03:40 PM - Lost: shabbat wine and a media baron
Seeing as I get all this free readership (as if people actually read these journals...) I'm going to opine on something obscure but important - to me, at least. And on the passing of a Canadian giant.
Shopping at the local IGA I was in the kosher section and noticed that the shabbat wine (unfermented grape juice, actually) now sold is no longer Carmel, an Israeli brand (bottled in Rishon le Zion since 1882) but Kedem, an American brand.
Okay, grape juice is grape juice. But when you are like me, and there are many others like me, you want the real thing: made in Israel. From the land of our ancestors. I have often paid a few dollars more to buy an Israeli brand, but this time there was none to be found.
Later in the day, I caught the headline of the Gazette (La Presse put it on page 15) "Israel Asper, 1932 - 2003" and for a moment I was stunned. (This, in the same month as the passing of my childhood heroes John Ritter and Johnny Cash.) I thought about the dozens of newspapers that his family owns - virtually a Canadian monopoly - and about the Netanyahu visit (which I would have wanted to see, had it not become the violent circus that, predictably, it was) and about his Asper Foundation, which will undoubtedly allow many more Canadians to hear an Israeli politician speak.
And then I thought about the grape juice, made in the USA.
It disturbs any zionist to see a possible sign of divestment in the Jewish state. Even one who sees her current policies (one recent Haaretz editorial reads: "Current Israeli policy in 10 words: 'What doesn't work with force will work with more force.'") as far from perfect. And one who also knows that the country has the will, the strength, and the intelligence to persevere through the end of this "situation", and to prosper.
I have no doubt that Israel Asper was one of the few in Canada with the will and the power to pull some strings and get that Israeli grape juice back on the shelves of the IGA. Maybe, if he was still here today, he would. So for the moment, those with Israel on their minds should step aside from the constant (and necessary) debates over academic and journalistic freedom, and pay homage to a man that has made a lasting and positive contribution to the Jewish state, and hence to the world.