■ UNLESS THERE is yet another change, the Knesset elections will take place on October 20 – a very propitious date, given that it’s the day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 77th birthday.
Election Day could be his swan song, or it could be his final triumph. A lot depends on the commemorative events marking the third anniversary of October 7, still with no sign of accountability.
■ IT WOULD be interesting to know if some of the rabid antisemites in the US are aware of how many of their favorite Broadway melodies or musical soundtracks of movies were composed by Jews. The Jewish contribution to America’s entertainment industry far outweighs the Jewish demographic ratio in the population.
Composers, lyricists, and popular singers include, amongst many others, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Theodore Bikel, Victor Borge, Eddie Cantor, Aaron Copland, Bob Dylan, Eddie Fisher, George Gershwin, Billy Joel, Al Jolson, and Danny Kaye.
There are more impressive names: Jerome Kern, Carole King, Steve Lawrence, Jerry Lewis, Tina Louise, Neil Sedaka, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Steven Sondheim, Barbra Streisand – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
As part of the National Library’s ongoing salute to the US (which will continue in other formats next week), the Student Choir of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Big Band Jazz Orchestra chose to focus on works by George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein.
Included are some Afro-American jazz and soul music, which in many respects reflect Jewish history and tradition. The choir and orchestra were on stage together for most of the evening, and comprised at least 70 singers and instrumentalists.
The audience, mostly American expats, absolutely loved them, clapped and cheered, and at the end of the evening gave them a standing ovation.
For most of those present, it was a step back in time to the melodies of their youth. The choir was particularly touching in its wonderful renditions of “Summer Time” and “Deep River.”
The orchestra was as professional as they come. Conductors Yishai Steckler and Katia Toobool visibly enjoyed what they were doing, notwithstanding the differences in their individual styles.
Steckler is more of a classicist, while Toobool is wildly exuberant with dramatically expansive arm movements.
There was also an exhibition of rare and original American items culled from the library’s collections, including the pen used by Harry S. Truman to sign the declaration of de jure recognition of the state of Israel, 11 minutes after sovereignty had been declared.
President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal, though unable to stay for the concert, came to offer congratulations to the United States on its historic anniversary.
Herzog recalled that he had been a student at Ramaz in New York during America’s bicentennial celebrations, when his father was Israel’s permanent representative at the United Nations.
His parents had been invited to the bicentenary festivities hosted by former US president Gerald Ford.
The event coincided with news that the Entebbe Rescue Operation had succeeded, which Herzog said was an added cause for celebration.
This time around, an added cause for celebration was the presence of National Library chairman Sallai Meridor, a former Israeli ambassador to the US.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee was busy in the states
Anyone wondering about US Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s absence should know that he was in the US, putting in a good word for Israel.
Charge d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission David Brownstein represented the US embassy. It’s not certain whether this was his first visit to the library, but he was enchanted by it and said he would come back.
Herzog, in his speech, noted that even before the establishment of the state of Israel, the US led the fight against the Nazis and later liberated the death camps. It had also done much for its own Jewish community.
Herzog thanked US President Donald Trump for his friendship and all he has done for Israel, adding that he was amazed by American democracy and what it has achieved.
■ JEWS HAVE played a significant role in American democracy, and an exhibition showing how Jews have participated in some of the nation’s civic and political issues, especially civil rights, labor laws, and religious freedom, opened last week at the American Jewish Historical Society and Center for Jewish History in New York.
It features documents, stories, biographies, and more from the initial arrival of Jews in New York in 1654 to the present day.
Referring to the concert at the National Library, Brownstein spoke of the universality of music and of how much music the Jewish people had given to the world.
■ FUTURE HISTORIANS will have a big headache in attempting to distinguish between true and false reports of historic significance.
A recent case in point against the background of mounting tensions between Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron is a report circulating through global media, claiming that senior French diplomats had met with leaders of Hamas.
The French Embassy in Israel was quick to issue a denial, stating, “We saw some articles reporting from foreign sources a meeting between French diplomats and representatives of Hamas. There was no such meeting.”
All well and good, except that information about such a meeting is on record and was heavily detailed in some publications, mentioning names of Hamas-affiliated organizations whose senior representatives were the source of information. Who can anyone believe these days?
■ ARMY SERVICE is not the only point of controversy in Israel’s haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and National-Religious circles. With summer break already here, the Chief Rabbinate wants to ensure that the Jewish dietary laws are properly observed in hotel kitchens.
This goes beyond separating meat, dairy, and parve foods and utensils to the lighting of stoves and ovens.
According to Jewish law, only Jews may light the stove and the oven, but non-Jews are employed to perform the most menial tasks in hotels. Though in some eateries that are advertised as kosher, the stoves and ovens are regularly lit by non-Jews.
But we live in an age where technology comes to the rescue even in matters of religious observance.
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Kalman Ber was recently in Eilat to check out the workings of a new app that enables long-distance kashrut supervision, including the lighting of stoves and ovens.
This may seem absurd to the uninitiated, but even more absurd is a situation similar to sending the cat to safeguard the cream, as Kashrut supervisors used to spend minimal time in hotel and restaurant kitchens, staying just long enough to pile their plates before heading for the dining room.
In response to complaints about supervisors and the lack of reliability in supervising kashrut, the Tzohar Rabbinical organization launched a competitive service that offers transparency and reliability in accordance with standards set by a committee of experts.
But the Chief Rabbinate, which already has too much control over people’s lives, wants to establish itself as the sole authority for preserving and maintaining Jewish dietary laws in all areas of Jewish cuisine.
This cannot work, because although there are ultra-Orthodox rabbis in the Chief Rabbinate, the kashrut standards of the Chief Rabbinate are not sufficiently high to meet those set by ultra-Orthodox rabbinical movements.
To deny the strictest of the strict the right to their own supervision also denies slightly less strict supervisors the right to run their own operation.
The ideal would be for every supermarket, kosher butcher, kosher restaurant, and hotel to display a poster listing under whose supervision the establishment operates, and a list of the other supervising organizations stating their respective standards.
For instance, the least strict of such organizations do not make a big deal over strawberries or cabbage, but for the strict, they are taboo foods since they secrete tiny insects that are invisible to the naked eye.
Removing the insects entails a lot of specialized work and bumps up the cost of the product.
■ THIS YEAR’S winner of the annual Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, in association with the National Library of Israel, is Amir Tibon, author of The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands.
Published by Little, Brown and Company, In the Gates of Gaza is a blend of personal testimony, historical context, and incisive first-hand reporting.
An author as well as a journalist with Haaretz, Tibon, his wife, and two daughters were trapped in their home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
Tibon somehow managed to contact his father, Noam Tibon, a retired major-general in the IDF who was at the beach in Tel Aviv. He and his wife wasted no time in hurrying towards the kibbutz.
On the way, he treated wounded soldiers, shot terrorists, and engaged in other urgent activities before reaching his son’s home.
The first words he heard were from his granddaughters, who, with joy and relief in their voices, cried, “Saba’s here!”
Amir will receive his $100,000 prize at a ceremony at the National Library in Jerusalem on Tuesday, July 20, where he will probably recount some of the stories of tragedy, resilience, and survival that permeate his book.
Noam, a 35-year veteran of the IDF, has been interviewed in documentary films. The first was made by Aish, and the second, The Road Between, won first prize at the Toronto Film Festival.
Noam may be heading for a political career, and though he joined the Yesh Atid party last November, it is not yet certain whether he will be standing for election to the Knesset.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Post or its affiliates.
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