Grapevine December 22, 2024: 100 plus and still counting

Numerous Technion-Israel Institute of Technology alumni and leading figures in Israeli industries joined Technion president Prof. Uri Sivan for the premiere screening of a milestone documentary film celebrating 100 years of the institute: Technion 10², directed by Uri Rosenwaks.

The screening, held at the Taub Faculty of Computer Science on the Technion’s Mount Carmel campus, was attended by former science and technology minister and hi-tech entrepreneur Izhar Shay; Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav; Intel Israel CEO Karin Eibschitz-Segal; Insightec CEO Dr. Kobi Vortman; former Intel Israel CEO Rafi Nave; Alpha Omega founders Reem and Imad Younis; celebrity hi-tech entrepreneur Dr. Yossi Vardi; former Applied Materials Israel CEO Dan Vilenski; Amazon AWS R&D center manager Bilic (Billy) Hrvoje; Technion Board of Governors chairman Gideon Frank; and entrepreneur and former Intel Worldwide vice president Dadi Perlmutter.

Former Technion presidents, members of the management, Board of Governors members, film participants, and other well-known figures also attended. The distinguished gathering represented just a fraction of the key contributors to Israel’s technological, scientific, and economic development but certainly enough to illustrate Israel’s brainpower.

A century of Yeshiva University

■ THIS SEEMS to be a period for celebrating 100th anniversaries.

Yeshiva University last week celebrated the 100th anniversary of its annual Hanukkah Dinner with a record-breaking achievement, raising over $100 million in donations.

This milestone propels YU’s Capital Campaign to $520 million as it nears its ambitious $613 million target. If this seems to be a strange sum, it simply aligns with the 613 commandments in the Bible – a million dollars for each commandment.

The landmark NYC event, attended by over 500 supporters, honored families central to YU’s 138-year history and emphasized the critical need for scholarships to support the next generation of Jewish leaders.

The dinner began with an unexpected announcement by dinner co-chair Daniel Loeb of an extra $1 million gift toward the campaign.

Additional gifts included a $6 million contribution from Chella Safra and her family – $1 million for student scholarships and $5 million to endow a new university professorship; and a $5 million endowment from Bill Ackman.

An $11 million donation from Moshael and Zahava Straus was announced to expand and enhance YU’s distinguished scholars program, the Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, and $15 million from the Morris Bailey and Joseph Jerome families to support the launch of YU’s new College of Dental Medicine.

One of several surprises at the dinner was a transformative $36 million gift from the Wilf family, whose charitable imprint can also be seen in many projects in Israel.

Together, these contributions demonstrate the incredible power of philanthropy to further Yeshiva University’s mission of nurturing Jewish leadership and influence, bringing the total to over $100 million raised since the campaign’s kickoff.

This resulted in the most successful Hanukkah Dinner Campaign in YU’s history, said YU president Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, adding, “Hanukkah illuminates the idea that the seeds of redemption are sown in darkness. For over 100 years, Yeshiva University has been a beacon of light, rooted in academic excellence and a values-based education. Tonight, we celebrate the unwavering dedication of those who make this vision possible and the promise of a brighter tomorrow for us all.”

Hanukkah across the world

■ MANY HANUKKAH celebrations in Israel are little more than the raising of a toast plus an offering of classical jam-filled donuts. One of the Hanukkah celebrations at The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation involves the launch of a book by popular composer and conductor Kobi Oshrat at 5 p.m. on Sunday, December 29.

As an interesting start to 2025, Friends of the Peres Center will be given a look at some of the latest developments of Israel Aerospace Industries on Monday, January 6.

IAI, formerly Israel Aircraft Industries, was originally founded as Bedek Aviation Company. It came into being in 1953 at the initiative of Shimon Peres, who, in his own words, dared to dream. At the time, the state was only five years old. With all its difficulties, challenges, and internal turmoil, who would have imagined that it would achieve what it has in just over 70 years?

Flights from Zambia

■ DURING THE long period in which most foreign airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel, Israeli airlines have continued to provide services out of and into the country, transporting not only business people, new immigrants, solidarity groups, and even tourists, but also foreign students and workers.

For the first time in its history, Arkia recently landed in Zambia for the purpose of bringing 130 Zambian agricultural students to Israel. The students, who arrived in Ramat HaNegev to study practical agriculture, will work on farms and in orchards as they learn. This is a win-win situation for the Zambian student and the Israeli farmer. After 11 months in the Ramat HaNegev region, the students will return to Zambia and put what they have learned to use.

The flight from Israel was not empty. Among the passengers were physicians from Save a Child’s Heart, who examined Zambian children with heart complaints and treated those who could be treated in Zambia and arranged for others to be brought to Israel with one of their parents. The plane’s cargo included many tons of humanitarian aid.

“There is no destination too far away for us,” said Arkia CEO Oz Berlowitz. He added that the company was honored to be part of aid projects that enable underdeveloped countries to advance by helping provide opportunities for their students and enabling sick children to come to Israel for surgeries that will give them the ability to live a normal life in which they can engage in all the physical activities common to childhood.

The initiative for bringing the students to Israel during wartime as a mutual aid project, in which Israel aids their agricultural know-how and they aid Israel’s farmers, can be credited to Israel’s ambassador to Zambia, Ofra Farhi. In addition to being ambassador to Zambia, Farhi is also accredited to Namibia and Botswana. She was previously ambassador to Zimbabwe.

Chabad holiday: Yud Tet Kislev

■ AS PREVIOUSLY mentioned in this column, Chabadniks around the world last week celebrated Yud Tet Kislev, the anniversary of the release from a Czarist prison of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, who was the founder of Chabad.

But there was cause for the family of a latter-day Shneor to celebrate a couple of days before Yud Tet Kislev. Rabbi Yisroel and Shoshi Goldberg, the directors of Chabad of Rechavia, one of the many Chabad centers in Jerusalem, celebrated the engagement of their son Shneor to Mushky Chaviv, the daughter of Rabbi Mendy and Malky Chaviv of Kfar Chabad.

Rabbi Goldberg, who is a born diplomat, has succeeded in getting the use of premises of other non-Chabad congregations whenever his own premises are too small for a particular event. On this occasion, it was the Beit Knesset Hanassi, which is a hop, skip, and a jump from his own center. There are more than a dozen synagogues within three blocks on all sides of Chabad of Rechavia, so Goldberg has plenty of choices when the next of his many children get engaged.

Most of the catering for the event was the work of Shoshi Goldberg. Catering is an art that wives of Chabad directors either learn in their mothers’ kitchens or acquire along the way.

Even the large entrance hall of the Hanassi synagogue was too small to accommodate all the guests at the gender-segregated sit-down meal, as people kept coming long after the stated time on the invitation, with many bringing young children.

Ahmadiyya community in Israel

■ THE CONSTANTLY growing library of President Isaac Herzog recently received a new Hebrew translation of the Quran. In presenting it to the president, Emir Muhammad Sharif Odeh, the head of the Ahmadiyya community in Israel, said he hoped more non-Muslims would read it and learn about the Muslim faith. The new translation includes Ahmadiyya commentaries. Ahmadiyya is the messianic movement within Islam. One of its tenets is not to transgress the law of the state in which its members reside.

Everyday Heroes

■ WHEN WE speak of heroes, it’s usually in the physical context of people fighting in an army, entering a burning building to rescue occupants, diving into a river to rescue a drowning person, or neutralizing a terrorist. But there are other forms of heroism. Presumably, not much thought is given to entertainers or journalists of the non-Jewish media who publicly side with Israel. Some actually risk their careers to do so.

One such hero is Mayer Malik, an American-Israeli musician who just released a viral single about Yahya Sinwar’s elimination, which has been performed for the actual IDF unit that carried out the operation.In the process, Malik lost thousands of followers for his pro-Israel advocacy. But on a more positive note, he has raised a million dollars for soldiers’ protective equipment.

Syrian-born activist Rawan Osman, who lives as a refugee in Germany, will address members of the Tel Aviv International Salon on December 26 at The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, where she will talk about the chaos in Syria and what the future may bring. To register for entry to the event: syria.eventbrite.com.

INFORMATION ABOUT the firebombed Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne continues to mount. Tovah Teitelbaum’s father, Jonas Eckstein, was one of the founders of the congregation and rescued not only human beings but also holy objects during the Holocaust and brought a Torah scroll with him from his native Czechoslovakia.

Teitelbaum, who lives in Haifa, has learned that although several Torah scrolls were ruined in the fire or were water-damaged when firefighters were putting out the blaze, one of the scrolls that were saved was the one her father rescued during the Holocaust. 

She is amazed by this modern miracle of a Torah scroll being twice saved from destruction in places so geographically distant from each other.

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