A senior delegation from Shengjing visits JVP in Jerusalem. (photo by Yael Rivkind, JVP, via israel21c.org)
Fiona Darmon, a partner at JVP, one of Israel’s most successful venture capital funds, was recently in China at a meeting with a large investor. She sat in his office for more than an hour, chatting with him about everything but business. Only then, she said, did he nod to his subordinates, and Darmon was taken into another room, where the business discussions began.
“The mindset in China is that if we’re going to do business and I’m going to entrust you with my capital, let’s see if we have a personal rapport before I even move to the next step,” Darmon told this reporter. “It’s about you as a person, first.”
Israelis are not known for their patience, and that can be a challenge, said Ilan Maor, a managing director of Sheng-BDO (Business Development Organization) and a former Israeli consul in China. Yet economic ties are “booming,” he said.
“The most important aspects of the commercial cooperation are gradually moving from buying and selling toward the main pillars of the future of technology and investment,” Maor explained. “China is taking its place gradually as a strategic player in the Israeli market.”
As an example, the Chinese company Bright Star is on the verge of buying a majority stake in Tnuva, Israel’s iconic dairy company. The company is so central to Israel’s image of itself that, on leaving Israel, the last thing you see on the way to duty free is the logo of Tnuva’s cottage cheese container made out of flowers. If the sale goes through as expected, China and Israel’s kibbutz cooperative movement will share ownership of the dairy company.
More and more Chinese business people are visiting Israel looking to invest and to learn from Israel’s entrepreneurs.
“Israel is not only the ‘startup nation,’ it is also the ‘innovation nation,’” said Xueling Cao, director of the Shengjing Group, who was in Israel when she spoke with this reporter. “China is a huge consumer market and Israel is a huge source of innovation and technology, and we can match the two together.”
Leket provides 25,000 volunteers every year to pick crops in the field of Sandy Colb. (photo from israel21c.org)
Along with his Ivy League diplomas, a second-grade “master gardener” certificate hangs on the wall of Rehovot patent attorney Sandy Colb’s office. Now 66, the former Cleveland schoolboy went on to cultivate a unique farm-based philanthropy.
Through his Tov V’Hameitiv Foundation, Colb partners with 70 Israeli social service agencies to distribute 100 tons of fruits and vegetables every week, harvested from a total of 250 acres of fields he has leased, bought and borrowed.
Along with seeds and fertilizer, Colb contributes a significant sum of shekels to the project. The return on his investment is the satisfaction of nourishing Israel’s most vulnerable citizens while feeding his own love of the land. “It’s expensive, but this is my veggie habit,” he said.
Although Colb spends considerable time traveling for business and pleasure, and typically works 16-hour days, when he’s home in Rehovot he devotes two mornings a week to planting and picking with his 60 paid workers.
Forty of those workers are older Ethiopian Israelis with few employment opportunities. Eight others have special needs. In coordination with Leket, Israel’s national food bank, Colb hopes to bring more people with various challenges to work in the fields.
As one of Colb’s distribution partners, Leket also provides some 25,000 volunteers to pick crops every year. Many of the volunteers are tourists who devote a morning to the charitable project.
“Wherever I go around the world, I meet people who have picked in our fields, and they always remember what they picked,” Colb said.
A few people have considered trying to duplicate Colb’s enterprise in other countries, “but I don’t know of anyone actually doing it. You need a place where you can plant and grow all year round,” he explained.
Even in Israel, of course, each kind of vegetation has its season. Depending on the time of year, Colb’s workers are planting, tending and gathering citrus fruits, pecans, avocados, peaches, plums, apples, root vegetables, leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and more – altogether about 40 varieties of produce.
Tomatoes for everyone
Colb moved to Israel in 1974, just after earning his law degree at Harvard. Two years later, he founded Sanford T. Colb and Co. Intellectual Property Law.
Right from the start, he planted a vegetable patch in his backyard because. In fact, ever since second grade, he has never stopped gardening – even as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge and Harvard universities.
“I would find a piece of land and start digging,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see stuff grow, especially big zucchinis. I have a picture of my older son, who is now 40, holding a zucchini that’s bigger than he is.”
When Colb’s crops in Rehovot became too plentiful for the family of six, a neighbor offered to take excess produce for clients in the food-distribution program run by Ezer Mizion.
“When the winter came, I had no tomatoes to give her, [but] she said people needed them. So, a friend and I started going once a week to the wholesale market in Rehovot and buying veggies to donate,” said Colb.
Realizing the vast need, he slowly began acquiring farming equipment, personnel and land. Some fields he bought, some he leases from nearby kibbutz and moshav communities, and some he borrows from owners of unused or underused fields. Recently, the Weizmann Institute of Science – not far from where he lives – offered 50 unused acres for him to till.
Sandy Colb grows crops for state’s most vulnerable. (photo by Amitai Gazit/Ofek-Israel via israel21c.org)
Colb’s biggest single plot is 350 dunams (86-plus acres). He was outbid on this plot when he tried to buy it about 10 years ago, but arranged with the buyer to pay $60,000 per year to lease it. However, when the owner came from New York and saw Colb picking cabbages for the needy, he decided on the spot to issue a refund. The $60,000 still changes hands annually, going back to Colb to plow into his foundation.
The Rehovot municipality has encouraged his efforts and provided land for a greenhouse. One advantage of the greenhouse is that Colb can use it to grow vegetables during sabbatical years such as this one, when open fields are not sown but only harvested in keeping with biblical and rabbinic agricultural laws.
Following every Shmita year, Colb and his workers plant wheat designated for Passover matzah for the next eight years. Colb and his wife, Paula, invite “tons of people” to join them in annual baking sessions at a facility run by Jerusalem’s Karlin Chassidim.
With four grown children and 13 grandchildren in whom they hope to instil an appreciation of agriculture, the Colbs have not neglected their home vegetable patch. “We have a little asparagus and carrots, fennel and various exotic fruits,” said Colb, and even this gets shared; he takes much of the produce to his synagogue for fellow worshippers to enjoy after Shabbat services.
Israel21C is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.
Digital Shmita is one of four projects that received 2015 Natan Grants for ROI Entrepreneurs.
A digital Shmita project, Israel’s version of the radio show This American Life, a global initiative promoting tourism to Jewish communities and a foundation supporting Israel Defence Forces soldiers who served in the Yahalom unit were all awarded 2015 Natan Grants for ROI Entrepreneurs.
In late January, the Natan Fund, a giving circle for young professionals, issued its third annual round of dedicated grants for ROI Entrepreneurs, totaling $40,000, to four ROI (“return on investment”) Community members from the United States, Israel and Latin America. These grants will kickstart projects that invite young Jews and the broader community to explore and experience diverse and creative ways of bringing Jewish values and culture into their lives.
The partnership between Natan and ROI Community was formed to connect Natan Fund’s young philanthropists with ROI members who have developed cutting-edge projects to deepen global Jewish engagement. The recipients of the 2015 Natan Grants for ROI Entrepreneurs are:
Digital Shmita (Israel): Digital Shmita is taking the idea of Shmita (Fallow) to the internet. Digital Shmita works in collaboration with Labshul’s FallowLab and the Print Screen Festival for digital culture in Israel. Its ultimate goal is to produce free solutions that will allow everyone to experience Shmita in their daily connected lives. fallowlab.com/digitalshmita.
Israel Story/Sippur Israeli (United States and Israel): Israel Story is a new radio program dedicated to telling the story of a different, diverse Israel. Modeled after National Public Radio’s This American Life, this show seeks to portray the intricacies of Israeli society and showcase its plurality. It seeks to amplify and humanize voices that are rarely heard on the airwaves; to tell long-form, non-fiction tales by, and about, regular Israelis. israelstory.org.
Judaic Tourism (Latin America): Judaic Tourism is a project that works to strengthen Jewish identity through the preservation and enhancement of Jewish heritage. It connects people with history, culture and Jewish life in cities around the world, promoting tourism to Jewish sites and communities and connecting visitors to local Jewish culture. turismojudaico.com.
Yahalom Foundation (Israel): The Yahalom Foundation will be the first nonprofit organization benefiting current and former soldiers of Yahalom, a special forces combat engineering unit in the IDF. The foundation is dedicated to supporting Yahalom commandos during their active-duty service and afterwards, during their reserve duty. amplifiergiving.org/organization/131/yahalom-foundation.
The work of these ROI activists and entrepreneurs dovetails with the Natan Fund’s mission (natan.org) to provide early-stage funding for creative approaches that seek to address some of the central challenges facing the Jewish people and Israel. Among Natan’s goals is to create new access points to Jewish life, especially for younger Jews who are less engaged with existing communal organizations. Its members pool their charitable contributions, set the philanthropic strategy and agenda for the foundation, and allocate funds to organizations that are building new visions for the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
Founded in 2006, ROI Community (roicommunity.org) is part of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, a global organization that encourages young people to create positive change for themselves, the Jewish community and the broader world. ROI Community members channel a diversity of perspectives, skills and interests toward a shared passion for advancing ideas and partnerships that will strengthen Jewish communities and improve society.
Researchers have shown that the brains of bats contain neurons that sense which way the bat’s head is pointed and could, therefore, support the animal’s navigation in 3-D space. (photo from wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il)
Pilots are trained to guard against vertigo: a sudden loss of the sense of vertical direction that renders them unable to tell up from down, and can lead to crashes. Coming up out of a subway station can produce similar confusion: for a few moments, you are unsure which way to go, until you regain your sense of direction. In both cases, the disorientation is thought to be caused by the temporary malfunction of a brain circuit that operates as a three-dimensional compass.
Weizmann Institute scientists have now for the first time demonstrated the existence of such a 3-D compass in the mammalian brain. The study was performed by graduate student Arseny Finkelstein in the laboratory of Prof. Nachum Ulanovsky of the neurobiology department, together with Dr. Dori Derdikman, Dr. Alon Rubin, Jakob N. Foerster and Dr. Liora Las. As reported in Nature on Dec. 3, the researchers have shown that the brains of bats contain neurons that sense which way the bat’s head is pointed and could, therefore, support the animal’s navigation in 3-D space.
Navigation relies on spatial memory: past experience of different locations. This memory is formed primarily in a deep-seated brain structure called the hippocampal formation. In mammals, three types of brain cells, located in different areas of the hippocampal formation, form key components of the navigation system: “place” and “grid” cells, which work like a GPS, allowing animals to keep track of their position; and “head-direction” cells, which respond whenever the animal’s head points in a specific direction, acting like a compass. Much research has been conducted on place and grid cells, whose discoverers were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, but until recently, head-direction cells have been studied only in two-dimensional settings, in rats, and very little was known about the encoding of 3-D head direction in the brain.
To study the functioning of head-direction cells in three dimensions, Weizmann Institute scientists developed a tracking apparatus that allowed them to video-monitor all the three angles of head rotation – in flight terminology, yaw, pitch and roll – and to observe the movements of freely behaving Egyptian fruit bats. At the same time, the bats’ neuronal activity was monitored via implanted microelectrodes. Recordings made with the help of these microelectrodes revealed that in a specific sub-region of the hippocampal formation, neurons are tuned to a particular 3-D angle of the head: certain neurons became activated only when the animal’s head was pointed at that 3-D angle.
The study also revealed for the first time how the brain computes a sense of the vertical direction, integrating it with the horizontal. It turns out that, in the neural compass, these directions are computed separately, at different levels of complexity. The scientists found that head-direction cells in one region of the hippocampal formation became activated in response to the bat’s orientation relative to the horizontal surface, that is, facilitating the animal’s orientation in two dimensions, whereas cells responding to the vertical component of the bat’s movement – that is, a 3-D orientation – were located in another region. The researchers believe that the 2-D head-direction cells could serve for locomotion along surfaces, as happens in humans when driving a car, whereas the 3-D cells could be important for complex manoeuvres in space, such as climbing tree branches or, in the case of humans, moving through multi-storey buildings or piloting an aircraft.
By further experimenting on inverted bats, those hanging head-down, the scientists were able to clarify how exactly the head-direction signals are computed in the bat brain. It turned out that these computations are performed in a way that can be described by an exceptionally efficient system of mathematical coordinates (the technical term is toroidal). Thanks to this computational approach used by their brain, the bats can efficiently orient themselves in space whether they are moving head up or down.
This research supports the idea that head-direction cells in the hippocampal formation serve as a 3-D neural compass. Though the study was conducted in bats, the scientists believe their findings should also apply to non-flying mammals, including squirrels and monkeys that jump between tree branches, as well as humans.
“Now this blueprint can be applied to other species that experience
3-D in a more limited sense,” writes Prof. May-Britt Moser, one of the 2014 Nobel laureates, in the News and Views opinion piece that accompanies the Weizmann study in Nature.
נשיא מדינת ישראל בעת פגישת עבודה מדינית עם שר החוץ של קנדה, ג’ון ביירד – 18 בינואר. (צילום: דוברות בית הנשיא)
ישראל איבדה ידיד קרוב: שר החוץ הקנדי פרש מתפקידו במפתיע
שר החוץ של ממשלת קנדה ג’ון בירד, הודיע ביום שלישי האחרון על פרישתו מהתפקיד. בירד עזב את ממשלת השמרנים ברשות סטיבן הרפר, כבר בשבוע שעבר, והוא אמור כנראה לעבור למגזר הפרטי ולעשות לביתו.
הכרזתו של בירד התקבלה בהפתעה גמורה, ואף אחד מהפרשנים הפולטים לא חזה אותה. זאת בעיקר כיוון שעזיבתו בעת הזו גורמת נזק גדול להרפר, שמבקש שוב להיבחר לרשות הממשלה, בבחירות הכלליות שיתקיימו בחודש אוקטובר.
בירד נחשב היה עד היום לשר הבכיר והמקורב ביותר להרפר.
ההתפטרות עוררה גל שמועות על הסיבות שהביאו את בירד לעזוב את ממשלת הרפר. ובהן: מחלוקות קשות על מדיניות החוץ עם הרפר, רצונו להתמודד על תפקיד לרשות הממשלה מטעם השמרנים בעתיד, דווקא כשהוא לא מעורב במערכת הפוליטית היום יומית, מחיר שהוא נאלץ לשלם על כך שלפני מספר שנים בילה במשך שבוע עם חברים על חשבון משלם המסים, במעון של קנדה בלונדון, ועוד.
בירד והרפר נחשבים לידידים קרובים מאוד לישראל, והם תומכים חד-משמעית במדיניות ראש הממשלה, בנימין נתניהו. כיום אין לנתניהו בעולם עוד תומכים בשיעור של בירד והרפר, ולכן פרישתו של שר החוץ פוגעת בישראל.
בירד בן ה-45 עבד בשירות הציבורי במשך כעשרים שנים, והוא משמש שר החוץ מאז 2011. קודם לכן החזיק בתפקידים בכירים שונים (בהם שר התחבורה ושר האנרגיה) בממשלות הרפר, שמכהן בתפקיד ראש ממשלת קנדה מאז 2006. בירד נחשב כאמור לפוליטיקאי המקורב ביותר להפר כיום, והוא מוזכר כמועמד להחליפו ביחד עם השר ההגנה החדש, ג’ייסון קני (שגם הוא תומך גדול בישראל ובמדיניותה), מטעם השמרנים, עת יפרוש הרפר מתפקידו.
בירד ביקר בישראל מספר פעמים, ותמיד הביע תמיכה גדולה וחד-משמעית במדינה ובמדיניות ממשלת נתניהו. בביקור האחרון במהלך ינואר, בעת שביקר במשרד החוץ הפלסטיני ברמאללה, פעילים מקומיים זרקו על בירד ביצים ונעליים, לאור תמיכתו החד-צדדית בישראל. ביקור אחר של בירד בישראל באפריל 2013, זכה אף הוא לכותרות, כיוון שהוא פגש את שרת המשפטים לשעבר, ציפי לבני, במשרדה במזרח ירושלים. הפלסטינים ביקרו את בירד קשות על מהלכו זה, שלטענתם פוגע בריבונות שלהם על מזרח העיר. עד כה מדינאים ודיפולמטים זרים שהגיעו לישראל, נמנעו מלפגוש את עמיתיהם הישראלים במזרח ירושלים.
באופן מפתיע הרפר מינה בסוף את שר ההגנה, רוב ניקולסון, לשר החוץ החדש.
סטארבקס הופכת לבר: תמכור אלכוהול משעות אחר הצהריים
רשת בתי הקפה הגדולה בעולם סטארבקס תתחיל למכור אלכוהול בסניפיה בקנדה, לקראת סוף השנה. החברה נכנסת אפוא לתחום פעילות חדש, לאחר שמצאה שאין מקום לפתוח סניפים נוספים, מעבר לכ-1,500 שהיא מפעילה בקנדה. אלכוהול מוגש כבר במספר סניפים של סטארבקס בארצות הברית, ולאור ההצלחה, הוחלט לעשות את אותו הדבר בקנדה.
האלכוהול יוכנס בעיקר לסניפים עירוניים, ובשלב ראשון ימכר במסגרת פרוייקט ניסיוני, בכ-12 חנויות בערים הגדולות, בהן: טורונטו, מונטריאול, ונקובר וקלגרי.
בירה ויין יוגשו החל מארבע אחר הצהריים בשילוב תפריט מיוחד של חטיפים (עם לחם, גבינות, זיתים ופיצוחים). בשעות אלה הסניפים מתרוקנים משמעותית כיוון שקנדים רבים בניגוד לישראלים, מפסיקים לשתות קפה החל מהשעות המוקדמות של אחר הצהריים.
כשישים אחוז מהלקוחות של מלקוחות סטארבקס כך מתברר הן נשים, והן ירגישו יותר בנוח לשתות אלכוהול באחד הסניפים, באשר להיכנס לברים או פאבים חשוכים ומנוכרים.
סטארבקס נאלצה לסגור בינואר את כל סניפיה ב-133 החנויות של רשת ‘טרגט’ האמריקנית, שהודיעה על הפסקת פעילות בקנדה לאחר שנתיים, לאור הפסדים של 1.5 מילארד דולר.
Dr. Neil Pollock, second from the left, in Haiti. (photo from Neil Pollock)
Vancouver-based Dr. Neil Pollock has recently returned from a mission to Haiti, where he trained surgeons in newborn male circumcision to help fight against HIV.
Among other benefits, “circumcision reduces AIDs transmission by 60 percent and that would reduce a man’s risk of acquiring HIV. The reason is, the foreskin has receptor cells that selectively bind the HIV virus and promote its uptake into the body. So, by removing the foreskin, you remove the portal of entry for the virus,” explained Pollock, who specializes in circumcision and adult vasectomy.
Pollock was approached to lead the Haiti mission by Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a medical doctor and professor of medicine at UCLA, specializing in infectious disease. Klausner volunteers with GHESKIO, a nongovernmental organization run out of the Centre for Global Health at Weill Cornell Medical College in partnership with the Haitian government.
In a phone interview with the Independent, Klausner said that, around 2007/08, “evidence became very clear that circumcision was a highly effective prevention intervention for HIV and the first priority was to get adolescents and young men circumcised. And, over time, we scaled up progress for newborns.”
After moving from South Africa to Los Angeles, Klausner started working in various countries. It was in Haiti in March 2012 that he connected with GHESKIO. He said it was one of the first NGOs to respond to the AIDs crisis in the early 1980s. Through GHESKIO, he was introduced to Haiti’s first lady, Sophia Martelly, in Washington, D.C., at the International AIDs Conference. Klausner said that, when talking to Martelly about the prospect of introducing newborn circumcision to Haiti, she said, “Absolutely, we’d love to do that, but we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the technical expertise, so we really need to rely on people like you to help us.”
Klausner returned to GHESKIO and worked to organize “a physical place, the proper clean procedure room … certain types of equipment and supplies and autoclaves, sterilized surgical equipment, and the tab was running into tens of thousands, about $50,000…. Once we had the supplies and materials, then the next step was to get the training, and I’m not a surgeon. I contacted the head of circumcision programs in Kenya, a guy named Robert Bailey.”
Bailey directed Klausner to Pollock. Klausner said he was “encouraged by [Pollock’s] enthusiasm and … set up a training program for May 2014.” (see jewishindependent.ca/vancouver-doctor-will-train-doctors-in-haiti-in-circumcision) However, the mission had to be postponed to November, as just days before they were set to depart, an “outbreak of chikungunya fever hit, which is a rare [virus] that causes fever, joint pain, and about one of 100 people can get lifelong arthritis.” In addition, “there was a fire in a supply room and we lost some of the tables we had bought and one of the autoclaves,” and “a box of supplies went missing.”
Despite these and other challenges in organizing and executing the mission, such as difficulties in communication due to power outages and poor internet connections, Klausner said, “I have been doing international work, research and programs for 25 years now and [obstacles are] par for the course. This actually went smoother than many other projects [in which] I have been involved.”
For the Haiti mission, said Klausner, “We had to make sure there were at least 200 parents and babies that were already pre-examined, pre-consented, pre-educated and prepared” because for “a training program like this to be successful you really need to do between 50 to 100 [surgeries] a day in a short period with a lot of cases to make sure the people you are training learn, and learn effectively so they can go on and do this independently and confidently.”
Pollock said he had “arranged to train two surgeons, in case one of them did not have the aptitude to succeed – in the end, one did not, and it was difficult of course to tell him that, but it was clear that it would not be safe to pass him and enable him to operate on patients.”
With the use of the technique he taught in Haiti, said Pollock, recovery time will be reduced compared to current Haitian practices “because there is so little trauma caused during surgery.”
Klausner offered three measures for the mission’s success. “One is the actual conduct of safe, well-done circumcision on the babies that Dr. Pollock and his colleague Pierre Crouse did. That’s an achievement in itself: they did over 100 infants in two and a half days. The second part is that the surgeon and the teams that were trained, they continue to do it themselves, so they have done an additional 100 since we left. And then the third piece is that we have trained the trainers, and now other teams are being trained” to perform the surgery.
Klausner’s and Pollock’s efforts in combating HIV and AIDs received notice from some high-profile celebrities. “I was quite surprised to get a text from Sean Penn on the day after we landed in Port-au-Prince that he wanted to come down and meet and observe what myself and my team were doing and discuss synergies between our global interests in promoting health care,” said Pollock. Penn was joined by Charlize Theron, “who was also interested in discussing collaborative efforts in association with her foundation helping improve health care for the people in her native country of South Africa.”
Klausner said, “I have been working in eastern South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal province … with the public health leaders there to introduce a similar effort where we would train surgeons, create a permanent resource, such as a training program, to expand the number of trained doctors or medical officers in newborn circumcision.” In that province, he said, “40 percent of people have HIV infection” and “75 percent of women aged 30 have HIV. So, right now, that part of South Africa … is in a complete, out of control, HIV epidemic. I helped introduce adult circumcision there, but I think, to have greater impact in the long term, we need to introduce newborn circumcision.”
He added, “I believe Dr. Pollock had a very positive experience [in Haiti] and I suspect he is optimistic about the possibility to go and do it again elsewhere.”
On Jan. 28, Israeli soldiers in the northern Mount Dov region are pictured after an Israel Defence Forces patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah terrorist operatives. The Hezbollah attack killed two Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. (photo by Basal Awidat/Flash90)
Who was behind the Jan. 28 attack on northern Israel that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others? The easy answer is the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for the attack. But the wider view suggests Hezbollah’s state sponsor: Iran.
Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel’s International Institute for Counterterrorism, said that Hezbollah’s actions represent “an attempt to change the strategic rules of the game.” According to Karmon, Iran and Hezbollah have been working for months to take advantage of instability in Syria in order to create a forward military position against
Israel in Syria’s Quneitra region, close to the triple Syria-Lebanon-Israel border.
“This is actually an Iranian project,” Karmon told this reporter. “They have around 1,500 people on the ground in Syria, most of whom are counseling or training Syrian militias, and they have Hezbollah providing military support.”
On Jan. 28, Hezbollah fired five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy approximately 2.5 miles inside Israel’s border with Lebanon. A day earlier, less sophisticated mortars were fired from southern Syria into Israeli territory, with no damage reported.
In response to the Jan. 28 attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever is behind today’s attack will pay the full price.” Netanyahu – like Karmon – stressed that the attack points back to Iran, adding, “with the assistance of Hezbollah, Iran has been for some time trying to open another front against Israel on the Golan Heights. We are acting with force and determination against these attempts.”
“Because of the weakness of the Syrian regime, the Iranians are now permitted to have a foothold directly on Israel’s border, which until now they didn’t have,” Karmon explained.
Israel is widely believed to be responsible for a Jan. 18 airstrike against that foothold in southern Syria, which killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranians, including notorious Hezbollah commander Jihad Mughniyeh and Iranian general Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.
Karmon believes the airstrike “was a message sent by Israel” to forewarn Iran and Hezbollah not to continue their military efforts in Syrian territory.
The retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah following the deadly airstrike were widely expected. That the more sophisticated Kornet anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon and not Syria provides a strong indication that the Syrian position is not as well-stocked with weaponry as southern Lebanon – a zone that was supposed to remain completely demilitarized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which arranged for the cessation of hostilities following the Second Lebanon War of 2006.
“Resolution 1701 calls for complete disarmament in southern Lebanon and, yet, Hezbollah, instead of disarming, they have amassed some 80,000-90,000 missiles,” Karmon said.
“Now, they want to achieve the same equation in southern Syria. If Israel does not stop them, and there are two to three years with relative quiet, with only occasional penetrations of our border and sometimes mortar fire and so on, a kind of ‘war of attrition,’ then all of a sudden we will find ourselves staring at 5,000-10,000 missiles,” he said.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day was commemorated here on Jan. 25 with a ceremony at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Holocaust survivors lit candles of remembrance and there was a moment of silence followed by Kaddish; Nina Krieger, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre executive director, read a proclamation from Mayor Gregor Robertson; and a screening of the film Numbered followed, in which survivors of Auschwitz, their children and grandchildren reflect in often unexpected ways on the meaning of the numbers the Nazis tattooed onto their victims.
Robbie Waisman (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)
Vancouverite Robbie Waisman, who is a child survivor of Buchenwald, delivered remarks before the film. With permission, the Independent is privileged to publish a slightly edited transcript of his words:
I am honored to be with you this evening. This film speaks about numbers. I have not seen the film, but I have experience with numbers.
Numbers that have been given to us in the camps have two very significant meanings. They were very dehumanizing. They robbed you of your feelings as a person. Your humanity as a human being was taken away. And as long as you remained healthy and were able to work, in that sense the number given to you made it possible to remain alive and continue to live and hope to survive.
When I lived in France after liberation, they gave us identification cards. It allowed me to get around every day. The police issued it to me on June 9, 1947. I had to have it renewed every year. This was important to me. This was my first ID card, so it is hard to explain how I cherished this card. It meant that I was no longer just a number. It meant that I was a person, that I was a person of value. It proved I had a name and an address. I was so proud to have it. It gave us back some of the dignity we had lost. It gave us back our humanity.
Every time a ghetto was being liquidated, there was a selection of men and women who the Nazis selected to work. Those would be spared and taken to the munitions factories to replace other workers who they perceived as not being strong enough to continue working.
I myself have gone through three of those selections successfully with my father alongside with me.
All of us Jews who were no longer capable of working were eliminated in the most horrific way. I am not going into details – the pain always resonates.
The Nazis decided who qualified to live and work, and others were sent to the gas chambers. Six million of our people, of which 1.5 million were children, were brutally murdered. I represent the seven percent that managed to survive.
The Nazis and their collaborators murdered my mother, father and four older brothers … my uncles, aunts, cousins and friends who had been my schoolmates, and on and on.
Getting back to numbers…. When I read that many second- and third-generation survivors are [tattooing] their fathers’ and grandfathers’ numbers on their own arms and chests, I was upset.
Upon further research and reflection, I came around and now admire all those that have done this noble task. It is strange and amazing how, after all the years, those numbers have taken on a new meaning and brought change to what we think about those horrific years.
The book God, Faith and Identity from the Ashes is a reflection of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg, from Beth El New Jersey, who is the son of survivors Jacob and Rachel Rosenberg, wrote: “Growing up, I constantly looked at the numbers on my father’s left arm, which he received in Auschwitz. Those numbers instilled in me the urge to fight for the state of Israel and against antisemitism wherever it may occur. I became a rabbi because of those numbers.”
Here is my own experience with numbers. Imagine being a 14-year-old boy. Imagine having been in hell and back over four years of this boy’s life working in Germany’s ammunition factories, being hungry, starved, emotionally exhausted, physically weakened, deprived of every human emotion. Imagine being so brutalized and dehumanized that you begin to believe that you are no longer human. In spite of it all, I never lost hope of being reunited with my family.
Hope! – a very powerful motivation.
The emergence of the enormity of the Holocaust became known to us and we had to find a way to deal and cope with the huge loss of all our loved ones murdered by the Nazis. How are we going to live with all those horrors?
April 11 will be the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald.
Would you believe, Gloria [Waisman’s wife] and I are invited by the German government to come to Weimar for this special occasion, where I am also invited to speak to German teenagers. I will share my experience in that infamous and dreadful place where death was a constant companion.
I celebrate April 11 as my birthday, for that day I was reborn again into freedom.
When the Americans liberated Buchenwald, we were euphoric! I will never forget the feeling! The soldiers were larger than life. They symbolized freedom, a new beginning! I tried to communicate with them, but had no words.
For the first time, I saw black men among the soldiers. Since I had been tormented by white persons and had never seen a black person, I thought that angels must be black!
The soldiers looked around and were surprised to find youngsters like myself. They wanted to know, Who are these kids? Where do they come from? What are their nationalities? Why are they here? What are they guilty of? What was the crime they committed?
Ultimately – a few days later – some men arrived to sort out the puzzle. They proceeded to make a list of our names and when my turn came and I was asked my name, I blurted out #117098, the number given to me. My name as a human was erased. I was surprised that they wanted my name not my number. So, you see here, again, the numbers are part of our stories.
When I think back, it was an extraordinary time, full of promise and hope. But it was also bittersweet. Those of us determined to survive had to focus all our efforts towards survival. We wanted to go home and be reunited with family. We soon realized that home was no more and that families we loved had been brutally murdered.
But after emerging from the abyss, thoughts and feelings returned.
Questions bombarded me. What now? Where is my family? Has anyone survived? If not, what is the point of my own survival?
Those wonderful memories of home no longer existed. Everything shattered.
How will I recapture feelings, so that I could cry and laugh again? How do I learn to love and trust again?
It was not easy to relearn the ordinary skills of life that had been shattered over a six-year period. We had to put our numbers aside, reclaim our names and that of our families and move forward.
We were also sure that when the American soldiers … when they saw the consequences of Nazi racism and brutality … that they would ensure that such things would never happen again. We, the survivors, were certain that the leaders and the citizens of the world would say “Never again!” and commit themselves to turning those words into reality.
Never again! Noble, thought-provoking words, but only if we act upon them. Only then do these words become meaningful.
Today, almost 70 years after my liberation, the promise of “Never again” has become again and again!
There have been a number of situations that have tested the world’s resolve … in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and now in Darfur, Syria and so many other places, people have been, and continue to be, the victims of genocide.
My eyes have seen unspeakable horrors! I am a witness to the ultimate evil! I am a witness to man’s inhumanity to other human beings! To this day, I cannot grasp how I managed to go through hell and survive.
The promise of being reunited with my family, all my loved ones, was the strong motivator for not giving up, for not losing it and falling into despair. After having come out of the abyss, I remember thinking, What now? I must go home – my family is waiting for me.
Then the questions began. Where are our loved ones? What happened to them? So much devastation! How to cope? So many losses, including our humanity. We became angry and outraged.
We were 426 youngsters among 20,000 adults in Buchenwald. We were brought to Ecouis, France, for our recovery and were told by psychologists that we had become sociopaths who would never recover.
Most of us forged ahead in school and business, raised families and contributed to our communities. In fact, we count among the Buchenwald children such personalities as my friend Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner; and Lulek, Israel’s recent chief rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, and his brother Naphtali.
Simon Wiesenthal, of blessed memory, said, “I believe in God and the World to Come, and when they ask me what did you do? I will say, I did not forget you.”
I want to end with my friend Elie Wiesel’s words: “Zachor, remember, for there is, there must be, hope in remembering.”
The commemoration was presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, in partnership with the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre and the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, and with funding from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and Rita Akselrod and family, in memory of Ben Akselrod z”l.
Minister Jason Kenney delivers a speech at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Ottawa City Hall. (photo from Government of Canada)
On Jan. 27, the world recognized 70 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, which coincided with the 10th annual International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Among the commemorations was a tribute to survivors held at City Hall in Ottawa.
Hosted by Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa’s Congregation Machzikei Hadas, the commemoration was attended by more than 300 people, including the ambassadors of Israel, Poland and Germany; British High Commissioner to Canada Howard Drake; Dr. Andrew Bennett, Canada’s ambassador for religious freedom; and other dignitaries and guests.
Minister Jason Kenney offered remarks on behalf of the Government of Canada. In his speech, he said, “The Holocaust stands alone in human history for its incalculable horror and inhumanity – and yet has a universal message for mankind, a unique power as long as we insist that it be remembered. Just as we are compelled as free individuals to search for meaning, so, too, are we compelled as communities, as societies and as countries to continue to learn lessons from this most dark and tragic chapter of human history.”
He also noted, “As time passes and as we mourn the passing of many members of the generation that witnessed and survived the Nazi era, it has become even more imperative for moral societies like ours to remain firm in that commitment to memory.
“There’s always the risk that the memory of the Shoah could be lost, just as the Holocaust is declared by some not to have happened or, horror of horrors, to have been invented for political gain. Indeed, we have seen in recent public opinion research that the majority of the population of many countries in the world knows nothing of the Shoah. That is why Canada must join with its IHRA partners, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, in promoting Holocaust research and education around the world.”
Of the IHRA, Kenney said, “Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, today the 31 members and eight observer countries and seven permanent international partners of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance collectively reaffirm our unqualified support for the Stockholm Declaration of 15 years ago as High Commissioner Drake described and, with it, our commitment to remembering and honoring the victims of the Shoah, to upholding its terrible truth, to standing up against those who would distort or deny it and to combating antisemitism and racism in all of their forms.”
At the City Hall commemoration, a tribute in film was also featured, and 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Cantor Moshe Kraus recited El Male Rachamim and the Kaddish, which was followed by the lighting of six candles, each representing one million of the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered 70 years ago.
Earlier in the day, MP Mark Adler delivered a statement on the Holocaust from the floor of the House of Commons (youtu.be/wO-HgyRkUUc) and, later that evening, Kenney and his colleagues attended a ceremony on Parliament Hill.
The Hon. Tim Uppal represented the Government of Canada in Poland. During his speech honoring the survivors, he said, “Canada is a leader in the international fight against antisemitism because it is a Canadian tradition to stand for what is principled and just. Our government is dedicated to ensuring future generations understand the lessons of the Holocaust in order to prevent acts of hate and genocide.”
– Courtesy of Office of the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism
Mordechai Ronen (Canada) is embraced by Ronald Lauder. (photo by Shahar Azran)
Fifteen Auschwitz survivors, aged 80-94, returned to the infamous camp – some for the first time – ahead of the 70th anniversary celebration of its liberation on Jan. 27. Joining the survivors on their visit was Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, who, along with the USC Shoah Foundation, organized the delegation of returning survivors from across the world.
“When I arrived in Poland, the tall trees made me immediately anxious. They reminded me of my arrival to Auschwitz – the same day my mother and little sister were gassed,” said Johnny Pekats, 80, one of the American survivors who returned to the death camp for the first time. “For years, I refused to return to this horrible place, but I finally decided to come back with my son. I wanted to say Kaddish with him there. This is my first and last visit to Auschwitz and my message for the world is that it’s not enough just to remember; we have to make sure that this never happens again.”
More than 100 Auschwitz survivors from at least 19 countries traveled to Poland as part of the WJC delegation to participate in the ceremony.
“I deeply admire the courage of these survivors,” said Lauder, who joined them at Auschwitz. “For some of them, this was the first time they returned to the place of their nightmares. Each survivor is a living testament to the triumph of good over evil, of life over death, and they are my heroes.”
There was also a reception at a Krakow hotel for the survivors and other guests, at which film director and founding chair of the USC Shoah Foundation Steven Spielberg said, “Their testimonies give each survivor everlasting life and give all of us everlasting value. We need to be preserving places like Auschwitz so people can see for themselves how evil ideologies can become tangible acts of murder. My hope for tomorrow’s commemoration is that the survivors will feel confident that we are renewing their call to remember. We will make sure the lessons of the past remain with us in the present so that we can now and forever find humanitarian ways to fight the inhumanity.”
