CALL THE MIDWIFE

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.”

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).

THE ODYSSEY OF THE OCHBERG ORPHANS

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ISAAC OCHBERG

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.

IRANIAN WOMEN’S COURAGE MUST NOT BE FORGOTTEN ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Being a woman in Iran means enduring barbaric inhuman behavior in every facet of life.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

While we celebrated the International Women day on March 8^th, we must remember the many brave Iranian women who have endured decades of hardships under the harsh rules of Islam, imposed on them by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today we are seeing the fruits of their struggles and suffering, praying that by the time you read this the Islamic Republic will have fallen – but the job is not done, and their suffering has not ended.

Under Islamic rules, Iranian women have been subjugated and suppressed for more than 47 years since the satanic Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran. Iranian women lost all their rights after the revolution in 1979. The regime started suppressing women systematically and publicly through many misogynist laws making women and women’s rights only half of that of men. The humiliation of women under the Islamic Republic runs deep in the regime’s DNA:

– Women are forced to wear a hijab from the age of seven.

– Iranian women cannot sing or dance in public, or have custody of their children after getting divorced.

– Women cannot travel or obtain a passport without the permission of their fathers or their husbands.

– Women cannot get government jobs or hold other important positions.

Under rulings of the Islamic regime, women are treated like property of men. Their testimony in court is equal half of that of men because under Islam, a woman’s brain is considered half of that of men. Women’s inheritance is half of men. However, under these same Islamic rules, girls as young as nine are mature enough to be married to old men because their prophet Mohammed married his wife, Aishia, at the age of seven.

**Murdered by the State**. Demonstrators protest in September 2024 in New York outside United Nations headquarters against the Iranian government behind placards featuring the faces of women who have been executed in Iran. (Photo: AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

Many Iranian girls and women have been murdered by their fathers, brothers, or husbands in what they call “honor killings” for which the men face no severe consequences because under Islamic rules there is no capital punishment against a male who kills their female relative for the purpose of their honor. One of my personal examples is most telling. After I talked to my brother about my conversion to Christianity, he talked to a mullah about his confusion between Islam and Christianity and mentioned my conversion to Christianity. The mullah told my brother to kill me, and he promised him there will be no punishment for him under the law of “honor killing.” There are countless other examples.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranian women have been arrested in the streets, beaten up in public by “morality police”, and humiliated only because of not having a proper Islamic hijab. One prominent example is Mahsa Amini who was murdered in 2022 for allowing her hair to show. She was beaten mercilessly after her arrest, went into a coma, and died at the hands of her torturers.

**Fighting Back**. An Iranian woman protests the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the morality police in Tehran in September 2022 for improperly wearing a hijab. Her death ignited protests that exposed the regime’s use of sexual violence as a weapon of repression. (Photo: obtained by AP)

The Islamic regime also deliberately disfigures the face of many Iranian women by throwing acid at them, or shooting them, for disobeying the Islamic rules and not following the “proper” Islamic dress code. We have seen that abundantly during the recent protests across Iran.

Many Iranian women were raped in prison and were subject of sexual abuse by prison authorities. I personally witnessed this kind of abuse during my imprisonment at Evin prison in 2009 where I was sentenced to death by hanging just for being a Christian. One of my cellmates who got a job at the prison clinic, found the real job was to go there every day and to give sexual pleasure to prison authorities and government officials. They threatened her if she refused, they would kill her. I went through many psychological pressures and hardships to deny my faith in Jesus. I witnessed the execution of my best friend, Shirin Alamhooli, and many of my cellmates. I heard many stories of rape and sexual abuse from my cellmates who did not have any voices. I witnessed the torture and humiliation of women regularly.

**Beauties and the Beasts**. Former Iranian prisoners, the writer, (left), and Maryam Rostampour (right) were sentenced to death in 2009 for spreading the message of Christianity but were finally released following intense international pressure. Many of their friends and cellmates were executed.

One of the most obscene ways in which women are subjugated, there is a perversion under the Islamic rules it is not legitimate to execute a virgin. So according to a fatwa (religious command) by Ayatollah Khomeini, virgins must be raped before their execution. Under the Islamic rules, raping virgins before their execution prevents them from entering heaven. This law is just an excuse and a reward to prison authorities for having sexual pleasure with innocent women before executing them. Under Islamic rules women have zero value.

**Behind Bars for Beliefs**. Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison where peaceful activists, journalists, intellectuals, human rights lawyers and Christians like the writer were imprisoned, tortured, sexually abused and many executed.

When I think about International Women’s Day, it reminds me of the suffering of millions of Iranian women like me. It makes me sad because it reminds me how much I was disrespected and humiliated in my birth country. It reminds me how much Iranian women are insulted, disrespected, and have suffered. It reminds me many horrible memories of being insulted and punished in school, and even at home by my brothers who were brainwashed by the Islamic regime to see me and all women as inferior. It reminds me of the gross harassment by men who would look at me as a whore and the challenges I faced because I lived independently without being under a control of a man. It reminds me that I lived 30 years in Iran, but I never had a chance to travel around my beautiful country because hotels would not permit women to book a room alone.

**War on Women**. Iranian women prisoners sit at their cell in Tehran’s Evin prison. While allegations of sexual abuse and rape against Iran prison officials have been made by former female political prisoners, information about the alleged number of rapes committed by IRGC officials in Iran’s prisons remains unclear.

It reminds me of the terrible stories of my students who must accept the sick sexual advances and extortion by judges to be able to receive a divorce from their abusive husbands. I experienced that too. Under Islam, if women are abused or beaten by their husbands, there are no laws to defend them. There is a verse in the Koran (Al Nisa surah) that actually gives permission for men to beat their wives.

Despite all these misogynist Islamic laws, millions of Iranian women bravely fought against these harsh rules and did not submit. Many of them never gave up and tried to stand for their rights at any cost, even losing their lives.

This year alone, the Islamic regime killed over 32,000 protesters in just two days in January. The regime intentionally targeted young women and men who were beautiful and athletic to punish the families. They believe if you target the children, you have killed the parents as well – ensuring they will not stand up against the regime in the future.

We should not forget that the brave mothers of all these young children who were killed by the regime who have turned their mourning to another form of defiance against the regime. Instead of crying, many mothers displayed their defiance by dancing in the funeral of their children. It is unbelievable where they found the courage to turn their sorrow and mourning to dance, to tell the Islamic regime that even the death of their children cannot stop them fighting for their rights and freedom.

Brave Iranian Women Who Turned Their Mourning to Defiance (Dance) Against the Islamic Regime, 2026!
Under Islamic rules, women are not allowed to sing and dance in public, but brave Iranian women are singing and dancing for their loved ones who were massacred in the nationwide uprising in January 2026. There are no more Islamic rituals or citation of Koran verses. This is another form of revolution against 47 years of indoctrination with Islamic laws

While dancing and singing in public is forbidden for Iranian women, the mothers and sisters of those who were murdered by the regime held back their tears and began to dance and sing loudly in public to show defiance. They stand as a symbol of courage for all women around the world.

Being a woman in Iran means enduring barbaric inhuman behavior in every facet of life. It means having remarkable strength, being made of steel, to survive all those brutalities one faces daily.

It is a shame that instead of making the Islamic regime accountable for what they do to Iranian women, the United Nations rewards them by giving them a seat to monitor women’s rights around the world. This is an obscene joke, and another type of insult against Iranian women by the clowns and buffoons at the UN to close their eyes to the misogyny and brutalities against Iranian women.

**Defiance**. Despite the threat of arrest and execution, an Iranian woman without a mandatory Islamic headscarf flashes a victory sign as two veiled women walk by at a market in Tehran in June 2024. (Photo: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

On International Women’s Day, we must remember brave Iranian women who have no rights and have been targets of discrimination and abuse for so many years. We must remember the high price that they are paying every day just to survive. We must remember many Iranian women who have no voice and their lives have been ruined by the Islamic regime. We must remember hundreds of thousands of mothers who are mourning for their children in hiding, while dancing in public to undermine and humiliate all the Islamic laws against them and say “No” to five decades of indoctrination.

My heart pains me this International Women’s Day when I think about all the atrocities Iranian women have suffered and are suffering still. My heart pains me when I remember, like millions of Iranian women, how much I was insulted, disrespected, and ignored just because of being born as a woman in Iran under the Islamic Republic government. I cannot hold back my tears for Iranian women who are still living under this tyranny and suppressions and are paying the price with their lives.

**Reign of Terror**. Activists in red ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ robes hold placards with portraits of women who were killed in Iran during an International Women’s Day demonstration in London in March 2023. (Photo: AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

I salute Iranian women on this day for being the true symbol of courageous resistance and dignity under the most barbaric Islamic rules imposed on them every day. I pray that they will have their relief, their rights, and freedom soon. It cannot come soon enough.

This International Woman’s Day we must not forget. We must be the voices of and bear witness for Iranian women. We must pray that by this time next year, Iran, and Iranian women, will be free.

About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.

THE ESSENCE OF HER NAME

In loving memory of Tova Ben Dov

By Rolene Marks
Tribute

If anyone was the absolute embodiment of her name, it was Tova Ben Dov. Tova, as her name suggests, was goodness personified. With twinkling blue eyes and the familiar sound of “Bubbeleh” greeting all who she was fond of, Tova brought her unique charm, wisdom and humour to all who knew her.

I will never forget the first time I met Tova. I joined a cohort of WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization) women at the World Zionist Congress and saw how this slender, twinkly-eyed lady wielded tremendous power and respect and how when she spoke, she commanded the room.

Assigning herself as my “ima Israelit” (Israeli mother), Tova was a pillar of support and a gentle guide to help navigate the travails of Aliyah. I looked so forward to our chats where she would share anecdotes and always looked for the silver linings, even though these past years that have been so difficult for all of us. Tova never missed a beat – she knew what was happening in our communities around the world and stood strong in her identity, always encouraging pride in who we are and the imperative of standing up to the hate.

With wisdom, humour and patience, Tova was a mentor to so many, including WIZO women. Creating leaders and education was important to Tova; and from Melbourne, to Malmo, we were guided, encouraged and mentored by her.

Tova was more than just Honorary Life President of WIZO – she was the beating heart of the movement. Tova poured her heart into everything that she did and it shows in her legacy and the love that so many have for her.

Tova was born in Tel Aviv to parents from a Zionist family that was one of the founders of the Jewish state. For six decades, she devoted herself to WIZO.

Starting her career as a volunteer at the Herzliya Pituach branch, she became a respected leader on the national and international stage.

Working her way up the WIZO ladder, she held several leadership positions, including President of World WIZO from 2012 to 2016. She also served as vice president of the World Jewish Congress, a member of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a member of the International Council of Women.

Among other things, Ben-Dov founded the Open House in Sderot, named after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as the first secure daycare center in the southern Israeli city. During her tenure, WIZO won the Israel Prize in 2008 for its contribution to advancing the status of women and gender equality.

Among Ben-Dov’s notable accomplishments within WIZO was the establishment of the Margaret Thatcher Open House in Sderot (above) which provides professional treatment, therapy and support programs to thousands of children and families in a city whose residents are traumatized by war.

In 2011, Tova was honoured with the Yakir Tel Aviv-Yafo award in recognition of her dedication to the well-being of the city, and in 2016, she was awarded the title of honorary fellow of the World Zionist Congress.

These are incredible achievements and are testament to a lifetime of service to her country.

Her greatest pride and joy has always been her family and her siblings, three children, seven grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, survive her. Tova was laid to rest in the Kiryat Shaul cemetery.

Her passing leaves a gaping hole in the lives of so many. May we all live up to the example that she set. Tova by name – and by nature. Goodness personified. May her memory be eternally blessed.

FALSE FIXATION

South Africa’s hateful obsession against Israel, reflects its failure to address monumental problems at home.

By Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe

September, a month synonymous with renewal and new beginnings, will be the most challenging period in South Africa’s political and economic landscape due to actions likely to be taken by the US against the country. The first is the end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is set to expire in September. However, the new 30% tariffs introduced by the US for SA will likely override the existing AGOA conventions when they take effect at the beginning of August 2025. The second biggest conundrum will be the possibility of the US Senate’s decision on the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act of 2025.

**Rand on the Run**. Already a vulnerable currency, South African rand falls before looming US tariffs. Nevertheless, South Africa continues to antagonize the US with its anti-Western policies.(Photo: Reuters /Mike Hutchings)

The ground is fertile in the US to act against the South African government, which is believed to have acted against the US’s national interests. The US has been very critical of South Africa’s foreign policy stance, which, on many occasions, went against the American national interests. This has been evident in their divergent voting patterns on various United Nations (UN) platforms, where South Africa and the US have often taken opposing positions. The relations between the US – SA did not break during the Trump administration, and Joe Biden also raised similar concerns about South Africa.

The ANC should be told, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” They have chosen to strengthen their alliances with the geopolitical rivals to the West at the expense of decades of working partnerships with the Western powers. It was very shortsighted of the ANC to believe that there would not be actions or reactions from the side of the US on how it is being undermined by Africa’s powerful regional bloc.

The escalating tensions between the US and South Africa took an uphill path in 2022 when South Africa was alleged by the US to have loaded the Lady R with armaments that would be used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The South African government dismissed this allegation. In 2023, in the aftermath of Israeli attacks by Hamas on the 7th October 2023, we saw South Africa continuing with its support for Hamas, a designated terror organisation by countries such as the US and European Union (EU) countries. Dr. Naledi Pandor kicked off a diplomatic storm when she admitted that she had a telephonic conversation – offering support – with the same Hamas that invaded Israel and massacred more than 1200 innocent civilians as well as kidnapping more than 250 people, some still held under the tunnels in Gaza to date.

**Closer to Home**. While this 2024 photo of angry South Africans taken outside a courthouse in Soweto crying over the horrendous murders of women and children, the government prefers to allocate its scarce resources to issues it knows little about outside the country – notably the war in Gaza.(Photo by Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

Just when we thought that the ANC would tone down its anti-US messaging, it dragged Israel into the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their legal basis was that Israel was committing genocidal acts in Gaza. While this act by the South African government would be seen as heroic by some, others criticised the move because it failed to deliver a viable solution to the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict. It is possible that the ANC’s thinking at the time was to maximise its electoral fortunes, which drastically dropped to below 50%. Their energy on the issue is draining because it is not yielding them the political capital they had planned.

**“Do More” but Does Less**. In 2024, while the ANC government focused its attention against Israel neglecting the interests of its own people, the people responded at the polling booths denying the ruling party a first-time outright majority for the first time since winning in the first post-apartheid elections 30 years earlier.

If indeed South Africa was genuine about fighting for the rights of the vulnerable people around the world, they could have started with their own population, wherein 14 million people are living in dire poverty, not knowing what they would eat the next day and where so much of the youth are dangerously unemployed. The youth unemployment rate in South Africa – which measures job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old – climbed to 62.4% in the first quarter of 2025, the highest level since the first quarter in 2022 up from 59.6% in the previous period.

**Devious Diversions**. South Africa’s government prefer to have photos on their TV screens of hungry children in Gaza in the midst of a war with Israel then the visuals of their own children starving to death.

Furthermore, if South Africa’s corrupt and inept leadership directs its attention to deaths in wars abroad, what about those dying a violent death AT HOME every day. Between January and March 2025, 5,727 people were murdered, an average of 62 per day. Some 6 985 attempted murders were recorded amounting to 75 per day. These staggering figures are unmatched throughout the world – a record we should be ashamed of!

The South Africa obsession with Gaza is a mere diversion of its failures to address pressing issues at home.

*Feature Picture: The ANC government is failing to address the poverty across Southy Africa preferring to divert public attention to problems outside the country.

About the writer:

Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

SMALL IN SIZE HUGE IN HEART – THE DRUZE COMMUNITY

A world indifferent, Israelis understand why the Druze in need have to be supported by Israel in deed.

By David E. Kaplan

Last week I received a call in Israel from my cousin in Australia opening with:

“What’s going on; you guys are now invading Syria; attacking Damascus?”

When I started explaining by mentioning Israel coming to the rescue of “the Druze,” I was interrupted by:

“Yes, I heard mention on our news something about the Druze….Who are they? Never heard of them! What religion are they? Where did they suddenly spring from?”

With well over a 1000-year history, they did not exactly ‘suddenly spring’ out of nowhere. They were a proud people with their own unique religion long before there was an England, a France, a Germany or new kid-on-the-block – Australia. A community of 150,000 with elements of all three religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – the Druze in Israel are an enriching and warm people embedded in this ancient land as its timeless rock. Mainly because of its paucity in number and concentrated largely in northern Israel, not too much is known about this special and endearing people.

**Community facing Catastrophe**. Israeli Druze approach the Israeli-Syrian border fence to protest in solidarity with their vulnerable community in Syria, July 16, 2025. (Photo: Michael Giladi/ FLASH90).

BONDED IN BLOOD

It was clear from my conversation with my cousin, there was paltry reportage in Australia – as there was across the world – about the existential threat to Syrian Druze following a massacre of its people, their relationship with Israel’s Druze community or who the Druze are.

Israel’s Druze leader Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif was frank to the press:

“… These are beasts… They talked about a ceasefire and then continued the massacre, the cleansing, going from house to house. … They raped a five-year-old girl, they entered a holy place where women were hiding to avoid being harmed, and they burned them alive. They killed, beheaded, it was pure cleansing. This is only because they are Druze…”

Identifying with what the Jews in southern Israel experienced, Tarif continued:

“We’ve seen this movie with Hamas, they are the same people, let’s not get confused. They didn’t let ambulances pass; the bodies were in the streets.”

For Majd Al-Shaer, a 21-year-old Druze man, “This is not a conflict anymore, this is extermination,” he told the Indian news network NDTV. “They are humiliating our elderly, killing our women and children. This is a campaign to wipe us out. An ethnic cleansing campaign is taking place against the Druze.”

However, on the international news networks, the narrative typically conveyed by the panel of ‘usual experts’ was that Israel was using the Druze as a pretext to attack Syria. What’s more, the global media mostly IGNORED that the Druze – both in Israel and Syria – had appealed to Israel to save them from the same fate that Hamas has for Israelis. This appeal was couched “Israel owes the Druze” and it is true – Israel does. It was brought home to me back in 2007 when reporting for The Jerusalem Post (https://www.jpost.com/features/patriot-games), I visited the largest Druze town in Israel, Daliyat el-Carmel perched on top of the Carmel Mountain range to meet and interview a Druze family, including the legendary Kamal Mansour. Mansour, who subsequently passed away 2023, was an Israel Prize recipient who had been appointment by Israel’s third president, Zalman Shazar, as his Adviser on Minority Communities and continued to serve in this position under presidents Ephraim Katzir, Yitzhak Navon, Chaim Herzog, Ezer Weizman, Moshe Katsav and Shimon Peres.

**Excruciating Anguish**. Druze from Syria and Israel protest in Majdal Shams on the Israeli-Syrian border amid the ongoing clashes in the southern Syrian city of Sweida where the UN says it has credible reports of summary executions. (AP Photo/Leo Correa).

Mansour enlightened me on history that I was not familiar with – important history that illuminates the special relationship between Jews and Druze. While Most Israelis are familiar with the spectacular escape from Atlit in October 1945, when the Palmach (Israel’s pre-state fighting force), under the command of Yitzhak Rabin (who later became Israel’s Prime Minister), broke into the illegal immigrant detention camp at one o’clock in the morning setting free over 200 Jewish prisoners, what followed next, most do not know.

**Massacre in the Making**. Syria’s government forces entering Suweida city amidst the turmoil.

Bedraggled and exhausted, the escapees – mostly holocaust survivors – dodged the British mandate forces as they fled on foot uphill over the Carmel to Kibbutz Yagur on the northern side of the mountain range. The story made international front-page news. What did not make news was that at the top of the mountain range, some of the fleeing Jews briefly connected with a people equally rooted to the land who helped them elude the pursuing British forces – the Druze. Kamal Mansour was a young boy in 1945 living in the then small village of Isfiyah where his father was mayor when some of those exhausted and hungry Jewish escapees crept cautiously into his village. “It was pitch dark, and my parents welcomed them and offered them tea and cake and a place to rest before guiding them on in their escape to freedom. Not only had my family, but other Druze families as well, opened their homes to these frightened new immigrants. Proudly,” Mansour says, “We acknowledged in deed the Jewish State before there was a Jewish State.”

This hardly known episode in modern Jewish history reflects the characteristically low profile of a unique and special people who chipped in from the start to be a part of the modern state of Israel.

“Whatever the temptations in 1948,” continued Mansour, “the Druze community opted against mainstream Arab nationalism and before the draft was introduced, Druze soldiers served as volunteers in the Israeli army.”

During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, many Druze, mainly from the villages of Shfaram, Usfiya and Daliat El-Carmel joined forces with the Jewish Haganah forging a relationship that led during this war to the creation of the Minorities Unit, which recruited Druze volunteers, mainly from these three towns. “This trend continued and an increasing number of Druze,” says Mansour, “voluntarily joined the Minorities Unit of the IDF right up to 1956, when compulsory service was introduced, a decision by the way, that was initiated by the Druze leadership.”

Mansour proudly says:

“Although I was too old when conscription for Druze was introduced, I nevertheless served in the reserves for 26 years and six days.”

Mansour referred me to the Druze poet, historian and diplomat, Reda Mansour, who wrote:

“We are the only non-Jewish minority that is drafted into the military and we have an even higher percentage in the combat units and as officers than the Jewish members themselves. So, we are considered a very nationalistic, patriotic community.”

**Loose Cannons**. Bedouin fighters who have clashed with Druze militias in Syria’s Al-Suwayda province. US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in a post on X has demanded an end to “the rape and slaughter of innocent people.”

Kamal Mansour, who was the first Druze to serve on the Board of Directors of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), the Board of Governors of both Haifa University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and to be a member of the plenum of the Israel Broadcasting Authority chuckled as he recalled his service on the Committee to investigate the proposal to introduce TV to Israel. “It is hard today to envisage the debate at that time. Both Golda [Meir] and Ben Gurion were dead against it. Ben Gurion thought people would stay away from work to watch TV.”

**Early Days**. Kamal Masour (left) whom the writer interviewed in 2007, seen here with Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion (centre) and Kamal’s father, Najeb Mansour, who was then mayor of Isfiya.

However, for Mansour who was presented in 2010 with the Israel Prize in recognition of the enormous service he had rendered to the State of Israel, said “I had no such misgivings.”

And Israel should have no misgivings of supporting the Druze community in Syria. As Catherine Perez-Shakdam writes in The Jerusalem Post (‘The Druze and the great betrayal’ July 21,2025), “It is Israel that stands, quite literally, between the Druze and the abyss.”

**Comrades-in-Arms**. Druze have been dying in battles alongside their Jewish comrades. Seen here is Colonel Ehsan Daxa, 41, commander of the 401st Brigade within the IDF’s 162nd Division who was killed in Gaza. From Daliyat al-Karmel, Daxa had expressed pride in leading a “special and courageous generation of fighters and commanders” committed to decisively defeating Hamas.

How can Israel do otherwise as the world ignores the plight of the Syrian Druze. This writer is left with the words of Kamal Mansour:

“We acknowledged in deed the Jewish State before there was a Jewish State.”

Feature picture: Separation and Solidarity. A community divided, in this pre-war photo, Druze gather to contact their relatives on the Syrian side of the border from the Israeli Golan Heights. (Photo: Amnar Awad/Reuters).

THE DRUZE AND ISRAEL – A COVENANT IN BLOOD

Israel is and always has been short of friends.

Today, Jews across the world are finding themselves alone, ostracized and vulnerable.

One people that have stood by Israel sacrificing life and limb since 1948, is the country’s Druze community, who through thick and thin, war after war, have thrown in their lot with the destiny – and fate – of Israel. In the current Israel-Hamas war, Druze have fought and died alongside their fellow Jewish soldiers in the IDF as they have done in all previous wars.

Today, the Druze in southern Syria, family to the Druze of Israel, are under attack with regime forces aiding Syrian Bedouins in perpetrating atrocities – including the summary execution of Druze civilians.

Israel could not sit back, particularly as Israel’s Druze community’s leadership has appealed to Israel to save their people across the border in turbulent Syria from slaughter.

Lay of the Land fully supports Israel’s efforts to help save the Druze of Syria.

Why Israel helps the Druze in Syria

CANINE THERAPY HELPS SOLDIERS COPE WITH PTSD

Dogs are proving to be partners in caring and literally a friend – for life!

By Rolene Marks

(*First appeared in Jewish News Syndicate)

April is a bittersweet month in Israel calendar. It is the month when the national holidays of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Day), Yom Hazikaron (Memorial day for Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) fall in succession. It is a time of remembrance and celebration – but also a time that can be very sensitive and triggering for Israel’s soldiers. Various cities have made the decision not to have fireworks to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut out of sensitivity to soldiers suffering from PTSD.

The Defense Ministry Deputy Director General, Limor Luria, who heads the ministry’s Rehabilitation Department, recently said that soldiers struggling with PTSD feel that holidays and memorial days as especially straining, even more so during wartime. The Rehabilitation Department estimated that they would be treating approximately 100,000 wounded personnel by 2030, half of whom expected to experience PTSD.

The number of suspected suicides among Israeli soldiers had risen sharply since the Hamas-led assault on October 7, according to the data published by the IDF. Since the start of the war, 28 soldiers have died by suicide as compared in 2023 when – before the attack – 10 suicides were recorded. Laura reveals that since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, the Rehabilitation Department has absorbed 16,500 injured soldiers, with nearly half of them treated for PTSD.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is defined as “a mental health condition that is caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event — either being part of it or witnessing it.” It is often characterized by recurring nightmares, frequent panic attacks, depression, and other trauma symptoms. Often, those with PTSD fear sleep because persistent nightmares torment and awaken them.

The wounds are not physical but internal and for many years, PTSD has been misunderstood and often stigmatized. Treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD has been inadequate and neglected. In April 2021, IDF veteran, Itzik Saidyan an IDF veteran set himself on fire outside the Petah Tikva offices of the Rehabilitation Department for disabled soldiers, after years of struggling to receive the care he had sought for PTSD.

Following the horrific October 7 surprise attack and the rising number of soldiers experiencing PTSD, the Ministry of Defense has amped up efforts to treat this with a variety of different therapies – including special dog companions.

**Best friend on Soldier’s Shoulder**. The Dogs 4 Soldiers program gifts Israeli soldiers with the comfort and healing of therapy dogs. Says Belev Echad committed to restoring wounded IDF soldiers back to life, “Partnering them with a furry friend in need of care gives them something positive to wake up to every morning.”

Animals play a vital role in helping PTSD sufferers process and cope with the emotions and challenges they face. Canine companions are excellent at providing a special kind of therapy. Therapy dogs help their soldier get active and leave the house because they need a lot of exercise. They help rebuild trust and give unconditional love. Dogs also help solders make the sometimes-difficult transition to civilian life and help their humans feel protected.

A board member with No Soldier Left Behind – a non-profit organization that offers canine therapy – Tal Morag explains the clear distinction to JNS between therapy and service dogs:

“Soldiers live with the shock of battle that they can relive at any moment. A sudden loud noise or the smell of blood can be a cue to trigger it off. It can take years to understand what is happening to them. We don’t question them; we give them the chance to tell their stories and therapists to assist them. It is not only combat soldiers who find themselves with symptoms of PTSD but also those in the police, in the security forces and we paramedics. The dogs are trained not to be a service dog but just to be the soldier’s dog and you can see how effective they are. The dogs learn to understand his or her owner and is able to smell that a panic attack is about to happen and can calm them down.”

**Furry Friends**. Fractured from the battlefield, troops find friendship from their furry companions. (Photo: Elad Gershgorn)

Liran Dimri, the Director of the Dog Training Centre for Belev Echad who offer the program Dogs 4 Soldiers, also suffers from PTSD. Speaking to JNS, Dimri advocates how therapy dogs help:

“People who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder usually prefer to be alone, locked up at home, and this is what causes them depression. Dogs help them by getting them out of the house at least three times a day. In addition, when they are alone at home, the dog is always with them and seeks the person’s attention and treats them, so they don’t feel alone.”

**Caring Canines**. Belev Echad is working tirelessly to provide service dogs to soldiers struggling with PTSD. These dogs detect adrenaline spikes and nightmares, reduce stress and anxiety, provide balance assistance, and serve as loyal companions.

Dimri understands too well the impact that PTSD has on the families of soldiers and encourages family members to be actively involved in the training process. A sufferer himself from post-traumatic stress disorder mainly affecting his sleep, Dimri acquired a dog three years ago which has helped him deal with depression, and so “in a good position to advise on what to do and how it helped me. I also talk to family members and explain to them about post-traumatic stress disorder and how they should deal with their children or partners, and that way it helps them deal with them better. I encourage family members to join in the dog training sessions, to go through this process together, so that the soldiers understand that they are not alone in this process. Their family is with them, and so am I. In addition, it gives them quality time together at least once a week when we meet for training and eat together at the end of the evening.”

Man’s best friend can also be his best therapist.

*Feature picture:
Pets for Vets. Veterans of the Israel Defense Forces with trainee pups in the Dogs 4 Soldiers program. (Photo: Courtesy of Liran Dimri/Belev Echad.)

“CAUGHT NAPPING” – IT WAS LEFT TO THE PEOPLE NOT THE POLITICIANS

Some thoughts from a weekly volunteer responding to the call of our brave soldiers

By Adrian Wolff

Introduction

In the face of challenging times, Israelis take up the challenge – including ordinary civilians of all ages. Many are volunteering to assist in the war effort by making the lives of our soldiers – most of them reservists – a little easier, such as delivering much-welcome hot homemade meals to army bases in the severest war zones.

One such volunteer is Adrian Wolff, who each Friday, delivers multiple parcels of home cooked food to multiple military basis either in the north or south.

For Adrian it all starts early every Friday morning in Ramat Hasharon in the center of the country where he resides and where the food depot is located.

In the light of the heart-wrenching horror saga of the Bibas family of kibbutz Nir Oz, his earlier visit to this kibbutz, was all the more gut-wrenching.

Below is Adrian’s story.

David E. Kaplan Lay of the Land Editor

No Jews live in Gaza and have not since Israel’s withdrawal in 2005 that involved unilaterally dismantling all 21 Jewish settlements.

**Devastation and destruction**. This house in Nir Oz once stood here where a family once lived. (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

On the Jewish festivity of Simchat Torah on 7 October 2023, 4, 300 rockets were fired toward Israel, as over 5500 Hamas terrorists invaded the Israeli communities that surround the border. Simchat Torah marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of Torah reading and the beginning of a new cycle. On this occasion it most certainly demarcated the end and the beginning of a new cycle in the turbulent history of our people, much of it still uncertain of where it will lead.

*It wasn’t a tornado that swept through kibbutz Nir Oz causing death and destruction but human evil.* (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

Over 3,000 young people from all across the world attended the Nova festival at Reim, where 347 were murdered at the site, many of the young women, raped. By day’s end, 1320 were killed, including 257 security forces. There were 251 hostages taken into Gaza of which 59 still remain, some of whom – at least 35, probably more – are dead.

*Taking these photos of the remains of homes on Nir Oz and knowing what happened to the families that once lived in them, are images that will remain with me for life.* (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

To date, 1,004 civilians and 846 soldiers have been killed, with approximately 10,300 Israeli civilians and 15,000 soldiers wounded.

Home and poster of Ofer Kalderon, kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and finally returned home after 484 days of Hamas captivity in Gaza. Said Kalderon following his release, “I was in tunnels without seeing daylight, I was not exposed to any media, I experienced harsh hunger conditions, and I spent entire months without a shower and without proper care…. Hamas is a brutal enemy that will not hesitate to harm the abductees left behind.” (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

The entire Israeli Military and political echelons were caught napping. While IDF recovered quickly and within 36 hours successfully removed all of the 4000 Hamas terrorists from Israeli territory, the Israeli government failed to function effectively except for the Ministry of Health. Compounding the state paralysis particularly in so far as facilitating mobility, public transport was unavailable for soldiers to travel to and from their units because the attack was launched on the Sabbath.

A Nir Oz humble dwelling for a family name that is all too familiar to the world. Chairs where once parents sat and a bicycle which kids once rode, outside the Bibas family home. (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

It was the Israeli population who immediately opened many ‘Volunteer Centers’ all over the country to provide clothing for the displaced population and prepare meals which were brought to various army units. Nearly half of Israelis took part in volunteering activities at the start of the war and this participation spanned across all segments of Israeli society.

*Once a hub of youthful activity, young lives on Nir Oz recalled in* *memorabilia and posters.* (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

I cannot remember how I became involved in November 2023, when I volunteered to join the Ramat Hasharon delivery of home-made meals to army units in the south and latter to include those units stationed in the north.

My motor car is too small to deliver 300 – 400+ meals, and quickly contacted friends who have larger SUV’s.

The ‘Volunteer center’ explains to the various volunteer house-holds in Ramat Hasharon what meals/foods are required – schnitzels, meatballs, pastas, cooked vegetables, salads, dry-cakes, Challah etc.

Friday morning at the food distribution centre in Ramat Hasharon. (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

These meals are delivered early on Friday morning to the center, where they are divided into portions, placed in boxes and labeled.

I arrive at about 09.00. We fold down the rear backrests, load the cars with volunteers from a local high schooland off we go. All very efficient and professional. We DO NOT enter Gaza, but meet a representative of the unit at a point close to the border.

I am given a few sheets of data – the name of the unit, contact person and location. It is essential to have a driver and navigator. Once leaving I look at WAZE to learn of our expected arrival time and connect with the unit to let them know we are ‘on our way’. About 15 minutes before arriving, I will call again to update arrival time, as often the unit has to send a vehicle from inside Gaza to meet us. The location point can become difficult as WAZE and Google Maps often does not operate in the border areas. I always bring maps to assist us in finding the basic area/location.

**Crammed to Capacity**. Our very laden car with boxes to be taken to the army units. (Photo: Adrian Wolff)

The satisfaction I get from these deliveries is the warmth and appreciation I receive each time. Not that the army is short of food, but the home-made, not industrial meals, are most welcome for Shabbat which improves their morale, and for them to know the civilian sector is thinking of them.

With snow on the mountain peaks, Adrian (3rd left) together with his co-driver handover boxes of food to IDF soldiers in the freezing Golan Heights. There are many volunteer drivers, “and we receive instructions on the day whether we are delivering in the north or the south,” says Adrian.

I am always taken in by the quality and maturity of the soldiers, be they conscripts, reservist or officers, male or female. I frequently reflect how better equipped they are for the future than the ‘woke’ crowd we see protesting against Israel in foreign universities.

Sadly, I sometimes read in the newspaper during the week that IDF soldiers participating in the units I delivered food to have been killed and/or wounded. That is hard-hitting.

It made me so proud of our country when delivering the food and meeting these young soldiers – boys and girls.

I have delivered home-made meals to an additional reserve army unit stationed Nir Oz. A few months ago, when I delivered meals to soldiers at Nir Oz, a local woman resident in her forties approached me and offered to show me around. I understood she wanted to talk to some-one. She took me to her mother’s home which was completely burnt out. She showed me the shelter in the home, which did not have an inside lock as it had been constructed to safe-guard against incoming rockets from Gaza not terrorists on the ground. How totally unprepared they were for this eventuality!
Her mother stood no chance.
The terrorists threw hand grenades into the shelter. Only bits of her mother’s body were found.
Body parts, burnt out homes and overturned, wrecked tricycles. Images seen; never to be unseen. How does one process this?

Until next Friday and back to food deliveries…

About the writer:

An economics graduate of the University of Cape Town (UCT), Adrian Wolff transitioned from a lifetime in the commercial world to becoming a qualified Israeli Tourist Guide and is the author of ‘ISRAEL A CHRONOLGY – from Biblical to Modern Times’ available through Steimatzky, Amazon, Israel Museum, B-G Airport, Yad Vashem and ANU Museum. Rising to the rank of major in the IDF, Wolff is a member of The Israel Military History Society.
While Israel is presently at war, every Friday, he delivers home-made meals donated by Ramat Hasharon families to army units alternating between the north and Gaza areas.

HOSTAGES SQUARE

Hostages Square in Tel Aviv could so easily be called Sombre Square as it captures the mood and exudes the anxiety of a nation

While Tel Aviv has notable popular public squares like ‘Dizengoff Square’, ‘Habima Square’ and ‘Rabin Square’ – all associated with both the history and cultural life of Israel’s most vibrant city – its newest named Hostages Square is probably today, the most familiar to people across the world. It is not surprising why.

Located on the city’s King Saul Boulevard in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Hostages Square is seen daily on international TV news networks as people from across Israel congregate on this now sacred ground to demand the return of the hostages held in cruel captivity in Gaza. The site of daily press conferences and constant rallies about the hostage situation following Hamas’ brutal massacre on October 7, Hostages Square is not only a place in Tel Aviv, it is a place in the heart of Jewish people around the world.

One of the many thousands who visit Hostages Square every day, was photojournalist Harold Silber, a former South African, now resident in Netanya, Israel. Below is his personal narrative as seen through his camera lens. His focus is on the people – their postures and their expressions as they convey anxiety, hope, fear and the moments of joy, when news breaks of a hostage release. It is more of this welcome news, that the message from Hostages Square reverberates across Israel to the entire world.

David E. Kaplan
Editor, Lay of the Land

By Harold Silber

Hostages Square, a public plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, has become a place of gathering, commemoration, protest, hope, mourning, prayer, and vigilance, bringing hundreds of people together since the horrific attacks of October 7.

Clutching a dog-tag and a yellow “Bring Them Home” ribbon, an attendee at Hostages Square watches a live TV broadcast of the release of three hostages last Saturday

Emotions run high during hostage-release broadcasts at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. The sharing of emotions creates a bond between the many who gather, contrasting elation with pain, and hope with despair.

Teddy bears with embroidered messages have become a poignant symbol of the heartbreak of the hostages and the families left behind. Limor Elishoov holds an armful of her teddy bears during a hostage-release broadcast at Hostages Square.

Yellow Ribbons first became popular as a symbol of public support for Americans held hostage in Iran in 1979. Now, as worn here at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, they have become a symbol of hope for millions of people around the world, in the aftermath of the terrible attacks and the capture of hostages by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.

A heartfelt gesture highlights the mix of emotions felt by attendees at a hostage-release broadcast event at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

“Unbelievable, unacceptable, unbearable”, reads the embroidered message on a heart held by a blindfolded teddy bear in a cage, in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

The sight of a released hostage, seen on a giant TV screen in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, evokes a gesture of hope and relief for a yellow-ribboned observer.

The slogan – “LET THEM GO” – on a t-shirt in Hostages Square echoes the ancient injunction of Exodus, reflected in the weary eyes of an observer at a hostage-release broadcast.

Tunnel Vision – a replica of a Hamas terror tunnel at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv captures the grim conditions endured by hostages taken by terrorists during the attacks of October 7, 2023.

Jubilation greets the release of Naama Levy, one of four hostages released from Hamas captivity on a recent Saturday at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. On the morning of 7 October 2023, during the Hamas attack on Israel, Naama was abducted from the IDF surveillance base at Nahal Oz near the Gaza–Israel barrier.

Framed by posters of hostages, an attendee at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv reacts to the televised release of a group of hostages.

Wearing an Israeli flag and a ‘Bring them Home’ ribbon, a furry faithful friend takes a break at a recent hostage-release gathering in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

A place of tears, joy, hope, righteous anger and above all, the spirit embodied by Am Yisrael Chai, Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square is the eternal reminder that in spite of it all, Israel is alive.

About the photojournalist:

Harold Silber Born in South Africa, Harold made aliyah to Israel in 2010. “With a deep love for this land, I capture and share its stories through photography and video. My work, followed by over 10,000 on Facebook, reflects Israel’s beauty, resilience, and spirit.” Harold resides in the Mediterranean coastal city of Netanya, Israel.

Category: Humanitarianism

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