At a ceremony in Tel Aviv, Gadi Eizenkot, second from left, succeeds Benny Gantz, far right, as IDF chief of staff. (photo from Flash90 from JNS.org)
The four-year term of Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz officially ended earlier this week, with Gantz handing command of the military over to his deputy, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, during a ceremony at Rabin Base in Tel Aviv on Feb. 16.
While serving as Gantz’s deputy, Eizenkot was part of major decisions on military reforms. He assumes command of the IDF during a time marked by tension in all sectors: the potential for further escalations in Gaza, concern over the growing unrest among Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, the volatile situation on Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon, and the erosion of Israel’s deterrence against Hezbollah.
Eizenkot acknowledged that he is taking over “in the midst of a tense and challenging period.” He said, “The Middle East is changing and it has become very volatile. Under my command, the IDF will prioritize its readiness, its operational skills and its ethical fortitude, so we may wield whatever force necessary in the defence of the Israeli public. I pledge to lead the Israel Defence Forces with determination and wisdom, and with the utmost commitment to Israel’s security and the public’s safety.”
Gantz said that during his time as IDF chief, “we have fortified our borders, we have adapted our response in all sectors and we have ensured our readiness to any scenario. We have taken forceful action when necessary, and our readiness has proven itself time and again,” he said. “It is important that we look at the challenges in the horizon, and it is equally important that we know how to reach out to our allies, to create spheres in which we can promote our interests and solutions.”
Gantz told Eizenkot, “The IDF is yours to lead now. Make your mark on it with the love we know you have for this military and the responsibility required of the position. The public is lucky to have you as the leader of its defence forces.”
At a defence establishment farewell event for Gantz, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said the outgoing military leader was “everyone’s chief of staff, in true service of the public.”
“You have shown the utmost, unbiased dedication,” Rivlin told Gantz. “Over the past four years, you have led the IDF toward many achievements. You have bolstered the public’s faith in the military. You may be taking off your uniform, but I believe it will not be for long. We have called on you once, and maybe we will call on you again before too long. The people need you.”
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “If I had to describe Benny in two words, they would be ‘warrior’ and ‘humane.’ I have seen you deal with so many challenging situations, and what always came through was your humanity. I believe that behind the tough warrior exterior there’s more than just a sensitive soul – I think it is the soul of a poet.”
Cpl. Ben Levi is a participant in the Great in Uniform program. (photo from Israel Defence Forces)
The program Great in Uniform aims to integrate young Israelis with special needs into the Israel Defence Forces. To date, some 200 youths have been successfully integrated through the program into administrative and logistical positions in the IDF’s air force and home-front command.
The program was founded by Lt. Col. (Res.) Ariel Almog, who became disabled while serving in the IDF when responding to a terror attack. Eventually, he began looking for a way he could return to the army. He then realized that he would like to help make this a reality for others with disabilities, too.
Typically, Israeli teens with special needs are granted an exemption from obligatory military service. By opening a window and creating a support system for those wanting to volunteer to join the army, the IDF is making it possible for these young Israelis to be integrated into the army with their peers. The teens begin as volunteers, serving in various roles. In some cases, they can get advanced training and even become officers.
This has been the case with Ben Levi. Levi was diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) when he was born. He has learned to live with his disability and the 21-year-old longed to join the army and follow in the path that many in his family have taken: he wanted to serve in a fighting unit.
Levi said he currently works “in the storage room, which is part of the logistics force in the home command. When I have trouble, people help me, but I don’t feel I’m a volunteer. I feel I am a solider for all intents and purposes. I try to do what I can. I am disabled and it’s not obvious at all that I would have gotten as far in the army as I have.
“I can tell you a secret,” he added. “I’m actually interested in going for the officer’s course.
“I’m really happy I got to draft and that I get to serve the country,” he said.
Levi said he feels like a soldier just like any other, and has many friends on the base. When he runs into difficulty, he knows he has his family’s support. In fact, Levi’s family has gotten involved in the IDF program.
“It’s fantastic to wake up every morning and know that I am serving my country, have a job and a way to contribute – it proves to me that CP can’t limit me,” said Levi. “You come into the army as a child and you come out as a full grown person.”
Levi’s commander, Ariana Goldsmith, 18, is originally from Long Island, N.Y. She has been living in Ra’anana for the past seven years after making aliyah with her family.
Goldsmith’s becoming a commander of special soldiers was her own “dream come true,” she said.
“I’ve been volunteering for many years with people with special needs [with] Yachad. My cousin is special needs, I grew up with him, and I’ve been volunteering since I was younger for different organizations.”
Although Goldsmith only joined the IDF four months ago, she was given the title of commander to allow her to do her job – escorting special needs soldiers on base.
“Since I heard about this program, this job has been my dream,” said Goldsmith. “There’s no other job I want to do. So, I ended up getting in contact with the head of the program … it took a long time, about a year and a half, and a lot of working it out with the army, but it ended up working out.
“This is an unbelievable program – to see these kids … they just want to do it so bad. There are so many soldiers in the army who aren’t that into [serving]. You know, everyone has to [serve].” Those with disabilities, however, “don’t have to do the army,” she continued. “They want to, to give back, and they are unbelievable.”
Goldsmith is the only escort in the program at the moment, but that is not stopping her from blazing a trail for future escorts. “With my experience, I can give back to the program and make it more of an official job … so that, after me, more people can go into the army and become a commander for this program.”
Goldsmith feels most units in the army would benefit tremendously from incorporating special needs soldiers, and that the benefits of the program are greater for able-bodied soldiers than they are for special needs soldiers. “I think the base and soldiers get so much out of seeing these [special needs] soldiers being volunteers, and that all they want to do is work. They gain so much from seeing them, they learn a life lesson. Some of these soldiers have never seen special needs people before…. By seeing them and working with them, they gain so much patience and they make connections with them…. This really raises the morale on base in general.”
A thunder and lightning storm over Nitzan, in the south of Israel. (photo by Edi Israel/Flash90)
New research by an Israeli scientist will likely be crucial to measuring the impact of climate change on thunderstorms. The varying frequency and intensity of thunderstorms have direct repercussions for the public, agriculture and industry.
To draft a global thunderstorm map, Prof. Colin Price of Tel Aviv University’s department of geosciences and graduate student Keren Mezuman used a vast global lightning network of 70 weather stations capable of detecting radio waves produced by lightning – the main feature of a thunderstorm – from thousands of miles away.
“To date, satellites have only provided snapshots of thunderstorm incidence,” said Price, whose new map of thunderstorms around the world is the first of its kind. “We want to use our algorithm to determine how climate change will affect the frequency and intensity of thunderstorms. According to climate change predictions, every one percent rise in global temperature will lead to a 10 percent increase in thunderstorm activity. This means that we could see 25 percent more lightning by the end of the century.”
Price and his team registered the exact GPS time of every detected lightning pulse every hour. The researchers then calculated the difference in arrival times of signals, using data from four to five different stations to locate individual lightning strokes anywhere on the globe. Finally, the researchers grouped the detected flashes into clusters of thunderstorm cells.
The World Wide Lightning Location Network (wwlln.net) is run by atmospheric scientists at universities and research institutes around the world. The TAU team harnessed this ground-based system to cluster individual lightning flashes into “thunderstorm cells.” The WWLLN station in Israel has the ability to detect lightning as far away as central Africa.
“When we clustered the lighting strikes into storm cells, we found that there were around 1,000 thunderstorms active at any time somewhere on the globe,” said Price. “How lightning will be distributed in storms, and how the number and intensity of storms will change in the future, are questions we are working on answering.”
The research was published in Environmental Research Letters.
Israel21Cis 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.
Israelis buying a Japanese car in Tel Aviv might be surprised to learn that the car was actually built in Turkey. Tourists buying dried figs in Israel’s Machane Yehuda market probably don’t know that the figs might also be imported.
These are just two of the examples of the burgeoning trade between Israel and Turkey, trade that has more than doubled in the past five years, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute, and confirmed by Israeli officials, to $5.6 billion. About half of that is exports from Israel to Turkey, and the other half, Turkish goods, like the cars, coming to Israel.
“The economies of Turkey and Israel complement each other and the trade ties are flourishing,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon told this reporter. “That’s the good news. Unfortunately, the political ties are not as good, and this is a consequence of the harsh attack by the Turkish leadership against Israel.”
Ties between Israel and Turkey have foundered since Israeli naval commandos killed 10 Turkish activists on a ship that was trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Three years later, U.S. President Barack Obama brokered a telephone apology from Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the deaths of the 10 Turkish citizens, but relations have not returned to normal.
Israel and Turkey do not currently have ambassadors in each other’s countries, but do have lower-level diplomatic representatives. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has consistently made anti-Israel comments, including last month, commenting on Netanyahu’s trip to Paris after the killings at Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket. Referring to last summer’s fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Erdogan said Netanyahu must “give an account for the children, women you massacred.”
In response, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Erodan an “antisemitic neighborhood bully.”
That type of Turkish rhetoric has been stepped up in advance of the June 2015 election for 550 new members of the Grand National Assembly, the country’s parliament.
“We’ve repeatedly seen that whenever there is an election campaign there is an increase in anti-Israel rhetoric,” a senior Israeli official told this reporter on condition of anonymity. “It’s almost part of the electoral campaign and the more anti-Israel you are, the more popular you are. That is something we can’t accept.”
Yet both Israel and Turkey seem happy to distinguish between their political and economic connections.
“‘משחק החיקוי’ הוא סרט טוב אך לא מתאר בדיוק את המציאות”, אומרת אוליב ביילי, שנמתה על היחידה שפיצחה את הקוד הנאצי
“‘משחק החיקוי’ הוא סרט טוב אך אינו מתאר בדיוק את מה שהתרחש אז במציאות, של מלחמת העולם השנייה”, אומרת אוליב ביילי, שנמנתה על היחידה הסודית של הבריטים, שניסתה לפצח את הקוד הנאצי. ביילי בת ה-94 היא אולי מהבודדים שנמנו על היחידה שהוקמה על ידי המודיעין הבריטי, ושעדיין נמצאים בחיים. ב-1951 היא ובעלה ד”ר נורמן ביילי עזבו את בריטניה ועברו להתגורר בקנדה. הם גרים כיום בעיר ויקטוריה שבמערב המדינה.
“משחק החיקוי” (בבימוי של מורטן טילדום) מועמד לזכייה בשמונה קטגוריות בטקס פרסי האוסקר, שיערך ביום ראשון הקרוב (ה-22 בחודש). הסרט עוסק בסיפורו של אלן טיורינג (בגילום השחקן בנדיקט קמברבאץ’), מתמטיקאי גאון שגוייס על ידי המודיעין הבריטי בתקופת המלחמה, והצליח לפצח את הקוד של “האניגמה” – מכונת ההצפנה של הנאצים, להעברת מסרים בין הכוחות השונים בשטח.
ביילי: “‘משחק החיקוי’ לא מתאר בדיוק את מה שהתרחש אז במציאות והסיפור במקור קצת שונה”. בעלה נורמן מוסיף: “הסיפור נכתב בצורה כזו עם הגזמות, כדי שימשוך את הצופים לקולנוע ואנחנו מבינים את זה”. ביילי אומרת עוד כי בסיכומו של דבר מדובר בסרט טוב, אך הוא לא הציג במדויק את טיורינג אותו היא הכירה מקרוב, שאישיותו הייתה מורכבת. “היה לו חוש הומור מאוד מפותח, הוא דיבר בצרורות, נראה מוזר בעיני רבים ולא כולם יכלו להבין אותו. אגב משחקו של קמברבאץ’ היה טוב מאוד”.
ביילי ספרת כי אז במלחמה כל מי שמלאו לו 15 גויוס לעזור לצבא או בתחומים אחרים של הממלכה. “ב-1940 הייתי בת 19 וגרתי בלונדון. סיימתי ללמוד באוניברסיטה ועבדתי במפעל ליצור פצצות, ועזרתי לחשוף מרגל. לכן גוייסתי ליחידה הסודית ע”י המודיעין. התפקיד שלי היה להעביר את הצופנים שהופענחו ע”י המחשב שטיורינג בנה, ולהעבירם למומחים שהבינו מה צריך לעשות עם המידע”.
במשך עשרות שנים ביילי שמרה לעצמה את חוויותיה מתקופת המלחמה, ונאסר עליה לדבר על מה שראתה. בחודשים האחרונים היא הרגישה שהגיע הזמן לפרסם את מה שהיא יודעת. ולכן החליטה להוציא לאור ספר בעזרת בעלה, שעוסק בתקופה וכולל מסמכים סודיים ששמרה ורשימות שהיא כתבה לעצמה, בזמן שעבדה ביחידה הסודית. לשאלתי מתי הספר יצא לאור, היא השיבה: “בשלב זה עדיין לא ברור לי. חזרתי עכשיו מחופשה ועד כמה שאני יודעת כבר כשני שלישים מהספר מוכנים”.
עקרב עם מזל: עקרב התחבא במזוודה והגיע בטיסה מאפריקה לקנדה
קנדית שחזרה לאחרונה מטיול בדרום אפריקה נדהמה לראות בפינת חדר האמבטיה שלה, עקרב קטן ושחור שהולך לו לאיטו. תחילה חשבה שמדובר במתיחה, כיוון שאיך יתכן שעקרב יגיע בכלל לביתה, שנמצא בסמוך לויניפג. לאחר שחשבה מספר דקות היא קלטה שהעקרב הוא בעצם נוסע סמוי, שהתחבא במזדווה שלה שהגיעה במטוס מדרום אפריקה לקנדה.
מומחה מגן החיות של ויניפג בדק את העקרב וקבע כי הוא אכן מדרום אפריקה. הוא ציין שהעקרב איננו מסוכן, אם כי נשיכה שלו יכולה לגרום לכאב קל ואדמומיות בעור.
הקנדית החליטה לקרוא לעקרב ‘הרולד’ על שם ‘הרולד ביי’, אזור בדרום אפריקה בו ביקרה, והיא שוקלת לאמצו. לדבריה אם הייתה רואה עקרב בדרום אפריקה, היא לא הייתה מהססת להרגו. אך לאחר שעשה דרך כה ארוכה ומייגעת והגיע לקנדה, שהיא ארץ של שלום ואפשרויות, היא תיתן ‘להרולד’ הזדמנות נאותה לחיות.
Dan Gillerman addresses the audience at Jewish National Fund Pacific Region’s Tu b’Shevat event Feb. 3 as emcee Geoffrey Druker looks on. (photo by Robert Albanese)
A former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations heaped praise on Canada and excoriated the United States during a candid speech here last week.
Left to right, former ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, Mayor of Victoria Lisa Helps and JNF Pacific Region shaliach Ilan Pilo. (photo by Julie Elizabeth)
Dan Gillerman, who led the Israeli delegation at the UN from 2003 to 2008, was filling in for current Ambassador Ron Prosor, whose obligations kept him in New York. The occasion was the Jewish National Fund of Canada’s Tu b’Shevat event at Beth Israel on Feb. 3. He also spoke in Victoria at Emanu-El for JNF the next day.
Gillerman, who acknowledges that he has a penchant for political incorrectness and is now a private citizen free to speak his mind without the constraints of a diplomatic post, received a strong ovation when he called Canada “by far, the greatest friend Israel has in the world” and when he heaped praise on Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper as “probably the greatest leader in the world.”
His perspective on the United States was not nearly as positive.
“I think that what we are witnessing today is at least a perception, hopefully a wrong perception, of a weak America and a weak American president,” Gillerman said. Even a whiff of American weakness is a dangerous thing in the world, he said, with America’s enemies feeling that they can get away with murder and America’s allies believing that they cannot rely on the superpower.
Gillerman equates the contemporary situation of the United States with the advent of the First World War a century ago, which he says was due in part to perceptions of British weakness under Prime Minister H.H. Asquith. Gillerman contended that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would not do what he did in Ukraine and other countries would not do what they are doing elsewhere if they thought the United States would intervene.
On dangers facing Israel, Gillerman said that the most serious threats are not Hamas or Hezbollah, and not even Iran, which is pushing for nuclear capability. “They are not our most dangerous threats, because we can take care of them,” he said. “The two most dangerous phenomena we face today are appeasement and being politically correct.”
Trying to appease terror and the Iranian regime, as the world is doing today, Gillerman said, is very dangerous.
About political correctness, he said the world is “trying to find other words to explain what is happening,” other than identifying it as Islamic extremism and terrorism. “We have to call a spade a spade,” he said. “There is evil in this world. There is terror in this world. It threatens your country and every country in the world.”
On Iran, Gillerman characterized nuclear negotiations as “a weak America and a weak American president who wants an agreement at any cost.”
Gillerman said he had a conversation with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is South Korean. Gillerman said that the global powers dithered while North Korea prepared for nuclear weaponry then one day the world woke up to a nuclear North Korea. Gillerman said Ban told him that Iran is much more dangerous than North Korea.
“North Korea sought nuclear weapons out of desperation,” Gillerman quoted Ban as telling him. “While Iran is seeking them out of aspiration.”
Gillerman spoke of his close relationship with the late former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who appointed him ambassador to the UN. Gillerman’s background is not in politics or diplomacy, but business, and he was chairman of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce before his ambassadorial appointment.
He said Sharon warned him that the appointment to the UN would leave him lonely and facing hostility, but Gillerman said he later told the prime minister that he had been wrong. As Israel’s representative at the world body, Gillerman said, he operated on the knowledge that he represented a country that “is far, far better than most other member countries of the United Nations.”
Despite Israel’s isolation at the UN, one of Gillerman’s achievements during his time as ambassador was the proclamation of International Holocaust Remembrance Day every January. It was the first time that an Israeli-sponsored resolution was passed by the General Assembly.
Gillerman was speaking on the day that Canadian foreign minister John Baird announced his resignation from cabinet and politics. Gillerman said that he had spent several days with Baird recently in Davos, Switzerland, and had no indication that Baird was planning a major change.
“I think it’s a loss for Canada and a loss for Israel, but I wish him well,” Gillerman said, before once again praising Canada’s leaders.
“I think you have in Stephen Harper one of the greatest leaders in the world. Probably the greatest leader in the world and definitely the best friend Israel has in the world,” he said.
While the bulk of the former ambassador’s speech was ominous and pessimistic, it didn’t conclude that way.
“Despite all that, I am optimistic about the future of Israel,” he said near the end of his remarks. “I believe that the world is waking up.”
In the Arab world, he said, the fight between extremists and moderates will lead moderates to recognize that Israel is not the enemy. Comparatively moderate Arab states are as afraid of Iranian extremism and nuclear capability as Israel is – possibly more afraid – he said, and a regional agreement will emerge from shared interests.
“I believe we can reach a fair and lasting settlement with the Palestinians,” he said, adding that leadership is needed on both sides, and in the world, and that it must go beyond bilateralism. He predicted what he calls a “23-state solution,” an agreement between Israel and Arab countries that leads to lasting peace.
He went on to say that if the Palestinian issue were settled, Arab states could calm their streets and become partners with Israel.
To those who say that the United Nations is a failed, useless organization, Gillerman described it as simply a building on First Avenue in Manhattan that is only as good as its tenants. Blaming the UN for the faults of its member-states is like blaming Madison Square Garden when the Knicks lose, he said. “It’s not the UN as an organization, it’s the world we live in.” The UN General Assembly has a “built-in immoral majority,” he said.
Left to right, Frank Sirlin, president of Jewish National Fund Pacific Region, former ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman and JNF Pacific Region shaliach Ilan Pilo. (photo by Robert Albanese)
Prosor, the ambassador who was originally slated to attend, provided a video message that was screened at the beginning of the event. Singers from Vancouver Talmud Torah sang a song for Tu b’Shevat and King David High School students sang the national anthems. The event was emceed by Geoffrey Druker, Rabbi Jonathan Infeld welcomed visitors to the new Beth Israel building and Diane Switzer, board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, introduced Gillerman. Frank Sirlin, president of JNF Canada Pacific Region, spoke about this year’s Tu b’Shevat campaign, which will see trees planted along roads in Israel that are within range of gunfire from the Gaza Strip. The “green barrier” will help green the desert while shielding drivers and passengers from sniper fire. The JNF campaign includes two telethon sessions, on Feb. 15 and 22.
Marissa Cepelinski during the 2014 Run for Water. (photo from Marissa Cepelinski)
Some people spend their entire lives trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Some know when they’re just a kid.
At a rather young age, Marissa Cepelinski already knew two key things about herself that would lead her to her current position as co-founder of Capital Core Financial: she loved numbers and she wanted to help people.
Marissa Cepelinski not only advises people on how to direct more of their money to causes they care about, she also donates her time and money. (photo from Marissa Cepelinski)
Cepelinski is the daughter of an Israeli computer engineer who spent many hours tutoring her in the art of finances. “He had me tracking all my money in a blue Hilroy notebook when my babysitting career began at 11,” she said. “I had to enter all the debits and credits and I loved it.
“I also loved working with people,” she added. “So I knew I wanted to somehow pair the two.”
After completing her minor in psychology at university, Cepelinski targeted the financial advisor career path, leading to what now has been a 12-year career in the industry.
Doing what she loved was the first step. The second was finding a way to make that career choice satisfy her need to help others.
“I became very clear on what I wanted to build and what we needed more of in the financial world,” she explained. “I wanted to work with people on a goals-based approach rather than just working with the money.”
After teaming up with Franco Caligiuri on a consultation basis for several years, the two realized their goals aligned, leading them to partner in starting their own boutique firm, Capital Core Financial. Through her work at Capital Core, Cepelinski has engaged in many charitable programs, both as a donor and as a participant. Specifically, she advises many individuals, families and businesses on strategies to help direct more funding toward causes they care about.
“We found that many people simply didn’t know or understand how they have the option to choose a cause to donate to rather than ‘donating’ their money to Canada Revenue Agency (CRA),” she explained. “Being able to present a cheque for $100,000 to a charity … is a feeling I can’t even describe.”
Cepelinski said that Capital Core Financial has a goal to help redirect at least $1 billion to be donated to the nonprofit sector.
Community building is one of Capital Core’s main values. As such, Cepelinski also donates a lot of her time to various causes, highlighted in the past year by her participation in the Run for Water ultra-marathon, the Covenant House Sleep Out to raise awareness and the 24-Hour Famine for a Better Life Foundation. She personally raised more than $22,000 for these charities in 2014.
Earlier this year, she and colleague Alli Warnyca spoke at the Recharge Conference at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. They talked about how people could change their attitudes about money and debt, and feel good about their finances.
As for her typical client base, Cepelinski insisted she doesn’t really have one. “We work with people who are committed to their goals, that have values that align with ours,” she explained. “People who are wanting to raise the bar in their life and remove their emotional limitations in regards to building wealth.
“I’ve worked with business owners on corporate planning, young families starting to save to buy a home and struggling artists or actors learning to budget and commit to a plan,” she continued. “Many of us walk around with money stories we created at a very young age. We will spend some time discussing those with clients because it’s important that people look at the patterns they are running in regards to their money.”
To set up a meeting with Cepelinski or any member of her team, contact Capital Core Financial at 604-685-6525 or go to capitalcorefinancial.com.
Kyle Berger is a freelance writer living in Richmond.
This year’s Limmud Vancouver had about 35 percent more attendees than it did last year. (photo by Robert Albanese)
About 350 lifelong learners spent the day exploring a huge diversity of Jewish ideas at the second annual Limmud Vancouver event Feb. 1.
Limmud is a worldwide confederation of festivals of Jewish learning, entertainment, ideas and exploration. Started in the United Kingdom in 1980, Limmud is now an annual event in 80 cities. The local event last year was held at King David High School, but this year, it took place a few blocks away, at Eric Hamber, which accommodated 350 registrants, where last year’s had to be capped at 260.
“That’s about a 35 percent growth,” said Avi Dolgin, a founder and organizer of the Vancouver event. The structure changed a little as well, with 40 individual sessions, up from 36 last year, but over five blocks instead of six as was done previously.
“We had eight options per timeslot to drive people truly crazy,” said Dolgin. At breaks between sessions, participants shared take-aways from the many lectures, events, performances and panel discussions.
King David teacher Aron Rosenberg led a session called Love, Hate and the Jewish State, based on a program developed by the New Israel Fund. Participants were asked to move around the room in response to questions of core values around attitudes about Israel, Canada, citizenship, human rights, religion and other hot button topics. Participants moved left or right across the room depending on their level of agreement or disagreement with statements such as “Christmas should be a federal holiday in Canada” or “serving in the Israeli military is a Jewish value.” The room broke into smaller groups to discuss statements about Israel with which they agreed or disagreed.
In another session, comedian and inspirational speaker Adam Growe explained his mathematical formula for measuring success at tikkun olam. (The formula is: S=(hti)c*k.)
In a session on the messianic idea in Judaism, Beth Israel Rabbi Jonathan Infeld said that Judaism is “100 percent about bringing Moshiach” and added that “we have a problem with this idea.” Part of the problem, he said, is that Jews have a history with false messiahs, from Jesus and Bar Kochba to Marx and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
As an example of how messianism – a belief in a future of perfect existence ushered in by the Messiah – permeates Judaism, Infeld said that the Passover seder, which is almost universally accepted as a metaphor for the Exodus from bondage in Egypt, is actually about redemption from this world. And the wish “next year in Jerusalem” is not so much an aspiration for the literal city in Israel, but for the place and time of the Messiah.
Dolgin took special pride in the diversity of Limmud Vancouver’s offerings. “It was a mix of some text, some history … this year we had a lot of arts and culture – Bernstein and opera and Shakespeare, Jews and Western literature,” he said. “This year, we also had workshops, group discussions about what’s your relationship with Israel and Jewish identity, traditional talmudic study chavruta-style. We had a panel talk which included a debate on the issue of Shmita, which is the seventh year in which the land and the economy is supposed to revert to the situation before.”
In future, Dolgin said, he hopes Limmud will beef up children’s programming and attract more Orthodox participants. He noted that, on forms submitted by presenters, a large proportion said they were shomer Shabbat and keep kosher.
“We look like were kind of a Renewal or Reform outfit, but a quarter or maybe as much as a third of the presenters said they observe Shabbat,” he explained.
Organizers are already priming volunteers and presenters for next year. In addition to attracting teachers who may not see themselves as teachers, Limmud is looking for volunteers in such areas as technology and publicity.
“As a young organization, we’re still easy to hijack because we have no allegiances to anybody except the people working in it,” Dolgin said. “So, if people have a vision for what Limmud could be, then they should come in and steer it in that direction and they will be met with open arms.”
Moishe House (and friends) show off their “Most Jewish Table” certificates. From left to right are Alexei Schwartzman, Benjamin Groberman, Carol Moutal, Jordan Stenzler, Shayna Goldberg and Kevin Veltheer. (photo by Robert Albanese)
Limmud Vancouver’s Saturday night cabaret included a flash mob, music and Havdalah. (photo by Robert Albanese)
Music. Storytelling. Video. Flash dance. These were just some of the elements in Limmud Vancouver’s first-ever Saturday night cabaret, which took place on Jan. 31, the night before the all-day learning festival.
One hundred and sixty people gathered around tables of food, books and Havdalah candles in a transformed Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver auditorium, awash in colored lights and humming to the music of Sulam. The event, co-produced by JCCGV and LimmudVan ’15, brought a cabaret of storytelling (Shoshana Litman of Victoria and local raconteur Michael Geller), drama (Michael Armstrong of Victoria’s Bema Theatre), songs (singers Harriet Frost and Wendy Rubin), Talmud (Tracy Ames), a quiz show (former Vancouverite Adam Growe), Havdalah (Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan), dancers (led by Nona Malki) and lots of good food.
Havdalah at the LimmudVan cabaret. (photo by Robert Albanese)
A highlight of the evening was an inter-table contest of personal Jewish experiences: Who has climbed Masada? Who attended Camps Miriam or Hatikvah? Who speaks Ladino? etc. The winners, a group of Moishe House residents and friends, beat the opposition in a spirited event that included spontaneous renditions of Adon Olam, and were proclaimed “Most Jewish Table.”
The Tran-Israel oil pipeline spill near the Evrona Nature Reserve in the Arava Desert has harmed flora and fauna. (photo by Menachem Zalutzki via Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection)
On Dec. 3, 2014, a fractured pipe created the biggest oil spill in Israel’s history, releasing some five million litres of crude oil far into the Arava Desert. In the days that followed, experts from around the world were contacted to clean it up, including from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Hebrew University’s Dr. Yoel Sasson (pictured here) and his colleague Dr. Uri Stoin have developed a technology that can treat waste caused by any organic compound, including oil. (photo from Yoel Sasson)
Dr. Yoel Sasson, a professor at Hebrew University’s Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry, specializes in environmental catalysis, and he and student Dr. Uri Stoin have developed a soil decontamination process that can treat waste caused by any organic compound, including oil.
According to Sasson, spills are common in countries where oil is being moved by pipes and, considering how old the pipe is in Israel, it was just a matter of time that such a leak would occur, he said.
Exacerbating the situation was that it took hours for the break to even be detected. “It’s horrible, because the oil is simply killing everything,” said Sasson. “All the farmland, the flora and fauna … nothing is left alive once the oil is there.”
The Ministry of the Environment is now in charge of cleaning up the spill and they will have to select the contractor to do the job. According to Sasson, there are several companies that have placed bids, one of which is Man Oil Group, the Swiss company licensed to commercialize this technology developed at HU.
A superoxide, the technology is a variation of an oxygen molecule. “Unlike the oxygen molecule, which is relatively inert, superoxide is a very aggressive, free agent,” explained Sasson. “And it actually oxidizes every organic material.”
It works by breaking down the organic (carbon-based) matter into water and CO2, and the organic material very rapidly oxidizes, he explained. “Normally, within 10 minutes, oil simply disappears … the soil re-mineralizes,” he said.
“As the oil is killing everything, when you apply the agent, you do not revive the plants, but you take the soil back to its virgin condition. And then, with time, nature will come back. We estimate six to 12 months, [then] it comes 100 percent back to life.”
The CO2 released in the process can also be neutralized and turned into sodium carbonate, which is soluble with water. With rain, it will be washed away.
Typically, technologies of this kind are termed as either “biological” or “chemical.”
Biological means bacteria is applied (i.e. eating or digesting the oil), a technique that has been used for many years. While this does work, it has some drawbacks. “It’s very slow,” said Sasson. “It would take a half a year to a year to start to see something developing. And it requires excavating the soil, digging it out, so the bacteria will have some air. They are aerobic material.
“Our method is chemical,” he continued, “which means it’s fast, a matter of minutes, actually.”
Sasson estimated that the oil did not seep deeply into the Arava soil, approximately 10 or 20 centimetres maximum. Regardless, he said, the agent is not limited to any particular depth. It can be drilled into the soil and the whole treatment can take place underground.
A cormorant that fell victim to the oil spill. (photo by Menachem Zalutzki via Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection)
Man Oil Group has been cleaning up oil spills with superoxide in Siberia, Africa and in the Gulf States, and is now looking at the soil in the Arava. The areas that it cleaned in Siberia were larger than that of the Arava spill, and the company has also conducted a successful test cleaning a stretch of a Swiss railway track. The track base, which is comprised of limestone, was restored to its white state, eliminating years of oil drips that were becoming an environmental problem, killing everything around it. Man Oil also conducted a test on the Arava spill site, with positive results.
According to Sasson, oil-caused damage is a worldwide problem that is very serious. But he is focused on cleaning up other contaminated areas as well, one of which is the result of military industries that have left organic pollution underground in Jerusalem.
“This particular case involves mainly those from a group of materials called ‘organic chlorine compounds,’” said Sasson. “These types of compounds, nature doesn’t recognize, and they are polluting underground water. It’s really a disaster.
“When we started, we worked on the destruction of these materials. This was very successful. But, we noticed it takes a lot of time with the authorities to get permission. It takes many years to start such a cleanup. Meanwhile, the oil cleanup is faster and is needed in many more places.”
Another application focus for Sasson is sewage sludge, a by-product of bacteria used to digest sewage waste being disposed of into the environment, causing contamination.
“You feed bacteria your waste,” said Sasson. “They convert the waste into CO2 and water again but, at the same time, they are growing. And, normally, for one kilogram of waste, you will build up a weight of about 450 grams of bacteria (about 50 percent) and then you create a new waste. So, instead of having one kilogram of waste, now you have half a kilogram. But you’re still stuck with it, because there’s nothing to do with the bacteria. So, what we are trying to do is really decompose this waste using our agent. So far, initial experiments show it is working but, of course, we have to substantiate it and develop it into larger scale.”
At press time, Sasson was still waiting to hear from the Ministry of the Environment if the process they developed will be chosen to clean up the Arava spill.
***
The Evrona Nature Reserve rehabilitation team began its work on Jan. 12, 2015, with a meeting headed by Deputy Environmental Protection Minister Ofir Akunis. Air quality tests found that there has been a 90 percent reduction of pollution in Evrona, one of the sites most harmed by the December 2014 oil spill in Israel’s southern Arava region. Some 30 companies are now vying to be selected to decontaminate the soil that was contaminated by the oil spill. The reserve, noted Akunis, will open once there is no fear that the health of visitors could be affected. The hope is that this will be in the near future.
– Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection (sviva.gov.il)
