Don’t Blame Our Arab Neighbours For Everything!

This  article may also be viewed in the online international magazine, Live Encounters. Editor, Mark Ulyseas is an Indian travel writer who supports Israel and all matters Jewish.

Naive, I know. But I was astounded, soon after settling in Karmiel, Northern Israel, to learn of local Jewish kids with drink and drugs problems.

Israeli researchers develop date-rape drug detector

I was also staggered to catch a couple of lads uprooting a sapling outside the library. My Hebrew is woefully  limited but I managed to stop them – if only temporarily – by giving them  the ‘Gorgon eye’.

Then a fellow immigrant described how he disturbed a potential burglar while at home in broad daylight and advised us all to update our security.

Meanwhile I met  a school student whose mother helps ‘children at risk‘ and   a friend  began working as a volunteer art teacher with difficult teenagers. She says it’s a tough class!

Jewish kids? In the Jewish State? Surely not! This can’t be! But I also remembered the prophetic words of founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. He said:

"When Israel has prostitutes and thieves, we'll be a state just like any other.”

So I’m sharing the loveliest part of the Galilee with the darker shades and sunnier hues of Israel’s ‘rainbow nation’ and I get hopping mad when only our Arab neighbours are  blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong.

The latest episode at the nearby gated community of Shorashim is such a case but it  didn’t receive much publicity as it was reported during the storm about the Saudi Arabian internet ‘hackers’ who stole  and  then published the details of thousands of Israeli credit cards owners. 

Indeed I learned about the local break-in only by chance, while reading an entry in the  Galilee Diary penned by Rabbi Marc J. Rosenstein, himself a Shorashim resident.

I’m re-posting his piece with slight amendments to allow for easier reading by a mixed audience. Using the title Crime Watch (coincidentally the name of a popular U.K. television crime reconstruction show), he wrote:

“On a recent Friday night three homes on Shorashim were burgled - this time in the early evening hours when the residents were out at Sabbath services or having dinner with neighbours. 

“One of the homes, based on past experience, was protected by an alarm and a safe (which was taken).  Such depressing occurrences recur in waves; it seems that every several months there is some activity, people take extra precautions that make them feel a bit more secure, it is quiet for a while, and then - another hit.  The premises are surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, but there are gaps, and if you're motivated, it's not so hard to get over, under, or around it. 

“There is a security guard on duty from midnight to 5.00 a.m., manning the entrance gate and patrolling the internal streets periodically.  There is a massive iron gate at the entrance, which can only be opened by a signal from a cell phone that is registered to a resident of the community.  This is often inconvenient, makes some people feel secure and others feel like colonialists - and is, apparently, not all that helpful.  And of course Shorashim is no different from the dozens of other somewhat isolated rural communities scattered around the country.

“We are all nostalgic for the good old days, 20 years ago, when we seemed to live a kind of idyllic pastoral life out here in the periphery, bragging to our city friends that we didn't even carry a key to the front door.  What has changed?  Is it just that we are less naïve now?  Or is it that our standard of living has risen, our homes having gotten larger and more stocked with stuff that is tempting to steal?  Or has the degree of economic inequality increased, so that there are more desperate people looking for a way to survive? 

“Or is it perhaps that the ineffectuality of the law enforcement system in dealing with this type of crime has made it a worthwhile venture for more people?  Or perhaps organised crime has permeated the local under-class, providing incentives and mechanisms for moving stolen goods?  Or could it be a rise in drug addiction in Arab villages (my highlight- N.I.W.)? All of the above?

“For the new residents who left the city seeking that pastoral idyll, this reality is daunting, and they tend to like to see the gate kept closed, and are eager to volunteer for neighbourhood-watch patrols.  And among newbies and veterans alike safes and alarm systems and reinforced doors are popular home improvements. 

“Then there are those (I'm not sure if they're the majority or the minority) who sort of ignore the whole thing; they just lock their doors (mostly) and hope for the best.  Maybe they are fatalists, figuring that there is no fool-proof defence in any case; maybe they value their feeling of freedom more than their stuff; maybe they are just naïve/lazy (it won't happen to me).   What seems to be fairly certain is that the problem is not going to go away soon, nor be solved by any particular security measure, nor is anyone, no matter how security-conscious, immune.

“More than just a nationalist movement, Zionism has always been rooted in the Jewish messianic tradition, and Jews - both in the state and in the Diaspora - have tended to expect that somehow our state would be different, better, "the first flowering of our redemption."  At the same time, another powerful component of the Zionist vision was "normalization:" Finally, we would be a normal nation, just like everyone else.

“Out here in the ‘boonies’ (rural country), at the moment, through the bars on the windows, it looks like normalization has trumped messianism.  But we've only just begun; the question is, where do we go from here?”

The answers,  Rabbi Rosenstein, are clear:

1. Don’t complain about uneven security.
2. For Heaven’s sake, don’t blame the Arabs for everything.

These measures could stop a profound cynic and TV Crime Watch devotee  like me suggesting that there may be young people at home feeling so trapped ‘in the boonies’  that they are desperate enough to break out by breaking in.

Technorati Tags: Karmiel,Northern Israel,Shorashim,Drink,Drugs,Burglaries,Youth,Jews,Arabs,Rabbi Marc Rosenstein,Galilee Diary,David Ben-Guion,Saudi Arabian Internet Hackers,Live Encounters Magazine

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‘This Is The I.D.F., G’veret Wood!’

 

With quips about ‘Private Benjamin’ aimed at me and wisecracks about ‘Sergeant Bilko’ chucked back at him, today my husband and I spent time with women soldiers from the Israel Defence Forces Education Corps.

We were among other immigrants living in Karmiel, Lower Galilee, who have settled in Israel via the Nefesh B’Nefesh ‘Go North Project’.

The soldiers were led by a young, gun-toting woman officer whose mother is part of the NBN Go North team. The women we met are English teachers whose students have a chance to complete neglected school studies while serving in the military.

We saw a film describing their work and their students who often come from underprivileged backgrounds and who for various reasons are unable to complete conventional schooling. The education the recruits acquire may also help them to gain employment more easily in civilian life after they leave the army.

We discovered further that some non-Jewish recruits may decide to become Jewish and the army helps them with their conversion course. Also highlighted was the teachers’ work among Ethiopian recruits who are anxious to integrate into mainstream Israeli society.

After the film, we native English=speaking immigrants had a chance to swap notes with the soldiers, relating our experience of learning Hebrew as a foreign language. The event, most appropriately, was held at the local Yad Lebanim (literally ‘Memorial To the Children’) centre. There are many such centres dotted about Israel, dedicated by bereaved families to local young men and women who have died serving in the I.D.F.

Later we enjoyed a guided walk through Karmiel led by the city’s recently appointed official tourist officer.

As my husband has said: “Each one (of the women soldiers) is truly an eishet chayil – ‘woman of valour’. The I.D.F. doesn't do princess!”

• Further details about the work of the I.D.F. Education Corps is available at: http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/units/branches/human/education/default.htm.

The website states:

“The Education and Youth Corps mediates between the IDF and the Israeli public. It exhibits to the public the IDF's readiness to invest in national projects, such as instilling various educational values, the integration of new immigrants in the IDF, progression of new communities, and more. Within the Army, the corps teaches the values that the IDF and Israeli society wish the youth to emulate; the tradition and history of the Jewish nation, battle history of the IDF, military unit history, etc.”

Technorati Tags: IDF,Education Corps,Nefesh B'Nefesh,Go North Project,Karmiel,Israel,Yad Lebanim,Karmiel Tourist Office

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At Last: The Real J Edgar Hoover Stands Up

Article first published as Movie Review: J. Edgar on Blogcritics

“To Mr Lawrence”

                                                                                  By John Milton,    

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,

Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,

       Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire

       Help waste a sullen day; what may be won

From the hard season gaining? Time will run

       On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire

       The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire

       The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,

       Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise

       To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice

Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

       He who of those delights can judge, and spare

       To interpose them oft, is not unwise.”

 

Hoover: Repressed Gay Ogre Or Astute Celibate Devoted to U.S. Security?

J Edgar  Hoover hated communists, blacks and Jews and simply loathed Lithuanian-born Jewish anarchist Emma Goldman whom  he had deported to Russia in 1919 although she was a U.S. citizen.

But the two were curiously conjoined - both by American history and their polar-opposite politics: Goldman’s anarchism was inspired by the Chicago Haymarket Riots of 1886 while the future FBI chief’s understandably hysterical and pathological fear of domestic communism stemmed from the Cleveland, Ohio May Day Riots which happened shortly before he threw her out.

Hoover, then head of the U.S. Department of Justice General Intelligence Division, said of Goldman and her lover, Alexander Berkman that they were: “beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and their return to the community will result in undue harm."

The riots and Goldman’s deportation are among early scenes in J Edgar, the compelling, sometimes unbearably intimate and occasionally sympathetic portrait of Hoover drawn in  Clint Eastwood’s new film.

As I saw the movie in Israel before it opened in  the U.K. and had read a reasonably positive review in the New York Times, I could not understand why it received no mention at The Golden Globe awards or even one Oscar nomination. Surely, I mused, both Eastwood’s direction and Leonardo DiCaprio’s extraordinary performance as Hoover deserved a prize, despite the film being overlong, some of the prosthetics poor and its non-linear approach often difficult to follow.

Then I discovered why it had been ignored: the majority of critics have denigrated it quite ruthlessly, so smothering it at birth. There has been scant, grudging  attention paid to how Eastwood coped with the sweep of almost 80 years of history, encompassing waves of massive social unrest, gangsterism, a world war, the incumbencies of eight  U.S. presidents – and how the development of forensics allowed Hoover to create a scientific crime-detection laboratory.

This showed him as a man a half-century before his time, such work resonating today, not only because of DNA profiling (genetic finger-printing) but in  arguments over the use of a digitised/biometric National Identity Register – which scheme has just been abandoned in the U.K while in Israel a biometric database of all Israeli citizens is presently under trial.

Four of us watched the film together in Haifa and all of us – three expat British citizens and one expat American - all agreed that we had learned as much about U.S. history as we had about a 'different' Hoover.

All of us had heard the bizarre stories of his homosexual leanings, cross-dressing antics and unwonted attachment to his mother. But none of us swung the personal axes wielded by the professional critics who have also viewed the film.

I contend that if people want an accurate chronological narrative, there are many good documentaries available on television or via the internet. Eastwood has given us a fine if flawed piece of art – not documented history.

The Hoover whom Clint Eastwood presents is not simply a repressed homosexual ogre with a Hitchcockian mother fixation. I believe the director – like me – sees him as an asexual, celibate being with a monkish devotion to his work and whose social release is in his platonic friendship with FBI Associate Director, Clyde Tolson ( Armie Hammer). Nor  am I the only one to compare their relationship to those of strictly heterosexual gentlemen of an earlier, more leisured age.

But Eastwood also shows us a man with the sort of acutely unhealthy and overlong grip on power which makes monsters of us all. Like many dictators, the historic Hoover attempted to massage the truth about himself - and like the Nazis he kept meticulous records. But he was cleverer than they. He ordered his devoted secretary, Helen  Gandy (Naomi Watts) to destroy his personal files when he died. Much of what (we think) we know about the private Hoover is speculation as scholars must rely on a few remaining misfiled papers for evidence.

Have Eastwood and DiCaprio helped the real Hoover to emerge? Yes. But there may be more to come.

Technorati Tags: J Edgar,Film,J Edgar Hoover,Clint Eastwood,Leonardo DiCaprio,Helen Watts,Armie Hammer,John Milton,'Mr Lawrence'

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How Tiny Israel Triumphs Over Huge Adversity

 

First there was Paul Newman in Exodus, then there was Kirk Douglas in Cast A Giant Shadow. Next came one helluva gap before Spielberg made Munich.

But now, to celebrate Israel’s 64th birthday comes   Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference - a 55-minute feature length documentary examining an Israel bare of war and politics.

The film makers claim it ”sidesteps the usual conversation of politics, conflict and violence, and tells the story of the Israeli people – whose resilience has propelled Israel to the forefront of world innovation and progress."

“Despite daily challenges ranging from limited resources to security needs, Israeli creativity and inventiveness help make the world a better place; Israel has made significant advancements in the fields of science, environment, medicine and technology, and has shared these developments with the rest of the world.

“How did this happen? What underlying growth factors have given rise to this small nation’s triumph over adversity?

“The film is presented by Harvard University’s Dr. Tal Ben Shahar who explores the core character strengths – called ‘actualizers’ – that enable Israelis to succeed against incredible odds. Through Tal’s eyes we explore the deep-seated values such as education, family and responsibility to the world (a Jewish concept known as tikkun olam), which directly contribute to Israel’s accomplishments in the economic, technological and humanitarian spheres. And while none of these ‘actualizers are unique to Israel, combined they produce an almost unparalleled progress, success and contribution to the world.

“Israel Inside features interviews with leading entrepreneurs, academics, and politicians including Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, U.K. Chief Rabbi  Jonathan Lord Sacks, Sir Martin Gilbert, Professors Alan Dershowitz and Jacob Frankel, Tamar Jehuda-Cohen, and Shai Agassi.”

Israel Inside was produced by Rabbis Raphael Shore and  Richard Green  and was made in conjunction with Jerusalem Online University. Shore is the founder of Jerusalem Online and has produced two other films, Iranium and Obsession.

Now you’ve read the blurb - watch the trailer. I hope that everyone, whether in the Diaspora or Israel itself can celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) this year by watching the real Israel Inside.

 

Technorati Tags: Israel Innovation,Technology,Tal Ben Shahar,Education,Shai Agassi,Jewish Palestinian Peace

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Why ‘Life Is Beautiful’ For Noa

 

A Facebook chum sent me  this clip of Israeli singer, Noa (Achinoam Nini) as a birthday treat. How very kind!

Multi-talented Noa (Achinoam Nini)

For readers who do not know of the acclaimed songstress, Noa is also a composer and lyricist  who has performed for the Pope (!) and with musical legends like Stevie Wonder and Sting.

Although she was born to Yemenite parents who took her to the U.S.A. when she was aged two, she now lives on the Israeli coast with  her husband, Dr Asher Barak and their three children.

A glorious life indeed!.

Technorati Tags: Noa,Israel,Song,Life Is Beautiful

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Why This Clip Is Just My ‘Type’!

 

From the guys who brought you ‘organising the bookcase’, comes – quite naturally – re-organising the bookshop! Is this a winter comfort for nerdy control freaks or utter bliss for unreconstructed booklovers? Either way,  they’re just my ‘type’! Now watch and enjoy …

 

The Owner of Type Books, Toronto, Canada says (roughly)

“After organising our bookshelf almost a year ago my wife and I decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at our shop. The music was composed by Grayson Matthews.”

He’s now considering taking on the U.S. Library of Congress. But what about the Bodleian Library or the London Library in the U.K.? Or are such tiny institutions just for knock-kneed weaklings?

Technorati Tags: Type Books,Toronto,Canada,Bodleian Library,London Library,books,joy,reading

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Did They Make Sabbath Bread In Ancient Acco?

I re-repost with minimal editing, an amazing story proving Jewry’s unbroken link with the land of Israel – even in a town with a largely, if not exclusively, non-Jewish population:

‘Just two weeks after a Temple era seal was displayed to the public, archaeologists continue to dig up breath-taking proofs of the ancient and never-severed connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. This time, the find is a 1,500 year old tiny stamp discovered near the city of Akko (‘Acre’) bearing the image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah.

‘The stamp was used to identify baked products and probably belonged to a bakery that supplied kosher bread to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period.

‘The ceramic stamp dates from the Byzantine period (6th century CE) and was uncovered in excavations which the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently conducting at Horbat Uza east of Akko, prior to the construction of the Akko-Karmiel railroad track by the Israel National Roads Company.

‘This find belongs to a group of stamps referred to as “bread stamps” because they were usually used to stamp baked goods.

‘According to Gilad Jaffe and Dr. Danny Syon, the directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority: “A number of stamps bearing an image of a menorah are known from different collections. The Temple Menorah, being a Jewish symbol par excellence, indicates the stamps belonged to Jews, unlike Christian bread stamps with the cross pattern which were much more common in the Byzantine period.”

‘There were no Muslims in the region at the time — because the Koran had not yet been written.

‘According to Syon: “This is the first time such a stamp is “discovered in a controlled archaeological excavation, thus making it possible to determine its provenance and date of manufacture. The stamp is important because it proves that a Jewish community existed in the settlement of Uza in the Christian-Byzantine period.

’”The presence of a Jewish settlement so close to Akko – a region that was definitely Christian at this time – constitutes an innovation in archaeological research.”

‘“Due to the geographical proximity of Horbat Uza to Akko, we can speculate that the settlement supplied kosher baked goods to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period,” the excavators added.

‘The stamp is engraved with a seven-branched menorah atop a narrow base, and the top of the branches forms a horizontal line. A number of Greek letters are engraved around a circle and dot on the end of the handle. Dr. Leah Di Segni, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggested they probably spell out the name Launtius, which was common among Jews of the period and also appears on another Jewish bread stamp of unknown provenance. According to Dr. Syon and Gilad Jaffe, “This is probably the name of the baker from Horbat Uza.”

‘“Horbat Uza is a small rural settlement where clues were previously found that allude to it being a Jewish settlement. These include a clay coffin, a Shabbat lamp and jars with menorah patterns painted on them.

‘Dr. David Amit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has made a study of bread stamps, added:“A potter engraved the menorah image in the surface of the stamp prior to firing it in a kiln, whereas the owner’s name was engraved in the stamp’s handle after firing. Hence we can assume that a series of stamps bearing the menorah symbol were produced for Jewish bakers, and each of these bakers carved his name on the handle, which also served as a stamp.

‘“In this way the dough could be stamped twice before baking: once with the menorah – the general symbol of the Jewish identity of Jewish bakeries, and again with the private name of the baker in each of these bakeries, which also guaranteed the bakery’s kashrut.”’

With thanks to ‘United With Israel – The Global Movement for Israel’

Technorati Tags: Bread Stamp,Acco,Acre,Temple,Bakery,Menorah,Israel Antiquities Authority,Byzantine,Horbat Uza,Israel National Roads Company,Gilad Jaffe,Dr Danny Syon,Christians,Muslims,Dr Leah Di Segni,Dr Dsvid Amit

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The Influence Of Mrs Thatcher’s First Jewish Friend

 

I repost here in full an article that has appeared in this week’s edition of The Jewish Chronicle Online.

“According to journalist Charles Moore, whose biography of Baroness Thatcher will be released only after her death, the former PM considered Jewish values and Conservatism ‘a natural fit’

“Her support for Jewish causes derived, he says, from her interactions as MP for Finchley with Jewish people.

“He also suggests that, as a Methodist, she drew her "raw political and social lessons from the Bible", and emphasised the influence of Edith Muhlbauer, an Austrian Jewish teenager who, in 1938, stayed with the Roberts family in Grantham, after escaping Nazi persecution.

“’It had a significant impact,’ says Mr Moore. ’Edith was probably the first Jew she knew in the personal sense.’

Twenty years later, campaigning in Finchley, she infuriated local Conservatives by standing with the Liberals to fight a golf club's exclusion of Jews.

“Mr Moore says Baroness Thatcher believed that "the Jews were setting a good example. She liked the Jewish approach to looking out for your neighbours, being practical about money, working hard and being family-minded".

“Mr Moore says she was frequently irritated by Anglican leaders "lecturing her on state-ist socialist type solutions to everything. She found people like Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits more congenial in their way of thinking."

“He adds: "The mind-set in Europe now, including Britain, tends to see Israel as basically a problem. She saw it as a good thing - her instinct all the way through was 'thank God Israel is there and we must support' it, rather than 'oh, bloody Israel'."

* Edith, later Mrs Nokelby, was traced to San Paolo, Brazil in 1995. If she is still alive she would now be aged 91. The daughter of a Viennese banker, her contact with the Roberts family had started via a pen-pal friendship with Mrs Thatcher’s elder sister, Muriel.

According to a Jerusalem Post report in May 1995,  after Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938. Edith wrote to Muriel  in Grantham, England asking if she could give her a home. The Nazis were already rounding up the first of Vienna's 170,000 Jews and she was frightened. The Roberts agreed and 17-year-old Edith arrived with  with red handbags for Muriel and Margaret. Mrs Thatcher recalled her as “tall, beautiful, evidently from a well-to-do family."

* In December 2002, the Sha’are Zedek Medical Centre, Jerusalem presented Baroness Thatcher with its Board of Governors’  Ot Hanagid award “in recognition of her staunch support and friendship for the State of Israel and the Jewish People”. The ceremony took place in private at the Embassy of Israel in London.

* It was during her premiership that the Conservative Friends of Israel was born, a move inspired largely by the former Manchester MP, the late Michael Fidler and Soviet Jewry campaigner, Sylvia Sheff. I cannot now recall in which capacity it was that  Mrs Sheff invariably made a birthday presentation to the-then P.M. during the annual Conservative Party Conference.

* Charles Moore is another Tory who is eminently ‘good for the Jews’. Some months ago, Moore wrote a charming and affectionate tribute to the late literary critic, John Gross, which showed an almost uncanny comprehension of what it means to be a Jewish English gentleman. I must offer new approval for his decision not to publish his Thatcher biography until after the former P.M.’s death as I consider the current debate about a possible state funeral cruel and inept.

Technorati Tags: Jewish Chronicle Online,Margaret Thatcher,Jews,Israel,Charles Moore,Edith Muhlbauer,Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits,Michael Fidler,Sylvia Sheff,Conservative Friends of Israel,Embassy of Israel,Sha’are Zedek Medical Centre

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Why Dickens Is Well In – One Of The Israeli Fam-ily!

The Brilliance of Dickens Lives On

Charles Dickens created one of the best known Jewish villains in literary history. So deeply entrenched in the public psyche is the character invented by the novelist and as illustrated by George Cruikshank that people who have never met Jews imagine we all look and think like their conception.

But this won’t stop the British Council Israel from marking the 200th anniversary of  Dickens’ birth.

I’m thrilled by this move – not only because the Council strives to promote English language and literature in Israel while so many in the international Arts world simply vilify the Jewish State.

I am particularly enthusiastic because I’ve just watched  Roman Polanski’s version of Oliver Twist (for the third time!) on television here in Israel and ache to share the experience with the Bagrut (matriculation) students I meet as a volunteer English teacher at the P’sagot School in Karmiel.

I didn’t much care for Polanski’s film on a first viewing at the cinema. But I now see its power as a fresh piece of art created from Dickens’ original and marvel at  Ben Kingsley’s almost sympathetic portrayal of  Fagin, especially in the penultimate prison scene.

Perhaps this will be discussed by Jeremy Hamer, an expert in teaching English as a second language and violinist, Steve Bingham when they visit Israel from 11 - 14 February for a series of lectures and also give performances of a  musical theatrical show, incorporating some of Dickens’ most famous works.

Meanwhile, school activities throughout Israel will include creative and interactive events, allowing students to study Dickens’ life and work. Teachers will take part in workshops and use resources like prepared lesson plans and short films about famous Dickens’ characters.

As a taster, here’s a previous performance at a Touchable Dreams seminar.

 

Technorati Tags: Charles Dickens,Bicentennial,Fagin,Oliver Twist British Council Israel,Jeremy Hamer,Steve Bingham,Roman Polanski,Ben Kingsley,English Oral Bagrut,P'sagot School,Karmiel

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Bibi Tells Jewish Girls – Use Your Birthright–Settle In the Jewish State of Israel

PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the 2012 Taglit Mega-Event

“If you are an oleh/olah this is why you came; if you didn't make aliyah yet, this is why you should!”

No less a wit and sage than my ol’ man posted the above remark on Facebook. Of course Bibi just had to agree.

Technorati Tags: Israel,Taglit Mega-Event,P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu,Birthright,Aliyah

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Israel Forces ‘Sweetheart’ Who Sang To A Different Tune

 

She didn’t look a bit like the British Forces’ sweetheart, Vera Lynn - and a good job, too!

Israeli songbird Yaffa Yarkoni, who achieved fame by entertaining Israel’s war-time troops, was an icon of an entirely different calibre.

Not only did Yarkoni disdain her title as “the songstress of the wars” but was most hurt by those who claimed she had built her career on Israel’s military conflicts.

Indeed at the height of the second Palestinian intifada in 2002,  Yarkoni scandalised many Israelis when during an interview on Army Radio  she criticised the military and expressed empathy for the Palestinians, declaring: “We are a nation that went through the Holocaust. How can we do things like this to another nation?” She then described Israel as “leaderless.” Some even branded her a traitor and one organisation cancelled  a planned gala concert in  her honour.

Many of her songs became integral to Israeli people’s lives. Here I post the English translation to Hafinjan (The Coffee Pot song) that she warbles in the video clip above. I chose it  because Hafinjan was a youth club favourite when I was a kid. Aye, me!

And a ‘finjan’? Well depending on your source, it is either “literally translated from Arabic as ’cup’ and it is understood that it is specifically a coffee cup (http://thefinjan.net/)” or ”in the Levant, a small coffee cup without a handle, such as is held in a cup or stand called a zarf.”

I  must thank EBay for this image of an “Antique Copper Bronze Finjan Coffee Pot with three cups 1930s” – so ending with a pot and cups to match!

Readers able to share further light on the issue are invited to share a (free) cuppa coffee or tea with me at the nearest Aroma outlet!

THE COFFEE POT

The cool wind blows,
We'll add a chip to the campfire,
And thus in scarlet
It will rise in the flames like a sacrifice.
The fire flickers,
Its song rises up
The coffee pot spins, spins around.
The fire will whisper to the chip,
Our faces grow so red by the fire
If more fuel is prepared for us
From every broken branch stub in the garden,
Every tree and log
Will sing so softly
The coffee pot spins, spins around.

 

Technorati Tags: Yaffa Yarkoni,IDF,Army Radio,Second Intifada,'Hafinjan',Arabic,Coffee Pot

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Why We ‘Leica’ More Than We Can Say!

 

The Leica is the renowned  pioneer 35mm camera - a classic German product - precise, minimalist, and utterly efficient.  What is less well-known is that its designer used the same slick, professional technique to rescue hundreds of Jews from Nazi Germany.

Indeed it is said that Ernst Leitz and his family acted with grace, generosity, modesty and extraordinary heroism under the Nazis.

Moreover, the story below tells how Leitz, the designer and manufacturer of Germany 's most famous photographic product, kept forever secret his help for so many of his Jewish fellow countrymen – thus echoing the exploits of Italian champion cyclist, Gino Bartali.

Indeed, “Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed the closely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe, acted in such a way as to earn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler."

“As soon as Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor =f Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking for his help in getting them and their families out of the country. As Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited their professional activities.

“To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established the so-called “Leica Freedom Train," a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the guise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas.

“Employees, retailers, family members, even friends of family members were "assigned" to Leitz sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong and the United States. Leitz's activities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned across Germany.

“Before long, German "employees" were disembarking from the ocean liner Bremen at a New York pier and making their way to the Manhattan office of Leitz Inc., where executives quickly found them jobs in the photographic industry.

“Each new arrival had around his or her neck the symbol of freedom - a new Leica camera.

“The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out of this migration came designers, repair technicians, salespeople, marketers and writers for the photographic Press.

“Keeping the story quiet, The "Leica Freedom Train" was at its height in 1938 and early 1939, delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders.

“By that time, hundreds of endangered Jews had escaped to America, thanks to the Leitzes' efforts. How did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away with it?

“Leitz, Inc. was an internationally recognised brand that reflected credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced cameras, range-finders and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz's single biggest market for optical goods was the United States.

“Even so, members of the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good works. A top executive, Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to help Jews and freed only after the payment of a large bribe.

“Leitz's daughter was imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught at the border, helping Jewish women cross into Switzerland. Eventually she was freed but endured rough treatment in the course of questioning. She also fell under suspicion when she attempted to improve the living conditions of up to 800 Ukrainian slave labourers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in the plant during the 1940s.

“(After the war, Elsie Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honours for her humanitarian efforts, among them the Officier d'Honneur Des Palms Academic from France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from the European Academy in the 1970s.)

“Why has no one told this story until now? According to Norman Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, the Leitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts. Only after the last member of the Leitz family was dead did the "Leica Freedom Train" finally come to light.

“It is now the subject of a book, The Greatest Invention of the Leitz Family: The Leica Freedom Train by Frank Dabba Smith, a California-born rabbi living in England .

* Rabbi  Dabba Smith studied Linguistic Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, and qualified as a teacher. In 1994 he was ordained as a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, London. He joined Harrow and Wembley Progressive Synagogue ,London, England in 1997, where he had served as assistant rabbi.

He also works as a freelance photographer, and The Economist has published more than 150 of his images. His rabbinical thesis, Photography and the Holocaust, is a critical approach to surveying the use of photography as a communications and propaganda device by all parties involved in the Holocaust.

* I Am a Camera, a play inspired by Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin, is part of The Berlin Stories. The title is a quote taken from the novel's first page. The Broadway play earned the infamously scathing review by major U.S. theatre critic, Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica".

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