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November 30, 2011 Wednesday 4 Kislev 5772 16:13 IST

Grapevine: The season that has no name atthe embassy that has no peerGreer Fay Cashman30/11/2011 IF HANUKKA is already upon us, it stands to reason that Christmas is not far behind. Several ecumenical andinterfaith groups are celebrating both festivals, as well as the Muslim festival of Id al-Adha, with multiculturalgatherings at which traditional foods are being served. The International Christian Embassy, now the onlyembassy left in Jerusalem, albeit without diplomatic status, is hosting its "Festive Season" reception withoutspecifying any particular festival(s) on the invitation. Moreover, unlike some Jewish organizers andorganizations, ICEJ executive director Malcolm Hedding always brings in a kosher caterer for events to whichJewish guests have been invited to ensure that everyone present can partake of the refreshments. A littleconsideration goes a long way. ON THE date of the ICEJ reception, Swedish Ambassador Robert Rydbergand his wife Hai will host a reception in Herzliya Pituah in honor of a visiting delegation from Paideia, theEuropean Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. The EIJSS is a nondenominational, interdisciplinary,academic enterprise established in 2000 with a foundation grant from the Swedish government for thepurpose of encouraging fluency in Jewish sources, renewing interpretations of Jewish texts and reviving theEuropean Jewish voice that had long been silenced by communism and post-Holocaust trauma. One of thesuccessful projects of the ICEJ has been the sharing of hevruta methods of study with Catholic students.Many of the ICEJ lecturers and teachers are culled from Israeli universities. Among them are Prof. AvigdorShenan and Prof. Israel Knol of the Hebrew University, Dr. Yonatan Ben-Dov of the University of Haifa, Dr.Haim Shapira of Bar-Ilan University, Prof. Elhanan Reiner of Tel Aviv University and academics from otherIsraeli institutes of higher education and Jewish scholars from European universities. IN HER home country,Moldovan Ambassador Larisa Miculet always celebrated Christmas according to the Eastern calendarbecause that was her mother's custom. Young people in Moldova, she says, are inclined to celebrate onDecember 25 because they want to mainstream with most of Europe and the US. This year Miculet willcelebrate both Christmases, since she's invited to Christmas parties and church services that begin inDecember and finish in January. Two things that she's absolutely delighted about are the fact that she didn'thave to go looking for a Christmas tree and that her son, who is studying in the US, will come to Israel forthree weeks. The Jewish National Fund traditionally supplies foreign diplomats and members of the foreignpress with Christmas trees, and this year was no exception. While looking forward to Christmas, Miculet isless excited about the aftermath, when she has to go house hunting. Her landlord informed her that he wantsto sell the premises in which she resides - and although this may take some time, she has no intention ofhaving potential buyers come by not just to inspect the house but to see how an ambassador lives. CHILDHOLOCAUST survivor Rena Quint, who frequently guides groups through Yad Vashem, in particular theChildren's Memorial, was guiding a group last week when someone asked her how many grandchildren shehad. Quint had just said 21 when her cellphone rang. Ordinarily, she turns it off or ignores it when she is

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guiding, but this time she answered, only to learn that her eldest daughter, Menuha Chwat, had just givenbirth to her 12th child - a boy - after having been made a grandmother twice over in the past year. Quint putdown the phone and corrected herself. "Oops, 22," she said. Chwat, a remarkable working woman in manyways, is deep into hi-tech, and within minutes of the arrival of the latest addition to the family, who made hisappearance within less than quarter of an hour of her hospitalization, she had photographed him with thecamera in her cellphone and dispatched the image to relatives in Israel and the US. Chwat's two eldestdaughters gave birth within a few weeks of each other some eight months ago, making Quint, who lost herparents and siblings in the Holocaust, a great grandmother. COMBINING BUSINESS with pleasure, YishaiKlein, since 2001 the Singapore-based director of Asia Giza Venture Capital, headquartered in Tel Aviv, timeda home office business visit with a birthday surprise for his father Shmuel, who lives in Jerusalem. When thesenior Klein opened the door, he was momentarily confused and thought the person standing in the doorwaywas his younger son Gideon, who lives in Haifa. Yishai Klein, who is actively involved in the growingSingapore Jewish community, was happy to reveal that the Jacob Ballas Jewish Community Center adjacentto Waterloo Road synagogue is about to open, and will include a kosher restaurant, spa-style mikve,auditorium, library and other facilities. In addition, a Jewish day school that is an outgrowth of the Jewishkindergarten will inaugurate first grade in 2007, with plans for at least one additional class each year. Qualityteachers have been imported from Australia and elsewhere. Jewish visitors to Singapore might care to knowthat The Coffee Bean, which also has branches in Israel, is now kosher.

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