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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Argentina's rabbi-ambassador to Israel says El Al will launch direct flights to Buenos Aires
El Al will begin flying between Argentina and Israel, in both a powerful symbol of the countries' alliance and a practical boon for travelers like Rabbi Axel Wahnish. A canceled flight on his way to assume his new job might well have added urgency around one of Rabbi Axel Wahnish's first big breakthroughs asArgentina's ambassador to Israel: direct flights between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires. Wahnish, the personal rabbi of Argentine President Javier Milei, was originally scheduled to depart from Buenos Aires on Aug. 14, 2024, to begin his tenure in Israel. But his Air Europa flight — which included a connection in Europe — was canceled due to a surge in tensions between Iran and Israel. As most commercial airlines scrapped their Tel Aviv routes amid the turmoil, only El Al, Israel's national carrier, and its subsidiaries reliably stayed in the air. Now, Wahnish has announced that El Al will begin flying between Argentina and Israel, in both a powerful symbol of the countries' alliance and a practical boon for travelers like him. El Al has not yet confirmed the flight, which Wahnish said on X would be formally announced next week, when Milei, a noted philosemite and Zionist, visits Israel for the second time. But Wahnish — the first rabbi ever to be appointed an ambassador to Israel — told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency back in August, when he was waiting to leave Buenos Aires, that he saw a direct flight as both a cause and a result of improved relations. 'It's a question similar to the debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg,' he said. 'As an ambassador, I plan to work on both fronts — collaborating with airlines to make the route, while also fostering commercial, cultural, artistic, sporting and educational exchanges.' Milei's three-day state visit is set to start on June 9 and to include meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a speech before the Knesset, the acceptance ceremony for the Genesis Prize, a visit to the Western Wall and a meeting with relatives of the hostages taken during the October 7 attacks. Milei is the first non-Jew to be awarded the Genesis Prize. As part of the trip, Milei and Netanyahu will sign a 'Memorandum of Freedom and Democracy Against Terrorism, Antisemitism, and Discrimination.' The memorandum formalizes a major shift in Argentina's foreign policy following the election of Milei, a self-proclaimed 'anarcho-capitalist,' in 2023 after years of left-wing leadership. In 2013, Argentina signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, and for much of the past two decades, the country maintained close ties with Iran and frequently criticized Israeli military actions. Under Milei, Argentina has pivoted toward a stronger alliance with Israel, openly supporting its right to self-defense and its war in Gaza. At times, Argentina has stood nearly alone among nations in supporting Israel, and Milei has not joined in as other allies of Israel, including with right-leaning leaders, have urged Netanyahu to end the war. 'It is a deep honor and a historic privilege to express our strong alliance against terror, standing close to the Israeli democracy that is defending itself from terrorists,' Wahnish said in the August interview. Wahnish told JTA that his rabbinic background is a bonus in his work as the ambassador — but not his main qualification. 'First and foremost, I'm an Argentine citizen, a human being. If someone has expertise in a particular area, whether as a physicist, engineer or any other skill, can that be a disadvantage? … No,' he said. 'The same applies to being a rabbi. I think it is a plus. I have an ethical and moral background, a philosophical knowledge, it is like an extra skill.' But he added, 'The strong alliance between our country and Israel is not rooted in religion. It's based on values of democracy and freedom.' At the time, he declined to say when Milei planned to fulfill his stated intention to relocate the Argentine embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move the United States made during President Donald Trump's first term in 2018. The embassy move has not been formalized, with conventional wisdom in Argentina being that Milei may be waiting until after midterm elections in October to follow through on his promise. But Wahnish appears to have succeeded in pressing forward on the direct flights, which he said on X in February were a 'dream of my administration.' At the time, he said he had advocated for the flights in a direct conversation with Netanyahu, in which they also discussed Milei's visit, the memorandum and the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, who include Argentine dual citizens. A direct flight between the two countries was previously announced in 2016, but it was never implemented. If the new El Al route becomes a reality, there is only one precedent — and it hardly offered a model of strong diplomatic relations. It was also not nonstop, on a route that is estimated to require 16 hours of flight time from Tel Aviv. On May 19, 1960, a special Israeli delegation arrived in Buenos Aires on an El Al flight to attend the 150th anniversary of Argentine independence. Their visit had a secondary purpose: The following day, the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, whom Mossad agents had apprehended in Argentina, was disguised as a crew member and returned to Israel on the same plane. The aircraft stopped to refuel in Dakar, Senegal, and landed in Israel on May 22, where Eichmann was arrested. He was later convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged in 1962.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'Keep the stories alive so this doesn't happen again'
SANDOWN — There were two groups of people living in Berlin when things became dangerous for Jewish people — those who fled out of fear and those who stayed, wondering how bad it could get. When Jewish businesses began to burn and Jewish children could no longer attend school, Arnold Zweig's family fled to South America while Lanny (Lehman) Zweig's family stayed until they feared for their lives. Eventually, both families sought refuge in Colombia, where Lanny and Arnold met, married and lived for 20 years before immigrating to Los Angeles, where their son, Milton Zweig, was born. Lanny (Lehman) Zweig's story Lanny was 8 years old when her father received a phone call warning him that he and his family would be burned alive if they didn't leave their apartment, which sat atop the family's dry cleaning business in what was downtown Berlin. It was 1938, said Zweig, and the Kristallnacht had just begun. With her parents and her grandmother by her side, Lanny hid her yellow star with a teddy bear and boarded a train that would take the family into France. From there, they were smuggled through the woods into Brussels while being shot at. Shortly after arriving, Lanny's father was arrested for not wearing his yellow star in public and brought to Mechelen, a holding camp in the suburbs of Brussels, before he was transported to Auschwitz and murdered. He'd write letters to his family about his time in the concentration camp, which Zweig has today, along with his yellow star and other Holocaust artifacts. The letters were filled with positives notes about his time in the camp. 'He said everything was fine, that he was having a good time, kind of like a summer camp but it was anything but,' Zweig said. Though Lanny and her mother were hiding out in a relative's apartment, the family decided to send Lanny away to live with another family. She changed her name, attended a Catholic school and lived as a non-Jew until she could spend the rest of the war hiding in a cellar with her mother. 'She remembered when the British liberated Brussels. She and her mother watched them come through the streets,' Zweig said. 'Shortly after that, they decided to leave and go to South America.' Being an only child, Lanny and her mother traveled alone to Bogota, Colombia, where she would later meet Arnold, another survivor and Berlin native. The couple married and they and Lanny's mother moved to Los Angeles where Zweig was born. 'I remember going to my grandmother's apartment on the weekends,' he said. 'She would have all of her German friends that were there come to her apartment to play cards and most of the people that came there had numbers on their arms. I remember seeing that as a young child.' Arnold Zweig's story Arnold's mother didn't want to take the chance of staying in Berlin. 'She heard there was someone writing visas for people to leave the country so she went there and some guy wrote her a visa that turned out to be bogus but it worked anyway,' Zweig said. 'When she went home and told the family they were leaving, my father said he had no idea where that country was.' The family, made up of Arnold, his brother and their parents, boarded a boat, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and were dropped on the shores of Cartagena, Colombia. 'It was pouring rain, they had nowhere to stay and no money. They had a few chests with all of their clothes in there,' Zweig said. 'They stayed in a hotel for a few days and slowly they found a place to live.' The family eventually learned to speak Spanish and English, and they survived there before immigrating to the United States, where Arnold worked in insurance and Lanny was the picture of the classic homemaker, caring for the home, Arnold and their four children. Zweig said that it was common for Europeans impacted by the Holocaust to flee to South America. After the war, a lot of Nazis sought refuge in South America, too, and were hunted down by Nazi hunters during the 1940s and 1950s. Lanny and Arnold were married for 67 years before they died eight months apart from one another, Lanny, age 90, in 2021 and Arnold, age 97, in 2022. 'This impacted them their whole lives. There was never a time when it wasn't on their minds. It always affected them,' Zweig said. Holocaust survivors are older, they're dying and soon, too, will their children and family members. Tell the stories, record them, write them down, preserve them, so this doesn't happen again and so people never forget, Zweig said. 'Keep the stories alive,' he continued. Zweig's family history, research and artifacts will soon be donated to Keene State College where they will be available for public viewing.
