There's a big difference in coming to a foreign country in an official capacity and returning ex officio. Angela Merkel, who served as chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, was in Israel this week to receive an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute, where she continues to be held in great esteem. During her long years as chancellor, she visited Israel eight times and met many senior Israeli officials, including four presidents and four prime ministers.
This was not her first honor from the Weizmann Institute. In 2021, during her farewell tour in Israel, it was announced that in 2022, she would be honored with the Angela Merkel Postdoctoral Fellowship for Outstanding Women Scientists in Chemical Physics. Before entering politics, Merkel was a highly respected scientist, and during her political career, she earnestly promoted the study of science. She has also received honorary doctorates from Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University. In 2014, president Shimon Peres named her as a recipient of the Medal of Distinction in recognition of her immeasurable contribution to the strengthening of German-Israel relations. Her gift for diplomacy has been mentioned in all the awards she has received in Israel.
The most familiar face she encountered during her most recent visit was that of German Ambassador Steffen Seibert, who, during Merkel’s tenure, served for more than a decade as government spokesman, and who was well acquainted with Israel when he came as his country’s ambassador. Seibert accompanied Merkel for the major part of her recent visit.
In the years that she came to Israel as chancellor, she stayed at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which is the flagship hotel in the Dan chain. This time, she stayed in Tel Aviv, but remained loyal to Dan, and was greeted on arrival by hotel General Manager Ben Yanover. The Dan chain was founded almost a century ago by Yekutiel and Samuel Federmann, two brothers who migrated from Germany to what was then British Mandate-ruled Palestine.
Soldiers with special needs discover new skills
It's ironic that while able-bodied haredi (ultra-Orthodox) youth are shirking military service, young men and women with special needs are knocking themselves out to be permitted to serve in the uniform of the IDF. They are so eager to do anything that they are capable of in the army, that they sometimes find that they have skills and talents that never previously came to the fore. What this does for their self-esteem is nothing short of remarkable. Parents weep with joy and pride at the positive changes in their children. These soldiers with special needs are known as “Big in Uniform” or “Special in Uniform.” To be accepted for IDF service, they must have a sponsor who takes care of their financial and medical needs and remains in regular contact with them.
David Fattal, who operates Israel’s largest hotel chain, which collectively employs 350 people with special needs, decided to take his equal opportunity policy a step further by helping Asaf and Orel to realize their dream to join the IDF. They were inducted last week at a special ceremony in Fattal’s Tel Aviv office in the presence of their families; senior representatives of Fattal Holdings; Gabi Ofir and Rabbi Mendy Blanitzky, chairman and CEO of Lend A Hand to the Special Child, respectively; Ran Maman, Home Front deputy commander and commander-in-chief of Big in Uniform; along with others who were happy to to see that the two rookie soldiers had been accepted.
Orel’s mother, with tears trailing along her cheeks, said Orel is capable of learning and will be a good soldier, carrying out everything that he is asked to do. “Being in the IDF will change his whole life,” she said.
Fattal said that as soon as he met the two young men, he knew that they were capable of inspiring others. “In my eyes, they represent the spirit of Israel,” he said. “To see them standing in uniform was a moment of great pride. It is our duty not only to speak about equality, but to ensure that equality is a reality.”
With due respect and appreciation to US President Donald Trump for all that he has done for Israel, someone should remind him that although he is a global leader, he is not the leader of the globe. By the same token, while he has demonstrated that America is indeed Israel’s greatest ally, Israel is not the 51st state of the US, nor is it a US colony. When Trump, during his speech at the Knesset, asked President Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, many of those who heard him thought that he was being cute. If he didn’t know before, Trump certainly knew the rules of pardon in Israel when he reiterated that request in writing. Aside from that, a request made by a president of a state on behalf of someone who is not a citizen of his country, and is on trial in his own democratic country, is nothing short of interference. In local parlance, it’s plain chutzpah!!!
Herzog was very diplomatic and polite in his response, but that probably won’t stop Trump from yet again trying to persuade him. To give Netanyahu a pardon would not be in Israel’s best interests, because some sectors of the population would interpret this as also absolving him from accountability for the security debacle that led to the Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023.
Everyone knows that it is much easier to destroy than to rebuild. Defense Minister Israel Katz wants to scuttle Army Radio, which went on air five years before he was born. It is one of the pillars of the state. Yes, it needs a certain amount of revamping, but it should not be eliminated. It represents Israel, not Hamas. Katz has given it less than half a year of continued survival before he closes it down. There are legal obstacles to his succeeding in achieving that, but considering how many other rules have been broken, the threat still lingers.
It is unlikely that Katz will continue as defense minister after the Knesset elections, even if his party scores the highest number of votes, because prime ministers of Israel are dependent on coalition partners, and at this stage of the game, political surveys notwithstanding, no one can really predict the results. While heads of state can still issue pardons on their final day in office, ministers should not be permitted to do something destructive in their final year in office. Katz objects to the political reports on Army Radio, but as former commander-in-chief of Army Radio and former MK Nahman Shai pointed out in an interview on Reshet Bet, Army Radio reports on politics, but its reporters do not offer political opinions.
Therefore, there is no legitimate reason for getting rid of Army Radio.
The devil is in the detail – especially in politics. Whoever happens to be the image adviser to former prime minister Naftali Bennett has come up with a subtle means of implying that Bennett is a man you can trust (even though he doesn’t pay his political campaign debts). The personal invitation to join Bennett in an open discussion at Cinema City in Jerusalem on Wednesday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m. uses the concept of “open” to boost Bennett’s image. There is a large photograph of him with an open-neck shirt. His arms are partially stretched out, and his hands are curved with the widest possible spaces between the fingers. The invitation under the heading “Bennett 2026” indicates that he is definitely running for office. The invitation is for a conversation about unity, responsibility, and resilience, which, according to the invitation, are needed more than ever today.
Where the promotion of openness does not quite jive is when it comes to Bennett’s head. Instead of looking straight into the camera, he looks to the side and attempts to convey the impression that he is some kind of visionary. It doesn’t work.
There seems to be an endless variety of ways in Israel and abroad to memorialize individuals and events from October 7, 2023, to the present day, and such efforts will no doubt continue after the last of the remains of the hostages are returned to Israel. Several new organizations were formed in the immediate aftermath of October 7. One was Mantzichim, founded by real estate entrepreneur Yehuda Lanzkron.
Mantzichim, which restores and revives old Torah scrolls and rededicates them in the names of individuals or families, recently completed a series of the Five Books of Moses, which make up the Torah, and which are dedicated to the 818 soldiers who fell during the Swords of Iron war. A set of these special volumes has been presented to each of the families of a fallen soldier. Collecting information and finding quotes from the Torah that are suited to memorialize each soldier took more than a year, and the cost of publishing the hundreds of sets of volumes was NIS 1.5 million. Some 400 rabbis took part in the research, including Shlomo Aviner, Yaakov Shapira, and Micha Halevy.
The initial volumes arrived from the printers on the eve of Sukkot, and distribution began almost immediately, with numerous yeshiva students and other supporters of the project traveling far and wide to ensure that each of the bereaved families was given a set in memory of their fallen hero.
Additional volumes have been distributed to academic institutions, schools, and religious youth movements. A delegation of Mantzichim representatives led by Lanzkron and chairman Haim Meitlis, along with partners Dedi Simhi and Shira Rodman, came to the President’s Residence to present a set to President Herzog.
Herzog was impressed by the initiative and dedicated his own volume to his late father, president Chaim Herzog, who had been an officer in both the British and Israeli armies.
Political differences must not lead to condoning abuse of human rights. It is unfortunate that left-wing individuals and organizations bring such abuses to light during a right-wing administration. There are plenty of right-wing people who condemn abuse of human rights under any circumstances, but at the same time, most would probably not publicly go against party policy.
Organizations such as Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, and Rabbis for Human Rights are all regarded as traitors to the cause, which is to get rid of as many terrorists as possible. While some ultra-right Israelis regard all Palestinians as terrorists, they refuse to admit that there are Jewish terrorists, and say that Jews who engage in violence against Palestinians and soldiers in the IDF are good boys who have strayed from the track and need to be re-educated. Not all Palestinians are terrorists, and even those who are should not be tortured during interrogation, nor should attacks be waged against innocent Palestinians.
Legislators are somewhat slow in acting on reports by any of the above-mentioned organizations, and when a legislator does try to intervene, it’s usually someone from the Left, which immediately makes it a lost cause. For instance, more than a week after some of these organizations reported on the deportation of two American Jewish women, Leila Stillman-Otterback and Rachel Bat Palmacholtz – who under the auspices of Rabbis for Human Rights were helping Palestinians with the olive harvest, Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, who chairs the Knesset Committee on Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs, convened a discussion on the arrest and deportation of participants in a Zionist volunteer program from the United States and the harm the incident will cause to Israel-Diaspora Jewry relations.
Both women are Zionists and came to Israel as volunteers. One was even contemplating aliyah because she loves Jerusalem. While they were in the village of Burin, southwest of Nablus, helping Palestinian farmers to harvest their olives, IDF forces arrived, claiming the area was a closed military zone. The harvesters began to leave the area, but soldiers confiscated their ID documents and transferred them to the Ariel police station. All were subsequently released except the two young women, who were interrogated in what they described as a most threatening manner and were treated as if they were not Jewish. The deportation order bars them from returning to Israel for 10 years. This is the penalty for picking olives – the fruit of peace.