Grapevine November 10, 2024: Flawed analysis

Political pundits and journalists who in the period leading up to the US elections kept saying that it was a tight race that could go either way were completely off the mark. Once it was known that Donald Trump had scored a decisive victory, the pundits began analyzing why Kamala Harris had not met expectations. Among the theories was that she was much more lenient on immigration than Trump. Another was that America is not yet ready for a female president, especially a woman of color. Another factor may have been that given the vicious antisemitism pervading America, voters did not want to see a Jew as first gentleman in the White House. If Harris had been married to a non-Jew, she might have fared better. But the most obvious reason is that she really did not have enough time to prepare her campaign. Trump had been preparing for his for four years, and the two assassination attempts on his life certainly helped in winning the hearts of the American public.

Another winning point for Trump was his antagonism toward immigrants. He seems to have forgotten that his mother came from Scotland and that his paternal grandparents were from Germany.

Anti-Zionist pro-Palestinians who held demonstrations on Election Day and accused Israel of illegal occupation, together with white supremacists, overlook the fact that America is a conquered and occupied continent whose First Nation was not and is not white.

■ WHEN HE initially founded Adopt-a-Safta, social entrepreneur Jay M. Shultz was thinking of elderly Holocaust survivors who either had no family or lived far away from immediate relatives and seldom saw them.

The idea was to get young people to pay a weekly visit to a surrogate grandparent for a period of at least a year. They could play board games together, go shopping, tend to gardens, and do various other activities. The number of Holocaust survivors is gradually decreasing, but the number of lonely senior citizens is increasing. While still mindful of Holocaust survivors, Shultz has switched gears and is now promoting Adopt-a-Safta Mizrachi Project.

Adopt-a-Safta is committed to caring for every lonely senior across Israel, he says. “We are launching a new program focusing on the needs of isolated elderly with Mizrachi backgrounds.” It is not exclusive, and actually seniors from anywhere can be adopted by young people. There’s one catch. Every volunteer must be fluent in conversational Hebrew. Of course, it helps if volunteers speak other languages as well, particularly because older people who grew up in other countries prefer to speak the language of their youth. For someone who has no one, a young person turning up for an hour once a week is like a ray of sunshine. In many cases, close relationships have been formed as the young volunteers became fascinated by stories of another era and another world. Likewise, the seniors love to hear what’s happening in the lives of the young people who visit them. There’s another bonus for the volunteers. If something goes awry in their studies, their careers, or their romances, they can share their frustrations and sorrows with their “saftas” and ask for advice. Sometimes they can tell them things that they would be reluctant to discuss with their biological families.

Shultz would like to cover the whole of Israel but does not have the resources. So far the project is active in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Holon, Bat Yam, Givat Shmuel, Ramat Hasharon, Rehovot, Rishon Lezion, and Petah Tikva.

■ ALSO CHANGING gears with the aim of expanding, is AACI (the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel) which at its Zoom Annual General Meeting on Monday, November 11, will approve changes to its constitution. Up until now, AACI has provided programs, projects, and help for Israel’s English-speaking community. Now, it wants to help the general population and engage people whose native language is not English in AACI activities.

An upcoming AACI activity in which most of the main participants are native English speakers is the 3rd Jerusalem Business Conference that will be held at the Nefesh B’Nefesh campus in the Cinema City complex on Monday, November 18, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. The theme is Shaping Tomorrow: Elevating and Optimizing Today’s Opportunities. Throughout the day there will be 20-minute impact sessions, round table speed networking, and numerous attractions. Among the keynote speakers are hi-tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Izhar Shay, Israel’s special trade and innovation, envoy and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, director of Jerusalem Diesenhaus Group Mark Feldman, plus a bunch of other people with diverse careers and success stories.

■ THE SCREAMING sessions and hurling of insults in the Knesset, at demonstrations, at sports rallies, and in the classroom set a very bad example for the young generation. This kind of social interaction is becoming the norm. President Isaac Herzog finds it so disturbing that he is working with various groups, including youth, to try to persuade people to be more civil to each other. Before leaving for the United States, in conjunction with the Israel Association of Community Centers and the Youth Administration division in the Ministry of Education, Herzog hosted a large meeting for youth from different parts of the country. The young people came with inspiring initiatives for an integrated, multi-faith, multi-ethnic society with a strong sense of acceptance and understanding of the other.

Among the initiatives already in operation is a music center called Volume in which youth from Kiryat Malachi and Gush Etzion have come together and recorded a song which loosely translated means “It’s no big deal,” intended as an incentive to change the way young people speak to each other. Music, they said, was a bridge to bring them together and to join in creating the impossible.

Herzog said that although this past year has been very difficult, the challenges it has presented have brought out amazing talents that many people had not realized they possessed.

Tal Basechess, CEO of IACC, said that the initiatives conceived by the young people were proof of their power to bring about change.

■ NEW IMMIGRANTS are among the students enrolled at most of Israel’s institutes of higher education for the 2024-2025 academic year. At Bar Ilan University (BIU) the number is 500, which is quite high, and some of these immigrants are currently serving in the army as reservists. Last week, while many Israelis were following news reports related to the American elections, Aliya and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer met with some of the immigrant students at BIU’s orientation day and disclosed that, according to data compiled by his ministry, 500 additional immigrant students have asked to be enrolled at BIU. This is double the enrollment of the year preceding the war.

“Aliyah is a strategic asset for the State of Israel,” said Sofer. “Through these programs, we guarantee that new immigrants will be able to integrate into Israeli academia in an optimal way while studying and coping with the language challenge. Anyone who immigrates to Israel now and encourages others to do so sends a message to our enemies that we are one people. This year, we opened 27 programs intended for new immigrants, and we’ve set a goal to increase this number to 90.”

“The fact that Bar-Ilan is a university that absorbs immigrants is a source of pride for us,” said BIU CEO and deputy president Zohar Yinon at the orientation event on campus. “Immigrant students from all over the world come to Israel and see our campus as a second home,” he added, promising to continue accepting new immigrants alongside students from 52 countries currently studying at BIU.

This year BIU’s International School, headed by its vice president for International Affairs Prof. Rivka Tuval-Mashiach, launched three new bilingual undergraduate programs: BSc in Computer Science, BSc in Life Sciences (Pre-Med), and Bachelor of Laws (LLB). These programs begin with a foundation year of courses taught entirely in English. Students simultaneously study in an intensive ulpan which will enable them to gain enough knowledge of Hebrew to study with other Israeli students from their second year.

A panel discussion

During a panel discussion Sammy Garfinkel, a 19-year-old new immigrant from London, said he couldn’t find any math degree program in Israel taught in English, so he decided to study computer science, which incorporates lots of mathematical content. “Bar-Ilan University was the only university that checked all the boxes: it offered the subject I wanted to study, intensive ulpan allowing me to integrate into my studies and society, and studies in English, so it is very well rounded in that way,” said Garfinkel.

The panel discussion, which included Garfinkel and five additional new immigrant students, focused on their decision to make aliyah, to study at Bar-Ilan, and how they are integrating into university life so far. Participants included 22-year-old Anna Topolyanskiy, who immigrated from Philadelphia and is majoring in life sciences; 33-year-old Elena Kravtsova, an accomplished lawyer who gave up her successful career in St. Petersburg, Russia to move to Israel and is a student in the International MBA Program while also studying cyber security; Shani Gittler Geluda from Mexico City is a student in the Mechina (Preparatory) Program for new immigrants and intends to study systems engineering and business administration; 24-year-old Yitzhak Ginsburg, from Belarus, is studying for a bachelor’s degree in math; and Leah Elkin, originally from Los Angeles, is studying law.

■ PAUKER WINERY is a new addition to Israel’s thriving industry of quality wines in which boutique wineries work side by side with major brands such as Carmel, Binyamina, Feferberg, Recanati, and others, whose executive personnel gathered in Jaffa for the launch of the newcomer in their midst. Pauker wine began as the homemade brew of Gideon Pauker on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Pauker, a farmer who was fond of wine, was murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. He had studied wine-making for years, and with the help of friends Haim Peri and Yoram Metzger who were kidnapped by Islamic Jihad and taken to Gaza, had created a domestic winery on the kibbutz.

Another friend, Haim Gan, the CEO of the Ish Ha’anavim (The Grape Man) company, put together a crew to save the domestic winery on Kibbutz Nir Oz and also trained Gal Pauker, who is Gideon Pauker’s grandson. The new Pauker vineyard grapes are grown on Hevel Eshkol. At the launch of the new winery, Haim Gan said that it had become a reality due to a combination of Israeli stubbornness, talent, passion, and know-how. In addition to wine industry personalities, the launch was attended by Japanese ambassador Arai Yusuke and Sri Lankan ambassador Nimal Bandara.