Tragedy in Georgia on my mind

The Jewish Yom Kippur liturgy, made up of medieval poems, Biblical verses, psalms and oh so much more, is designed in part to strike fear and awe of God into the hearts of worshipers, on the holiest of days, when their fates are said to be held in the balance.

Despite its best efforts though, those much-read words pale in making one feel the sacredness and precariousness of human life in comparison to tragedy that is in the here and now.

That’s a lesson many learned late Wednesday and in Thursday morning’s papers, as Israelis emerged from their Yom Kippur shells to find that two young children had been killed, and two more injured, along with their parents, during a vacation in the country of Georgia.

The sad news makes all three front pages, and is the top story in both tabloids Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth, though its placement is likely a result of both the enormity of the tragedy and the fact that Israel essentially shuts down – newswise and otherwise – during the Yom Kippur holiday.

Yedioth adorns its front page with a picture of the four Grinfeld children in a minivan (though its not clear if the picture is in any way related to the car crash), stamped with their names, ages and whether they were killed (Ahinoam, 10; Nevo, 5) or injured (Yiftah, 11; Ivri 7), along with pictures of parents Hanoch and Noa, wearing shirts in memory of Hanoch’s brother Yehuda, who was killed in the second Lebanon War.

The paper reports that Noa is in serious condition, though her life is not in danger, and the father and two other children are lightly injured, with all four of them brought back to Israel to recover in an emergency move despite the fact that planes are usually banned from Israeli airspace over the holiday.

The holiday also meant reporters couldn’t go knocking on grieving relatives’ doors for tearful quotes about the dead and both tabloids make do with a heartbreaking Facebook post by aunt Shusha Greenfeld.

“Ahinoam had a heart of gold, was sensitive, she was just a kid but you could see when her heart was broken and she needed a hug, and Nevo, with those happy eyes, the great smile, his laugh and humor – where are you, my loves,” she’s quoted writing in Israel Hayom.

As for the crash, both papers blame bad weather for the family’s jeep falling into a crevice, rolling some 60 meters (180 feet) down a hill and leading to an all-night rescue operation.

“Visibility conditions were bad on Monday night in the area of Tusheti in northeast Georgia. The winds were strong, the fog was heavy. Lightning flashed in the sky. In these complicated conditions one jeep traveled, in it an Israeli family, on a narrow road between two villages. Until tragedy struck,” the paper reports.

Perhaps to explain why they were there, and with Yom Kippur clearly still on their minds, the writers at Israel Hayom describe the Tusheti area in religious terms.

“Georgians say that when God gave out parcels of land to the nations, the most beautiful of all – Georgia – he kept for himself. A Garden of Eden of land. On Monday night, the amazing vistas of Georgia turned into a place of hell for the Greenfeld family of Maaleh Michmash,” the paper writes.

It’s a strange way to start a story about a tragedy and just as incongruous is Israel Hayom commentator Gidon Alon giving a travelogue of his trip to Georgia two weeks ago and explaining why its becoming increasingly popular for Israeli tourists, including some poor word choice given what took place there.

“Firstly, there are the magical views. When you climb the crooked paths up the tall Caucasus Mountains and see on the horizon the snow and glaciers that have yet to recede from last winter, when you bounce in a jeep on the famous 19th century military road climbing breathtaking mountains and reach the lookouts on the snow-capped peaks on the balcony of the historic borderlands between Russia and Georgia at 2,000 meters (6,000 feet) above sea level, it’s impossible not to be amazed,” he writes in a passage fit for a travel brochure.

The news may have taken a break in Israel, but in the US and elsewhere it kept on keeping on and Haaretz’s lead story returns to the tried and true American elections, reporting that top Hillary Clinton donor Haim Saban told the candidate to take a different stance on Israel than US President Barack Obama has.

The paper’s reporting, based on emails released by Wikileaks on Tuesday, recounts that in 2015 Saban sent Clinton a message saying “differentiating” herself from Obama will help her win key states in the upcoming election.

“Saban recommended that Clinton ‘speak strongly against anti-Semitism, and boycott’ and ‘reaffirm the US commitment to Israel’s security & anything else your research tells you the Jewish community is sensitive to,’” the paper’s report on the message reads. “This is NOT a NY or California issue, it is a Florida one. Pls LMK how I can help here.”

While Saban’s advice was designed to help Clinton win back Jewish voters, Israel Hayom reports on another leaked email, which shows Clinton supposedly raising ire among Catholics and evangelicals because of leaked emails by campaign staffers in which they express disdain for the Christian groups.

While the US media hasn’t played up those specific emails in its coverage of the leaks, the Trump campaign has attempted to and so does Israel Hayom, owned by the Trump-backing Sheldon Adelson.

“As can be seen Catholics — and the right in general – were angered in the wake of the publication. The head of the national Catholic group CatholicVote Brian Burch called on Palmieri to resign immediately, and if not for her to be fired,” the paper reports, failing to mention that the conservative CatholicVote has taken an avowed anti-Hillary stance.

The paper also plays up the fact that Trump appears to be gaining on Hillary, with his deficit down to single digits (never mind the fact that he was near even just a few weeks ago), but as rosy a picture they try to paint, Yedioth’s political coverage posits that it’s all bad news at the GOP, where the party is tearing itself to shreds over Trump.

“Donald Trump is shooting in every direction and this time has opened fire at his colleagues in the Republican party,” analyst Orly Azulai writes. “In the last few days, since senior members of his party have disassociated from him finally after the terrible things he said on the famous tape, Trump has launched an attack on his Republican enemies and vowed to teach them a lesson.”

Sad.