Tag: Israel

Ring to fund students

Olga Ornstein, the mother of Frank Ornstein. Frank gave his friend, George Szasz, his mother’s ring, which George is hoping to sell to fund a scholarship in the Ornstein family’s name. (photo from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver)

Last summer, community member George Szasz approached the Jewish Community Foundation, hoping to establish a scholarship endowment fund to honour a dear friend’s memory. The friend, Frank Ornstein, z”l, survived the Holocaust and eventually immigrated to Vancouver. With no children or living family members to speak of, Frank bequeathed a family ring saved from the Holocaust to George, which George is hoping to sell to fund a scholarship in the Ornstein family’s name.

Lipot and Olga Ornstein, both of blessed memory, were an affluent couple in the Hungarian city of Szeged and doted on their only son, Frank. Born in 1924, Frank grew from a skilled boy scout to a star athlete with a wide range of friends. They lived peacefully with their non-Jewish neighbours, and Frank began dating a non-Jewish girl.

Even as anti-Jewish sentiment grew around them, the city’s residents lived amiably together. It was a shock when laws mandated division by 1943. Jews, including the Ornsteins, were evicted from their homes, stripped of their property and segregated in ghettos. As a fit 19-year-old, Frank was sent away to a labour camp. Lipot and Olga were forced onto an overcrowded cattle car without food or water for a three-day journey to a concentration camp in Austria.

Life in the camp was grim. Lipot and Olga wrote Frank postcards, holding onto hope that, after the war, the family would be reunited and return to their life in Szeged. In March 1945, the camp buzzed with news that Russian soldiers were near and the captives desperately hoped for liberation. The day before the soldiers arrived, however, German guards marched the camp’s prisoners, including Lipot and Olga, to a local gym and blew them up.

Frank was liberated from the labour camp and, in late 1945, returned to Szeged, sick but alive. There, he found out that his parents, and most of the city’s Jewish residents, would never return. Frank’s girlfriend’s family had secretly stored some of his parents’ valuables, including his mother’s diamond ring, and returned them to him: memories of a life that had vanished.

Realizing life in Szeged would never be the same, Frank took his few possessions and family mementoes and immigrated to Israel. In Israel, he trained as an airplane mechanic and found both a love and an affinity for the trade. He worked for Israel’s El Al Airlines and immigrated to Vancouver in the late 1950s, as a chief mechanic for Canadian Pacific Airlines and, later, Air Canada.

After Frank’s death in 2006, George was bequeathed the Ornstein family’s mementoes. Frank’s life was marked by trials and resilience, and George is determined to honour the Ornstein family’s history and heritage. Of the Ornstein family keepsakes, Frank’s mother’s ring is of particular value, appraised at between $30,000 and $50,000, and George is determined to sell the ring to establish a yearly scholarship for deserving Israeli students studying Frank’s life passion: airplane mechanics.

If you are interested in assisting George to create the Ornstein family legacy, contact Marcie Flom, director of the Jewish Community Foundation, at mflom@jewishvancouver.com.

This article was originally published by Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver in e-Yachad and is reprinted with permission.

Who owns the past?

Left to right: Mitchell Gropper, QC; Prof. Guy Pessach, Hebrew University; Prof. Catherine Dauvergne, dean of the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia; and Randy Milner, Vancouver chapter president, Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University. (photo from Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Vancouver)

What happens to the archival materials of a Jewish community when that community no longer has the capacity to maintain itself can be complicated and messy. A 2013 Supreme Court decision in Israel provided a solution but also raised important questions about identity, collective memory and the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora.

On March 17, Prof. Guy Pessach of Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented a lecture as part of the Mitchell H. Gropper, QC, Law Faculty Exchange Program. An initiative of Hebrew U and University of British Columbia, the program’s UBC webpage notes that, since the program began in 2010, each law faculty “has hosted three visiting professors from the other university.”

Pessach’s topic was Who Owns the Past? – Law, the Politics of Memory and the Israeli Supreme Court. He discussed two cases but focused primarily on a lawsuit involving the Vienna Jewish community and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, which is in Jerusalem. He said decisions made by the Israeli Supreme Court reflected a propensity for Israel to regard itself as the international arbiter of Jewish cultural property and collective memory.

According to Pessach, Vienna was the second-largest Jewish community in Europe in the early 20th century. The nearly 200,000 Jews in the 1930s were reduced to fewer than 9,000 after the Holocaust. In the early days of Israel’s statehood, the Central Archives actively collected materials from Jewish communities in Europe to safeguard the rich Jewish history of these disappeared communities.

Although the Viennese community continues to decline in population, he said, in the 21st century, it sufficiently reorganized to request the return of its archival materials from the Central Archives. When the archives refused, claiming that the material was given on “indefinite loan,” Vienna’s Jews launched a lawsuit.

According to a January 2013 article in Haaretz, “The collection includes thousands of papers stored in 200 containers, documenting 300 years of the Vienna community from the 17th century up to 1945. After the Holocaust, community leaders decided to transfer the archive to Jerusalem, fearing it would not be stored properly in Vienna, and they continued to add documents to the collection. Yet the Viennese community insists it sent the documents – in four shipments in 1952, 1966, 1971 and 1978 – with the explicit agreement, time after time, that the documents were only on loan and remained the property of the community.”

Vienna lost its case. At the time, Israeli state archivist Yaacov Lozowick, stated, according to Haaretz, that “the depositors felt they were strengthening the cultural importance of the young state of Israel as the centre of the Jewish people; they were proud about their contribution; and they had no intention of the collection ever returning.”

In the case, said Pessach, Israel asserted its place in the Jewish world as protector of Jewish identity and history. He explained the ins and outs of the court’s decision and discussed the issues of cultural property law and restitution. He said restitution is not just the physical return of culturally and historically significant items but also symbolic justice for a community. He noted that similar situations continue to play out in Jewish communities, in the form of art stolen by the Nazis, and that Canadian First Nations and many other groups are also currently seeking restitution for cultural property stolen during colonial times.

For more information on the Mitchell H. Gropper, QC, Law Faculty Exchange Program, call the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University office at 604-257-5133 or email vanc@cfhu.org.

U.S.-Israel relations in Norman

Richard Gere, left, as Norman Oppenheimer and Lior Ashkenazi as Micha Eshel. In the unlikely confines of an upscale shoe store, the two characters forge a connection that will have profound ramifications. (photo by Niko Tavernise, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

The marvelous tragicomedy Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer depicts an aging, desperate Jewish influence peddler who has survived in a shark-eat-minnow world via a smooth patter that blends alleged connections with half-promises.

Through manipulation, charm and luck, Norman (a poignant Richard Gere) devises a rendezvous with a minor Israeli deputy minister (Lior Ashkenazi) at loose ends in the Big Apple. In the unlikely confines of an upscale shoe store, they forge a connection that will have profound ramifications for both men – for better and for worse.

The film, which opens today, April 28, marks the first movie that acclaimed writer-director Joseph Cedar has shot in his birthplace. Cedar grew up in Israel from the age of 6, returned to New York to earn his degree in film at New York University and established himself as one of Israel’s finest filmmakers with Time of Favour, Campfire and a pair of Academy Award nominees for best foreign language film, Beaufort and Footnote.

The soft-spoken Cedar allows that he’s exceptionally familiar with both sides of the complicated dynamic between Israel and American Jews.

“It’s a messy relationship, which, from my point of view, justifies the film,” he said. “There’s something fascinating about what Israelis think of Americans and what they expect from Americans, and how Americans view Israel, how they view Israelis and what Israel is for their identity. All these things are a big part of my conversations, so the movie allowed me to touch some of the things that are vital to my life.”

Cedar has a simple explanation for some of the curious behaviour that takes place at high-level meetings between the countries, illustrated by a scene where Ashkenazi’s character, Micha Eshel, now a figure of greater importance, lectures a U.S. diplomat visiting his Washington, D.C., hotel suite.

“One of the things that will explain so many of the encounters between Israelis and American politicians is that every time they show up they’re in jet lag,” Cedar said. “Especially around AIPAC, Israelis come to America, they’re treated like they’re Caesar and they’re a little off-balance because their time zone is all messed up. And they still have to be awake for Israeli things, so they’re sleep-deprived.”

Some viewers may presume a key plot twist in Norman was inspired by the gifts that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu allegedly received from Arnon Milchan, but Cedar finished shooting the film before the news broke.

“That relationship, of an American Jew gifting an Israeli politician, that’s not something new and it’s not something Bibi invented, and it’s not going to go away…. This is the nucleus of what the relationship is about: Americans gift Israelis,” Cedar said. “I’m trying to understand it; I’m not introducing it. Everyone knows that that’s what it is.”

The encounter between Norman and Micha in the shoe store – on which the movie turns – is Cedar’s inspired way of conveying the complicated personal and moral aspects of any transaction between Americans and Israelis.

“All the meetings between Norman and Eshel helped me understand this relationship, and helped me understand this on an individual, human level, not on a geopolitical or policy side,” Cedar explained.

Cedar also viewed Norman’s character and fate through another prism, that of the so-called “court Jews” of past eras.

“There’s a set of characteristics of that personality that I’m attracted to,” he said. “I identify with the need to get into a close circle of power, and then the tragedy of being ultimately kicked out because you have no substance on your own. You have no safety net, no one is there to protect you, you don’t have an interest that someone else needs to protect.”

Cedar injects notes of levity and absurdity into Norman’s saga, which stem from the director’s appreciation for the long tradition in movies of characters looking bad for our amusement.

“Norman is a little less naïve and he is not as pure as [Charlie Chaplin’s] Tramp, but it’s the same kind of situations – of pushing yourself into places where you’re not invited and being kicked out,” he said.

“Cohen’s Advertising Scheme and Cohen’s Fire Sale, part of a series of [short] films from 1902 to 1907, take place in a shop or right outside the shop’s window, and [involve] a merchant trying to cheat someone and ultimately being the victim of his own scheme.”

Cedar acknowledged that some contemporary viewers will see something offensive in the Cohen films.

“Putting it in the context of the image of the Jew in cinema, these are crazy portrayals of Jews,” Cedar said. “They’re grotesque. But it’s just a form of comedy. In the ’30s, if you put that kind of character on the screen, there’s an agenda behind it. In the very beginning, I think it was just funny.”

Gere is not an actor one associates with embarrassment and pratfalls, but he is extremely effective here playing a man trying to retain his dignity amid impending disaster.

“There’s something about Norman that I thought might connect to this primal need of moviegoers to see someone make a fool out of himself, to humiliate himself more than most people are willing to humiliate themselves,” Cedar said. “It’s a form of entertainment that I enjoy.”

There’s another basic element of Norman’s character that Cedar shares, however.

“It’s being essential to something,” he said. “Norman feels if he’s not essential to other people’s projects, then he has no existence. So, his whole motive is, ‘How do I become essential to others? How do I create a situation where people are dependent on me?’ I identify with that because I have that. It’s part of me.”

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Israel at 69 – “love forever”

Jews all over the world celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day – even those who have no intention of ever making aliyah and many of whom have never even visited Israel.

“It’s a kind of insurance policy,” one overseas friend told me. “By supporting Israel financially and emotionally, I know that its sanctuary is available to me or my children or grandchildren should the need ever arise.”

I find this kind of thinking very sad, because Israel is so much more than a refuge for persecuted Jews. Not every immigrant who has built a life here was escaping from the horror of the Holocaust, the tyranny behind the Iron Curtain or the cruelty of life in an Arab country. Many of us – the ones Israelis refer to as “Anglo-Saxim” – lowered their standard of living significantly when they settled in Israel, yet found something here that enhanced our quality of life even as we struggled with inflation, mortgages and trying to make miniscule salaries stretch to the end of the month.

We have found here a family – our own people. Of course, just like any family, we fight – about religion, politics, the settlements. The fights can be very bitter yet, at bottom, we care about each other and bond together when we face a common problem or enemy. We celebrate together and sometimes even have to grieve together. Basically, when the going gets rough, we are on the same side. We express our identity as Jews in different ways, but it is the same identity.

We have found here a beautiful country, unique in the variety of its scenery and climate. Mediterranean beaches banded by azure and indigo water and white sands, coral reefs, dense forests, wooded mountains, deserts and rivers and waterfalls, the shimmering mirrored glass of the Dead Sea, fields carpeted with wildflowers – and Jerusalem, the priceless jewel.

Some of us have found here a spirituality that we would never have been able to achieve abroad. Anyone who has been in Israel on Yom Kippur, when the whole country comes to a standstill for the day, cannot doubt the kedushah, the holiness of Eretz Israel. It is intangible, yet it is an undeniable presence.

We have found here a pride in the remarkable achievements of our relatively smaller and less-developed nation. We teach agriculture to the world, and come to other people’s rescue in times of natural or human-made disasters. We are rich in poets, writers, musicians, actors and artists. We can boast industrial and high-tech entrepreneurs and brilliant scientists. When any new Israeli invention captures the world’s imagination, somehow we all bask in the reflected glory.

Israelis have always been compared to the sabra, the cactus with the thorny exterior but the soft heart. We celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut in many ways: campfires and singing, picnics, a Bible quiz, concerts, music and dancing in the streets. We spend the day with family and friends and relish every moment of it. But it is more than just enjoyment.

On every building and on almost every balcony flies the Israeli flag, its blue stripes and Magen David bright against the white background. For days beforehand and a week afterwards, the flag flies from every car on the road. Ceremonies open with the singing of Hatikvah, The Hope, Israel’s national anthem. Most of us sing it standing straight and proud, and often with tears in our eyes as we remember the broken people who found a safe haven here, and those who never managed to reach its shores and died with the dream of Zion in their hearts. And we also remember the brave men and women who gave their lives in all of Israel’s wars and in the pre-state days, the fighters and pioneers who fashioned this wonderful land that we have inherited.

Shin Shalom, one of Israel’s greatest poets, expressed it for all of us in “Mother Jerusalem Singing,” which he wrote a day after the Yom Kippur War in 1973: “Love forever, glow forever / cherish, yearn, preserve the kernel / of an everlasting nation, of a heritage eternal.”

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at dwaysman@gmail.com or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

Dialogue needed

Robert Singer, chief executive officer of World Jewish Congress, addressed more than 100 Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver donors at an event hosted by Gary Averbach and sponsored by Garry Zlotnik of ZLC Financial. (photo from WJC)

The professional head of World Jewish Congress says Diaspora Jews and Israelis are too wrapped up in their own worlds and need to strengthen the dialogue between the two components of the global Jewish community.

Speaking to the Independent during his first-ever visit to Vancouver, Robert Singer said relations remain strong in terms of Diaspora support for Israeli organizations. Programs like Birthright, through which young Jews experience Israel, and Masa, which offers young adults gap-year, study-abroad and other opportunities, also enhance connections. But there must be more person-to-person contacts like these, he said, which foster real conversations across the divide.

“I’m not sure that both sides are talking,” said Singer. “I think both sides are busy with their own stuff. Israelis are busy with stuff in Israel and Diaspora Jews are today busy with their survival, in many cases, both financial and community survival.”

World Jewish Congress is an organization that can facilitate dialogue, he added.

WJC was founded in Geneva in 1936 and now represents Jews in 100 countries, focusing on issues including protecting the memory of the Holocaust, advocating for the recognition of the experiences of Jews from Arab lands, combating antisemitism and encouraging interfaith dialogue. The Congress is headed by Ronald Lauder, president of the executive committee. Singer, who has been the chief executive officer of WJC since 2013, previously served 14 years as the director general and CEO of World ORT, one of the largest nongovernmental education and training providers in the world. Singer was born in Ukraine and made aliyah at age 15.

While in Vancouver, Singer met with rabbis, representatives of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and other communal organizations. He also met with Russian-speaking members of the community and said he was impressed with Vancouver’s flourishing Jewish life. He acknowledged that British Columbia’s Jewish community faces challenges common to many similar-sized communities.

“The main thing that struck me is the issue of assimilation and how to deal with this,” he said. “Being more inclusive, bringing more people of non-Jewish faith into the community, issues of education, issues of fighting BDS and antisemitism on campuses, and issues of relations between Israel and the Diaspora.”

Interviewed days after many young Jews blockaded the AIPAC conference in Washington, D.C., Singer rejected the idea that younger Jews are alienated from Zionism.

“It’s very different,” Singer said of the way young Jews relate to Israel. Previous generations, he said, were Holocaust survivors or their descendants who knew a world without Israel. “For somebody who is now 20 years old, all this is now either history or they just don’t remember the situation where there was a world without a Jewish state.” This generation cannot be expected to have the same visceral connection to Zionism, he said. “I think it’s just a different approach. Different technologies, different approach.”

He compared the suggestion of declining Zionism with the situation among young Israelis.

“In Israel all the time they say that the previous generation was much more patriotic,” he said. Yet, when young people are conscripted into the Israel Defence Forces today, more – not fewer – are requesting assignment to the most difficult combat and elite units, he said.

“It shows that this generation of young Israelis is at least as good as the people before them and I think it’s the same in the Diaspora,” Singer said, citing the Jewish Diplomatic Corps, a WJC program of about 200 young adults from 43 countries, including international lawyers, businesspeople, parliamentarians, professors and others who meet with government leaders and international agencies.

“They are outstanding young people,” said Singer. “I’m sure that, on an intellectual, Jewish and pro-Zionist level, they are at least as good as the leadership of the people who went before.”

On external threats, Singer said it is too soon to make a determination about long-range impacts of contemporary antisemitism. A new WJC study indicates an antisemitic comment is posted to social media every 82 seconds.

“It’s very bad,” he said. But, he added, it may be less a matter of growing antisemitism than attitudes that were already there merely finding expression.

The situation in Europe is concerning, he said. Antisemitic and neo-Nazi parties are seeing unprecedented public support in France, Germany, Hungary and Greece. “This is a real danger,” Singer said.

On the impacts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies, Singer said it is too soon to judge. He is impressed, however, that Trump’s appointee as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has adopted a very different approach from her recent predecessors.

While the United Nations General Assembly is a wasteland at present, Singer said, Canada and the United States should remain active there, “because there is a stage there and you can have some influence.”

Of the new Canadian government, Singer said he is pleased that relations between Israel and Canada remain close and that this is something that transcends politics.

UBC votes no to BDS

Votes were tallied late Friday, April 7, for the referendum on the University of British Columbia campus, wherein students were asked if they supported their union in a BDS campaign – and the answer was no. The “no” vote numbered 1,513 while 1,396 students voted “yes” to “boycotting products and divesting from companies that support Israeli war crimes, illegal occupation and the oppression of Palestinians.”

It was the second time in two years that a BDS referendum on campus was defeated and Rabbi Philip Bregman, executive director of Hillel BC, said he was thrilled. “In all honesty, this referendum is nothing more than a call for the elimination of the state of Israel,” he noted. “We had students from all over the university, Jewish and non-Jewish, join in the fight against this, and what’s important is that this was a clearly made statement.”

Bregman said the “yes” side had started out with 1,000 votes in their pocket because they had needed 1,000 signatures to make the referendum possible in the first place. “In the final analysis, they didn’t have enough votes, and they didn’t make quorum because only 5.5% of the students voted. In order for the referendum to pass, they needed votes from eight percent of the student body, over 4,300 votes in their favour, and they had to beat the ‘no’ side,” he explained. “They got neither.”

Stephen Gaerber, board chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, praised the work of Hillel BC, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and StandWithUs Canada. “Kol hakavod to the students and student leaders who worked so hard to make the truth evident to the student body and achieve this positive outcome,” he said in a press release issued April 9. “Their efforts were instrumental in helping maintain a welcoming and inclusive campus environment for everyone.”

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net. This article was originally published by CJN.

A guide for the perplexed

David Brog’s latest book was written for students looking to know more about Israel. (photo from David Brog)

During the Oslo Process of the 1990s, David Brog was quite optimistic about peace in Israel. Now, in light of a generation’s worth of Palestinian terrorist incitement and attacks, his opinion has changed.

However, what the scholar and author is optimistic about is that a better educated public on Israel issues will garner increased support for the Jewish state.

For the past 12 years, Brog has been involved in pro-Israel advocacy, including heading the group Maccabee Task Force, which combats boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activities on college campuses. He is also executive director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an American pro-Israel organization. In March, he released Reclaiming Israel’s History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace, a book he says was in response to scores of students desperately seeking a single volume of facts about what’s been happening in Israel.

“When they get to college, they’re told terrible lies about Israel. They’re told Israel is an occupier, an obstacle to peace, a human rights abuser. And, not knowing better, they believe it,” he told the Independent. “The book really summarizes what I think are the most important things to know about Israel’s history if you were someone who wants to defend Israel.”

book cover - Reclaiming Israel’s HistoryContrary to various public relations efforts, he believes that the primary language to do the convincing is evidence-based dialogue, rather than touting Israel’s material successes.

“I think the way to confront the big lie is not just to talk about how wonderful Tel Aviv nightlife is, and not just to talk about how amazing Israeli start-ups are. I do think we have to dirty our hands and talk about the conflict, and the history of conflict,” he explained.

That means understanding why the peace process seems to perennially stall, or often move backwards.

“If you freeze the frame today, the way almost everyone does, people think that the Israelis are ‘occupying’ the West Bank, and it’s best to pressure them to leave, to make way for two states, and then there’ll be peace,” he said. “But whatever you see, you have to know that what’s happening is not the product of Israeli intransigence or Israeli unwillingness to compromise. It’s the product of this Palestinian rejectionism that has driven the conflict from day one.”

Since Israel’s birth, in fact, there have been five offers of a Palestinian state, each time flatly refused, he said. But it wasn’t simply that the proposals were rebuffed – it was that Israel didn’t have a peace partner to begin with.

“We saw danger signs along the way – almost from day one. We saw [Yasser] Arafat saying one thing in English and a very different, troubling thing in Arabic. We saw Arafat turning a blind eye to terror against Israelis – not try to stop it. And, later, we saw him competing with Hamas to see who could blow up more Israelis,” Brog explained. “There was the Second Intifada. I think that changed me, and it changed [then-prime minister Ehud] Barak, and it changed a lot of Israelis.”

As for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Brog noted: “He doesn’t educate his people toward peace and coexistence. He doesn’t educate his people toward the validity of Jewish claims. Instead, he incites to terror and he generously funds terror.… It’s got to call into question [whether] they would actually ever recognize Israel, end the conflict and not use any land they are giving as a base from which to attack Israel.”

Given the situation, Brog – once a “great supporter of a two-state solution” – said, “I don’t see how these compromises would actually produce peace.”

Still, there’s endless opportunity for lay leaders to learn more about Israel. He is hopeful that his book will enlighten those who are either ignorant or misinformed, resulting in fewer fallacies being spread.

“Most people are not anti-Israel because of the reality,” he said. “They’re anti-Israel because of a myth, because of a distortion, because of a lie. And, therefore, if we tell Israel’s truth, and we tell it repeatedly, and we tell it proudly, and we dispel the myths, I think we can make enormous progress.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.

Being a woman in the IDF

From left to right, Staff Sgt. Maya, Sgt. Noam and Brigadier General (Res.) Gila Klifi-Amir at a Friends of the Israel Defence Forces program April 3 in New York City. (photo by Shiryn Ghermezian)

Israel’s female soldiers seem to break barriers on a consistent basis. In January, new figures revealed that the number of women serving in combat roles in the Israel Defence Forces’ Homefront Command is up 38% this year. Last month, the IDF launched a pilot program in which women will be trained as tank operators for the first time.

Indeed, the Jewish state takes pride in being an oasis for gender equality in a Mideast region largely bereft of women’s rights, and this attitude extends to Israel’s military. At the same time, for a nation facing ever-present security threats both internally and on its borders, gender equality has its limits.

“The mission of the army is to protect and win. We need to understand that the mission of the army is not equal opportunity,” Brigadier General (Res.) Gila Klifi-Amir, who has had a 30-year career with the IDF and served as an adviser on women’s issues to the military’s chief of staff, said April 3 in New York City.

Klifi-Amir moderated a discussion with three female Israeli soldiers – Sgt. Noam, Staff Sgt. Maya and Staff Sgt. Y, whose full names were withheld for security reasons – in a program hosted by the Young Leadership Division of Friends of the Israel Defence Forces, a nonprofit whose mission is “to provide for education and well-being” of IDF soldiers.

The soldiers on the panel all told JNS.org they have never felt discrimination for being a woman in the military, and that their male counterparts treat them with respect. Y described the interactions as “very, very professional,” and Maya – who commands an infirmary at her battalion’s headquarters – explained, “We train with the guys, we do everything like them. Inside the unit, everything is the same.”

Israel is the world’s only country where military service is obligatory for women. From ages 18-26, women must serve two years in the military – with some exceptions, such as if they are pregnant. Today, 95% of the IDF’s positions are available to women, according to Klifi-Amir.

Yet “equal opportunity” does not exist in the purest sense, the soldiers said. Klifi-Amir told the crowd she does not believe all military positions should be open for women, depending on the mission. The physical training required for some military roles may be too grueling for a woman’s body, and the IDF is responsible for the life of each soldier, she said.

 

Read more at jns.org.

Failure is a possibility

Israeli culture does not encourage failure; rather, it is somehow more tolerant and accepting of it. (photo from Shutterstock.com via Israel21c)

When was the last time you admitted you failed? Have you ever felt comfortable talking about your failures? How often do you use the word “failure” in daily life? How does even thinking about failing make you feel?

Legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”

This reminds me of a cult TV show that I used to watch growing up in Israel, Zehu-Ze (That’s It). It had a character by the name of Yatzek, who discovered interesting places all over Israel and the kids watching the show had to guess where he was.

At the end of each episode, Yatzek would fall in a different way: from a tree, into the river, from the back of a horse, and even into cow manure. Naturally, the kids who were watching would be concerned. To reassure them, he always said, “Kids, no need to worry: Yatzek always falls and gets back up.” An entire generation of Israeli kids grew up with this strong message on a weekly basis.

I believe our culture has a very strong influence on our failures and, mostly, on our attitude toward these failures.

In late 2006, I joined the founding team of Modu. Modu was founded by serial entrepreneur Dov Moran, who previously led M-Systems to one of the biggest mergers and acquisitions in the history of Israeli high-tech. In a very short time, Modu raised more than $120 million, recruited more than 200 employees in Israel and abroad, opened a few subsidiaries around the world, and developed and manufactured two consumer products. All elements for success were present and yet, only three years after its inception, the company closed its doors.

But many Modu employees decided to start their own start-ups, including me. Out of this one big failure, dozens of new business ventures were initiated. How could it be that people who were part of such a huge investment in time, energy, resources and sacrifices were not discouraged after being part of a failed start-up? Rather, they decided to invest more energy, take more risks and start ventures of their own. This is a bold move, since statistically 90% of start-ups fail and the 10% of start-ups that make it are likely to fall apart along the way.

What is it that drives people to try despite the risk of failure? Is it possible that people’s level of comfort with failure is somehow related to their culture, as demonstrated by Yatzek, the crazy character that kept falling and getting up?

The Oxford Dictionary defines failure as “lack of success.” You have either succeeded or failed. It’s a binary game. On the other hand, if you look at the definition of failure in Hebrew, it is much more fluid: “someone that tripped, made an error, did not succeed.” Our language is a mirror of our culture. Informal messaging plays a major role in the values we learn from a very young age.

In Hebrew, adolescence or teenage years are referred to as “the foolish age.” At this age, people tend to act without thinking, resulting in many failures. Therefore, the terminology only reflects their inherent nature. When society regards them as such, as evident in Israel, it gives young people the chance to follow their natural way and experience what might be regarded as foolish – before they become young adults.

Even the Israeli military seems more tolerant of failures relative to other military organizations worldwide. The Air Force Academy teaches how to cope with failures as an essential part of regular conduct drills. After every single flight, the crew gathers in the “investigation room” and the pilot debriefs on what was successful and what was not, in front of a squadron of 40 fighters. The focus is on learning from mistakes and not to make the same mistake twice.

Israeli culture does not encourage failure; rather, it is somehow more tolerant of it and accepts it in such a way that we keep getting back up, trying, moving forward and advancing.

On a personal and professional level, I admit, I fail at least once a day. From this, I’ve learned that one of the things that really makes me happy is that my children are growing up in Israel, where we have the unique ability, as a culture, to look at any event head-on, success or failure, and discuss and learn from it.

I wish all of us could give our kids the understanding that the process is sometimes more important than the outcome, that failures are part of life and that what really matters is how you pick yourself up.

Don’t be afraid to fall. Let your kids fail, too. Just make sure to teach them to get up and never stop trying.

Inbal Arieli was a lieutenant in the elite Israel Defence Forces intelligence 8200 unit and later took leading roles in the Israeli high-tech sector. She is a senior advisor to Start-Up Nation Central and is currently co-chief executive officer of Synthesis. Featured as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Israeli High-Tech,” Arieli is working on an exploration of how Israeli culture breeds entrepreneurs from a young age. 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.