In the course of his address last Thursday evening at the inauguration ceremony at which Supreme Court President Isaac Amit was officially appointed, President Isaac Herzog noted that it was just ahead of last Saturday’s Torah reading of parashat Yitro, named after Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, who had advised him to appoint judges at different levels to settle disputes, with only the most important cases to be brought to Moses.
The Israeli court system is more or less based on this advice. And the oath for the pursuit of justice which judges pledge and sign is also taken from biblical times, when judges were instructed to judge the people righteously, without fear or favor, without taking bribes, and without transgressing.
Amit, in his own address, noted that the ceremony was taking place on Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees. This is the date on which the Knesset celebrates the anniversary of its initial meeting in the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem, before it found a permanent home.
At that time there was no Knesset building – neither downtown, where the Knesset Museum is due to open in the Knesset’s former downtown premises, nor in Givat Ram, where the Knesset is currently situated.
The Knesset is one of the three branches of government, together with the cabinet and the judiciary. Both Herzog and Amit called for dialogue between the three to reach some form of consensus. At the present time, both the cabinet and certain legislators are attempting to clip the wings of the Supreme Court and to deprive it of its independence.
Kieth Siegel speaks to Trump
■ FEW PEOPLE could fail to be moved by the message of appreciation which former hostage Keith Siegel sent to US President Donald Trump, in which he stated: “You are the reason I was reunited with my beloved wife, four children, and five grandchildren. Thank you for your continued fight against terror and for your bold leadership that brought me and many others back home to our families to safety and security.”
■ READERS OF this column are familiar with annual and sometimes more frequent gripes about the name of the President’s Medal of Distinction, founded by president Shimon Peres. The medal was not awarded during the seven-year term of his successor Reuven Rivlin, and was revived in 2021 by Herzog. But the latter also decided to change the name to Medal of Honor.
Rather than kick up a fuss and provide further cause for rifts between various sectors of society, Peres loyalists simply established a new medal to be awarded to deserving women on International Women’s Day (IWD) – and of course they call it the Medal of Distinction, which this year will be awarded for the fifth time.
This year’s honorees are all women who have been at the forefront of Israel’s rehabilitation and recovery since October 7, 2023.
All the women chosen by the Peres Center have, through their careers or a variety of initiatives, demonstrated determination, leadership, initiative, and spontaneous generosity, which have made a significant and meaningful impact across the full mosaic of Israeli society in the year following the events of the October 7 catastrophe.
Among the honorees are: Rita, Efrat Daum, Adina Bar-Shalom, Ruti Broudo, Michal Peylan, Keren Neubach, Danielle Amit, Avishag Shaar-Yashuv, Raz Hershko, Moran Samuel, Lt.-Col. Dr. Michal Lipschitz, Mali Zander, Hadar Kess, and Maali Masarwe.
Between them they represent entertainment, community leadership, education, restaurant management, broadcasting, hi-tech, medicine, finance, military service, and much more.
The ceremony will take place on Wednesday, February 19, at 10 a.m., at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, 132 Kedem Street, Jaffa.
All the inspiring and pioneering honorees have played a crucial role in shaping Israeli society in the aftermath of October 7. They have had a decisive influence on all aspects of the nation’s recovery and revival, working tirelessly to restore Israel’s workforce, infrastructure, and social fabric.
Alongside this year’s recipients, the ceremony will also acknowledge and honor the bearers of hope – the brave Israeli women who have returned from captivity, as well as the mothers and family members of the hostages, who are tirelessly advocating on behalf of their loved ones and leading the effort to raise awareness and ensure the safe return of all hostages who are still held captive.
■ SEVERAL OTHER organizations and institutions will likewise celebrate the empowerment of women, on dates other than the actual date of March 8. One that is coming up is the Emunah World Conference at the Nefesh B’Nefesh campus on the morning of March 6. Speakers will include Sharren Haskell, who currently serves as deputy minister of foreign affairs.
L’Oreal has already started the company’s IWD initiative by sending beauty experts as volunteers to the North, in partnership with Latet and Ruach Nashit, to give beauty treatments to women living in danger zones. The targets are Holocaust survivors, victims of sexual and other forms of physical violence, and women in financial distress.
The idea behind the Beauty on the Road project is to give such women a good feeling at a time when they are living in the shadow of fear and insecurity.Also coming up is The Jerusalem Post Women Leaders Summit sometime in March.
■ AFFILIATES OF the World Zionist Organization are gearing up for the World Zionist Congress, which is held every five years, and will again be held in October of this year.
The Zionist movement has grown considerably since the First Zionist Congress in 1897, though Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl was not the first to found a Zionist organization, and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was not the first to revive Hebrew as a spoken language.
Rachael Risby Raz, the COO of Kol Israel (the political party, not the broadcasting network), notes that, in the Bible, the word “Zion” first appears in 2 Samuel 5:7 as a namesake for Jerusalem (and by extension the Land of Israel): “And David conquered the stronghold of Zion which is the city of David.”
The name is then repeated in the Prophets and Scriptures over 150 times.
The term “Zionism,” she continues, was actually coined in 1890 by Austrian Jewish activist Nathan Birnbaum. The term reflects the link between Zion and the Jewish people and their yearning to return to their historical homeland.
First came the World Zionist Organization, which was founded at the First Zionist Congress and has ever since served as the overseer and coordinator of the Zionist movement.
Second came Keren Keyemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, which in 1901 was tasked with purchasing land in Eretz Yisrael to settle Jews.
The third was United Israel Appeal, which in 1920 became the main fundraising branch of the Zionist movement.
The fourth, in 1929, was the Jewish Agency for Israel, which first served as the “government” of the Jewish people pre-state, and then became the main proponent of aliyah.
■ IN SUNDAY’S edition of The Jerusalem Post, there was an article by Uri Pilichowski under the title of “The inherent duality of Zionism,” in which he mentioned that he once thought that Neturei Karta, the extreme anti-Zionist group based in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea She’arim neighborhood, did not disagree with the tenets of Zionism, and then admitted he’d been wrong. But the premise of his article is that every Jew is a Zionist in his own way, even though he may not regard himself as such.
His reference to Neturei Karta took me back to my first year in Israel, when I was invited to Friday night dinner at the home of Amram Blau, one of the founders of Neturei Karta, which had broken away from Agudat Israel.
I had met and become friendly with his second and controversial wife, Ruth Ben David, when she was in Australia on a fundraising mission. She told me that if I should ever come to Israel, to get in touch with her. When I did, she invited me for dinner.
In conversation at the dinner table with Rabbi Blau, I asked him where he had been and what he had done during the War of Independence. He replied that he had been crawling on his stomach to bring food and medical supplies to the soldiers. That, despite all his protestations to the contrary, defined him as a Zionist.
■ BANK HAPOALIM chairman Reuven Krupik and Yadin Antebi, the bank’s CEO, hosted approximately 2,000 people from the top tier of Israel’s economy, at the bank’s main building in Tel Aviv, for the 25th annual Israeli Art Exhibition, which this year was dedicated to the Tribe of Nova and the survivors of the October 7 attack by Hamas.
The exhibition, which included some 600 works, was opened in the presence of Michal Herzog, the wife of the president, and other dignitaries. On the first day of the exhibition, over NIS 1.3 million was raised from the sale of items in the exhibition.
Bank Hapoalim, through the Community Workers Fund at the Center for Social Banking, selected the Tribe of Nova Foundation as the beneficiary of most of the proceeds from the sale of the works in the exhibition. The foundation provides assistance in various ways, directly and indirectly, for 3,750 survivors in the South, for 22 families of those kidnapped from the Supernova music festival, and for family members of 411 of those murdered.
The foundation focuses on support services for families suffering mental and economic stress, along with personal rehabilitation for survivors and bereaved families. It operates healing programs and practical tools for rehabilitation through community resilience and an economic envelope for all survivors, families of those murdered, and families of the kidnapped.
Among the participating artists were Sigalit Landau, Miriam Kabsa, Yonatan Ullman, Yair Garbuz, Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi, Olga Kundina, Shimon Pinto, Philip Renzer, Yoni Gold, Michel Platnic, Moshe Tarka, and Ziv Koren.
This year’s exhibition also featured a thematic section under the title of Good Eyes in salute to the men and women of the reserve forces for their incredible mobilization, dedication, and heroism. The thematic exhibition included some 25 photographs collected and curated by Shoshi Ciechanover from a large photography project initiated by Daphna Be’er Gebel, in which she invited reserve soldiers to share moments from their lives at the front during the period of the war.
■ IT’S RARE to hear applause in a synagogue chamber, and initially there was none at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue during the memorial concert this week in tribute to cantor Arieh Goldberg to mark the 30th day after his death.
Some of Israel’s leading cantors performed mostly cantorial pieces, accompanied by the Jerusalem Cantors Choir, whose voices blended beautifully with those of the soloists. A good, well-trained cantor has the vocal range of a good opera singer, and can make even a whisper heard in a large,well-attended hall. It didn’t take long for the audience to show its appreciation for such combined talent.
There were also many eulogies, including one from former Ashkenazi chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who knew Goldberg for many years and regarded him as a friend. Among Goldberg’s many attributes was a refusal to listen to gossip. Whenever anyone tried to bad-mouth someone else in his presence, he would start to sing, to drown out the sound.
Others spoke of his charity, his kindness, his participation in study sessions, and the impression that he made. “His silence was as impressive as his voice,” said one speaker.
It is common during the High Holy Days for cantors to go abroad to Diaspora congregations to improve their income. But according to his grandson, during the High Holy Days Goldberg preferred to be in Israel.
An extremely popular and well-loved figure, the affection and esteem in which he was held were evidenced by the number of people who came to honor his memory.
■ IT IS generally believed that children do not remember negative experiences unless they are continuing, such as domestic abuse, which can go on for years. But if it’s a onetime incident, more often than not it fades from memory, and once the child becomes an adult, that incident is completely forgotten.
That was not the case with actress Gila Almagor, who starred as her late mother, Henya, in the autobiographical film for which she wrote the script, after having previously written the book. The story is about her birthday party to which no one came. She was just a young schoolgirl, and the incident scarred her emotionally for the rest of her life.
The actress, now in her mid-80s, who has long appeared as the queen of the Habima stage, is already planning her next birthday party, which will be somewhere close to her actual birthday, which is on July 22. From previous experience, she knows that this time, the invitations will be accepted, and that almost everyone she invites will put in an appearance, including veteran entertainers such as Rivka Michaeli and Yehoram Gaon, who are each more or less the same age as Almagor.
Actually, it’s quite amazing how many octogenarian entertainers in Israel are still going strong and show no signs of retiring.
■ FORMER NATIONAL security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose resignation caused neither the government to fall nor the return of hostages to cease, despite his attempts to prevent a ceasefire, is responsible for numerous oversights on his watch. It was reported that, according to the government, numerous gun licenses were issued by people who were not authorized to do so.
Ben-Gvir’s policy was to issue more gun licenses so that members of the public would be better equipped if attacked by terrorists. Although this seems like a valid reason, anyone who is mentally unstable should not be allowed to handle a firearm.
This recently came to light with the suicide of a senior police officer, with an excellent 25-year record. The officer was among the policemen who fought against Hamas terrorists who invaded his kibbutz on October 7, 2023. He witnessed the brutal deaths of other policemen and kibbutz members, and although he fought valiantly, he was unable to erase the images that flooded his mind and caused him to suffer post-traumatic stress.
Once his condition was diagnosed, he was asked to surrender his weapon, and he was temporarily relieved of his duties and sent on vacation. Two days before he took his life, he was issued with a permit to once more carry a weapon. His colleagues want to know how such a thing could be excused when it was known that the man had fought Hamas, saw the horrors of what Hamas perpetrated, and that he suffered from PTSD.
■ THE LONG arm of coincidence continues to appear. At the same time that President Herzog is in Hungary to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, in Israel the family of the late Supreme Court justice Gavriel Bach, who was assistant prosecutor during the trial of Adolf Eichmann, is commemorating the third anniversary of Bach’s death. Adolf Eichmann sent more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews to their deaths, and tens of thousands of others to concentration camps which, unlike Auschwitz, were not death camps.
At the opening of the Eichmann trial in April 1961, Gideon Hausner, as chief prosecutor, made one of the most immortal speeches in history when he said in his opening address to the court: “I am not standing alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their feet to point a finger towards him who sits in the dock and cry ‘I accuse,’ for their ashes are piled upon the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka and are strewn in the forests of Poland. Their graves are scattered throughout the length and breadth of Europe. Their blood cries out, but their voice is not heard. Therefore I will be their spokesman, and in their name I will unfold the terrible indictment.”
■ THOSE UNDER the impression that Israel is ruled by the government should know that it’s ruled by weather forecasters.
In Jerusalem, a major Jerusalem Foundation event has been postponed to March 9, and in Tel Aviv the opening ceremony of the Ptil Tekhelet Educational Center and Museum has been postponed to a date to be announced.
Both events were originally scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 23.
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