ISSUE II, VOLUME IV

Coming a Full (Sewing) Circle

In my middle-teen years I’d discovered books by Harry Golden, patron saint of the “Carolina Israelite”. One of the topics he wrote extensively about were trade unions, and particularly the organizing efforts in North Carolina. A pro-Labor Liberal, much of his ire was reserved for the Cannon family and the way they managed their North Carolina mill town Kannapolis, outside of Charlotte. I distinctly remember his stories about how the Cannons owned the entire town, including retail properties, and everyone was basically on a 30-day renewable lease, essentially allowing the landlords to keep the entire population (and business ecosystem) on the shortest of leashes. Growing-up in Israel during the Seventies, where the national trade-union (the “His’tad’rut”) was the de-facto fourth branch of Government, these stories seemed distant and improbable. My mother favored Cannon towels and sheets (they were really soft) and I used to look at the labels, with the ubiquitous field cannon logo, and ponder the oppressing anti-Labor textile baron Charlie Cannon.

Many years later came the inevitable decline, Cannon Mills was bought and sold a few times, and eventually Kannapolis lost its textile industry.  In 1982 billionaire David Murdock purchased most of the property and established the North Carolina Research Campus, a private-public biotech center. The City of Kannapolis itself was finally incorporated in 1984 (a good 97 years after its original settlement) and a beautiful new city center was constructed, including a stunning city hall/police headquarters building.

It was in this building that I recently found myself attending my son’s swearing-in ceremony as the latest member of Kannapolis’ Finest. The sole Jewish member of the city’s police department was nervous, as is to be expected on such a momentous event, but repeated the Policeman’s Oath in a loud, articulated manner. It should be noted that the oath of a North Carolina Law Enforcement Officer is about three times in length as that of the President of the United States, as there are multiple Constitutions and laws to protect (POTUS only has one). I held the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) under my son’s hand and commented afterwards to Police Chief Terry Spry that I believe that this swearing-in entitles Officer Feinstein to paid time off on all Jewish holidays. The Chief snickered, but I could absolutely hear Harry Golden laughing from above.

Put The Ball at The Feet of the Men from Galilee

A relative of mine is a player on, and the manager of, the Ha’poel Shlomi soccer team. Currently in Israel’s Third League – West Galilee, the team had an unplanned “final game of the season” during my recent trip to Israel. As the self-appointed president of the Ha’poel Shlomi US Fan Club (membership: three) I felt obligated to pay my respects and attend the game.

Shlomi is a small, picturesque town in the absolute northwestern corner of Israel, about a mile from the Mediterranean, and a couple of thousand feet from the Lebanese border. Its soccer team was recently reformulated, on the ashes of a previous club. “Ha’poel”, meaning “The Worker”, is the historical name of all the Socialist-origin athletic clubs, originally founded by the Zionist Trade Union (which predate the State of Israel by almost thirty years), but there is nothing left-leaning about the team; most of the players on it are hard-Right observant Jews. Shlomi lacks a certified soccer stadium, so the game was to be held at a different town, about 45 minutes away, named Ma’alot – Tarshicha, a “mixed” (Jew and Arab) municipality. The phrase “Mixed Cities” is an artifact of the 1917-1948 British Mandate in Palestine, when the authorities were keen to promote and proclaim urban coexistence. Many municipalities are still considered as such, as colonial as the phrase may sound, including Haifa, Lod, Ramla, Jaffa (which is part of Tel Aviv) and, of course, the most “mixed” city on the planet, Jerusalem. In the Western Galilee Arabs and Druze outnumber the Jewish population 2 to 1.

My nephew and I arrived at the Ma’alot stadium on a hot Friday afternoon. The game had to be played before the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, which commences at sundown. We walked in, and the number of spectators in the stands immediately doubled, from two to four. Ha’poel plays in the semi-pro “Third League – West Galilee”, which is really the fifth division in the Israeli Soccer Association, given that there is a “Premier League” and “National League” at the top of the stack. There are ten teams in the division, eight of which are from Arab or Druze municipalities, two from Jewish ones. Shlomi’s opponent was United Ha’poel K’far Samia, a Druze village. The Samia lads had a strong season and qualified for a playoff game to determine if they would win promotion to the Second Division, a huge achievement. Due to Pandemic-related rescheduling, Shlomi hadn’t played or trained in four weeks, and everyone thought that this final game was canceled. However, this was Samia’s shot at promotion, and their top five players were serving card suspensions which needed to be “cleared” so that they could participate in the all-important playoff game. So, in a sign of sportsmanship and neighborly grace, Shlomi agreed to travel and play them.

The details of the game itself aren’t important. I will leave it at that this was possibly the worst non-youth game I’ve ever attended, with Samia beating Shlomi 4-0 (although Shlomi’s goalkeeper, a 45-year old police colonel, made some fine saves). However, this was a mere six weeks after the riots in many of Israel’s “Mixed Towns”, and I was worried about possible tension on the pitch; there was none. The game was conducted respectfully, in a sporting manner, and the only angry outbursts were directed at the referee, which is to be expected (regardless of nationality or ethnicity, the vast majority of cuss words used in Israel tend to be either Arabic, Russian, or English. The Holy Language simply lacks any decent obscenities).

Israeli soccer is God-awful. While the country has produced a few great players, some who went on to play in the European leagues, the teams are fairly terrible. When the league champions get to play internationally, they are typically annihilated in the first rounds, as Israel, due to obvious political reasons, does not play in Asia, but in Europe. Those who follow the sport know that the European Federation, known as UEFA (a four-letter word to many…) is the toughest one on the planet.

However, soccer has become a great, almost subversive unifier in the country. Numerous Arab, Druze, and Jewish clubs and players compete weekly, with racial outbursts limited to those of some rabid fans of Jerusalem’s ultra-right-wing Beitar club, who steadfastly refuse to recruit any Muslim players. To his credit, the team owner Mr. Moshe Hogeg has implemented a zero-tolerance policy for any acts of racism, and has made great strides in weeding-out the bad actors. The Arab sector is well represented on the ultimate meritocracy, Israel’s National Team, with the Circassian-Israeli Bibars Natcho captaining the squad, and multiple Arab-Israeli players on it. In fact, in a recent televised meeting between Arab member of Knesset Dr. Ahamad Tibi and Israel’s President, the former congratulated the President on the improvements shown by some of the Jewish players on the National team... No matter, as Israel hasn’t qualified for the World Cup since 1970, and there’s no real hope on the horizon either, however distant. Every year there’s a new coach, revised strategy, and the same heartbreak.

The game was over, the players embraced, my nephew was given a game jersey as a souvenir, and we headed back to Tel-Aviv, not before stopping on the way for some of the best lamb kabobs we’ve ever tasted. It was just a regular Friday afternoon soccer game in a small Arab/Jewish Galilean town, where the grass is always green, the locals cordial, and the referees are (just insert your favorite expletive here).

Playing the Spoons

I’d like to offer some free advice to the manufacturers of table flatware: Discard your age-old “place-setting” configuration, which no longer meets the needs of the modern family kitchen and repackage it in the following proportion: Eight knives, ten tablespoons, fourteen forks, and twenty-four teaspoons. I have scientifically calculated this as the proper ratio to ensure the availability of at least two full place-settings at any point in time, in between dishwasher loads. Your sales will resurge (and you can put me down for two sets).

We All Scream

When my children were younger, if you’d ask them “what’s the one thing your father loves more than you?” they’d respond unanimously “Ice Cream!”. Growing up, I’d experienced both American ice cream, which wasn’t very good but came in a million different flavors, and Israeli ice cream, with its much more limited varieties but far superior quality, due to Israel’s phenomenal dairy industry. Since then, I have never missed an opportunity to try out new flavors and brands, wherever I go, which included camel-milk gelato in Dubai. Israel is the home of a multitude of manufacturers and scoop-shops, the latest rage being a chain of premium ice cream named “Golda” (after the founder’s grandmother, not the former Prime Minister) with weekend wait-times of 30-60 minutes; it’s that good.

So it was with great consternation that I heard of Ben and Jerry’s decision to revoke the license of the Israeli licensee due to its refusal to yield to the demand to stop distributing their product in the West Bank. You may have heard: Ben and Jerry’s board succumbed to pressure from “Boycott, Divest, Sanctions” (BDS) supporters, such as the Vermonters for Justice in Palestine (VTJP) organization, which has assailed the company on this matter for well over a decade. Ben and Jerry’s issued the licensee an ultimatum it could not legally comply with, as it is against Israeli Commercial Law to refuse to sell a product to anyone. Moreover, it is a blatantly hypocritical decision, as the product is also sold in many other regions ensnared in social strife and political controversy such as India, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates. I don’t bring this up as an act of “Whataboutism”, but rather to point out that there are much better ways for the company to influence issues important to it, rather than boycotting a population. As with many other ill-advised political actions, this one blew up right in the face of both Ben and Jerry’s and its owners, international mega-conglomerate Unilever, Inc.

We’ll start with Israel: The ice cream plant in in the south of the country, in Israel proper, and close to 200 employees are at risk of losing their jobs. The fiercely competitive Israeli ice cream industry immediately rallied around them, calling on Israelis to support the factory by buying more local Ben and Jerry’s. Conversely, the Israeli political leadership, in an entirely tone-deaf manner, has called on people to boycott Ben and Jerry’s in the US, with the newly elected President of Israel Isaac Herzog calling Ben and Jerry’s decision no less than an “act of terrorism”. Next, in the West Bank, some local entrepreneurs have drawn-up plans to manufacture their own version of the product, branded “Judea and Samaria Ben and Jerry’s”, with flavors like “Frozen Chosen People”… Lastly, back home: Several US States have laws forbidding BDS activities, and multiple state Attorneys Generals and legislators are seeking to make some political hay by attempting to sue or ban Ben and Jerry’s in their state. The stupidity of all actors in this farce is astonishing.

First off, I don’t believe in boycotts, certainly not political ones (full disclosure: I do “boycott” Häagen-Dazs ice cream, but that’s only because they shrunk down their pints to 14 ounces, which is truly unforgivable). They never work, and they usually cause economic damage to the very same people one is concerned about; Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and South Africa come to mind. (When I was a kid, Israel was on the receiving end of "The Arab Boycott" which pressured countries and corporations to refrain from doing business with Israel. As a result there wasn't a single Toyota or Datsun (Nissan) vehicle sold in Israel, and the 7-Up and Pepsi of my youth was only available in East Jerusalem, from the bottling company in Gaza City).

And second, the BDS movement is not about finding a solution to the conflict, which is long overdue. It’s not about promoting peace, encouraging dialog, or fostering Truth and Reconciliation; it’s a movement focused on delegitimizing Israel, and denying its right to exist. It’s right there in their slogans about “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (which places Tel Aviv and Haifa in the same category as Hebron and Ramallah) or calling for a Palestinian state “From the River to the Sea”, which basically requires to push the Jews into the Mediterranean.

It takes a lot of skill and expertise to properly stuff pretzels with peanut butter, coat them in chocolate, and blend them in vanilla malt ice cream, with just the right amount of peanut butter and fudge swirls. I say this with great appreciation to the folks at Ben and Jerry’s, as the “Chubby Hubby” flavor I’ve just described is my all-time favorite flavor of theirs. Just stick to your core competency of producing a quality, ethical, tasteful ice cream with adorable names, and stay away from the one conflict in the world which will never be solved until people cease picking sides, and impartially promote an equitable, fair solution. In the meantime, keep on passing the pint!

The Flame Burns On

The “2020”  Tokyo Olympic Games (which were delayed to 2021) represented astonishing challenges of the kind never envisioned by its founder, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, back in the 19^th century. The Pandemic had thrown a monkey wrench into every possible aspect of the games, from athlete preparation, fan participation, sponsor revenue-generation; you name it, it was totally fouled-up. Yet these games managed to create dizzying heights of success, emotion, and reverence for none other than the Israeli delegation.

We’ll start with its size: this has been by far the largest Israeli Olympic delegation in history, largely due to the presence of its National Baseball team. Israel never qualifies in team sports per se, so the large contingent of baseballers accounted for this unprecedented size. While every single member of the Baseball team is an Israeli citizen, many of the players are Jewish-American Major and Minor-Leaguers, current and former, who joined the team for an opportunity to play in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Baseball has a tradition of welcoming “heritage” players to international teams, a practice that has sent Boston’s star shortstop, Aruban-born Xander Bogaerts to three Dutch World Baseball Classic teams, and Pennsylvania-born Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza to play for Italy. This is understood around the world, but in Israel the scenario was met with a combination of sarcasm and general indifference. Baseball is not a common sport in the country, and recent surveys indicate that there are about one thousand people who play it, recreationally, most of which are American expats. However, Team Israel was one of only six teams that made it to the final tournament in Tokyo, out of a global pool of 56 participating nations, and the only one from Europe, so the prospect of playing multiple games against Japan, South Korea, the Dominican Republic, Australia, and Team USA was certainly enough to get me up at 4 AM to watch the games.

In other sports, Israel won a few medals, most significantly Gold in both Rhythmic and Artistic Gymnastics, “Core Olympic Sports” (unlike the esoteric baseball) in which medals are typically won by large countries such as Russia, China, Japan, or the US, who invest tens of millions of dollars in their athletic development programs. These wins will undoubtedly be a huge boost to gymnastics in Israel, with thousands of young girls and boys seeking to follow in the footsteps of their newly cast role models.

But in many ways Israel’s most moving achievement was during the Opening Ceremony. The worst calamity in the history of international athletic competitions occurred in 1972, during the Munich Olympic Games, when terrorists from the “Black September” Palestinian terror organization murdered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches. To me, this was personal: Our PE teacher in my Tel-Aviv elementary school, Mr. Na׳ve, was also an instructor at Israel’s Sports College, the Wingate Institute, and would regularly bring in student-teachers to assist him in our classes, one of which was Esther Roth-Shahamorov, who was (and remains) the country’s greatest track star. Shahamorov represented Israel in Munich, was at the peak of her career, and in the 100-meter sprint semi-finals set a new Israeli record which was to last 46 years; she was widely expected to medal. I was in the Third grade (the 1972 Games were in late Summer, and we were already back in school), and we were all very excited for her. You can only imagine the shock we all felt when her coach Amitzur Shapira was brutally murdered, along with the others, and the entire delegation returned home to bury their dead, denying her a chance to compete in the finals. Controversially, the games went on as planned… (Shahamorov participated in the 1976 Montreal games, placing sixth in the 100-meter hurdles final, for many years Israel’s highest Olympic achievement, and still its greatest one in Track).

For close to fifty years, in a perplexing, possibly antisemitic (and certainly anti-Israeli) manner, the International Olympic Committee steadfastly refused to honor or even mention the Munich attack in any subsequent Opening Ceremony. So it was with great surprise that the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony featured a Moment of Silence in honor of those massacred in the attack. Physically present at Olympic Stadium were Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, both widows of murdered athletes,  honored by the Tokyo Organizing Committee and IOC president Thomas Bach. Although the stadium was largely clear of spectators, on account of the Pandemic, a billion TV and online viewers remembered, if only for a minute, the horrors of those past September days. Forty-nine years (and a twelve-hour tape-delay) later I, too, stood up in remembrance of the victims, and of that Summer of my childhood, when the excitement, purity, and innocence of the Olympics were horrifyingly snatched away from us all.

Honey from my Honey

For over three decades my mother, who resides in Israel, would ship us two of her fabulous honey cakes for the High Holidays. The first to be consumed on Rosh Hashanah, the second deposited in the freezer and defrosted ten days later for Yom Kippur, and has forever been the first thing I’d eat to break the fast. These annual shipments were an important lifecycle event for us: no matter where we lived, what kind of war was underway in Israel, whether my mother was traveling; those two cakes always arrived, and on time.

About three years ago, during a visit to Israel, my mom sat my wife down and informed her that she is passing the baton to her. Long known in our family as a superb baker, she was now entrusted with my mom’s sacred recipe, and it was up to her to bake them, and no more shipments will be forthcoming.

My wife accepted the challenge with zeal: she started off a with a batch, and I proudly sent a picture of them to my mother, who immediately responded with “tell her to use stronger coffee in the batter, it doesn’t look dark enough”. Additional batches and tweaks followed, including a quest for high-quality North Carolina honey, and my wife decided to submit her version of the cake to be judged by the most powerful critics in the state, namely the Food Entry judges at the North Carolina State Fair. She filled out all the requisite paperwork and delivered the finished product, which was tasted and put on display. We’d actually gone to visit it… She came in 4^th place (out of fifty or so), and received a ribbon and a check for $9, her prize. All this has encouraged her to improve upon the recipe, and resubmit this year (alas, there was no State Fair last year), attempting to dislodge a couple of perennial past winners from the podium (competitive baking is apparently a blood-sport).

While this has been going on, I have witnessed upwards of eighty honey cakes baked and distributed so far, with our children, family members and friends all being the grateful recipients (and unwitting lab rats) of a bit of spicy sweetness for the holidays. And yes, the coffee really needs to be darker. Le’Shana Tovah, Y’all!