A wine glass half full or half empty?

September 5, 2010 - 8:10 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics 

The launching of peace talks between Israel in the Palestinians last week in Washington are just the beginning of a long haul, which if proved successful, will undoubtedly mean that many Israelis living in certain settlements in the West Bank will have to be uprooted.

The AFP news agency has found one settler, Yoram Cohen, of Ofra which is near the Palestinian city of Ramallah – and a likely settlement to be marked for dismantlement – who is ready to make that painful concession if it means real peace. And Cohen has a lot more to lose than his home, he’s also producing world-class kosher wine on seven acres of nearby land.

“Dialogue is always better than bloodshed. If a peace deal is reached, I will inevitably be one of its victims. It will be painful, but I won’t have any choice. I will just have to turn the page and leave my land with a heavy heart,” Cohen told AFP.

Ofra, around 20 miles away from Jerusalem, was established in 1983 and has around 3,000 inhabitants. My second cousins, Na’aman and Rochelle, moved there near the very beginning, and have raised their six children, most of whom are now married and having children of their own now.

I haven’t spoken to them about their feelings about the talks taking place. But like the majority of Israelis, there’s sceptism over whether this round will end any differenly than the numerous attempts before it to achieve some kind of agreement that will enable Israel and the Palestinians to live peacefully side by side in states of their own.

For wine maker Cohen, though, giving up his home will be doubly difficult as it also means giving up his Tanya Wineries. According to AFP, this summer’s heatwave made him harvest his grapes earlier than usual. But he was delighted with the results, gathering 800 kilograms per dunam on average, a quantity that he expects will yield around 40,000 bottles of wine.

“The 2010 vintage will be exceptional,” he said with satisfaction, after tasting the juice from his latest crop.

Cohen is fiercely proud of his vineyard, boasting some 15 international awards and even naming his eight children after the different grape varieties — cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir.

The strictly kosher wine he produces is mostly sold to Jewish clients in the United States, France, Italy and Belgium.

Multiply Cohen’s story by the over 50,000 Israeli settlers (assuming the main settlement blocks like Gush Etzion and Ma’aleh Adumim are kept in Israeli hands) who would likely be affected by a peace agreement requiring them to relocate, and you’ll begin to understand the complexities involved that don’t only affect land and borders, but also people.

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Peace talks or target practice?

September 2, 2010 - 11:22 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War 

Security personnel inspect the car containing four Israelis which was bombarded with bullets on Tuesday night near Kiryat Arba. (AP)

A morbid comment by a friend after the last two consecutive days of drive-by shootings of Israelis by Palestinians, which have left four Israelis dead – ‘you can always tell when peace talks are starting because Israelis start dying.’

It’s horrible, but unfortunately true. I think everyone is starting to remember how previous waves of terror began – a shooting here, a bus bomb there, and before you know it, it’s an everyday thing.

I’m getting on a bus in a few hours, and for the first time in years, I may be looking around and checking out the passengers getting on, doing my own personal profile checking.

I guess the big difference this time, though, is the fact that we have a security barrier which is supposedly preventing potential suicide bombers from arriving at their destination, and the facts that the cooperation we’re getting from the Palestinian security forces are helping to prevent and catch terror acts before they happen. But not always, as the last two nights have tragically shown.

I, like most Israelis who want the peace talks beginning today in Washington to succeed, want to believe Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when he said that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other Palestinian terror rejectionist groups are Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s common enemy.

But if all Israelis, and not just settlers (who for some, incomprehensibly, don’t count as they are bringing it on themselves by living in the West Bank) are now going to be open targets for the guns and bombs of terrorists, it’s clear that the peace attempts in Washington are going to fail miserably. And our Palestinian neighbors will only have themselves to blame when their statehood once again moves beyond their reach.

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Israel’s next ambassador to the US – it cudda been me

May 6, 2009 - 9:17 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Politics 

Michal Oren (Photo: The Toby Press)

Michal Oren (Photo: The Toby Press)

There’s a warm glow in the bellies these days of many Israelis who immigrated from the US. One of our own – historian and author Michael Oren – has been named to be ambassador to the US.

Oren, whose books include Six Days of War: June 1967, The Making of the Modern Middle East and, most recently, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, made aliyah in 1979, only a few years before me. It just confirms that if I had buckled down more, had been a whole lot smarter, and like wearing ties, I might have gotten that posting myself.

While many nationalities in our melting pot have strong representation in the upper echelons of government, business and culture, it seems like we former Americans have been under-achievers, or maybe just too timid to push ahead in the the Middle Eastern environment here. Maybe, we just can’t work the protekzia button the way others have been able to.

Sure, there’s Tal Brody in basketball, Bank Hapoalim’s Shari Arison in business, Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann, and Dore Gold, Ron Dermer and Ari Harrow in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s inner posse, as well as many more which I’m sure you’ll remind me of.

But when a fellow countryman, even one you don’t know personally, achieves the heights that Oren has, it’s reason to be proud. And Oren, evidently has many reasons to make us proud. Besides being one of the world’s foremost historians on the Middle East, Oren is a mensch, according to his fellow IDF reservist Dan Gordon.

Gordon, writing in his blog, described an incident during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, in which he and Oren were serving in the Army Spokesman’s unit on the front lines.

We hooked up with the ambulance in a wadi or deep ravine. Flairs were going off above us, which meant that Hizbullah knew we were there and were hunting for us. We served as the covering force while the fallen were evacuated.

Later Michael’s daughter, who was serving as a social worker in the Golani Brigade, called Michael on his cell phone. Her unit had taken a lot of wounded; most of them were her friends.

Michael turned to me and said, “My daughter needs a hug. Can I borrow your car?” The two of us drove down from the Lebanese border to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. Michael spent a half hour with his daughter; gave her a much needed hug and then the two of us drove back near dawn to rejoin our unit.

That is the kind of man Israel’s ambassador designate to the U.S. is. He wouldn’t hesitate to endanger his life not only to recover wounded, but to recover the fallen, and though exhausted himself, drove round trip, four hours to give his daughter a hug when she most needed her father’s love.

Politics aside, and Oren’s been bashed for being both too Right and too Left, as a person representing Israel’s interests in the US, there’s every indication he’s going to walk right down the middle. And if he finds the job too taxing, I’m available to help out as long as I don’t have to wear a tie.

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Hail to the Redskins

October 5, 2008 - 7:18 PM by · 5 Comments
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Sports, Technology 

AAGL099~Washington-Redskins-Helmet-Logo-Posters1.jpgIt’s Sunday night, and it’s football season — American football — in the U.S., which means I’ve reached the football widow period of my life. Daniel, my husband, is Maryland-born and bred (although he spent a good chunk of his childhood in Israel), and, as such, is a diehard Redskins fan. For him, it is no hardship whatsoever to get up at 2 in the morning on Sunday/Monday during football season (or just not go to sleep), and spend three hours or so sitting on the very edge of the family room couch to watch his beloved Redskins play, fingers crossed in the hopes that they win.

So really, I wasn’t much of a football widow since he tended to watch while I was fast asleep. But, as usual, technology has changed our lives. Last year, we got hooked up to Slingbox, a TV streaming device that enables users to remotely view cable, satellite or personal video recorder programming from a computer with Internet connectivity. For users in Israel, that can mean hooking up a Slingbox to a friend or family member’s cable connected TV in the States, and then being able to watch whatever they have on TV at that time, through your computer. For American sports fans, it means Slingboxing with just the right person, that is, those in one’s life who are also apt to be fans of the same teams.

So Daniel and his brother in Washington, DC got Slingboxed, but alas, something wasn’t working with our Internet connection, which meant that while he could watch the Redskins games, he ended up doing so in his office. Not the worst thing, but not the most comfortable, either. This season, he was determined to change all that. By slightly shifting our Internet account — and with the added incentive of a new, larger TV in our place — he’s now watching the game in the comfort of his own home, at the same time that it’s on in the States. Tonight, that means 7 pm, Israel time.

This does mean that I’m now an actual football widow, but funnily enough, I’m okay with it. I can, of course, join him on the couch and receive a full education on football, if I so wish. Or I can just take this time to finish up some work, read a book, clean out a closet. Hey, the options are endless. Hail to the Redskins.

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