Israel

Honouring those who’ve died

Four decades ago, Chaya Harel was approached by one of the teachers at her son’s Jerusalem high school. The son, Yuval, who was in his final year of school, had come to the teacher seeking advice. He was in love with Sigal, but knew the importance of succeeding in the upcoming matriculation exams. How should he allocate his time?

The teacher asked the mother for her advice and promised to pass it along as coming from the teacher, rather from Yuval’s mother, Chaya.

The mother’s advice was to spend more time with Sigal. Yuval, she reasoned, could always improve his grades later.

Tragically, Yuval Harel was killed in 1982, during the First Lebanon War. Later, in grief, Chaya Harel would say, “I had some comfort knowing it was my best advice.”

The story was shared May 3 by Geoffrey Druker at Vancouver’s annual ceremony marking Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s official day of remembrance for those fallen in war and victims of terror attacks.

Yuval Harel was one of two young men of the same name who died in the same war, a few days apart. They were two of more than 24,000 killed over 74 years, whose memories were honoured at the Vancouver event and at similar ceremonies worldwide.

“This year, as in previous years, we remember our fallen,” said Druker, who is chair of Vancouver’s Yom Hazikaron committee. “And the list painfully keeps lengthening. These past months, Israelis and foreign citizens, Jews and non-Jews, men and women, were killed on the streets, in the pubs, gas stations [and] shopping strips in Israel by terrorist attacks. Fifty-six people were added this year to the list and 84 injured soldiers [who] passed away are recognized as fallen soldiers.”

This year’s ceremony also marked 25 years since the deadliest crash in the history of the Israeli Air Force. (See jewishindependent.ca/25-years-since-deadly-crash.)

Druker shared the story of Yigal Amster, a son of Holocaust survivors who lived with asthma.

“When he joined the army, he tried to hide it,” said Druker. “He asked to join the tank corps. He wished to become an officer.” When his commanders noticed his difficulty breathing in poor air quality, Amster was assigned to a medic course.

“When the Yom Kippur [War] broke out, in 1973, he was sent to help the troops in the Suez Canal. While in an armoured vehicle, he was hit and later died from his injuries. He was 20 years old.”

Amster’s cousin, Vancouverite Charlotte Katzen, read Yizkor in his memory and in memory of all the fallen.

“May the nation of Israel remember its sons and daughters, faithful and courageous,” Katzen read the prayer in English. “The soldiers of the Israel Defence Forces, members of the undergrounds, members of the intelligence community, security and policemen, who fell in the wars of Israel, and all of whom that were killed – within Israel and outside of Israel – by terrorists. May the people of Israel keep them in their memory and be blessed with their seed; mourn the splendour of youth, the altruism of valour, the dedication of will and the dignity of self-sacrifice, which came to an end in the heavy battles. May our fallen be sealed forever within the hearts of all Israel, in this generation and forevermore.”

Michael Balshine read Yizkor for his father, Avigdor Balshine, a member of the Haganah and a pioneer in Israel’s water sector. On Feb. 23, 1948, while working with Mekorot, the national water company of Israel, Avigdor Balshine and his colleague Mark Feigin were ambushed and killed in Wadi Milik. Michael Balshine was 6 years old.

Ilene-Jo Bellas lit a candle in memory of her cousin, Fern Rykiss, who was a 17-year-old from Winnipeg who was murdered on a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 1989.

Tamara Frankel lit a candle in memory of her family member Amnon Shapira.

Photographs were projected of family members and friends of members of the Vancouver community whose lives are among those lost in the past 74 years.

Idit Shamir, consul general of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada, sent video greetings.

“On this day, Israelis and Jews around the world remember the pain the bereaved families carry with them every day,” said Shamir. “We remember that our independence has come with a heavy price. We bow our heads with eternal gratitude to those who have paid the price, Jews and non-Jews, Israeli-born and immigrants, all those who have fallen for the state of Israel. We know that we are here because of them…. We thank the fallen sons and daughters who have protected us. We embrace their families and all the bereaved families who have sacrificed so much. We promise that their immense sacrifice will never be in vain and we pledge to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the privilege they have given us, we will give to others, to our children, their children and to the countless generations to come, the privilege of standing tall. The privilege of standing proud. The privilege of standing strong. The privilege of being a free people in our land.”

In attendance at the ceremony was Commander Robert D’Eon of the Royal Canadian Navy.

Mausoleum work to resume

The construction site of the mausoleum for Bahá’í leader ‘Abdu’l Bahá, east of Haifa Bay, Israel. (photo by Gil Zohar)

Construction of Vancouver-based architect Hossein Amanat’s mausoleum for Bahá’í leader ‘Abdu’l Bahá (1844-1921) was set back when a fire on April 8 caused significant damage to the main building at the holy site just east of Haifa Bay, Israel.

The Iranian-Canadian architect’s design features a sloping geometric meditation garden rising in a sunburst pattern to form a dome covering the tomb. Amanat’s neoclassical Persian structure extends the Ridván Garden, which was a favourite oasis where ‘Abdu’l Bahá’s father, Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892) – the founder of the Bahá’í faith – retreated after he was released from Acre Prison in 1877. The modest house in which he stayed during his visits there has been restored. After his father’s death, the Iran-born ‘Abdu’l Bahá’ popularized the new religion outside the Middle East in a series of visits to Montreal, and cities in the United States and Europe.

Amanat, 80, fled his native Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and settled in Canada. He is best known for his Shahyad Freedom Tower in central Tehran, which was dedicated in 1972 to honour the Pahlavi dynasty. Following Iran’s revolution, the monumental 45-metre-high archway was renamed the Azadi Tower, after the square in which it stands.

Amanat also designed a series of Bahá’í administrative buildings on Mount Carmel, including the Seat of the Universal House of Justice, the Centre for the Study of the Sacred Texts, and the Centre for the International Counselors.

photo - Architect Hossein Amanat is best known for his Shahyad Freedom Tower in Tehran, Iran, which is now known as the Azadi Tower — Architect Hossein Amanat is best known for his Shahyad Freedom Tower in Tehran, Iran, which is now known as the Azadi Tower. *(photo from flickr)*

The April 8 blaze destroyed “several months of work” on the 2,900-square-metre circular platform and piazza, the Universal House of Justice (the governing council of the Bahá’í faith) said in an April 14 statement. Clouds of smoke billowed from the mausoleum, prompting firefighters to evacuate the nearby suburbs of Giv’at Hatmarim and Afgad.

The fire broke out when windblown sparks from welding on the dome ignited scaffolding and plastic forms being used to mold poured concrete, Ynet reported. The completed concrete walls and structures were undamaged, and the 250 million shekel ($77 million US) project – announced in 2019 – is insured, said the Universal House of Justice. The shrine and meditation garden are being paid for by donations from Bahá’í faith’s five million members around the world.

Bahá’í media representative Sama Sabet said construction “will resume soon.” She didn’t estimate the cost of the damage.

For the last century, ‘Abdu’l Bahá has been temporarily entombed in Haifa’s shrine of Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad Shírází (1819-1850), popularly known as the Báb (“Gate” in Arabic). Shírází was executed in Tabriz for apostasy after claiming to be the deputy of the promised Twelver Mahdi, or al-Qa’im. According to legend, the firing squad’s initial barrage of bullets failed to hit him, and a second team of shooters was brought in. As a Shiite heretic, his body was fed to dogs. It was rescued and hidden by believers.

In 1908, all Ottoman political and religious prisoners were freed by the Young Turk revolution. Newly released, ‘Abdu’l Bahá smuggled the Báb’s remains to Ottoman Palestine and built his iconic shrine midway up Mount Carmel, near where he himself was living. Its dome, visible from the Haifa harbour along the axis of the German Colony, was gilded in 1953.

screenshot - An aerial view of the Bahá’í shrine, designed by Vancouver-based architect Hossein Amanat, which caught fire on April 8 — An aerial view of the Bahá’í shrine, designed by Vancouver-based architect Hossein Amanat, which caught fire on April 8. *(screenshot from YouTube)*

The mausoleum and garden south of the Tel Akko archeological mound will be one of seven Bahá’í holy sites, ornamental meditation gardens and administrative complexes in a western Galilee pilgrimage route stretching from Mazra’a near Nahariya south through Acre (Akko in Hebrew and Akka in Arabic) to Mount Carmel in Haifa. The serene mausoleums of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh – together with their adjoining gardens, characterized by their sacred geometry and immaculate landscaping – were registered on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2008.

The Bahá’í faith believes in progressive revelation – that God has revealed himself in a series of manifestations, including Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and, most recently, Bahá’u’lláh.

In 1863, Bahá’u’lláh fulfilled the Báb’s prophecies by proclaiming the Bahá’í faith. The new creed eventually evolved into a global religion. Exiled from Persia to Ottoman Baghdad and then the imperial capital Constantinople (today Istanbul) in 1868, Bahá’u’lláh was imprisoned in Acre’s Turkish citadel in remote Palestine. For Israelis, the notorious jail and its gallows are best known for the prison breakout on May 4, 1947, near the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, in which gunmen from the Irgun underground freed 27 incarcerated freedom fighters.

After being released from Acre Prison, Bahá’u’lláh moved six kilometres north to Mazra’a, also called Mazra’ih. Two years later, he settled in the Mansion of Bahjí (meaning “delight”) in Acre. That palatial home was built in 1821 by ‘Abdu’lláh Páshá, then the Ottoman governor of Acre. Bahá’u’lláh remained there until his death in 1892.

In addition to the mausoleums of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í pilgrimage sites in Haifa and the western Galilee on UNESCO’s World Heritage List include the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh and adjoining Mansion of Bahjí and Bahjí Gardens in Acre; the Shrine of the Báb; the 19 terraces of the Bahá’í Gardens and Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa; and the House of ‘Abbud in the Old City of Acre, where the Bahá’u’lláh spent time after being released from prison.

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

A religious pilgrimage

Bohras in prayer at the marble open-air mosque located on the grounds of Barzilai Medical Centre. (photo from Ron Lobel)

The Barzilai Medical Centre in Ashkelon, Israel, is known for treating victims of border skirmishes with Gaza. It is also the former home of a tomb where a Shi’a Muslim sect known as Dawoodi Bohras (or Bohras) still make pilgrimages. Bohras believe that the head of Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, was buried here in 680 AD, following his death in battle.

While many Shi’as believe that Husayn’s complete body was buried at Karbala, Iraq, others, like the Bohras, claim that his head was hidden in Ashkelon and then taken away centuries later to Egypt to prevent desecration by European Crusaders. Despite that its final resting place might be in Egypt, the location in Ashkelon continues to attract pilgrims.

Dawoodi Bohras number around one million adherents worldwide – though some estimates are as high as five million – and trace their ancestry to Egypt during the Fatimid Caliphate. They eventually migrated to India via Yemen after the Caliphate ended in 1171 AD. Today, Bohras live mostly in Western India, with smaller communities in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya and elsewhere.

Dr. Ron Lobel, former deputy director of the medical centre, has met with various pilgrims and described them as “very decent people who visit quietly and respectfully.” He continued, “You hardly notice when they’re here.”

Lobel said, wherever Bohras hail from, they converse in Lisan U Dawat, which is similar to Gujarati, with Arabic and Farsi influences, reflecting their Middle Eastern roots. Unlike the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, there is no specific time prescribed to visit Ashkelon. Therefore, pilgrims visit whenever they are able to do so.

Bohras are of the Ismaili Shi’a subdivision and have a centralized leadership, currently headed by the 53rd da’i al-mutlaq: Mufaddal Saifudeen. The Bohras’ leadership lineage can be traced directly to Prophet Mohammed. The Druze, who today live in Israel and the Levant, split off from Ismaili Shi’as in 1017 AD and now identify as a different religion altogether.

The pilgrimage site in Israel has had structures atop that were constantly demolished and rebuilt throughout history. The last standing one was a mosque named Mashhad al-Husayn, which was razed in 1950 by Moshe Dayan despite protests by Shmuel Yeivin, then director of the Department of Antiquities. The Barzilai Medical Centre was opened in 1961, and they contend that they “had no clue that the hill within the premises was a sacred site.”

Although pilgrims had visited prior to 1948, the first known group to visit after Israeli independence came in 1980, shortly after relations between Israel and Egypt were normalized. According to Aliasgher Zakir from Kenya, these pilgrims were Indian and Kenyan Bohras who had recently moved to Egypt for business purposes. Most pilgrims also visit Jerusalem, for its religious and historical significance.

In 2000, the 52nd dai, Mohammed Burhanuddin (the father of Da’i Al-mutlaq Mufaddal Saifudeen), visited during an excavation that uncovered remnants of historic structures barely a metre below the ground. Subsequently, a marble platform was installed, which now serves as an open-air mosque for pilgrims.

“Just like us Jews, they are very stubborn about keeping their old traditions, language and customs alive,” Lobel said with a chuckle. He added that, while Muslims from other sects have also visited, only Dawoodi Bohras show consistency in making pilgrimage as an organized community.

Avi Kumar is an historian and freelance writer. He has lived in six countries and speaks 10 languages. His work has been published in many countries, from his native Sri Lanka to Israel and Ireland, and he has written on a variety of topics, including history, wildlife and linguistics.

UN not hopeless, says Danon

Danny Danon addresses a United Nations Security Council meeting in 2017, when he was Israel’s ambassador to the UN. (UN photo/Rick Bajornas via Wikimedia Commons)

Many Israelis and their overseas allies may see the United Nations as an assembly of antagonists, but a former top diplomat who spent five years there sees plenty of reason for optimism.

Danny Danon, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the UN from 2015 to 2020, spoke candidly during a livestreamed conversation Feb. 8 with Jonas Prince, chair and co-founder of Honest Reporting Canada, which hosted the event.

Danon was a Likud party member of the Knesset from 2009 to 2015 and served as minister of science, technology and space, as well as deputy minister of defence and deputy speaker. He is also an author and world chairman of the Likud party.

“I’m optimistic because we are starting to see change,” Danon said. “We are starting to convince countries to read the resolutions before they talk about them and we are able to see a few victories at the UN, including in the General Assembly.”

He cited two examples of victories during his time at the international body. Working with then-U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley, Danon proposed a resolution condemning the terrorist group Hamas. To pass, it required a two-thirds majority, which was not attained, but a plurality of the member-states supported the motion.

“For us, it was a victory,” he said. “People speak about disappointments but we have to also speak about achievements.”

One unequivocal achievement was when Danon was elected chairman of the legal committee of the UN.

“We got the support of 109 member-states who voted for me and only 44 voted against me,” said Danon. “I became the first Israeli ever to chair a UN committee.”

How did it happen? Secret ballots, he said. On resolutions where the votes of each country are publicly counted, Israel routinely experiences massively lopsided defeats. In secret ballots, the outcomes can be quite different. For example, there are 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which officially opposed Danon’s candidacy. Yet only 44 countries voted against him, he noted.

In his time at the UN, Danon also learned that ambassadors from the smallest countries are often the most persuadable. They do not have large foreign affairs apparatuses in their capitals and so they do not have bureaucrats overseeing their behaviour at the UN, giving them more freedom to vote as they wish.

One regret he has is that Israel did not run for a seat on the Security Council.

“I convinced the prime minister we should run because it’s a secret ballot,” he said. “Unfortunately, the diplomats in the ministry in Jerusalem convinced the prime minister that we don’t have the budget and the energy to run a successful campaign and we had to drop out at the early stage of the campaign, which for me was a big disappointment and I think it was a grave mistake.”

Over time, somewhere between 75% and 80% of country-specific condemnations at the UN have been directed at Israel.

“I call it diplomatic terrorism,” he said. “It has no connection to the reality. When you speak about human rights resolutions, you cannot ignore what’s happening in Syria, in Libya, in Yemen and blame Israel.”

Danon said the situation goes back to the very earliest era of the UN, when the Arab world rejected the Partition Resolution to create a Jewish and Arab state in the area of Palestine. To justify that rejection, and the rejection of every olive branch since, the Arab bloc has had to initiate resolutions against Israel, he said. This took off in earnest in the 1970s, with the infamous (since rescinded) “Zionism equals racism” resolution of 1975, he noted.

The UN General Assembly also engages in a sort of Groundhog Day every year, in which the same series of condemnatory resolutions against Israel is brought out and passed, year after year.

“I come from the Knesset, from the parliament,” he said. “Like every parliament in the world, once you pass a bill or a piece of legislation, you move on. That’s not the case at the UN. Every General Assembly takes the same resolutions you adopted last year and brings them back to the table.”

For all the energies expended against Israel at the UN, Danon argues little of it helps actual Palestinians.

“When you look at the outcome of those resolutions, we can agree that they are not helping the Palestinian cause,” he said. “On the contrary, it gives them empty victories so maybe they get a few headlines for a day or two and then what?… I call them feel-good resolutions, so maybe the Palestinians feel good for a day, but the Palestinian people don’t get anything.”

Danon said he also tried to raise awareness of Palestinian incitement to violence among his UN colleagues.

“Nelson Mandela once wrote that you are not born with hate, someone is teaching you to hate,” Danon said. “I focused on the Palestinian incitement, what they are teaching the kids in school, what they are showing them on Palestinian television, and I proved my case. I said, we can argue about a lot of things, but we cannot allow the Palestinians to continue with the education of hate propaganda against Jews. I showed them the textbooks of the Palestinians [and] what you can find on the internet telling Palestinian children how to stab a Jew, which knife to use and how to be effective.”

The former ambassador insisted he has nothing against humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

“On the contrary,” he said. “But make sure that the funds you are giving are not being used for terrorism and for incitement. Ask tough questions about … the results…. Instead of teaching the Palestinians and giving them the proper education, they did exactly the opposite.”

UN member-states should demand to see results from the billions of dollars poured into UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which is a unique entity that acts as a quasi-governmental body for Palestinians. Rather than resolving the issue of refugees or other challenges facing Palestinians, Danon argues that UNRWA perpetuates the problems in order to justify and prolong its own existence.

The Palestinian refugee issue gets a great deal of international attention, he said, while the parallel number of Jewish exiles from that same era he calls “the forgotten Jewish refugees.”

“When my father’s family fled Alexandria, Egypt, in 1950, they left everything behind,” said Danon. “Nobody is coming and asking the Egyptian government to pay compensation, but at least it should be recognized and I think it’s a claim we shouldn’t abandon. We have to speak about it and make sure it will be brought up in future discussions as well.”

The Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas is 87 years old and Danon hesitates to predict whether the next leader will be a genuine partner for peace.

“I hope that, in the days after President Abbas, a leader will emerge that will care more about education, infrastructure, rather than coming to the UN and speaking against Israel,” he said.

Israel’s defensive actions, like those during the war with Hamas less than a year ago, can make the country unpopular, Danon admitted. While it would be nice to be liked by the world, Danon said some things are more important.

“I prefer the situation where we are today, where we are strong, independent and we have borders, we can protect our people rather than being a place where we beg for mercy from the international community,” he said.

Alarming population decline

Since 1970, the population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have declined by 68% – or more. (photo from CABGU)

Over the past 24 years, Living Planet Report has been published biannually by the Zoological Society of London and the World Wildlife Fund. It highlights the major declines that some 20,811 vertebrate populations, representing 4,392 species monitored around the world, have experienced globally. The 2020 report (which is the latest one) showed that, on average, the population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles declined by 68% between 1970 and 2016.

As large as that decline is, a paper published in the journal Nature last month by a group of scientists based in Israel – Drs. Gopal Murali and Gabriel Caetano from Ben-Gurion University were lead authors of the paper – shows that it might greatly underestimate the situation.

As part of their research, the authors analyzed the overlap of the monitored populations with protected areas. They then compared these to a random sample of locations and the placement of the global network of protected areas. They found that the populations sampled in Living Planet are much more likely to be found inside protected areas than would be expected to occur by chance.

“This is truly alarming,” said Caetano. “If populations inside protected areas – where we focus a lot of our conservation efforts – are doing so badly, those that reside outside protected areas are probably worse off. The true situation of nature – mostly not monitored or protected – may be much worse.”

The authors highlight the need for proper accounting of the status of nature when making generalizations (as they have done in their paper). However, they also advocate for greater monitoring of populations and species in different locations and stress that many animal populations and natural environments will be lost forever without concentrated and direct action.

The world is experiencing massive transformations that are expected to intensify in the coming decades and have fundamental and dire consequences for the natural world. Prof. Shai Meiri from Tel Aviv University, also a co-author of the Nature article, said, “Rather than discourage us from action, we feel that our work should be viewed as a call to arms. Rapid and comprehensive changes in how we view our relationships with nature are needed – and the onus is on us to make sure they happen before it is too late.”

– Courtesy Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, B.C. & Alberta Region

ADI Race for Inclusion

Vancouverite Vida Sussman (centre) was among those who pounded the pavement at ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village to raise disability awareness at ADI’s first annual Race for Inclusion, which took place Dec. 29. (photo from ADI)

On the morning of Dec. 29, following a week of gloomy weather, the clouds gave way to sunshine as ADI, one of Israel’s most comprehensive providers of residential and rehabilitative care for individuals with severe disabilities, hosted its first annual Race for Inclusion. The 2.5-kilometre fun run highlighted the importance of disability inclusion while also raising more than $14,000 US to enhance ADI’s respiratory therapy and hydrotherapy programs.

More than 250 runners of varied ages, backgrounds and levels of ability ran together along a fully-accessible track that encircled ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran, the 25-acre rehabilitation village. This newest iteration of ADI Fleet – the organization’s inclusive running team – featured ADI residents, special education students and international volunteers, as well as nearly 180 North American gap year students studying at Israeli yeshivot and seminaries, including Mechinat Ruach HaNegev, Torah Tech, Tiferet, Yeshivat Ashreinu, Yeshivat Torat Shraga and Amudim. Among the runners was Vancouverite Vida Sussman, who is studying at Amudim this year.

Elie Klein, ADI’s North American director of development, said, “There is something very special and wonderfully symbolic about others coming to meet our residents and special education students where they are. ADI works so hard to ensure that every man, woman and child has tangible opportunities for encountering disability and promoting acceptance, and moments like these prove that we are on the right track and making serious strides for inclusion.”

At the conclusion of the race, all of the runners gathered in the village’s amphitheatre for a celebration featuring food, live music and speeches from special guests and ADI’s leadership. Three finalists from Israel Ninja Warrior received cheers after calling those assembled “heroic.”

“We thought we were strong,” said Israeli athlete Gur Arad. “But after seeing all of you running together today, we know that you are the strong ones.”

Sussman, one of eight Canadians who participated in the event, also volunteers one day a week at ADI Jerusalem, the organization’s residential and rehabilitative centre in Israel’s capital. She describes the atmosphere as “loving, familial and an incredible learning experience,” noting that she jumped at the opportunity to do more for the organization.

“I feel very lucky to be volunteering at ADI, and I was so excited to participate in the Race for Inclusion. The energy that everyone brought to the event was incredible, and it made me so happy to see all the participants from different levels of ability having so much fun together,” said Sussman.

“This amazing event highlights exactly why supporting ADI is so important to me,” she added. “Not only are they committed to providing the best medical and rehabilitative care for their residents and special education students, but they do everything possible to advocate for them and infuse their lives with joy. I look forward to continuing to be a part of the ADI family and supporting the important work they do for years to come.”

Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Doron Almog, the founder and chair of ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran, closed out the event by thanking the gap year students for raising disability awareness and encouraging them to continue “carrying the message of inclusion and love.”

“Always remember that we are all just temporary creatures. We come one day and we pass the next, and we need to give meaning to our lives in between. We do that by taking responsibility for one another, especially those with severe disabilities who need extra love and care,” said Almog. “By coming here today to participate in ADI’s Race for Inclusion, you fulfilled the most noble of responsibilities, to truly ‘care for your neighbour as yourself.’”

To learn more about ADI, visit adi-israel.org.

– Courtesy ADI

Studying social sense

Michael Gliksberg, left, and Prof. Gil Levkowitz are among the researchers who have discovered that oxytocin in a developing zebrafish brain determines later social behaviour. (photo from Weizmann Institute)

Whenever we decide to throw a party, invite in-laws to dinner or embark on a cruise, we are driven by the most basic component of social behaviour: the desire to hang out with other humans. Considering that the drive to form groups with members of one’s own species has been conserved throughout evolution, it’s evident that social behaviour is governed by genes, at least to some degree. But our parents and teachers help us hone our social graces, so teasing apart the effects of nature and nurture on this behaviour is hard, if not impossible. By studying zebrafish, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers, in collaboration with scientists in Portugal, have managed to solve part of the riddle of how social behaviour is hardwired into the developing brain.

Zebrafish are perfect for studying the inborn basis of behaviour because they receive zero nurturing from parents. “Some fish species take care of their young, but not zebrafish,” explained Prof. Gil Levkowitz of the Weizmann Institute’s molecular cell biology and molecular neuroscience departments, who headed the research team together with Prof. Rui F. Oliveira of Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal. “The female zebrafish spawns several hundred eggs, which are fertilized by sperm released into the water by the male. She does provide her offspring with a ‘lunchbox’ – a protein sac, or yolk, that makes up part of the egg – but, otherwise, her message to her children is: manage on your own.”

At about four weeks of age, the centimetre-long juvenile fish, just out of the larval stage, begin to socialize. Though not as exquisitely synchronized as the schools of moonfish in the movie Finding Nemo, they do exhibit a strong tendency to swim together as a group, termed a shoal. Much like humans, they have an incentive to seek company; in their case, the group provides them with advantages in searching for food, overcoming currents, avoiding predators and finding mates. The shoaling behaviour of zebrafish requires sophisticated processing of visual and social cues, very similar to that which takes place in the brains of socializing humans. In particular, the zebrafish must be able to identify other fish as belonging to their own, “friendly” – as opposed to different or, worse yet, predatory – species.

To learn how the social behaviour of zebrafish develops, the researchers focused on the hormone oxytocin, one of the most important neurochemicals known to enhance social interactions, including bonding. Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Ana Rita Nunes and doctoral student Michael Gliksberg created a system for exploring the effects of oxytocin on the developing brains of zebrafish larvae. They produced transgenic larvae whose oxytocin-making neurons harboured a bacterial gene encoding fatal sensitivity to antibiotics. The researchers could then eliminate these neurons from the brains of the larvae at different stages of their development by adding antibiotics to the water, and they later observed the zebrafish behaviour as they became adults.

The scientists discovered that the larvae whose brains lacked oxytocin early on – specifically, in the first two weeks of life – grew into adult fish with an impaired capacity for social interaction, namely, swimming in a shoal. Although their brains regenerated the oxytocin neurons later in life, this capacity was not restored. This meant that, for adults to be capable of social behaviour, their brains had to be organized by oxytocin in a certain manner during a critical time window of brain development in which the social traits are established.

The researchers further discovered the mechanisms by which oxytocin primes the growing brain for socializing. They showed that oxytocin-producing neurons were critical to the birth of another type of neuron, one that releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is known to regulate feelings of reward and motivation. Zebrafish whose brains had not been exposed to oxytocin during the first two weeks of life had reduced numbers of dopamine-making neurons, as well as a reduced number of connections to these neurons, in two distinct brain areas.

One of these areas was responsible for processing visual stimuli, apparently of the kind essential for recognizing potential swimming partners. An analogous area in the brains of mammals, including humans, is involved in processing visual cues in social situations. It controls eye movements that scan, for example, different elements of the face in a particular order to decipher facial expressions. This pattern is often absent in people with autism, suggesting that their brains respond to social-based visual cues differently.

The other dopamine-deficient brain area in the zebrafish was analogous to a major reward centre in the mammalian brain, which is involved in the positive reinforcement of social interactions.

A lack of oxytocin in the critical early developmental period also disrupted a system of neuronal connections known as the social decision-making network – a group of brain areas that work together to process social information. In fish whose brains had developed without oxytocin, the synchronization patterns of neuronal activities among these centres were completely different from those of regular fish.

Nunes summarized: “Oxytocin organizes the developing brain in a way that’s essential for responding to social situations.”

– Courtesy Weizmann Institute

mRNA & cancer drugs

Prof. Etta Livneh (photo by Shay Shmueli/BGU)

Most everyone on the planet has now heard of mRNA, thanks to the vaccines against COVID-19 from Pfizer and Moderna, which are based on messenger RNA. But, before mRNA was used to address COVID, research was conducted into how it could fight cancer. Now, researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have discovered a key connection between mRNA, peptide proteins and tumour progression.

Messenger RNA codes for different proteins, each with a unique function. There are both “long” and “short” peptides. Until now, scientists were not sure if short peptides had any biological function.

Prof. Etta Livneh of BGU’s Shraga Segal Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Genetics has shown that single short peptides in fact have a very important role – as a kinase inhibitor that can slow tumour growth and invasion, cancer cell survival and metastasis.

Proteins (and protein kinases in particular) propagate signals that carry instructions to the cells and dictate cell fate. There are more than 500 different kinases in the human body.

With cancer, a kinase erroneously tells the cells to divide and reproduce in a rapid and uncontrollable manner. But the flipside is also true: if a kinase can be inhibited, it should block the proliferation of cancer cells.

And that’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” said Livneh, whose discovery has been a decade in the making. “Now that we know that at least some peptides have a biological function, we can begin to discover the roles of many more.”

Kinase inhibitors are already one of the hottest areas of cancer research, in some cases replacing chemotherapy. Livneh’s research will allow scientists to better understand how to control this cancer-fighting technology.

The research was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation and published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America).

Israel21c is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.

BGU advances in rankings

(photo from CABGU)

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev ranks among the top 50 universities graduating successful entrepreneur company founders from its undergraduate programs, according to Pitchbook, a financial data firm that publishes annual data. BGU moved up two spots from last year’s rankings, marking its third consecutive year on the top 50 list.

BGU has graduated 314 founders whose companies have raised a total of $8.3 billion, according to Pitchbook. Among the top five companies led by BGU entrepreneurs in capital raised are Deel ($630m), Fireblocks ($492m), Exaware ($420m), Fabric ($336m) and Hibob ($277m).

BGU’s entrepreneurial focus is led by Yazamut 360°, a suite of program offerings designed to enhance BGU’s academic curriculum and infuse entrepreneurship into the DNA of a BGU student. Yazamut 360° established Cactus Capital – Israel’s first student-run venture capital fund. It has also created two accelerators, one focused on technology entrepreneurship (Oazis) and one on e-commerce. Oazis pairs faculty members with chief executive officers to create companies through BGN Technologies. The accelerators serve as a resource for all entrepreneurs on campus through professional mentoring, financial consulting and technological consulting.

The 2021 Pitchbook university rankings are based on the number of founders whose companies received a first round of venture funding between Jan. 1, 2006, and Oct. 31, 2021.

– Courtesy Canadian Associates of BGU, B.C. and Alberta Region

Wherever did the time go?

A few of the clocks that were stolen from Jerusalem’s L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in 1983, and eventually found and returned. (photos by Daniella Golan)

Over the past few weeks, many countries, including Canada, switched from daylight savings time to standard time. So, it seems like the right time (no pun intended) to talk about the biggest clock and watch robbery in Israel’s history.

Back in 1983, more than 100 antique timepieces vanished from Jerusalem’s L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. I remember visiting the museum about a year after the robbery, only to find the empty stands and cases – as if the museum staff hoped the watches would magically reappear.

For years, the Israeli police didn’t know where to go with this case. In fact, they struggled for a quarter of a century to solve the mystery of the 102 (a number of media reports stated 106) missing clocks. All that was clear was that, one spring night in 1983, these timepieces disappeared from the museum.

These missing clocks were not like the ones a regular person hangs on their kitchen wall or sits on their nightstand. They were highbrow antiques. Some were inlaid with jewels. Many had been cast from gold. One was made by famed watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet for Queen Marie Antoinette, but she met up with the guillotine 34 years before Breguet finished the timepiece – actually, Breguet’s son finished what is called an “open-work” watch.

Altogether, the stolen clocks and watches were worth millions of dollars. Given the magnitude of the theft, a special task force within the police was set up. Reportedly, Interpol was contacted, and the company that had insured the collection hired private investigators.

For years, police theorized that only a group of robbers could have taken so many clocks in one night. It turned out, however, that one thief did the job.

The alleged thief was Naaman Diller, also known as Naaman Lidor. He took advantage of the museum’s incompetence at that time. For example, he discovered that the museum’s alarm system did not work. And, while the museum windows apparently had bars, they were more for show than anything else – Diller/Lidor was able to bend a few of them. He had no difficulty entering and exiting undetected with the stolen items and placing them in his truck outside.

Many of the clocks were physically small and relatively light (i.e., pocket-size timepieces). He took most of them out of Israel. Some were hidden in Holland, some in France and the rest went to the United States. Several ended up in the home he set up in the Los Angeles area.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the great monetary value of his haul and because of how renowned some of the pieces were, Dillor/Lidor found it was hard to sell them. He only managed to sell less than 10% of the stolen collection. The majority of these timepieces spent 25 years locked up, unseen.

Following the robbery, Dillor/Lidor lived on and off in Tel Aviv. In the early 2000s, he reportedly was hospitalized in Israel’s Tel HaShomer Hospital, suffering from skin cancer complications. When told that the cancer had spread to the bone, he refused radiation. In 2004, he died in his Tel Aviv apartment and was buried at Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, his birthplace. In the end, he willed the clocks to his wife, Israeli ex-pat Nili Shamrat.

Within a few years of Dillor/Lidor’s death, an attorney representing the widow entered into a quiet, negotiated “buy-back” with the museum. According to the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art, in 2006, 39 of the original 102 stolen clocks were returned.

Two years down the road, the case further unraveled. The museum officially states that investigators located the remaining clocks in various bank safes. Some media reports said the clocks had been in France and in Holland. In any case, the clocks and watches have since made their way back to the museum. Unlike almost 40 years ago, they are now well-secured, with the clock exhibit housed in a sophisticated light-sensitive vault.

In the United States, the widow was charged with receiving stolen property. In 2010, however, she received a sentence of five years’ probation and 300 hours of community service. In her defence, her lawyer successfully maintained that she was a victim of circumstances – that is, her new husband (although they’d been together for many years, they’d been married for only a year when he died) had only told her about the clocks near the time of his death.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.