Grapevine October 27, 2024: Perpetuating a name

There are many ways to commemorate a loved one or a great friend, or simply an outstanding writer or a military hero. The idea in all these cases is that the name of the deceased should be perpetuated to more than just an inscription on the headstone of a grave.

Among the heroes who fell in battle on October 7 were Col. Assaf Hamami and Yossi Tahar, who each fought to defend the home front and the homeland.

Hamami was the commander of the IDF Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade. He was killed while fighting Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Nirim.

Tahar was a member of an elite squad in the Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency. When news of the Hamas infiltration was broadcast, he immediately took a small combat team and headed south. He was killed in the fighting at the entrance to Kibbutz Mefalsim.

To honor their memories, Prof. Ron Shapira and Haim Taib established a scholarship fund in their names.

The scholarships were established as part of a leadership initiative program that was introduced at the Peres Academic Center by PAC and the Menumadin Foundation in conjunction with Harvard University, with the aim of recognizing and encouraging potential leaders and managers. Students of the course will be provided with the tools that will enable them to bring about positive change in the public sector.

In addition to addresses by PAC Rector Shapira and Taib, who is the founder and chairman of Menumadin, there were addresses by PAC founder and leader Ofra Elul; Ilan Hamami the father of Assaf Hamami, who chairs the Assaf Hamami Fund; Elihu Tahar the father of Yossi Tahar; and Rehovot Mayor Matan Dil.

■ THE GRAVITY of the military, security and economic situation over the past year has prompted some philanthropic groups and organizations to change direction in their support for various organizations, institutions and projects. Among those who continue to direct their funding to areas which they previously supported, while adding new causes, is the Industrial Cooperation Authority – ICA Israel, better known as JCA. 

Despite the tensions raging over the Upper Galilee, the Northern Research and Development Institute decided to host ICA Israel’s incoming CEO Avinoam HaLevy, and his COO Nitsan Inbar Tal, and took them on a working tour of the Hula Valley Orchards Experimental Farm. 

They also went to the Zemach Research Farm, where they were introduced to research projects ear-marked for implementation in efforts to advance both the quality and quantity of agricultural output. They met with researchers who explained what they were doing, and who told them that the work never ceased despite the intense military activity in the area.

Halevy, a reserves officer in the IDF, comes from a farming family, and was very interested in learning about the challenges confronting the researchers during the war.

ICA Israel has a very long relationship with agricultural research in the North of the country, particularly the peripheral areas.

Haya Rak Yahalom who heads Northern R&D, voiced her appreciation for ICA’s ongoing support and for its willingness to provide shelters on farmland.

ICA was founded in 1891 by Baron Maurice de Hirsch.

Studying antisemitism

■ ISRAELIS ARE well aware that the late Prof. Yehuda Bauer was one of the world’s foremost experts on antisemitism. Although his reputation was well known internationally, and he had traveled abroad extensively, it could not be taken for granted that the respect he earned at home would be mirrored in other countries. But in Poland, where the Nazis carried out the most and the worst of their crimes, Bauer was highly respected. 

Thus it came as no surprise that his funeral last week was attended by Polish Ambassador designate Maciej Hunia, who is taking up his post after a three-year hiatus in which the embassy was headed by a charge d’affaires.

Krakow-born Hunia, 63, who paid a brief visit to Israel in September, returned on the eve of Yom Kippur to take his place as the head of the Polish diplomatic mission. According to an announcement by the Polish Embassy, he will work to strengthen Polish-Israel relations, which have deteriorated in recent years. Hunia was congratulated by Israel’s ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne who took up his post on February 28, 2022.

Both countries recalled their ambassadors in 2021. Although Poland announced around that time that it was appointing an ambassador to Israel, there was a lot of foot-dragging before the announcement became a reality.

Hunia, who was head of military intelligence and foreign intelligence prior to arriving in Israel, made a video of Krakow including the Jewish Quarter, and took viewers on a virtual tour of his birthplace.

■ SOME MEMBERS of the Swiss Community in Israel, among them, Doris Helbut, who lives in Shoresh, are among the regulars on the guest list of the Swiss Embassy and other institutions with which the embassy is in contact. During the intermediate days of Sukkot, she was among the guests who gathered in the impressive sukkah of Irene and Eli Pollak-Rein in Jerusalem. Irene Pollak heads the German-speaking branch of the Jerusalem Foundation.

In addition to the usual reasons for inviting people to the sukkah, this was also a welcome event for Switzerland’s relatively new ambassador to Israel, Dr. Simon Geissbühler, who came with his wife and son. The family arrived in Israel just over two months ago.

Following introductory remarks by Irene Pollak, the ambassador introduced himself and proved to be a fascinating personality with a rich historical background. As a youngster, he had read a book of short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer that left a lasting impression on him, opening his mind to the life and literature of Jews in Eastern Europe. 

His interest served him well when he was stationed at the Swiss Embassy in Bucharest from where he explored the history before and during the Holocaust of the Jews in Romania and neighboring Ukraine, where his wife was born. He published books about his findings in Jewish cemeteries and about lesser known tragic events that had befallen the Jews of Romania during the sad and tragic 1940s. His next posting was in Poland, where he renewed his earlier interest in the Jewish Shtetl as described by Bashevis Singer, and used the opportunity to research the subject.

With such a background, it is quite understandable that he was posted to Israel at his explicit request. With a good knowledge of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish history of Eastern Europe, it will be easier for him to adapt than for some of his colleagues from other countries. Helbut is certain of this.

■ AMERICA’S POSSIBLE second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, who is helping his wife Vice President Kamala Harris in her quest to become the first woman president of the US, wonders how Jewish Americans can support former president Donald Trump. Speaking to Jewish voters in Michigan last Sunday, Emhoff pointed out that Trump repeatedly allowed himself to engage in antisemitic tropes. In addition, in 2022, he had dinner with notorious Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes – and has said that Jews would be largely to blame if he loses the election. Emhoff charged Trump with fomenting antisemitism wherever he goes. “He doesn’t care about us,” said Emhoff.

■ THERE WAS a time when the Democrats could more or less rely on the Jewish vote. Now it’s not so certain given the influence of the “Squad,” who hold a lot of sway in the Democratic Party. This despite the fact that there’s no shortage of antisemitism among Republicans. But then Rahm Emanuel, the Jewish former mayor of Chicago and current US ambassador to Japan, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria last week that just doing something blindly is not being a friend.

Telling the truth is being a friend, he said. The reference was to President Joe Biden’s criticism of certain Israeli policies, instead of giving them the green light.

Emanuel, like Emhoff, was critical of Trump’s repeated antisemitic remarks, his accusing Jews of dual loyalties and his warning that Israel would cease to exist if Harris becomes president. As for his recorded video in which he sought the vote of Americans living in Israel, Trump said of Democrats: “The other side doesn’t even like you.”

Trump supporters try to counter charges that he is antisemitic by issuing reminders that he has a Jewish daughter, a Jewish son-in-law and Jewish grandchildren. Moreover, on a professional and political level, he has surrounded himself with Jews. So, for that matter, has Biden.

Of course that doesn’t really mean anything. Richard Nixon was notoriously antisemitic, but Henry Kissinger was his trusted Secretary of State; and when push came to shove and Golda Meir turned up with her shopping list, Nixon delivered.

Likewise, there are those who accuse Barack Obama of being pro-Palestinian. Maybe he is – who knows? But without Obama, Israel would not have the Iron Dome. Go figure.

■ WHILE ON the subject of past, present and future presidents of the United States, former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has written a new memoir. Citizen: My Life After the White House will be officially released at New York’s famed off-Broadway Beacon Theater on November 19, where Clinton will engage in conversation with members of a VIP audience.

As the book records episodes in his life after leaving the White House, there is unlikely to be any reference to Monica Lewinsky, with whom he conducted a scandalous affair – which, surprisingly, did not end in divorce from his wife, Hillary Clinton; Trump defeated her in 2016.

■ THE SECURITY situation in the North of the country has left people who have stayed there or returned despite the dangers, with far fewer services and supplies. Most crucially affected are babies for whom baby foods and other vital necessities are in short supply, if available at all. 

To counteract this crisis, the Social Bank for Baby Food, under the administration of the NGO Social Responsibility and Giving Wholeheartedly, founded by Meir Sadeh, has organized an emergency campaign for the provision of baby food and other much needed things for infants. After October 7, the Social Bank set up an emergency unit for families in the South and has now expanded its activities in the North. 

Sadeh has met with local and regional council heads to discuss distribution. Among them were Kiryat Shmona Mayor Avihay Shteren and Safed Mayor Yossi Kakon, along with several others. The agreement reached was that 400 care packages of baby food and other necessities would be delivered monthly to families that need them.