Grapevine, May 21, 2026: New face on the diplomatic circuit

Every new ambassador who comes to represent their country is a new face, but it is only the ambassador who is new, not the country they represent.

Diplomatic relations between Israel and Somaliland were established in December last year, with a very speedy follow-up.

Hagi wrote in the president’s guest book, “This will pave the way to a great and everlasting relationship between Israel and Somaliland.”

At the King David Hotel, he and other new ambassadors, Park In-ho of Korea, Papal Nuncio Giorgio Lingua, Neil Hawkins of Australia, and Nguyen Ky Son of Vietnam, were greeted by the hotel’s general manager, Matan Lerner.

Lerner will see more of them as new ambassadors continue to arrive, or high-ranking figures from their respective countries come to Israel on official visits.

Most visiting heads of state and government stay at the King David Hotel because it is reputed to have the highest security standards.

Steinberger began his address by referring to the hesitancy of the founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, about taking Jerusalem in the War of Independence and making it Israel’s capital.

But Palmach commander Yigal Allon, who was later a general in the Israel Defense Forces, told Ben-Gurion that if he wanted to see his dream of the ingathering of the exiles become a reality, he had to make Jerusalem accessible to Jews from around the world.

Allon pointed out that for centuries, Jews had prayed to be “Next year in Jerusalem.” For Jews everywhere, Jerusalem was the focal point of the Holy Land.

Steinberger then turned to Biblical Jerusalem and, quoting from the Book of Judges, said that corruption and anarchy reigned in much the same way as today. The introduction of a new order is revealed in the Book of Samuel with the anointing of David as king.

After the Book of Samuel came the Book of Kings, which presents approximately 400 years of history in which the kings who succeeded David, who had unified all the tribes, successively ruined King David’s good work.

Steinberger will be back at Hazvi Yisrael as one of the Shavuot Hebrew speakers. He will be speaking at 1 a.m. The first speaker for the evening will be former Ashkenazi chief rabbi David Lau, who will address congregants at 11 p.m.

At his Saturday lecture, Steinberger also referred to the Mishkan, the tabernacle which the children of Israel carried through their wanderings in the desert.

Mishkan, which actually means dwelling place, is an acronym for melachim (kings), shoftim (judges), kohanim (priests), and nevi’im (prophets). According to Steinberger, Moses embodied all four.

As the leader of all the tribes of Israel, he was a king. As the leader, he also judged the people; and as the brother of Aaron, who was of the priestly tribe, Moses was also a priest. His gift for prophecy came straight from God.

Although there is still a wide gap between the salaries of males and females doing the same job, women have entered almost every field that was once a male domain, so one wonders if there is still a need for feminist campaigns, other than in the salary sphere, or to prevent the cancellation of combat roles for women in the IDF.

For all that, some women’s organizations and businesses feel the need to recognize women who have done groundbreaking work in their professions or who have distinguished themselves in other ways.

On Sunday of this week, Prof. Miriam Adelson, the publisher of Israel Hayom and a physician by profession, honored seven women with significant achievements to their credit.

Adelson, who is a specialist in treating drug and alcohol addiction, is quite a ground-breaker herself.

The women whom she honored at a gala event were: Irina Nevzlin, the chair of the board of directors of ANU – Museum of the Jewish People, and Yasmin Lukatz (Adelson’s daughter), the founder and executive director of ICON Israel, a high-tech collaborative network that supports Israeli start-ups.

Other honorees included Ofra Strauss, the head of the Strauss Group, and a social welfare activist, Dr. Keren Netzer, head of the R&D administrative board within the Future Education network; Dr. Yaffa Ashur, the director of Joseftal Hospital and the Eilat region’s Clalit Health Centers; Orit Barkhorder, the senior deputy CEO Bazan Oil Refineries; and Liron Doron Levi, the CEO of the Federation of Local Authorities.

On the other hand, co-ed combat units have been a thorn in the side of Orthodox Zionists, who approve of and even encourage the males in their midst to serve in the IDF, but are unhappy about the female soldiers.

But instead of campaigning against the females, whose experiences have taught them that it could well be a losing battle, they are using another tactic.

In a petition signed by 15 rabbis, including Rabbi Yehoshua Magnes of Mercaz Harav and several heads of Hesder Yeshivot, they appealed to religious soldiers who are mindful of the Halacha (guiding principles of Judaism), not to serve in co-ed units, particularly combat units, and to refuse orders to serve together with female soldiers.

Interviewed last week on KAN Reshet Bet about how the Eurovision Song Contest has changed over the years, prolific composer Kobi Oshrat, who composed “Hallelujah,” the winning song which was sung by Gali Atari in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, and who has also written other songs for Eurovision, said, “It used to be 80% song and 20% reality. Now it’s 80% reality and 20% song.”

In another interview on the same radio station, Moshe Datz, who, with his ex-wife Orna, represented Israel in 1991, said that the situation has become bizarre. With regard to the anti-Israel demonstrations, he said they were always there but never as intense as they have become.

Television viewers who are not old enough to remember should explore the Eurovision archives to the time when lyrics could be clearly heard over the music, and when the backup was truly musical and relatively simple.

These days, the backup is a show in itself and sometimes is more of an attention-getter than the singer and the song.

In several of this year’s entries, the lyrics were not overwhelmed by the music or the backing. Perhaps next year, all the stars will be allowed to shine without pyrotechnics and other gimmickry.

Almost exactly a year ago, the Council of Europe appointed French diplomat Christophe Bigot as the new EU Special Representative (EUSR) for the Middle East Peace Process.

Bigot, a former French ambassador to Israel between 2009 and 2013, during his stay in Israel, used to look forward to the special Rosh Hashanah reception for diplomats that the president of the state hosted.

The French envoy has a particular fondness for apples dipped in honey, which, somehow, were more pleasing to the palate on the eve of the Jewish New Year than at any other time.

Bigot was in Jerusalem this week to participate in the peace conference hosted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace on Hebrew University’s campus.

Bigot’s mandate, according to the Council of Europe, was “to contribute to the EU objective of having a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East on the basis of a two-state solution.”

It added that this would be with Israel and a democratic, contiguous, viable, peaceful, and sovereign Palestinian state living side by side within secure and recognized borders, enjoying normal relations with their neighbors in accordance with the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

The documented tasks of the new EUSR will be, among others, “To facilitate and maintain close contacts with all the parties to the peace process, in particular Israel and the Palestinian Authority, relevant political actors and countries of the region, and other relevant countries, as well as the UN and other relevant international organizations.”

“He will work with them closely in strengthening the peace process,” it added.