“I would like to tell you how much I and the entire people of Israel are proud of you. What you teach us all is that whoever wants victories also needs to get up after the failures along the way.
“Young people sometimes think that life is easy and quick but do not understand how much effort, persistence, investment and also failures are behind the realization of dreams,” said Bennett.
“I want to stand by you and tell you much I admire you and the spirit that you bring to the public at large and to the young people in Israel. For us, you are a great source of pride.”
Muki has an impressive string of European and Israeli championship titles and medals, but an Olympic medal has somehow eluded him.
■ AFTER SEVERAL failed attempts to become a member of Knesset, nationalist lawyer Itamar Ben-Gvir, who heads Otzma Yehudit, the extreme right-wing party, finally succeeded, only to prove that all those who were opposed to him becoming a legislator were correct. He was ousted from the Knesset plenum after not only refusing to address the deputy speaker in the correct fashion, but also because he displayed the crudest form of racism. The deputy speaker on Monday evening happened to be Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Joint List.
Ben-Gvir refused to address Tibi as “Adoni,” which can be translated as “Sir,” “my Lord” or “my Master” – options that Ben-Gvir was unable to accept under any circumstances, and instead referred to Tibi as a terrorist. Tibi ordered him to leave, and in the end Ben-Gvir had to be dragged from the podium by Knesset ushers, with whom he engaged in a scuffle.
Several MKs have disgraced the Knesset with bad manners and crude remarks, but Ben-Gvir sank to an all-time low. As Tibi himself pointed out, it is the office that must be respected.
It is more than the office. Knesset members should set an example by demonstrating respect for each other even at the height of disagreement. Racism in any form is not to be tolerated, and as the present administration is introducing a series of reforms, perhaps these should include expulsion of any MK who makes a racist remark.
■ THE ISRAEL Museum was really buzzing last Monday night as people in casual clothes made their way to the wine festival, while others in more festive attire attended the bar mitzvah celebration of Uriel Malcha, the son of Hadassah Karin Davidovich and grandson of Mati and Sarah Davidovich. The bar mitzvah invitation was for 7:30 p.m., which according to Jerusalem mean time indicates somewhere between 8 and 8:30. Guests who arrived before then were astounded to discover that the hosts were not yet there. Sarah Davidovich, a well-known society photographer, is notorious for being late, yet nonetheless managing to come up with a good photo story. But to be late to her family celebration when so many of the guests were already present – that was beyond belief.
At 8:30 Mati Davidovich showed up with one of his sons and toured the tables, shaking hands with all and sundry. Sarah arrived 20 minutes later, at which point the reason for her lateness became obvious. She wanted to walk in with Mayor Moshe Lion, his wife, Stavit, Karin and Uriel. They made a grand entrance as if they were an official party, which in a sense they were.
There are many components in the Davidovich family, Sephardi Orthodox, Chabad, Ashkenazi Orthodox and Ashkenazi secular. Because it’s a very close-knit, affectionate family, everyone respects everyone else and accepts them for what they are. The hundreds of guests at the bar mitzvah more or less followed the Davidovich family pattern, and the religiously observant males came together for evening prayers conducted by the bar mitzvah boy.
Sarah Davidovich, who is a personal friend of the mayor and his wife, spoke of the many improvements to the city since Lion took office. As for the guests, many of whom she has known since her youth, she told them that she loves them all and that each and every one has a special place in her heart.
Uriel proved himself to be a talented speaker, and in delivering his bar mitzvah speech spoke of how someone can overcome their character flaws and help others to do the same. He also thanked his mother for the love and devotion she has displayed as a single mom raising him and his siblings.
His mother, in turn, said that he had been aptly named, because he brought so much light and joy into the family. His grandfather Mati Davidovich spoke of how interesting it was to observe Uriel’s transformation from a boy into a man.
Eti Salansky, a rival society photographer, has such a long and close relationship with Sarah Davidovich that she is almost extended family. She played that role to the hilt. An early bird arrival, she sat at a table near the entrance to the banquet area, greeting other guests as they came in and receiving many kisses in the process. She literally held the fort for more than an hour.
Meanwhile there was a steady flow of waiters and waitresses approaching the tables with trays laden with various delicacies, alcoholic beverages and soft drinks.
Spied among the guests were real estate developer Kushi Barashi and his wife, Ruchele; well-known Chabad activist Rabbi Yaakov Globerman; Yiddishpiel CEO Zelig Rabinovitz; Director of the Beit Frankfurter Center for Senior Citizens Sima Zini; Shula Zaken, who headed the office of former prime minister Ehud Olmert; Dr. Zvi Herman Berkowitz, the personal physician to opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and Berkowitz’s wife, Elizabeth, who taught Yair Netanyahu how to play the piano; Avi Bleshnikov, chairman of Hagihon, the water supply company; and Vered Koplovich of the Government Press Office.
Members of the Davidovich family made it their business to keep circulating around the room to approach every table and to greet every guest personally.
The family is very musical and organized music for almost every taste, including North African, Israeli pop, Broadway and hassidic.
■ MANY PEOPLE are mourning the passing of comedian Jackie Mason, who though he did not believe in being politically correct, managed to draw a laugh even from people who were insulted by his comments.
In Jewish tradition, someone who dies on Shabbat or some other Jewish holy day is regarded as a tzaddik – a saintly individual. Mason, who was also an ordained rabbi, died on Shabbat.
Among the people mourning him is Motti Verses, the public relations director of Hilton Hotels in Israel, who wrote: “My heart is broken. Jackie Mason was one of the funniest persons I ever met. The Jewish American stand-up comedian is gone, aged 93. Jackie was ranked among the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time by Comedy Central. I couldn’t stop laughing with him during his last visit a while ago at the Tel Aviv Hilton.” Mason stayed at the Hilton whenever he came to Israel.
■ SHORTLY BEFORE the official opening of the Olympic Games in Tokyo last Friday, businessman and entrepreneur Roni Bornstein, a former chairman of the Israel-Japan Friendship Society and Israel-Japan Chamber of Commerce, who has been doing business with Japan for more than 30 years, launched his book, which he hopes will serve as a guideline to Israeli businesspeople in understanding Japanese culture.
Israelis, he says, are always in a hurry to make a deal. In Japan it doesn’t work that way, but the Japanese are very polite and keep saying “hai,” which means yes, when in fact the answer is no. Getting approval for any business transaction in Japan is a process, which Israelis who want to succeed there must learn, and they must be patient.
The launch was held at the iconic Yakimono Japanese restaurant at the Tel Aviv Hilton, where guests included Japanese Ambassador Koichi Mizushima, former Israel ambassador to the US Michael Oren, who is himself an author, and Gad Propper, the honorary consul for New Zealand, dean of the honorary consuls and a member of several binational chambers of commerce. Propper came with his wife, Etti.
Bernstein is the importer of Kikkoman soy sauce and numerous other Japanese products. Kikkoman was an important ice-breaker in Israel-Japan trade relations. Before that, many Japanese companies were apprehensive about engaging in trade with Israel for fear of an Arab boycott.
Bernstein has been honored by the emperor of Japan, the prime minister and the Japanese Foreign Ministry for his work in promoting and developing relations between Israel and Japan. These honors include the Order of the Rising Sun, which is the third-highest order conferred in Japan. The highest is the Order of the Chrysanthemum, reserved for royalty and heads of state. The next is the Order of the Paulownia Flower, conferred mostly on politicians, while the Order of the Rising Sun is awarded to people who have made distinguished progress in promoting Japanese culture, welfare developments or the environment.
■ WHILE FOREIGN Minister Yair Lapid is permitted to make 11 political appointments when deciding on new ambassadors, one would think that he would choose a career diplomat to serve as Israel’s first ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. Few people would doubt the capabilities of Amir Hayek, but for all that he’s a businessman, not a diplomat. Although official new diplomatic relationships in the region have been credited to Benjamin Netanyahu at the time that he was prime minister, much of the spadework below the radar was done by diplomats, who deserve recognition.
Lapid should be particularly cautious, given the fact that a large sector of the public can still not come to terms with the fact that a political leader whose party won only six Knesset seats became prime minister, nor is it happy about the surfeit of ministers, which is not just a matter of the Norwegian Law, but a way of providing jobs for the boys, in that people who didn’t make it to the Knesset in the last election are now getting in by virtue of the Norwegian Law.
And then there’s that episode of political extortion that has enabled Eli Avidar to become a minister-without-portfolio, with a promise that he will take over the Intelligence portfolio of Elazar Stern, if the latter becomes the new chairman of the Jewish Agency in October. Although Stern is currently the front-runner for the position, what happens if he doesn’t get it? A lot can happen between July and October. Will Avidar again threaten not to vote with the coalition?
■ GOOD NEWS for Australian expats who thought that Vegemite was unavailable in Israel. Jerusalemite Mary Leibler, who read in a recent Grapevine about Vegemite becoming a luxury product in Israel at NIS 50 a jar at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, says that at Super Hamoshava in Jerusalem, it is available for NIS 41.90 a jar, and at Meatland in Ra’anana, it costs NIS 45 for a jar.
Conceding that all these prices are somewhat steep, Leibler notes that not everyone has someone coming from Australia who can bring a supply in their luggage, nor do they have the luxury of being able to travel to Australia at this time and bring several jars back with them. She is now thinking that she may replace wine, flowers or chocolates with Vegemite to take as a gift when invited to dinner by Ozzie friends.
■ THERE WAS certainly evidence of evenhandedness at the President’s Residence on Sunday. During the day, President Isaac Herzog held a working meeting with Netanyahu, and in the evening Herzog and his wife, Michal, hosted Bennett and his wife, Gilat, in the dining room of their private living quarters at the President’s Residence. Just a cozy dinner for four, and much more enjoyable for the Bennetts than the demonstrations outside their home in Ra’anana by anti- vaxers who say they don’t want to be guinea pigs. Surely, they must realize that we’re long past the guinea pig stage, and that literally millions of Israelis have already been vaccinated, and only a few people have suffered negative reactions.
Although both Herzog and Bennett are generally very stringent about the wearing of masks, apparently the rule does not extend to private dinners or breakfast, which the two have also enjoyed together.
■ HOTELIERS ARE complaining about the difficulties of getting staff to come back to work or of hiring new staff. While it’s true that many people are reluctant to do menial hotel work, there are those who are interested in hotel management. To enable them to gain hands-on experience, the Israel Scholarship Education Foundation and the upscale Norman Hotel in Tel Aviv have reached an agreement whereby hotel management students who have received ISEF scholarships will be accompanied and mentored by hotel senior employees throughout the study period, with the aim of integrating them with the hotel staff after graduation. Barhan Warken, an ISEF student, will be the first to be part of the joint activity.
“Recruiting quality staff for the hotel industry in Israel is a challenging issue, so we are happy for the opportunity to collaborate with talented young people, provide them with practical tools and help them to break boundaries,” said Norman Hotel CEO Yaron Lieberman.
ISEF Vice President Galit Caspi-Cohen emphasizes that the foundation works to reduce social disparities in Israel by helping promising young people from the periphery. “The joint activity with the Norman Hotel is an example of how the foundation enables students to excel through higher education. It also gives them opportunities to enter key positions in the industry after graduation,” she said.
■ READERS OF newspapers and magazines often wonder about the person behind the byline, but rarely get the opportunity to meet that person. This week, they got two for the price of one. Actually, they didn’t have to pay at all, unless they purchased a copy of the latest book by Jerusalem Post Senior Middle East Correspondent and Middle East affairs analyst Seth J. Frantzman, Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future, published by Simon & Schuster. For the launch at the Begin Heritage Center, Frantzman brought along Anna Ahronheim, the Post’s military and defense correspondent.
The two discussed the way drones are transforming warfare through artificial intelligence, which to a large extent will reduce the number of casualties, depending on whether one side in the conflict is a terrorist militia. Either way, technology is changing the nature of war, but as Ahronheim remarked, no one ever really wins a war, though each side may claim to.
The two also spoke of technology trafficking to terrorists by Iran, and the ever-increasing use of drones, which will result in significantly reduced need for manpower. For all that, Ahronheim said, it will be a long time before an unmanned combat plane will be put in the air. Frantzman commented that combat pilots are not very happy with the thought that they may one day be replaced by artificial intelligence.
■ IN THE continuing Ben & Jerry’s saga, in which the Israeli-American Council flew a banner over the Ben & Jerry’s factory and global headquarters in South Burlington reading “Serve ice cream, not hate,” and issued a statement in which it declared that the decision not to sell ice cream to a certain Israeli population “is a disgraceful surrender to the BDS hate movement.”
Jews are not the only ones boycotting B&J in response to the decision. Leading Evangelist Laurie Cardoza-Moore – quoting the biblical text, “I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8) – has urged all her followers of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations to redirect their shopping cards and food shopping dollars.
”Hatred comes in an ice cream carton,” she stated as she promised to stand with Israel and push back this injustice.
■ ON THE other hand, there are Israelis who wholeheartedly approve of the B&J decision. In a full-page ad in Haaretz on Tuesday, former Meretz leaders Haim Oron and Zehava Gal-On, former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, former director-general of the Foreign Ministry Alon Liel, as well former MKs Roman Bronfman, Tzali Reshef and Naomi Chazan are among close to 100 signatories to an open letter addressed to “Dear Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield,” stating: “We wanted you to know that in Israel there are also other opinions. Thank you for your commitment to the human rights of the Palestinians.”
Actually, founders Cohen and Greenfield do not hold any board or management position and are not involved in day-to-day management of the company.
■ IT’S NOT exactly breaking the glass ceiling, but at the same time it has not yet become the norm in Israel, certainly not in Jerusalem, for a woman to head an Orthodox synagogue board.
While the capital’s Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue is in the category of Modern Orthodox, it still observes strict rules about women upstairs and men downstairs, and nearly all married women, including widows, cover their hair during services, though many are bareheaded the rest of the time.
For all that, it’s not every day that a woman is unanimously elected to the board of an Orthodox congregation, and kudos therefore go to those who elected her, and to Marsha Wachsman, who inspired such confidence.
■ OUTGOING SWISS Ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch is so popular with the Israel-Switzerland Chamber of Commerce, that its members wanted to ensure that he would return to visit from time to time.
So they planted a grove of trees in his name in a Jewish National Fund forest, and at a farewell function that they held in his honor presented him with the tree certificate. “Now you have a good reason to come back and visit,” said chamber president Gideon Hamburger, noting that Ruch would surely be interested in the progress of his trees.
Ruch was visibly moved by the gift, and the knowledge that his name is linked in perpetuity with Israel.
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