Shirley Pinto Makes History
Shirley Pinto Makes History
Israeli's first deaf MK takes her oath ...
Far away from the international headlines yesterday, a small, sweet but still very important story in the Knesset. Shirley Pinto, a long-time member of Yamina, Naftali Bennett’s party, took her oath to the Knesset. She’s deaf, Israel’s first deaf MK, and recited the oath in both sign language and spoken Hebrew.
Quite rightly, the Israeli press thought it was a pretty big deal.
Two quick photos more than suffice.
Good to have a nice small item with which to close the week; more after Shabbat.
There are few organizations in Israeli life more controversial than "Breaking the Silence," which serves as a platform for Israeli soldiers to discuss incidences in their military service that they felt were morally problematic, or worse. From the right, BtS has been accused of undermining Israel, of publicizing stories that are not true, of taking money from anti-Israel organizations ... the list goes on. BtS, of course, disputes some of that. On the left, BtS is often controversial because it is not opposed military service, is not a human rights organization and for a host of other reasons.
Mikhael Menkin, with whom I speak in this episode, was one of the founders of BtS, and its Executive Director for a number of years. He's Orthodox, a passionate Zionist, not a pacifist ... and he is also profoundly thoughtful and exceedingly articulate.
Israel from the Inside is about breaking out of the echo chamber, hearing views that might be different from our own; our conversation with Mikhael Menkin will, I'm betting, leave you thinking for quite some time.
We’re making a brief excerpt of the interview publicly available here. The full podcast is available to subscribers.
A brief excerpt of each of the podcasts in the series is available here.
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