Israeli soccer player in Turkey comes back hero
Good team players in football, basketball, and other sports clubs often become the heroes of the spectators and receive celebrity status almost everywhere they go.
If Sagiv Jehezkel – the Israeli soccer player on the Antalyaspor team – had merely kicked a goal on the 100th day of the captivity of Israeli men, women, children, senior citizens, and infants, and had not marked the occasion by displaying what he had written on his wrist band, he would probably still be a popular figure in Turkey.
But he paid the price for loyalty to his country by being booed, cursed, harassed, detained, suspended from the team, which is now seeking to legally cancel his contract, and finally deported.
The question is if his stay was canceled, his right to be in Turkey was questioned, and every effort was made to humiliate him, why should the goal he kicked be counted?
Surely if the man is not worthy, his boot is even less so, and the goal should be disqualified.
Happily, Jehezkel came home to a hero’s welcome and was hoisted on the shoulders of his admirers who were waiting for him at Ben-Gurion Airport.
But it didn’t stop there. On the evening after his return home, Jehezkel, a former Hapoel Beersheba player, was invited to share the Goldstar Beer VIP stand at the Turner Stadium in Beersheba with wounded soldiers who are recuperating from their injuries. They came to watch the game between Hapoel Beersheba and Hapoel Petah Tikva. Jehezkel regarded the soldiers as heroes, and they regarded him as a hero.
The new president of WIZO is a fifth-generation Israel
A fifth-generation Israeli has been elected as the 8th president of the World Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO). Anat Vidor, 52, who succeeds Esther Mor, is descended from the pioneers of the First Aliyah.
After growing up in Israel, and completing her army service, Vidor was sent to Queensland, Australia, as a Jewish Agency emissary. She spent several years in Australia before returning to Israel with her family.
As a former president of WIZO New South Wales, which is headquartered in Sydney, she joined the executive of WIZO, Israel.
Ordinarily, World WIZO elections are held every four years, with hundreds of WIZO members from the 38 countries in which WIZO is represented, coming to Israel to inspect WIZO facilities and services, participate in workshops, listen to lectures and panel discussions by Israeli experts in different fields, to network and get to know each other and to take home important messages coupled with their impressions.
This year, because of the war, the expanded and international general assembly of World WIZO was held on Zoom with some 600 participants from around the globe.
Keynote speaker was President Isaac Herzog who said: “WIZO is woven right at the center of the story of Israel. I want to thank each and every one of you that is part of this vast and powerful web of caring which is called WIZO.” Referring to the war, Herzog said: “We will rise again, we will recover, we will rebuild.”
Vidor feels strongly about WIZO’s role in Israel and the Jewish world: “Now, more than ever, WIZO plays a leading part in ensuring the resilience and strength of Israeli society, and in defending Israel’s inalienable right to exist as the sovereign and democratic homeland of the Jewish people,” she said.
Among the participants in the event were: World WIZO Chairperson Anita Friedman, outgoing WIZO Global President Esther Mor, members of the World WIZO Executive Committee, World WIZO CEO Mira Mines, WIZO Israel Chairperson Ora Korazim, as well as dozens of World WIZO leaders from many countries.
One of the founders of the 103-year-old organization that developed into the Women’s International Zionist Organization was Vera Weizmann, the wife of Israel’s first president Chaim Weizmann.
Vidor is well qualified for a leadership role. She holds a bachelor’s degree in archaeology and Jewish history from the Hebrew University Jerusalem, and a master’s degree in communications from Bond University in Queensland, Australia.
Former Australian ambassador to Israel, now an Israel advocate
Some ambassadors become so involved with the countries to which they are posted, that even when they leave the foreign service, they continue to maintain a keen interest and remain in contact with friends and acquaintances.
One such person is former Australian ambassador Dave Sharma, who is now a senator in the Australian Federal Parliament having succeeded the legendary Marise Payne. When he was in Israel, Sharma fell so much in love with the country that he asked for and received an extension of his posting.
After returning to Australia, he was frequently invited to speak to Jewish organizations, and in non-Jewish circles he often spoke up against antisemitism and in praise of Israel. He has been doing so again since the brutal Hamas onslaught and has been advocating for Israel in television, radio, and newspaper interviews.
Although Sharma is a member of the Liberal Party and has frequently spoken out against Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, they are on the same page when it comes to Hamas, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, when she was in Israel this week, said that Australia has consistently demanded free access to the Israeli hostages.
Winner of the 2023 Simon Gardner Prize for Hebrew poetry announced
The winner of the 2023 Simon Gardner Prize for Hebrew Poetry in memory of Nechama Rivlin is Noa Lara Meir. In notifying her this week, Michal Herzog, the wife of the president, said that Meir’s poetry contains pinpoints of light that had touched her to the depths of her emotions, especially the poems that Meir had written about her mother, with which Herzog could identify.
The prize will be awarded soon at a special ceremony at the President’s Residence. This will be the fifth time in which the prize is awarded by the wife of the president of the state following consultations with a special literary committee.
The prize was inaugurated and awarded for the first time in 2018 in honor of the 70th anniversary year of Israel’s independence. It was awarded in association with the Administrator General, who was aware of Nechama Rivlin’s love of Hebrew Poetry and approached her about giving her patronage to the award.
Rivlin readily agreed, and the tradition has been carried on by Herzog and named in memory of Rivlin who died in June 2019.
The NIS 70,000 Hebrew Poetry Prize was established to encourage the creation of high-quality Hebrew poetry and thereby enrich the culture of the nation.
Intense competition between paramedic organizations
The refrain in one of the songs in the musical Annie Get Your Gun begins, “Anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you.”
It would seem that the song was especially written for Magen David Adom (MDA) and United Hatzalah (UH) whose paramedics compete to answer the same emergency calls in the fastest possible time, though volunteers from both organizations often cooperate when treating people in life-threatening situations and the respective organizations send out press reports. They also compete for visits by public figures and for large-scale charitable donations.
MDA has recently received a significant donation from the Government of Finland. In the course of a visit to the MDA Emergency Call and Dispatch Center, Finland’s ambassador to Israel Dr. Nina Nordstrong, met MDA Director-General Eli Bin and senior MDA management with whom she signed an agreement for a €1m.-donation to help MDA save lives in Israel.
As this was Nordstrom’s initial visit to MDA, she was naturally interested to learn how the organization operates, she was given a broad view of MDA activities both before and after the Swords of Iron Operation in Gaza.
She also heard updates about developments in the western Negev. As for local dignitaries, MDA also had a visit from Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who said after his tour “The nation of Israel has a sword and you are the shield.”
Former PM and Yesh Atid MK visit the headquarters of United Hatzalah
Last week Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid MK Ron Katz visited the national headquarters of United Hatzalah in Jerusalem. They were warmly welcomed by CEO Eli Pollak, who provided them with an in-depth overview of the activities. Both MDA and UH claim to be Israel’s largest volunteer EMS provider.
Pollak highlighted the life-saving work of more than 7,000 UH volunteers of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds across the country, who, daily, drop whatever they are doing to save lives, and highlighted some of the exceptional and heroic acts of UH volunteers on October 7, recounting how their swift response saved numerous lives in the region of the Gaza envelope.
Pollak showed the two legislators footage captured on October 7th from the organization’s ambulance dashboard cams. The shocking videos were proof of the volunteers’ valiant actions, which were carried out in horrific circumstances, including when they came under fire from terrorists.
The MKs were deeply moved as they heard from UH volunteers, who were among the first to respond on that day of carnage which will forever be etched into Israel’s history. The volunteers shared poignant and difficult testimonies of the cruel, inhuman scenes they encountered as they attempted to save as many lives as possible.
The MKs also heard from Uriel Balmas, one of the directors of the organization’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response unit.
Lapid later described the organization’s volunteers as “true heroes.”
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