CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

 

More than other reports of the meeting, I think the editorial in the Jerusalem Post said it best!

I refer to the tête-à-tête that took place at the home of Defence Minister Benny Gantz in Rosh Ha’ayin last week: -

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas neither heralds peace lurking around the corner nor portends a massive Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

What it does do is make good common sense.

                Abbas and Gantz

Abbas is no lover of Zion. His history of Holocaust denial is despicable. His paying hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families is unconscionable, and his libel of Israel is contemptible. Yet, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are still better from an Israeli perspective than the Hamas alternative…….

Israel has an interest in propping up the PA, as flawed and corrupt as it is, because security cooperation with the PA is important in keeping a lid on the violence in the West Bank, and because there must be an address if and when the time does come for serious diplomatic discussions. That address can only be the PA; it can’t and won’t be Hamas.

You cannot prop up those with whom you don’t interact, so dialogue is important and necessary.

Certainly, with tension on the rise in the West Bank, as Hamas wants to fan the flames as a way of challenging not only Israel but also Abbas, a meeting at the highest level to discuss ways to tamp down the tension is smart. Gantz, as the defence minister with overall administrative responsibility over the territories, is a logical person to host these meetings.

Immediately following the meeting, Israel announced several confidence-building measures toward the Palestinians. These include the transfer of USD 32.41million in tax payments Israel collects for the PA, legalising the status of 9,500 undocumented Palestinians and foreigners in the West Bank and Gaza, and 1,100 business passes to senior businesspeople. These moves are welcome, but Israel should make clear that this is a two-way street; that if it takes steps to build Palestinian confidence, the Palestinians need to reciprocate by taking steps to build Israeli confidence as well.

The most obvious step would be to stop paying stipends to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails. But since that is not going to happen anytime soon, there are other steps that the Palestinians could take to signal to Israelis that they, too, want to put relations on a better footing.

One such step would be to stop slandering Israel from every international stage. If Israelis would hear Abbas and other senior PA officials speak about a desire for reconciliation without demonising the Jewish state, that would go far toward building Israeli confidence.

While Gantz is certainly a logical choice to be meeting with Abbas, he is by no means the most logical choice. That would be Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But Bennett has said he will not be meeting the Palestinian leader.

We get it: Bennett is against a two-state solution. He thinks it is both unrealistic and a terrible mistake, and doesn’t want to do anything to promote it.

But Bennett also understands that he just can’t wish the Palestinian issue away. Instead he has endorsed a policy of “shrinking the conflict,” saying he wants to improve the economic situation for the Palestinians, make their lives easier, and improve economic conditions in the West Bank. To do even that, however, he should be meeting with Abbas.

Neither Bennett nor Israel gains anything by boycotting the PA president. On the contrary, it makes Israel appear as the recalcitrant party in this conflict, which is an inaccurate reflection of reality.

Even if Israel believes peace is but a distant mirage, it – and its leader – must strive to be seen in the eyes of the world as the party trying to make that mirage real.”

Perhaps by way of counterbalancing its editorial the Jerusalem Post added an opinion piece written by its senior contributing editor and senior diplomatic correspondent  Lahav Harkov.

“This is a government in which the Right, Left and Centre are so out of sync when it comes to the Palestinians that they are keeping one another in check.”

Referring to the broad differences of opinion within the Coalition Government regarding the PA, Ms. Lahav said,

“It’s all of these disagreements that make the Abbas-Gantz meeting less impactful than it may initially seem to be.” …” Admittedly, it’s the first of its kind in 10 years, but even if Gantz makes big gestures, they mostly remain just that – gestures.

 

At this juncture let’s turn to a close encounter of another kind reported by Lahav Harkov a week earlier.

In her post Ms. Harkov told how Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel became the unexpected leader of the campaign for equal rights in this country, resulting in him being regarded by the Haredi community as public enemy No. 1.

 

 

 

 

               Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel

Another news outlet described the meeting as follows: “Leading rabbis from the Hassidic, Lithuanian and Sephardi Haredi communities requested a meeting with Hendel to discuss “kosher phones.” Namely, a special phone service widely used by Haredim in Israel configured only for calls and text messages, no Internet, no applications.

A Haredi committee determines that certain phone numbers are blocked. They also have designated phone numbers enabling them to easily identify kosher phones.

Yoaz Hendel pointed out that kosher phones are a sort of fiefdom within Israeli telecommunications. Unlike other phone numbers, kosher numbers can’t be moved from one company to another, severely limiting competition. The committees that block numbers lack transparency or recourse so that a business – the example Hendel gave is a kosher pizza place – has no way of knowing why a crucial communications tool has been cut off, and reversing the decision is near-impossible

The meeting was without precedent, in particular regarding the venue – it was held in the communications ministry bureau.  In the past politicians went to the home courts of the rabbis. They were careful to follow the established protocol by wearing black skullcaps and always showed deference to the venerable sages.

But this time Hendel was at the head of the table, and the rabbis were his guests in his home court. It’s pertinent to add that Yoaz Hendel is an observant Jew, who keeps Shabbat and only eats kosher food, but he chooses not to wear a kippah on weekdays, (you could say the minister is selectively “lite” in his religious observance). At the meeting with the rabbis, he was bareheaded as usual on weekdays.

Instead of asking the rabbis for their advice or their blessing, Hendel addressed them as equals.

“The real argument under discussion,” Hendel said, “Is how we regard the State of Israel and whether the State of Israel can regulate what happens in its domain.”

The Haredi media and politicians were furious over the meeting and the way Hendel conducted it.

United Torah Judaism Knesset Member Moshe Gafni lead the attack on the communications minister: - “A minister in the government spoke with such arrogance and audacity to rabbis who have thousands and thousands of families supporting them, who accept their authority,”

                      Knesset Member Moshe Gafni

 

“You cannot hold the stick at both ends – on one end, to have the power and be part of the government for many years and hold ministerial portfolios, but on the other, to say ‘I don’t want the State of Israel to interfere with my life,’” Hendel said.

He also pointed out that kosher phones are an illusion, and that 50-70% of Haredim have the Internet anyway, with many carrying multiple cellphones so they can use the kosher phone in some circumstances – such as to register their children for prestigious schools – and a smartphone at other times.

Communications Minister Hendel said the angry reaction of the Haredi leaders toward him, and to Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana who seeks to reform government kosher food supervision and the religious conversion process, was predictable. Nevertheless, they weren’t deterred by the ire of the Haredim and are determined   to effect a change for the benefit of all Israelis.

        Take care 

        Beni                                                                               6th  of January, 2022

Ringing in the New Year 

 

New York Times correspondent Isabel Kershner reporting from Jerusalem said, “A new year’s celebration brought from Russia irks some in Israel because it’s not a Jewish holiday’. That was three years ago and the fête Ms. Kershner was referring to is “Novy God” the Russian name for "New Year.”

In January this year a Jerusalem Post staff report told its readers that according to a new survey published by the Israeli Congress and the Million Lobby that the majority (72%) of Israelis are familiar with Novy God, but 54% still do not perceive it as part of the general culture of the country and 23% do not think of it as an Israeli holiday at all.

A margin note: I confess I have never heard of the “Israeli Congress and the Million Lobby.” Maybe some of its findings reflect Israeli public opinion, but I prefer and trust The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). It’s the official body responsible for collecting, processing and publishing statistical data on the Israeli population, economy and society. This information is used by government agencies to decide polices and for planning. The principles that guide the activities of the Bureau are: Independence (apolitical), reliability and strict confidentiality of individual data. The CBS is a direct continuation of the statistical departments of the British Mandate government, and the Jewish Agency for Israel which operated during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine.

According to CBS estimates, on the 31^st of December, 2020, Israel's population numbered 9,291,000 residents.

6,870,000 Jews (73.9% of the total population), 1,956,000 - Arabs (21.1%) and 456,000 Others (5.0%). This last category refers to Jews from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel under the Law of Return, but are not recognised as Jews according to Halacha. 

Back to the main text (The Jerusalem Post staff report) and its preferred survey.

“Despite the increase in awareness of the holiday, most Russian-speaking Israelis do not feel that they have adequate representation in the judiciary (79%), the media (71%), the government (70%) and the education system (42%).

The survey also found that over a quarter of Israelis think that Russian speaking Israelis do not make a real effort to integrate in Israeli society. Moreover 13% of Russian-speaking Israelis agree with that assumption. Some 68% of Israelis think that the contribution of Russian speakers in Israel is not appreciated enough.

Over a third (36%) of Israelis think that a significant proportion of Russian speakers are not Jewish according to Jewish law (halacha) and about a quarter of Russian speakers agree with them.

Over a third of Israelis also think that there is a high percentage of alcoholics among Russian speakers and that the Russian-speaking public is arrogant.

While about half of Russian speakers responded that they give their children a strict and demanding education, only 36% of the rest of the Israeli public concurred.

That being said let’s consider another article about Novy God –

The Russian end-of-year celebration when families traditionally gather before midnight on the 31^st of December to feast on delicacies from the old country like herring, caviar and jellied calf’s foot, and toast in the New Year with vodka and bubbly.

Novo God is increasingly being accepted by the mainstream Israeli public.

Ten years ago, The San Diego Union Tribune reported that while the country’s rabbis are reluctant to embrace the holiday, Israeli politicians have begun to endorse it. No longer are statues of Santa - called Grandpa Frost in Russian - sold only in small Russian-language bookstores. Today they’re displayed nationwide in some of Israel’s biggest supermarket chains - ones that don’t seek rabbinic certification, like the “Tiv Ta'am megastores. 

For years, many Israelis got a little jittery as New Year’s Eve approached. Their neighbours, some of the nearly one million Soviet citizens who flocked to the Jewish state as the Communist regime collapsed, would decorate fir trees and wear Santa Claus-like hats celebrating New Year’s Soviet-style festival. But after 20 years, Israel has finally come to terms with Novy God.

 

It wasn’t the statistics, but the New Year celebration that aroused a certain déjà vu in me.

In Ein Harod and elsewhere in Israel, many Jews who came here from German speaking countries in Europe celebrated “Sylvester.”

Often referred to as “Yekkes” they were noted for their meticulous attention to detail and punctuality. I use the past tense because our youngest Yekke died about ten years ago. My wife’s parents were active “Yekkes.”  I recall their “quiet” Sylvester celebrations held at home (a small two room apartment). Each family brought something to eat or drink that they had prepared. My late beloved mother-in-law Naomi brought her own Eierlikör or eggnog. I believe it’s similar to Advocaat or advocatenborrel, a traditional Dutch alcoholic beverage made from eggs, sugar, and brandy.

Like Novy God, Sylvester has no religious significance it’s simply another secular New Year festivity. Despite this innocuous celebration, it met with considerable criticism, mainly because it was regarded as a superfluous non-Jewish festival.

At this juncture I want to add something about an op-ed that appeared in the Jerusalem Post in 2014 under the title “The Israeli New Year's celebration on December 31st is named after an anti-Semitic Pope from the Roman period “

“Not exactly what you’d expect in a Jewish state.” …

 Sylvester and Constantine by an unknown mediaeval artist in San Silvestro Chapel, Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome

 “Its all about Pope Sylvester whose saint's day falls on December 31st, now known as New Years Eve. He served as pope from 314-335 CE, and while very little is known about his actual life, it is known that he oversaw both the First Council of Nicea as well as Roman Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity.

Sylvester convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem.

At the Council of Nicaea, Sylvester arranged for the passage of a host of viciously anti-Semitic legislation. All Catholic “Saints” are awarded a day on which Christians celebrate and pay tribute to that Saint’s memory. December 31 is Saint Sylvester Day – hence celebrations on the night of December 31 are dedicated to Sylvester’s memory.”

Although the author of the Jerusalem Post op-ed says” very little is known about his actual life, he nevertheless relies on unauthenticated sources.

I’m told that Sylvester was too ill to attend the Council of Nicaea. No, he did not convince Constantine to ban Jews from Jerusalem. Nicaea was not about anti-Jewish statements- it was when the Church changed its calendar so that Easter could be calculated without the need to contact Jews in order to find out when they were celebrating Passover.

The anti-Jewish decrees were issued by Constantine. Sylvester didn’t influence him at all. The real power was vested in the emperor.

There is a mediaeval source known as the “Forged Canons of Nicaea” where in some versions Sylvester is credited with decreeing that Jews and Christians should not share bread or eat together. It’s similar to the way that Talmudic law does not allow Jews to eat food prepared by gentiles or to drink their wine, eat cheese, bread etc., with them.

While our Yekkes celebrated Sylvester “quietly” careful not to offend the neighbours, attitudes have changed. Sylvester is no longer frowned upon here at Ein Harod.

Plans for a celebration of some kind to ring in the New Year have been put on hold awaiting approval by the health authorities.

 

Let’s hope 2022 will be a better year.

 

Beni,                                                                           30^th of December, 2021.

 Christmas

Classical music festival in Nazareth brings Arabs, Jews together for Christmas.

 I’ll hazard a guess and say you weren’t expecting Christmas to feature as the main topic this week. After all, there are many pressing defence and security related matters arguably more important.

Admittedly, the title is slightly misleading, the festival which is an annual event, celebrated 250 years of Beethoven this year. It was held at the Polyphony Conservatory in Nazareth, last week.

The conservatory’s director Nabil Abboud Ashkar estimates that about 35 percent of the audience is local, including Christian and Muslim Nazarenes who support the conservatory. “The rest of the people who came for the festival were mostly Jewish tourists from out of town. Some are long-time supporters of the conservatory, but many are simply people who want a weekend away in a nearby destination that feels somewhat, well, foreign.” Ashkar said.

Currently with government-imposed travel restrictions to many overseas destinations, Mr. Ashkar’s observation rings true.

Today Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel” and the largest city in the north of of the country with a population of close to 80,000 residents predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian.

“The first Christians wouldn't recognise today's Santa-centric holiday, let alone figure out what that tree is doing in the living room.” Claims Elon Gilad in a piece he wrote for Haaretz. “The first historic record of the holiday is a calendar dating from 354 CE, belonging to a rich Roman Christian named Philocalus.

That calendar tells us that on the same date - December 25 - another holiday was celebrated, marking the birth of Sol Invictus, “the Unconquered Sun.” That was a new pagan cult, worshiping a new sun deity. (The same Roman Sol Invictus/Greek Helios that appears in the centre panel of the zodiac mosaic in the Beit Alpha synagogue as well as other ancient synagogues). In the same article Elon Gilad traces other Christian traditions from antiquity to the present day.

By most accounts, in the early centuries of the Christian Era Nazareth was no more than an insignificant village. It’s population at that time is variously estimated at about 400 residents. However, nearby Bethlehem in Galilee was more populous.  

Jessica Steinberg Times of Israel columnist and author posed a provocative question in a piece she wrote seven years ago. Was Jesus born in a different Bethlehem?

A sub-heading clarified the intriguing query in Ms. Steinberg’s article.

“An Antiquities Authority archaeologist argues that the Christian saviour was born in Galilee, not Judea.”

“The New Testament claims Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judea, but one rogue Israeli archaeologist says it is far more likely the Christian saviour was born in Bethlehem in Galilee, more than 96 kilometres from Jerusalem.

Archaeologist Aviram Oshri spent nearly eleven years excavating Bethlehem in Galilee — an ancient biblical village near Nazareth. He believes the traditional account of Jesus’ birthplace may be wrong.

But when he presented his findings to the Israel Antiquities Authority, they were rejected out of hand.

 Oshri argues, “The town of Bethlehem in Judea, about 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem, has always been considered the birthplace of Jesus. According to the New Testament, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem in Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth and later moved to Nazareth. In another account, Joseph and Mary, who was then nine months pregnant, travelled more than 175 kilometres on a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Judea, Joseph’s hometown, in order to register in a Roman census. “It makes much more sense that she would have travelled seven kilometres,” the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Galilee.

Getting Jesus to Bethlehem in Judea is an important part of the Christian narrative.

However, there are also variances regarding the date of Jesus’ birth.

Various Christian denominations celebrate Christmas at different times. Some of the differences can be accounted for by alignment with either the Julian or Gregorian calendars and a later calendarial adjustment.

The season of the event has also been called into question. Tour guide and Jerusalem Post columnist Gil Zohar wrote, “The New Testament is mute about the date of Jesus’ birth. Indeed, it may have occurred in the spring rather than shortly after the winter solstice since Luke records that shepherds were “abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.” Traditionally shepherds in Palestine guard their flocks around the clock at the spring lambing time; during the winter months, the animals are penned in corrals, unwatched.

Adoration of the Shepherds - Matthias Stomer

Regardless of Aviram Oshri’s suggested alternative Bethlehem and the seasonal variances, the Christian nativity narrative will remain unchanged.

 Christmas in Israel outside the main Christian communities is barely sensed during normal times and even less when we are moving in and out of lockdown.

However, those of us who grew up in other countries where Christianity is the major religion, have experienced Christmas at close hand. Nonetheless, a quick Google scan revealed a lot I didn’t know about Christmas or had forgotten.

The Catholic Church gradually came to embrace Christmas, but the Protestant Reformation gave the holiday a good knock on the chin. In the 16th century, Christmas became a casualty of this church schism, with reformist-minded Protestants considering it little better than paganism,

In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas.

The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings.

Though many outright acts of protest followed, with people defying the Puritans and continuing to celebrate the holiday, albeit in a less public manner.

In England even after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, celebration of Christmas wasn’t completely restored to its former glory.

At roughly the same time, the tradition of setting up a tree in one’s home and lighting candles began to spread in Germany. The concept spread among European nobility during the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching the lower classes only in the late 19th century.

The huge success of Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol" in 1843 greatly contributed to popularising Christmas, and gave it much of the qualities we associate with it today: a holiday centred around the family, as opposed to a community holiday celebrated in church.

The book also contributed to the popularity of the phrase “Merry Christmas,”

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favour, including Christmas. In fact, Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

Christmas traditions have warped over time, arriving at their current state a little more than a century ago.

Stephen Nissenbaum, author of "The Battle for Christmas" said

“All of this gift-giving, along with the secular embrace of Christmas, now has some religious groups fuming. The consumerism of Christmas shopping seems, to some, to contradict the religious goal of celebrating Jesus’ birth. In some ways excessive spending is the modern equivalent of the revelry and drunkenness that made the Puritans frown.” Summing up Stephan Nissenbaum said,

"There's always been a push and pull, and it's taken different forms. It might have been alcohol then, and now it's these glittering toys."

 Happy Holidays.

 

Beni,                                                   23rd of December, 2021.