Soviet Union

2024-04-28

During four days in late April 1994, exactly 30 years ago, an awed world watched the first democratic elections in South Africa. The transformation occurred after the white regime realized that it could no longer maintain . One can debate what contributed more: strategic changes in the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which decreased South Africa’s importance to the West, or growing international sanctions. It is also possible to debate how reached its current crises regarding inequality, unemployment, crime, and so on.  But I will focus on lessons that contemporary Israel can learn from that change in South Africa. While we are “a step from total victory” in Gaza, to quote the prime minister, it is necessary to look at the territories Israel has controlled since the 1967 Six Day War. Just before Passover, we were informed that the government has begun the process of legalizing 68 “young settlements,” which were established without the approval of the government and are considered by Israeli law to be illegal. , who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry where he has broad authority over civilian issues in the territories, instructed several ministries to provide those settlements with the same services as regular settlements. This caused joy in some circles, consternation in others, and was met with a yawn elsewhere. So what difference does it make? Bezalel Smotrich (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) At the outset, it should be noted that Israel has not annexed the territories (Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are a different matter). No government in any combination of Right, Left, and Center did so. This includes the current coalition, whose guidelines begin with: “The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, and Judea and Samaria.” This is because annexation can have but two outcomes. One would entail providing equal rights to all residents of the annexed territories, and an Arab majority would soon terminate the Jewish state. The other is to grant rights on an ethnic basis, resulting in official discrimination, like apartheid.  Indeed, for almost 57 years, Israel insists that its hold on the territories is “belligerent occupation.” In international law, this means temporary military rule, which lays certain responsibilities on the occupier vis-à-vis the local population while guaranteeing the security of the occupier. In the past, all decisions regarding the territories, including establishing settlements, were taken by security personnel, and were officially based on security considerations. Thus, if the Fourth Geneva Convention decrees that the occupier cannot move its own population into occupied territories, Israel could claim that decisions on settlements were made due to security considerations, and thus comply with international law. The formation of the current coalition changed that. A civilian (Smotrich) was given extensive responsibility regarding the territories, and decisions may now be made based on openly civilian considerations. This raises a question: if Israel is no longer a belligerent occupier, are the territories annexed? If so, the choice between apartheid and the end of the Jewish majority is fast approaching.  WE ARE currently witnessing two developments that are reminiscent of South Africa. But whereas strategic changes were to South Africa’s detriment at the time, they now favor Israel. And in both cases, international sanctions were in evidence, due to the treatment of the local population. Recently, the United States and some Europeans expanded sanctions against individuals and organizations in the territories, and the US is considering sanctioning an Israeli army unit. At the same time, the reaction of countries in the world and in the region to the on Israel is evidence of a new strategic alliance.  Israel’s participation in this fresh alliance will serve its interests and those of other players in this international coalition, including Sunni Muslim countries. However, Israel’s conduct in the territories may be a stumbling block to their goodwill and cooperation, and could even lead to painful steps against us. Two coalitions stand before Israel, which can probably not exist side by side. One is the fresh international coalition against Iran and its cronies. The other rules Israel and believes that it is possible to continue ignoring the world indefinitely.  Thirty years after South Africa learned that even a large country with many resources cannot do as it pleases, it remains to be seen which coalition Israel will choose to preserve.  The writer is a former ambassador to South Africa, as well as Israel’s first ambassador to the Baltic states after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and a past congressional liaison officer at the embassy in Washington. She is a graduate of Israel’s National Defense College. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-04-28

A staple of the Israeli nightly news these days is a roundup of global antisemitism and support for Hamas. at Columbia University – my once-beloved alma mater – took center stage this week. Viewers might conclude we are reliving 1930s Germany, with Jew-hatred spiraling while the forces of civilization are routed. Can it be this bad? Is it a psychosis driven by celestial events? Is Israel at all to blame? An accounting seems in order. To be sure, I have myself derided “progressives” who deploy selective, ignorant, and twisted narratives of decolonization against Israel. In TV interviews I have called them the “useful idiots” of jihad – a far stupider version of the originals, Western intellectuals sympathetic to the (incredibly) less vile Soviet Union.  I have also bemoaned the indisputable revelation that and well but more widespread than had been thought. Demonstrators sit in an encampment as they protest in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organizers on the Columbia University campus, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, US. April 19, 2024. (credit: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS) At the same time, one might plausibly argue that much of what gets labeled antisemitism is just opposition to the war (or perhaps to Israel itself), purposely brash and loud in order to discomfit Jews and move opinion.  I might not always like it, but a proponent of free speech cannot bar it. I also know many critics are mainly not supportive of the Israeli government’s actions, which include a very flawed war that has killed many thousands of innocents and appears to lack a strategy. A different story coming from Jerusalem could sway them. To better understand how US support of and opposition to Israel is broken down, I offer the following breakdown of Americans’ stance on the matter. Pro-Hamas Muslim Americans or extreme progressive anti-colonialists: Perhaps 5%. Many of them don’t believe or don’t care about the October 7 atrocities and hope Hamas will overwhelm Israel with no regard for the fate of the Jews. This group should be carefully monitored as their anti-Israel, anti-Zionist activities barely mask the fact that they hate Jews, and some of them are dangerous. Pro-Palestinian progressives and liberal young people: About 20%.This group shows varying degrees of support for the Palestinians and are exposed to information real and fake that highlights Israeli bad behavior in Gaza. They generally resent US tax money being spent to assist mass bombings, hunger, and potentially, in their view, genocide. Israel has lost them because its story today is one of forever war and punishment of Palestinian women and children, with extremists in Israel wanting to kill and expel them.  Many of them are deeply swayed by social media culture that makes everything a battle of narratives and Israel is currently being “canceled.”  Israel could dent this group substantially with a regional peace and cooperation initiative that includes the Palestinians and is generous toward civilians while continuing to fight Hamas aggressively.  This would pave the road for wider legitimacy to fighting Hamas to the finish, now or in the future – but making it distinct from anything resembling a war on the Palestinians.  Instead, Netanyahu drove them away with outrageous policies, including the 2023 Putinization effort, sneering indifference to Israel’s traditional alliance with the democratic West, and stubborn refusal to engage in the world community’s day-after plan. Pro-Israel liberals including some Jews: About 25%. This group recognizes the fundamental right of Israel to defend itself, doesn’t believe Israel should have carte blanche but definitely doesn’t support Islamic radicals, and understands that they’re insane and must be dealt with. But they lament Israel’s failure to grasp opportunities to escape this cycle, hate Netanyahu and his endless machinations against peace, and don’t want Israel to drag the US into a regional or even global war.  Nonetheless, they still support Israel, distinguish between the benighted government and the Israeli people, and hope the US will find a way to push Israel in the right direction, largely supporting President Joe Biden’s policies. Non-MAGA classic conservatives and “concerned Christians”: About 15%.These largely support Israel but are concerned about the huge amounts of money, the destruction and death in Gaza, and the risk of the US losing control. Some of them are concerned about the way US technology is being used to harm Palestinians including Christians in Gaza. Tucker Carlson may not be what he once was in terms of influence, but it should be a warning sign when you lose him, as Israel appears to have done. It must also be remembered that these types of besuited conservatives were not necessarily pro-Israel. When George W. Bush won the White House 24 years ago, there was real concern that his fellow travelers were so pro-business that they cared about practicalities only and would side with the Arabs if only for the oil interests that might serve.  History, of course, took a different turn. Trump republicans, Evangelists, and right-wing, religious, and “one issue” (Israel’s survival) Jews: About 35%. This group features full-throated support of Israel, little love or trust of Islam, and a healthy hatred of extremist groups like Hamas. They think Biden and the US should never sanction or constrain Israel and that Israel’s government (preferably right-wing) should be able to do what it wants.  Most would probably support a peace agreement, depending on terms, but they are overwhelmingly in favor of the war. Many of the Evangelicals are of the type that believe in a preordained end-of-days scenario that requires Israel to arise, fight, and ultimately be wiped out in some fashion for the Messiah to return. That will make them quite favorable to Israeli pyromaniacs today. But this group is volatile. If Donald Trump returns to office there is no telling what he might do.  If he comes out against war with Iran or turns on Israel for whatever reason, much of his cult will abandon Israel faster than you can say “Yahya Sinwar.” That’s partly because the far Right can teach the clueless progressives a thing or two about true-blue antisemitism. WHILE YOU could dig deeper and come up with more granular differentiations, this seems a reasonable way to group the body politic, which also roughly aligns with broader US voting patterns.  I cannot prove the breakdowns are exactly as I’ve outlined, thus is my best estimate based on over a half-century of following American politics, and two decades of watching the digital-driven freak show unravel. Look carefully, and you’ll see that the numbers I propose do align with polls that show that although many want the war to end, when pushed into a binary choice a strong majority of Americans back Israel – while about half the youth do not. It is a complex picture – not as bleak as catastrophists and propagandists might have you believe. And on Israel, movement is possible. To understand why, consider how radically the world view of America changed with the election of Donald Trump, as the Pew Research Center has shown and as anyone who has traveled knows. And just as there are very different versions of America as a function of which side ekes out an election victory, so it is with Israel. The easiest way to move US sentiment is to win the war and seek regional peace, instead of blundering into a decades-long descent into madness.  And it’s possible: Largely because of shared fear of radical Islam and Iran, and especially with enough carrots, moderate Arab states, and moderate Palestinians would join with the West and a benign version of Israel. President Biden has proposed a version of this, which would include restoring the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and reaping peace with Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu appears to have rejected all this. He has done so chiefly to keep the far-right snug and secure in his coalition. In the view of masses of Israelis, he also seeks to prolong the war – because for as long as a war can be said to be going on, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can scheme to delay the inevitable reckoning over October 7, and his likely defenestration.  Rarely has a forever war so served a political purpose. This path endangers global and US Jewry by conflating being against the war with being antisemitic. And its proponents are playing with fire, since the ensuing conflagration will not spare the pyromaniacs. If even a part of this analysis is correct, then the government’s behavior could fairly be labeled treasonous. Viewed through that prism, Israel has a bigger problem than a bunch of clueless students. The writer is the former chief editor of The Associated Press in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, the former president of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and the author of two books about Israel. Follow his newsletter “Ask Questions Later” at danperry.substack.com. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-04-25

At Seder, breaking the matzah broke me. Cracking our Ashkenazi-style, brittle, middle matzah for Yachatz – division – then hiding half of it, while leaving many fragmented crumbs behind, felt too literal. So many Israeli families are broken; so many beautiful souls are hidden, damaged, or lost forever, victimized by the . We didn’t need to ask Mah Nishtanah, why is this night different? Jews worldwide felt the added burden this Passover. We struggled to be joyous amid so much terrorist-imposed suffering. We wanted to respect this moment’s solemnity without spinning out into divisive politics, depressive mourning, or speculative dooming-and-glooming. Our matzah’s fragility reinforced our unhappy historical throwback. Hamas’s vicious attack, the Palestinians’ and Progressives’ sadistic joy as we suffered, Israel’s grueling multi-front war, the Jew-hating surge, the demonizing of Israel, topped by , risked returning us to the historical state the State of Israel hoped to end: permanent Jewish fragility. We grew up watching Fiddler on the Roof, grateful that we dodged such Jewish precariousness. Jewish vulnerability was yesterday’s news, a relic from the medieval world of Black Deaths and the 20th-century world of whooping cough and polio. We weren’t fiddling on some pointed gable; we fiddled about while feeling rooted, as Jews born into freedom and prosperity.A MAN wraps fresh matza during Passover in Ashdod in 2016 (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS) Jews living in liberal Western democracies trusted our post-Auschwitz covenant with our non-Jewish neighbors. They had learned, we decided, that Jew-hatred is the Jew-hater’s affliction, menacing Jews and non-Jews alike – an anti-democratic plague everyone must resist. Jews living in Israel trusted our most precious resource, our soldier-kids, led by heroic generals and responsible politicians, to defend us from hostile neighbors. History seemed to be on our side. Since the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago, we surfed from miracle to miracle: Israel won and the Arab surprise-attackers lost; the Refuseniks escaped and the Soviet Union collapsed; Israel prospered and made peace with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Morocco. Our enemies want to rob us of our joy, to make Israel feel unlivable. Alas, on in the Gaza corridor, every day since up North, and on the crazy night of April 13, they came closer to succeeding than they have in decades. We’re still stuck mid-drama. We remain at war with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah up North, Palestinian terrorists in the territories, and Iran with its many proxy armies long distance. And, because we dared defend ourselves, we see campuses and downtowns worldwide occupied by hoodlums, shouting bloodthirsty, Jew-hating, genocidal slogans – as too many “good people” scurry about their business, consulting Google Maps to bypass the unpleasantness. Still, we had a job to do this Seder – which continues through Passover and beyond. Matzah is not just “the bread of affliction” and “the bread of poverty.” The Zohar also calls Matzah “the bread of faith” and “the bread of healing.” Indeed, that broken half transformed instantly from a fragment into the magical Afikoman – the dessert, the after-party, the treasure hunt that makes us all kids again. The Seder reenacted the eternal Jewish playbook, our recurring arc from negative to positive, from suffering to redemption. Finding the afikoman-fragment, we made ourselves whole and rejoiced, ending the Seder in song. Passover resets our three-pronged agenda. • First, we must win these wars – on all fronts. October 7 showed what victory looks like to them. We can see at Columbia, Yale, and other campuses what victory looks like to them abroad. Inflamed by their sick contact high from burning American flags, they stop singing “Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv,” just long enough to tell Jews “go back to Poland” and you’re next to be “flooded.” • Second, we must stop being so divided. For Passover’s 7th day, when no families risk Seder Wars over religious or political differences, let’s accept a unity challenge. Can every right-winger thank Joe Biden for supporting Israel since October 7 and on April 13, while thanking Gadi Eizenkot, the reservist fighter pilots, and countless other anti-Bibi protesters for building our impressive defenses and executing them flawlessly? Can every left-winger thank Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu, for orchestrating the Abraham Accords which created a global coalition operating a joint command that cooperated seamlessly for Israel when Iran attacked? We should then all join, left and right, in denouncing our enemies: Hamas and its enablers, every Palestinian terrorist, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Iranian dictators, and the Poisoned Ivy Leaguers who menace pro-Israel students while cursing America and the West, not “just” Israel and Zionism. • Third, we can’t stop singing and dancing, healing and believing. Last Friday, I attended a Simhat Bat, celebrating Yakira Nili’s birth; a brunch with 70 people included eight other babies born in Israel since October 7. Every smile, every baby born, every holiday celebrated, every marriage consecrated, heals us, rebuilds us, and helps us dream about a better tomorrow. Don’t blame Zionism for not eliminating antisemitism – that’s the Jew-haters’ fault. Zionism gives us the grit to fight when necessary and rejoice always. Jewish history reminds us that Jews have faced steeper odds with fewer resources – or friends – worldwide. And Judaism gives us Matzah. Passover’s matzah-eating-fest consecrates every precious fragment, treating none of our people as crumbs to sweep away – or abandon. So with each bite of matzah, keep chewing and Jewing. Have faith, start healing, and feel the power of a forever-people who keep mainlining matzah, year after year, no matter what they throw at us. The writer is a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at the JPPI, the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian and the editor of the new three-volume set, Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People (www.theljp.org). ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-04-19

Armenia has agreed to return to Azerbaijan four villages situated on theirshared border, spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada said on Friday. Hajizada posted on X that the four villages had been held by Armenia since the early 1990s and their return was a "long-awaited historic event." 's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the two countries had reached a preliminary agreement on four sections of their disputed border. has said the return of the villages is a necessary precondition for a peace deal to end more than three decades of conflict between the two countries, which were both part of the Soviet Union. Friday's agreement, at a meeting chaired by deputy prime ministers of both countries, was the clearest sign yet of progress between the two sides. After two major wars between them, momentum shifted dramatically in favor of Azerbaijan last September when its forces staged a lightning offensive to regain control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where ethnic Armenians had enjoyed de facto independence since the mid-1990s. Armenia as well as international observers have Azerbaijan of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign in the ethnic-Armenian territories captured in September. Azerbaijan says it has pledged to ensure all residents’ safety and security, regardless of national or ethnic origin, and that it has not forced ethnic Armenians to leave Karabakh, though there has been a since the territory changed hands. In 2021, Armenia brought a case against Azerbaijan at the International Criminal Court (ICJ) accusing Azerbaijan of glorifying racism against Armenians, allowing hate speech against Armenians and destroying Armenian cultural sites - all accusations that Baku denies.Azerbaijan subsequently filed a claim against Armenia, accusing it of discrimination and ethnic cleansing against Azeris. Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-04-14

Director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) Moshe Patel on Monday said that nearly 40 years of investment in long range missile defense – Israel’s “Star Wars” program – had finally paid off to defend against last night. The IMDO chief said, “all of the defense systems proved themselves well. All of their actions were coordinated after significant preparation and development of the systems, simulations and integration with actual battle units.” “If someone thought the scenarios were imaginary” where Israel would need long range missile defense, they finally saw the relevance. Patel told how the program to defend against long range missiles started in 1986 around when US President Ronald Reagan was also enthralled with the idea of truly effective missile defense (for the US against the Soviet Union.) After Iraq attacked Israel with a number of long range Scud missiles in 1991, the program got a boost, said Patel. A police officer inspects the remains of a rocket booster that, according to Israeli authorities critically injured a 7-year-old girl, after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, near Arad, Israel, April 14, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/CHRISTOPHE VAN DER PERRE ) However, until missiles on Israel in the 2006 Second Lebanon war, missile defense was still sort of the “forgotten stepchild” of the defense establishment with most IDF chiefs viewing it as a waste of limited resources which would be better used to develop more offensive weapons. Eventually, Iron Dome, which provides short range defense against high volumes of weaker Hamas and Hezbollah rockets, overtook the Arrow long range missile defense as the “favored child” among the political class. Still, the Arrow missile system continued, and developed with versions II and III, and eventually Israel also developed for mid-tier defense, drones, and cruise missiles. The Arrow and David’s Sling were the stars of Israel’s defense against over 300 aerial threats from Iran and its proxies overnight between Saturday and Sunday. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-04-08

Hundreds of French doctors attended a last week, as part of a joint endeavor by the Health Ministry, Aliyah and Immigration Ministry and Nefesh B'Nefesh to bring doctors to Israel. This program is part of a national effort to alleviate the Israeli doctor shortage, and especially an imminent shortage that will be caused by regulation changes and the anticipated retirement of doctors who immigrated from the former Soviet Union and are nearing retirement age. NBN co-founder Tony Gelbart said Israel was facing a "perfect storm" of factors contributing to this shortage. When the iron curtain fell, Israel had benefited from a wave of doctors immigrating from the former Soviet Union, but these physicians were approaching retirement. Gelbart said there are not enough medical students graduating in Israel and few slots for medical schools in the country. Many aspiring medical students have been going to study abroad, but many of these institutions, such as those in Eastern Europe, may not give them certification in Israel following a 2019 reform that cut many schools from the list of those authorized to prepare Israeli students to practice in Israel. Currently, some 34% of doctors coming into the Israeli medical system are coming from these now unauthorized schools, according to Health Ministry Deputy Head of Administration for Strategic and Economic Planning, Rachel Berner. Nefesh B'Nefesh co-founder Rabbi Yehoshya Fass said that Israel is recalibrating its system to create a steady flow of physicians, and mass immigration of new doctors would serve as a stopgap. Gelbart said that several new medical education facilities were being built, but they would be ready in five to seven years.   French doctors visit the booths at the Paris Medex conference. (credit: YONIT SCHILLER) "There is currently a physician shortage in Israel," Fass said at the Paris event, and Shalem echoed this sentiment. She explained that this shortage is specific to certain specialties and geographic locations. The had also created stoppages in the medical system, a representative from the Assuta Ashdod hospital said. They described a flow in the medical system in which medical students shift into residency, doctors take tests for specializations, receive promotions, and retire, but the war had delayed some of these milestones. Yet while the war is immediately on the minds of Israelis, the Assuta representative said that hospitals need to think months and years ahead when it comes to human resources. NBN and its partners, the Immigration Ministry, Health Ministry, and Jewish Agency, hope to aid 2,000 doctors make aliyah over the next five years. The program is not aimed at solving deeper rooted issues contributing to Israel's doctor shortage, but the organizations involved hope that it can be a stopgap to help Israel through what could be an acute shortage. Israel's doctors union and Mirsham, its medical residents organization, say that there is a shortage in "tkanim" (the number of spots in Israel's doctor quota). This raises the concern that an aliyah program for doctors might bring doctors to Israel, and have no job for them here once they arrive. According to the Health Ministry, there is no such shortage. The details of the shortage in quotas presented by the health ministry are contested by Mirsham, who claim that there is a shortage of spots for doctors across the country, including in the periphery. A "high percentage" of doctors who have finished their internship and have a license to practice medicine are waiting for spots, according to a Mirsham position paper. Some of the spots for the incoming doctors are funded by the Aliyah and Absorption Ministry, with 70 tkanim funded for two years while the doctors acclimate, said Shalem. After this period, the doctors will be guaranteed jobs by the hospitals where they acclimated. While the Israeli healthcare system is "lean" when compared to systems around the world, Shalem said, a large-scale change in budgets or quotas that could add more doctors is a national decision that must be made at the government level, Shalem said. While for some specialties at some hospitals, there are no open spots, for certain hospitals and/or certain specialties, there are many spots open, Shalem explained. The Assuta Ashdod representative said that they wanted to employ more anesthesiologists and, as a growing institution in the process of building new geriatric and cancer wards, wanted physicians who work in those respective fields. A Shaare Zedek Medical Center representative said that in their experiences, "lots of good experience and methods are brought by immigrant doctors," and two-thirds of their anesthesiologists are immigrants. Shaare Zedek needs more pathologists and neonatologists. The representative said that most of the specialists in these fields were above 70 years old, and younger doctors weren't interested in these taxing subjects. The Jerusalem ALYN Hospital, a rehabilitation center for physically challenged and disabled children, adolescents, and young adults, needs three doctors, but even bringing one from France would be considered by its representative as a success. They need doctors in the fields of pediatrics and rehabilitation, a niche overlap that makes the search more difficult, they said.   The specific needs of different hospitals is something that will be made clear to doctors who are looking to immigrate, Shalem said. They will be encouraged to go to the hospitals that need them most, many of which are in Israel's periphery, she explained. Another concern that the new program seeks to address is the fluency in Hebrew of the immigrating doctors. "It doesn't solve anything to bring these doctors if you don't expedite their ulpan (Hebrew School)," said an official from Mirsham. There has been a significant shortage of medical ulpanim, because salaries offered to teachers are so low, she went on to say. The program aims to include more ulpan solutions, including lessons that start before the doctors make aliyah, Shalem said. The Aliyah Ministry said that it would pay and provide for ulpanim to the needs of the incoming doctors. NBN brought 210 volunteer physicians to volunteer in Israel after the . 7000 people expressed interest in volunteering and signed up to this program, which Gelbart said showed its potential. Cardiologist and Association des Médecins Israélites de France vice-president Dr. Laurent Sebagh said that many more French doctors wanted to volunteer, but were unable due to Israel's medical system bureaucracy. A major hurdle to doctors immigrating is uncertainty, said Shalem, explaining that the program aims to combat this by escorting doctors through every step of their immigration and providing care and support with every aspect of their move. This extra funding that is needed to bring the doctors to Israel successfully is a good investment, according to Shalem, who explained that not only are the doctors whom the program seeks to bring in excellent doctors, but they are able to practice medicine in Israel in the short term, which is vitally important given Israel's upcoming shortages. "If tomorrow morning I increase the number of spaces for medical students, I will get more doctors four to six years from now," said Shalem. "Olim doctors I get right now." Shalem shared her worldview, saying that another benefit of the program is that it helps doctors who want to move to Israel to do so successfully. "It is a core value for the State of Israel to absorb immigration," she said. The medical aliyah program partnership is new, but NBN has been operating the Medex program to promote the immigration of doctors for eight years. "We saw that there were a lot of American doctors who wanted to come to Israel," said Fass, but they identified that many were getting stuck, spending up to a year pursuing accreditation and wading through bureaucracy. Fass said that this pushed them to think outside the box. The program helps to advance the licensing and job search process before the doctors immigrate. Gelbart said it streamlined the process, more compassionate, and suitable for the needs of individuals. "Each doctor we bring to Israel saves a life," said Gelbart. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-04-01

Sami Michael, the Iraqi-Israeli writer and civil rights activist whose novels explored prejudices and inequalities between Israeli Jews of different backgrounds as well as Israeli Arabs, died Monday at 97. Michael’s books have been translated into many languages and have won dozens of literary awards in Israel and around the world, including the Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works in 1981 and the Agnon Prize in 2018. In 2002, Michael was awarded a Key to the City of Haifa, and over the course of his career, the writer was awarded honorary doctorates from four major Israeli universities.  He was celebrated not only for his literary works, but also for his social activism and work on behalf of human rights and coexistence in Israel. An avowed atheist, Michael was a fierce critic of in Israel, as well as prejudices he saw among the state's original Ashkenazi establishment against Jews from the Middle East and North Africa as well as against Arabs. He also stood as a candidate for the Knesset in 1992 and 1996, on the Meretz list. Michael was born Kamal Salah in Baghdad in 1926. At 15, during his high school studies and following the rise of the pro-Nazi regime in Iraq and the known as the Farhud, Michael joined the Iraqi Communist Party. In 1948, still bearing his birth name, a warrant was issued for his arrest. His father arranged for a smuggler to sneak Michael across the border with Iran, where he was forced to change his name.  In 1949, partly out of fear that the government in Iran would hand him over to the Iraqi authorities, Michael turned to the Jewish Agency and immigrated to Israel, despite an offer by the Communist Party to resettle him in the Soviet Union. Michael first settled in Jaffa, then moved to Haifa, following an offer to join the editorial board of al-Ittihad, the only non-governmental Arab newspaper published under the Israeli Military Governorate (1948-1966.) The move was initiated by the author Emil Habibi after Michael sent two articles to the newspaper that prompted reactions upon publication. In Haifa, Michael lived in the mixed neighborhood of Wadi Nisnas, which later became the subject of his 1987 novel Trumpet in the Wadi. There, Michael wrote articles and stories for al-Ittihad and al-Jadid, with a regular column under the pen name Samir Mard.   In 1974, Michael published his first novel, All Men are Equal— But Some are More (in Hebrew: Shavim v'Shavim Yoter), about the lives of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa in transit camps in Israel in the 1950s. The title became a well-known phrase in Israel to speak of social inequality between Jews of different lineages as well as between Jews and Arabs. In 1975, Michael published his first children's book, A Storm Between the Palms, about the adventures and heroism of Jewish boys and girls in Iraq during World War II. In 1977, Michael published his second novel, "Hosot", which revolves around a group of Jewish and Arab left-wing workers during the Yom Kippur War.  In the years 1981-1987 he translated the Cairo Trilogy, a series of three historical novels, which were written between 1957-1956 in Egypt, by the Egyptian writer and intellectual Nagib Mahfouz. In 1987, Michael published "Chatsura Boadi", which was adapted into a successful play a year later by Shmuel Al-Safari. In 2001, the book was adapted into a film that won the best feature film award at the Haifa International Film Festival.  In 2001 he was elected to serve as the president of the , a position he held until 2023. Michael's death prompted words of praise from across Israeli society, and in particular from leaders of the political left. President Isaac Herzog eulogized the writer as "a giant among giants" who "made our bookshelf rich and spectacular." Zehava Galon, the leader of Meretz, wrote that Michael "was a political activist and a wonderful writer who knew how to see what Israelis insisted on missing, but above all, he was someone overflowing with humanity." Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, spoke of Michael as "a warrior for peace," and Merav Michaeli, of the Labor Party, eulogized the late writer as "Israel at its best."  ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-24

“Growing up in an assimilated family in the Soviet Union, I didn’t know Hebrew until age 18,” recalls master scribe and calligraphy artist Avraham Borshevsky. Borshevsky, who holds two for his work as a Jewish scribe, explains that when he was growing up, teaching Hebrew was forbidden in the Soviet Union. “Learners of Hebrew would go to prison, but I fell in love with Hebrew and was determined to learn, so I made my own personal Hebrew learning school and taught myself secretly at home,” he says. “I first learned Hebrew by looking at black-and-white photographs of Hebrew texts, and that’s where my base in Hebrew came from,” he explains. Toward the end of perestroika, when regulations in the Soviet Union began to loosen a bit, Borshevsky was able to learn more openly at a synagogue, where he was able to meet with peers for the first time, to take his studies to the next level, and to quickly master Hebrew. Finally, in 1990, the Borshevsky family had the opportunity to make aliyah. In the Jewish homeland he was accepted into the Shvut Ami Yeshiva in Jerusalem and began studies in architecture and art, where he first took a class in Jewish calligraphy and began his journey toward becoming a scribe. This has led him to the Talbiyeh studio, where his dreams have become tangible realities. “For a long time, I dreamed of doing a [giant mezuzah as a] masterpiece project, for several reasons,” Borshevsky says. This finally came to fruition in 2004, when Borshevsky completed the world’s largest mezuzah, measuring 110 cm. in height and featuring a 76x94 cm. scroll. Avraham Borshevsky paints the intricate illustrations that accompany a master-level Scroll of Esther. (credit: Courtesy Avraham Borshevsky) “One reason [that I felt so compelled to finish this project] is that the mezuzah is a symbol of a Jewish home and is part of the essence of the people of Israel. I wanted to publicize this, to demonstrate to people all the work that’s contained within a mezuzah. Additionally, I wanted to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records in order for people to notice it and in order to spark more interest and passion for Judaism and Jewish roots,” Borshevsky explains. By including such a fundamental aspect of Judaism in something as mainstream as Guinness, he hoped to fight against assimilation and to bring Jews closer to their culture and to mitzvot. “At first, there was a question of whether a mezuzah so large is kosher and permitted according to Halacha [Jewish law],” Borshevsky says. In the end, however, leading rabbis unanimously ruled such a large mezuzah to be not only kosher, but preferred. Since mezuzot are intended to serve as reminders of Hashem and His commandments, the bigger the better. Ultimately, the world record, and the halachic rulings that accompanied it, also started a trend of people ordering bigger mezuzot, encouraging more pride in Judaism and serving as a bigger reminder of Jewish connection. Especially in these times of antisemitism and difficulties for the Jewish people, such outward expressions of Jewish culture, faith, and values are of the utmost importance. The original giant mezuzah currently sits at the World Calligraphy Museum in Moscow. Borshevsky emphasizes that the price of the scroll is the gematria [Hebrew numerology] of the value of all the Hebrew letters contained within it. He proudly states that this fact, which was also included in the official Guinness Book of Records entry for the mezuzah, means that now even gematria, the mystic Kabbalistic practice of Jewish numerology, is discussed in something as mainstream and secular as the Guinness Records. For a Jew who was born in a time and place of “cultural genocide” where the mention or study of anything Jewish was forbidden, that’s quite a victory. In addition, Borshevsky creates original personalized gifts that connect to Jewish tradition and religion, and has worked with agencies like the Jewish National Fund, Keren Hayesod, and Yad Vashem. Regarding the latter, he is responsible, among other things, for making the official certificates awarded to those recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews during the Holocaust. Often, his work involves making gifts and prizes for donors to Israeli institutions, presenting him with the challenge of creating a suitable expression of gratitude for sometimes immense donations. He also is responsible for creating gifts that express the Jewish spirit and Jewish culture for visiting foreign signatories and presidents. As per Borshevsky’s website, among the owners of parchments with his signature are Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, George W. Bush, David Cameron, Vladimir Putin, Nursultan Nazarbayev, leading rabbis, Christian hierarchy, and businessmen from the Forbes list. He also had the privilege of creating the award – a fully decorated handwritten parchment scroll of Song of Songs – posthumously bestowed upon Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks when he won the Genesis Prize in 2021, as well as certificates of excellence and heroism for soldiers, and the presidential guest book for foreign dignitaries and visitors at the President’s Residence. and more. Borshevsky states that he loves this sort of work, creating personalized gifts and prizes with spiritual and symbolic meaning because it demands artistic creativity. For him, one of the most meaningful parts of his job is that he must consider the character of the recipients on a personal level, and then craft a gift that they will relate to and that will have spiritual meaning and significance for them. “ is one of the first things that a student scribe learns because, unlike many scrolls, it does not contain the name of God in Hebrew, Hashem, meaning that it is more permissible to make mistakes. Additionally, since the Scroll of Esther is specific to Purim, which comes every year, there is always a market for them,” Borshevsky says. His work is certainly not limited to one style, he explains: “Private individuals bring me their scrolls so that I can add crowns above the columns, or I can decorate the entire scroll, or I can write the names of the owners of the scroll inside the family crest.” Borshevsky adds that he has already hand drawn hundreds of unique and custom-made crowns. The Royal Garden Esther Scroll featured here is particularly special because it is in the “king” style, meaning that each column is formatted and spaced such that it starts with word “king.” The thinking here is that even though Hashem is not mentioned anywhere in the scroll, “king” can be analogous to Hashem; therefore, starting each column with “king” emphasizes and extenuates the holiness of the work. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presents then-US speaker of the house John Boehner with Avraham Borshevsky’s Scroll of Esther. (credit: Courtesy Avraham Borshevsky) This scroll, however, has a special history. It was chosen by for his 2015 visit to the White House, where he aimed to warn the world of the dangers posed by a nuclear Iran. Netanyahu presented the scroll, which itself documents the story of how Israel survived attempted genocide at the hands of the Persian Empire thousands of years ago, to then-US speaker of the house John Boehner. At a time when the Jewish people once again face an existential threat emanating from Iran, Borshevsky’s scroll is a poignant reminder to the US government and the world of the importance of defending and standing with Israel.■ borshevsky.com/about ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-23

A recent poll indicated that two-thirds of Israelis hope that former will defeat the incumbent, Joe Biden, in the November presidential elections in America. It is indeed unpleasant to hear the president and other senior Democrats criticize Israel’s elected leader (although polls indicate that most Israelis share those very same opinions). But before embracing Trump, who has also called on to end the war, it is worth reviewing some of his statements and actions, and to consider their implications for the future of the world as we know it, including for Israel. Two of his comments at a recent election rally in South Carolina merit special attention. Trump believes that foreign assistance (of which Israel is the foremost beneficiary) must no longer be a grant, but should be structured as a loan, with Washington able to demand repayment in certain circumstances. It should be noted that due to internal political considerations, Trump are currently delaying the allocation of an aid package that includes unprecedented assistance for Israel, as proposed by the administration, in order to cope with our current crisis. On a matter seemingly unrelated to Israel, Trump announced that he would encourage Russia to invade any country that is a member of NATO and does not contribute adequately (and let us ignore Trump’s personal familiarity with unpaid debts, having had six bankrupt businesses from 1991-2009).  Some consider his threats to be a means to pressure European countries to pay up. Indeed, there have been visible changes in this respect, along with growing concerns about an unpredictable leader who does not consult, expects full obedience and loyalty, and has an as-yet unexplained relationship with Russia and its recently reelected fifth-term president Vladimir Putin. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. (credit: KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS) Many in Europe are convinced that Trump’s re-election will hand Ukraine to Russia, which will subsequently take over independent countries that were part of the Soviet Union, including the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, now members of NATO and of European structures. Even those in Europe who are not concerned by the possibility of a direct assault worry about the outcome of a weakened trans-Atlantic alliance, which has been a cornerstone of the world order since the end of World War Two. THIS SHOULD surprise no one. Trump’s term as president (2017-2021) saw the renaissance of isolationist discourse. America First, which was popular between the world wars – and was dealt a blow immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when America entered the war – again flourishes in America. Trump continually criticizes international arrangements such as the United Nations and NATO, and withdrew from multilateral agreements negotiated by his predecessors, among them the Paris Agreement on global warming. Such introversion naturally undermines America’s international standing, and there is no shortage of candidates to fill the vacuum created by its diminishing influence, notably Russia and China. Its shrinking stature will hurt its allies, especially those countries that rely heavily on its support, and there is no need to elaborate the extent of Israel’s dependence on this most influential and important world power. If that were not enough, one should also look at his problematic utterances regarding Jews. Several days ago, and apparently based on his conviction that he did more for Israel than any other president, he said that Jews who vote for Democrats hate their religion and Israel. Resorting to antisemitic stereotypes, he told a gathering in Florida in 2019 that they would vote for him because of his position against taxing wealth, and said to an interviewer in 2021 that in the past, Israel had absolute power over Congress.  He has made statements implying that American Jews have dual loyalty, reportedly stated that Hitler also did some good things, and claimed that there were fine people on both sides of the white supremacy parade in Charlottesville in 2019, which resulted in the death of a counter-demonstrator. It behooves those Israelis and their supporters who yearn for the return of Donald Trump to consider all of the above, and its implications for Israel and for Jews. The writer was Israel’s first ambassador to the Baltic states after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, ambassador to South Africa, and congressional liaison officer at the embassy in Washington. She is a graduate of Israel’s National Defense College. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-19

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia may face a war with Azerbaijan if it does not compromise with Baku on returning some strategic Azerbaijani territories that Armenia has controlled since the early 1990s. Pashinyan was speaking during a Monday meeting with residents of border areas in northern Armenia's Tavush region, close to a string of deserted Azerbaijani villages that Yerevan has controlled since the opening phases of the countries' three-decade-long conflict in the early 1990s. TASS quoted Pashinyan as saying in a video of the meeting circulated by his government: "Now we can leave here, let’s go and tell [Azerbaijan] that no, we are not going to do anything. This means that at the end of the week a war will begin." Pashinyan has repeatedly signaled in recent weeks that he is willing to return the villages to Azerbaijan, which are important for Yerevan, as they control its main road northwards to the border with Georgia. Azerbaijan has said that the return of its lands is a necessary precondition for a peace deal to end three decades of conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan retook in September.ARMENIAN SOLDIERS ride in the back of a truck in the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh last week. The Caucasus region experienced several rounds of conflict after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is one of the most notable disputes. (credit: VAHRAM BAGHDASARYAN/REUTERS) The two sides have said they want to sign a formal peace treaty, but talks have become bogged down in issues including demarcation of the countries' 1000km (620 mile) border, which is closed and heavily militarized. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to occupy lands that are internationally recognized as part of the other's territory. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-17

“What makes us think,” the US senator said with passion, “that we can publicly vilify a nation and think that any leader will say, ‘Now I will yield before the world and God because I have been told. What in the hell do we think we’re doing?’” The senator was a Democrat from Delaware:. And the president was a Republican: George H.W. Bush. These words were spoken exactly 22 years ago, in March of 1992 – an election year both in Israel and America – as Biden was addressing an AIPAC conference at the height of Israel-US tension over settlement building and the $10 billion in loan guarantees that the Jewish state had requested from the US to house the massive influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Forward reporter Jacob Kornbluth posted a two-minute clip of that speech on X on Friday, the day after Senator Chuck Schumer blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Senate, declaring him one of four major obstacles to Middle East peace and calling for new elections in Israel. The contrast between what Biden said then and his reaction to Schumer’s speech is glaring. Granted, 1992 was a long time ago, but it is still interesting to hear how Biden sounded when a compared to his tone today. Majority Leader of the US Senate Chuck Schumer (left) with President Isaac Herzog. October 15, 2023 (credit: CHAIM TZACH/GPO) “He made a good speech, and I think he expressed a serious concern shared not only by him but by many Americans,” Biden said Friday of the Democratic majority leader’s bombshell speech. Thirty-two years ago, however, he thought very differently about taking such a tough tone with Israel and to disagree with the Israeli government so publicly. “The absurd notion that publicly vilifying Israel will somehow change its policy – who in the hell do we think we’re dealing with?” Biden declared in that 1992 AIPAC speech. He continued: “What is the purpose? Do you think that in the middle of a reelection campaign, [then-prime minister] Yitzhak Shamir will say ‘mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?’” The same could be asked : Does he think that as a result of his speech, Netanyahu will stand up and say, “You know what, Chuck? You’re right. It’s time to pack it all in.” ON THE CONTRARY, Netanyahu hit back on Sunday in a CNN interview. Instead of saying “mea maxima culpa,” he slammed Schumer’s words as “totally inappropriate.” “It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there,” the prime minister said. “That’s something the Israeli public does on its own. We are not a banana republic. I think the only government we should work to bring down now is the terrorist tyranny in Gaza.” Biden, model 1992, might have agreed with Netanyahu, though Biden circa 2024 does not – and it is hard to believe that Schumer would have given such a speech without getting a green light from the White House. Back in 1992, Bush wanted to condition housing guarantees on Shamir’s agreement to stem settlement construction and enter into a peace conference with Palestinians: the Madrid Peace Conference.  On September 12, 1991, Bush gave a press conference in which he infuriated the pro-Israel community by saying that he was just “one little guy down here” having to fend off “1,000 lobbyists up on the Hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel.” A Washington Post feature on AIPAC in 2006 quoted one American Jewish leader as saying that Bush’s comment “clobbered the Jewish community; left us in a state of shock.” At the AIPAC conference, Biden spoke at in 1992, the organization's director at the time, Tom Dine, kicked off the gathering with reference to Bush’s comments: “September 12, 1991, will be a day that lives in infamy for the American pro-Israel community. Like an Indian elephant, we don’t forget.” It was a pivotal moment. Schumer’s speech may be a similar critical juncture, the moment when the perception is created that Israel is no longer a bipartisan issue, but rather that there is one party that supports Israel (the Republicans) and one party that does not (the Democrats). Key Republican figures tried their hardest after Schumer’s speech to cement that perception. For instance, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took the Senate floor after his Democratic counterpart’s speech and said, “It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel.” And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul said on Fox News Sunday that Schumer’s speech was indicative of a split in the Democratic Party with a “base which is not in the traditional Israeli alliance anymore. And I think what you’re seeing is a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel faction in the Democratic Party.” Ironically, and perhaps something that can serve as a cautionary tale, the Shamir-Bush brush-up did not end badly for either man. Shamir lost to Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, with the settlement/loan guarantee issue and concern that Israel was losing American support as a factor in the elections. However, Bush also lost his election that year to Bill Clinton, with some arguing that although his tangling with Shamir was not one of the determining factors in the election, it did not help him at the polls either. Bush’s support among Jewish voters plummeted from 35% in 1988 when he defeated Michael Dukakis to just 11% in 1992, the lowest percentage for a Republican since Barry Goldwater in 1964.  According to The Washington Post, Bush “got crushed in a small group of heavily Jewish precincts in states such as New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Nevada.” The loss in those districts did not cost Bush the election since Clinton won by a wide margin. But in a close election, as the 2024 one is expected to be, losing in heavily Jewish precincts in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Florida – and there are heavily Jewish precincts in each of those states – could make a difference. Schumer, like the messaging coming from the White House, sought to differentiate in his speech between Netanyahu, his government, and the Israeli people. The question is whether the American Jewish community will see the New York senator’s words about Netanyahu as just a swipe at the prime minister or as a gratuitous attack on the Israeli government at a time when it is engaged in a war of survival that has also unleashed a wave of antisemitism in the US and around the world. Schumer is gambling on the former. But if he is wrong, and his words are viewed as a cheap shot at a time of war, then his speech could prove to be a watershed – not only in marking when Israel fully became a partisan issue but also in impacting the outcome of the US election. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-17

Survivors of the have vowed they will dance again, and now the Sderot Cinematheque has announced that it will reopen on March 18, which is great news for movie lovers and Sderot residents. Excitement is running high ahead of the reopening, which will take place at 7 p.m. and which is free (online registration is required), in the over 50 civilian and 20 police casualties on the day of the Hamas massacre. Most of the city was evacuated following October 7, but many residents have returned recently, and the schools have reopened. Residents of Sderot, the closest city to the Gaza Strip, have demonstrated resilience for decades in the face of Hamas bombardments. The movie chosen for the reopening is Levi Zini’s Small Town Melodies, aka Only This Way Can I See You. It is a musical journey to Sderot in the 1990s, focusing on the children of the Mizrahi families that settled the city, recent immigrants from the Soviet Union, and the city’s thriving music scene. The reopening will occur within the framework of the 22nd Cinema of the South (Kolnoa Darom) . This year, due to security challenges, the festival will go ahead in a slightly different format. Over the years, it has hosted many movie greats, including Richard Gere, Alfred Maysles, David Zucker, and Sergey Loznitsa. The Cinematheque was founded in December 1999 and has become one of the most important cultural institutions in Israel’s South. Alon Davidi, Sderot’s mayor, said, “I am excited and welcome the resumption of the Sderot Cinematheque after a period in which it had to close its doors. Its opening demonstrates the overcoming of another obstacle on the way to resuming the full routine in the city after some difficult months.” ...قراءة المزيد

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2022-10-15

When I grew up in the Soviet Union, I knew that I was Jewish because it was written in the ID of my parents. But there was nothing positive in this word – no tradition, no religion, no language, no history. The only Jewish thing in my youth was antisemitism – both in the street and in the official policy of restrictions. Only after the in 1967 did I become a proud Zionist. And through Zionism, I discovered the power of Jewish history, culture and tradition, and later in prison, religion.  People are coming to their Jewish identity from different directions. Some through religion, some through tradition, some through national pride, and some through different streams of Zionism. Labor Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, Religious Zionism, etc. All these sides of Judaism become components of one’s Jewish identity. There is no doubt that today Israel is taking more and more center stage in this confluence of Jewish identities. This is in line with the vision of Theodor Herzl. He was able to see the future, predict the future and build the future. He believed that the Jewish state would be established within 50 years, and indeed that is exactly the time it took from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. But at the same time, he was wrong in his prediction that after the creation of the Jewish state there would remain no Jews in the Diaspora; they would either make aliyah or would voluntarily assimilate. This didn’t happen. Today, after almost 75 years since the creation of the State of Israel, half of the Jews still live in the Diaspora. But in some indirect way, his prediction is still true. Zionism, connection to Israel, has become a central part of Jewish identity for Jews from different diasporas. And those who don’t have it are more vulnerable to assimilation. NATAN SHARANSKY speaks at the 2018 Jewish Agency Board of Governors conference in Jerusalem. (credit: HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90) As a Jewish activist, member of the Israeli government and, later, head of the , I visited almost every Jewish community in the world. They all in one way or another face the danger of assimilation. And I discovered that there are only two factors that can slow down the assimilation: tradition and Zionism. If you have one, you can work on connecting yourself to the second. Either way, your Jewishness is not under immediate danger.  But if you don’t have any connection, neither to tradition nor to Israel, your grandchildren probably will not be Jewish. This experimental rule is true for North America, South America, France, Russia, Australia or any other place in the world.  With that in mind, I was part of a transformation of the Jewish Agency. Until that time, many viewed the Jewish Agency as simply the tool for aliyah. And so, the representative of the Jewish Agency had to knock on the doors of every Jew and ask him or her, “Why are you here? How dare you not make aliyah?” I didn’t want to be such a commissar of Zionism.  Of course, when it comes to , Russia, or today from Ukraine, the Jewish Agency always has to be – and is – ready for such operations. But most of the Jews today live in the free world. And their aliyah is not aliyah of escape, it is aliyah of free choice. And to make this choice, they have to feel a strong connection with their identity and the State of Israel. And if you want to mobilize Jews to fight antisemitism, or to strengthen their communities, or to slow down assimilation, we need the same – to strengthen their Jewish identity.  I put this principle at the center of our activity. Our way to do it is to organize different encounters between Jews and Israel. Our programs became connected into a spiral of Israel experiences, from meeting Jewish Agency emissaries in summer camps, schools, universities and communities to traveling to Israel for short programs like Birthright; longer programs like Onward; and numerous Masa projects up to one year. As a result, you increase the number of people who make aliyah of choice, as well as those who become more involved in the communities, take part in the fight against antisemitism, defending Israel, and so on.  I was accused by some that I changed the nature of the Jewish Agency, turning it from the single aim of making aliyah to a kind of tourism ministry. But soon it became obvious to everybody that strengthening the Zionist component of our identity is the most effective way to encourage aliyah of choice.  There is a movement today by some liberal Jews to try to build Jewish identity that is totally disconnected from Israel.  Embarrassed by continual criticism of Israel as the “colonialist,” “white supremacy project,” they prefer to distance themselves from it. We have reached American Jewish tradition, they would say, we don’t need nationalist Israel to define our identity. After all, they say, in thousands of years of Jewish history, Israel as a state was not a part of Jewish identity most of the time. Of course, it’s ridiculous to try to ignore the differences in Jewish identity before and after the creation of the State of Israel.  Their efforts remind me of the activity of the so-called Yevsektsiya – Jewish department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They wanted Jews to join the “progressive” cause of communism, and remain Jewish. That’s why they were against religion and led the process of closing synagogues.  They were against Hebrew and prohibited Zionist literature. At the same time, they encouraged Yiddish and were responsible for opening chairs for the study of Yiddish in universities and the creation of various cultural institutions in Yiddish. But soon it became clear that assimilation was accelerating, and there were fewer and fewer people interested in these institutions.  When the central components of Jewish identity were taken away, few were really interested in remaining Jewish. ■ The writer is a human rights activist and author who spent nine years in Soviet prisons as a refusenik during the 1970s and 1980s. He served in various Israeli government cabinet positions, including deputy prime minister (between 2001 and 2003), and served as the chairman of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-16

As we head toward Purim, the festival in which we celebrate the triumph of who saved the Jews from the evil Haman in ancient Persia, we look at those Soviet Jewish women whose remarkable modern-day achievements have helped shape the face of Israel today.  Not free to live as Jews, these women risked their lives to escape the , where they faced imprisonment for engaging in Zionist activity. Despite this, they stood up for their rights and were a beacon of hope for many in the struggle to free Soviet Jews from oppressive Soviet life. Soviet-born Jew Sylva Zalmanson is one such woman. The courage and tenacity shown by this ardent human rights activist, artist, and engineer, who settled in Israel in 1974, is a testament not just to all women but to everyone who believes in “A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination” (International Women’s Day website). Born in Siberia in 1944, from a young age Sylva dreamed of living in Israel. Having been repeatedly denied an exit visa to leave the Soviet Union for Israel, she and her then-husband, Eduard Kuznetsov, joined an underground group of Zionist activists who devised an escape plan: Operation Wedding. The group bought all the plane tickets for a local flight, as if they were going to a wedding. Once on board, they planned to take control of the plane, whereupon Mark Dymshits, a former Soviet military pilot and Jewish refusenik, would fly the aircraft under the radar and beyond the Soviet border. POSTER CAMPAIGN for Operation Wedding screening. (credit: Courtesy Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov) Sylva was tasked with recruiting most of the group members, including Kuznetsov and her two brothers Wolf and Israel Zalmanson. Although the group was aware that their plan had been leaked to the KGB, who lay in wait, they still went ahead with the operation.  Moments before they boarded on June 15, 1970, the group was arrested and charged with high treason. They went on trial six months later. Sylva was the only woman to be tried and the first to go on the stand, from where she spoke these words: “If you had not denied us our right to leave Russia, this group wouldn’t exist. We would just leave for Israel with no desire to hijack a plane or any other illegal thing. “Even here, on trial, I still believe I’ll make it to Israel some day. I feel I’m the Jewish people’s heiress, so I’ll quote our sayings ‘Leshana haba’ah be’Yerushalayim’ [Next year in Jerusalem]; and ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.’” Sylva received a sentence of 10 years in a Soviet forced labor camp. Kuznetsov and Dymshits were given death sentences; these were reduced to 15 years’ imprisonment after only eight days, due to massive world pressure.  The Let My People Go! campaign raised awareness about the group’s plight, and tens of thousands of people demonstrated all over the world demanding the release of Sylva and her comrades and for Soviet Jews to be allowed to emigrate. Their campaign resulted in diplomatic pressure being put on the Soviet authorities, who subsequently issued visas to hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews, resulting in some 300,000 emigrating between the time of the trial and 1979. A secret prisoner exchange between the Soviet government and the Israeli government secured Sylva’s early release on August 22, 1974. She realized her dream and immigrated to Israel, where she worked as an engineer in the aviation industry. Not content with her own good fortune, Sylva continued her relentless campaigning for the release of her family and friends, including a 16-day hunger strike in front of the United Nations in New York in 1976, refusing to eat to the point of losing consciousness. Her tenacity paid off. Most of the group, including Kuznetsov and Sylva’s brothers, were released in April 1979 following a second prisoner exchange, this time with the American government. Sylva and Eduard Kuznetsov’s only child, Israeli filmmaker Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov, who was born and raised in Israel, has always been consumed with the desire to ensure that the next generation is familiar with the historic struggle of Soviet Jewry. Her 2016 documentary Operation Wedding, named after the foiled escape plan that landed her parents in prison, has appeared in film festivals worldwide, winning 21 awards including Best Documentary at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema, and Best Feature Documentary at the International Filmmaker Festival of New York. Anat has also continued to spread the word far and wide by producing a film of archival materials for historians about the Soviet Jewry struggle, and sharing related information through social media. Currently, she is writing the script for a series titled Functioning. In addition, she has developed an interactive online educational program in English and Hebrew with the Prime Minister’s Office called Nativ, an independent administrative unit for Jews and their families living throughout former Soviet Union countries. The unit was set up to strengthen ties with the State of Israel and broaden knowledge about Israeli achievements, culture, and heritage. The Let My People Go program provides lesson plans and activities for educators relating to “The Soviet Jewry Struggle, Refuseniks, and Prisoners of Zion, 1948-1991.” It also shares stories about Soviet women and girls who faced unspeakable cruelty at the hands of the Soviet government, such as Marina Tiemkin. Happy-go-lucky Marina Tiemkin, 13, was kidnapped by the KGB in February 1973 – in nothing more than her school uniform – from her paternal grandmother’s house at her mother’s instigation, after having told her she wanted to leave for Israel with her father, Dr. Alexander Tiemkin. She was flown to the Orlyonok Young Pioneer camp, a federal state camp for children aged 11 to 16 on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Established in 1960, Orlyonok had become a thriving hub of activity by 1973; some 17,000 children visited annually, using the camp’s facilities, which included a swimming pool and cinema. Nevertheless, Marina felt trapped and alone there. She decided recently to confront her traumatic refusenik past and write about the first five years after her kidnapping. “To me, the place was a prison. I declared a hunger strike, and for four days I didn’t eat anything until a man from the administration came and told me I would be force-fed. “I was frightened but told my captors I’d stop the hunger strike if they would deliver letters from me to my father and my grandmother. They promised. Of course, they didn’t keep the promise. I wrote eight letters; not one was delivered,” she recalled in her memoirs. Marina spent eight months in the camp before she was released. “I was returned to Moscow, to my mother’s and maternal grandmother’s house. They acted as if nothing had happened. I was afraid to talk and ask questions,” she recounted. Her teenage years were spent under the yoke of relentless KGB surveillance and an express order not to see or contact her father – who by this time had made aliyah – or her paternal grandmother. Nevertheless, her father did not give up on her. “From Israel, my father made repeated attempts to contact me via newspapers like The Jerusalem Post. This resulted in my receiving more warnings. I stopped talking to people I suspected were in contact with my father.” In 1990, Marina finally realized her dream and moved to Israel with her family. Not content simply to share Marina’s story, the Let My People Go program also suggests some “learning objectives” that may be undertaken to encourage discussion and a deeper understanding of Marina’s background and how life was in the Soviet Union for a young girl in the 1970s, as well as ways to stay true to one’s ideals under social pressure. Perhaps one of the more well-known faces of the Soviet Jewry Movement is Avital Sharansky (born Natalia Stieglitz in 1950 in Ukraine), who fought for the release of her husband, , from Soviet imprisonment.  The day after the couple married in 1974, Natalia (as she was known then) left for Israel, while her husband’s exit visa was denied, and he remained in the Soviet Union. Natan (then known as Anatoly) was imprisoned in 1977 on charges of high treason after a Soviet newspaper alleged that he was collaborating with the CIA. Despite denials from every level of the US government, he was found guilty and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In the courtroom before the announcement of his verdict, Natan said: “To the court, I have nothing to say; to my wife and the Jewish people, I say ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’” This powerful slogan later became the title of his wife’s book, Next Year in Jerusalem.  After Natann’s imprisonment, the couple was thrown into the spotlight as their struggle became a cause célèbre. Avital (who changed her name from Natalia upon her arrival in Israel), campaigned tirelessly for her husband’s release, meeting with government leaders in the United States and around the world.  Natan Sharansky was released on February 11, 1986, and immediately joined his wife in Israel, after which she stepped away from public life. Having eschewed all public honors, this remarkable yet humble woman now lectures Russian-speaking immigrants in Jewish studies and gives talks about her past to young students. Only last month, were we reminded that the struggle for human rights is still very real for many Russian women. Yulia Navalnaya is the widow of Russian opposition leader, anti-corruption activist, lawyer, and political prisoner Alexei Navalny, who died in a Siberian prison on February 16, under circumstances that remain unclear.  Yulia had been a constant source of strength and support for her husband, whom she married in 2000. She campaigned tirelessly when he was urgently hospitalized in Omsk following a suspected poisoning, demanding that he be released to Germany for treatment, and even turning directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.  After Alexei was transferred to Charité hospital in Berlin, experts confirmed that he had been poisoned. Although this was later denied by Russian doctor Leonid Roshal, Yulia was not afraid to speak out on her husband’s behalf. Roshal acted “not as a doctor but as the voice of the state,” she said. Yulia’s unwavering support and strength undoubtedly kept her husband going. “Yulia, you saved me,” he wrote. When the couple returned to Russia in January 2021 and Navalny was detained at the border control, Yulia made a fearless public statement in his support. “Alexei said that he is not afraid… and I’m not afraid, either. And I urge you all not to be afraid.” Her activities, she claims, led to her own persecution “as the wife of an enemy of the people.” She wrote on Instagram: “The year of ’37 [the year of the Great Purge by Stalin] has come, and we did not notice.” Maybe Yulia did not notice, but those engaged in the Soviet Jewry struggle certainly did. More information about these remarkable women and their struggle can be found on the Facebook group Soviet Jewry Struggle, and at en.nativ-education.org.il. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-15

Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Audrius Brūzga welcomed numerous guests to ZOA House in Tel Aviv for a reception and the screening of a documentary film to celebrate the anniversary of the restoration of on March 11, 1990. Lithuania was the first republic to declare full independence from the Soviet Union. Brūzga said there were in fact three Lithuanian Independence Days, and he sincerely hoped there would not be a fourth. The other two commemorate the coronation of King Mindaugas and the declaration of statehood on July 6, 1253; and a previous restoration of Independence on February 16, 1918. The documentary, Rowing the Atlantic, was about the solo trip in a small row boat by traveler and blogger Aurimas Valujavicius, who often sailed in turbulent seas. The opening scenes show him brushing his teeth and shaving – not easy tasks in a row boat.   Facing challenges is part of the Lithuanian DNA according to Brūzga, and there were certainly a lot of challenges throughout the voyage. The dialogue was mostly in Lithuanian, but on the occasions in which Valujavicius spoke English during landings along the way, it was with a heavy Lithuanian accent – unlike the ambassador who could easily be mistaken for a native English speaker. An El Al plane flying above the clouds. (credit: IPTC/GPO) ■ WHEN AN elderly woman traveling this week on an El-Al flight from Russia to Israel began to feel ill, passengers sitting nearby notified the flight attendants, who requested medical assistance. Aviation physician and long-time volunteer, Dr. Nathan Ungar was sleeping peacefully in his seat, returning to Israel after assisting in the transport of a patient to Russia. As a physician who frequently accompanies sick patients, Ungar had a prior rapport with the crew, who immediately approached his seat, roused him, and informed him of the emergency.  The doctor quickly located the distressed passenger, finding her slumped in her seat, barely conscious. Using the flight’s medical equipment, Ungar began a thorough examination of the patient and realized that her condition was critical, as she had dangerously low blood pressure and oxygen levels. He then asked the flight crew to make the onboard oxygen tank accessible, along with medications. Ungar connected the patient to oxygen, opened an IV line, and administered fluids to the patient, whose condition slowly began to stabilize.  After monitoring the patient, the doctor stayed close to her until the plane landed at Ben-Gurion Airport and an Advanced Life Support Ambulance met the plane on the tarmac and transported the patient to the hospital for further care. “The story would have ended very differently if I hadn’t acted on time,” said Ungar. “I’m just blessed to have been at the right place at the right time.” ■ OF ALL the solidarity missions that have come to Israel since October 7, those traveling the furthest distance come from Australia. Yet another of these missions was in Israel this week, and like most, visited the scenes of the Hamas massacre and met with families of the hostages and with Israeli politicians and other dignitaries. Led by its chairman Eli Nossbaum, the Australian Jewish Funders delegation met with President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal to assure them of the continued support of the Australian Jewish community.  Among the subjects discussed during the meeting were sexual violence against women, increasing antisemitism in Australia, the large number of Zionist and other Jewish organizations in Australia, the compassion of , mental health, the need for evacuated kibbutzniks to gt back to their homes, and the possibility of entering into diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. In response to a question on the latter, Herzog said that this would depend on Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States. In response to a question as to why the Israeli government is taking so long to bring home the hostages, Herzog said that he was not the spokesman for the government – but he did make a valiant effort to defend it. The AJF is a member-based organization guided by innovation, collaboration and leadership, Jewish values, tradition, and wisdom to strengthen the Australian Jewish community and the State of Israel. ■ IN HONOR of International Women’s Day, the Ra’anana Municipality ran a campaign to identify local women leaders. Canadian-born Mindy Ajzner, who wanted to bring something useful and meaningful to Israel from Toronto, chose to teach financial literacy to teenagers and young adults. The course she gives is called Chaim BePlus for which she received the Ra’anana 2024 Women’s Leadership Award in the field of financial education. In the 17 years in which she has been teaching in schools and workshops, more than 21,000 students from all over the country have received practical courses in personal financial management. Chaim BePlus also has its own Whatsapp group for sharing financial tips and success stories through written posts and videos. ■ IN A ceremony at The Hague, this week, Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan and Israel’s  Ambassador to the Netherlands Modi Ephraim honored three Dutch Righteous Among the Nations who have been recognized by Yad Vashem. The descendants of Rolina and Johannes Oelen, Jan Hendriks and Johannes and Wilhelmina Bros, were presented with the certificate and medal of appreciation on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel for their selfless acts of kindness and bravery in rescuing and hiding Jews during the Holocaust. The ceremony was a significant part of part of Dayan’s visit to the Netherlands for the inauguration of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam. The opening of the museum was attended by King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands; Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who was in Israel this week; President Isaac Herzog; the President of Austria, Alexander van der Bellen;  the president of the German Bundesrat Manuela  Schwesig; the mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema, and leaders of Jewish communities from the Netherlands and beyond. ■ IT’S FAR from a pleasant job, but it is holy work, which on Sunday evening, March 17, will be duly praised by several important people. The occasion is a tribute to all those who work in the framework of the Jewish Burial Society or the Hevra Kadisha as it is called in Hebrew.  Speakers at the tribute – to be held at the Belvedere Banquet Halls in Rishon LeZion – will laud Hevra Kadisha workers who continue with the daily task of steeling themselves to look at sights that are not easy to view, and who apply themselves to the work at hand, because it is holy. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas massacre on Simchat Torah, the Hevra Kadisha had to prepare more than 70 graves for victims who had been identified.  Among the speakers at the event will be President Herzog, former chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and Israel Meir Lau; Religious Affairs Minister Michael Malchieli; and Welfare and Social Services Minister Ya’akov Margi. ■ HADASSAH NATIONAL President Carol Ann Schwartz hosted a breakfast meeting in New York this week for Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, chair of the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against women and children, to present a documented briefing on the Commission’s findings on Hamas’s use of rape and other forms of sexual violence as weapons of war against Israeli women and girls.  Others who spoke about the irrefutable evidence of war crimes by Hamas included Celine Bardet, founder of WeAreNotWeaponsofWar (WWoW), and Marie-Sarah Seeberger, member of the World Jewish Congress Jewish Diplomatic Corps (France). Schwartz discussed the slow response from the international community and Hadassah’s global End The Silence Campaign to seek justice and hold Hamas accountable. ■ TO MARK the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Israel, the Royal Thai Embassy, in collaboration with Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), held a Tree Planting Ceremony at Ben-Shemen Forest. Seventy biblical saplings, namely pine, oak, carob, bay, laurel, and cypress were planted by 70 dignitaries and others who have constructively contributed to the bonds of friendship between the two nations. Thai Ambassador Pannabha Chandraramya, together with Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter spoke of the long and important relationship between their two countries and reiterated their commitments to further advance cooperation in all areas in the future. Chandraramya looked forward to a greener and more sustainable Israel, saying that the trees, with their roots firmly grounded, will serve as living symbols of the deepening ties between the two countries. Dichter highlighted the significant contribution of Thai workers to Israel’s agriculture and economy and expressed hope that the remaining eight Thai nationals held in captivity in Gaza would be released in the near future. Ifat Ovadia-Luski, KKL-JNF’s World Chairwoman, echoed the hope for the safe return of the Thai nationals. She also emphasized the significance of the newly planted trees as living symbols of the deepening ties between Thailand and Israel. Michael Ronen, head of the  Southeast-Asia and India, division at Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, read the “Prayer for a Tree Planting” in English to bless the 70 trees of friendship. [email protected] ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-08

Mifal Hapayis announced the winners of the 2023 for literature this week at a ceremony in Ofakim, and the top award went to Ofra Offer Oren for her book, What Happened to Hagar in Eilat? It is an unusual work of fiction composed of 336 sonnets. The book, published by Kinneret Zmora Bitan, deals with the aftermath of sexual abuse. The Sapir Prize for a Debut Novel was given to Ilana Rudashevski’s Taska, published by Shtaim, which is about a family that immigrates to Israel from the Soviet Union in the ‘70s. The ceremony, led by Chen Amsalem-Zagori, took place in the presence of the Mifal Hapayis chairman, CPA Avigdor Itzhaki, and CEO Benjamin Dreyfus. Among the participants in the ceremony were musicians Idan Raichel, Zehva Ben and Jimbo J, along with the Children’s Choir of Ofakim. Other residents were among the guests. The winners were chosen by a judging committee headed by Oren Nahari, a journalist and lecturer who is the author of several non-fiction books. An Israeli man plays the lottery at a lotto booth in the center of Jerusalem (credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90) Nahari commented on the decision to hold the ceremony in Ofakim, a city that suffered losses during the October 7 massacre by Hamas: “Ofakim... continues to remind us – and there is no person in the country who does not remember, is not aware – that we are in the midst of a crisis; in the midst of a war. “And many times, when my friends and I discussed books – which book is better, which more reflects the country, Israeli society – we felt that it was strange, maybe even a little ridiculous to talk about books when at this very moment hostages are dying in the Hamas tunnels, at this very moment our soldiers are fighting against a brutal, bloodthirsty and criminal jihadist terrorist organization a few kilometers away from here, and are also fighting in the North, and other arenas,” he said. “But one of Israel’s greatest strengths is – and always has been – , in all its varieties. After all, even in the midst of the War of Independence, the most difficult of Israel’s wars, songs were composed, hymns were sung, books were written and plays were staged,” Nahari said. “And we, all of us, are fighting for the image of the State of Israel, for its future. And yes, Israeli culture is a central pillar of the country, an essential part of the nation – which I remind all of us, among other things, is the people of the book.” The winner of the Lottery’s 2023 Sapir Prize for Literature will receive a grant of NIS 180,000 and her book will be translated and published in the Arabic language and translated into another foreign language of her choice. The second-prize winner will receive NIS 75,000. In addition, the lottery will purchase an edition of 500 books from the five writers selected as part of the short list and will give them as a gift to public libraries throughout the country. The other books on the short list were Biotope by Orly Castel-Bloom (published by Siman Kria/ Hakibbutz Hameuchad), Ho-Mama by Tami Bezaleli (Afik Israeli Literature), Life by Gail Hareven (Ahuzat Bayit), and Bite Marks by Hanoch Marmari (published by Keter). Neria Barr contributed to this report. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-05

Ilya Gefter’s (b. 1980, Leningrad, Former Soviet Union) series of large-scale works, titled The Front (or The Banality of Evil), now exhibited at The Artists House, Tel Aviv, raises historical issues that evoke fundamental questions pertaining to morality, memory, repression, testimony, and indoctrination. Doron J. Lurie, curator of the exhibition, has been following Gefter’s artistic development for almost 20 years. In the exhibition’s “Synopsis,” Lurie writes that after embarking on a “grand tour” of archaeological sites throughout Italy, depicting the antique, Renaissance, and Baroque art that he encountered, Gefter has now turned to “archaeological excavations” of his own, revisiting World War II. “Quiet, calm, and peace-loving, Gefter seems to be moving back and forth between two worlds: the contemporary world (family, painting, career) and the 1940s (the period of World War II). Every morning, he goes to his studio in the heart of an industrial area in south Tel Aviv, away from the hustle and bustle, and plunges into the depths of that war. A glance at the studio reveals rather large canvases: on the right, Adolf Hitler; on the left, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler after his suicide. In the evenings, he finishes his work, cleans his brushes, and returns to the present.” “The subject of war has now become painfully relevant,” writes Gefter in his exhibition statement. He adds that when he started showing his first “World War II” images, he was often asked why he painted them. “Since the full-scale in 2022 and Israel’s tragedy of October 7, 2023, I no longer hear the aforementioned question,” he confesses in the text he wrote for the opening of the one-man exhibition of his Front series of large-scale paintings. “I hardly wished for or aimed for journalistic relevance when I started the Front series. My aspiration was to grapple with complex themes and the most meaningful questions, regardless of their timeliness. The fundamental meaning of art, I believe, is in offering a vision of harmony on the one hand and coping with a tragic absence of harmony in human existence on the other. In my paintings from the Front series, I engage with the tension between these two meta-themes.” 'THE PROCESSION' by Ilya Gefter (credit: Tal Bedrack) Lurie says that after Gefter learned where his great-grandfather was in World War II and what he did there, something in him unleashed unexpectedly. “He found himself going through family photographs from the days of the Communist-Stalinist Soviet Union and then through old books about the “Great Patriotic War,” Lurie adds. Gefter began visiting antique shops in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, seeking old photographs from that time. Gradually, he realized that it was a drive stronger than him, one that could not be ignored, and he began addressing the subject in painting. Describing the photograph of his great-grandfather that inspired his involvement with World War II, Gefter writes, “The project evolved from a single photograph taken shortly after the fall of Nazi Germany. In this photo, my great-grandfather is seen standing among Soviet soldiers amid the ruins of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. A painting I made after this image to evoke the predicament of one man in June 1945 gradually evolved into a series exploring the era and its shadows. The pieces may depict some historical figures, events, and places, but they are not strictly paintings of history. Instead, the works aspire to that haunt us to this day, whether as memories of the past or as the results of current dramas. By exhuming experiences of a distant war, I aim to confront the darker corners of the human psyche, which can emerge at any time, wearing any uniform.” “Painting from old photographs, Gefter ‘translates’ these old photographs for us,” writes the curator. As a translator, Gefter enlarges the photographs considerably on the canvas, abstracting the faces and other details, and thus rendering these historical photographs in a more expressionist manner. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-04

Yad Vashem on Monday dismissed claims spread by the Russian Foreign Ministry alleging that the Holocaust memorial and museum was concealing materials pertaining to Ukrainian cooperation with Nazis during the Holocaust. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova shared on her official Telegram channel claims by a Russian language Youtube channel that Yad Vashem had been hiding material "This is how history is rewritten!" Zakharova said on Wednesday, in response to Russian journalist Oleg Lurie, who had shared how video blogger Margarita Levin said that over two years "disappeared from the exhibition of the Holocaust Museum and most of the references and documents that the Ukrainian nationalists-Bandera took a direct part in the mass murder of almost one and a half million Jews living on the territory of Ukraine." Levin, who according to her Facebook page lives in Modiin and runs a nail beautician school, posted on Tuesday the allegations against on her small one thousand subscriber Youtube channel. The channel posts content in Russian with English subtitles, and mostly on the topic of the Russian-Ukraine War.Visitors seen at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem on April 16, 2023, ahead of Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH 90) "Many people have the feeling that the Israelis support the current rewriting of history in Ukraine," Levin wrote on Tuesday. "We, ordinary Israelis, see everything, remember everything, and know our history. And we do not agree with what is happening now!" Yad Vashem called the blog "strange" and "fictitious" and denied that there had been any concealment, removal, or alteration of its exhibits that obfuscates the collaboration of Ukrainians in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. "Yad Vashem indeed discusses and highlights the actions and efforts of local collaborators in the territories of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Moldova as part of Nazi Germany's plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe," said a spokesperson. "Yad Vashem mentions this history and showcases relevant documentation describing the collaboration in various forums and platforms, including on Yad Vashem's website." The museum highlighted its preservation of such information with the International Institute for Holocaust Research Untold Stories Project, which maps mass killing sites in the former Soviet Union, 700 of which were in Ukraine alone. "As part of this research project, Yad Vashem offers archival documentation and testimony describing the mass murder of the Jews of Eastern Europe by the Nazis, often assisted by local collaborators," Yad Vashem said in a statement. Levin did not immediately respond to requests for comment. This new point of contention between Yad Vashem and the Russian Foreign Ministry comes after Zakharova's January 21 remarks on the Holocaust in response to Germany's defense of Israel against International Court of Justice genocide allegations. Zakharova attacked Germany for its consistently strong support of Israel and asserted that Germany had a narrow view of the Holocaust, focusing on Jews and ignoring crimes by its predecessor state against Russians. "The Holocaust is defined as the persecution and mass extermination of people representing various ethnic and social groups by the Nazis," said Zakharova.  Yad Vashem said on January 22 that the should not bring the Holocaust into its political agendas and only engage with historical facts. "Yad Vashem views the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry as a serious distortion of the Holocaust. Contrary to its stated claim, the Holocaust was an unprecedented systematic genocide, carried out by Nazi Germany and its collaborators with the aim of annihilating the Jewish people," said Yad Vashem. "This fact is supported by countless testimonies, documents, and studies."  ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-03

I never met Elie Wiesel. I only have read two books that he wrote. He honored me by inscribing his novel The Oath and congratulating me on my bar mitzvah in 1977. My mother Devorah worked for the office staff for the Jewish Studies Department at City College in New York. Wiesel, a man of great intellect, empathy, and vision was a Distinguished Professor in the department overseen by Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg. Greenberg and Wiesel were teachers in an impressive faculty for whom my mother worked at the time of my rite of passage. Wiesel could not make my bar mitzvah but he sent me his book as a gift. I still have not read it, more than four decades after I received it. But I have read his 1972 study of hassidic masters and their stories – Souls on Fire – many times. In my 26 years of lecturing to adults, I have quoted often from this book, one of my favorites in my well-stocked library of Jewish books. His Sages and Dreamers: Biblical, Talmudic and Hasidic Portraits and Legends (1991) is also a wonderful study, based on his 25 years of popular and spellbinding lectures at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. This Shabbat I will read his groundbreaking The Jews of Silence, a work that inspired Rabbi Jonathan Porath, later an American oleh (immigrant) to Jerusalem, to become a key player in the movement to liberate Soviet Jewry from Communist dictatorship in the mid-1960s. Rabbi Porath – I discussed in these pages his recent memoir Here We Are All Jews: 175 Russian-Jewish Journeys – urged me to write this essay. : Holocaust survivor, scholar, author, teacher, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was a fighter for human rights throughout the world. He warned against indifference to human suffering. Wiesel was a man and Jew of great vision, clarity, and conscience. He represented Jews, as a witness, who survived the Shoah. Wiesel awoke the world to the plight of Soviet Jewry in The Jews of Silence (1966), just as Jonathan Porath started his journeys to the Soviet Union to connect with identifying Jews there. Porath’s 2022 memoir describes the collaboration between the rabbi and the visionary. “Reb Eliezer” was Rabbi Porath’s mentor and friend. Since Wiesel’s death at age 87 in 2016, Porath has been concerned that his legacy is fading and there has not been a man of vision in the Jewish community and the world to take his place. Without a moral compass and a voice of conscience, this violent world is in trouble. As a Nobel Laureate, Wiesel addressed the reason why the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him “a messenger to mankind.” He said, “Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Wiesel was not innocent. He knew the world did not learn the lessons of the Holocaust. He advocated for human rights everywhere: in apartheid South Africa, in the Rwandan Genocide, and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel as Wiesel introduced him to speak at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, April 23, 2012. (credit: JASON REED/REUTERS) The one time in Israel when he criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian and Israeli Arabs he did not get a good reception. He never delved into criticism of Israel again. In fact, his standing in the is greater than that in Israel. He loved Israel and recognized the necessity of a Jewish State and army but he could never forget the way survivors in early Israel were unfairly criticized for not fighting back (although many did and survival from day to day was defiance). I urge you to read veteran journalist Joseph Berger’s recent biography, Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence, an illuminating and readable study. The biographer quotes Wiesel in an essay that he wrote after journeying to Poland: “Jews were murdered because they were Jews, not because they were Poles. They, and they alone, were fated to total extermination not because of what they had said or done or possessed, but because of what they were.” This resonates in the aftermath of Hamas’s brutal assault on Israelis on October 7, 2023. I wonder what would have been Wiesel’s response to the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Perhaps he would not have been surprised by the ferocity of the attack on Jews and the indifference of the world and the emergence of hatred of Jews worldwide. But now is precisely the time his work and life should be remembered. We must carry on his mission of bearing witness. With human rights abuses on a massive scale throughout the world – from China to Africa to Iran – Wiesel’s message of taking a stand against human suffering resonates for us. We need “a messenger to mankind.” The world cannot afford to forget . Let his words and his mission continue to be a presence in this violent world. I am hoping that Rabbi Porath’s concern concerning Elie Wiesel’s legacy not be confirmed by an indifferent humanity. The writer is a rabbi, essayist, and lecturer in West Palm Beach, Florida. ...قراءة المزيد

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2024-03-01

According to an aphorism frequently attributed to the American writer , “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” In the 20th century, the world survived the twin evils of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Can we survive the latest incarnation of evil—the ? As a student of history in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I viewed the world very differently from how it is viewed today. My generation emerged from the remnants of World War II. We were the children of those who had fought in or survived the war. We were also raised under the cloud of the Cold War. Growing up in a Western society, my binary view of the world was that democracies supported freedom and the rights of individuals, and those who lived under communist, fascist, dictatorial, or authoritarian regimes were oppressed. Fascism and communism had much in common. Both usurped and retained power by ruthlessly crushing all opposition, eliminating freedom of speech, suppressing individual rights, and employing state terrorism. Nazi Germany was underpinned by the ability to indoctrinate its people with the belief in Aryan supremacy and the pursuit of the thousand-year Reich. El Führer alemán Adolfo Hitler haciendo el saludo nazi (credit: Wikimedia Commons) The formation of the Soviet Union in 1922, following the 1917 Russian Revolution, saw Vladimir Lenin similarly embark on a campaign to eliminate opposition to his Bolshevik party as he cemented one-party rule. Freedom of speech and individual rights were denied. The Soviet Union, particularly under the leadership of Joseph Stalin until its demise in 1953, relied on the ongoing repression of its citizens. Stalin’s rule resulted in the death of millions through his purges and policies. The common theme: These were totalitarian regimes that controlled every facet of life and instilled a climate of fear among their people. Germany had its concentration camps; the Soviet Union had its Gulags. They also threatened world order. Germany conquered most of Europe and then invaded the Soviet Union. After World War II, the Soviet Union brought its Iron Curtain down around Eastern Europe and sought to export its revolution to every corner of the planet. The defeat of Nazi Germany and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 were rightly seen as epochal events in which the dark forces of oppression were defeated. But just as the ideology underpinning Nazism posed a global threat to civilization, so does its successor. The Islamic Republic of Iran, established in 1979 following the , immediately embarked on a path to establish a totalitarian theocracy where all dissent and freedoms were suppressed. Evian Prison is the Dachau and Lubyanka of Iran. Once the ayatollahs consolidated their power, they sought to expand their revolution across the Middle East. Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons coupled with its spread of terror through the arming of proxies has seriously destabilized the Middle East. The declared desire to eradicate Israel is no mere idle threat. Virtually every ongoing conflict in the Middle East can be traced back to Iran. The Abraham Accords and the potential for an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia are primarily due to the realization of the Iranian threat to the region. While Hamas would never accept the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland, it would never have been able to threaten Israel without Iran’s support. That Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are no longer functioning states is primarily due to the malignant interference of Iran in their affairs. The Soviet Union is no longer, but those who were given the role to undermine, infiltrate, and usurp Western societies through subversive activities involving disinformation and propaganda and exporting Marxist ideology would be laughing in their graves. They invested heavily in infiltrating the unions, academia, and left-wing peace movements. Their success can be measured by how the liberal progressives and hard left view the world today. Rather than looking through the lens of good vs. evil, freedom vs. oppression, they have adopted a worldview based on self-loathing, viewing Western states as dominated and defined by white colonialist oppressors, thereby giving license to all who oppose them. That the streets of many cities throughout the world are full of protesters marching in support of Hamas and its genocidal ambitions against the only democracy in the Middle East is a classic example of how propaganda and disinformation have succeeded. The myth that Israel was colonized by the Jews who drove out the indigenous Palestinians and the accusation that Zionism is racism emanated from the Soviet Union. The West’s failure to exercise moral clarity, coupled with the lack of fortitude to engage Iran and support Israel against Hamas, could potentially have devastating consequences for civilization. Romy Leibler is a former prominent business and communal leader in Australia now residing in Jerusalem, Israel. ...قراءة المزيد

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