Former FBI special agent to head security for San Diego Jewish Academy
San Diego Jewish Academy (SDJA), an independent Jewish day school located in the Carmel Valley community of San Diego, has announced the hiring of Gabriel Ramirez as Director of Security and Safety.
“Following a very competitive interview process, we have hired Gabe Ramirez as SDJA’s new Director, Security and Safety,” said Chaim Heller, Head of School at San Diego Jewish Academy. “His credentials and impressive background, combined with passion for mentoring local youth, make him a perfect fit for our community.”
Ramirez, who is also fluent in Spanish, spent the last 27 years as a Special Agent in the FBI, specializing in complex criminal investigations, with service in the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia where he oversaw agents and administered multinational sensitive investigations in Colombia and Ecuador. He also has led white-collar investigations, and attained indictments against 11 leaders of a major Mexican drug cartel.
Throughout his career, Ramirez also spent considerable time mentoring local youth. “Gabe’s long-standing commitment to our community and our youth make him the perfect fit to help keep our school safe,” continued Cheller. “More impressive than his resume, Gabe’s core values align perfectly with our school and our community. He has tremendous sensitivity and interpersonal skills – and we are lucky and pleased that he has joined the leadership at SDJA.”
Ramirez attended San Diego State University. He is married with two children who will both attend SDJA this fall.
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Lone soldiers, medical personnel among latest groups of North American immigrants to Israel
The second Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah charter flight of the summer will bring a wide array of experienced and emerging leaders to Israel, including 57 future Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Lone Soldiers, 27 medical professionals, and 13 Jewish community professionals. This specially chartered flight with 239 new olim was generously sponsored by Denver, Colorado local, Heidi Rothberg in coordination with Jewish National Fund USA and was facilitated in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah & Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel (KKL), JNF-USA and Tzofim-Garin Tzabar.
The new Olim hail from 24 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces, including 30 families, 90 children, and three sets of twins. The future Lone Soldiers—those volunteering to serve in the IDF without immediate family living in Israel—will join the close to 1,000 Lone Soldiers from North America, and the close to 4,000 Lone Soldiers from around the world. These young men and women, once they become Israeli citizens, enlist in the IDF as required of all Israelis at the age of 18.
Once enlisted, these young men and women become part of the Nefesh B’Nefesh and Friends of the IDF (FIDF) Lone Soldiers Program which cares for the thousands of Olim soldiers from around the world currently in active service. This program, with the full support of the IDF, offers guidance, support and care for all Lone Soldier immigrants during each stage of their service, after release from the army, and during the adjustment stages to civilian life.
In the past, making Aliyah for medical professionals has presented numerous obstacles when it came to being able to practice medicine in Israel including a very long licensing process that took months. Now, as a result of a unique partnership with the Ministry of Health and their Medical Professions Licensing Department, the majority of the 27 medical professionals on this flight will enjoy an expedited licensing process and some will be able to begin working in as little as 2 weeks from their arrival in Israel.
Today’s flight saw a diverse group of individuals representing all streams of Judaism make Aliyah, in addition to a notable number of high-level Jewish community leaders, including: the managing director of Hasbara Fellowships, the co-directors of the Orthodox Union (OU)-Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) program at Queens College, the executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, the former director of development for the Jewish Woman’s Archive, the associate principal of Manhattan Hebrew Day School and the vice principal of Ohio’s Fuchs Mizrachi School. — From Nefesh B’Nefesh
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Michal Gera Margaliot receives Hadassah’s Tannenbaum Prize
The Hadassah Foundation has awarded the 2018 Bernice S. Tannenbaum Prize to Michal Gera Margaliot, Executive Director of the Israel Women’s Network (IWNMargaliot was awarded the prize for her work with IWN, where, as executive director since 2016, she has significantly increased the organization’s media presence and influenced public debate about the status of women in Israeli society. Under her leadership, the IWN has established a network for the different feminist groups in Israel, forged numerous partnerships with governmental agencies, created a hotline that provides legal aid to ultra-Orthodox working women, and advocated for feminist employment policies and practices.
) in Tel Aviv. The Bernice S. Tannenbaum Prize recognizes emerging professionals who have made innovative contributions to advance the status of women and girls in Israel and the United States. Awardees demonstrate a high degree of talent, commitment, and accomplishment in their work. The prize honors Bernice S. Tannenbaum, z’’l, for her lifetime of service to the Jewish People; the State of Israel; and Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
Established in 1984, the Israel Women’s Network (IWN) is a nonpartisan civil society organization working to advance the status of women in Israel by promoting equality and diversity via a range of innovative projects and programs that target change on a policy level. The IWN is responsible for some of the most prominent and precedent-setting gains towards women’s equality in Israel over the years, including: admittance of women into the Israel’s Air Force; enforcing women’s representation in public companies’ directorates; updating sexual harassment laws; extending maternity leave for working mothers; delaying the extension of women’s retirement age; establishing a National Committee for the Advancement of Women in the Israeli Knesset; and an Israeli Supreme Court decision that shifted the burden of proof from employee to employer in wage-gap discrimination cases.
The Prize provides $500 in general operating support to the IWN, as well as $2,500 to further Margaliot’s professional development. Margaliot will usAe her Prize to fund her communication skills to increase the visibility of the IWN and the status of Israeli women to a non-Israeli public and the English-speaking media. — From the Hadassah Foundation
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Grants honoring promotion of LGBTQ equality in Israel announced by A Wider Bridge
A North American organization dedicated to expanding equality in Israel announced its 2018 AWB Impact Grant recipients. The grant announcement from A Wider Bridge comes in the wake of the Knesset’s passage of an anti-gay surrogacy law and a nationwide strike.The grants are designed to enable LGBTQ organizations in Israel to grow and better advocate for expanded rights.
“To the public eye, the strike’s potency came as a surprise. At A Wider Bridge, we hope it served as a wakeup call to the American Jewish and pro-Israel communities to an unmet area of philanthropy in Israel,” said Tyler Gregory, executive director of A Wider Bridge, which recently organized nearly 700 American and Canadian rabbis in support of the LGBTQ communities in Israel. “We believe that the best investments to secure LGBTQ rights and community in Israel are the ones that directly support the LGBTQ communities in Israel by providing needed financial resources, helping build capacity and amplifying activist voices on the ground, which is exactly what the AWB Impact Grant program does.”
The 2018 AWB Impact Grant recipients include:
Bat Kol and Havruta, the LGBTQ Religious Community –LGBTQ orthodox Israelis, like their peers in Brooklyn and Baltimore, are often presented with a binary choice between their religious communities and their LGBTQ identities. Bat Kol, the organization for religious queer women, and Havrutah, the organization for religious GBT men, are refusing to choose. Together they are both carving out a space for LGBTQ religious life, fighting harmful practices like conversion therapy and engaging orthodox rabbis open to dialogue. By building visibility and acceptance in religious Israeli life, these organizations are reconciling LGBTQ identity with Jewish morality.
Ma’avarim, the Israeli Transgender Community — The transgender community in Israel has made recent strides. The IDF allows open transgender military service. The Ministry of Health (bureaucracy aside) approved a new policy to cover the costs of gender confirmation surgery through Israel’s universal healthcare system. And transgender Israelis can now change their gender markers on national ID cards. Yet the transgender community continues to face immense challenges in Israel as they do globally, with high rates of abuse and risk for self-harm. Ma’avarim empowers transgender youth and young adults to create change in their communities – both for transgender Israelis and toward gender equality.
The Israel HIV/AIDS Taskforce –Israel’s scientific community is a leading source of cutting-edge research on HIV/AIDS, saving lives and improving quality of life. Several months ago, Israel approved PreP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis), a pill to prevent the HIV infection widely used here in the U.S. Yet HIV infections in Israel remain steady in three at-risk populations: the gay male community (MSM), the asylum-seeker community from Eritrea and Sudan, and active and rehabilitating drug users. The HIV/AIDS Taskforce deploys mobile testing units to the periphery of Israel, to increase the number of HIV tests in areas that need support most. The Taskforce also provides education to Israeli communities and youth to fight the negative stigma around HIV/AIDS.
The Jerusalem Open House–In a city divided by religious, cultural and political identities, Jerusalem Open House (JOH) is a community center that brings people together. Walk into their modest space, and you’ll see religious orthodox gay men interacting with Arab queer women, and LGBTQ seniors playing board games with LGBTQ youth. JOH not only provides a safe space for residents in this traditional city, it also serves as a platform for change in Israel’s capital. Unlike Tel Aviv Pride, The Jerusalem March for Pride and Tolerance, organized by JOH, is a true demonstration. In 2015, 15-year-old Shira Banki was murdered while marching with her friends, transforming this annual event into a national demonstration for LGBTQ acceptance and rights.
The Haifa Communities’ Home–After decades of advocacy, marches and community organizing, the LGBTQ community in Haifa achieved a major milestone in 2017 with the opening of the Haifa Communities’ House, the city’s new LGBTQ Center — the third in Israel (after Tel Aviv and Jerusalem). The Center serves as an important model for other LGBTQ communities across Israel, and well beyond. As Program Manager, Adi Sadaka explains, “In the neighborhood where I live, Muslims, Christians, secular Jews and ultra-Orthodox Jews live side by side. And everyone lives in peace, acceptance and good neighborliness. Peaceful coexistence is a prominent part of Haifa’s LGBTQ community and another way in which the LGBTQ community in Haifa is special.”
LGBTQ leaders and communities in America, like many progressive constituencies, are finding it increasingly difficult to identify with and engage with Israel at a time when American and Israeli leaders are making decisions they may not support. With our grantmaking initiative, we are helping LGBTQ Americans build personal connections with Israel and Israelis. We are moving our community from the all-too common divisiveness that permeates current discourse around Israel to tangible constructive action towards fairness and equality. Building support for LGBTQ rights is our authentic way to teach more people to love Israel and its LGBTQ community and to move from a place of fear to a place of love for the “other” in Israel. — From A Wider Bridge
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Kidney failure can accompany near drownings, Rambam physicians conclude
Rambam Hospital physicians in Haifa have discovered that acute kidney injury is a common complication of near drownings, due to lack of oxygen and the fight-or-flight response. Their research points to men being at highest risk for this complication.
According to the World Health Organization, drowning is the third leading cause of accidental death globally, with males especially susceptible. Drownings along Israel’s Mediterranean beaches occur frequently, approximately 60 annually, higher than in other Mediterranean countries. This summer’s recent surge of fatal drownings brings home this dire statistic.
Physicians from Rambam Health Care Campus observed that a relatively high number of nearly drowned patients developed a sudden reduction in kidney function within days of hospital admission, with potentially fatal consequences. This is particularly challenging, since the kidneys are critical for health, removing wastes from the body while maintaining a healthy balance of water, salts, and minerals in the blood. In 2016, a 31-year-old man who had been submerged in seawater for four minutes arrived at Rambam with water in his lungs, respiratory distress, elevated heart rate, low blood oxygen concentration, and low phosphate levels; he subsequently developed acute kidney injury (AKI). This case study sparked research to investigate the frequency of AKI in near drowning victims, its clinical characteristics, warning signs, and causes.
The researchers recommend further studies on near drowning patients at risk for developing AKI, based on this research; and treating and monitoring patients by restoring oxygen levels throughout their body, maintaining proper dilation of kidney blood vessels, and other medical practices to prevent kidney complications.
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Preceding culled from news releases. Send yours to editor@sdjewishworld.com