For more cartoons, visit thedailysnooze.com.
Author: Jacob Samuel
Clues to the end game
On Jan. 28, Israeli soldiers in the northern Mount Dov region are pictured after an Israel Defence Forces patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah terrorist operatives. The Hezbollah attack killed two Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. (photo by Basal Awidat/Flash90)
Who was behind the Jan. 28 attack on northern Israel that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others? The easy answer is the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for the attack. But the wider view suggests Hezbollah’s state sponsor: Iran.
Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel’s International Institute for Counterterrorism, said that Hezbollah’s actions represent “an attempt to change the strategic rules of the game.” According to Karmon, Iran and Hezbollah have been working for months to take advantage of instability in Syria in order to create a forward military position against
Israel in Syria’s Quneitra region, close to the triple Syria-Lebanon-Israel border.
“This is actually an Iranian project,” Karmon told this reporter. “They have around 1,500 people on the ground in Syria, most of whom are counseling or training Syrian militias, and they have Hezbollah providing military support.”
On Jan. 28, Hezbollah fired five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy approximately 2.5 miles inside Israel’s border with Lebanon. A day earlier, less sophisticated mortars were fired from southern Syria into Israeli territory, with no damage reported.
In response to the Jan. 28 attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever is behind today’s attack will pay the full price.” Netanyahu – like Karmon – stressed that the attack points back to Iran, adding, “with the assistance of Hezbollah, Iran has been for some time trying to open another front against Israel on the Golan Heights. We are acting with force and determination against these attempts.”
“Because of the weakness of the Syrian regime, the Iranians are now permitted to have a foothold directly on Israel’s border, which until now they didn’t have,” Karmon explained.
Israel is widely believed to be responsible for a Jan. 18 airstrike against that foothold in southern Syria, which killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranians, including notorious Hezbollah commander Jihad Mughniyeh and Iranian general Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.
Karmon believes the airstrike “was a message sent by Israel” to forewarn Iran and Hezbollah not to continue their military efforts in Syrian territory.
The retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah following the deadly airstrike were widely expected. That the more sophisticated Kornet anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon and not Syria provides a strong indication that the Syrian position is not as well-stocked with weaponry as southern Lebanon – a zone that was supposed to remain completely demilitarized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which arranged for the cessation of hostilities following the Second Lebanon War of 2006.
“Resolution 1701 calls for complete disarmament in southern Lebanon and, yet, Hezbollah, instead of disarming, they have amassed some 80,000-90,000 missiles,” Karmon said.
“Now, they want to achieve the same equation in southern Syria. If Israel does not stop them, and there are two to three years with relative quiet, with only occasional penetrations of our border and sometimes mortar fire and so on, a kind of ‘war of attrition,’ then all of a sudden we will find ourselves staring at 5,000-10,000 missiles,” he said.
Read more at jns.org.
Tragedies, hope in numbers
International Holocaust Remembrance Day was commemorated here on Jan. 25 with a ceremony at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Holocaust survivors lit candles of remembrance and there was a moment of silence followed by Kaddish; Nina Krieger, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre executive director, read a proclamation from Mayor Gregor Robertson; and a screening of the film Numbered followed, in which survivors of Auschwitz, their children and grandchildren reflect in often unexpected ways on the meaning of the numbers the Nazis tattooed onto their victims.
Vancouverite Robbie Waisman, who is a child survivor of Buchenwald, delivered remarks before the film. With permission, the Independent is privileged to publish a slightly edited transcript of his words:
I am honored to be with you this evening. This film speaks about numbers. I have not seen the film, but I have experience with numbers.
Numbers that have been given to us in the camps have two very significant meanings. They were very dehumanizing. They robbed you of your feelings as a person. Your humanity as a human being was taken away. And as long as you remained healthy and were able to work, in that sense the number given to you made it possible to remain alive and continue to live and hope to survive.
When I lived in France after liberation, they gave us identification cards. It allowed me to get around every day. The police issued it to me on June 9, 1947. I had to have it renewed every year. This was important to me. This was my first ID card, so it is hard to explain how I cherished this card. It meant that I was no longer just a number. It meant that I was a person, that I was a person of value. It proved I had a name and an address. I was so proud to have it. It gave us back some of the dignity we had lost. It gave us back our humanity.
Every time a ghetto was being liquidated, there was a selection of men and women who the Nazis selected to work. Those would be spared and taken to the munitions factories to replace other workers who they perceived as not being strong enough to continue working.
I myself have gone through three of those selections successfully with my father alongside with me.
All of us Jews who were no longer capable of working were eliminated in the most horrific way. I am not going into details – the pain always resonates.
The Nazis decided who qualified to live and work, and others were sent to the gas chambers. Six million of our people, of which 1.5 million were children, were brutally murdered. I represent the seven percent that managed to survive.
The Nazis and their collaborators murdered my mother, father and four older brothers … my uncles, aunts, cousins and friends who had been my schoolmates, and on and on.
Getting back to numbers…. When I read that many second- and third-generation survivors are [tattooing] their fathers’ and grandfathers’ numbers on their own arms and chests, I was upset.
Upon further research and reflection, I came around and now admire all those that have done this noble task. It is strange and amazing how, after all the years, those numbers have taken on a new meaning and brought change to what we think about those horrific years.
The book God, Faith and Identity from the Ashes is a reflection of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg, from Beth El New Jersey, who is the son of survivors Jacob and Rachel Rosenberg, wrote: “Growing up, I constantly looked at the numbers on my father’s left arm, which he received in Auschwitz. Those numbers instilled in me the urge to fight for the state of Israel and against antisemitism wherever it may occur. I became a rabbi because of those numbers.”
Here is my own experience with numbers. Imagine being a 14-year-old boy. Imagine having been in hell and back over four years of this boy’s life working in Germany’s ammunition factories, being hungry, starved, emotionally exhausted, physically weakened, deprived of every human emotion. Imagine being so brutalized and dehumanized that you begin to believe that you are no longer human. In spite of it all, I never lost hope of being reunited with my family.
Hope! – a very powerful motivation.
The emergence of the enormity of the Holocaust became known to us and we had to find a way to deal and cope with the huge loss of all our loved ones murdered by the Nazis. How are we going to live with all those horrors?
April 11 will be the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald.
Would you believe, Gloria [Waisman’s wife] and I are invited by the German government to come to Weimar for this special occasion, where I am also invited to speak to German teenagers. I will share my experience in that infamous and dreadful place where death was a constant companion.
I celebrate April 11 as my birthday, for that day I was reborn again into freedom.
When the Americans liberated Buchenwald, we were euphoric! I will never forget the feeling! The soldiers were larger than life. They symbolized freedom, a new beginning! I tried to communicate with them, but had no words.
For the first time, I saw black men among the soldiers. Since I had been tormented by white persons and had never seen a black person, I thought that angels must be black!
The soldiers looked around and were surprised to find youngsters like myself. They wanted to know, Who are these kids? Where do they come from? What are their nationalities? Why are they here? What are they guilty of? What was the crime they committed?
Ultimately – a few days later – some men arrived to sort out the puzzle. They proceeded to make a list of our names and when my turn came and I was asked my name, I blurted out #117098, the number given to me. My name as a human was erased. I was surprised that they wanted my name not my number. So, you see here, again, the numbers are part of our stories.
When I think back, it was an extraordinary time, full of promise and hope. But it was also bittersweet. Those of us determined to survive had to focus all our efforts towards survival. We wanted to go home and be reunited with family. We soon realized that home was no more and that families we loved had been brutally murdered.
But after emerging from the abyss, thoughts and feelings returned.
Questions bombarded me. What now? Where is my family? Has anyone survived? If not, what is the point of my own survival?
Those wonderful memories of home no longer existed. Everything shattered.
How will I recapture feelings, so that I could cry and laugh again? How do I learn to love and trust again?
It was not easy to relearn the ordinary skills of life that had been shattered over a six-year period. We had to put our numbers aside, reclaim our names and that of our families and move forward.
We were also sure that when the American soldiers … when they saw the consequences of Nazi racism and brutality … that they would ensure that such things would never happen again. We, the survivors, were certain that the leaders and the citizens of the world would say “Never again!” and commit themselves to turning those words into reality.
Never again! Noble, thought-provoking words, but only if we act upon them. Only then do these words become meaningful.
Today, almost 70 years after my liberation, the promise of “Never again” has become again and again!
There have been a number of situations that have tested the world’s resolve … in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and now in Darfur, Syria and so many other places, people have been, and continue to be, the victims of genocide.
My eyes have seen unspeakable horrors! I am a witness to the ultimate evil! I am a witness to man’s inhumanity to other human beings! To this day, I cannot grasp how I managed to go through hell and survive.
The promise of being reunited with my family, all my loved ones, was the strong motivator for not giving up, for not losing it and falling into despair. After having come out of the abyss, I remember thinking, What now? I must go home – my family is waiting for me.
Then the questions began. Where are our loved ones? What happened to them? So much devastation! How to cope? So many losses, including our humanity. We became angry and outraged.
We were 426 youngsters among 20,000 adults in Buchenwald. We were brought to Ecouis, France, for our recovery and were told by psychologists that we had become sociopaths who would never recover.
Most of us forged ahead in school and business, raised families and contributed to our communities. In fact, we count among the Buchenwald children such personalities as my friend Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner; and Lulek, Israel’s recent chief rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, and his brother Naphtali.
Simon Wiesenthal, of blessed memory, said, “I believe in God and the World to Come, and when they ask me what did you do? I will say, I did not forget you.”
I want to end with my friend Elie Wiesel’s words: “Zachor, remember, for there is, there must be, hope in remembering.”
The commemoration was presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, in partnership with the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre and the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, and with funding from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and Rita Akselrod and family, in memory of Ben Akselrod z”l.
A tribute to survivors
Minister Jason Kenney delivers a speech at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Ottawa City Hall. (photo from Government of Canada)
On Jan. 27, the world recognized 70 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, which coincided with the 10th annual International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Among the commemorations was a tribute to survivors held at City Hall in Ottawa.
Hosted by Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa’s Congregation Machzikei Hadas, the commemoration was attended by more than 300 people, including the ambassadors of Israel, Poland and Germany; British High Commissioner to Canada Howard Drake; Dr. Andrew Bennett, Canada’s ambassador for religious freedom; and other dignitaries and guests.
Minister Jason Kenney offered remarks on behalf of the Government of Canada. In his speech, he said, “The Holocaust stands alone in human history for its incalculable horror and inhumanity – and yet has a universal message for mankind, a unique power as long as we insist that it be remembered. Just as we are compelled as free individuals to search for meaning, so, too, are we compelled as communities, as societies and as countries to continue to learn lessons from this most dark and tragic chapter of human history.”
He also noted, “As time passes and as we mourn the passing of many members of the generation that witnessed and survived the Nazi era, it has become even more imperative for moral societies like ours to remain firm in that commitment to memory.
“There’s always the risk that the memory of the Shoah could be lost, just as the Holocaust is declared by some not to have happened or, horror of horrors, to have been invented for political gain. Indeed, we have seen in recent public opinion research that the majority of the population of many countries in the world knows nothing of the Shoah. That is why Canada must join with its IHRA partners, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, in promoting Holocaust research and education around the world.”
Of the IHRA, Kenney said, “Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, today the 31 members and eight observer countries and seven permanent international partners of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance collectively reaffirm our unqualified support for the Stockholm Declaration of 15 years ago as High Commissioner Drake described and, with it, our commitment to remembering and honoring the victims of the Shoah, to upholding its terrible truth, to standing up against those who would distort or deny it and to combating antisemitism and racism in all of their forms.”
At the City Hall commemoration, a tribute in film was also featured, and 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Cantor Moshe Kraus recited El Male Rachamim and the Kaddish, which was followed by the lighting of six candles, each representing one million of the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered 70 years ago.
Earlier in the day, MP Mark Adler delivered a statement on the Holocaust from the floor of the House of Commons (youtu.be/wO-HgyRkUUc) and, later that evening, Kenney and his colleagues attended a ceremony on Parliament Hill.
The Hon. Tim Uppal represented the Government of Canada in Poland. During his speech honoring the survivors, he said, “Canada is a leader in the international fight against antisemitism because it is a Canadian tradition to stand for what is principled and just. Our government is dedicated to ensuring future generations understand the lessons of the Holocaust in order to prevent acts of hate and genocide.”
– Courtesy of Office of the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism
Instilling a survival instinct
Jeanne Beker reads from her parents’ (Bronia and Joseph Beker) Holocaust memoir on Feb. 19. (photo from Jeanne Beker via vhec.org)
Some survivors of the Holocaust choose never to speak of the horrors they endured. My parents talked. They were adamant about telling us every detail of their war experience, time and time again. I remember hiding under the bed as a small child – I didn’t want to hear any more of their “war stories.” Now, I realize it was precisely their storytelling that made me who I am, coloring my personal philosophies, imparting a sense of resiliency and instilling in me a precious instinct for survival.
What they endured and all they have given me [was] on my mind a great deal over Toronto’s Holocaust Education Week [Nov. 2-9, 2014], with the recent publication of their memoirs, Joy Runs Deeper. With the last generation of eyewitnesses to the Holocaust slowly slipping away, my parents’ stories have taken on more value and urgency. As a child of survivors, I’m keenly aware that I have been left with a legacy that’s as powerfully daunting as it is inspiring.
My parents, Bronia and Joseph Beker, both grew up in Kozowa – a small town in eastern Poland that is now part of Ukraine. They paint a colorful prewar picture of life in their idyllic shtetl, where they met and fell in love. But when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, their lives became a living hell. By 1941, all the Kozowa Jews were confined to a ghetto.
Nazis would regularly come into town and randomly shoot any Jew in sight.
After these horrific shootings, the Germans would command the Jews to make their ghetto even smaller. Many people lived in one room, and with little food, people grew weak and prone to disease. My grandmother and mother both came down with typhus, and it killed my grandmother. In the meantime, my grandfather built a bunker in the basement of the family home where they would hide whenever the Nazis came to town.
In April 1943, my mother and nine members of her family went down to their bunker. After about six hours, they could hear digging: the Nazis were looking for them.
“We held our breath and didn’t move for about half an hour,” writes my mother. “They left without finding our bunker, but the pipes through which we got air must have been covered during their digging. We couldn’t breathe,” she recalls.
“I remember seeing my father, sitting on the floor in his prayer shawl, praying, and my brother with a hammer in his hand, trying to open the entrance to the bunker. Then I fell down and everything went black.”
My mom’s entire family perished that day: all of them suffocated, except, miraculously, for her. Like a knight in shining armor, my dad came to her rescue, scooped her up and, for many months until their liberation, my parents were on the run, hiding in barns and bunkers, depending on the kindness of strangers for their very existence.
It was these stories of survival that were relentlessly recounted to my sister and me throughout our childhood. “Don’t be afraid and never give up” was my father’s famous saying, the mindset that saw him through the war, and the sage edict he raised us on.
My mother’s modus operandi, which tended to chip away any potential optimism, was even more pragmatic: “Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.” It certainly wasn’t an upbeat way of viewing the world, but it was her motherly attempt at protecting us and sparing us pain.
While my mother’s influence certainly affects me even to this day, it was my father’s motto that I especially took to heart – an order that still carries me through all my trials.
Ultimately, both my parents taught me the meaning of fearlessness and tenacity, courage and dignity.
As my mother always says, “If you live long enough, you’ll live to see everything.” And her words rang true as I sat by her side at her book launch, watching in wonder as she proudly signed countless books bearing her name. On the verge of turning 94, suffering the ravages of Parkinson’s, but as radiant and stylish as ever, my mom was realizing one of her greatest dreams: she could now share her personal story with the world.
Her memoir, which she’d written more than 30 years ago, along with my father’s memoir, which he’d written, longhand, in Yiddish, just before he died in 1988, has been published by the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program.
Established in 1989 by the late Montreal philanthropist David J. Azrieli, himself a Holocaust survivor, this Canadian organization collects, archives and publishes inspirational accounts of courage and strength in the light of horrifying adversity, and distributes them free of charge to libraries and educational institutions across the country. (The books are also available at bookstores, with all revenues going back into this extraordinary memoirs program.)
My mother and so many others had their youth nipped in the bud, endured unspeakable pain and suffered profound loss. Yet still, they managed to soldier on, pick up the broken pieces and stoically rebuild their shattered lives.
Their tales of toughness and tenacity light our paths, and teach us the kind of fearlessness it takes to survive. These lessons learned from survivors, like my parents, inspire and challenge us to shoot for the moon, work hard, be successful and live out not just our dreams, but their unrealized ones as well.
Their heroism drives me relentlessly.
Jeanne Beker is a Canadian television personality, fashion designer, author and newspaper columnist. This article was originally published in the Globe and Mail and is reprinted here from Zachor, the magazine of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, with permission.
***
Jeanne Beker reads from her parents’ (Bronia and Joseph Beker) Holocaust memoir Joy Runs Deeper (Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs) on Feb. 19, 7 p.m., at the Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut St., to open the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s Shafran Teachers’ Conference. Those in attendance receive a complimentary copy of the memoir, and a reception follows. The event is open to the public and is free of charge but space is limited. RSVP to 604-264-0499 or [email protected].
A return to Auschwitz
Mordechai Ronen (Canada) is embraced by Ronald Lauder. (photo by Shahar Azran)
Fifteen Auschwitz survivors, aged 80-94, returned to the infamous camp – some for the first time – ahead of the 70th anniversary celebration of its liberation on Jan. 27. Joining the survivors on their visit was Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, who, along with the USC Shoah Foundation, organized the delegation of returning survivors from across the world.
“When I arrived in Poland, the tall trees made me immediately anxious. They reminded me of my arrival to Auschwitz – the same day my mother and little sister were gassed,” said Johnny Pekats, 80, one of the American survivors who returned to the death camp for the first time. “For years, I refused to return to this horrible place, but I finally decided to come back with my son. I wanted to say Kaddish with him there. This is my first and last visit to Auschwitz and my message for the world is that it’s not enough just to remember; we have to make sure that this never happens again.”
More than 100 Auschwitz survivors from at least 19 countries traveled to Poland as part of the WJC delegation to participate in the ceremony.
“I deeply admire the courage of these survivors,” said Lauder, who joined them at Auschwitz. “For some of them, this was the first time they returned to the place of their nightmares. Each survivor is a living testament to the triumph of good over evil, of life over death, and they are my heroes.”
There was also a reception at a Krakow hotel for the survivors and other guests, at which film director and founding chair of the USC Shoah Foundation Steven Spielberg said, “Their testimonies give each survivor everlasting life and give all of us everlasting value. We need to be preserving places like Auschwitz so people can see for themselves how evil ideologies can become tangible acts of murder. My hope for tomorrow’s commemoration is that the survivors will feel confident that we are renewing their call to remember. We will make sure the lessons of the past remain with us in the present so that we can now and forever find humanitarian ways to fight the inhumanity.”
Major skull discovery
A skull found at the Dan David-Manot Cave supports other evidence that modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa or in the Middle East, not in Europe. (photo by Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Francesco Berna, a Simon Fraser University assistant professor of archeology, is part of an Israeli-led team of scientists that has unearthed major clues about the first modern humans in northern Israel.
A paper published in Nature on Jan. 28 – co-authored by Berna – documents the discovery of a 55,000-year-old, partial human skull with a distinctive modern human, bun-shaped “occipital” region, at the Dan David-Manot Cave in the western Galilee.
The study involved researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority, Geological Survey of Israel, Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University, University of Haifa, University of Vienna, Harvard University, Case-Western University, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Columbia University and SFU. It is headed by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, Dr. Omry Barzilai and Dr. Ofer Marder, and funded by the Dan David Foundation, Israel Academy of Sciences, Irene Levi Sala CARE Archeological Foundation, Leakey Foundation and IAA.
Berna and his colleagues believe that this skull’s date of origin and where it was found support other evidence that modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa or in the Middle East, and migrated from there about 65,000 years ago. This contrasts with the hypothesis that the human species first evolved in Europe.
One of the migration routes by which modern humans spread out across the world passes through the Levant (the Mediterranean basin), which is the only land crossing between Africa and Europe, but until now, no modern human remains that date to the period between 65-45 thousand years ago had been discovered.
The Manot skull’s inner and outer surfaces were covered with cave deposits that were dated by means of uranium-thorium to 55,000 YBP (years before present). A morphometric analysis showed it is that of a modern human being with similarities to modern skulls from Africa on the one hand and the ancient skulls of modern humans from Europe on the other.
Berna helped the scientific team understand how ancient humans used Manot Cave at the time of the skull’s origin and how the cave, its archeological remains and the skull got to their present state.
Megan Thibodeau, one of Berna’s graduate students, explored the use of fire in this cave. Their work is helping scientists confirm whether this skull is from the most recent evolution of anatomically modern humans, which showed up in Europe first, and eventually the rest of the world.
“The skull found at Manot is absolutely comparable to ours and different from other skulls of early modern humans previously found in Israel and dated to 100,000 years ago,” explained Berna. “This earlier group of humans had some slight anatomical differences from us.
“But, most importantly, they didn’t produce stone tools, mobile sculptures and cave paintings such as the one that our direct ancestor produced in Europe and the Middle East, starting at around 40,000 years ago. Earlier modern humans apparently hadn’t yet developed our brain.”
To date, five excavation seasons (2010–2014) on behalf of IAA, TAU and BGU have been conducted in the cave, which is located 40 kilometres northeast of the Mt. Carmel prehistoric caves. Preparations are being made by the Ma’ale Yosef Regional Council, Moshav Manot and the Jewish National Fund for the development of the cave for visits by the public.
An accord for the ages
Here’s a scenario to consider: What if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came to the Knesset with a peace accord, approved by all its neighbors, that provided for the cessation of war, the recognition of the state of Israel, land swaps to create coherent borders and the dismantling of settlements?
What if Netanyahu said the final decision on the agreement would be up to the Knesset and he would remain on the sidelines, campaigning neither for nor against the agreement? Would the Knesset endorse the deal?
At first blush, such a scenario sounds farfetched, it could never happen. But, 35 years ago, that is exactly what occurred.
Former prime minister Menachem Begin came to the Knesset with a peace agreement with Egypt. He was reluctant to abandon settlements in the Sinai, but he let members of the Knesset vote on the agreement and did not campaign against it. They endorsed the deal.
The 1979 Camp David Accords proved to be more durable than many expected, surviving the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, the Lebanon war, the Gaza conflicts and the Arab Spring. Also, the accord laid the foundation for an agreement with Jordan that is now marking its 20th anniversary.
In Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin and Sadat at Camp David (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright goes back to the difficult negotiations in September 1978 that led to the reluctant handshake between Sadat and Begin, and the signing of the accord on the White House lawn in March 1979.
U.S. president Jimmy Carter brought the Egyptian president and the Israeli prime minister together after Sadat took the first courageous step toward peace – a visit to Jerusalem in 1977. The three leaders and some of their most senior aides met at Camp David, a secluded country retreat about 100 kilometres outside Washington, D.C. They stayed for almost two weeks, stepping away from the whirlwind of day-to-day events to focus exclusively on a framework for peace.
A playwright and screenwriter, Wright effectively recreates the moments of high drama during the talks, weaving personal histories, sacred mythologies and past events into a detailed account of the bare-knuckle bargaining session. He also fleshes out the secondary characters, the members of the Israeli, Egyptian and U.S. bargaining teams who played a role in reaching an agreement. In the acknowledgements, Wright says he initially wrote a play about the negotiation, but he could not squeeze all the interesting characters into a 90-minute play.
The evocative portrayal of Moshe Dayan – the Israeli-born warrior who came to personify the country’s most spectacular military accomplishment in 1967 as well as its most significant loss in 1973 – is especially memorable. Dayan is described alternately as a cold-blooded, calculating fighter and the government’s most creative thinker in pursuit of peace.
The book offers a rare glimpse inside the world of high-pressure international negotiations and sheds light on the difficult relationship that Carter continues to have with Israel. That alone would make the book worthwhile. Yet Thirteen Days is more than just an historical account. Delving into how the Camp David Accords were reached inevitably fires up the imagination to think about what is possible.
Could these achievements ever be repeated again?
Wright shines a spotlight on some extraordinary aspects of the negotiations. The U.S. president, who was prepared to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to grappling with the competing interests in the Middle East, had come to the table with little more than a biblical understanding of the issues and virtually no experience in foreign policy. Yet, he shared with the Egyptian president a similar upbringing, religious devotion and commitment to service in the military. An easy rapport evolved between the two men.
Carter had a more difficult time finding a personal connection with Begin, who was scarred by the Holocaust and hardened by his experiences fighting British authorities in Palestine before the establishment of the state.
The isolation of Camp David allowed negotiators to work creatively and take risks that might not have been ventured in the public eye, Wright writes. But being forced together also had negative consequences. The intimacy at times fed hostility, rather than creating trust, and almost torpedoed the talks.
The process of negotiating, ridded with cultural misunderstandings and political miscalculations, was particularly challenging. Sadat and Begin had significantly different approaches to the talks. Sadat came with an agenda of unrealistic demands, but was willing to compromise. Begin came to listen and react. For several days, he adamantly refused to concede anything.
In his naïveté, Carter expected the two warring sides to reach an accord on their own. His opening gambit was to just bring the two sides together and step back. He assumed they would resolve their historic differences once they met and shared their history, their suffering and their dreams. How wrong he was.
Their response at critical moments was a study in contrasts. Where Sadat, a visionary, would become emotional when his idealism was challenged, Begin would become colder and more analytical. Begin kept his eye on details, meticulously dissecting every nuance in anticipation of what could be lurking around the corner. “Both desired peace,” recalled Ezer Weizman, who was Israel’s defence minister at the time. “But Sadat wanted to take it by storm and Begin preferred to creep forward inch by inch.”
Carter eventually realized he had to take the lead. But it was not until the sixth day of negotiations that he introduced a framework for peace that was to be the springboard for negotiated compromises and a final deal.
Despite the hurdles, somewhere there was magic. They reached an agreement.
Wright suggests that domestic political considerations played a significant role. The political cost for all three leaders increased as the negotiations stretched on. Carter, who staked his reputation on bringing the conflict to an end, threatened to break relations with Sadat or Begin if either leader walked away. The threats kept the two wily politicians at the table, despite their personal animosities.
Another pivotal issue was how the three leaders responded to matters related to the Palestinians. Sadat was their self-appointed representative at the talks. But, at a crucial moment, he pushed their interests aside. It was a decision that cost him his life. At the time, however, the prospect of regaining full sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula was just too tantalizing; leaving the Palestinians on the sidelines enabled the accords to be signed.
Wright observes that there has not been a single violation of the terms of agreement, but he leaves the impression that the Camp David Accords offer little to guide those now searching for more peace. The accords have saved lives and defused tensions in a volatile neighborhood, but the agreement appears to be a unique set of circumstances in history at a time of powerful personalities that probably will not be replicated in our times.
Media consultant Robert Matas, a former Globe and Mail journalist, still reads books. Thirteen Days in September is available at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library. To reserve it, or any other book, call 604-257-5181 or email [email protected]. To view the catalogue, visit jccgv.com and click on Isaac Waldman Library.
Writing key to kids’ literacy
Prof. Dorit Aram noticed that young children, prior to going to school, long to write. (photo from Dorit Aram)
According to a recent research from Israel, learning to recite the alef bet alone does little to help children advance their literacy – children should be learning to write, and before they even enter the school system.
The team’s lead researcher, Prof. Dorit Aram, maintains that longstanding misconceptions are getting in the way of children’s abilities.
Aram teaches at Tel Aviv University’s Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education specializing in adult/child early interactions and their relationship to children’s early literacy and social-emotional adjustment. The research was conducted in collaboration with colleagues at American universities and was published last year in Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
“My research started with children that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds,” said Aram. “What we see is that there are gaps between children in terms of their reading and writing achievements.”
As reading and writing are key to children’s academic success, Aram “was interested in how parents could promote their children’s literacy, in particular those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.” This particular study, however, looked at a group of ethnically diverse, middle-income preschoolers.
Aram began studying literacy with one of the leading early literacy researchers in the world, the late Dr. Iris Levin, working with her, examining children’s early writing development. Levin was a developmental psychologist at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. She passed away in 2013.
“People are so busy with reading,” said Aram, “but considering young children, in particular, I felt writing was even more fascinating than reading, because it’s more active in its communication.”
Aram noticed that young children, prior to going to school, long to write. She recalled a child asking his father how to write a word, in one case. The child’s father gave him the letters, and Aram was left to wonder, “Did the father know he was really mediating, ‘scaffolding,’ his child’s early literacy?”
Aram began studying such interactions to determine ways in which a parent can “scaffold” his/her child’s understanding of the writing system, help them segment a word into its sounds, connect the sounds with the letters, and understand how to build words.
“I saw in my research that the more the parents help the child understand that written language is really symbolizing the spoken words, and that … when the parents really encourage the children to segment the word into its sounds and then retrieve the letters, the more the parents did it (this is what we call the graphophonemic mediation) … the children were doing better,” said Aram.
Working with children in preschools, Aram discovered that teachers were reluctant to work with kids on their writing literacy. “In the beginning, it was difficult for them because they connect writing to school and felt like they were taking away from the kids’ childhood,” she explained. “They’d say, ‘Well, these kids will have so much writing in school. Why do we have to bother them with writing now?’”
According to Aram, the teachers were not considering the possibility that the kids might want to be able to write out the names of their friends, their telephone number, or how they feel.
“Then they saw it’s not against the preschool spirit, that it can fit very well with it,” she said. “And because they were practising letters and phonological awareness, these things were part of their early literacy curriculum anyway.
“The teachers were unaware that you can combine it and have kids write. And, the writing makes the children happy, because they’re doing something meaningful – allowing them to do more than just practise letters, allowing them to really communicate.”
Aram and her team worked with children as young as 3.5-years-old on writing and letter knowledge, graphophonemic understanding, and early writing – not with a pencil, but with magnetic letters or stickers, for example.
“We saw that it worked beautifully,” said Aram. “These children did very well at the end of our intervention year, and it even predicted their achievements and the pace of their development the year after.”
According to Aram, the key is helping the child segment the different letters and the sounds they make. In her research, Aram has found that kids who were taught to connect a letter with the sound the letter makes progressed more than the other groups.
“What amazed us was that the children who received feedback – like so many children of American parents do – by just giving the children the names of the letters, it didn’t help the kids. It was just as good as saying to the kids, ‘Write this word again,’ without any feedback.”
The technique is more challenging to teach in English than in Hebrew, said Aram. However, she added, “From the studies done in English, we found it is still very useful to segment the word into sounds and connect sounds with their letters. Also, to motivate children to write and to respect their writing, even if it’s not 100 percent.”
About English, she explained, “If you think about Italian or other Romance languages, English took all the ‘difficulties,’ and it’s so difficult to see the connection between sounds and letters.”
But that shouldn’t stop parents and teachers from introducing writing into the kids’ daily lives. “For example, if you want, you can send emails, you can [help them] send a ‘Hi Daddy, I love you’ note … or you can write what you want to eat tomorrow, just little things – a word here, a word there.”
Aram noticed, on her visits to North America, that many homes in the United States and Canada have magnetic letters on their fridges. She suggested, “Instead of just naming the letters, write [a] word and do things that are meaningful. Letters, by themselves, are less meaningful. But writing is for communication and writing is meaningful…. It doesn’t have to mean you do a lot of writing, just two words here or there, a sentence here or there – that makes a huge difference, and children love it.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
השמיים מתהדקים
קנדה וישראל חתמו לאחרונה על הסכם תעופה חדש, שיביא לגידול במספר הטיסות בין שתי המדינות. (צילם: commons.wikimedia.org)
השמיים מתהדקים: יגדל מספר הטיסות בין קנדה לישראל בעקבות חתימה על הסכם חדש
קנדה וישראל חתמו לאחרונה על הסכם תעופה חדש, שיביא לגידול במספר הטיסות בין שתי המדינות. כידוע קנדה וישראל נחשבות לידידות קרובות בשנים האחרונות, אך הסכם התעופה הקודם בוטל בעבר בשל מחלוקת בין המדינות. בפועל נקבעה מדיניות עם מגבלות על מספר הטיסות בין המדינות, שמופעלות על ידי אייר קנדה ואל על. לאייר קנדה טיסה יומית בין טורונטו תל אביב, ולאל על שתי טיסות בשבוע בין תל אביב לטורונטו.
בהתאם להסכם החדש יוכלו שתי החברות להגדיל את מספר הטיסות ל-12 בשבוע (נוסעים ומטען), ולאפשר לחברות תעופה שקשורות בהן גם כן לטוס בין המדינות.
ההסכם כולל גם מזכר להגברת שיתוף הפעולה בנושאים שונים של תחבורה ציבורית, כולל אבטחה שעומדת בראש סדר העדיפויות אצל המדינות.
רשות שדות הפעולה הישראלית מדווחת כי בשנת 2014 טסו כ-148 אלף נוסעים בין קנדה לישראל. מדובר על גידול של כחמישה אחוזים לעומת אשתקד.
גם לחיות מחמד מגיע לחיות: כוחות ההצלה המקומיים רכשו ערכות החייאה להנשמת בעלי חיים שנפגעו משריפות
כוחות ההצלה במחוז בריטיש קולומביה רכשו לאחרונה ערכות החייאה מיוחדות להנשמת בעלי חיים, שנפגעו בשריפות. בתים רבים בקנדה בנויים מעץ ולכן מספר השריפות נחשב גבוה יחסית, בהשוואה לישראל. בעלי חיות מחמד שנפגעו בשריפות עומדים לפעמים חסרי אונים, כי אין בידם היכולת לעזור להם.
עתה מתברר נמצא פתרון למצוקתם של בעלי החיות, עם רכישת ערכות ההצלה היחודיות.
הערכות כוללות מסכות חמצן שמותאמות לפנים של בעלי החיים שנפגעו מעשן, ומאפשרות להם לנשום כראוי. מחיר כל ערכה מוערך בסך הכל ב-150 דולר. הערכות משווקות בשלושה גדלים ומותאמות לחרטומים, שפמים ואפילו מקורים. הנשמת בעלי חיים נחשבת ליעילה יותר מזו של בני אדם, כיוון שלבעלי החיים יש מעברים נפרדים לאף ולפה.
לפני רכישת ערכות יחודיות אלה, כוחות ההצלה נהגו לעיתים להנשים בעלי חיים בעזרת ערכות של תינוקות, שיעילותן נמוכה יותר.
יצוין כי בנוסף כוחות ההצלה של בריטיש קולומביה עוברים לאחרונה קורסים מיוחדים להצלת וטיפול בבעלי חיים, מרגע שנפגעו (ולא רק משריפות) ועד להעברתם למרפאות ובתי חולים וטרינרים.
ישוחרר האוכל התקוע: מתקנים עם חוט דנטלי מוצבים מעתה בשירותים של המסעדות
טרנד חדש במסעדות של מונטריאול שמחפשות גימיקים כל הזמן, למשוך לקוחות וכן לפנק אותם. בחדרי השירותים של חלק מהמסעדות בעיר, ליד הכיורים והמראות, הותקנו מתקנים עם חוט דנטלי לניקוי השניים. רופאי השיניים במחוז קוויבק בוודאי מקבלים את הטרנד החדש בברכה.
לכל אחד מאיתנו זה קורה שלאחר ארוחה מחוץ לבית, נתקעות שאריות של אוכל בין השיניים וזה מציק ומעצבן. ואם אף רוצים להצטלם במסעדה לפייסבוק או סתם למזכרת, עדיף כמובן לעשות זאת עם שיניים נקיות. מעתה ניתן מייד עם סיום הארוחה, לפחות במסעדות של מונטריאול, להיכנס לשירותים, למשוך מהמתקן החדש את החוט הדנטלי באורך הרצוי לנו, להעבירו בין השניים ולהיפטר משאריות האוכל.
קיימים דיספנסרים עם החוטים דנטליים מסוגים וגדלים שונים, וכאלה שאפשר גם לנעול למניעת גניבות. הם סופקים על ידי חברה ממונטריאול בשם ‘אורלג’ם’, הראשונה מסוגה שפועל בקנדה. ‘אורלג’ם’ מתחילה בימים אלה בשיווקם גם למרפאות של רופאי שיניים, בתי מלון, מכוני ספורט ובריאות.
יש לציין כי ישנם מספר נוזלים ודברי מאכל שדווקא תורמים לבריאות וניקיון השניים. בהם: מים, תה ירוק, ירקות, פירות, שורש ליקוריץ ומוצרים שונים שעשירים בויטמינים סי. ודי.