Jazzy Jay and other esoteria
Just because the Israeli concert-going market can’t support more than one or two performances from A-list-ers like Paul McCartney each summer, doesn’t mean that we need to deal with washed-up international talents like Deep Purple the rest of the time.
The best of the not-quite-mainstream pop talent whose art is uncompromised, esoteric and less disposable have been entertaining us here more and more often, whether it’s Devendra Bernhardt, Low, Blonde Redhead, Lee “Scratch” Perry or Morrissey. Thankfully, more and more performers along these lines have been making their way to Israeli stages in recent years.
And despite the ongoing violence in the south of the country in recent weeks, the show must go on. No notices announcing a cancellation of this Friday’s Urbanology Festival have reached this cultural correspondent’s desk so far, which means that old-school talent DJ Jazzy Jay is still expected to hit the decks this weekend at the Cult Club at Herzl St. 154, Tel Aviv (tickets available at 057-777-4422).
Jazzy Jay is one of the founding fathers of hip hop. A scratch turntablism pioneer, he spun at street parties in the Bronx in the late Seventies and in downtown Manhattan clubs in the early Eighties. Part of Afrika Bambaataa’s Universal Zulu Nation collective, Jay was also a co-founder of the influential Def Jam Recordings. His “It’s Yours” single was the label’s first-ever release, and he helped broker the partnership between notorious trailblazing rap moguls Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. His own Jazzy Jay’s Studio was an early home to luminaries like A Tribe Called Quest Brand Nubian.
Jay comes to Israel for the Cult Club’s Urbanology party, branded as a celebration of everything associated with old-school hip hop culture - rap, breakdancing, graffiti and more. Events like these have been taking place at venues across Israel for years, but none with a marquee performer of this stature. Other participants include local talents like the disco funk-fixated DJ Alarm, DJ Mesh, local old-schoolers Quami and Kottage, the Tachlis Band and alt-rappers Peled and Ortega.
Israel Has Been Paying Palestinians’ Hospital Bills for Years
While the news is full of Israel’s “crimes” against the civilian population in Gaza, here’s one “crime” you probably haven’t heard about. Israel routinely admits residents of Palestinian Authority controlled territory into its hospitals – and the Israeli taxpayer foots the bill. Not only that; Israel even helps pay for treatment of patients in PA hospitals, where the patient never even comes near an Israeli hospital!
While many of us probably have heard of exceptional cases of Israeli doctors treating PA Arabs, I, and probably you, were under the impression that it was limited to high profile or complicated cases, such as the Save a Child’s Heart Foundation – with ill PA residents coming to Israel as a last resort. That kind of thing has been going on for a long time – even during the current war, as evidenced by the photo (courtesy of the IDF spokesperson), captioned “Injured Palestinian receiving medical treatment by Israeli and Palestinian medical personnel at the Erez crossing.” 
But Israel’s contribution to the health of Palestinian Authority residents goes far beyond emergency assistance; according to some folks I interviewed for a story on a new database system being developed by an Israeli software company for hospitals in Bethlehem and Ramallah (an amazing story in and of itself!), Israel’s Health Ministry often pays for care of PA residents both in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority itself!
The company building the database, called i-Rox, is located in Bnei Brak, and consists almost entirely of ultra-Orthodox women programmers (this story just gets better all the time!). According to the company’s CEO, the programmers are building in a component that allows PA hospitals to share their information with Israel’s Health Ministry, because in some cases, Israel’s health funds help provide - and pay for - treatment of patients in PA hospitals.
Yes, I had a hard time believing it too – until I Googled this World Health Organization PDF document. According to this eye-opening reporting (for 2006-7), “Approximately 60,000 Palestinians from the West Bank area have been treated in Israel hospitals over the past year. Around 20,000 were hospitalized, and about 40,000 received ambulatory services of all sorts. Approximately 5,000 patients from the Gaza area have been treated in Israeli hospitals over the past year – about 2,000 hospitalized and about 3,000 receiving ambulatory services of all sorts. Among the patients receiving medical care in Israel, approximately 2,500 were children, the majority of whom received long-term treatment for cancer and complicated operations.”
As far as Israel providing services to PA hospitals, “Public health laboratories at the Israel Ministry of Health continue to regularly provide assistance to the Palestinian Health Authority in the way of laboratory tests for poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, influenza and other viral diseases,” the report says. Israel – via the health funds and the Health Ministry – continued those tests throughout the year, “in spite of the fact that the Palestinian Authority delays or halts payments.” Of course, the anti-Israel forces out there have never let themselves get confused by the facts – but at least we know the truth, and in this day and age, that’s no small feat.
A package from home
Barabara Silverman, in the matching white coat and hair, with her band of volunteers.
The Chicago-native senior citizen made aliya nearly 30 years ago, and two of her three children ended up living here as well, raising their own families. Around eight years ago, at the beginning of the Second Intifada, Silverman wanted to do something for the IDF soldiers who were protecting the country against Palestinian suicide bombers. And as a grandma, she started making cookies - lots of them - which she would then deliver personally to checkpoints around Jerusalem.
The cookies quickly expanded to Shabbat meals, Silverman started attracting other volunteers, and soon a full-fledged organization was founded based in her apartment - called A Package From Home. Silverman and her merry group of volunteers began collecting goods from Jerusalem-area merchants, like chocolate, long johns, towels, and hats, and packing them off to the soldiers. What they couldn’t schnorr, they bought at cost from donations that began flowing in.
The group found a willing partner in the IDF, who sent trucks on a weekly basis to Silverman’s apartment to pick up the boxes and deliver them to soldiers - mostly lone soldiers without family in Israel, or soldiers who had been injured in the line of duty.
But during the Second Lebanon War, and now, during Operation Cast Lead, A Package From Home has gone into overdrive, sending thousands of care packages to soldiers on the front.
“Since Operation Cast Lead began, we’ve sent 2,000 packages and we’re preparing to pack and send another 1,300 on Monday,” Silverman told me yesterday. “Unfortunately we have experience with other wars. During the Second Lebanon War, we sent 22,000 packages in 33 days to the soldiers on the front.”
“I spoke to a tank commander who was in his tank for four days, and when he received some fresh underwear, it meant a great deal to him. Another soldier told me that when he opened the towel and put it up to his face, it smelled like his home,” said the proud grandmother.
If you want to volunteer for organization, or just provide a donation, go here.. As Silverman has shown, one person can make a difference.
Finding hope in the Gaza conflict
One of the gifts of working for an organization like ISRAEL21c is that even in the midst of conflict and crisis, we get the rare privilege of seeing another side of the story.
In the last difficult week, when the images on TV and in the newspapers were so negative and heart wrenching, we still heard stories about ordinary Israeli Jews and Palestinians working together in an effort to bring reason, peace and humanity to the Middle East.
One of the most touching stories to emerge during this current terrible war was the tale of a tiny baby boy from Gaza called Jafar.
Born a few weeks ago with serious heart defects, his Palestinian doctors knew that he couldn’t survive without surgery. They phoned Dr. Akiva Tamir, an Israeli doctor they knew from the Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart, and together the Israeli and Palestinian doctors raced to bring Jafar to Israel.
On Monday of last week, while missiles rained down on Gaza and southern Israel, Israeli doctors from Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv volunteered their time, and performed surgery on the small boy. His grandmother was there waiting for him when he was transferred to intensive care.
Jafar is still at the hospital. He is recovering well. His heart surgery was a success. He joins a growing number of Palestinian children – 1,000 so far – who owe their lives to the volunteers at the wonderful charity Save a Child’s Heart.
Sometimes, like so many people here, I worry that this battle between Israel and Hamas will never end, but it’s stories like these, of individual Israelis and Palestinians working together and thinking far beyond the conflict that give me hope that one day things will be better.
Nostalgia Sunday - Happy Birthday Arik Einstein!
Arik Einstein turned 70 this week. Were it not for the war, this would have been front page news. Not only because it is an occasion for celebration but because in this land of the perpetual diminutive, where everyone goes by their childhood nickname, people find it hard to believe that Arik - singer of songs, cultural icon, survivor of the Sixties and the Tel Aviv bohemia - is entering his seventh decade. If that is so, and Arik is getting old, what does that mean the rest of us?
The English-language Wikipedia entry for Arik Enstein is a rather poor version of the far more comprehensive Hebrew one, but still manages to give the reader a sense of the breadth of his career. The son of an actor, he got his start in the Nahal Brigade entertainment corps, after being demobilized he joined the legendary Batzal Yarok entertainment troupe (together with Chaim Topol, Gila Almagor and others), then the Yarkon Bridge Trio (with Yehoram Gaon and Benny Amdursky), who were so hip, they covered a Beatles song! But if you really want to know what their music sounded like and how Israel looked like at the time, this clip is best:
War in Gaza: Which Way Will the Dreidel Fall?
Our friend Joan called last night just as the news broke that the IDF had begun its ground operation in Gaza. Joan was panicked. She knew a number of families in our neighborhood who had boys in combat units. “Why are we doing this?” she said. “Can’t we pull them all out now?”
My first reaction was detached, though certainly not uncaring. I had been obsessively following the geo-politics of the last week’s aerial bombardment of Hamas. While inspiring in its precision and speed, it was clear a ground operation would be ultimately required for Israel to achieve its objectives. The duration and effectiveness of the operation would in large part depend on internal Israeli decisiveness, as well as how Israel responded to world pressure to submit to a cease-fire. My initial thoughts, then, were more like those of a strategic analyst than a parent.
Joan’s call, though, reminded me of the very real dangers for the Israeli troops now heading into booby trapped roads and hidden bunkers where Hamas terrorists lie in wait. I thought of my own children: 17-year-old Amir who will be drafted as early as six months from now, and 10-year old Aviv who has eight more years to go when, we all pray, there will be no need for any re-occupation of Palestinian territory.
But what choice do we have? Israel has stood by for close to a decade now while rockets have rained down on its southern cities and towns. Children in Sderot have grown up in fear, sleeping in bomb shelters, watching their homes blown up and their friends killed while Israelis around the country feel emasculated and impotent, their government unable (or unwilling) to act.
Now the rockets from Gaza have reached Beersheva and Ashdod. In another year of unabated smuggling, they could conceivably reach Tel Aviv and even the outskirts of Jerusalem. Should we just wait, maybe accept another temporary cease-fire? Our enemies certainly won’t be standing still.
There are many who say Israel cannot win this war. That the result will be just like the ill-fated 2006 war in Lebanon where Hezbollah emerged triumphant and emboldened. That Israel hasn’t truly prevailed since 1967.
That’s not entirely true. As David Horowitz wrote in The Jerusalem Post over the weekend, “Operation Defensive Shield, carried out in the spring of 2002, was a carefully planned and effectively executed attack on the Palestinians’ suicide-bomb infrastructure in the West Bank that remade our reality in the years ever since.”
Coexistence Exists
It’s no surprise that main stream news is focusing on the current situation in Gaza and southern Israel. Watching CNN’s coverage Israel looks like a battlefield right out of any epic war movie. The images are constantly played over and over again—which means I get worried phone calls from America, over and over again.
But there is more to life than the images on the news. In Jerusalem, all is pretty much quiet. Yes, tensions are high and I feel the added stress, but life is still not the media’s picture of Israel. In fact there is more coexistence happening on a daily basis than most people are aware of.
Here is Jerusalem Jews and Arabs work together building fancy new high rises or the new light rail train across the city. Today I spoke with an Arab-Israeli who was taking a five-minute-break from his moving job. He sat drinking coffee with his co-workers, both Arabs and Jews, and spoke about the weather (the very cold Jerusalem winter) and my dog’s funny looking sweater (I though he might be cold, but the dog clothing thing is just not for me). The point is that small talk still exists—talking still exists and not all forms of communication are from one rocket to another.
On a larger scale, I think back to the recent coexistence projects I filmed in the Israeli mixed cities of Acre and Lod. Again, the news’s projection is all about violence and crime in these areas, rather than focusing on the positive stories taking place.
Most people now think of Acre as that city that had riots this past Yom Kippur. But Acre quickly recovered from the fighting and both sides remain relatively calm during the current military operations. When I was there in November, I didn’t feel tensions, but rather found the coexistence projects’ efforts really taking effect. The Israel21c video below shows some of the projects, sponsored by the Jewish Agency, that are taking place in Acre.
Last month, I filmed a story about a new coexistence project in Lod. Aviv Wasserman, a native Israeli, founded The Lod Community Foundation about six months ago with the goal of getting this poverty-stricken city back on its feet. Aviv is hardcore, and now lives in Lod where he has set up shop in his apartment. From his office-apartment to monthly meetings, he has built a network of concerned citizens that want to rebuild the city together. Lod is a very diverse city (Jews, Arabs, Russians, Ethiopians, Bedouins, Christians, etc.), but Aviv has managed to have representatives from each community take part in the committees and meetings. Again, you can watch the video below to learn more about his incredible project.
So, there you have it, the other side of conflict. It does exist, even if it doesn’t make the news.
Shvitzing together
As I drove up the road toward Ramat Rachel the other afternoon, I thought about the fact that I was looking forward to a long-awaited Swedish massage — to offset the very physical aspects of new motherhood — while people living in the south were huddling in bomb shelters and sealed rooms, dealing with a very different set of expectations for the day.
But as usual, albeit unexpectedly, I found myself in a fairly altered reality sitting in the Jacuzzi before my massage. I had stepped in, gingerly, as one does, and relishing my first dip following the long months of pregnancy. As I slid down, savoring the hot bubbling water, I realized that the men around me — the Jacuzzi always seems to be filled with men with pot bellies — were all speaking Arabic. For better or for worse, that’s fairly unusual in the surroundings of the Ramat Rachel complex, which is a popular swimming pool and gym owned by the kibbutz and frequented by local, mostly Jewish, Jerusalemites. And it felt even more unusual, given the fact that Israeli Arabs haven’t been too pleased with Israel’s Gaza offensive and now the ground offensive.
I went on with my afternoon of relaxation, and soon realized that there must be some kind of company outing, because the entire complex was filled with Arab men; in the lockers near the massage rooms, in the sauna, in the steam room, and again, in the Jacuzzi. They didn’t seem bothered by my presence in the Jacuzzi, during the three minutes that I grabbed before my massage. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about, and whether they were contemplating how unusual it was to be in fairly Jewish surroundings during this particular week. Moreover, the Ramat Rachel Jacuzzi looks out onto the towns of Gilo and Bethlehem; good choices for controversial views.
But as usual, people are people, talking about the most banal of subjects and issues, which was confirmed when the man to my left turned and asked me if it paid to go into the sauna and steamroom. I laughed at myself, and told him that it was all part of the ’shvitz’ experience, and one that shouldn’t be missed.
When we bumped into each other in the sauna later on, he thanked me for the recommendation, and told his buddies — in perfect Hebrew, better than mine — that I was the one to be thanked for their relaxing round. We smiled at each other, and maybe, I think, thought to ourselves that it should always be like this. I know I did. I hope he did as well.
Kids’ play
An IDF soldier preparing to enter Gaza on Saturday night. (Photo Courtesy Jerusalem Post)
It’s inevitable that everyone in Israel knows somebody who’s involved in some aspect of the wars we’re forced to fight. And in previous mobilizations since I’ve been living here, it’s always been myself and my peers who were called up to perform the required tasks.
But now, I’m at the age where alot of my friends’ children are now serving in the IDF. I’m aware of at least two young soldiers who are among the infantry troops who went into Gaza Saturday night and are now engaged in combat with Hamas forces.
And they’re so young! I remember their brit milas, their bar mitzvahs and their temper tantrums - wondering how they would ever make there way in the world with their wild behavior. Now, they’re the ones being called upon to engage this most evil of enemies and attempt to restore a new order in Gaza that will see a quiet border and no more rocket attacks on our southern communities.
So while it may have been chilling for anyone watching the troops march into Gaza with their night vision, huge backpacks and weapons like the brave soldiers they are, what I saw was the little guys who used to play in the sand box in my yard, throw food on my walls, and trash the house during birthday parties.
And I also saw their parents watching the same TV images, worried to their bones and praying that their sons will return home safely.
A ‘tail’ of two cities
It's the dog days for Jewish and Arab neighbors near Jerusalem.
There are many residents of Azariya however, like laborers, construction workers, remodeling experts, who work in Ma’aleh Adumim with the proper Israeli identity card - either a work permit or a Jerusalem residency card.
However, it’s not too difficult to cross the road and climb the hill separating the two communities. And that’s what one 13-year-old Azariya youth did a couple weeks ago. My eight-year-old son’s friend Ephraim was out walking his dog near his home, when the teen grabbed his leash and ran off with the mutt.
Ephraim ran home to tell his father, who called the police. They arrived pretty quickly, heard the story, and said they would look around for the pooch. Ephraim, of course, had no idea that the thief was from Azariya, but the police warned his dad that there wasn’t much they could do if he was not from Ma’aleh Adumim.
The family put up signs and scoured the neighborhood over the next few days, to no avail. Then by chance, when Ephraim was walking home from school, he spotted the 13-year-old crook. He ran home again, his mother called the police and they picked up the youth for questioning. Aside from discovering he was indeed from Azariya, they weren’t able to get any useful information from him about the dog, and they released him.
Ephraim’s father had a lead though. The next day, he went to a construction site and asked around if any of the workers were from Azariya, and a couple of them said yes. He explained the situation to them, and they said they would try to find the kid and his family and help locate the dog.
That night, Ephraim’s dad got a call from one of the builders who told them, “We found the family and the kid, but there’s no dog here. They said he ran away.”
But, they added, don’t despair, we’re going to search around and look for the dog. Ephraim’s dad got another call a while later from the builder turned detective saying, “We found someone who said they saw the dog, so we’re getting a search party together in that area.”
The next morning, the builder called Ephraim’s dad and said, “We found him, and we’re sending him back in a taxi - he should be there in a half hour.”
Sure enough, Ephraim’s dog showed up chauffered at his home and eight days after he was abducted, had a joyful reunion with his family. Later that morning, Ephraim’s dad went to the construction site and gave the worker a cash reward for taking matters into his own hands, and helping to forge a ‘good neighbor’ policy between Ma’aleh Adumim and Azariya. It should be a lesson for all of us.
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