Judy Siegel-Itzkovich (and Sheleg): A journalist who has done it all, and her canine companion

With a journalistic career spanning decades, Siegel-Itzkovich has been everywhere from politics to science, charting new frontiers and perfecting old ones wherever she goes.

Health is truly wealth, and, in this case, it’s more than just an expression – it’s a wealth of experience as well.

Unable morally to pith frogs’ brains and dissect them or to kill mice in a jar with gas, I switched my major from my first love – biology – to political science in my junior year at Brooklyn College. In my senior year, I took a seminar on urban government with Prof. Phil Finkelstein, who asked each of us students to “solve a problem in New York City.” As making it clean or safe felt too onerous, I decided to go to the Catholic school, speak to the nuns, and suggest that I work as a volunteer for the school year, one class per week, explaining Judaism and Israel to them. Peering at me from under their black habits, they were very reluctant, but when I pointed out that the bad publicity would harm their school, they agreed.

I faced each class, showing slides of Jerusalem and the rest of Israel, blowing a shofar, showing a miniature (printed) Torah school, lighting Shabbat and Hanukkah candles, and explaining Jewish history. At the end of the school year, the nuns called me into the auditorium and asked me to go up to the podium.

To my amazement, the whole student body of many hundreds sang “Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe” (“Moses Commanded Us the Torah”) and said they had learned the melody from their “friends” at the Jewish school.

I got an A on my report from Prof. Finkelstein, who – I learned – was also deputy city administrator of New York City and had shown a copy of what I had done to then-mayor John Lindsay. Not long after, I received an invitation to meet at City Hall with the mayor, who asked about my plans. I told him I was going to get my master’s degree in urban government at Columbia University and then immigrate to Israel, where I wanted to be a journalist. Prof. Finkelstein, who – I learned – had worked on the news desk at The Jerusalem Post years before, wrote a letter of recommendation to the managing editor of the paper, and Lindsay said he had a “good friend in Jerusalem” – mayor Teddy Kollek – and would give me a letter suggesting that I work for the municipality.

When I met him, he looked me over (there were then very few women in journalism), heard I had never written even for a college paper, was the daughter of a Safed-born Modern-Orthodox rabbi who had to leave Palestine as a child because of starvation there, and said: Go upstairs to talk to our women’s editor, Helen Rossi who asked me to “write something.” I wrote a story on the Catholic school, and it appeared unchanged in the paper.

It was a real privilege to cover the fifth president, Yitzhak Navon, and his wife, Ofira. I was often there numerous times per week without being checked by security people, and went on tours to cover their activities. I was even asked to babysit for a few hours for their two young children when the president had stomach pains and was taken to a doctor. Today, Beit Hanassi is a fortress.

I was among the journalists who accompanied the president on his first-ever visit to president Anwar Sadat in Egypt and even shook hands with him at Sadat’s birthplace home when introduced by Navon in his admirable, melodic Arabic. But I feared for Sadat’s future, and not too long after, he was assassinated by Muslim extremists who opposed his making peace with Israel. I also covered the Navons’ visit to Ronald Reagan in the White House and, thanks to my President’s Residence coverage, met kings, queens, princes, princesses, and other famous people.

One of the other Israeli presidents whom I covered was Chaim Herzog, who suggested that he hold our eldest son at his brit mila, and his wife, Aura, who initiated the Council for a Beautiful Israel and the annual Bible Quiz. When I wrote a major article on Herzog Medical Center, which was named for his grandmother, Rabbanit Sarah Herzog, President Isaac Herzog called to thank me and to invite me and my whole family, including three children (including my eldest, whose brit his father had attended) and many of the 16 grandchildren, to Beit Hanassi for a chat, which was quite unforgettable.

After a decade, managing editor David Landau announced a momentous decision – all reporters would have to change their beats so they would look at their subjects with a fresh view. I gratefully switched to health & science, which was hardly covered in those days, and from scratch, started to collect contacts and immerse myself in the subjects. Of the 33 ministers who headed the Health Ministry, I have covered most of them, and they didn’t last long; three went to jail, and at least one more should have been imprisoned for his misdeeds. In general, the political leadership of this important ministry has been very skimpy and unable to deal with the huge issues of protecting and promoting good health.

And once in a while, I think about those Catholic kids and Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe that brought me here.

I first met my Mom Judy four years ago when I was eight weeks old, and her family brought her from a moshav in the South. She was my first human, but I was her first dog, so I had to teach her the ropes. I am a Shih Tzu – “head of a lion” – which was regarded as holy and bred in Tibet during the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) to keep the feet of the emperor warm in bed. We are a direct descendant of the Lhasa Apso. Given as wedding gifts for a safe 10-month passage from Tibet to China, they were bred there with Pekingese or Pugs to create the modern-day Shih Tzu.

After the 1949 Communist revolution, all of my canine relatives in China were killed because of their association with wealth, but an Englishwoman named Lady Brownrigg, who had made her home in China, found 13 Shih Tzus that she then imported to England, and they were the source for the continuation of the breed in England and Europe. We share more DNA with wolves than most other breeds.

Fully grown at one year, I weigh 5.5 kg. and am just about 30 cm. tall. I’m a pretty rare Shih Tzu because I have one blue and one brown eye like a Siberian Husky, so most people I meet want to pet me.

Mom serves me three meals of dog pellets per day, but I insist that I get more interesting goodies, including baked salmon, omelets, sweet red peppers, tuna (in water, not oil), and mashed sweet potatoes. She taught me Hebrew and English, but I don’t always obey the core commands of “sit, stay, down, come, off, heel, and no” to become a well-behaved and obedient dog. My breed is known sometimes to have a mind of its own.

Mom and I take an hour walk in the neighborhood early every morning, and she always brings along cold water for both of us. I have become skilled in navigation due to my powerful nose, and if she were blindfolded, I could take her along the route without her guidance.

I have taught her how to barter. At home, when she drops a plastic bag or tissue or even a safety pin, I run to capture it and reach the table where she keeps the treats; I release the object only when I get a tasty morsel. My veterinarian said he thought that only monkeys behave that way, but for me, it pays off.

Like a good journalist, I collect the news at every tree and pole; I smell what kind of dog, a male or female, how old, and more information just from sniffing, and I leave the liquid mark of my own byline to declare: “I was here.”

Scientists have found that dog owners live about five years longer, on average, than non-dog owners. They walk a lot when the air is less polluted; have patience; have strong bicep muscles from dragging us away when we linger at a tree; petting us makes the blood pressure of both doggies and humans go down, and the hypothalamus in both our brains produces oxytocin – the “love hormone” released by the pituitary gland that females develop after giving birth.

Dogs do many things: They can smell and identify various cancers, hypoglycemia in diabetics, and chemicals used by arsonists; protect soldiers fighting terrorists; take the blind anywhere; find drugs at the airport, missing persons, and those buried under collapsed buildings or snowdrifts. They also calm the disabled and those with post-trauma.

Humans must never get angry at their dog, because we are very sensitive. Always praise a canine for good behavior. Researchers taught dogs to sit in MRI scans while they were offered treats or heard praise from their owners. Their brains lit up much more when they were praised than when they got food.

Mom protects me, but I also try to protect her. When I was only six months old and we were playing on the floor of the balcony, I saw a huge wasp near her. I barked at it, grabbed her sleeve, and pulled her towards the living room, where she was safe. I immediately smell her hands to see if she’s well when she opens the crate where I sleep.

Since we dogs hear a much wider range of sounds (between 40 Hz and 60,000 Hz compared to only 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz), I slept next to Mom during the horrible Iran war because I was so afraid of the sirens and the booms. When the Home Front Command’s shrill warning of a missile came over the phone, I jumped to the floor, ran to pick up my leash, and headed for the front door to take her down to the shelter. During the Israel Air Force flypast rehearsals for Remembrance Day, the noise bothered me so much that I jumped up on her lap to her shoulder and hugged her neck. I refused to get down until she put classical music on the computer and showed me dog videos.

In fact, I regard myself as a lucky dog.