Grapevine: Enchanting cantors & choir

The singing at the Great Synagogue services is always inspiring, but it promises to be especially so this Friday night and Saturday morning when cantor Zvi Weiss will be joined by cantor Shai Abramson and Rafi Bitton with the Voices from Heaven, Jerusalem.

Abramson is no stranger to the Great Synagogue. He sang in the synagogue choir when he was a boy and continued to sing solo and with the choir as an adult. His repertoire includes opera, Broadway classics, and more.

The service will include prayers for the return of the hostages and for the safety of the soldiers.

Hard times for Giuliani

■ BEN YEHUDA Street has been the scene of more than one terrorist attack as have nearby sections of Jaffa Road, with minimal visual reminders of what took place at any particular site. But in the last week of November, the municipality put up a printed sign in Hebrew and English on a small metal lectern adjacent to a slim tree on a corner of the mall, close to Jaffa Road.

The sign is on paper, and within days the corners were already torn. While the text did fit in with the 23rd anniversary of a terrorist attack, it seemed strange.

Why? Firstly, because it was not engraved; secondly, it did not contain the names of the victims; and thirdly, it was put up at a time when one of the three people who planted the tree is currently on trial in the US, fighting to salvage a besmirched reputation.

The text in English reads: “This tree was planted by the Mayor of New York Rudolph W. Giuliani, Governor of New York State George Pataki, and Mayor-elect of New York City Michael Bloomberg on Sunday, 24 Kislev 5762, December 9, 2001 in memory of victims of the terrorist attack at the Ben Yehuda Midrachov Saturday night, 4 Kislev 5762, December 1, 2001.”

The man fighting to save his good name is Giuliani, whose previous positions also included that of associate attorney-general.

It has been a bad year for Giuliani. He was disbarred as a lawyer, was charged with defamation and ordered to pay the two victims $148 million, lost his car, lost his apartment, lost his appeal for a delay in his trial so that he could attend Donald Trump’s inauguration, lost his lawyers, and to top it off, he can’t pay his bills.

An emotional post-Six Day War tradition

■ AN EMOTION-LADEN tradition initiated in 1967 following the triumphant victory in the Six Day War will continue this year. Families of fallen soldiers will procure oil refined from olives harvested from 182 trees planted on Ammunition Hill after the war, in memory of the soldiers who fought and died there, which will be taken to soldiers on the northern and southern front lines of the current conflicts.

There are scores of olive trees planted on and around the memorial site in northern Jerusalem, says Alon Wald, a member of the Ammunition Hill Administration. For decades, their fruit fell to the ground, remained untouched, and went to waste. Now they serve as a morale booster.

Bad timing by the Jerusalem Municipality

■ BAD TIMING appears to be a trait of the Jerusalem Municipality. When Mayor Moshe Lion proposed the creation of a monument to Jerusalem’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror, the proposal won approval all around, and last September an official unveiling ceremony was held with the participation of President Isaac Herzog. At that time, it could not be anticipated how many more Jerusalemites would pay the supreme sacrifice, leaving parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, and children to mourn.

The unveiling of the monument was a ceremonial affair, and families of fallen soldiers were invited. But there are no ceremonies when names are added. Are those soldiers who fell later in action worth any less than their comrades in arms who fell before them?

Hopefully, when at long last the war is over, the mayor will have another ceremony at which the names of all the fallen and victims of terrorism will be read out in the presence of their families, and the heroes and martyrs will receive the recognition they deserve.

Christmas concert in Abu Ghosh

■ CHRISTMAS AND Hanukkah coincide this year. As happens every year, there will be many beautiful services and concerts in churches around the country on Christmas Eve. One event that unfailingly attracts a large attendance is the Christmas concert in Abu Ghosh.

This year it will be part of a Baroque Festival, beginning in Haifa on December 24, then Tel Aviv on the 25th, Kfar Shmaryahu on the 26th, then back in Tel Aviv on the 27th, concluding in Abu Ghosh’s Kiryat Ye’arim Church on December 28. The last concert in the series will be at 12 noon.

To purchase tickets, telephone (09) 885-1521.

Jerusalem Foundation to get new president

■ AS OF next month, the word is out that The Jerusalem Foundation – which has been without a leader since the sudden death in July of Shai Doron – will have a new president in the person of third-generation Jerusalem businessman Arik Grabelski.

Together with his brother, Grabelski owns a masonry. Their grandfather opened the first factory in Israel that processed Jerusalem stone. The incoming president has been involved with various local and national social welfare organizations and projects.

With the exception of Jerusalem Foundation founder Teddy Kollek, nearly all the presidents of the Jerusalem Foundation have been native Jerusalemites, whereas the opposite is true of the city’s mayors, with Nir Barkat as the notable exception.

greerfc@gmail.com