Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual
teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law.
He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their
search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money,
and spiritual engagement.
The
Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and
former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar
blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12
gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal
the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in
living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find
interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't
always agree with all the points of each article but found them
interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It
is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about
life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the
Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend
to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in
advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle
I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want
to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah
is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what
I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Tel Aviv Tests Solar Energy Fabric That Shades By Day, Lights Up By Night
Shade by day, light by night? The city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa has implemented a “cool” new street fabric that provides both — without the need for electricity.
The municipality is currently piloting a new, eco-friendly system in northern Tel Aviv, which uses solar energy to supply shade during daytime hours and illumination when the sun goes down.
Through its features, the Lumiweave system saves “at least 50 percent of the cost of installing the infrastructure of standard lighting and 100 percent of electricity costs,” a statement from the company said. Lumiweave also enables the customer to control the timing and intensity of lighting.
Lumiweave is an outdoor fabric material embedded with solar and organic photovoltaic (PV) cells that store solar energy during daytime hours for off-grid lighting in the evening. It provides shading while it harnesses the sun’s energy, the system’s designer Anai Green tells NoCamels. More specifically, the sheet is made of polymer strips with LEDs that emit light after receiving energy from the PV system attached to it during the day.
Green’s solution combines a “workable approach” to climate change and the growing challenge of shading in urban areas, with a solution that operates on a basis of renewable and clean energy, that enables lighting without using polluting fuels.
“Thinking about sustainability, green energy, and climate protection is part of the DNA of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality. From the planning stages to the execution stages, we think green, plan green, imagine green,” said Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo, in the company’s statement. “I believe that Lumiweave will turn out to be a groundbreaking venture.”
The system was designed to withstand all weather conditions and can even continue to provide lighting even after three days without sun.
The sheet has been installed for an experimental period in the city’s Atidim Park, an industrial area of the Ramat HaChayal neighborhood.
The lightweight and flexible system was developed by Israeli industrial and product designer Anai Green, who was selected as one of four innovators to win the 2nd International C40 Women4Climate Tech Challenge in 2020. The challenge, at the time in its second year, was organized by Women4Climate, a group of mayors, entrepreneurs, innovators, students, scientists, and activists that aims to enhance women’s participation and leadership in building a sustainable future.
The city of Tel Aviv joined C40 Cities 2017 among 96 cities that represent one-twelfth of the world’s population and a quarter of the global economy.
It doesn’t require any additional or existing infrastructure, which makes it particularly innovative, Green explains.
“There are no carbon emissions at all,” she says, “We use it to light public space without spreading light pollution — because the light is under a canopy.” Light pollution refers the effects of unwanted, excessive, or poorly implemented artificial lighting.
“We spread light in the area we want to light only,” Green adds.
The pilot project, organized as part of a collaboration with CityZone Innovation Laboratory, an innovation lab developed in a partnership between Atidim Park, Tel Aviv University, and the Tel Aviv municipality, has been overseen by Green and Lumiweave cofounder Tal Parnes, a serial high-tech entrepreneur.
“Since Atidim Park has set the goal of advancing technologies in the smart city field, through a unique experimental laboratory – Cityzone – Tel Aviv’s Environment and Sustainability Authority approached Atidim to install the shading sheet in the park area and the Park gladly complied,” Sagi Niv, CEO of Atidim Park Tel Aviv, tells NoCamels. “In collaboration with the park management and the entrepreneurs, an ideal location was chosen that took into account the needs of people passing through, and considered the angles of the sun in different seasons on one hand, and the significant exposure to the [businessman working in the area] on the main boulevard of the park.”
What’s next for Lumiweave? Anai Green is an industrial and product designer that grew up in Israel and attended the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. She worked in Japan before opening her own design studio in Israel. Anai’s interests have included lighting, furniture, the design of spatial objects, and the relationship between materials, form, and technologies “to bring her designs to impact everyday life in urban settings,” according to her profile on the Women4Climate website. Prior to her work on Lumiweave, Green was a collaborator in Megama, a strategic design office, for the Landscape Urbanism Biennale” called “32N Urban Shade.” The project focused on the significance of natural and built shade in the coastal city of Bat Yam, Israel.
Lumiweave “combines Anai’s unique interests in emerging LED lighting technologies, flexible PV cells, with the potential of textiles in outdoor uses to address the problem of rising temperatures in urban environments,” the profile reads.
There are lots of ways to implement Lumiweave, Green tells NoCamels, saying that its “really good for parks, bicycle paths, and walking areas.” It can also be used as umbrellas and canopies of varying sizes.
Green says Lumiweave already has new projects in Tel Aviv, including changing the canopies of the Sarona neighborhood. She is also in discussions with relevant parties to install Lumiweave’s smart shade in parks in the cities of Ra’anana, Kfar Saba, and Ganei Tikva. The Ariel Sharon Park, located southeast of Tel Aviv, is also on that list. Green tells NoCamels the company is in talks with NTA Metroolitan Mass Transit System, the company developing the Tel Aviv Light Rail to install Lumiweave at various stations.
“We have started to develop parasols for restaurants and hotels,” Green says, “They will have shade and then at night, it will light up automatically. The workers will have full control over it. We are now developing the possibility of controlling it from the phone — we’re creating an application.”
Lumiweave is also developing light motion materials. They are creating a shade and light that will turn on automatically when it senses a person approaching and will turn off when there is no presence of people. “It will be flexible in the way that we can manipulate it,” she says.
“The LumiWeave venture Is an initiative that combines many vital aspects of sustainability, including shading, green energy, pollution reduction, cost reduction while making a green contribution to the environment, and in any case improving the quality of life of all of us in the public space,” Niv said in a statement.
“We are very pleased to work with the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality on fulfilling our vision of improving the experience of staying in the public space, while preserving the environment, by sustainable systems that can be installed easily and cheaply, anywhere and anytime,” Green said.
Additional reporting by Max Kaplan-Zantopp
Caption: Lumiweave is an outdoor fabric that stores solar energy during daytime hours to create lighting at night. Courtesy: Anai Green.
Can't Afford Israeli Real Estate? Israeli Arabs Opt for Nablus and Jenin
The cost of living and housing crisis cause Israeli Arabs to shop and invest in the northern West Bank, where one can buy a luxury apartment for $120,000
Regular
visitors to the West Bank will be familiar with the large red signs
warning that Israelis are forbidden to enter Area A, the part under full
Palestinian control according to the Oslo Accords, and that doing so is
a crime.
What
these signs really mean is that entry is forbidden to Israeli Jews.
Israeli Arabs can enter West Bank cities to shop, import goods and
invest in Palestinian real estate.
In
one place, however, the absence of the red sign is notable –
immediately after the Jalameh (aka Gilboa) checkpoint in the northern
West Bank, which Israeli Arabs drive through each Saturday to shop in
the nearby city of Jenin. According to the Jenin Chamber of Commerce,
Israeli Arabs make up 75 percent of customer at local markets.
Two weeks ago – during Ramadan,
a time of significantly higher purchases of food, clothing and gifts
for Muslims – the Jalameh and Rihan checkpoints were closed against the
backdrop of heightened security tensions, denying Arab Israelis of the
opportunity to shop in Palestinian cities.
Last
Saturday, the checkpoints were reopened. Israeli media reports linked
this with the decision not to impose a total closure of all crossing at
the West Bank and Gaza borders during the intermediate days of the
week-long Passover holiday, with the goal of allowing Palestinian
workers to continue entering Israel.
Yet
perhaps because people were afraid to go to a city where there are
daily reports of gunfights between Israeli soldiers and armed
Palestinians, just 2,000 cars passed through the Jalameh checkpoint that
day, compared to 6,500 to 7,000 on a normal Saturday and the 10,000
typical of a Saturday during Ramadan.
Amar Abu Bakr, the head of Jenin’s chamber of commerce, hopes the city’s economy will slowly recover.
“The
halt in people from the Galilee coming to Jenin was a severe blow for
the local economy,” he says. “It could have been even worse if it had
happened ahead of Eid al-Fitr in early May. I hope that now the
checkpoint has been reopened, things will get back on course.”
‘Large families buy in bulk’
A
source in the defense establishment says that during a normal Ramadan,
Arab Israelis spend 120 million shekels ($37 million) on shopping in
Jenin, meaning the losses from the week-long closure of the checkpoints
added up to around 30 million shekels. Most visitors to Jenin’s markets
come from the Galilee area, where around half of Israeli Arabs reside.
What
makes the city attractive to them is clear. It s just a 30 to 40
minutes drive from Nazareth and its surrounding towns, and many say
there’s no other market like it in either Israel or the West Bank in
terms of both the variety of goods available and the low prices. For
instance, a kilogram of rice costs only six shekels in Jenin, compared
to 10 at Israeli supermarkets.
“Large
families buy in bulk here,” says an Arab woman from the Galilee who
goes shopping in Jenin every few weeks. “There are people who buy 12
kilograms of rice on every trip.”
In
Ramadan, the price difference is especially noticeable, she says,
because the meals after the fast are festive ones in which a lot of
effort is invested, so people buy more expensive foods than they usually
might – for instance, almonds, raisins, pine nuts and dried fruit. In
Israel, a kilogram of pine nuts costs 140 to 150 shekels. In Jenin, it
costs 85 shekels.
“In
Jenin, you can find food products and brands from the Arab world which
you can’t find in Israel, another reason making the city an attractive
place to shop,” the woman says. “Most of the markets are cheap food
markets, but here and there you can also find some regular stores
carrying brand names,” she says.
According
to economist and accountant Ziyad Abou Habla, the director of the
Economic Council of for Arab Society Development, the ability to shop in
Jenin is important, especially for more poorer of Israeli Arab society.
“50 percent of Arab families in Israel live beneath the poverty line,”
he says. “The difference between the Palestinian and Israeli economies
in terms of prices makes the Palestinian one an alternative for meeting
the consumer needs of members of Arab society, particularly for people
living under the poverty line in Israel. But middle-class people also go
shopping in the West Bank, and for them, it’s not just a matter of
economics. The same nation lives on both sides of the Green Line” – the
pre-1967 borders of Israel – “and there are many relatives on the other
side. During the month of Ramadan, many people go there to break their
fast, visiting relatives in Ramallah or Tul Karm or going to some
restaurant.”
Recent
security tensions have threatened the economic situation in areas
controlled by the Palestinian Authority, as well as in Israel, where
Arab citizens are more vulnerable. Jews might stop buying at markets
located in shopping centers along the pre-1967 border, such as in Husan,
near Betar Ilit, or the village of Barta’a, half of which is in the
West Bank, the other in Israel. But the larger markets are located in
the center of West Bank cities, and it is Arab Israelis who still
venture there.
Recent
years have seen a strengthening of economic ties between Palestinians
on both sides of the pre-1967 border. Freedom of movement from Israel to
the West Bank allows Israeli Arabs to buy cheaper products or services
like car repair and dental work for much less money. It also enables the
work of businesspeople who deal with imports or who invest in real
estate in Palestinian cities.
Since
most of this business is conducted using cash, there are no precise
figures on the extent of investments or Arab purchases made by Israeli
Arabs in the West Bank. However, a study published in 2018 by the
Palestine Monetary Authority, the Palestinian equivalent of the Bank of
Israel, products amounting to 3 billion shekels (920 million dollars)
are purchased by Israeli Arabs in the West Bank each year. The study was
based on a survey conducted among Israeli Arabs, in which 50 percent or
respondents said cheaper prices in the West Bank made them go shopping
there. A further reason mentioned by respondents was that one can use
cash freely in the West Bank, in contrast to Israel, where there are
limits on cash transactions.
Jenin
is the Palestinian shopping capital, and according to a source in the
defense establishment, Arabs from Israel spend 850 million shekels a
year there. The main shopping street in Jenin is Abu-Bakr Street, where
most markets are open-air. A new shopping center, the City Center Jenin,
recently opened there, spanning seven floors, each with an area of
2,500 square meters (27,000 square feet). An adjacent street has an area
selling building materials, flooring and plumbing goods, an attractive
location for contractors building in Israel.
Nablus
is another popular destination, but visits there focus more on hotel
stays than on shopping. Ramallah is considered the most expensive city,
but it too is a destination for leisure purposes. “In addition to retail
shopping, there are thousands of Arab-Israeli businesses in Palestinian
cities,” says economist Yitzhak Gal, a research fellow at Mitvim – the
Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies who researches Middle
Eastern economics. “The Palestinian economy has been in deep freeze for a
long time. Two factors work in its favor: the work of Palestinian
laborers in Israel, and activity involving Israeli Arabs. Before the
coronavirus crisis, each one of them accounted for 15-20 percent of the
Palestinian GDP per capita. During the lockdowns there was a great
slump, larger than in Israel, and then you could see the impact of
severing business ties with Israeli Arabs on the Palestinian economy.”
According
to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the turnover of all
retail and wholesale activity within the Palestinian GDP declined from
$700 million in the second quarter of 2019 to $470 million in the second
quarter of 2020. The The Palestinian economy has not fully recovered
from the coronavirus crisis. GDP in the last quarter of 2021 stood at
$3.2 billion, $100 million less than the last quarter in 2019.
According
to a source in the defense establishment, the fact that the crossing at
Jalameh was closed for a year and a half over the pandemic is one of
the driving forces for the recent series of deadly attacks against Israelis.
This source says that “over that period, Jenin withdrew inwards, with
attendant unemployment, anarchy and crime. There is a clear balance
here. When economic ceases activity on this scale, especially in
locations where Hamas and Islamic Jihad have such a large influence, this is a warning sign of trouble to come, and unfortunately, it did come.”
Buying in the West Bank, selling in Israel
Prof.
Aziz Haidar of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute published a book in
2021 about the new Arab-Palestinian middle class living in Israel. He
says in his book that the 1967 conquest of the territories contributed
to the rise of an Arab middle class in Israel, along with other
processes. “The acquisition of higher learning, integration into the
labor market and the opening of businesses were three processes that led
to the growth and expansion of the Arab middle class in Israel since
1967,” says Haidar. “Commerce is a massive factor in the Arab economy.
For years, merchants within the Green Line bought products in the West
Bank cheaply, subsequently selling them in Israel. On the other hand,
salaried Israelis went to buy products in the territories. They saved
money, which helped in raising a middle class.”
However,
he says, the Palestinian middle class, especially the younger
generation, tends to shop more in malls and stores owned by Israeli
Jews, mainly out of a desire to buy brand names. “At least 20-25 percent
of the Israeli-Arab middle class do their shopping at malls and in
Israeli chains,” he says.
As’ad
Shibli, a former high school principal in the Bedouin village of
Shibli, near Mount Tabor, goes to Jenin regularly, meeting many of his
former students there. “I shop there once a month,” he says. “Anything I
can buy in Israel, I can get there for 30 percent less, sometimes even
cheaper. Jenin is not just a refugee camp you hear about in the news.
There are also villas and affluent neighborhoods there. Two months ago I
went to a neighborhood near Jalameh, where someone had a swimming pool
under his house. But the refugee camp there is like a third-world slum.
That’s where problems come from.”
Thabet
Abu Ras, co-executive director of Abraham Initiatives, a Jewish-Arab
NGO advocating and equality between Jews and Arabs in Israel. He lives
in Kalansua, in Israel, and shops regularly in Tul Karm, a West Bank
city. “I enjoy shopping in Tul Karm more than I do in Netanya,” he says.
“In Netanya, I find quite different prices, sometimes finding products
that are culturally incompatible. When I go to a market in Tul Karm, I
find exactly what I want as an Arab, that is my culture and my food –
and the prices are lower. When I need to iron clothes, I go there too.
Economy cannot be dissociated from culture. That’s why Israeli Arabs
stream to West Bank cities, particularly ones that are close to the
Green Line.”
According
to Abu Ras, “10 new hotels have been built in Nablus in recent years,
intended mainly for tourists from Israel. Everything is cheaper. I was
there with my wife for two nights, at a nice hotel. It cost 600 shekels
for two nights, including breakfast. Then I walked to a Turkish bath,
and later to a restaurant with authentic Palestinian food and music.
That is my cultural place, something I can’t find in Israel. I do find
it there.”
Investing in Nablus and Ramallah
Abu
Ras owns an apartment in Nablus. Arab Israeli in West Bank real estate
is another trend that began in recent years. In some sense, it is
similar to real estate investments overseas that have also sprouted in
Israel. A specific trend is investment by Israeli Arabs in Turkish real
estate. With prices in Israel increasing wildly, it’s no wonder that
Turkey or the West Bank are seen as good alternatives.
The
price differentials are definitely alluring. A 100-square-meter
apartment in an upscale Ramallah neighborhood could cost between 350,000
and 400,000 shekels (around $105,000-120,000). In Jericho, you can buy a
200-sqaure-meter villa with a 750-square-meter yard with a pool for one
million shekels. In other cities, prices are even lower. An apartment
in Nablus costing 150,000-200,000 shekels could be a reasonable solution
for an Arab family from the Galilee whose son is studying medicine at
al-Najah University in Nablus, especially since prices in the West Bank
are on their way up.
The
flow of Israeli Arabs students to campuses in the West Bank is another
reason for buying real estate there. Some estimates put the number of
Arab-Israeli students there at 9,000, 5,000 of them at the American
University in Jenin, in which private residential buildings have been
appearing in recent years, meant for renting out to students. Some
apartments there have been purchased by Arab Israelis.
Shopping mainly in Jenin
Elias
Habib, an architect from Haifa who also deals in real estate,
discovered a sign belonging to a Ramallah real estate company called
Nabali Fares six months ago. The company is used by Israeli Arabs to buy
apartments in the West Bank. The sign was in the Hadar neighborhood in
Haifa. This may have been an attempt to expand business by opening an
office in Haifa, but it has since closed down. The company did not
respond to calls by TheMarker.
According
to Habib, the Palestinian real estate market is attractive not just for
purchasing apartments, but also for renting them. “Last month I was
approached by two female medical students at the Technion, who had
started their residency at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem,
he
says. “Their budget for renting was 3,000-4,000 shekels a month. It was
hard to find a good apartment in Jerusalem for that price, but beyond
the barrier, in the West Bank, one can find good properties that are
significantly cheaper.”
But
the Palestinian real estate market could also deter investors because
of potential legal problems. Habib says that a few years ago he was
interested in purchasing apartments in Ramallah, after he visited the
city and saw the accelerated development there, but says he refrained
from doing so after a relative warned him of problems regarding property
registration.
According
to Sami Ali, a resident of Jisr al-Zarqa who advises Palestinian real
estate companies, it’s difficult to purchase real estate in the West
Bank due to a fear of the takeover of land by Israeli settlers. He says
that when it comes to buying an apartment inside a building, an Israeli
Arab can register an apartment after undergoing a background check, but
the purchase of land by someone other than a Palestinian resident is
more complicated. The solution is to buy through a liaison who has
Palestinian residency, in whose name the land is officially registered.
“In
recent years it has become more popular to buy real estate in the West
Bank,” says Ali. “It’s a combination of the short distance – a drive of
an hour or two – and the low prices, a third of those in Israel. The
greatest demand is for Ramallah, because it has good rental potential.
It’s the seat of the government ministries, and of the offices of
international organizations and of the representatives of foreign
countries, which are less sensitive to rental prices. The international
representatives can pay $800-$900 a month for an apartment, as compared
to a Palestinian family that will pay $500-$600. In other cities the
prices are half or a quarter of that.
“I
assume that if the security situation continues to deteriorate, the
effect will also be felt in real estate,” Ali says. “When buyers show an
interest in an apartment, one of the fears that comes up is regarding
the security-diplomatic situation – what will happen if war breaks out
or a closure is declared, how will that affect housing prices? The real
estate company owners are trying to reassure people and to explain that
in case of damage caused by the security situation, there are insurance
companies that provide compensation.”
A lot to lose
In
light of security incidents in recent weeks, the question is what will
happen to Israeli Arabs if the explosive situation worsens. In his book,
Haidar describes how the first intifada contributed to the development
of retail businesses in Israeli Arab society, when customers stopped
shopping at West Bank markets. The book also notes that during the
second intifada, when there were serious restrictions on movement, 1,500
new businesses opened over three years in the so-called Little Triangle
Area (a concentration of Arab towns in north-central Israel). In other
words, there are some people who might profit from closing the border,
but clearly many in the Arab community will lose from a deteriorating
security situation.
“I
remember that period, the closure was total,” says Abu Ras. “Before the
second intifada, the Arabs bought a great deal in the West Bank, but
now a renewed closure of the West Bank to Arabs is far more significant,
because since that time the Palestinian middle class has expanded, and
purchases in the West Bank are far more extensive. Therefore, closing
the West Bank to Israeli Arabs would be of greater significance now.”
Bennett: Holocaust memory is part of Jews’ DNA, passed from generation to generation
Bundestag president lights candle at Knesset
memorial ceremony, noting ‘historical guilt,’ but MK Akunis says he will
never forgive Germans for their role
For Jews, Holocaust memory is genetic, passed from generation to
generation, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said during a memorial
ceremony in the Knesset on Thursday as part of a series of events to
mark Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“The memory of the Holocaust is not just a memory but a layer, part
of the DNA that is passed down from generation to generation,” Bennett
said.
The head of Germany’s parliament, along with the prime minister,
President Isaac Herzog and other Israeli officials, lit a memorial
candle in the Knesset for the ceremony.
State of Jerusalem: The MaqdasyinKeep Watching
“I bow my head with humility and shame in face of the Holocaust
victims,” Bundestag President Barbel Bas said in German ahead of the
official Knesset ceremony “Unto Every Person There is a Name,” during
which the names of Nazi genocide victims were read aloud.
“It is forbidden for us to forget and we will not forget,” she said.
“From our historical guilt stems a commitment. It is upon us to fight
resolutely against antisemitism in all of its forms, and it is upon us
to preserve the [victims’] memory, and to pass on their memory to the
younger generations.”
Likud MK Ophir Akunis said during the ceremony that he will not forgive the Germans for the Holocaust.
“Others may be able to forgive the Germans,” he said in Hebrew, after
addressing Bas briefly in English, noting that 97 percent of the Jewish
community in Thessaloniki, where his family hails from, was killed in
the Holocaust. “I do not forget or forgive, nor will I forgive this act
of pure evil, ever.”
Likud MK Ofir Akunis at a Holocaust memorial day ceremony held at the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 28, 2022 (Screen grab)
But Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy called Bas’s participation in the
Israeli parliament’s ceremonies for Holocaust Remembrance Day, which
began Wednesday evening, “a significant and important expression of the
special connection that exists between the countries, for the historical
responsibility that Germany took for the war crimes, and Germany’s
commitment to Israel’s security.”
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Bas lit the memorial candle in front of the Knesset in memory of Irma
Natan, a Jewish resident of Duisburg and head of the welfare committee
for the Jewish community, who was killed in the Holocaust. Bas is also
from Duisburg, in western Germany.
President Isaac Herzog at the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem, April 28, 2022. (Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO)
Herzog and his wife, Michal, also joined the ceremony after laying a
wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem earlier
Thursday. Herzog read aloud the names of several family members murdered
in the Holocaust, as well as “the 10,000 Jews of the Lomza Ghetto in
Poland, murdered and massacred and exiled to Auschwitz in January 1943,
like lambs to slaughter.”
Bennett and his wife, Gilat, also placed a wreath during the annual
wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial museum before joining the Knesset
ceremony.
During the ceremony, the prime minister also shared the story of his wife’s grandfather.
“He was never able to forgive himself for not protecting his mother
and his two brothers, who were killed at the hands of the Polish,”
Bennett said. Israel and Poland have had tense ties in recent years,
particularly over Polish legislation that intended to bar Holocaust
restitution claims, and Warsaw’s legislation seeking to ban comments
assigning any blame for the Holocaust to Poland.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz participated on Thursday in a memorial ceremony at the Massuah Museum in Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak.
“In Holocaust Remembrance Day speeches, we occasionally mention Israel’s security threats, led by Iran — which seeks to acquire nuclear weapons and pose an existential threat to us,” Gantz said. “Therefore, the State of Israel must have military power and it must have moral power alongside it. We must be strong and know how to defend ourselves on our own. This is an important lesson of the Jewish people for generations and we must be moral so that we have something to live for.”
Bundestag President Barbel Bas lights a candle at the Knesset on April 28, 2022, as part of activities marking Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day. (Noam Moskovitz/Knesset)
“Preserving human morality and humane values are some of the key
lessons of the Holocaust,” he added. “These… stem from our ability to
live as one strong and cohesive society, not as a people scattered in
Diaspora.”
Bas is the first senior German official to attend Holocaust Remembrance Day events at the Israeli parliament.
The Bundestag president visited Yad Vashem on Wednesday alongside Levy, and met with former Israeli chief rabbi Meir Lau, who shared his story of surviving the Holocaust.
Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel and around the world marks 24
hours of remembrances dedicated to the victims of the Nazi genocide. The
annual memorial day is one of the most solemn days on Israel’s national
calendar. Much of the country shut down for two minutes for a memorial
siren at 10 a.m. Thursday.
Interview'Hitler lied constantly, clearly planned to dominate Europe'
Why did the US ignore diplomats who boldly raised an alarm about Hitler before WWII?
In new book ‘Watching Darkness Fall,’
former US ambassador David McKean illustrates how antisemitism, apathy
and internal politics set America back in the war against Germany
United
States Ambassador William E. Dodd leaves the presidential palace in
Berlin, September 6, 1933, after presenting his credentials to President
Paul von Hindenburg. After receiving military honors, the new
ambassador made a brief speech in which he mentioned the cultural ties
between the two nations. (AP Photo)
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, his secretary Marguerite Lehand and ambassador
to France William C. Bullitt ride from the railroad station to FDR's
Hyde Park, New York, home on July, 22, 1940, after a trip to Washington.
(AP Photo)
Joseph
P. Kennedy, then chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is
shown at work in his shirt sleeves during Washington's heat wave on July
16, 1934. (AP Photo)
Joseph
Patrick Kennedy, known as Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador in
London smiling as he leaves the House of Commons, London on August 29,
1939, after being present at the special sitting of the house. (AP
Photo/Staff/Len Puttnam)
In 1938, William Dodd, the United States ambassador to Nazi
Germany, publicly declared that Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews not
just in Germany, but the entire European continent. Months later, the
Kristallnacht pogroms indicated he was right.
Despite Dodd’s perception, the US diplomatic corps overlooked a number of totalitarian threats at the time, according to “Watching Darkness Fall: FDR, His Ambassadors, and the Rise of Adolf Hitler,” a new book by David McKean.
The author is himself a former US ambassador to Luxembourg under the
Obama administration. The inspiration for the book came while McKean was
serving there from 2016 to 2017.
State of Jerusalem: The Maqdasyin
Although a relatively small country, Luxembourg has the
second-largest military cemetery in Europe after Normandy; those buried
there include Gen. George S. Patton. McKean was struck by how powerful
the memory of World War II remained in Luxembourg, which was overrun
twice by Germany. He eventually decided to write a book focusing on four
members of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s diplomatic corps
during the leadup to war.
“I just thought it was such a different way of looking at our foreign
policy during this period,” McKean told The Times of Israel. “To learn
how these ambassadors, who for the most part came from fairly similar
backgrounds, turned out to be very, very different in their approach to
the job… It is an incredibly interesting perspective on our diplomacy at
the time.”
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address By signing up, you agree to the
terms
On the positive side, there were Dodd and the colorful William
Bullitt — a millionaire and bon vivant who served as ambassador to the
USSR and France. They helped get Sigmund Freud out of Austria after the
Anschluss, and made a questionable return home once Paris fell.
As for the negatives, it’s a toss-up between two controversial
figures. Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch of the future political
dynasty, saw his tenure as ambassador to the UK end after defeatist
comments to the press in 1940. Breckenridge Long was an ambassador to
Italy who praised Benito Mussolini, then hindered Jewish refugees from
reaching the US while serving as assistant secretary of state during
WWII.
McKean said that Kennedy “was not cut out to be an ambassador,” and that Long “was just a terrible appointment.”
Advertisement
United States Ambassador William E. Dodd leaves the presidential palace in Berlin, September 6, 1933, after presenting his credentials to President Paul von Hindenburg. After receiving military honors, the new ambassador made a brief speech in which he mentioned the cultural ties between the two nations. (AP Photo)
Contemporary reverberations
Lately, McKean has been thinking about the role of diplomacy during
the current Russia-Ukraine crisis. He has high praise for the
performance of Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, who
was a guest at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on
March 1.
Former US ambassador to Luxembourg and author of ‘Watching Darkness Fall,’ David McKean. (John Pratt McKean)
“Ambassadors can often play a critical role in conveying information
both to and from their home country,” McKean said in a follow-up email.
“For example, for millions of [Americans] who saw her at the State of
the Union and have seen her on news shows, Ukraine’s ambassador to the
United States, Oksana Markarova, has become an important voice for
Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.”
“Not only has she [been] able to talk directly with members of
Congress and officials in the White House, she has made the case — very
effectively — to the American people, that Ukraine needs more US
military aid and tougher sanctions on Russia,” McKean continued.
The former diplomat pointed out that just as Roosevelt relied on his
ambassadors in Europe to be his eyes and ears on the ground in the years
leading up to WWII, so, too, ambassadors around the world often play
that role today.
Behind every great man…
When Roosevelt first took office in 1933, he had limited
foreign-policy interests – while the public had significant isolationist
tendencies, a legacy of WWI. McKean also noted sizable hostility toward
immigration among Americans of the day.
“It was not an issue the American people accepted as something we
should take interest in,” said McKean. “Waves of European immigrants
were never a popular issue. The United States, frankly, was also quite
an antisemitic country at the time.”
However, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt overruled Long when it came to
saving the mostly Jewish passengers on the refugee ship SS Quanza in
1940.
“She was clearly a great humanitarian and in many ways Franklin’s political conscience,” McKean said.
In one chapter of the book, the Roosevelts are having breakfast, each
reading the morning paper. When the first lady learns that Long is
impeding immigration, she becomes furious: “Franklin, you know he’s a
fascist!”
Dr. William E. Dodd, United States Ambassador to Germany, speaks at the Festival for International Exchange of Pupil at a Berlin concert hall May 29, 1935. (AP Photo)
“She was a truth-teller,” McKean reflects, “with a very honest humanitarian streak.”
McKean cited similar reasons for his admiration of Dodd, calling him
“sort of the unwavering moral compass… I think he told Roosevelt the
truth.”
As the book explains, Dodd was hardly philo-Semitic when he took up
his ambassadorship in 1933. Although he rented two floors of a posh
Berlin residence from a wealthy Jewish businessman and his family who
lived on the third floor, he failed to recognize their motivations in
renting it out to him.
“Dodd was so happy to get the apartment at a good rate that he did
not recognize that the family living on the third floor did this hoping
for American protection,” McKean said.
However, following his first meeting with Hitler, Dodd saw the Nazis
as they really were. “They were evil, to put it simply,” McKean said.
Advertisement
Unheeded warnings
As Dodd kept interactions with the Reich to a minimum, his warnings went largely unheeded in Washington.
‘Watching Darkness Fall,’ by David McKean. (Courtesy)
“[Some] of the things he was concerned with — such as the length of
cables sent to Washington, and the wealthy lifestyles of other diplomats
— meant that he managed to not be taken seriously by a number of people
in the Department of State,” McKean said. “In particular the secretary
[of state] at the time, Cordell Hull did not consider him an able
diplomat… I fault [Dodd] a little bit. I think he was somewhat naive.”
In contrast, there was the worldly Bullitt, the so-called “Champagne
ambassador” known for his romances and the extravagant parties he held
in Paris. The book describes him as ambitiously angling for higher
positions. In 1937, he briefly left Paris on his own initiative to go to
Berlin and meet with high-ranking Nazis in the twilight of Dodd’s
tenure there. After conferring with Hermann Goering, Bullitt wrote a
private letter to FDR noting the Reichsmarschall’s distaste for Dodd,
which he said was widespread in Germany. He shared a scathing take on
Goering: “as you know, he strongly resembles the hind end on an
elephant.”
As Dodd’s ambassadorship came to an end, Kennedy’s began at the Court
of St. James’s. The latter questioned whether FDR wanted to appoint an
Irish-American to this post, but the president backed him.
Joseph P. Kennedy, then chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is shown at work in his shirt sleeves during Washington’s heat wave on July 16, 1934. (AP Photo)
“[Roosevelt] felt Joe Kennedy had done a good job at the Securities
and Exchange Commission, and actually a very good job as head of the
Merchant Marine,” said McKean, who in addition to his longtime work in
government is also the former head of the John F. Kennedy Library and
Museum in Boston, named after the former ambassador’s son, the future US
president.
FDR nominated the elder Kennedy in 1938 for reasons beyond his past
performance in office. A presidential election was on the horizon, and
an ambassadorship would sideline this political rival.
“It was good to have [Kennedy] out of the country in 1940, an
election year,” McKean noted. “[FDR] did not want Kennedy — who was very
influential, particularly with the Catholic vote, and an enormously
wealthy individual — he did not want him around.”
In 1938, William Dodd, the United States ambassador to Nazi
Germany, publicly declared that Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews not
just in Germany, but the entire European continent. Months later, the
Kristallnacht pogroms indicated he was right.
Despite Dodd’s perception, the US diplomatic corps overlooked a number of totalitarian threats at the time, according to “Watching Darkness Fall: FDR, His Ambassadors, and the Rise of Adolf Hitler,” a new book by David McKean.
The author is himself a former US ambassador to Luxembourg under the
Obama administration. The inspiration for the book came while McKean was
serving there from 2016 to 2017.
State of Jerusalem: The Maqdasyin
Although a relatively small country, Luxembourg has the
second-largest military cemetery in Europe after Normandy; those buried
there include Gen. George S. Patton. McKean was struck by how powerful
the memory of World War II remained in Luxembourg, which was overrun
twice by Germany. He eventually decided to write a book focusing on four
members of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s diplomatic corps
during the leadup to war.
“I just thought it was such a different way of looking at our foreign
policy during this period,” McKean told The Times of Israel. “To learn
how these ambassadors, who for the most part came from fairly similar
backgrounds, turned out to be very, very different in their approach to
the job… It is an incredibly interesting perspective on our diplomacy at
the time.”
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address By signing up, you agree to the
terms
On the positive side, there were Dodd and the colorful William
Bullitt — a millionaire and bon vivant who served as ambassador to the
USSR and France. They helped get Sigmund Freud out of Austria after the
Anschluss, and made a questionable return home once Paris fell.
As for the negatives, it’s a toss-up between two controversial
figures. Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch of the future political
dynasty, saw his tenure as ambassador to the UK end after defeatist
comments to the press in 1940. Breckenridge Long was an ambassador to
Italy who praised Benito Mussolini, then hindered Jewish refugees from
reaching the US while serving as assistant secretary of state during
WWII.
McKean said that Kennedy “was not cut out to be an ambassador,” and that Long “was just a terrible appointment.”
Advertisement
United States Ambassador William E. Dodd leaves the presidential palace in Berlin, September 6, 1933, after presenting his credentials to President Paul von Hindenburg. After receiving military honors, the new ambassador made a brief speech in which he mentioned the cultural ties between the two nations. (AP Photo)
Contemporary reverberations
Lately, McKean has been thinking about the role of diplomacy during
the current Russia-Ukraine crisis. He has high praise for the
performance of Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, who
was a guest at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on
March 1.
Former US ambassador to Luxembourg and author of ‘Watching Darkness Fall,’ David McKean. (John Pratt McKean)
“Ambassadors can often play a critical role in conveying information
both to and from their home country,” McKean said in a follow-up email.
“For example, for millions of [Americans] who saw her at the State of
the Union and have seen her on news shows, Ukraine’s ambassador to the
United States, Oksana Markarova, has become an important voice for
Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.”
“Not only has she [been] able to talk directly with members of
Congress and officials in the White House, she has made the case — very
effectively — to the American people, that Ukraine needs more US
military aid and tougher sanctions on Russia,” McKean continued.
The former diplomat pointed out that just as Roosevelt relied on his
ambassadors in Europe to be his eyes and ears on the ground in the years
leading up to WWII, so, too, ambassadors around the world often play
that role today.
Behind every great man…
When Roosevelt first took office in 1933, he had limited
foreign-policy interests – while the public had significant isolationist
tendencies, a legacy of WWI. McKean also noted sizable hostility toward
immigration among Americans of the day.
“It was not an issue the American people accepted as something we
should take interest in,” said McKean. “Waves of European immigrants
were never a popular issue. The United States, frankly, was also quite
an antisemitic country at the time.”
Advertisement
However, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt overruled Long when it came to
saving the mostly Jewish passengers on the refugee ship SS Quanza in
1940.
“She was clearly a great humanitarian and in many ways Franklin’s political conscience,” McKean said.
In one chapter of the book, the Roosevelts are having breakfast, each
reading the morning paper. When the first lady learns that Long is
impeding immigration, she becomes furious: “Franklin, you know he’s a
fascist!”
Dr. William E. Dodd, United States Ambassador to Germany, speaks at the Festival for International Exchange of Pupil at a Berlin concert hall May 29, 1935. (AP Photo)
“She was a truth-teller,” McKean reflects, “with a very honest humanitarian streak.”
McKean cited similar reasons for his admiration of Dodd, calling him
“sort of the unwavering moral compass… I think he told Roosevelt the
truth.”
As the book explains, Dodd was hardly philo-Semitic when he took up
his ambassadorship in 1933. Although he rented two floors of a posh
Berlin residence from a wealthy Jewish businessman and his family who
lived on the third floor, he failed to recognize their motivations in
renting it out to him.
“Dodd was so happy to get the apartment at a good rate that he did
not recognize that the family living on the third floor did this hoping
for American protection,” McKean said.
However, following his first meeting with Hitler, Dodd saw the Nazis
as they really were. “They were evil, to put it simply,” McKean said.
Advertisement
Unheeded warnings
As Dodd kept interactions with the Reich to a minimum, his warnings went largely unheeded in Washington.
‘Watching Darkness Fall,’ by David McKean. (Courtesy)
“[Some] of the things he was concerned with — such as the length of
cables sent to Washington, and the wealthy lifestyles of other diplomats
— meant that he managed to not be taken seriously by a number of people
in the Department of State,” McKean said. “In particular the secretary
[of state] at the time, Cordell Hull did not consider him an able
diplomat… I fault [Dodd] a little bit. I think he was somewhat naive.”
In contrast, there was the worldly Bullitt, the so-called “Champagne
ambassador” known for his romances and the extravagant parties he held
in Paris. The book describes him as ambitiously angling for higher
positions. In 1937, he briefly left Paris on his own initiative to go to
Berlin and meet with high-ranking Nazis in the twilight of Dodd’s
tenure there. After conferring with Hermann Goering, Bullitt wrote a
private letter to FDR noting the Reichsmarschall’s distaste for Dodd,
which he said was widespread in Germany. He shared a scathing take on
Goering: “as you know, he strongly resembles the hind end on an
elephant.”
As Dodd’s ambassadorship came to an end, Kennedy’s began at the Court
of St. James’s. The latter questioned whether FDR wanted to appoint an
Irish-American to this post, but the president backed him.
Joseph P. Kennedy, then chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is shown at work in his shirt sleeves during Washington’s heat wave on July 16, 1934. (AP Photo)
“[Roosevelt] felt Joe Kennedy had done a good job at the Securities
and Exchange Commission, and actually a very good job as head of the
Merchant Marine,” said McKean, who in addition to his longtime work in
government is also the former head of the John F. Kennedy Library and
Museum in Boston, named after the former ambassador’s son, the future US
president.
FDR nominated the elder Kennedy in 1938 for reasons beyond his past
performance in office. A presidential election was on the horizon, and
an ambassadorship would sideline this political rival.
“It was good to have [Kennedy] out of the country in 1940, an
election year,” McKean noted. “[FDR] did not want Kennedy — who was very
influential, particularly with the Catholic vote, and an enormously
wealthy individual — he did not want him around.”
Advertisement
The book chronicles Kennedy’s missteps as ambassador. (There’s also a
head-shaking account of an incident several years earlier, in 1934,
when his teenage son Joseph Jr. visited Nazi Germany and wrote letters
defending, at times, the Reich’s antisemitism and sterilization
policies.) Fatefully, the elder Kennedy supported British prime minister
Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich.
In this Jan. 5, 1938 file photo, Joseph P. Kennedy, left, US Ambassador to Great Britain, stands with his son, future president John F. Kennedy, in New York. (AP Photo, File)
“I think there were several big turning points in that period,”
McKean said. “[Munich] was very much a turning point for Roosevelt…
Hitler was someone who lied constantly. He clearly had a plan to
dominate Europe and was willing to do whatever necessary to achieve that
objective.”
Even after Munich, Kennedy continued to defend Chamberlain while disparaging his eventual successor, Winston Churchill.
“[Kennedy’s] view of the war in Europe, in the end, did not concur
with Roosevelt’s at all,” McKean said. “He just did not have a
successful tenure as ambassador because he was ultimately a defeatist.”
The book ends dramatically for its subjects. Dodd suffered the loss
of his wife in 1938. His own health declined after he was compelled to
step down as ambassador; he died in early 1940. That year, Kennedy and
Bullitt each experienced WWII directly — Kennedy during the Blitz,
including a raid that allegedly targeted him; and Bullitt during the
Fall of France, when an unexploded bomb momentarily blinded him. After
the Germans captured Paris, Bullitt was credited with helping prevent
its destruction.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy, known as Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador in London smiling as he leaves the House of Commons, London on August 29, 1939, after being present at the special sitting of the house. (AP Photo/Staff/Len Puttnam)
Indiscretion, that downfall of diplomats, doomed both Kennedy and
Bullitt. After Kennedy made pessimistic remarks about Allied prospects
in WWII, he resigned as ambassador. Bullitt disobeyed the
administration’s order to go to Vichy, where the new, collaborationist
regime was coalescing, and instead made a return home that was daring
but led to a falling-out with FDR. Meanwhile, Long used his political
savvy to ingratiate himself with both FDR and Secretary Hull, with a
tragic result: He kept tens of thousands of Jews, by the book’s
estimate, from escaping to the US.
If the ambassadors did not collectively reflect FDR’s growing desire
to challenge the Axis, they nonetheless represented a key element of
American popular opinion.
“Obviously, we live in an America that now has 20-20 hindsight into
the 1930s,” McKean said. “Most of the American people [at the time] felt
there were two great oceans that separated us from other nations around
the world. There were none of the common international institutions you
have now. [The US was] quite isolationist. The American people wanted
to keep it that way.”