06 July 2026 – A special update about former hostages, your top stories and more on The Israel Brief.
07 July 2026 – We are talking Turkey (and F35’s) and more on The Israel Brief.
08 July 2026 – Ceasefire between US and Iran over? Your news updates on The Israel Brief.
09 July 2026 – Israel braces as the US and Iran increase mutual strikes, who made both the mensch and moron list and more on The Israel Brief.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Recalling the Entebbe rescue brought back memories of the heroism of two South Africans in Israel’s ‘The Great Escape’.
By David E. Kaplan
One of the bravest and most successful rescue operations in human history, many who were around at the time will recall where they were when the story broke. I was a law student in South Africa travelling by car between Durban and Cape Town and was sitting in a Wimpy Bar in Grahamstown when the restaurant’s TV broke to Breaking News to announce the unfolding drama. Little did I know at the time that years later I would be interviewing two South African heroes who participated in the rescue Dr. Jossy Faktor and Ricky Davis. Both had been members of South African Jewish youth movements before immigrating to Israel.
Honouring Heroism. Formally of Pretoria, South Africa, Dr. Jossy Faktor (right) of ‘The Entebbe Raid’ medical team, receives a Lieutenant Colonel rank from Chief of Staff, Ehud Barak (left), duly assisted by Faktor’s wife Barbara and their granddaughter.
The crisis that led to the Entebbe Raid began on the 27th June, when four terrorists seized an Air France plane, flying from Israel to Paris with 248 passengers on board. The hijackers – two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and two from Germany’s Baader-Meinhof gang – diverted the aircraft, ‘flight 139’ to Entebbe. There, the hijackers were joined by three more colleagues who then demanded the release of fifty-three of their associates held in jails in Israel and four other countries. The clock was ticking. If the detainees were not released, they would begin killing hostages.
SHADES OF THE SHOAH
The plot of the unfolding saga drew in a global audience mesmerized by the twists and turns of a modern-day Homeric epic. Abduction and rescue – the stage was set for a cataclysmic clash of wills. On the one side, an anguished Israel, while on the other, German and Palestinian terrorists aided and abetted by one of Africa’s most notorious dictators, President Idi Amin. Stories abounded by this man’s evil proclivities, notable that he had a certain taste for eating his enemies.
It was said that his palace fridge had been a real ‘who’s who’ in Ugandan politics – leftovers to go with the salad. Some 3,400 kilometres away, a nervous Israeli government was agonizing which way to move. No options were risk free.
The terrorists then played a card that simplified the decision.
They separated the passengers – Jews from non-Jews – releasing the latter. Shades of the Shoah colored the unfolding drama and Israel now stood alone.
The Jewish state also knew what it had to do.
It was a proud cast of characters who participated in the mission dubbed by the Israeli military – “Operation Thunderbolt”. Amongst the medical team on board one of the four C-130 Hercules aircraft, was a former South African from Pretoria, Dr. Jossy Faktor. A gynecologist and obstetrician, Jossy at the time was serving in the permanent force of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and would later rise to become its Surgeon General.
Dreaming About Tomorrow. Planning for life in Israel, Jossy Faktor (sitting far right) in the late 1950s together with the national leadership of South Africa’s Jewish youth movement ‘Habonim’ in Johannesburg. (Credit: Habonim Dror)
When the call came summoning the 36-year-old doctor to report for duty, Jossy and his wife Barbara were clicking champagne glasses celebrating the tenth wedding anniversary of their old Habonim friends, the Kessels in Ra’anana. Little did they all know when Jossy hurriedly stepped out of Terry and Carol’s front door, that he was about to enter the history books.
At roughly the same time, 21-year-old Ricky Davis was with his paratrooper unit at Wingate when the call came through. Only two years earlier, Ricky, a member of Betar in Port Elizabeth, made Aliyah and within three months joined the IDF. “We immediately packed up and assembled at a base near Petach Tikva. Although we were aware of the hijack drama playing out at Entebbe, we had no idea that we would be connected. We went on so many hair-raising missions into Lebanon and Jordan in those days that we assumed it was another of the ‘usual ops.”
Ready To Rescue. Originally from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Ricky Davis at the time of ‘The Entebbe Raid’, whose unit was tasked with neutralizing the Ugandan Russian Migs on the airport tarmac.
Once assembled at the base:
“Everything became top secret. We began training, still not knowing our destination. Only at the last stage, were we brought into the picture. My unit was to secure the escape by destroying, in advance, anything that could jeopardize our escape.”
“NO GOING BACK”
The next day saw Jossy being briefed by the Surgeon General, the late Dan Michaeli. “I was instructed to quickly put together an aero-medical team.” Although Jossy’s specialization was gynecology, he had been trained in aviation medicine that included ensuring the health of aircrews and aero-medical evacuations. While there had been missions and escapades in the past, nothing would come close to what he was to experience in the next few days. “The success of the operation was secrecy, and because the public at the time was well aware of the hostage crisis, we had to come up with something to deflect attention. Also, we needed to obtain a large supply of blood from Magen David Adom (Israel’s Red Cross), and that necessitated a credible cover story. We did not want anyone – least of all the media – questioning why we suddenly needed so much blood. Because nothing quite like this had ever been attempted, we had no idea of what casualties to expect. Anyway, the word went out that a crisis was developing on the northern border with Lebanon, and we would need medical teams and blood. The story held, and we took off with only those involved in the operation in the know.”
The final briefings were divided according to the different roles to be performed by the various participants. “We were briefed by Dr. Ephraim Sneh, who was the overall commander of the medical teams.”
Jossy describes the flight as long and uneventful.
“We left Friday morning and landed at Sharem el Sheik, stopping for essentially two reasons. Firstly, for refueling. We had enough to get us to Entebbe, but no more. And as we did not expect the ground staff at Entebbe to accommodate us by refueling our planes, we needed sufficient fuel to take off after the rescue and make it to Nairobi.” The other reason for the stopover was no less intriguing. “When we took off in Israel, the Cabinet had still not decided to go through with the mission. The risks obviously weighed enormously with them and so wanted to keep the option to abort open until the last moment. On the runway at Sharem El Sheik, we received the final green light. Now there was no going back.”
Fake News. Rather than report that Israel recues its hostages, a Ugandan newspaper reports that “Israelis invade Entebbe”.
CHATTING IN THE COCKPIT
The last stretch of the flight to Entebbe “we flew at a very low altitude to avoid radar detection. The turbulence was heavy, but it did not bother me,” says Jossy. “I recall there was very little chatting; everyone was so wrapped up with their own thoughts. I spent much of my time in the cockpit as the captain, Amnon Halivni, was a good friend of mine.”
Jossy traveled with the medical teams in the fourth Hercules. “Our plane was virtually empty ready to accommodate the hostages and expected wounded.”
The other three planes carried ground forces, with the black Mercedes Benz and Land Rovers on board the first aircraft. The word out on the street was that the Mercedes was owned by an Israeli civilian and was apparently sprayed black so it would appear as the Ugandan’s president’s car when approaching the terminal building. However, the intelligence was dated. The two Ugandan sentries on duty that morning were well aware that their President had recently purchased a white Mercedes replacing his black one. They ordered the motorcade to stop. Had they had the opportunity for a closer look they would have also noticed that the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car, but by that time, they were both dead.
Planed To Perfection. The Black Mercedes used to fool Uganda soldiers in the Israeli raid on Entebbe parked aboard an Israeli transport plane with commandos from Sayeret Matkal. (Photo: IDF Spokesman)
In fear of prematurely alerting the terrorists inside the terminal, the subterfuge motorcade sped up and the assault teams quickly went into action.
INTO BATTLE
Jossy’s aircraft had been the last to land. Throughout the operation “we stayed on board, preparing for the arrival of our passengers. It took just under forty minutes for the first casualties to arrive. The waiting was the worst. We felt like sitting ducks as the battle ensured. In the end we needed only six stretchers, one of which was used for Yoni Netanyahu, who died on the way to the aircraft.”
Ricky’s unit, tasked with getting away safely, took care of the Russian Migs on the airport tarmac. “The real danger was that they could give chase, easily catch us, and shoot us down. We were not taking any chances and blew them up with anti-tank missiles.” Adds this warrior, “Yes, we stopped for coffee in Nairobi on the return flight home.”
The enormity of what these daring men had pulled off “only sunk in,” says Jossy “when we touched down at Tel Nof Airbase and were met by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres. It was only then, safe on Israeli soil, that people felt free to express their emotions.”
Decisive Duo. Taking enormous risks that paid off, Defense Minister Shimon Peres (right) with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) welcoming the released Entebbe hostages upon their return to Israel on July 4, 1976. (Defense Ministry Archives)
AND THEN THERE WAS THREE…
Another South African would emerge in the aftermath of the Entebbe Raid. His name is Maurice Rogev, a famed forensic pathologist who had settled in Israel in the 1960s after legendary activities across East Africa that fed rumors “not without foundation,” to be in the sometime-service of the Mossad. All this he revealed to me in an exclusive interview in 1997.
Prowling Pathologist. Searching for bodies, forensic pathologist Maurice Rogev (left) in Kenya during the Mau-Mau uprising where he met Kenyata and later attracted the attention of the Mossad.
Like Faktor, Maurice, too had been a member of the South African Habonim movement. He left Cape Town hurriedly in 1948 after listening attentively on the radio that the National Party had won the election. “I’m outer here,” he told his girlfriend and left the country. He enters the Entebbe story with the exit of one of the fateful passengers of the hi-jacked Air France Flight 139, Dora Bloch, a dual Israeli-British citizen. Dora, who had taken ill on the plane and was sent to a hospital in Kampala was hence not rescued with the other hostages during Israel’s Operation Entebbe. She then was reported missing from the hospital, which led to Britain cutting diplomatic ties with Uganda. Her body was discovered in 1979 in a sugar plantation near the capital.
Maurice filled me in on the gaps.
State Sanctioned Murder. Dora Bloch in 1971. In February 2007, declassified British government documents confirmed that she had been murdered by Ugandan authorities on Amin’s orders.
“The day after Idi Amin was overthrown in Uganda, I was contacted by the Mossad. The next day I was on a plane to Nairobi and from there to Kampala where the new president of Uganda was keeping the remains in a bank vault, the safest place he could think of. What happened was that the day Idi Amin fell, a disheveled man presented himself at the gate of the British Embassy asking to speak to the Ambassador. They took him to the guardroom and he said, “I am the man who buried Dora Bloch.” He revealed that after he buried her, he knew he would be killed off by Amin if he did not disappear. So, he raced to his home village near the Kenyan border and stayed there until Amin was overthrown. Examining the body, Maurice identified her remains from her dentures.
“The Butcher”. A smiling President Idi Amin visits the hostages at Entebbe Airport, whereafter, following the successful Israeli rescue said “Israel should be condemned in the strongest possible terms for this aggression,” and took his revenge by murdering of one of its passengers left behind, the elderly Dora Bloch. (Photo: AP)
“I found the initials of her Tel Aviv dentist on her dentures. She was prepared for burial and transported to Israel.” Dora Bloch was given an Israeli state funeral buried in Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot Cemetery.
In the immediate aftermath of the rescue mission, the government of Uganda convened a session of the UN Security Council to seek official condemnation of Israel for violating Ugandan sovereignty. The Security Council ultimately declined to pass any resolution on the matter. The words of Israel’s ambassador to the UN at the time, Chaim Herzog:
“We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people – men, women and children – but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.”
Does his address to the Security Council resonates no less today as his son Isaac Herzog the 11th president of the State of Israel has presided since October 7, 2023 over the worst atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Shoah?
In 1976, the terrorists at Entebbe – like the Nazis – separated the Jews from the other passengers and held them as hostages.
For the most part the world was indifferent.
Ordeal Over. Rescued passengers welcomed at Ben Gurion Airport.
In 2023, a new generation of terrorists took Jewish hostages, and the world was not only indifferent it embraced the terrorists wishing that Jews and the Jewish state would disappear as global antisemitism emerged like a wildfire out of control.
Here is the stark reality from the Israeli perspective:
The terrorists at Entebbe were all killed.
The terrorists on October 7 have for the most part been killed or are being killed.
And as for Israel?
Am Yisrael Chai.
*Feature picture:Escape from Entebbe. In July 6, 1976, the world learns a word – Entebbe.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Willing to take, but not to give – have the ultra-Orthodox in a post October 7 world overplayed their hand?
By Stephen Schulman
Living in Israel in these particularly troubled and turbulent times, and after encountering a certain photograph in the newspaper, my thoughts were inexorably drawn back to the contents of an article that appeared some years ago, long before the October 7th massacre, in the weekend magazine of a Hebrew daily.
The article was penned by an Israeli journalist who had travelled to England and interviewed the chief Hamas ideologue who was then residing there. He was most cordially received by this punctilious and affable gentleman who then set out to calmly, patiently and methodically explain his genocidal terrorist organization’s long-term master plan for the destruction of Israel. “Look,” he said, “We follow your media very closely and are aware of what is constantly transpiring within your country. We see a house divided. Many sectors exist, each pursuing their own interests, often inimical to the others and competing to attain as much as possible at the expense of the state. You are becoming a weakened country and in order to survive will have to continually make concessions to us. Eventually, when we dominate and control, you Jews will either have to leave and return from whence you came or be pushed into the sea.”
A chilling observation with an ominous ending. Nevertheless, a photograph taken during an anti-conscription protest of the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) sector, brings some hard truths home. The picture shows a Haredi protester holding a commercially printed banner about two meters in length that contains two pictures each with their own captions. The first one is of a crematorium in an extermination camp and the second one is of the identical picture with the caption:
“We will not send our children to the crematoria of the IDF.” (Israel Defense Force)
Anti-conscription demonstrations by the Haredi with their panoply of scurrilous banners and placards, take place regularly, often turning violent with chants of: “We will die rather than serve in the army,” and they, unfortunately, have become so part and parcel of our daily lives that we have grown accustomed to them. Nevertheless, I was shocked to my core for here was a poster so vicious, and so callous that it defiles and desecrates the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust. For a Jew to equate serving in the Israeli army with burning in the ovens of the Nazi death camps, reveals the unfathomable depths of blind hatred that exist within a sector comprising a present 14% of the population – and that for all extents and purposes has become a state within a state.
A Bridge too Far. Manning the Chords Bridge at the entrance to Jerusalem, ultra-orthodox men have drawn battle lines that is dividing the nation.(Photo: AP Photo/Leo Correa)
This inner state of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim with its different sectors and sects has evolved, not overnight, nor despite, but with the acquiescence, complicity, and nurturing of the liberal secular democratic state which within it exists. Since the Israeli electoral system is one of proportionate representation, it allows groups and/or sectors to form their own political parties to represent and pursue their own interests. Consequently, there have been many small parties that have carried weight far beyond their size as the major ones needed their support to cobble together a coalition in order to attain a parliamentary majority and effect legislation. The ultra-Orthodox bloc has long been a decisive factor in many successive governments in swinging the balance towards a coalition majority. Throughout the years, in return for its support, prime ministers have acquiesced to their lists of demands that have swelled exponentially and they have been given – disproportionately to their representation in the Knesset – various key ministries and posts controlling and dispensing large budgets. Consequently, their demands have grown interminably and their appetite has grown insatiably as they tenaciously hang onto and voraciously suckle on the swollen pap of the public purse. This accrual of political power, public funds, social and welfare benefits plus being sheltered from shouldering the economic and military burden has enabled the ultra-Orthodox parties to develop their own state within that of the liberal secular democratic one.
Creating Chaos. Despite the outrage to the general population and the causing of a constitutional crisis, PM Netanyahu conspires with the leaders of the Haredi parties to pass a draft exemption law. (Photos: Yair Sagi, Reuven Castro, Amit Shaavi, AFP, Alex Kolomoisky, Yoav Dudkevich, AP)
This de facto autonomous state, theocratic and authoritarian in nature, is ruled and strictly controlled, together with a fixed hierarchy, by councils of elderly learned rabbis. The Shas party representing the Jewry from Arab countries (Sephardim) has at its spiritual head a former chief rabbi, scion of a distinguished rabbinic family, whose pronouncements reflect an insularity, narrow mindedness, intolerance, arrogance and contempt for the liberal secular democratic state, with the Council of Sephardi Torah Sages sharing similar views. The pious leader of the Shas bloc in the Knesset is Aryeh Deri – a distinguished felon and former convict who in 2002 had sat in prison for two years after being convicted for breach of trust, moral turpitude, corruption and bribery while serving in a government post. But, as the saying goes: “Practice makes perfect” and on 20 November 2018, Israeli police ended a criminal investigation into Deri with a recommendation to state prosecutors that he be indicted for “committing fraud, breach of trust, obstructing court proceedings, money laundering, and tax offense.” Later, the state attorney decided to drop all charges except for the tax offense. The Ashkenazi bloc (Jews from European countries) is also ruled by a Council of Torah Sages consisting of elderly rabbis – who share roughly the same sentiments towards the secular state, seeing it solely as a means towards their common goal with Shas of having their communities devote themselves entirely to Torah studies to the exclusion of all else.
These leaders control the lives of those that live within this state, and depend upon it for employment, housing, social welfare and financial benefits. It has its own educational system with a fixed syllabus that perpetuates the status quo, denying its graduates the skills to be employable in the outer state and rendering them dependent on their own one. Their leaders also decide the voting in municipal and general elections. It regulates the public and private discourse, dress code, behaviour, morals and public taste, defining what is acceptable and forbidden. Those who deviate from these strict societal norms are punished and those who choose to leave this state are regarded as pariahs to be shunned.
Blocking Roads to Blocking Country’s Future. Ultra-Orthodox protesters, some of them wearing Holocaust-inspired yellow stars at a Haredi demonstration against military service at the Ben Shemen Interchange in central Israel, June 11, 2026 are blocking a way . (Photo: Israel Police)
Ironically, this state of the ultra-Orthodox cannot exist on its own and is an integral part of the outer liberal democratic one on which it entirely depends to build its homes, supply and maintain the vital infrastructures of water, electricity and multiple municipal and government services. The secular democratic liberal state maintains public health services, hospitals, public transport and the police. The ultra-Orthodox population, like the rest of Israel’s citizens, enjoy all the benefits of a modern welfare state. In essence, due to their large families, high level of unemployment and correspondingly high levels of poverty, they are privileged and enjoy subsidies in public transport, children’s day care, municipal rates and many other perks. While their population comprises 14% of the population, their contribution in taxes is a negligible 4% and many of their families enjoy negative taxation. All this translates into a tax burden on the rest of the population.
Tragically and deplorably, the ultra-Orthodox regard themselves as apart, superior and distinct – willing to take but not to give – and this attitude manifests itself in their abject refusal to do military service. Their elderly rabbis are learned in the ways of the Torah and Talmud but willfully blind to the realities of living in a hostile Middle East. Haunted by the spectre of hordes of their faithful defecting to the corrupting sin pits of an IDF Sodom and Gomorrah that will lead them to perdition, they expressly forbid them to don a uniform.
Raw Nerve. Referring to the Israeli state that financially supports their lifestyle as the “ENEMY STATE” has touched a raw nerve following October 7 and the ensuing wars.
Today, the State of Israel is in crisis. Almost three years of continuous existential conflict defending the country against our enemies has taken a tremendous toll on our non-ultra-Orthodox citizens. In defending the country, more than 1,150 Israeli soldiers, police personnel, and security officials have died with many thousands being wounded and permanently scarred, both physically and mentally. The circle of bereavement has widened immeasurably as too many families have had to mourn the loss of their beloved ones. Young women have been widowed, children growing up fatherless and parents denied the joy of standing together under the wedding canopy. Countless citizens’ lives have been turned upside down as army reservists have spent hundreds of days on the battlefields. Family lives have been disrupted, jobs lost and businesses closed down. Young people having just finished three years of army service, see their goal of uninterrupted tertiary studies vanish down the tubes as they once more are called up for long periods The Israel Defense Forces is facing a critical manpower shortage and urgently needs at least 12,000 more recruits to ease the load on those serving.
Where to get them?
A simple solution: the ultra-Orthodox population presently has 80,000 young men eligible for the draft, but an insoluble problem: they refuse to serve. “But,” you naively ask:
“These young men are citizens and the law obliges them to serve. In fact, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that stressed this obligation and they all got call up notifications. So why don’t they come?”
The guide for the perplexed lies within the country’s political climate. The thirty-seventh government of Israel was formed on 29 December 2022, with Netanyahu at its head. Netanyahu, a seasoned wheeler dealer, for his own personal reasons, went out of his way to form a coalition government and to meet the demands of the different factions, creating a lumbering and costly dinosaur of 38 ministers and deputy ministers. The ultra-Orthodox bloc, seasoned political extortionists aware of their power, with 17 out of a total 120 Knesset seats extracted a dream agreement: key ministries, huge budgets, sitting firmly on the gravy train and success in their quest for the cherished holy grail: Bibi’s commitment to legislation giving permanent blanket exemption for all military aged members of their community.
Pouncing on the Police. Haredi protesters stormed the home of the head of Israel’s Military Police in the south of the country in protest against the arrest of draft evaders.
Now, a few months before the coming elections, the State of Israel stands at the crossroads and must determine a path that decides the future character and possible fate of the country. The Knesset will be dissolved and enter its pre-election recess on July 17th and Bibi has not delivered the goods. The promised legislation has not been passed and to make matters worse – anathema to their leaders who told them all to destroy their call up notices – a few token Haredi draft evaders have actually been arrested and jailed. The ultra-Orthodox camp has reacted with fury: protesters blocking main junctions and a motorcade led by their Knesset representatives deliberately setting out, just before afternoon rush hour, causing paralysis and gridlock on main highways throughout the country. The protesters are not immune to violence, thuggery and vandalism; amongst others, invading the home of a Supreme Court judge, causing extensive damage and threatening his family. At a rally attended by the Shas faithful, one of the venerable rabbis present on the stage placed a curse on the head of the army chief of staff. True to form and highly adept at political weaseling, the Haredi lawmakers, with the backing of Netanyahu, hell bent on his political survival regardless of the cost to the country, are trying their utmost to rush through a bill that would enshrine Torah study as one of the country’s Basic Laws i.e. granting yeshiva students equal status and giving them equal benefits to soldiers serving on the front lines.
If the bill passes, it bodes ill for the country’s future. The ultra- Orthodox with their high average birthrate of 6.7 children per family, by 2050 will comprise 24% of the Israeli population and 40% of young men of military draft age. In practice, this quarter of the population will be contributing a miniscule 7% of the nation’s taxes placing a huge burden on the rest of the citizens. Moreover, as the ultra-Orthodox always turn out en masse to vote en bloc for their designated representatives, it is highly likely that they will be the largest political party in the Knesset with unprecedented powers. As it has been demonstrated, this can only lead to increasing allocations of public funds being swallowed by this sector notorious for its opacity and lack of financial accountability.
Assault on Judiciary. Israeli police officers use force to disperse an ultra-Orthodox Israeli demonstrating against the arrest of fellow activists who took part in a protest outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, outside the Abu Kabir detention facility in Tel Aviv, June 10, 2026. (Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
In 2050, a young secular person recently graduating from high school will receive call up papers. He/she will have to serve for more than three years due to a chronic manpower shortage while 40% of his peers eligible for service will be safely studying in the yeshivot where their stipends are much larger and their conditions are immeasurably better. Upon eventually finishing service and entering the work market, he/she will be heavily taxed with a corresponding drop in the standard of living in order to support the dominant ultra – Orthodox sector. They will then weigh whether or not there is a future for them in the country and if they should remain.
Is my scenario overly bleak? Possibly, but I am far from being alone in my pessimism. In 2023 and 2024, a shocking 90,00 citizens – mainly young middle-class families in the higher education bracket: doctors, hi-tech workers and professionals, drawing their own conclusions, left the country – the equivalent of a medium sized town such as Ra’anana emptying out. If the present state of affairs continues, Israel in too short a time, lacking the economic locomotive of an educated and skilled middle class and with a large section of the population doing menial work and mired in poverty, will have the economy of a 3rd world country. The Israel Defense Forces suffering a lack of means and a huge manpower deficit will be considerably weakened and the enemies surrounding us will have long taken note. Our beloved country, for whom so many of its citizens have paid the ultimate price, could economically and militarily implode.
I once more see that photograph in front of me, recall the words of that despicable genocidal ideologue and I worry for my children and grandchildren. Tragically, many of my friends echo the same sentiments. We see our country in a parlous position: divided, riven by internecine hatred fomented by politicians in their overarching lust for political survival, unconcernedly jettisoning all concern for the good of the state. Let us pray that the 27th October will usher in a sea change.
*Feature picture: Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men protesting on Oct. 30, 2025 the military draft, shutting down Jerusalem, halting public transport and closing major roads. (Photo: AP Photo/Leo Correa) (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg).
About the writer:
Stephen Schulman is a graduate of the South African Jewish socialist youth movement Habonim, who immigrated to Israel in 1969 and retired in 2012 after over 40 years of English teaching. He was for many years a senior examiner for the English matriculation and co-authored two English textbooks for the upper grades in high school. Now happily retired, he spends his time between his family, his hobbies and reading to try to catch up on his ignorance.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The power of money to influence, corrupt and ultimately erode the liberal western way of life.
By Neville Berman
(Warning from the writer: There may be incidents referred to below that you may find disturbing)
This article is not about nuclear war, global warming or a strain of some unknown virus that could result in the destruction of mankind. Instead, it is aimed at highlighting the actual greatest current threat facing the liberal Western way of life. Forget about Russia, China or communism as the major threats facing the West. The cold war is over. Russia is clearly no longer the power that Vladimir Putin thought it was when he ordered the Russian army to invade Ukraine. China might be an economic competitor to American financial dominance, but China relies on the markets in the West to ensure that its export-based economy can bring prosperity to China. It would be a strategic mistake for China to believe that its exports will not suffer if it wages war against the West.
The First World War was billed as “the war to end all wars”. It ended with a German surrender, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire that had ruled large parts of the Middle East for nearly 400 years. The terms of the surrender agreement did not bring peace to Europe, and the Muslim community in the Middle East was plunged into turmoil.
In 1928, Hassan al-Banna started a Sunni Muslim organization in Egypt called the Muslim Brotherhood. He stated the following:
“The nature of Islam is to dominate and not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
The Enforcer. Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest and most influential global Islamist movements, Hassan al-Banna encouraged Egyptians to abandon Western customs and argued that the state should enforce Islamic public morality.
He rejected nationalism, and regarded all Muslims as members of a single Islamic movement that needed to establish Islamic rule across the world. Its core message was to subjugate the world to Sharia law by means of Jihad. He maintained that Jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim, and that a guaranteed way to heaven was to die fighting for the cause of Islam. Partly due to the social activities in helping the poor, and partly due to the support from the Imams in the Mosques, membership in the Brotherhood grew rapidly across the Arab world. The Egyptian government recognized the threat that the Brotherhood posed to its rule, and in 1949, Hassan al-Banna was assassinated by agents of the Egyptian secret police. Despite his death, the message of the Muslim Brotherhood still resonates with millions of Muslims.
There are two significant changes that have now elevated the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The first involves the change in the financial position of the major oil and gas exporting countries in the Middle East, and the second involves the huge increase of the number of Muslims now living in the West.
The world runs on oil and gas and Saudi Arabia is the world’s number 1 exporter of oil, and Qatar is the second largest exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas. (LNG) The profits from the sale of these commodities have transformed these previously poverty-stricken countries into modern financial powerhouses. They are now using their financial power to undermine the West, and promote the growth of Islam across the world.
The second important factor is that the liberal West decided to promote a policy of human rights for mankind. The idea of prosperity through diversity, multiculturalism, and equal opportunity, led to the West opening its borders to immigration. Millions of immigrants from poor countries with little or no prospects, moved to the liberal Western world in the hope of finding a better life for themselves and their families. The vast majority of them lack marketable skills, and are impecunious. They do not share the same culture, religion, language or values of the countries that they have immigrated to. The result is that Europe and America now have sizable immigrant and Muslim populations. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have financed Mosques and Islamic cultural centers all across the world to serve the Muslim immigrant communities. The Imams in these institutions have radicalized tens of thousands of their followers to oppose the values of the West, and to see themselves as part of the army of Islam that aims to control the world.
The greatest threat facing the Western world at present is militant Islam coupled with the support that it is receiving from Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries. (The role of Iran and Saudi Arabia as a threat to the West will be presented in a follow up article.)
Qatar is a sovereign country surrounded by the Persian Gulf. It has a small land border that can be used to cross into Saudi Arabia. It has been ruled by the Al Thani family since the mid-19th century. There are approximately 3 million people living in Qatar, of which about 320,000 are Qatari citizens. All the rest are expatriates and guest workers with almost no rights in the country. Qatar has donated billions of dollars to Hamas, which is an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood.
All in the Family. Qatar, a small Gulf country with enormous global influence, has been ruled by the Al Thani family since the mid-19th century.
Qatar has the same aims as Al-Qaeda, but is much smarter in its strategy. Instead of blowing up buildings in the West and causing a military retaliation, Qatar is buying the buildings and using its financial resources to gain influence. The Al-Jazeera TV channel is financed by the rulers of Qatar. It broadcasts 24/7 in Arabic and English to 430 million households worldwide. It has radicalized millions of its viewers to hate and despise the West and is laying the seeds of an Islamic takeover of the West.
Qatar has spent billions on financing the building of Middle Eastern departments on all the major American university campuses. Only professors with a track record of being anti-Israel are hired. Their aim is to train the future leaders of America to oppose the values and foundational pillars of Western civilization, and especially to oppose Israel. The end result can be seen in well financed and organized protests against Israel on American campuses and across the Western world.
Gift or Graft? Seeming oblivious to the image of Qatar buying influence at the highest level of the US administration, President Donald Trump celebrates the new Qatari-gifted ‘Air Force One’ before its initial voyage to North Dakota, saying the U.S. “should be very proud” of the new luxury jet.(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Qatar has used its enormous wealth to corrupt the world. They bought the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. They are also buying influence within the American administration. Steve Witcoff owned a hotel in New York that was sold to Qatar for $400 million. He claims it was at fair market value. According to a Netflix program called Dirty Money, Jared Kushner was bailed out of insolvency by a $400 million loan from Qatar. Witkoff and Kushner are presently the negotiators representing America in negotiating a deal with Iran. Qatar has just presented Trump with the world’s most luxurious Boeing 747 aircraft costing over $400 million. The Attorney General has determined that the gift is legally permissible, as it is gifted to the US government and not to Trump personally. Trump is now using the plane. Whichever way you look at it, there is no doubt that Qatar has bought influence within the highest levels of the US administration. President Trump sees Qatar as a friend and ally of America. Qatar is playing a double game of pretending to be a friend of America, while actively promoting the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood and the downfall of the West.
More than a decade ago, Dutch politician Gert Wilders produced a short movie of the growth of Islam in Holland. The final scene was filmed inside a mosque of an Imam waving a sword during a sermon, declaring, “Come and cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut it off!”
To Crown it All. This Bel Air home in LA, listed on the market as the US’s most expensive residential property is owned by a Qatari billionaire and former prime minister. Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family and state funds have amassed massive real estate portfolios across Western capitals with their holdings often exceeding those of local monarchs. (Photo: Simon Berlyn/The Beverly Hills Estates)
Gert Wilders was charged with inciting hatred for making and showing the movie. No charges were ever laid against the Imam. There is no doubt that the message of that particular Imam is part of Islam.
In the early hours of October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel. They rejoiced at filming themselves committing the most violent crimes of murder, rape, beheading, and hostage taking. Many people in the West believe that the Muslim concept of Jihad applies only to Jews. They are mistaken. Jihad is aimed at every single person who does not believe in Islam. This is a wakeup call to all those Westerners who are totally ignorant of what Islam and Jihad are all about. One day, when the Islamists decide that it is time to overthrow the West, tens of thousands of militant Islamists that are your fellow citizens, and could be living next door to you, will act in the same way that Hamas acted against Israel. They will take out their guns and invade your residences. They will shoot your dogs, murder your babies and children in front of you. They will gang rape the female members of your family, and then mutilate and decapitate you and your parents. Some of you will have metal rods shoved into your vaginas and others will have your breasts cut off. All of this will be filmed by the people rejoicing at what they have done. Some of you will be kidnaped and kept in cellars. You will either be killed, used as sex slaves, and finally used as bargaining chips to secure the release of other Jihadists that have been incarcerated. If you find the above shocking, then it is time to wake up to the reality of what Hamas actually planned and carried out in Israel. This is what Jihad is all about. As they say in Hollywood, Coming shortly to your neighborhood. Groups such as “Gays for Gaza” are the epitome of the ignorance that exists about the dangers of militant Islam.
Tuitions of Terror. The preferred host of Hamas terrorist leaders, Qatar is the largest foreign donor to American higher education, funneling billions of dollars into U.S. and Western universities. Seen here is Cornell University that received over $2.3 billion. (Credit: Cornell University stock photo)
I will end with what must be the strangest case of genocide ever recorded. Thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank are finding illegal ways to cross into Israel to find employment. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza would gladly come to work in Israel, if Israel would allow them to do so. It defies all logic that all these Palestinians would be trying desperately to come to Israel, if Israel was committing genocide against them. It is time for all those gullible Westerners who are protesting that Israel is committing genocide to understand that you are supporting a blood libel and false narrative. It is time to reflect on your support for those that aim to kill you. It is time to understand the disproportionate role that tiny Israel is playing in preventing militant Islam from taking over the western world.
It is time to say “Thank you Israel.”
About the writer:
Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
When they are needed the most, Israeli nurses and midwives are always by your side, providing innovative solutions.
By Rolene Marks
The miracle of childbirth is one of the happiest moments in any parent’s life. Welcoming new life into the world is joyous evidence of family, love – and continuity for a people. In the wake of the atrocities of 7 October and the wars that follow, every child born is not just love, family and continuity – it is a victory over those who seek our destruction.
For many new mothers, the miracle is also a devastating reminder of loss. Many war widows whose husbands have fallen in defense of our home, have to endure this alone, aware that their hopes and dreams for their future family have been drastically changed.
For the midwives and nurses who help expectant mothers who have lost their spouses or partners requires the utmost sensitivity and trust. Midwives or labor and delivery nurses are tasked with becoming the guardians of life during this very complex and emotional time – especially when the father is deceased.
Lily Yehezkel and Meirav Gold are two veteran labor and delivery nurses with Clalit-Carmel Medical Center, who chose to extend their professional compassion far beyond the boundaries of the delivery room. Clalit is the largest of the four Israeli health services providers, and runs its own network of hospitals in Israel, operating 14 hospitals and 1600 community clinics across Israel.
Yehezkel and Gold are a part of “Le Tzidech” (By your side), a very special initiative by the Israeli Midwives Organization that provides close emotional and professional support for IDF widows and women suffering from post-traumatic stress throughout pregnancy and childbirth. They are present for their patients as they bring new life into the world at a time of profound heartbreak for the mother. Balancing so many delicate and complex emotions require patience, empathy and gentle, loving hands.
Meirav is also the mother of a combat soldier and understands the fear and rollercoaster of emotions that anyone who has a loved one on the frontline experiences acutely.
Lily and Meirav understand that the emotional support work during the intensity of the delivery is delicate, and requires their own sense of sensitivity and balance.
“As a midwife, you learn to stand beside families even during unimaginable moments of pain, such as stillbirths,” she says. “Those experiences sharpened for me the importance of human presence. Through ‘LeTzidech’, we meet the real pain of those left alone with trauma while facing something as positive and life changing as childbirth,” says Lily.
One of the expectant mothers who was navigating grief while expecting was Adi. Lily and Meirav created a safe and supportive environment as they gently shepherded her first born son, Ivri, into the world. It was an exceptionally emotional moment.
Lilly and Meirav together with Adi, an IDF widow, and her son Ivri. (Photo: Clalit Health Services – Carmel Medical Center)
“During the delivery itself, the presence of familiar and loving hands and eyes surrounded me,” Adi recalls. “It allowed me to break down, stay connected to the moment, and even experience joy and laughter within everything that was happening. Without their support, the birth could have been far more painful. They created a feeling of home and the reassurance that I had someone to lean on.”
It was emotional for Lily and Meirav as well, “To accompany a woman who lost her husband during the first weeks of pregnancy and then have the privilege of receiving her son into my hands during such a powerful birth, it’s a full circle moment beyond words,” Lily says emotionally. “Amid all the loss, there was also a moment of hope and a new beginning.”
Lily and Meirav
Many would ask do nurses Lily and Meirav ever get to the point when “compassion fatigue” starts to set in, after all they are balancing so many emotions during a time when the country is in profound trauma and they surely carry their own? Meirav explains that meaning itself is what fuels them, “What gives us strength is seeing processes of healing and empowerment. A moment when a patient, on her own initiative, shares a small feeling of self-confidence for the first time, that’s our victory.”
Meirav and Lily have seen how important “Le Tzidech” is and hope to see the project become a nationwide model.
“We hope every woman coping with loss surrounding childbirth will know she has an anchor to hold onto,” they say.
“Le Tzidech” is not the only innovative project that ensures the emotional wellbeing of patients through trauma. Nurses are on the forefront of thinking of innovative ways to add that extra layer of protection and care for their patients and are finding new ways to ensure that their patients are protected as much as possible from trauma in its various forms. This includes protecting their modesty during medical procedures which more often than not feel invasive and compound their sense of vulnerability.
Nurse Manager, Orly Rosenblat has repeatedly encountered patients who have felt uncomfortable with the level of exposure required in the operating room – even when such exposure had no medical necessity. Women feel increasingly vulnerable when their bodies are exposed during medical treatment. Rosenblat realized she had to create a solution. The result was “Top Secret” – a single use surgical bra made from soft, opaque medical grade paper in a blue color. The bra is provided to patients before surgery and remains in place throughout the procedure whenever medically appropriate.
Nurse Orly Rosenblat with a patient demonstrating the “Top Secret” innovation. (Photo: Clalit-Beilinson Hospital)
The catalyst for Rosenblat was a patient preparing for surgery who was visibly distressed and repeatedly tried to cover herself. She explained that due to a previous medical procedure, she had only one breast and felt deeply embarrassed by having it exposed in front of medical staff. The experience highlighted a broader issue. In many procedures, including abdominal, orthopedic, gynecological, and cesarean surgeries, exposure of the breasts is often unnecessary, yet patients are routinely left uncovered while preparing for surgery.
In a country like Israel where religious sensitivities are paramount, this attention to detail, dignity and modesty is appreciated. In the wake of the atrocities of 7 October, where the visuals of sexual violence and reports of widespread abuse, the project became part of a broader effort to deliver trauma informed and patient centered care during a period of national crisis.
“Since October 7, intimacy and privacy have become even more significant for women. The horrific images we were exposed to and the public discussion surrounding sexual violence and trauma increased the need for Top Secret,” says Rosenblat.
Since its introduction, more than 6,000 Top Secret units have been used at Beilinson Hospital and additional Clalit hospitals.
The question Orly Rosenblat hears the most is why someone hasn’t thought of it before. The importance of privacy has been highlighted by patient advocacy organisations and professional surveying women’s health. Research conducted by the Israeli women’s health organization “Briya Foundation” found that many women experience significant discomfort when required to remove their gowns before surgery.
Some participants reported feelings of humiliation and vulnerability. Others described the experience as emotionally distressing, particularly survivors of sexual trauma, for whom unnecessary exposure can act as a trigger and lead to re traumatization.
Sometimes the most innovative solutions are the simplest. Nurses are at the forefront of the healthcare frontline. “Nurses spend countless hours with patients. We hear their concerns, understand their fears, and notice the small things that can make a significant difference in their experience. Innovation does not always come from technology. Sometimes it comes from listening carefully and understanding what patients truly need,” says Rosenblat.
Le Tzidech and Top Secret are proving more and more that when it comes to patient care, Clalit’s nurses are prioritizing dignity, humanity, and compassion to everyday healthcare, one patient at a time.
*Feature picture: Lily and Meirav
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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Carrying the weight of 7 October and war, a smaller, scarred Maccabiah Games opened in Israelsending a message of Jewish solidarity and resilience.
For over a year, the catchphrase , “Let the games begin” seemed to remain simply idiomatic, unfulfilled, as the quadrennial “Jewish Olympics” was plagued by war and uncertainty. Finally, on July 1, 2026, in a spectacular opening ceremony in Jerusalem, it did “begin” featuring the traditional parade of thousands of Jewish athletes from across the globe. It was a visual reminder of the “Centrality of Israel” in the Jewish world.
ARTICLES
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MOVING ON
Tribute to Israeli mobility artist Yaacov Agam globally celebrated as the father of the Kinetic Art movement. By David E. Kaplan
Portrait of an Artist. “I met all the great artists at the time – Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Jean Arp – but they were allstuck in the past. I prefer to be in the state ofbecoming, like the true meaning of Shabbat – resting to prepare for the coming week.” Insights on one of Israel’s most inspirational artists who passed away at 98.
How one South African businessman in 1921 set out by himself, risking life and limb to save Jewish orphans in worn-torn Eastern Europe. ByMichel Levine
Ochberg’s Odyssey. Today, across the world, there is an ever-growing community of descendants of the Jewish orphans Isaac Ochberg rescued from war-ravaged Eastern Europe. Spared from death through war, pogroms, famine or disease, what inspired their savior and what legacy does “Daddy Ochberg” leave for future generations?
Rubio has delivered a diplomatic breakthrough. Now comes the difficult task of turning a framework into lasting security. By Andrew Fox
‘Sign’ of the Times. Can you imagine catching a train from Jerusalem to Beirut for a Lebanese shawarma! Could this historic signing of the Israel-Lebanon-U.S. “Trilateral Framework Agreement” intended to totally disarm Hezbollah eventually lead to the eventual normalization of relations between the Israel and Lebanon?
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
29 June 2026 – Historic agreement between Israel and Lebanon and an icon turns 100 on The Israel Brief.
30 June 2026 – The truth always outs! Were journalists in Gaza really journalists? What does a new investigation reveal? This and more on The Israel Brief.
01 July 2026 – Roro gets on her soapbox about UNRWA and the Maccabiah starts! This and more on The Israel Brief.
02 July 2026 – Israel marks 1000 days since 7/10 and your top stories on The Israel Brief.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
For the first time in 44 years, Israel and Lebanon have put their names to a framework agreement. Rubio is presenting it as a first step toward ending the conflict, restoring Lebanese sovereignty, dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, and creating a verifiable path toward security on Israel’s northern border. The deal reportedly begins with two pilot zones, into which the Lebanese Armed Forces will enter as Israel redeploys. At the same time, the IDF remains in Lebanese territory for as long as Hezbollah continues to pose a threat.
Brave New World. Meeting with CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper in Beirut on June 29, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun (centre) is bravely navigating a high-stakes strategy by chartering a historic and unprecedented path directly confronting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
This agreement is a meaningful development. It is also where the hard part begins. The agreement creates a process, not an outcome, and the central question is whether anyone can impose that process and outcome on Hezbollah. According to the framework text, Israeli withdrawal is tied to the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and the dismantling of their infrastructure. That sounds straightforward in Washington. In Lebanon, it runs straight into the political and coercive reality of Hezbollah.
Iran will not let Hezbollah go quietly into that good night. For decades, Hezbollah has been an integral part of Tehran’s regional architecture: a military asset in the plan to destroy Israel, a deterrent, and a lever in wider negotiations. It has proven its utility both by striking inside Israel’s borders and by keeping Lebanon diplomatically tied to Iran’s confrontation with Israel. From Tehran’s perspective, the disarmament of Hezbollah would be a catastrophic strategic loss.
That said, Hezbollah is far more than a line item in an Iranian budget. It has its own funding streams, including smuggling, illicit trade, and international criminal networks. Pressure on Tehran alone will not collapse Hezbollah’s operating capacity. The group has spent years building redundancy into its financing, logistics, and social control.
The pilot-zone mechanism is therefore the key test. The Lebanese army’s entry into the first two areas could be a useful beginning, especially if it establishes a precedent for state authority in places where Hezbollah has long treated Beirut’s sovereignty as an irrelevance. The problem is that Hezbollah overmatches the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in most important respects: firepower, salaries, coercive capacity, embedded networks, and willingness to intimidate local opponents.
Mapping Path to Peace. This is the map of the “buffer zone” stipulated in the historic agreement signed between the Lebanese and Israeli governments, which will allow Israel to maintain its troops on Lebanese soil commensurate with Hezbollah disarmament.
The success or failure of the deal hinges on operational freedom. If Israel hands areas to the LAF and the LAF cannot prevent Hezbollah retrenchment, can Israel still act? Israeli officials are already saying the IDF will retain freedom of action in the security zone and remain until Hezbollah and other armed groups no longer pose a threat. That answers part of the Israeli security concern, but “pose a threat” is a loose definition and “no longer” may be doing some heavy lifting. Still, it also creates an obvious point of Lebanese and Hezbollah resistance: an agreement framed as restoring sovereignty may be attacked domestically as legitimising an open-ended Israeli presence.
The risk of Lebanese civil war is already more than a theoretical problem. Hezbollah has already rejected the deal, with Naim Qassem describing it as a surrender and saying the group will continue armed resistance. We have seen reports today of an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon, in an area outside the newly defined Israeli-held zone. In other words, the announcement has not suspended the underlying dynamics of the conflict.
Set for Showdown. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has formally rejected the US-brokered framework agreement signed between Beirut and Jerusalem, characterizing it as a surrender of Lebanese sovereignty stating that the group will not relinquish its arms and is prepared to continue armed resistance.
The same question applies beyond the south. What happens in Hezbollah’s depth areas, including the Bekaa Valley and the logistical corridors that keep Hezbollah in the fight? Can Israel still strike weapons flows, command nodes, and rearmament infrastructure there under the terms of this deal? A framework that manages the border while leaving Hezbollah’s rear areas intact may reduce friction without meaningfully changing the balance of power in Lebanon.
There is also the view from northern Israel. If residents of Kiryat Shmona, Metula, Manara, and other border communities still believe Hezbollah can rebuild observation posts, restore launch capacity, or prepare another frontier shock, displaced Israelis will not return simply because a framework exists. They will only return if the facts on the ground change, visibly and durably.
The Lebanese side faces an equally hard political problem. Hezbollah’s power inside Shia communities rests on welfare provision, patronage, identity, coercion, and deep disillusionment with the Lebanese state. If Lebanon is serious about replacing Hezbollah’s order with state authority, it has to offer more than checkpoints, and foreign-backed security plans. It has to offer protection, services, and a political alternative that does not leave communities feeling exposed.
People Power. Defiant of Iran-backed Hezbollah, a poster depicting Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun that reads ”The decision-maker, the protector of Lebanon, Lebanon first…The State always. We are with you” hangs at the entrance of a tunnel on a street in eastern Beirut on April 28, 2026. (Photo: Joseph EID / AFP via Getty Images)
So, yes: this is progress. A signed Israel-Lebanon framework after 44 years is not nothing, and the pilot-zone model gives the parties something concrete to test. The right posture, however, is cautious scepticism. The success of this deal depends on enforcement, verification, Israeli freedom of action, LAF capacity, Hezbollah’s coercive response, Iran’s tolerance for strategic loss, and Lebanon’s ability to offer its Shia citizens something better than the status quo. Until those details are clear, this is a good first step but it is not yet a settlement.
About the writer:
A veteran of three grueling tours of Afghanistan, Major Andrew Fox holds a Batchelor’s degree in Law & Politics, a Master’s in Military History & War Studies, Msc in Psychology and is currently studying for a PhD in History.
*Feature picture: ‘Sign’ of the Times. The historic signing of the Israel-Lebanon-U.S. “Trilateral Framework Agreement” is intended to contribute to regional transformation by envisioning an eventual normalization of relations between the two states of Israel and Lebanon. (Photo: AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Tribute to Israeli mobility artist Yaacov Agam globally celebrated as the father of the Kinetic Art movement.
By David E. Kaplan
Hearing of the sad passing of one of Israel’s most influential artists on the global stage brought back memories of my interview with him in 2018 at the then new Yaacov Agam Museum of Art (YAMA) in the city of his birth in Rishon LeZion. At the time, I was interviewing him as editor of Hilton Israel Magazine.
Before meeting with the artist, I ‘met’ his wife Clila – his late wife – without even realizing it, for from the moment you step onto the grounds of YAMA, one is engulfed into the rainbow world of the artist – surrounded by a sculpture garden of twenty multicolored pillars all dedicated to Clila. She remained so much part of his life, his world and his art.
Poignant Pillars. Typically sporting his inimitable hat and attired in multi-colored clothing, Agam engages with visitors to his museum in Rishon LeZion explaining to Rossie and Dr. Daniel Klug from Ra’anana, the symbolism of the striking pillars – dedicated to his late wife – at the entrance to his museum in Rishon LeZion. (Photo: David E. Kaplan)
Looking every inch an artist with long gray hair under a well-worn hat and a full beard, we sat down for over two hours of animated conversation. Abounding in energy despite being then 90-years-old – “I’m off to Paris in a few days’ time” – I came quickly to understand how this diminutive man was a giant in the art world, transforming city landscapes and people’s perspectives.
It was apparent from the answer to my first question that the interview would be as changeling as understanding the man’s art.
Constantly on the move – like his art – I began the interview with: “Where do you mostly live these days?”
“I live on my shoulders. As you can see, I am here now in Israel. Next week I will be in France. I live wherever I am AT THE MOMENT.”
Jovially Geometric. At the entrance to the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art (YAMA) in Rishon LeZion is a sculpture garden of twenty multicolored pillars all dedicated to the artist’s late wife, Clila.
The answer of “at the moment” incapsulated the character of the man, his art and the museum, which had welcomed me with the multicolored pillars that all changed as you walked by. The artist explained:
“Usually, when you see a painting in a museum, you stand in front, you look at it, and then you move on. With my work, you will never see everything at one movement. You have to keep moving. I want people who come to the museum to be able to see the paintings from every angle, so it’s also changing the way you look at it.”
The foremost pioneer of optical-Kinetic art, Agam encouraged spectator participation. When I revealed that I received a stiff rebuke when I stood too close to a painting in the Frick Gallery in New York, he replied:
“That will never happen here – I want people to physically connect with my art.”
It is little wonder why children love Agam’s art and why the artist honors children by appealing directly to them.
SPOT ON
The “Agam Method” for which the artist was awarded in 1996 the Jan Amos Comenius Medal for the non-verbal visual education of young children by UNESCO, teaches children to identify, analyze, and create with the visual building blocks that make up our world. Together, these building blocks – such as shapes, patterns, directions, and symmetry – form a universal “visual language”. The Agam Method has a long history of classroom implementation, research, and refinement dating back to the 1980s. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science led experimental studies to determine its impact on young children’s learning. Data from 1990 through to 2007 indicate that children who engaged with the method, improved significantly in early geometry and visual-spatial skills, including shape identification and deconstruction, visual acuity, and mental rotation of objects. Children also demonstrated significantly higher problem-solving and school readiness skills, particularly in the areas of writing and math.
“Do you have any grandchildren?” Agam asked.
“Two,” I replied at the time in 2018.
On happily hearing that both were aged in months rather than in years, he asked:
“If I gave them a pencil, what do think they will do with it.”
All my answers wrong, Agam demonstrates grabbing a pencil and thrusting up and down making points on the table.
“Points is the most primary act of creation and is born out in the first drawings found in prehistoric caves.”
“What about the line?” I asked.
“Now you are talking evolution – that came much later; could be 1000 years later or even 10,000 years. We do not know. The line is the most significant advancement in the history of evolution.”
Following my rudimentary lesson in the history of art, we jumped many millennia forward to Agam’s ‘Fire and Water Fountain” in Tel Aviv’s recently rejuvenated Dizengoff Square. After decades of public outcry, the iconic site frequently referred to as the “Times Square of Tel Aviv” – finally returned in 2018 to its original glory. Originally constructed in 1986, the kinetic fountain celebrates life as well as unity-in-diversity, an important feature of Tel Aviv’s ethos, considered one of the most free and tolerant cities in the world.
Connecting Kinetically. Agam’s kinetic sculpture ‘Fire and Water’ also referred to as the ‘Dizengoff Square Fountain’, is a landmark in the center of Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv and is one of the artist’s most famous creations.
CAROUSEL OF COLOR
So, what was Agam’s response to the major transformation of Dizengoff Square which in the 1930s was the fashionable hub of the city but as the years passed, became seedy? Many blamed it on the square’s elevation above the street below and so what gave the Hebrew slang verb “l’hizdangef” (“to Dizengoff”), coined to describe strolling down the Tel Aviv’s iconic north-south artery, by the 1980s exposed not only a disconnect from vehicular traffic, but a disconnect from people.
Reinstalled back to street level, with traffic proceeding around rather than beneath, Tel Aviv center was restored to living up to its image of change.
Yaacov Agam at the Dizengoff Fountain – Tel Aviv, Israel
“What did you aim to express with your fountain at the very epicenter of Tel Aviv?” I asked.
“Firstly, the buildings surrounding the square are German – designed by architects fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s – and I wanted to brand the square distinctly Israeli with vibrant colors expressing life to contrast with the stark utilitarianism of the Bauhaus architecture. This I achieve with over 1000 colors visible through the water!
No other artist in the world has combined water and fire together. It was once said in theKnesset (Israeli parliament) during a tough debate:
“If Agam can make fire and water, what’s the problem?”
Insights on Images. The artist explaining the kinetic nature of his art.
Agam explains how the fountain comprises several big jagged wheels – colored geometric shapes, which are perceived as different images from different angles. A technological mechanism automatically activates at different times of the day and night that turns the wheels on their hinges, shooting fire and water upwards accompanied to music.
The artist’s vision is for people across the globe to be able to activate the fountain through an app. “I don’t want it simply like before; we have to move forward with technology – combining science and art making it globally accessible.”
As to why global interest was so important, Agan replied:
“Because the fountain’s message is universal. I believe it provides Dizengoff with gravitas; the miracle of fire and water with over 1000 colors, ‘reflects’ diversity. The fountain sends a message to the people of the world that although we are different, we are one.”
Mesmerized by Movement. visitors at the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art in Rishon LeZion on August 21, 2018. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
ON RELIGION AND REVELATION
To my question what influence his father, a rabbi, had on his art and life, Agan responded:
“My father was an orthodox rabbi and a Kabbalist; I am a visual rabbi and every work of mine is a visual prayer.”
Thinking this might explain why symbols like the rainbow are integral in the artist’s work, Agan continued:
“After the flood, God promised Noah never to destroy the earth again, and placed the rainbow in the sky as a symbol of that covenant. It is a visual prayer of peace, reminding that everyone is a party to the covenant to protect our environment.”
Showing me a painting of a rainbow, Agam continued:
“The rainbow is one of the loveliest sights in God’s creation as the colors stand out individually and yet merge with the color next to it, reflecting unity in diversity.”
“Does the visual trump words in our understanding of reality?” I asked, to which Agam replied:
“If the message of the rainbow was only in words, only those who understood the language would understand – some would understand, others would not. Words divide us, sight unites us. Children are born into a world of seeing before speaking. When they start to talk, that introduces separation and disunity. Seeing is so important that when God wanted us to understand him, he provided visions and so when the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, it is written that the People of Israel “SEE” not only hear the word of God.”
Prize for a Pioneer. Pioneering kinetic artist Yaacov Agam receiving the Israel Prize on April 20, 2026 at the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art, with museum director Ruthi Maccabbee. (Photo: Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)
Is it the same with the vision of the rainbow – the need to SEE rather than read of God’s communication with man?
“Yes; following the flood, it is written in Genesis that whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, “I will SEE it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” The problem today is that people do not know how to see; they rely too much on language to understand – and the soul of reality alludes them.”
THROUGH THE PRISM OF PRISON
While Agam trained at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem before moving to Zurich, Switzerland in 1949 where he continued his education at the Kunstgewerbe Schule, he revealed how “the unexpected” and “unplanned” was no less instructive in his education as an artist.
Who would have thought that such education included prison?
In 1946, Agam was imprisoned by the British in the Latrun detention camp after being arrested on suspicion of being a member of the Jewish underground. His detention occurred during Operation Agatha (often referred to as “Black Sabbath”), when British authorities conducted mass roundups to suppress Jewish insurgent movements in Mandatory Palestine. And who should he meet there other than Moshe Sharett who would later become Israel’s second Prime Minister. “He taught me Hebrew and grammar and he told me over and over that while there is a past and a future, there is no present in Jewish thinking. The present is fleeting; gone forever in a flash. Through our discussions, I formulated a perspective of time that is at the core of my art that is mobile; in a state of constant change – nothing is static. I met all the great artists at the time such as Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Jean Arp but they were all stuck in the past, and the past does not exist. I prefer to be in the state ofbecoming, like the true meaning of Shabbat (Sabbath) – resting to prepare for the coming week.”
I interrupted and suggested that Marcel Duchamp’s famous Nude Descending a Staircase (no 2) painted in 1912, is not static, that it captures the movement of a figure in descent.
“So why, one hundred years later, is she still descending the stairs?”
I had no answer!
Leaders not Followers. Both unique pioneers, Yaacov Agam (left) and Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali. (Photo courtesy of “Agam: Beyond the Visible” by Sayako Aragaki)
MOVING WITH THE TIMES
“Like Abraham leaving his father to create a nation,” Agam too felt he was creating “something new; a new way of thinking different to the other artists,” a far cry from the early 1950s then with his young wife in Paris “we literally starved and had to go to the Salvation Army for food.” In 1953, he had his first one-man show and sold his first panting to the famous surrealist artist Max Ernst.
When Robert Lebel (1901–1986), the famous French art critic and writer, “saw my work, he said, “We have a new prophet.”
He was not wrong.
Victor Vasarely, the Hungarian-French artist, widely accepted as a “grandfather” and leader of the op art movement, “told me you have no right make static work. Young artists, particularly from South America were attracted to my style and started to imitate me.”
In time, Agam’s art would attract the attention of President Pompidou of France. “When he was the Prime Minister, he went to see my show. I later received a call from the Secretary General of Artistic Creation who asked me, “What did you do to our PM. He stepped backwards and forwards in front of your painting; he could not understand it but was fascinated.”
Alure of Agam. In 1972, French president, George Pompidou commissioned a room in the palace to be decorated by Israeli artist, Yaacov Agam.
Later, when he became President, “he wanted a sculpture in his office and asked for a presentation of modern sculptures without the names of the artists. “I will decide,” he said. He chose mine because he could move it.” This led to a commission by the President of a moving salon environment at the Élysée Palace in 1972, where the environment shifted according to the viewer’s position. Enjoying tea with President Pompidou, “He revealed to me that he guided Queen Elizabeth through the salon and that she said she loved it.”
Kaleidoscope of Color. Detail of the Salon Agam at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. (Photo courtesy of Groume via Flickr.)
Asked to make a work commemorating the peacemaking efforts of the president of Egypt, Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Agam created in 1978 a mesmerising Star of Peace. A kinetic sculpture, it appears from one direction to be the five-pointed star of Islam, from another, the six-pointed Star of David, and from a third – a new star formed from their fusion.
Other public projects include a 1987 memorial at the Western Wall for the victims of the Holocaust, and the world’s largest menorah: a 32-foot, 4000-pound structure at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan and based on the original menorah in Jerusalem’s Holly Temple, “not the fake version you see on the Arch of Titus in Rome.”
Concluding the interview, I ask:
Is there any one of your works you prize most?
“It’s impossible. My art is about movement and you can’t have all movement in one work of art. It’s like prayers in Judaism; there is no one prayer but many.”
Fair enough but is there at least one artist that influenced you the most?
“Yes, the Almighty!”
*Feature Picture: Yaacov Agam surrounded by his art at the Yaacov Museum of Art (YAMAT) in Rishio LeZion.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
An upcoming exhibition in South Africa will reveal through personal testimonies, an extraordinary life whose legacy is enshrined for eternity in the young lives he saved in Eastern Europe in 1921. It’s an example for Jews today everywhere.
In December, 2026, the SA Jewish Museum in Cape Town, South Africa will host an exhibition on one of the finest and heroic chapters of the South African Jewish community – the life and times of Capetonian, Isaac Ochberg (1879-1938).
Entrepreneur, philanthropist, community leader and Zionist, Isaac Ochberg in 1921 mobilized communal Jewish support, obtained government permission through his friendship with Prime Minister Jan Smuts and then single-handedly, went into the most dangerous region in the world for Jews beset by war, pogroms, rampant antisemitism and a typhoid epidemic – to rescue Jewish orphans from certain death.
Even death did not stop Isaac Ochberg saving Jews.
Leaving the largest bequest in History to the JNF-KKL following his death in 1938, the proceeds were used to support higher education at universities in preparation for the future Jewish state (notably the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute) and acquire the land that became kibbutz Dalia and kibbutz Galed, that would, following WWII, absorb the survivors of the Shoah. It is no wonder that there stands today in the Megiddo region, the Isaac Ochberg Park that has a ‘Hill of Names’ enshrining the names of all the orphan children he saved.
Today, thousands of their descendants are today spread around the globe and in preparation for the exhibition, the SA Jewish Museum is seeking to trace as many of them to document the never-ending enriching saga of Isaac Ochberg. For further information see details at the end of the article below on the Ochberg saga by French historian, Michel Levine.
David E. Kaplan Chairman of the Isaac Ochberg Heritage Committee (Israel) Editor of Lay of the Land
THE ODYSSEY OF THE OCHBERG ORPHANS
How one South African businessman in 1921 set out by himself, risking life and limb to save Jewish orphans in worn-torn Eastern Europe
By Michel Levine
What drove Isaac Ochberg, a respectable and prosperous South African businessman, in 1920 to undertake an adventurous expedition thousands of kilometers to the north, into a Europe plunged into the bloody turmoil of civil wars?
For him, things were undoubtedly simple: born Jewish in Ukraine, he had been fortunate enough to flee the hell that awaited him to live under different skies. This chance, he wanted to offer in turn to the most vulnerable children: the orphans.
Isaac Ochberg was born in 1878 in Russia, into a Jewish family of German origin with six children, in the small town of Uman (now Ukrainian) located in what was then known as the “Pale of Settlement”. Created by Empress Catherine II in 1791, this was a vast area stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, including Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Belarus, Crimea, and part of Poland. When Isaac Ochberg was born, the situation of the five million Jews living there was hardly enviable. Excluded from public service and higher education, they had gathered in certain city neighborhoods or in small towns called shtetls. Forbidden to own land, they survived by practicing small trades, commerce, crafts, tavern management, but also pawnbroking, this last activity arousing resentment among the Orthodox common people who had only emerged from serfdom in 1861.
Man with a Mission. Isaac Ochberg (1878-1937) Ukrainian-born South African businessman, Jewish community leader, savior of Jewish orphans in Eastern Europe and passionate supporter of a Jewish State in Palestine.
Young Isaac was three years old when the assassination of Tsar Alexander II triggered a series of pogroms that led to a massive exodus. About two million Jews emigrated between 1881 and 1914, mainly to the United States. But it was to South Africa, this land said to also offer a new El Dorado, that his father Aaron decided to emigrate.
He arrived in 1893 in a peaceful country, although sporadically shaken by wars between the Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers, and the British. South Africa was then open to significant immigration following the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Transvaal and welcoming to Jews, a small community of whom had been settled in Cape Town since 1841, living mainly from commerce and crafts while maintaining their distinctiveness. More interested in studying the Talmud than in financial success, Aaron nevertheless managed, after two years, to gather sufficient funds to bring Isaac, his eldest son aged sixteen, who risked being conscripted into the army at any moment for a duration of six long years during which he would be exposed to the worst harassment as a Jew. Upon his arrival in his new homeland, young Isaac demonstrated his talent. Inventive and resourceful, he soon abandoned the watchmaking apprenticeship his father had intended for him to launch into business – all sorts of businesses according to his capricious inspiration, ranging from scrap metal recovery to ship salvaging, passing through coffee sales, gold prospecting in the Transvaal, or creating Cape Town’s first cinema. During this period, he made a trip to Russia to visit his ailing mother and took the opportunity to be exempted from military service due to defective vision. He also met Pauline, a friend of his sisters, whom he married before returning to Cape Town with the entire family.
At forty, with an established fortune, father of five children, and an honorable British citizen (the country had been a dominion since 1910), Isaac Ochberg led the life of a notable. An executive member of the Council of Jewish Deputies, representing his country at the 16th World Zionist Conference in Zurich, he participated in managing organizations to help children and orphans in particular – in this capacity, he had participated in founding the Cape Jewish orphanage, of which he became President. It was undoubtedly this last function that led him to become acutely aware of the dramatic situation of Jewish orphans living in Eastern Europe.
Key Coordinator. 26-year-old Alexander Bobrow (above) was a key player in assembling the orphans making it easier for Ochberg logistically, accompanied – at the children’s crying insistence – the orphans and Ochberg on the ship to Cape Town planning on returning to Eastern Europe. He never did, and his daughter Liebe would later marry Aaron Klug who would receive the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1982.
At the end of the First World War, from 1917 onwards, Russia had been the theater of a civil war between the Bolshevik “Red” armies and the Tsarist “Whites,” the latter supported by contingents of French and British soldiers. The situation worsened in 1919 when the Second Polish Republic undertook a war of territorial reconquest against Soviet Russia. At the same time, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus were the scene of independence uprisings. While these ideological and nationalist forces, mixed with bands of looters, fought each other, they attacked a common prey: the zhid (the kike). For the “Reds”, although the new regime had abolished Tsarist antisemitic laws and promoted Yiddish as the Jewish national language (while nevertheless proscribing Hebrew, deemed bourgeois and Zionist), this representative of capitalism, “stateless” and “reactionary”, remained a class enemy. For the Tsarist “Whites”, driven by ancestral hatred, he had become the “Judeo-Bolshevik” embodied in the person of the Jew Trotsky and held responsible for all the misfortunes of Holy Russia. As their supreme weapon, the “Whites” brandished the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, this forgery manufactured by the political police, the Cheka, which they would then spread in Western Europe during their flight. For the bands of starving peasants, encouraged to revolt by Tsarist forces, the greedy Jew was designated as the absolute culprit, the one who had “killed Christ” and engaged in ritual murders of Christian children, as an ancestral rumor maintained. This justified massacring him and his family and seizing his property. Of the five million Jews residing in the Pale of Settlement (officially abolished in 1917 by the Bolshevik government), more than one hundred thousand had perished, two hundred thousand survived wounded or disabled, and there were more than 150,000 orphans. A 1919 report by the great American Jewish charitable organization the Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) testified:
“In Poland, suffering is intense. There are institutions for children deprived of a morsel of bread, hospitals unusable due to lack of doctors, nurses, and medicines, despite an enormous number of diseases. A large percentage of people have been kept alive thanks to soup consisting of water, potatoes, and a little salt.”
Many voices rose up around the world to denounce these crimes. In London and New York, in particular, meetings and demonstrations were organized in which Jewish veterans of the Great War participated prominently. Under pressure from the Committee of Jewish Delegations, the 1919 Paris Peace Conference ordered a vast inquiry whose reports led to launching an “Appeal to Humanity” signed by great names such as Anatole France, Henri Barbusse, Elie Faure, and Albert Thomas.
President Wilson expressed his distress:
“One of the things that troubles peace in the world is the persecution of the Jews.”
He ordered the creation of a commission led by Henry Morgenthau, future minister under President Roosevelt, to investigate the pogroms in Poland (this work could only be carried out in that country, as the new Soviet government had forbidden entry to its territory). This commission traveled through battlefields and mass graves and published upon its return an alarming report on the fate of Jewish minorities. A commission led by Sir Stuart M. Samuel, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, succeeded it, at the initiative of the representative council of Jews in the United Kingdom. This one in turn denounced the scandalous situation. But these accumulating reports were not followed by action because, lacking a state to represent them, Jews were considered a minority among others, deprived as such of any real political power.
In South Africa, during an extraordinary meeting of the South African Relief Fund, a Jewish organization to aid war victims, Isaac Ochberg proposed that the Cape Jewish Orphanage he had been directing for several years organize a mission to “rescue” endangered Jewish orphans who would then be brought to the country. Certainly, he was aware that this mission close to his heart could only save a very limited number of children, but these would be lives preserved. “Whoever saves one life saves the world,” Isaac argued, citing the Talmud to support his proposal. His project was accepted – it remained to obtain the endorsement of the authorities. Prime Minister Jan Smuts, his friend, submitted his project to the government. Good news: Although immigration was strictly limited at that time, the response was positive, with some reservations. Entry visas would be issued to the orphans, but according to very precise criteria: there would be no more than two hundred, not exceeding 16 years of age, they must be in good physical and moral health, have lost both parents, and finally brothers and sisters could not be separated to avoid emotional problems. All, finally, must express their will to participate in this journey. Heavy-hearted at the idea that he would have to select among these children and abandon some to their fate, Isaac accepted these conditions – we will see that he would interpret them in his own way… What saddened him most was this cut-off figure of 200. He discussed, negotiated, and obtained that after this trip, if things went well, the State would consider repeating the operation. As for financing, it was decided that the Jewish community would bear half the cost. This was a significant commitment, as it would have to assume the costs of the journey, the maintenance and care of the 200 children, and then, once they arrived in Africa, the costs of their accommodation in orphanages, some until they came of age if they were not fortunate enough to be adopted by families.
Saga of Salvation. South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts (top left) who granted Isaac Ochberg (top right) permission to bring into South Africa 200 rescued Jewish orphans from Eastern Europe. (centre) Isaac Ochberg disembarking with his rescued orphans who throughout their lives would refer to him as “Daddy Ochberg”. (Botton left and right) Passport photos of some of the 187 rescued orphans brought to South Africa.
Assisted by the South African Aid Fund for Jewish War Victims, Isaac then launched a campaign across the country, personally traveling through cities and villages to organize public meetings followed by fundraising collections. During this fundraising, critical voices were heard in the Jewish community:
– Would this expedition, conducted in countries at war, not endanger the children concerned?
– Would their arrival in the country not risk being experienced as a provocation by certain conservative Christian circles, the National Party in particular, when South Africa was experiencing an economic crisis?
Some suggested it would be wiser to send these foreign children to the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine). Isaac remained deaf to what he considered submission to intolerance and continued his project.
Soon good news reached him: the fundraising campaign had raised sums far exceeding the expected figures. Dr. Jochelman, president of the federation of Ukrainian Jews in London, had let it be known that his organization was willing to house the orphans and handle their embarkation for South Africa.
On March 18, 1921, in Cape Town, Isaac Ochberg embraced his family, greeted the children of the orphanage, and amid a large gathering that came to encourage him and wish him a good journey, boarded the steamship that would take him to London.
Expected duration of the expedition: seven months.
TUMULTUOUS TRANSITION
Upon his arrival in the British capital, Isaac learned that the political situation in Eastern Europe had profoundly changed while he was sailing across the ocean. Russia and Poland had just signed a treaty in Riga that granted the latter numerous territories, the Kresy Wschodnie (“Eastern borderlands”) which included parts of Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine. This meant that all the cities constituting the stages of the planned journey were now under Polish administration and that the hard-won Soviet safe-conduct was now worthless.
Fortunately, the great explorer Fridtjof Nansen was passing through London. President of the League of Nations High Commission for Refugees, he had just created the first international identity document, the “Nansen passport”, a document which from 1922 would protect hundreds of thousands of wandering “displaced persons“, driven by conflicts and incessant border redrawings. During his meeting with the great man, Isaac explained his project to him. Nansen was enthusiastic. He managed to obtain from the new masters of Poland, whom he knew were concerned about international recognition, a safe-conduct authorizing Isaac to travel through the country with the benevolent assistance of local authorities. But as for the orphans, now Polish, how to obtain authorization to take them out of the country? Nansen obtained a commitment from Polish authorities that they would issue them special identity papers: “collective Nansen passports”.
On May 18, 1921, Isaac began his journey. Paris first, where Dr. Boris Borgen, head of the Joint, provided him with authorizations for the heads of orphanages under his organization so that they would entrust Isaac with the residents he had chosen. Next stop, Warsaw. In the capital of the Second Polish Republic that the Treaty of Versailles had brought back from its ashes in 1919, Isaac hoped to obtain help and assistance without too much illusion however – after all, he was just a Zhid (Slavic pejorative term for a Jew) who had appeared from nowhere…
In Warsaw, the ‘Jewish metropolis’ (Di Yidishe metropolye), the Joint officials, who managed most of the country’s orphanages, described to him the difficult relations they maintained with victorious Poland. Certainly, its government had ratified in 1920 the treaty annexed to that of Versailles concerning minorities, but nationalist parties accused Jews of having sided with the Bolsheviks during hostilities while the Catholic hierarchy continued to pursue them with its ancestral hatred. This hostility manifested itself through restrictions on credits to orphanages and rationing of their medical protection. Many of these establishments survived only thanks to the help of the Joint or local charitable organizations like Tzedakah Gedolah – which led some non-Jewish orphans to say:
“Those bastard zhids, they’re lucky to have other zhids to come to their aid.”
Isaac organized his journey. The large and small cities he would have to visit drew a vast triangle with 400-kilometer sides. First in the north, Brest-Litovsk, then Pinsk, then descent towards Sarny, Kowel, and Rovno to Lvov, finally return to Warsaw where all the chosen children would be gathered, whose state of health would have allowed them to contemplate the journey. Hence the necessity of adding a certain number of round trips to the route. Given the poor state of communications due to the war, he had planned to use trains that were still running, otherwise buses or trucks. He did not yet know that he would also have to use horse-drawn carts.
Flourishing Future. The last surviving Ochberg orphan Cissy Harris, who died at the age of 102 in Modi’in, Israel, is seen here planting a tree at the opening of the Isaac Ocberg Park in 2011 marking the 90 anniversary of the heroic rescue. She is supported by Maish Isaacson (left), chairman of Telfed and Bennie Penzik, whose both parents were orphans rescued by Ochberg.
CHILDREN OF MISFORTUNE
On August 24, the orphans had barely settled into the premises of the Shelter for Jewish Poor located in the East End when representatives of the British and international press appeared. Extracting children from a turbulent and dangerous Europe, often saving their lives, was a bold move that surprised them and that they were very eager to make known. Gathered in a room, the orphans were presented to journalists. They stood properly, under the flashes. Isaac, surrounded by officials, answered questions. He made it a duty to insist on the role played by charitable organizations and the support of the South African government. He also pleaded for other countries to take over and welcome other children.
Preparation for the journey to Cape Town was organized. It was a long trip and the children had to be in good physical shape and not be carriers of diseases that might contaminate other passengers. Medical examinations followed one another. Numerous cases of anemia were detected, which would not prevent embarkation, but also more serious conditions, which required hospitalizing some children. The latter would remain in London, which was a great heartbreak for them, but they could keep hope that soon a new voyage to Cape Town would come get them, or that other countries would decide to welcome them. Doctors and nurses were hired for the journey.
On September 2, children and companions took the train to Southampton where the steamship Edinburgh Castle awaited them.
Destination – Cape Town.
Past Preserved. Erin Kumin from Ra’anana, Israel, points to the plaque of her great-grandmother, Janie Odes, one of the orphans saved by Isaac Ochberg in 1921 at centenary event at the Ochberg Park on the 12 March 2021. (Photo D.E. Kaplan)
THE CROSSING
The children were at first afraid of this dark and vibrating mass, then got used to it. The large steamship offered them an enclosed space, a playground, where they loved to run, but under supervision, because their vitality led them to often bump into chimneys, ropes, and in narrow passages. At night, they laughed and cried too, fought with pillows. The sailors, of various nationalities, were very friendly – some told them stories about their country, incredible stories. As for the cooks, they were reluctant to prepare this complicated kosher food but complied with the instructions.
Nurses and doctors had their work cut out for them monitoring big and small ailments and seasickness. They drew their medicines from a large carefully arranged pharmacy. One of the children had mumps, which required special care during a stopover.
The companions organized games. On deck, the wind rushed into their clothes and made the little caps they had been given at departure fly, some flew away and came to float on the waves. The passengers, sometimes jostled, were mostly touched and moved by the story the children had lived through, and they applauded the ‘God Save the King’ that they sometimes sang, with a very particular accent.
Field of Dreams. Ochberg dreamt of a green fertile Israel such as this field with youngsters cycling at the Ochberg Park, Megiddo.(Courtesy Megiddo Regional Council)
THE PROMISED LAND
After a 17- day crossing, early in the morning, the children grouped on deck saw lights blinking on the horizon on a gray land planted with misty and dark mountains. The sailors pointed out the curiously flat summit, called Table Mountain. The boat approached and soon the children distinguished more precisely people who had come to welcome them carrying flowers and brandishing welcome banners in Yiddish. These people had white skin, others black, it really was Africa…
As the ship docked, the children broke into a song than was joined by people on the quay. Everyone knew the words, so moving in these circumstances:
“Hinei ma tov u’ma nayim Shevet achim gam Yachad” (“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity! “). Greeted by the cheers of a crowd in tears, the children disembarked. “Until my last day,” Fanny Frier would write, a little girl who would later become president of the Cape orphanage, “I will never forget the first time we saw the lights of Cape Town, then the wonderful welcome we received when we disembarked, when half the city apparently awaited us on the quay.”
‘Hill of Names’. Visitors to the Isaac Ochberg Park in Megiddo, Israel look closely at the plaques of all the known names of the orphans Isaac Ochberg rescued and brought safely to South Africa.
NEW LAND, NEW LIFE
What would become of these little beings thus projected into this new world? Taken in and raised in the two orphanages Oranjia in Cape Town and Arcadia in Johannesburg and some, not many, would be adopted by families where they would live their childhood surrounded by attention and love. Then they would set out to conquer the vast world to experience the most diverse destinies. Almost all would have children, often numerous.
Alive Because of One Man. Descendants of Ochberg orphans from all over the world attend the inauguration of the Ochberg Park, Megiddo in 2011 are seen here at nearby Kibbutz Gal’ed, founded in 1945 by members of Habonim from Germany. The kibbutz was built on land purchased by the JNF-KKL from the Isaac Ochberg bequest. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
For years, their descendants, who now number several thousand, have ritually gathered to celebrate with emotion the anniversary of their arrival and the memory of Daddy Ochberg, the “man from Africa” who came to get them before the Shoah exterminated most of the other Jewish children who remained in Europe.
About the writer:
Michel Levine is a historian of Human Rights and the author of a work dedicated to the major cases of the League of Human Rights (Unclassified Cases. Unpublished Archives of the League of Human Rights, Paris, Fayard, 1973). Further publications include a historical investigation on the repression of Algerian demonstrations in Paris in October 1961 (The October Ratonnades. A Collective Murder in Paris in 1961, Paris, Ramsay, 1985; reissue Jean- Claude Gawsewitch Publisher, 2001.)
*Feature Picture:Savior of Children. Isaac Ochberg (centre) with Jewish children at an orphanage in Eastern Europe.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
