ilan Troen, a historian who is an emeritus professor of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Brandeis University; Dr. Izabella Tabarovsky, of the London Center for the Study of Antisemitism; Prof. Gil Troy, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, a historian at McGill University in Canada, and a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute; Dr. Charles Asher Small, the founder and executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy in association with St. Edmunds College at the University of Cambridge; Kunduz Niiazova, originally from Kyrgyzstan and now studying for a PhD at Tel Aviv University, with a focus on East European Jewish culture, as well as empire, nationality, and modernity in Soviet Kyrgyzstan; Jan Safford of the Hebrew University, who is researching the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; Maori history lecturer and author Bradford Haami; Karen Restoule, a senior fellow in Indigenous economy and governance at Canada’s MacDonald-Laurier Institute; Maj. (res.) Shadi Khalloul, an Aramaic Maronite from Kafr Bir’am on the Lebanese border, who was the first Israeli Christian to become a paratrooper in the IDF.

The keynote speaker was the most famous of all, former Soviet dissident and Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky, who after being released from a long term in a Soviet prison arrived in Israel and quickly became the head of a political party, a government minister, chairman of the Jewish Agency, and currently serves as chairman of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.

The symposium, which was an initial step toward full conferences in major academic centers around the world, was conceived in response to the phenomenon that so much antagonism towards Israel, the Jewish people, and Judaism itself emanates from academia. The idea is to hold conferences with academic experts to root out this present scourge.

Indigenous delegation

■ THE DELEGATION that met with Herzog on Monday was led by Trotter and Alfred Ngaro, together with representatives of indigenous peoples from New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Taiwan, and others. They presented the president with a range of symbolic gifts representing their rich and historic cultures and traditions.

Ngaro explained that the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem is a platform for the indigenous of the nations to express their solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. He spoke of the group’s affinity with, and support for, the Jewish people as a people native to its homeland, and its respect for Zionism and the State of Israel as an expression of the deep connection between the people and the land.

Herzog responded that their voice is important, as so many people and institutions around the world sought to erase or deny Jewish history in the Land of Israel.

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