Grapevine September 26, 2025: Netanyahu at the UNGA

Anyone who has been following Netanyahu’s past remarks knows that he has a problem with the truth, even when he knows he is being recorded. It may be a memory lapse or something less excusable. Whatever the reason, on this occasion, Netanyahu cannot afford to be anything but truthful because too many people in too many countries are accusing Israel of genocide. He will have to explain why his policies and his determination to continue the war should not be defined as genocide.

The most significant argument that he has is that, for years, he had been warning about the dangers of Iranian hegemony over the Middle East and that most people thought that he was exaggerating. However, as recent events have shown, he was correct on that point, and he believes that he is correct in his current defense policy.

However, most of the world leaders who were at the UNGA this week have already departed, and Netanyahu will be speaking more or less for the record, rather than to impress other world leaders. Nonetheless, he should give very careful consideration to the truth.

■ LOVERS OF choral and cantorial synagogue services can’t do much better than the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, with its powerfully voiced cantor Tzvi Weiss and its impressive choir conducted by Maestro Eli Jaffe, with a repertoire that includes classic liturgical tunes, some High Holy Day musical tributes to Shlomo Carlebach, Leonard Cohen, and Aharon Razel, and even melodies composed by Jaffe himself.

In previous years, the synagogue used to be full to overflowing on the High Holy Days, with plastic chairs lining the walls to seat those people who had not paid for a permanent upholstered seat. Often, those plastic chairs were inadequate, and some congregants sat on the carpeted stairs. But not this year.

It was heartbreaking to see how many empty seats there were in both the men’s and women’s sections, though many of those seats had been paid for by overseas supporters of the synagogue, who used to come to Israel for the High Holy Days or the whole of the month of Tishrei.

The seats for which they had paid were all clearly marked with “reserved” signs, but that did not deter people who had not paid for a seat from sitting in them, even though there were plenty of seats that had not been paid for that remained unoccupied and unmarked.

In some cases, congregants who had paid for seats and had proof to show had the annual problem of getting people who were sitting in their seats to move. It’s amazing how many “squatters” ignore the fact that front-row seats are strictly for members and visiting VIPs. The synagogue has a seating capacity for 1,400 people, with slightly more in the men’s section than in the women’s gallery, so there was no need to sit in a seat with a “reserved” sign.

Curiously, the ratio of empty seats in the men’s section was greater than in the women’s section. But the singing was superb, and the soloists ranged from the deepest baritone through dulcet tenors to high-pitched boy sopranos. Congregants could be seen swaying to the more lively melodies.

Although there is an exquisite Sephardi synagogue on the ground floor of the premises, it is far too small to accommodate anyone other than its regulars, which means that people with mobility challenges have a hard time getting into the synagogue chamber, which is several flights up for women and two flights up for men. It was painful to watch elderly, lame women struggling up the stairs both to the chamber and inside, especially as there are no banisters on the stairs dividing the different blocks in the chamber.

In better times, the Jerusalem Great Synagogue maintained a Shabbat escalator that kept going non-stop and a Shabbat elevator that automatically stopped at every floor. But the mechanism in each broke down. Neither can be repaired, and the cost of replacement is exorbitant. There are so many important causes that are currently being supported by organizational and individual donors from Israel and abroad that a new elevator and escalator for the Great Synagogue fall low on the philanthropic totem pole.

Almost every war is accompanied by a baby boom, something that was definitely evident at the Great Synagogue, where there were more infants than usual, as well as children under the age of 10, but they were all very well-behaved and spent more time playing games in the lobby outside the chamber than running up and down the stairs, which has always been a favorite pastime for very young congregants.

However, in the future, their mothers might care to give them refreshments other than cookies, potato chips, and Bamba, which do not all go into their mouths but are stamped into the carpet.

Jerusalem does not have a sea or a river, but some of the congregants from the various synagogues on King George Avenue and its immediate surroundings perform the Tashlich ritual of getting rid of their sins at the nearby fountain in Paris Square, where weekly rallies on behalf of the hostages in Gaza take place.

Pedestrians crossing the road in either direction during the High Holy Days tend to ignore the traffic lights because motorized traffic on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is minimal.

But there are many more bikes and scooters in the street, and those driven by people attending synagogue services are sometimes parked in the lobby. Yet another sign of changing times.

Worse still, when the only buses on the roads are tour buses and there are few cars, the bikers still ride on the sidewalk, causing great discomfort to pedestrians, who can be seen in far greater numbers than usual.

But pedestrians are also to be chastised for crossing the road on a red light. After spending much of the day in synagogue and asking the Divine Creator to inscribe them in the Book of Life, they spit in His face on the way home by violating traffic regulations and risking their lives. More than that, they are risking the lives of any children they have in tow, because the child is crossing with them against a red light.

■ THIS COMING Saturday, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is Shabbat Shuva – the Sabbath of Repentance – where in years gone by, the Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis played musical chairs between the Jerusalem Great Synagogue and the Yeshurun Synagogue down the block. Each would give a morning sermon at one of the two synagogues and swap places for the afternoon service.

This year, Sephardi Chef Rabbi David Yosef is giving Rehavia a miss and sticking to the Shas enclave of Har Nof, where he will deliver the main Shabbat Shuva sermon at the Toldot Yitzhak Synagogue on Hakablan Street, the street made famous by two of its occupants, the chief rabbi’s late father, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and Shas leader Aryeh Deri.

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Kalman Meir Ber, who spoke at both the Great Synagogue and Yeshurun during Rosh Hashanah, will deliver the Shabbat Shuva sermon at Yeshurun.

■ FOR AUSTRALIANS living in Israel, the Grand Final of the Australian Football League is one of the most important events of the year. Paul Israel, the executive director of the Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce, has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in Australia’s footie world and puts out the word as to where the AFL Finals can be seen live.

The 2025 AFL Grand Final between Geelong (Cats) and Brisbane (Lions) will be screened live this Saturday, September 27, at La Mer Café Bar on Bograshov Beach in Tel Aviv. The game commences at 7:30 a.m. Israel time; doors will open from 7:00 a.m.

■ IT’S WELL known that Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion wants to turn his city into Israel’s hi-tech and cultural capital, in addition to its present status as the eternal capital of the Jewish people and the capital city of Israel. In addition, he has a fixation about building more hotels, and some half dozen are under construction in the existing downtown area and its immediate surroundings. Other hotels are being expanded.

Although this doesn’t make sense under the present circumstances, it does herald a sense of optimism about the future. But in all his grandiose plans, the mayor appears to be overlooking the importance of maintaining historic and iconic buildings in more or less their original state and using them as cultural venues rather than converting them into hotels.

It was bad enough when a decision was made to convert the old Shaare Zedek hospital building into a hotel, but now there is talk of doing the same with the Rockefeller Museum, one of the city’s most magnificent architectural creations that dates back to the period of the British Mandate. Although the museum has been closed for the past two years, it contains valuable collections of archaeological treasures and should not be sacrificed on the altar of commercial enterprise.