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Remember who the victim was

With all the backlash surrounding the use of the names of British immigrants to Israel for part of the hit squad that offed Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel last month, it got me to thinking a bit.

Sure, it’s undoubtedly a jolt to find out that your identity was absconded with, without permission, to perpetrate an act of murder. On the other hand, look at the victim.

Mabhouh helped found Hamas’s armed wing Izzadin Kassam in the 1980s and was perhaps most infamous for being behind the kidnapping and murder in the first intifada of IDF soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon. According to Liat Collins in The Jerusalem Post, Hamas held out against revealing the location of their bodies, neither of whose last minutes were spent in anything like a luxury hotel. Sasportas’s body was discovered after three months, while it took seven years to find the remains of Sa’adon and offer his family closure.

Mabhouh was also reportedly behind the weapons convoy that, foreign reports claim, was bombed by Israel in the Sudanese desert during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.

If any of the Israelis whose names were utilized in the operation were asked beforehand if they would contribute in the effort to remove Mahbouh from the world terror active list, how do you think they would have responded?

Probably they would have said yes. If any of them served – or are serving in the IDF – then they’ve likely taken part in some aspect of protecting Israel from threats. And they were probably proud of it.

I’d like to think that if my name had been stolen from me temporarily to rid the world of a terrorist aimed at Israel’s destruction, I might be a little dumbstruck at first, but soon after I would feel only pride that I had been able to contribute to the effort in some small way.

I’d only hope that Steven Spielberg would allow me to choose the actor to portray my doppleganger in the film adaption of the operation. I’m thinking maybe Johnny Depp in his Hunter Thompson haircut mode?

A home visit

In our ongoing learning experience as parents of a combat soldier in training, this morning my wife and I hosted Sarit’s platoon commander this morning for a ‘bikur bayit’ – home visit.

Evidently, it’s something that Shahar does with all the 50-some soldiers in Sarit’s platoon – and reminds me of the time my 7th grade social studies teacher visited every student’s home during the year.

As I drove Sarit to the Central Bus station at 6 am on Sunday morning after her Shabbat leave, among the stupid questions I asked in preparation for the visit were ‘what should we wear?’, ’should we salute?’ ’should we offer him food?’

“Just do do anything fadiha,” Sarit said as a parting shot as she got out of the car with her two huge duffel bags and rifle, which roughly translates into ‘don’t embarrass me.’

Getting back home and while we were awaiting his arrival, I straightened up the house, including Sarit’s room – I didn’t want Shahar to get a bad impression of us – or Sarit- as dirty sloths and jeopardize her future advancement in the army – “Sarit, there were clothes lying around on your floor at home, so we don’t think you’d be a good candidate for officer’s school.”

I realized that platoon commanders were usually not that much older than the soldiers they command, but I was still taken aback when Shahar entered the house – he was a kid! Shorter than Sarit and slight in build, he was far from the image of Ari Ben-Canaan in Exodus.

But when we sat down in the living room, Shahar proved to be engaging, polite, and most importantly, full of praise for Sarit. “She’s one of the leaders in the platoon, and if she’s interested, I see a future for her as on officer.” It was like the Israeli equivalent of being told your child is excelling in medical school and should think about brain surgery instead of podiatry.

I don’t think we embarrassed Sarit too much, but we couldn’t help showing Shahar some photos of her as a kid, and telling him what a standout volleyball player she was. After a half hour of banter, we shook hands as Shahar left, reassured that Sarit was in good – albeit young – hands, and also reassured that the qualities that we knew Sarit possessed that held her so dear to us were also recognized by her commanders in the army.

And I even remembered to not salute.

An excellent jobnik

It’s niece/nephew month. Last one, I promise…

So, Natan, my 19-year-old nephew, who made aliyah with his family just three and a half years ago when he was 16, and entered the army last year, was nominated to receive the Presidential Excellence Award, the highest honor you can receive in the IDF.

Natan is a ‘jobnik’ in army parlance, which means he has a desk job. In his case, he works out of a large army base near Tel Aviv, where he does several things, including troubleshoot computer issues and teach English. He fell in with a great commanding Druze officer and a good crew of fellow soldiers, and despite worries at the start that the army would be a huge adjustment for this NYC-born and bred boy, he’s done just fine. His commanding officer and fellow soldiers sometimes don’t know what to make of Natan, who’s into musical theater, choral music and making bizarre flavors of ice cream, among other things, but it’s a testament to him and his mostly easygoing character that they all get along really well, and even came to see him perform Shakespeare.

Anyway, I wasn’t really surprised that Natan was nominated for the award, which includes getting pinned by President Shimon Peres in a public ceremony. He already knows that he’s not receiving the award, but will be receiving a lower level excellence award with a less public ceremony, and, a new uniform, which he’s pleased about. But what he talked about most, besides the intense interview that he underwent at a Herzliya hotel, was the food at the hotel, which was “out of this world,” compared to his now lowered army food standards. Hey, there are benefits to lower level excellence.

A scoop in the family

I think my children know that I make a living as a journalist – but sometimes I’m not sure.

My daughter, who’s currently in basic training in Karkal – one of the few mixed men-women combat units – was home for Shabbat. In passing, I mentioned that a photographer friend thought it would be interesting to come down and do a story on the unit.

“Yes, Ma’ariv was here this week talking to Elinor,” she said matter-of-factly, referring to one of the Hebrew tabloid daily papers. “I guess she’s the first Arab girl to join a combat unit.”

“What? You have an Arab girl in your unit?” I squeaked. “And you never told me? That’s a great story.”

“I guess it is – it’s in Ma’ariv today,” she told me, as we went online and saw the huge photo of Elinor Joseph in battle gear and camouflage.

The story described how Joseph, a Christian Arab living outside of Haifa, has excelled in the unit. She labels herself “Arab, Christian and Israeli” in that order, and received special permission from the IDF to take her uniform off and put on civilian clothes before reaching home, in case any of her neighbors don’t share her allegiance to the state.

My daughter said that she’s ‘one of the guys’ and is ‘hamoodi’ (cute), and aside from a slight accent in Hebrew, nobody would ever know that she wasn’t one of the other Jewish Israelis in the unit.

That’s great, I told her, but next time let me know before I read about it in Ma’ariv.

Balancing the heroic and the profane

With the death toll due to last week’s earthquake in Haiti rising to unprecedented numbers, there’s been a lot of coverage in the Israeli media – and resultant pride – about our rescue operations and field hospital which has been finding trapped victims, treating them, and even helping a woman give birth to a baby, which she subsequently named ‘Israel.’

But just like in other countries like the US, where coverage of the tragedy is competing for space with the Jay Leno – Conan O’Brien NBC fiasco, there are other less noble stories here which remind us that we shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back as higher developed forms of life too hard.

Near the end of last week, the police disclosed the results of a year-long investigation culminating in the arrest of Tel Aviv resident Goel Ratzon, a self-professed cult leader accused of enslavement and rape of some of the 32 women who lived with him as his ‘wives,’ along with almost 90 children their unions produced. He is also suspected of extortion, incitement to arson and solicitation to commit suicide.

According to Ha’aretz, police suspect that Ratzon imposed a harsh and unforgiving regime on his household, which had a rule book complete with punishments. Prohibitions in the book include interrupting Ratzon, idling, arguing with him or with each other, and laughing indoors.

The arrest followed a long investigation involving hundreds of police and Labor and Social Welfare personnel, who originally began probing Ratzon back in 2006. They evidently handled the investigation with kid gloves out of the fear that Ratzon had forged a suicide pact with his ‘wives’ in the event the apartments they lived in were ever raided.

While not as horrifying, but still given ample space in Israel’s leading daily paper Yediot Aharonot, was the disclosure last week that a former housekeeper for Sara Netanyahu, the wife of our prime minister, was suing her for a basket of grievances including mental abuse, humiliation and exploitation.

The 44-year-old woman – Lillian – claimed that her relationship with Sara involved constant humiliation and an overall hostile atmosphere. According to the paper’s report on the lawsuit, Netanyahu expected Lillian to be on call 24 hours a day, and once even phoned her at 2 a.m. to reprimand her for failing to properly cover a pillow.

She also charged that Sara forced her other employees to call her “Mrs. Sara Netanyahu” and would often boast that she had a beautiful house, telling her housekeeping staff how lucky they were to be working for the Netanyahu family and saying she was the “mother of the State of Israel.”

The Prime Minister’s Office responded by saying that the lawsuit was full of “lies and slander,” and that extensive coverage of the story in Yediot Aharonot was part of a “tendentious media campaign lacking any journalistic ethics.”

“In total contrast to what is written in the lawsuit, the plaintiff Lillian received warm and affection treatment from Mrs. Netanyahu. It is this treatment that led her to stay six years with the Netanyahu family,” the statement read.

Whether the claims are true or not is for the court to decide – but many are claiming that the ’scoop’ by Yediot was part of a business vendetta against competitor Yisrael Hayom, which is owned by Bibi-friendly American mogul Sheldon Edelson.

Given away daily as a handout at train and bus stations, Yisrael Hayom is rapidly overtaking Yediot as the most-read paper in Israel. So true or not, the case against Sara – whom the Israeli public always loves to read about – was a savvy business move by the tabloid, which managed to squeeze in on its front page something about dozens of thousands being killed in an earthquake somewhere.

Israelis do their part in Haiti

Along with dozens of other countries, Israel is doing its share for the victims of last week’s horrifying earthquake in Haiti as our story in ISRAEL21c shows.

An El Al Boeing 777 and an IDF plane landed on Friday with 250 Israeli medical officers and nurses for a 90-bed field hospital, which includes a full surgical unit and is able to treat 100 patients at a time. The team includes 40 doctors, including a psychiatrist, 20 nurses, 20 paramedics and medics, 20 lab and X-ray technicians and administrators.

The large field hospital established by the IDF Medical Corps on Saturday was already treating dozens of patients four hours later, according to its commander, Lt.-Col. Dr. Itzik Reiss.

He told Israeli media in a conference call on Saturday night that
children with severe fractures set only with cardboard arrived at the hospital for treatment. Some young patients had been freed from rubble but had to have limbs amputated due to severe gangrene, he said. Within a few hours, operations were performed.

The hospital has an emergency room, pediatric, orthopedic, internal medicine, obstetrics and surgery departments, clinics and other facilities. The Israeli facility has enough equipment to function for about two weeks.

The IDF’s Medical and Rescue Team were also part of the delegation, with two teams from the Oketz canine unit pressed into action, including at the UN headquarters in the capital where there was hope of locating and extricating survivors.

In addition, four members of the ZAKA rescue unit arrived in Haiti at the end of the week with two Mexican rescue specialists aboard a Mexican Air Force Hercules cargo plane, immediately after completing their work in recovery and identification last week in the Mexico City helicopter crash that killed philanthropist Moshe Saba and four others.

More known in Israel for being first on the scene at terror attacks for the thankless task of identifying and retrieving body parts, the team, deployed at a collapsed multi-story university building, managed to extricate eight students from the rubble over the weekend.

“You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension,” said Mati Goldstein, the head of the delegation wrote in an email to ZAKA headquarters in Jerusalem.

Goldstein called the weekend a “Shabbat from hell. Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It’s just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust – thousands of bodies everywhere.”

AP reported that when 19-year-old Josyanne Petidelle was pulled out of the rubble after being buried for three days, among the first to check her was an Israeli.

Doctors and nurses flocked to the woman to drip water into her mouth and intubate her. Dov Maisel, a doctor who had just arrived from Israel, said she appeared to have internal injuries. Her condition would be assessed at Port-au-Prince’s main hospital, he said, “But I think she’ll live.”

Readers who would like to contribue to Haiti relief efforts can go here.

Ceremonial competition

Just experienced one of those ‘only-in-Israel’ kvelling moments. We attended the IDF ceremony celebrating our niece Noa’s completion of her officer’s course. She’s a commander in the ‘Raful’s Boys’ unit, recruits with criminal records or with very troubling backgrounds. (They actually had a documentary made about them a few months back. They’re known as Raful’s Boys for Raful Eitan, the 11th IDF Chief of Staff and former minister and MK who pioneered this special track for teenagers who would otherwise not serve in the army and then have a much harder time functioning in Israeli society.)

But back to Noa and her ‘tekes.’ It was held at a familiar army base basketball court, where my other niece, Dena, also received her officer’s pin a few years back. There are certain similarities at all these ceremonies, from the soldiers marching in, to the army band playing some familiar tunes, accompanied by a soldier singer.

There are the families, of course, and friends of the soldiers, turning out to cheer on their particular soldier. That aspect of the afternoon is particularly reminiscent of a summer camp visiting day. The parents are expected to bring some tasty morsels for their soldier child, and some people go all out, bringing ‘Sinai’ mats (large straw mats that work better for picnics than an easily crumpled blanket, and which used to be purchased during Sinai vacations), chairs, tables and even mini-grills. We, ever the Americans, brought bagels and cream cheese, lox, tuna and egg salads and cookies. Hey, that’s what Noa requested.

But beyond bagels vs. hummous, some families came prepared with props. One crew had printed tee-shirts with the face of ‘their’ soldier and the words “Ken Hamefakedet,” meaning, “Yes, Commander.” Another family had made fleece scarves congratulating their soldier, while two sisters marched in to the bleachers with a huge banner printed up for the occasion.

We brought the boys, and Noa did say that they provided her much entertainment while waiting for her pin. But now I’m determined to up the ante for the next ceremony. Immigrants no longer!

Quote this

Israelis like quotation marks. I’m in the midst of puzzling this one out, as it’s frustrated me for some time. Why, for instance, would the name of a school, as depicted at the front of the building, be spelled with quotation marks around its name? Or the names of two elephants gifted by Thailand to the Biblical Zoo? The end result is that any kind of text reads like a contract, with everyone referring to themselves in quotation marks.

I decided to research this a bit, after noting that an English translation of a press release I was using referred to the organization in, yes, quotation marks. Here’s what I found:

According to Wikipedia, acronyms in Hebrew are denoted with a punctuation bit called the geresh, which is often typed as an apostrophe. The geresh is singular to Hebrew because it started out life in the Torah, where it was used as punctuation and is now used primarily as a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah and other biblical books. A double geresh (״), known by the plural form gershayim, is used to denote acronyms; it is inserted before (i.e., to the right of) the last letter of the acronym. As in Tzahal (צה”ל), the Hebrew acronym for the IDF, which is also an acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.

Anyway, until the early 1970s, most of the printed Hebrew texts put opening quotes low and closing quotes ones high, often going above the letters themselves. The word “ישראל„ would be a good example.

However, this distinction in Hebrew between opening and closing quotation marks has completely disappeared, and today, quotations are done as in English (ex. “ישראל”), with two high quotes. This is due to the advent of the Hebrew keyboard layout, which lacks the low opening quotation mark („).

Yet the use of quotation marks in what seems like odd places – to an English speaker like myself — appears to be rooted in the German language roots of Hebrew. When Hebrew was revived as a modern language by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (whose seminal Hebrew-English dictionary is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary), the Russian revolutionary followed the norms of those who had come before him, basing modern Hebrew on biblical Hebrew, but with touches of Eastern Europe, where many of the first pioneers were born and raised. According to one blogger, Hebrew grammar and punctuation were based on Western standards, and the German punctuation system was adopted, until 1994, when the Academy of the Hebrew Language changed it to the English system. And in German, quotation marks are often used where English would use italics. Quotation marks are used in English for the titles of poems, articles, short stories, songs and TV shows. German expands this to the titles of books, novels, films, dramatic works and the names of newspapers or magazines, which would be italicized (or underlined in writing) in English:

So the names of two elephants, instead of being italicized, underlined or left alone, are instead placed inside quotation marks. To me, the American English speaker, it appears incorrect. To those educated in the local system, it’s just right.

Picture of the week: I’ll have it on ice please

I don’t really get the attraction myself, but since my kids first read the Guinness Book of Records, they’ve been planning various record-breaking attempts. Person to kneel on a fit ball longest – that’s one idea, or what about person to eat the most chocolate at one sitting (they haven’t reached the age when they realize how awful that suggestion actually is), or even person to make the biggest ball from elastic bands.

None of these seemingly ludicrous ideas are actually any more ridiculous than some of the record-breaking feats actually being carried out by people for the book itself.

Hence Israeli magician, Chezi Dean is now attempting to break the Guinness world record of staying in ice. Dean, who served as a magician for the IDF during his military service, hopes to break the record set by David Blaine, then 27, who encased himself in a block of ice for 58 hours, right in the center of Times Square.

Dean, wearing just trousers and a hat, entered the ice structure right in the heart of Tel Aviv on December 29th, and plans to leave the ice on New Year’s Eve – six hours longer than Blaine. Photo by Roni Schutzer/Flash90.

This isn’t the only record-breaking attempt going on at the moment. On January 8th, Juadat Ibrahim, owner of the Abu Gosh restaurant in Abu Gosh will be trying to break the world record for the biggest platter of hummus – a record that was just broken in October this year by Lebanon.

Then 250 chefs got together to create the dish using 2.976 pounds of chickpeas and 13,525 ounces of lemon juice. The final dish weighed in at more than two tons, beating the previous record, which was held by an Israeli company.

At Abu Gosh, the goal is to create a four-ton platter of hummus and some of the country’s best chefs will be on hand to do it. The event will be attended by government ministers, ambassadors and Jewish and Arab professionals, who will no doubt be feasting on hummus afterwards.

Looking at things (ir)rationally

We sent Sarit off to the army yesterday – our second daughter to join the ranks of the IDF. Since we knew what to expect, we weren’t surprised this time by the lack of pomp, and the feeling that there was nobody on the other end of the receiving line to accept our daughter and reassure her parents that she was in good hands, aside from a bunch of soldiers not much older than her.

Sending a kid off to the army is alot like coming to live here in the first place – a big leap of faith. It’s not really a rational decision – although for many, alot of thought has surely gone into it. But most of us assume that things will work out in this country, and there is some reason why we should be living here.

With the army as well, there’s the rational and irrational. Of course we need soldiers to protect our country – moreso here than just about anywhere else. Rationally there’s not much of a choice -unless you’re haredi, or Arab, or … well, let’s not get into that can of worms.

In fact, one could argue that sending your child to the army is the ultimate objective in making aliya – we conceive little Israeli babies in order to increase the Jewish population of Israel and stock the fighting forces.

Obviously, like alot of people we knew who made aliya with us way back when, there was a naive hope we possessed that by the time we had kids and they turned 18, there would be no need for military conscription, and there would exist only a voluntary army like in the US. That dream seems as far off today as it did 25 years ago.

Bidding farewell to Sarit yesterday, amid the other families hugging their child-turned-soldier for the last time (the next time we hug them, they’re not going to be the same people – even if it’s only two days later for Shabbat), I was touched by the irony of it.

We spend 18 years of our child’s life protecting them from harm, nurturing their soul, giving them a sense of security. Then one day, you simply hand them over to a body where there’s going to be bullets, tanks, explosions – things that you’ve been avoiding like the plague until now.

It’s hardly a rational thing to do for a parent, isn’t it? But unfortunately in the reality of Israel, for anyone who cares about the country, doing anything else would be irrational.

 

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