December 18, 2012

By Gila Berdichev

In September, US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed by terrorists who stormed the US Embassy. Just a few weeks later, a car bomb killed Lebanese security chief Wissam al-Hassan. And last month, a serious Hamas offensive sent rockets into Israeli cities previously thought invulnerable, killing five and wounding 70 private citizens. Now, our brothers and sisters in the United States are reeling from a mass execution at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, an act of extreme violence that left 26 dead, including 20 young children.

Unfortunately, this latest surge of violence circumventing the globe is nothing new.Over the last year, I have heard stories about many other attacks, bombings and grisly murders around the world – premeditated acts of terror as well as impulsive and senseless acts of violence.

When terror acts occur in Israel, we pray that there are no fatalities. When one man is killed, it is as though the whole country has a lost a father, brother, husband or friend. When one young girl dies, all of Israel mourns the death of their little girl. In the hours after an attack, we focus on the death toll. And if there are no fatalities, we breathe a deep sigh of relief and go about our day. [Read more…]

Jerusalem Post

December 3, 2012

By Rebecca Hughes

For too long, the conversation surrounding prostitution has been based on a myth. While the damage that stems from inaccurate depictions of prostitution in popular culture is significant, it is nothing compared to the damage created by misinformed policymakers and law enforcement officials.

There is a dangerous gap between the glamorous depiction of prostitution in pop-culture and the reality that prostituted women and minors are forced to contend with on a daily basis.

When society’s decision makers ascribe to these myths and are oblivious to the suffering of prostituted people, real women and children fall into the abyss and are all too often unable to climb back out. [Read more…]

The Algemeiner

August 19, 2012

By Rebecca Hughes

Several days ago, I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing off the hook.  A very annoyed man was on the line. “I’m calling from the Knesset,” he said. “You’ve been sending us letters.” His tone was accusatory, but I was guilty as charged.

Championing ATZUM’s “Project 119,” 127 volunteers – myself included – have been sending numerous e-mails to the Members of Knesset.  Over the last five months, we have sent 1,904 e-mails urging MKs to pass MK Orit Zuaretz’s proposed legislation to criminalize the purchase of sexual services.

Though he was clearly less than happy to be talking to me, I was pleased to be speaking with him.  Clearly, I thought, this was someone who realized that combating sex trafficking and prostitution belongs near the top of our government’s ‘To Do’ list, seeing as there are thousands of prostituted individuals in Israel, many of whom are children. Although procuring is illegal in Israel, 90% of these women and children are owned by others and experience violence at the hands of their pimps or their clients. [Read more…]

Arutz 7

July 22, 2012

By Chana Ya’ar

Later this month, Orna Shurani of Nahariya will celebrate her 84th birthday. For this particular woman, birthdays are a time of serious reflection as she risked her life on numerous occasions between 1944 and 1945 to save 27 Jewish men from Nazi persecution in Hungary. At several different points during that period, Orna was certain that she would not see her next birthday.

Now, so many years later, Orna is a recognized Righteous Among the Nations, a privilege that has earned her the right to live out her golden years in Israel surrounded by friends and family – a happy ending she could never have imagined. Born Erna Csizmadia in Hungary in 1928, Orna was the youngest of three sisters. The Csizmadia family was very close and Orna’s older sisters, Olga and Malvina, were very protective of her. [Read more…]

The Jewish Press

June 11, 2012

By Yocheved Golani

Yael Rosen, Director of ATZUM‘s Righteous Among the Nations Project speaks with pride of the astonishing accomplishments made in a joint project with the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa.

Students there launched a research project about specific remarkable, heroic acts during World War II, focusing on the heroism of the Van Hall and Boissevain families from Amsterdam. “The beauty of fostering the inter-generational, cross-cultural relationships that resulted from this effort is indescribably valuable,” Yael says. She has much more insight to share.

“The research project began in 2009, culminating in a heartfelt, sometimes tearful opening ceremony for the exhibition held May 21 at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa. ATZUM is involved with improving Israeli society in various ways. One branch of our work is an attachment to the Righteous Among the Nations, gentiles who risked their own lives by saving Jews during the Shoah. The public sometimes hears of this group of people through Yad VaShem. Several RAN members reside in Israel. We at ATZUM believe that these now elderly survivors, aged 77-95, deserve whatever financial, legal and bureaucratic help they need. Since the Leo Baeck school has impressive social action programs of its own, we joined forces.” [Read more…]

Canadian Jewish Tribune

June 5, 2012

By Atara Beck

HAIFA – At a moving ceremony honouring Righteous Gentiles, their merit was epitomized by child survivor Rivka Nordheim, who said:

“It is written in the Talmud: ‘He who saves a life, it is as if he saved an entire world.’ You could take out the words ‘as if.’ I have 14 children and 110 grandchildren, attended 19 grandchildren’s weddings and have 38 great-grandchildren. I was saved by the Baracs family at their great risk. They saved an entire world.”

The packed event took place on May 21 at Leo Baeck High School in Haifa, and it was the culmination of three years of extensive student research into the rescue activities of the Boissevain and Van Hall families, and by extension the Baracs (the families are all related), who were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations (RATN) by Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem.

It was the launch of an impressive 10-day exhibition, titled The Light in the Darkness, which included documents, testimonies and other discoveries at Yad Vashem and Lohamei HaGeta’ot (Fighters of the Ghettos), among other museums, as well as related art and literature. [Read more…]

Jerusalem Post

May 31, 2012

By Abigail Klein Leichman

Social activism group believes students can learn from Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews during World War II.

The Nazis murdered Esther Boissevain Grinberg’s father and six other relatives. The rest of her family barely survived the war years in Holland. Yet Grinberg’s family was not Jewish. Her parents, and 16 members of her father’s extended family, were gentiles who paid the ultimate price for refusing to stand by as Jews were being persecuted.

Today, the 78-year-old retired nurse is an Israeli grandmother living in Kiryat Tivon. She was the inspiration for “The Light in the Darkness,” a 10-day exhibition that opened on May 21 at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa – a school of more than 2,000 pupils that was founded in 1938 as a kindergarten for German Jewish refugees.

The culmination of three years of student research, the exhibit includes authentic photographs, documents, objects and artworks of the Boissevain family and of the Jewish community in Amsterdam, with the cooperation of Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority and the Dutch Friends Foundation of the Holland Department of the Ghetto Fighters House Museum Association. [Read more…]

5 Towns Jewish Times

April 19, 2012

By Rochelle Maruch Miller

From a young age, Moshe Tezazo was active in his community in the Tigrai region of Ethiopia. In 1981, Moshe left his wife and children in the village and, together with other activists, started to make his way towards Sudan in order to check aliyah routes to Israel. Moshe was caught and imprisoned for eight months and was subject to investigation under torture. During this time he was not in touch with his family and they did not know what had happened to him. Upon his release Moshe encountered many difficulties while making his way back to his village. After reuniting with his family and recovering from his long ordeal, he and his family made their way to Sudan, and from there to Israel.

Malke Yallo fled from Ethiopia in 1981 after illegally assisting his uncle who was imprisoned for Zionist activity. Malke was caught by Sudanese soldiers at the Ethiopian-Sudanese border. He was thrown in jail and was severely tortured; his left arm was amputated as a result. After being released from prison he collaborated with Mossad agents in Sudan, helping them identify Jewish families and distribute money and medicine. Malke arrived in Israel in 1982 on an IDF ship, sailing from the Sudanese coast to Israel through the Red Sea. [Read more…]

Jerusalem Post

April 9, 2012

By Arieh O’Sullivan

“Two interrogators came to my cell and said, ‘So, you’re the traitor. You are the one who wants to be a white man.’ I told them ‘No. I’m not a spy just a teacher,’” recalls Yaacov Elias, an Ethiopian Jew and former Prisoner of Zion.

He was tortured and jailed for over two years by the Marxist government in Ethiopia for Zionist activities in the late 1970s before moving to Israel. Decades later, he is telling a group of high schoolers gathered in his living room about his experience.

“I was tortured six different ways and it hurts me just to tell you about it,” he says in low voice. “They hung me from a tree and beat the daylights out of me. They bent my back to my feet till I thought my spine was going to break.” [Read more…]

Jerusalem Post

February 13, 2012

By JPost Editorial

Prostitution is violence against women. Everything should be done to diminish, if not completely eradicate, this horrible phenomenon, dubbed inappropriately “the world’s oldest profession,” as if its long history somehow gives it respectability.

The Ministerial Committee on Legislation took an important step toward achieving this goal Sunday when it unanimously passed a bill by MK Orit Zuaretz (Kadima), who chairs the Knesset Subcommittee on Trafficking in Women.

If ratified, Zuaretz’s bill would make it illegal to buy sexual services but not to sell them. The legislation’s eminently reasonable underlying assumption is that prostitutes – mostly women – are victims of an industry said to generate revenues of $2 billion a year in Israel, while those who solicit, pimp or facilitate sexual favors – primarily men – are the ones guilty of exploiting, raping and abusing those who are weaker and more vulnerable, and therefore, deserve to be singled out for punishment. [Read more…]