MARCH 5, 2021 Z Spotlight Women making a difference CONTENTS March 5, 2021 Cover Sections 8 Women with hard drive 6 Letters • By TAMAR BEERI 34 Trending 12 The Arab-Israeli & Palestinian 36 Food women making an impact 38 Observations • By KHALED ABU TOAMEH 41 Arab Press 12 14 Female face to the London embassy 42 Books • By LAHAV HARKOV 45 Readers’ Photos 20 Superpower of compassion: 46 Judaism Organ transplants • By HAGAY HACOHEN 48 Games 50 Arrivals 28 The burning bus: Edge of the precipice • By VIVIAN BERCOVICI 32 Mekorot mayim: Bringing water to Jerusalem • By ZEV STUB COVER PHOTO: Baysberg Team 20 Photos (from top): Amoun Sleem; Dvora Szerer PHOTO OF THE WEEK | MARC ISRAEL SELLEM SAY WHAT? SAY WHAT? BY LIAT COLLINS Mahlif/a kidomet (m/f) מחליף/מחליפה קידומת Meaning: Celebrating a round birthday/ anniversary Literally: Changing the dialing code/ telephone area code Example: Tomorrow is my 60th birthday. Mahlifa kidomet! Z Editor: Erica Schachne Graphic Designer: Moran Snir Email: [email protected] Books: [email protected] www.jpost.com >> Magazine LETTERS HAPPY HIPPIE they hid in the crypt of the York Thank you for the “groovy Minster cathedral and later hid quiz” to check if I’m a bona-fide in a wooden tower in York Cas- hippie (February 26)! tle called Clifford’s Tower. Firstly, it was a nice diversion There the non-Jews promised in the Magazine published for them safe passage if they sur- the Shabbat of “Purim Meshu- rendered but, when some came lash” to have a nostalgic article out, the mob immediately that had nothing to do with the murdered them. Those who past year and the coronavirus. stayed in the tower took their Secondly, as someone who own lives and the tower was experienced the hippie era burnt down when the mob set from my teenage years until light to it. This, of course, was I completed university 51 the infamous York Massacre years ago, I was pleased to see a hundred years prior to the that despite my now slightly total expulsion of all Jews from “senior” memory I scored very England in 1290. well on the groovy quiz. The hypnotized subject had Last but not least, I have never visited York and later in my own hippie tale to tell. the program it was explained My children, who are all born how all the facts fitted and raised in Israel and have including the names of streets had the advantage of learning except that the cathedral did English as a mother-tongue in not have a crypt. However, addition to their native Hebrew about two years later the pro- – thanks to their parents – gram was broadcast again with grew up hearing The Beatles’ an addendum explaining that, songs on records at home in since the first broadcast, the addition to hearing these songs York Minster had been renovat- on the radio. My eldest child’s ed, some floor slabs removed, first name is a Hebrew word and the crypt found. meaning “happy,” which was Incidentally, the old Jewish chosen because his parents cemetery was found in the ear- were so very happy to have a ly 1980s when a car park being child born in Israel – after a built for a new supermarket re- pause of 2,000 years in our fam- vealed probable Jewish graves. ily’s presence in Israel. After my Rabbis from London confirmed kids learned The Beatles’ songs, the graves were Jewish. As a re- they liked to claim we actually sult, the prohibition on visit- gave our child this name ing York (cherem) was removed because we were former hippies and there was a ceremony of and that when I was pregnant, reinternment of the bones, with I’d massage my abdomen and Jewish and non-Jewish digni- sing “And when I touch you, I taries present, on July 9, 1984. feel ‘Happy’ inside!” (An unfortunate date as it co- LEAH YERUSHALMI incided with the Hebrew date Jerusalem 9 Tammuz of the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem leading TIME AFTER TIME to the destruction of Jerusalem David Brinn’s excellent cov- by Nebuchadnezzar and the ex- er story “It’s My (After) Life” ile of the Jews living there 2,407 (February 26) reminded me of a years earlier.) On the very same television documentary (to the day as the ceremony, the cathe- best of my recollection by the dral was struck by lightning ig- BBC and introduced by Magnus niting a fire that burnt down the Magnusson) that I saw in part rumored to have been built England in the 1970s, in which from taxes levied on the Jews. a hypnotist took patients back The coincidence of the fire in time before their birth to in the cathedral, the ceremony previous incarnations. Of the of reinternment of the bones, many subjects, my interest was and the removal of the cherem perked by a woman who was all on the anniversary of the taken back to the year 1190 in breach of the walls of Jerusalem the town of York where she was on 9 Tammuz is very interest- a Jewess. She described how ing. Was Hashem trying to tell she, together with other Jews, us something? were pursued by a mob trying MALCOLM MANDEL to kill them. She described how Ra’anana Write to: [email protected] Only a selection of letters can be published. Priority goes to those that are brief and topical. Letters may be edited, and must bear the name and address of the writer. 6 MARCH 5, 2021 On InternatIOnal WOmen’s Day, Barkai celebrates our rabbaniot, who together with their husbands, build strong Jewish communities, throughout Israel. In 90 communities they are role models of female strength, intelligence and warmth: Guiding and supporting women and girls Teaching Torah and Yiddishkeit Recognizing distress and providing assistance Joining a network of communal leaders to strengthen Israel Answering intimate and difficult questions Constantly developing their professional skills to better serve the community With special thanks to our Rabbi David Fine and Rabbi Shlomo Sobol, Deans and Founders Director amit Baron, without whom Barkai would not be the flourishing To learn more about Barkai or to become a Barkai couple organization it is today! please go to www.israelrabbis.org COVER IDITH VARON discusses the Women’s Professional Development Network program. (Photos: Applied Materials) Women with hard drive Ahead of International Women’s University for her master’s. From there, she began to flourish in the fields of Day on March 8, we meet the engineering and computing, which led her to the role she holds today. powerful individuals taking a byte “I am responsible for Amdocs Information Technolo- of the hi-tech sector gies, including information systems, infrastructure and cybersecurity domains,” Kilstein told the Magazine. “I have • TAMAR BEERI a global organization with approximately 1,000 employ- ees, mostly developers and engineers, spread out across here are many career paths that carry with them the globe, and that includes men and women alike, with the age-old stigma of being a “man’s job.” The plenty of women in managerial roles.” corporate role, the man in a suit, is a trademark Indeed, approximately 30% of Amdocs employees are of the business world, and the bespectacled women – not the 50% mark of a true reflection of socie- young fellow hunched over a bulky black laptop tal distribution, but a nevertheless impressive amount in isT equally tied to the image of the hi-tech industry. That, contrast to other companies in such a market. In Amdocs however, has not been the image of programmers and in- Israel, the number is even nearer to the middle ground, novators in quite a while – that world is changing. with 44% of employees in the country being women. Kil- Today, women are some of the leaders of the technologi- stein explained that she never felt any sort of gender-based cal sector and are more clearly distributed throughout each barrier standing in her way. field within it. “In my personal path, I hardly faced any kind of gender block, especially not in Amdocs,” she affirmed. “I believe ALEGRA KILSTEIN, chief information officer (CIO) at that one must believe in oneself and that as a woman, you Amdocs, began her path into the hi-tech industry long can accomplish whatever you want. Our only limitations before she reached the frontlines of the famed soft- are the ones we set up in our own minds.” ware company and multinational corporation. As a child, she always tended to go for learning natural and RIKI ASHOURI-COHEN, a network engineer at the HARNESSING formal sciences over the humanities and other such sub- telecommunications company Ericsson, also did not FEMALE brain jects. She had studied in the Technion – Israel Institute feel that gender bias got in her way. She entered the power. (Pixabay) of Technology for her bachelor’s degree and Tel Aviv world of hi-tech at a very young age, studying in a high 8 MARCH 5, 2021 THE WPDN enables women in the same field to connect and open up about struggles they face in the workplace. school (which has since stopped operation) run by telecommunications company Bezeq. “I was one among four girls altogether in my home- room, and one among 12 altogether in our grade,” she recounted. “We were always the minority, but that didn’t make me feel different. No one in my career has looked at me and another person differently just because I’m a woman and he’s a man.” Throughout her childhood, she had been complete- ly and utterly enamored with the creative maneuvers of project management necessary to make it in the hi-tech world.