Ilan Pilo, left, and Rafi Yablonsky of the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation. (photo from CSZHF)
In Jerusalem, Yad Vashem stands as the foremost memorial centre to the Holocaust, dedicated to the millions of Jews murdered during the Shoah. Across the street, as if in defiant answer to the past, is one of the world’s busiest maternity centres, where 22,000 newborns meet the world every year, strengthening the future of the Jewish people.
The maternity section is just one of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre’s many specialized departments, advancing health not only at the start of life but all through the lifespan of patients. Shaare Zedek is home to an emergency preparedness and disaster response centre. It offers a one-stop multidisciplinary and comprehensive diagnostic breast health centre. There are departments focusing on heart health, medical genetics, digestive diseases, oncology and an array of other specializations – more than 30 in-patient and 70 out-patient departments in all. The hospital sees a million patients annually and has 1,000 beds. Located in the centre of west Jerusalem, it is, among so much else, a teaching and research facility.
Western Canadians will likely be hearing more about this particular facility as the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation has just opened its first office in this part of the country. But, while the organization may be a newcomer as a physical presence in Vancouver’s Jewish community, it will be a familiar face sharing the Shaare Zedek story.
Ilan Pilo, who served as shaliach (emissary) and regional executive director of Jewish National Fund of Canada from 2013 to 2021, has returned from Israel as the Western Canada executive director for the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation.
“I was thrilled and honoured to be offered the opportunity to be the first to launch the Western office in Canada,” Pilo said.
During his time back in Israel, Pilo served as principal of a postsecondary trades and skills school and, most recently, ran the campaign for Yariv Fisher, who won an upset victory to become mayor of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. Municipal elections across Israel were delayed twice due to the war and, almost immediately after seeing his candidate elected, Pilo jumped on a plane and headed for Canada, spending 10 days in Toronto orienting to his new role before landing in Vancouver in March.
The hospital is 120 years old and was founded to ensure medical adherence to halachah (Jewish law), providing appropriate care for Orthodox Jews in the pre-state era. While it still provides everything religious Jews need, including minyanim, it is also, Pilo said, a “safe zone” for all people, regardless of ethnicity, nationality or religion.
“When you look at the population in Jerusalem, you see that there are one million people – 300,000 of them are ultra-Orthodox, 400,000 are Arabs and the rest are, let’s say, secular Jews,” Pilo said. “It’s the most interesting and complex mix of people.”
That diversity is reflected not only in the patients but in the doctors and staff, Pilo said.
Right now, the hospital’s specialists in trauma are dealing with soldiers and civilians injured in the war. Since Oct. 7, Shaare Zedek has treated 300 wounded civilians and more than 700 Israel Defence Forces soldiers. In addition, hospitals in the north and the south of Israel have transferred 60 of their neonatal intensive care unit patients out of conflict regions to Shaare Zedek, where the NICU is housed in completely sheltered areas.
Rafi Yablonsky, national executive director of the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation, said he and the foundation’s board decided to expand operations across Western Canada because of the region’s philanthropic and Zionistic reputation.
“We hope that more Canadians learn about the transformative and world-leading work of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem,” he said. “Our goal is to grow our donor base and volunteer base with business and philanthropic leaders out West.”
This is not the first time Pilo and Yablonsky have worked together.
“Ilan and I were colleagues when we worked at JNF Canada together,” he said. “I witnessed firsthand how Ilan is highly skilled as a world-class fundraiser, also motivating groups of volunteers to do their part in our community.
“Shaare Zedek is a public hospital that is privately funded,” said Yablonsky, “and it receives very limited support from the Israeli government to upgrade equipment and technology, develop groundbreaking international research and ensure state-of-the-art medical training is available to staff. As such, the hospital relies heavily on the generosity of donors around the world to supplement $30 million needed annually.”
My new favourite dessert: Inbal Baum’s Coconut Cream Malabi. Baum is one of the contributors to June Hersh’s new digital cookbook, Cooking for a Cause. (photo by Ingrid Weisenbach)
I have a new favourite dessert: malabi. At least Inbal Baum’s Coconut Cream Malabi. Baum is one of more than 70 cooks, bloggers and others who have contributed to June Hersh’s new digital cookbook, Cooking for a Cause. All proceeds from the book’s sale support Leket Israel, whose focus is “rescuing healthy, surplus food and delivering it to those in need through partner nonprofit organizations.”
“By purchasing this digital cookbook,” notes Leket’s promotional material, “you will not only be supporting Leket Israel’s routine food rescue operations, distributing fresh, nutritious, surplus food to over 330,000 people in need each week, but you will also be part of Leket’s emergency relief campaign, providing much needed assistance to displaced Israelis throughout the country as well as to the Israeli farming community who has been significantly impacted by the ongoing war.”
Hersh has written several cookbooks “with a charitable flavour,” supporting various causes. She contributes to food blogs and magazines, appears on radio and TV, and gives talks on the importance of preserving Jewish food memory. Cooking for a Cause is a response to the Oct. 7 terror attacks, and Hersh and Leket Israel “reached out to everyone we could think of who has made an impact in the world of Jewish food,” writes Hersh in the introduction. “Additionally, we approached those incredibly outspoken Jewish and non-Jewish supporters who have taken a stand and used their moral compass to point the way. The response was overwhelming!”
The result is a unique cookbook that is interesting both for its recipes and its stories – each entry tells users a bit about the contributor and/or the food being presented, and there are eye-catching colour photos throughout. The cookbook “is not arranged from starters to desserts and it is not consistent in its format,” writes Hersh. “I say this not as an apology but with pride, as this book is deliberately different. It reflects a cacophony of voices that have come together to support Leket and the people of Israel. Each contributor presents their connection to Jewish food and expresses it with a different perspective, writing style and point of view. You, the reader, benefit from diverse cooking techniques, interpretations of Jewish cuisine and fresh commentary with each recipe.”
Recipes that caught my eye as I skimmed through the book included Vegetarian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Holishkes) by writer Joe Baur; Pandora’s Chicken with Artichokes, Oregano, Olives and Sundried Tomatoes by Joan Nathan, “award-winning ‘godmother’ of Jewish food”; Aunt Rini’s Tahini Cookies by Elise Addlem, founder of Feminists Against Antisemitism; and Olio Egg Salad by Ben Poremba, who “infuses his Israeli-Moroccan heritage into all his restaurants.”
I have bookmarked these recipes for future cooking/baking sessions, and will certainly try others as well. Between the Jewish Independent’s Passover and Israel special issues, I only had time to try out three recipes. In addition to Coconut Cream Malabi, which Baum writes was inspired by “Our Chef Sevim [Zakuto], with her Turkish-Jewish roots, [who] shared the cherished recipe from her grandmother,” I made Rachel Simons’ Fennel and Herb Salad (Simons is a co-founder of the company Seed+Mill) and award-winning chef and restaurateur Jonathan Waxman’s Steelhead Trout with Vermouth, Baby Sorrel, Chanterelles and Fingerlings.
The salad was as big of a hit as the malabi, and I enjoyed the meal part of the trout recipe but wasn’t so keen on the sauce, which contained vermouth. Not being a lover of vermouth, I had put the sauce on the side, and I thought the food was better without it. When I make the fish again, I’ll try to halve the vermouth or reduce it on the stove to see if that makes it taste less sharp.
COCONUT CREAM MALABI (by Inbal Baum)
1 can coconut cream (fat content should be greater than 14% for the best results) 3 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp cornstarch 1/3 cup of water 1 tsp of vanilla extract, or rose or orange blossom water crushed (or chopped) nuts, to taste desiccated coconut, for serving pomegranate molasses and/or silan, for serving optional toppings: chopped seasonal fruit (strawberries, apricots, mango)
In a small saucepan, combine the coconut milk and sugar. Bring to a gentle boil. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the cornstarch and water until well combined. Slowly add the cornstarch to the saucepan, continuously stirring.
Over medium heat, continue stirring until the pudding thickens – this may take 3 to 5 minutes. If needed to thicken, add additional cornstarch in small amounts until the mixture begins to thicken.
Mix in the vanilla extract, orange blossom or rose water, then pour or ladle into four small bowls.
Allow to cool before serving (approximately one hour, but can be less).
When ready to serve, top with a layer of pomegranate molasses or silan (date honey), desiccated coconut and ground nuts.
FENNEL AND HERB SALAD (by Rachel Simons; 4 servings; 30 minutes to prepare)
1 fennel bulb, very thinly sliced crosswise juice of 1 lemon 1 cup cold water 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped 1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 tbsp white wine vinegar 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 tsp flaky sea salt 1/8 tsp ground black pepper 1 cup parmesan cheese, thinly shaved (optional)
Place the sliced fennel into a bowl with the lemon juice and cold water. Let sit for about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain the fennel.
In a large bowl, mix the fennel, mint leaves, parsley leaves, white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and parmesan (if using). Mix to combine well. Serve the salad cold.
STEELHEAD TROUT WITH VERMOUTH, BABY SORREL, CHANTERELLES AND FINGERLINGS (by Jonathan Waxman; serves 4)
4 x 4.5-ounce skin-on, boneless steelhead trout fillets 1/2 cup white vermouth 2 tbsp butter 2 tbsp olive oil 1 cup baby sorrel 1 cup cream 1 cup sliced raw fingerling potatoes 1 cup button chanterelle mushrooms
Season steelhead with sea salt and fresh ground white pepper.
Cook the potatoes in simmering salted water for 12 minutes. Set aside.
Wash mushrooms.
In a sauté pan, add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter, heat to sizzling, add the trout, skin side down and sauté for 2 minutes.
When skin is crispy, turn over and add remaining olive oil and butter. Then add the potatoes and chanterelles to pan. Cook over medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes.
Remove steelhead to a warm platter. Ensure potatoes and chanterelles are cooked, add them to the fish platter.
Add the vermouth to pan and then add the cream. Turn off heat and add the sorrel leaves.
Taste sauce for seasoning and gently coat the potatoes and chanterelles with sauce. Serve hot.
* * *
To purchase Cooking for a Cause, go to chef.leket.org. For more on Leket Israel – including how you could join the organization’s approximately 54,000 annual volunteers “in gleaning, sorting and packaging rescued food for the Israelis in need” – visit leket.org.
A screenshot of former Israel Air Force pilot Uri Arad speaking at the Jan. 20 Bring Them Home rally in Jerusalem.
***
Weekly rallies have been held in “Hostages Square,” the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, since the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas, who killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 that day. Every week, thousands gather in the square and in other locations, calling for the release of the 136 hostages still being held in Gaza, at least 32 of whom are now believed to be dead. At the Jan. 20 Bring Them Home rally in Jerusalem, one of the speakers was Uri Arad, a former pilot who was held in captivity in Egypt for six weeks during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Arad is not related to Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force officer missing in action since 1986, who Arad mentions in his speech. The remarks below were translated into English by Rahel Halabe, a Vancouver translator and educator, who is a family friend.
***
I was asked to speak here today because I have been a prisoner of war. Until recently, I had avoided talking publicly about my captivity or even identifying as a past captive. The reason I stand here today and talk to you stems from my deep empathy with the hostages and their families, my fear for the hostages’ fate and the need to join the call for their immediate release.
Indeed, I can testify from my experience that captivity is a very difficult experience, physically and mentally. Still, it is important for me to emphasize that, as difficult as my experience was, it is not the same as what our hostages in Gaza are going through. As a pilot of the air force, I was totally aware of the possibility of falling into captivity and I was prepared physically and mentally to cope with the experience. This is not the same for innocent civilians who are kidnapped out of the blue, without any previous preparation. As time goes on, it shows that the hostages are indeed going through hell.
Moreover, being held captive by a state is not the same as being held captive by a murderous terrorist organization. Being held by a state, I did not feel the constant existential threat on my life – I knew that, eventually, I would return home. This is unlike the hostages in Gaza, who are in constant existential fear of being murdered by their captors, or even killed by our own forces. It is, therefore, a much more difficult experience than what I went through.
I shut my eyes and imagine Noa Argamani, the Bibas family, Amit Buskila, Elyakim Libman, Yusef and Hamza Alziadneh, Liri Elbag, and all the other hostages, and my heart is shattered. Here in Israel, there are so many tormented families who are suffering from uncertainty and worry for their loved ones, some of them after experiencing losses without the ability to properly mourn. It’s just horror. We have to say clearly and loudly: we have reached a stage in which every day that passes is like Russian roulette in the life of the hostages. Therefore, it is necessary to do everything, everything, to bring them home now!
When people ask what reassured me most and helped me get through my time in captivity, I answer without any hesitation: I knew that the state would do all that it could to bring me back home. The ability to cope with torture, difficult interrogations and the uncertainty of my fate mostly came from my belief in the contract between me and the state, from knowing that I would not be abandoned. This confidence is what accompanies all soldiers who are ready to give their life for the state. This is the Israeli ethos of solidarity, the most sublime expression of which is that those injured on the battlefield are never abandoned, even if their rescue may involve losses, and that the state goes above and beyond to bring its captives and hostages home.
This is why I came here today, to say in a clear voice: the return of the hostages is the most important mission, maybe the only one, that should guide decision-makers at this moment. This is the necessary condition for our ability as a nation to recuperate from the horrendous disaster that hit us on Black Saturday. All of us are tormented knowing that Ron Arad never came back. It is, therefore, important to say it is unthinkable that there will be tens more of “Ron Arads.” If we don’t regain our composure and immediately bring the hostages home, this will happen. Some of the hostages will return in coffins, others will be forever lost.
But, I am asked, how do we bring them back? Don’t they keep telling us that the objective of destroying Hamas is not less important, that there have been great attempts to bring them back, that both objectives are interconnected and that we must keep putting military pressure on Hamas to bring the hostages back? It must be said, at this point in time, as Gadi Eisenkot expressed so well two days ago, this is senseless. The truth is that, today, these two objectives contradict each other. And the evidence is that – except for one hostage – all the hostages who have come back were returned in the framework of a deal. The military operation not only did not help in the return of the hostages, but it even cost the life of a few of them, and every day that passes just increases the danger to their lives. The conclusion is clear and sharp: the only way to bring the hostages back alive is through a deal. Now!
There are those who object to stopping the war, claiming that it would be a repetition of the same mistake that brought Oct. 7 upon us, and that it will eventually bring upon us many more Black Shabbats and an existential danger to the state in the long run. They mistakenly think that the destruction of Hamas is just around the corner. This is a delusion! Today, it is clear to all who are reasonable that the destruction of Hamas is an extremely difficult goal, which will require years to achieve. It is important to understand that what really hides behind this claim is the willingness to give up on the hostages. In the clash between short-term and long-term interests, those who claim the above prefer the long-term. I say, first, we must bring back the hostages! In the long-run, we will be able to continue weakening the terrorists through both military pressure and political initiatives, while striving for comprehensive agreements that will bring an end to the conflict.
I know that the thought of being forced to stop the fighting and, on top of that, pay the heavy price of a mass release of terrorists, is difficult for many people. I, too, have found it hard to swallow and say this grudgingly, but there is no escape. It is necessary to internalize that the hostages are the major asset Hamas has in its hands, and that [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar will not give up this asset except in exchange for the end of fighting. The strategic failure of Black Shabbat puts us, after more than 100 days of fighting, in a position in which we are forced to clearly make a decision and pay the price. The Israeli government, therefore, should initiate a deal of “all for all,” including a stop to the fighting. Now!
Binyamin Netanyahu refused to take responsibility for what happened on Oct. 7, but has been “gracious” enough to declare that he is responsible for all that will happen. If so, it must be clearly said: Netanyahu is responsible for the fate of the hostages. From here, I would like to address the prime minister and say: Netanyahu, you have brought upon us the worst catastrophe in the history of the state. This will be your legacy; you will be inscribed in history with shameful disgrace. Still, you have a chance to somehow soften history’s judgment, if you bring the hostages back alive. This is the time to rise above the political considerations that have led you and initiate a deal for the return of the hostages. Now!
Finally, I would like to say: continuing the current policy will cause a rupture, impossible to repair, in Israeli society. Israel will lose its soul, one of its most significant elements. We will never again be able to say that we hold human life sacred. This is an unbearable price. Therefore, bring the hostages back in exchange for stopping the fighting. Now!
Screenshot of the Jan. 30 HonestReporting Canada discussion on the International Court of Justice ruling on whether Israel is perpetrating genocide. Jonas Prince, chair of HonestReporting Canada, emceed and speakers were Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi, former chief of general staff of the Israel Defence Forces, and Natasha Hausdorff, a British specialist in international law and a former clerk for the president of the Supreme Court of Israel.
The International Court of Justice ruling on whether Israel is perpetrating genocide means little, according to a legal academic speaking to Canadian audiences last week.
“This was a complete nonevent,” said Natasha Hausdorff, a British specialist in international law and a former clerk for the president of the Supreme Court of Israel. “There was nothing substantive found and nothing substantive required or ordered as part of the provisional measures because there is no evidence that Israel is engaged in genocide; quite the contrary.”
Hausdorff was speaking in a webinar Jan. 30 alongside Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi, former chief of general staff of the Israel Defence Forces. The event was presented by HonestReporting Canada, which describes itself as “an independent grassroots organization promoting fairness and accuracy in Canadian media coverage of Israel and the Middle East.”
Jonas Prince, cofounder and chairman of HonestReporting Canada, emceed the event.
“The words war crimes, genocide, proportionality, siege, humanitarian crisis have been weaponized by the media, as well as Israel’s enemies,” said Prince. “The Iron Dome defence against these verbal missiles is knowledge.”
Where Hausdorff brought legal acumen to the discussion, Kohavi offered the perspective of a top military official who has been on the ground, making life-and-death decisions in some of the most ethically dicey situations.
World reaction to the international court’s judgment, which was released Jan. 26, has been mixed, if not confused. The court notably did not call on Israel to end the war and neither did it rule, ultimately, on whether genocide is happening or seems imminent.
The court handed down “provisional measures” that it said Israel was obligated to undertake, including that Israel should do everything possible to avoid killing Palestinians or causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating intolerable conditions, or deliberately preventing Palestinian births. The court also called on Israel to “prevent and punish” public incitement to genocide, citing comments from Israeli officials as examples.
Hausdorff dismissed the last item, contending it was clear that the statements made by Israeli government officials that the court cited were referring to Hamas terrorists and not to Palestinian civilians. With respect to the other aspects of the ruling, she and Kohavi both essentially argued that Israel is already doing what the court demanded.
The wide-ranging discussion focused on Israel’s rights under international law and attempted to correct what the speakers said were misunderstandings of legal terminology. The expression “proportionality” is an example, Hausdorff said, with many people believing that the greater Palestinian death toll is proof of “disproportionality.”
“That is grotesque,” she said, “not least because the corollary of that analysis is often that not enough Jews have died to justify Israel’s response.” It also encourages Hamas’s tactics of using civilians as human shields, she said, “driving up the civilian casualty count as a means of putting pressure on Israel to desist with its lawful military activities.”
Proportionality, she explained, involves military commanders making assessments on whether the military advantage sought by a strike is proportionate to the anticipated collateral damage.
Kohavi emphasized that disparities in death tolls are due to a significant extent to Israel’s defensive technologies – Iron Dome – as well as the secure rooms and bomb shelters constructed for decades in Israeli buildings.
“We have taken steps and measures in order to protect our citizens and that’s why the numbers on our side are relatively low,” he said. “Now, I do not expect Hamas to build their [own] Iron Dome, but they could build shelters. Instead, they have been building their tunnels for their perpetrators, not for civilians.”
For 15 years, Kohavi said, Hamas has embedded its military operations seamlessly throughout the Gaza Strip’s dense urban populations. Israel’s precision targeting technologies allow the military to destroy terrorist targets while harming as few civilians as possible, he said.
Despite a global outcry over the estimated 27,000-plus Palestinians killed, Hausdorff and Kohavi took exception to these figures on several fronts. It is in the interest of Hamas, which compiles the statistics, to maximize them, said Hausdorff. She cited the notorious example of an alleged Israeli bombing of a Palestinian hospital killing 500. Later evidence said it was a Palestinian missile that caused the explosion and that the death toll estimates were exaggerated, possibly by a magnitude of 10. The cumulative casualty tally kept by the Gaza Ministry of Health was never altered downward after initial reports in that case were debunked, Hausdorff said.
The figures also make no differentiation between combatants and civilians, both panelists said. While lamenting all civilian deaths, they said that even in the confined theatre of the highly urban Gaza Strip, civilian deaths tolls are probably significantly lower than in parallel military engagements.
Other data suggest 1.8 civilian deaths to every killed combatant in the current conflict, Hausdorff said, compared with the macabre accounting of the United Nations, which calculates that, in the context of urban warfare, civilian casualties average nine to every combatant death. American figures in wars Iraq and Afghanistan saw civilian death tolls of 3-to-1 and 5-to-1 respectively, she said.
In the circumstance, Hausdorff said, it is “utterly unparalleled” that Israel has kept civilian deaths to the numbers it has “despite every effort that Hamas has made to increase civilian casualties and inflate that toll.”
The court case, which was brought by the government of South Africa, is “extremely problematic,” Hausdorff said, “not just for Israel but for all law-abiding states, for those who uphold and prize the rule of law, that the International Court of Justice would be entertaining this.”
She accused the International Court of Justice of “essentially doing the bidding of a terrorist organization.”
South Africa likes to paint itself as a champion of Palestinian rights, Hausdorff said.
“South Africa is a champion of Hamas, an internationally proscribed terrorist organization,” she said. “No individual who cared about Palestinian rights would be seeking to prop up Hamas given that the Palestinian people have borne the brunt of their brutality and their corruption and their slaughter and torture over the blast 16, 17 years.”
Area of Gaza controlled by the Israeli Defence Forces on Jan. 11, 2024.
While the war in the Gaza Strip continues between Hamas guerillas and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the labyrinth of tunnels burrowed beneath Khan Yunis and in the alleys of the devastated city (population 205,000), another battle is being fought across Israel over the postwar fate of the coastal enclave.
Ultra-nationalist members of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the National Religious Party, and Itamar Ben Gvir, head of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), recently called for Gaza’s 2.2 million residents to be voluntarily resettled elsewhere. Congo was cited as a destination for the exodus. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the statements by Smotrich and Ben Gvir “inflammatory and irresponsible.”
Egypt is adamantly opposed to allowing the two million displaced Gazans to shelter in the Sinai Peninsula, lest Israel prevent the refugees from returning. Similarly, the Jewish state is no more likely to allow them to pass through its territory to fly out of Ben-Gurion Airport than it is to resettle those refugees who fled their nearby villages in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.
One controversial postwar scenario is for Israel to rebuild some of the post-1967 Gaza Strip settlements from which it unilaterally withdrew in August 2005. (photo by Gil Zohar)
Further limiting the options, Israel’s high-tech Erez Crossing at the north end of the Gaza Strip – similar in scale to a massive airport terminal – was destroyed during Hamas’s Oct. 7 rampage in which some 1,200 Israelis and other nationals living in cities and kibbutzim near the Gaza frontier were massacred and 240 kidnapped.
Concurrently, the black market is burgeoning for fixers with links to Egyptian intelligence; they are making a fortune in “fees” extorted from Gazans desperate to exit through the Rafah Crossing at Gaza’s south end. The bribe for being placed at the head of the legal exit list for passage across the Rafah border into Egypt and on to Cairo International Airport has now soared to $10,000.
In the face of the vast human suffering, staggering damage to infrastructure and environmental catastrophe caused by the conflict, which marked its 100th day on Jan. 14, another controversial postwar scenario is for Israel to rebuild some of the post-1967 Gaza Strip settlements from which it unilaterally withdrew in August 2005. The forcible evacuation of 8,600 Jewish residents from Gush Katif (the Harvest Bloc) – a cluster of 17 villages in the southern Gaza Strip – set the stage for Hamas’s 2007 coup d’état when it seized power from Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah in the West Bank.
On Dec. 22, 2023, a group of settlers held an organizational meeting at the agricultural village of Kfar Maimon near the Gaza Strip demarcation fence to launch their plan to create a beachfront community on the barren dunes at Gaza’s southern edge. The day was symbolic since Asarah b’Tevet (the 10th of the Hebrew month of Tevet) is a fast day in the Hebrew calendar, marking the date 26 centuries ago when Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon began his six-month siege of Jerusalem, which resulted in the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the downfall of the Kingdom of Judah.
Though Gaza was allocated to the Tribe of Judah in the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Israelites never vanquished their Philistine nemesis who dwelt there and in the cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gat and Ekron. Jewish and Samaritan communities intermittently flourished in the territory of Gaza over many centuries. Shaken by the riots of 1929, however, the Gazan Jewish community ended in 1948. In Gaza City’s historic Zaytoun quarter, the Ottoman-style Hammam al-Sammara (the Samaritan bathhouse) bears witness to the ancient Samaritan community that was exiled in 1917 by the Turkish army during the battles of the First World War.
The group of would-be settlers – who staged a car rally just outside Gaza on Jan. 11 – are encouraged by the report that Israel’s Knesset will be hosting a conference Jan. 28 on rebuilding settlements in Gaza after the war, and will offer precise maps and plans. The news site mako.co.il says that Knesset members and other public figures are expected to speak, and thousands of Israelis have already applied to join the settlement nuclei in Gaza.
The organizers of the event stated, “We are working both on the political level and on the practical side towards the moment when they can get on the ground. There is a great demand in the public that the victory of the war includes within it Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.”
Meanwhile, senior ministers among Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing allies have criticized the IDF over its plans to probe Oct. 7 intelligence failures. And Israel’s future may be hurtling backward to the widespread protests over judicial reform that divided the country in the months that preceded Hamas’s devastating surprise attack. Such is public anger that calls for a spring election are becoming vociferous.
Were Netanyahu and Abbas to both step down, and Saudi Arabia and Israel to establish ties, a postwar scenario of regional integration – including high-speed trains whisking cargo from Haifa to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – could emerge. The trauma of the Gaza War could give birth to Mideast peace.
More than 50,000 Israelis responded to the Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis’ call for a day of prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to mark the new moon of Shevat.
In Judaism, the full moon of Shevat is celebrated as the New Year of the Trees. Besides the pink-white almond blossoms, which mark the beginning of spring, the blood-red anemones also carpet the fields of the western Negev by the Gaza Strip. Like the poppies in Flanders Fields, this year those wildflowers will symbolize the tragedy of war.
Gil Zoharis a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem. A longer version of this article can be found at religionunplugged.com/gil-zohar.
Left to right: Rabbis Susan Tendler, Hannah Dresner, Philip Bregman, Carey Brown, Andrew Rosenblatt, Jonathan Infeld, Philip Gibbs and Dan Moskovitz in Israel last month. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Eight Vancouver-area rabbis recently visited Israel where, among many other things, they handed out cards and letters prepared by Jewish day school students and members of Vancouver’s Jewish community to soldiers and other Israelis. The response, according to one of the rabbis, was overwhelming.
“I saw soldiers taking these cards and then dropping down to the sidewalk and crying,” said Rabbi Philip Bregman. “Holding them to their chest as if this was a sacred piece of text and just saying, ‘Thank you. To know that we are not forgotten….’”
The rabbis’ mission included the delivery of thank you cards to Israeli soldiers. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Bregman, rabbi emeritus at the Reform Temple Sholom, was almost overcome with emotion while recounting the experience, which he shared in a community-wide online presentation Dec. 17. The event included seven of the eight rabbis who participated in the whirlwind mission, which saw them on the ground for a mere 60 hours. Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of the Orthodox Congregation Schara Tzedeck was part of the mission but did not participate in the panel because he extended his time in Israel.
According to Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, who emceed the event, the Vancouver mission was unique in Canada and possibly in North America for bringing together rabbis from across the religious spectrum. The close connection of most local rabbis, facilitated by the longstanding Rabbinical Association of Vancouver (RAV), set a foundation for the mission, which took place in the second week of December.
The eight rabbis transported 21 enormous duffel bags, filled with gear like socks, gloves, toques and underwear, mostly for military reservists.
The rabbis delivered warm clothing, including socks, to Israeli soldiers. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Shanken, who visited Israel days earlier with Federation representatives and five Canadian members of Parliament, said nothing prepared him for what he encountered there. Bregman echoed Shanken’s perspective.
“It’s one thing to have that as an intellectual understanding,” said Bregman, “It’s another thing when you are actually there to witness the absolute pain and trauma. People have asked me how was the trip. I say it was brutal.”
The reception they received from Israelis was profound, several of the rabbis noted.
“I’ve been to Israel dozens of times,” Bregman said. “People are [always] happy to see us. Nothing like this.”
Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, said the mission was to bear witness and also was a response to what rabbis were hearing from congregants about the centrality of Israel in their lives. He told the Independent that he was able to connect with two philanthropists in Los Angeles who funded the mission. Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi at Temple Sholom, and Rabbi Susan Tendler, rabbi at the Conservative Beth Tikvah Congregation, in Richmond, handled logistics, with input from the group.
The unity of Israelis was among the most striking impressions, said Brown.
“It’s so all-encompassing of the society right now … the sense that everyone’s in this together,” she said. The unity amid diversity was especially striking, she noted, when the rabbis visited the central location in Tel Aviv known as “Hostage Square.”
Brown said Israelis asked about antisemitism in Canada and seemed confounded by the fact that there is not more empathy worldwide for the trauma their country has experienced.
Tendler reflected on how Israelis were stunned and touched by the fact that a group of Canadians had come to show solidarity.
The rabbis were able to experience a microcosm of Israeli society without leaving their hotel. At the Dan Panorama Tel Aviv, where they stayed, they were among only a few paying guests. The hotel was filled with refugees from the south and north of the country who are being indefinitely put up in the city.
Several rabbis spoke of incidental connections in which they discovered not six degrees of separation between themselves and people they ran into, but one or two.
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel, who is chair of RAV, told of being approached by members of a family staying at their hotel who heard they were from Vancouver. They asked if the rabbi knew a particular family and he replied that he not only knew them but that a member of that family had just married into his own.
Likewise, Tendler ran into people who went to the same summer camp she did and the rabbis found many other close connections.
“The idea [is] that we are spread out but, at the heart of it all, we honestly really are one very small, connected people,” said Tendler. “We are one family, one community and that was the most important, amazing thing of all.”
Close connections or not, the rabbis were welcomed with open arms. Rabbi Philip Gibbs of West Vancouver’s Conservative Congregation Har El told of how he was walking past a home and glanced up to see a family lighting Hanukkah candles. They insisted he come in and mark the occasion with them.
Gibbs also noted that the political divisions that had riven the society before Oct. 7 have not disappeared, but that the entire population appears to have dedicated themselves to what is most important now.
The rabbis met with scholars, including Israeli foreign ministry experts and many ordinary Israelis, including Arab Israelis, as well as the writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who told them that many Israelis feel let down by their government, intelligence officials and military leadership.
The rabbis traveled to the site of the music festival where 364 people were murdered, more than 40 hostages kidnapped and many more injured on Oct. 7. They saw scores of bullet-riddled and exploded vehicles. All of them will be drained of fuel and other fluids before being buried because they contain fragments of human remains that ZAKA, Israel’s volunteer rescue, extraction and identification agency, could not completely remove from the vehicles.
Rabbi Hannah Dresner of the Jewish Renewal-affiliated Or Shalom Synagogue was not the only rabbi to compare the mission with a shiva visit.
“I was just so amazed at the care that was being given, that each of these vehicles was now being siphoned of any remaining flammable materials so that each one of them could be buried according to our halachah,” Dresner said, “so that none of the human remains would be just discarded as junk. I found that overwhelmingly powerful.”
Relatedly, the group visited an exhibit at Expo Tel Aviv, which recreates the music festival site and features unclaimed property from the site, including the historically resonant sight of hundreds of pairs of shoes.
The visiting rabbis went to an exhibit at Expo Tel Aviv, which featured unclaimed property from the music festival site where hundreds were murdered. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
The rabbis visited Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 100 people were murdered, and saw the devastation and destruction, some of it not from Oct. 7 but from days after, when explosives planted on that day detonated. It was also at this kibbutz that the Israel Defence Forces found a copy of the Hamas playbook for the atrocities.
“It sounded as if it could have been written by Eichmann or Hitler,” said Bregman. “[The intent] was not only to destroy the body but to destroy the mind, the soul, the psychology, the emotional and spiritual aspect of every Jew.”
The plan included strategies for setting fire to homes in order to force residents out of safe rooms, then specified the order in which family members were to be murdered – parents in front of their children.
As part of their mission to Israel, Vancouver rabbis visited kibbutzim that were attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
While the trip may have had the spirit of a shiva visit, the mood of the Israelis, Dresner said, was “can-do resourcefulness.”
“It’s felt to me over the past couple of years that Israelis have been kind of depressed,” she said, referring to divisive political conflicts. “But they are full force embracing their ingenuity and turning the energy of the resistance movement into this amazing volunteer corps to supply really whatever is needed to whatever sector.”
Groups that had coalesced to protest proposed judicial reforms pivoted to emergency response, she said, ensuring that soldiers and displaced civilians have basic needs met and then creating customized pallets of everything from tricycles to board games, bedding and washing machines, for families who will be away from their homes for extended periods.
The rabbis also went to Kibbutz Yavneh and paid their respects at the grave of Ben Mizrachi, the 22-year-old Vancouver man and former army medic who died at the music festival while trying to save the lives of others. They had a private meeting with Yaron and Jackie Kaploun, parents of Canadian-Israeli Adi Vital-Kaploun, who was murdered in front of her sons, an infant and a 4-year-old.
On the final evening of their visit, the rabbis hosted a Hanukkah party for displaced residents of Kiryat Shmona, the northern Israeli town that is in the Vancouver Jewish community’s partnership region.
At the party, Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Brown spoke with a woman whose two sons are in Gaza fighting for the IDF.
“I told her that we do the prayer for tzahal, for the IDF, in our services in our shul,” Brown said, “and she was so surprised and touched, and she said, ‘Keep praying, keep praying.’”
Israel’s government pushed the country’s Supreme Court into a corner – but instead of weakening the judicial system and putting more power into the hands of the government, which was the aim of the coalition’s judicial reform package, the gambit incited a showdown that made the court stronger than it had been a year earlier.
That is the synopsis of a leading Israeli legal scholar. Yaniv Roznai, associate professor and vice-dean of the Reichman University’s law school and co-director at the Rubinstein Centre for Constitutional Challenges, was speaking virtually to North American audiences hours after Israel’s Supreme Court released a landmark decision Jan. 1. During the presentation, which was organized by UnXeptable, the international group that emerged in opposition to the judicial reforms, Roznai said the court also now has more legitimacy among the public, according to opinion surveys.
The 250,000-word written decision, with contributions from all 15 Supreme Court justices, represents the first time in Israeli history that the high court struck down a component of the Basic Law, which is effectively Israel’s constitution. The opinion overturned legislation the Knesset passed in July curbing the ability of judges to use “reasonableness” as a legal standard.
One justice wrote that Israel’s limited system of checks and balances means that the cancellation of the court’s ability to freely judge decisions by governments and ministers removed much of the ability of courts to defend individual and public interests.
While subjective, the idea of reasonableness has been a legal doctrine in Israel since the 1980s and was used a year ago to prevent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from appointing Aryeh Deri, the leader of the Shas party, from serving in cabinet because Deri had been convicted of tax fraud and bribery. The court declared it was not reasonable to appoint a convicted felon to lead a government department. This was the apparent impetus for a significant raft of legislation intended to reform the judicial system – proposals critics have called a “judicial coup.”
The reasonableness doctrine is available to the court if judges believe that elected officials did not take into account all relevant considerations before making a decision, or that those considerations were not given appropriate weight. It has been invoked numerous times on significant and less momentous government decisions.
In response to mass protests throughout 2023, the government at least temporarily backtracked on some of its judicial reform proposals, including efforts that would allow the Knesset to overturn court decisions by a majority vote and to give the government more direct control over the appointment of judges. That left the reasonableness doctrine as the remaining portion of the broader judicial reform proposal – and its rejection by the court is a blow to Netanyahu’s government. It also reopens the divisive topic, which has been largely dormant since the terror attacks of Oct. 7, possibly inviting social division at a time of national trauma.
Critics of the legislation, which passed the Knesset in July, argued that eliminating the reasonableness doctrine would allow the government to fire senior civil servants such as the heads of law enforcement agencies, making it easier to subvert the rule of law. Israel’s attorney general, for example, oversees the public prosecution system and determines whether politicians can be indicted on alleged crimes.
Since Israel has no formal constitution, the Basic Law serves as an alternative. However, whereas the American, Canadian and most other national constitutions have complex, in some cases almost impossible, amending formulas, Israel’s Basic Law can be amended by the Knesset by a majority vote. Therefore, Roznai said, “The only real check on political power is the attorney general and the judiciary, and the [Netanyahu government’s] reasonableness amendment was aimed to weaken precisely those two bodies.”
While the decision to overturn the law was close, with eight of the 15 justices in favour and seven opposed, three additional judges agreed that the court has the authority to strike down basic laws, but argued the time was not right.
The government defended the legislation by arguing that the idea of reasonableness was too arbitrary and, therefore, gave the court too much scope to intervene in areas the government considered the purview of the legislative branch. Critics, including Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, responded that the law eliminated guardrails that protect Israeli democracy.
Roznai, speaking Jan. 2, expressed mixed emotions about the court’s decision.
“I’m happy but, on the other hand, I’m a bit sad,” he said, noting that the entire controversy could have been avoided, “if the government had only worked a bit more gently, in a more clever manner. They could have enacted a more balanced amendment and then the court would not interfere.… I do not object to a reform in the judicial system. I think that any governmental system needs reform. In the education system we need to reform, in the health system we need reform, and also in the judicial system we need reform. But we need good reform. We need balanced reform. We don’t want something that would completely destroy the judicial system. We want something that would improve our systems and our democracy.”
A process that engaged different sectors of the society and tried to find a consensus on some of these issues could have resulted in constructive reforms, he said. Instead, millions of people took to the streets and polls showed that 80% of Israelis were opposed to the proposed judicial changes and a political schism has wrenched Israeli society amid a war.
Two days after Roznai spoke, UnXeptable hosted another event for North American audiences, featuring Dr. Tomer Persico, a research fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute and former Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at the University of California Berkeley, where he was also a senior research scholar in the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies. He is a social activist advocating for freedom of religion in Israel.
Persico warned of cataclysmic impacts on global perceptions not only of Israel but of Jews if the trajectory of Israeli politics does not change. The current Israeli government, he said, includes individuals who are expressing ideas about the treatment of the people of Gaza that advocate ethnic cleansing and even genocide. Amichai Eliyahu, who was Israel’s heritage minister, was suspended from cabinet after saying that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities” the government is considering.
While the pro-democracy groups and individuals who were rallying against the government before Oct. 7 have closed ranks in a show of unity and determination since the Hamas terror attacks, these recent statements – including reports that the government is considering moving Palestinians from Gaza to third countries and returning Israeli settlers to the enclave – make this fragile unity difficult, said Persico.
Most Israelis tell opinion pollsters they want new elections and a different government. Persico warned that approaches to internal and external affairs by the current government might not only further tarnish Israel’s reputation in the world, but Judaism’s. Former governments have failed to find common ground with Palestinians to create a two-state solution, he said, but even the hawkish past administrations publicly expressed support for the concept. With the current government seemingly giving up on the idea and some voices in the coalition speaking of expulsions of Palestinians, Israel is on a path to becoming more of an international pariah, he said.
“There will be a breaking point between Israel and the liberal West and that includes liberal Jews,” he said. “I really fear that Judaism itself is going to be stained by the mark of the occupation.… It might materialize that that Judaism itself will be stained in the same way as Christianity has been stained by the Crusades, the same way as Islam has been stained by Islamic terrorism and ISIS.”
Hand in Hand (Yad b’Yad) is a group of Israeli schools where Jewish and Arab students learn together. Its co-founder, Lee Gordon, was in Vancouver last month (photo from Hand in Hand)
Lee Gordon, co-founder of Hand in Hand (Yad b’Yad), a group of Israeli schools where Jewish and Arab students learn together, spoke at Vancouver’s Or Shalom Synagogue and met with members of the community at large last month.
“We are always eager to have more friends and supporters for what Hand in Hand is doing, especially in the current very dark situation in Israel and in Gaza,” Gordon said in an interview with the Independent. “Hand in Hand is a beacon of light in a place where coexistence is not widespread enough.”
Gordon, who first moved to Israel in the 1980s, launched Hand in Hand with Amin Khalaf in 1997. The first classes started in September 1998 with 50 students on two campuses, in Jerusalem and in the Galilee. Today, there are more than 2,000 students, who study in Hebrew and in Arabic, on six campuses throughout Israel.
The bilingual schools were established to combat the threat posed to Israel by growing social alienation and lack of trust between Jewish and Arab citizens. Education, in the view of Hand in Hand’s founders, was – and still is – instrumental in changing this.
Gordon, who lived in Israel for 20 years before returning to the United States, became involved in Jewish-Arab dialogue while pursuing a master’s degree in social work from Hebrew University. Though the university was integrated, he observed, there was not a great deal of interaction between Jewish and Arab students, aside from weekly dialogues in which Gordon and others from the two groups would engage on campus.
While those meetings were clearly a step in the right direction, he felt they were lacking. “Dialogue is superficial. People can have lovely feelings afterwards but don’t see each other again,” said Gordon, who is currently the director of American Friends of Hand in Hand.
Later, when working on a fellowship project through the Mandel Institute, Gordon spent time looking at schools in Israel and analyzing what makes them succeed or fail. In the backdrop was the reality that the school system in Israel is completely segregated, even in mixed communities, such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
“I started building a rationale for a school being a wonderful venue for bringing Arabs and Jews together, because it is not just for one hour a week. Once students are in school, they are there all day, all week, all year, and have a chance to truly get to know the other,” Gordon said.
Realizing that he needed an Arab partner for his goal of creating an integrated school to reach fruition, Gordon was introduced to Khalaf, an educator whose hope was for his children to grow up feeling as equals in Israeli society.
Hand in Hand was officially registered in spring 1997 and, for a year, Gordon and Khalaf scouted the country, trying to locate an ideal spot to start the school.
“We knew we wanted one in Jerusalem but also wanted a backup,” said Gordon. “We settled on an area in the Galilee where the Jewish and Arab towns are close together.”
When the first schools opened in fall 1998, the primary challenges consisted of hiring teachers, raising funds and recruiting Jewish students.
“We knew Arabs, as the minority, would flock to our schools, it would be seen as a step up for them,” said Gordon. “Jewish parents would be more of a struggle. We wanted our schools to be accredited and not be viewed as boutique, esoteric schools lacking legitimacy.”
(photo from Hand in Hand)
Though never without obstacles, as the schools grew each year, it became easier to recruit new parents because Hand in Hand presented an attractive educational possibility – students were learning two languages in a vigorous academic environment, they were happy and the class sizes were smaller.
Even today, Gordon admitted, Hand in Hand still has to work harder to recruit Jewish parents, particularly after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.
“This is the worst war of the four since Hand in Hand has been in existence,” he said. “Jewish families often know someone who was killed or taken hostage, and many of the Arab families have relatives in Gaza.”
While there were concerns that Jewish families might withdraw their children from classes following the attacks, that has not happened yet.
“Bringing people together is really the only way there is any hope of this conflict ending because it is not happening on political levels,” Gordon said.
Multiple researchers have shown that there are many benefits from bilingual education, such as more empathy, better academic performance and improved engagement. Beyond those benefits, Jewish and Arab students at the Hand in Hand schools develop close friendships, which start through childhood sleepovers, birthday parties and play dates. Moreover, adults have formed long-lasting bonds with one another.
“Many parents have spoken of how they have been transformed by the experience,” Gordon said.
Hand in Hand schools are public, recognized and overseen by the Israeli Ministry of Education, and open to all parts of the Arab and Jewish populations in Israel. Government funding is supplemented by philanthropy and parents’ fees.
Besides Jerusalem and the Galilee, Hand in Hand operates schools in Haifa, Jaffa, Kfar Saba and Wadi Ara.
For more information about Hand in Hand, visit handinhandk12.org. Canadian residents can make a tax-deductible donation to Hand in Hand through the Jerusalem Foundation of Canada, 1-877-484-1289.
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
I was driving home from work the other day. Left the office early to reduce driving time in the evening hours. Hamas likes their 6 p.m. missile barrage and I’m honing my missile-avoidance routine.
I was listening to talk-radio, but have kind of had enough of the news. Too much war talk and it’s getting a bit overwhelming. So, I switched to Spotify and up popped Supertramp, “The Logical Song.” How “wonderful, beautiful, magical” life once felt. Before Oct. 7. Before Hamas.
Then, as if on cue. I gazed towards the sky and saw missiles flying overhead. At first, it didn’t really click. And then, yikes! I quickly switched back to the news where, in a very calming voice, they were announcing areas under missile attack, which is another reason to listen to the radio while driving during war – real-time information. Lesson learned.
Suddenly, my smartphone’s flashlight started flashing, which was pretty darn cool! And there I was, on Star Trek, standing on the bridge. I even recalled the vessel number, NCC-1701. I was with Captain Kirk. No! I was Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy by my side, Sulu and Chekov at the controls. The Klingons were attacking and Mr. Spock, standing to the side, was calmly advising the attack coordinates. No, wait! That was the radio announcer. Seriously, this all took place within a split second in my over-active imagination.
The flashing continued. I realized my cellphone was communicating with me, warning of danger. I have the Home Front Command application, which sounds an amazingly loud alarm during a missile attack in my area, but changing between the radio and Spotify prevented the siren from going off. So, instead, the phone activated my flashlight, sending out an SOS. Now how neat is that?! In a geeky sort of way. Like for someone who imagines himself on Star Trek during a real-life missile attack.
Reality set in. There were Home Front Command instructions to follow.
Momentary panic set in. Where was my wife, to tell me what to do? Like she always does … but that’s another story. This time, I wanted her there, instructing me.
All these thoughts raced through my mind in milliseconds. As I calmly slowed the car and veered to the shoulder, like other cars around me, I put on the blinkers. More flashing lights, but the bridge of the USS Enterprise was now a distant thought. Looking both ways, I left the car and hopped over the road barrier, moving away from the car, although probably not far enough, because there was a steep decline just below. It was getting dark and, suffering from poor night vision, I didn’t want to trip and hurt myself. I heard my son laughing at me. “Nerd!” he called out. But that was just my imagination.
I should have laid flat, prostrating myself for maximum protection. But it had rained earlier that day, the ground was wet and I didn’t want to get muddy. “Nerd!” This time, it was my daughter in my mind’s eye. “OK,” I said to no one in particular, “I’ll squat.” Good enough, but not really.
The family in the car ahead were huddling together but too close to their vehicle. I shouted for them to move further away, but they didn’t react. Maybe they didn’t understand me, given my still heavily accented Canadian Hebrew. This time, I heard both my kids teasing me – 30 years and still talking like an immigrant! “Hey, they just don’t hear me,” I said to the darkness.
It was very moving seeing the father crouching down on top of his brood, in a protective sort of way. “Isn’t that touching,” I said to my wife in my imaginings. “For sure,” she responded, somewhat sarcastically, in the back of my mind. “I know you’d do the same.”
Then it was over. The sky went quiet. People returned to their cars. The nestled family broke apart and entered theirs. We should have stayed in place several more minutes. Ten minutes is the recommended time. But it was dark, getting late, also a bit cold. I just wanted to get home, back to the real chiding of my kids and to my wife, somehow longing for her ordering me about.
A few minutes later, my wife called, to make sure I was safe. And then routine set in. “Don’t forget to pick up some milk and bread from the corner store,” she instructed me.
Am Israel chai.
Bruce Brown, a Canadian-Israeli, made aliyah 25 years ago. He works in high-tech and is happily married, with two kids. He is the winner of a 2019 American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award for excellence in Jewish writing.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin meets in Casablanca with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, 1994. (photo from flickr.com/photos/government_press_office/6324960139)
With all the darkness surrounding us since Oct 7, since the shattering of that tranquil Shabbat, have the people of Israel witnessed a miracle?
When Israel’s guard was fully down, when the south was under a vicious blitzkrieg by the monstrous Hamas, why did Hezbollah – with their 150,000 missiles pointed towards Israel – not exploit this excellent opportunity to open a second front? When Israel was existentially exposed, Hezbollah chose not to respond, at least not in any real-time, meaningful way. Complex geopolitical and military and conspiracy theories abound, attempting to explain why and why not. Pundits speculate and postulate and surmise. But maybe, just maybe, at some very esoteric level, the simplest and most logical answer, according to my close friend, a rabbi: it was a modern-day miracle. Pftt, pftt, pftt, as my great-grandmother would add.
***
The lights! Growing up, I was conditioned to shut the lights when leaving a room. I attempted to teach the same to my kids – and to my wife, although sometimes it seems she opens the lights when leaving a room. And then the missile sirens go off. Whoa! Slow it down. We have 90 seconds. Certainly time enough to shut the lights when racing to our shelter. My shouts muted by the screeching of the red alert, “Lights! Lights! Shut the lights!” I yell. To no avail, of course.
***
The day after … too soon to start thinking about it? That is where discussions about the war ultimately end up, each of us with our own theory, our own concerns, our own hopes. Once Israel achieves victory, in whatever form that takes, Gaza must then be rebuilt. But first it must be deradicalized – no more Hamas. Demilitarized – no more bombs hidden in schools, mosques and hospitals. And democratized – according to Winston Churchill, it’s the worst form of government … except for all others.
For this to succeed, Gaza should be divided into three cantons, similar to Germany, post-Second World War, each managed by a strong, Western or westward-looking country with enlightened self-interest for a stable and less radical Middle East. Maybe the United States. Maybe Britain. Maybe Germany. Maybe Egypt or Jordan. Escorted by a massive 21st-century Marshall-like plan. Maybe the Blinken Plan. Channeling the equivalent of $15 billion in 1948 purchasing power, that’s $191,569,917,012.48. OK, not that much, as the Gaza Strip is tiny compared to Germany, but enough funds to restore its economic infrastructure, to rebuild the Strip and rehabilitate its citizens, and make Gaza the Singapore of the Middle East – shipping, tourism, industry, maybe even offshore natural gas – like it could have become in 2005, when Israel fully withdrew. But then, what do I know.
***
Well before the day after, we need to take care of the Israeli hostages, including babies, children and octogenarians, both those still held in unknown condition by Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza, and those who have been returned. Interesting, but not necessarily surprising, is that neither the United Nations General Assembly nor UNICEF nor even the Red Cross demanded their unconditional release. Let alone a humanitarian visit.
As related by Liat Collins of the Jerusalem Post, Guelah Cohen – a 1980s right-wing parliamentarian, 2003 Israel Prize winner and mother of current senior Lukid lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi – summarized this tragic situation best. Back during the First Lebanon War, when Tzachi was a combat solder, Cohen was asked what she would do if he were taken prisoner. She thoughtfully responded that, as a mother, she would be outside leading the protests to bring her son home, shouting with a megaphone outside the Prime Minister’s Office for the government to do anything and everything in its power to achieve his release. But, as a member of the government, she would be sitting quietly in the Prime Minister’s Office, advising him not to listen to the public.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, during the controversial days of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords process and accompanying Palestinian terror, said, “We must fight terrorism as if there’s no peace process and work for peace as if there’s no terror.” How utterly profound.
So, with the tragic circumstances of the hostages, the government must listen to the cries of the hostages’ families. But they also must lead and not be swayed by public opinion. The government must fight the war on Hamas as if there were no hostages and must, at the same time, bring all the hostages home. Alive.
***
As for economic recovery, I share a very micro, personal anecdote. About 18 months ago, we redid our condo, buying much of our furniture from BaKatzer, a wonderful and unique boutique furniture store located in a moshav (agricultural community) just outside the Gaza periphery, not too far from Ashkelon, which receives the brunt of the rockets from Gaza. While not the easiest of customers – I can be very demanding on price and service – I recently sent the owner a WhatsApp message. “Hey!” I wrote. “Hope all is well during these difficult times and hope to be back soon for more shopping.” Given my unforgiving consumerism, maybe she saw that as another threat. Alas, I can also be a very loyal consumer.
***
And there we were, my wife and I sitting around our Shabbat table with my daughter and her best friends, one with a brother who is a paratrooper and fighting in Gaza, the other an intelligence officer whose service was just extended, and still another, who was on a weekend leave from his Golani unit stationed up north. The conversation quickly moving from the trivial and benign to questioning and
responding to issues and concerns that should be far away from them, that should not trouble the young minds of these 20-somethings, who should not deal with the complexities of miracles and hostages and day-after theories. Alas, there we were, talking of war and survival, looking hopefully to tomorrow. Am Israel chai.
Bruce Brown is a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah … a long time ago. He works in Israel’s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is the winner of the 2019 AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire An Israeli is…. Brown reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal.
