Steven Spielberg: New Tel Aviv Homeowner?
The word on the street is that Spielberg is househunting in Tel Aviv.
Steven Spielberg is looking for an apartment in Tel Aviv’s Florentin quarter. Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that an attorney from Beverly Hills is negotiating on behalf of the Jewish-American film director for the purchase of a penthouse in the neighborhood for investment purposes.
Spielberg heard about Florentin from an Israeli friend, who told him about the Israeli ‘Soho neighborhood,’ which is home to musicians, artists and actors.
“They approached me,” says Guy Gloshinski, marketing manager of the In Florentin project. “I was very surprised, but the lawyer told me he was Spielberg’s representative and asked for all the details about the project.”
Nearly all the apartments in the project, which belongs to Attorney Hili Levi, have already been sold. The penthouse Spielberg is interested in is on the building’s 9th and 10th floor and is spread out on an area of 120 square meters (1,292 square feet) and another 200 square meters (2,153 square feet) on the roof, and overlooks the sea.”
Just your average Tel Aviv place….
Google This
Google is opening yet another R&D center in Israel. They have one in Haifa — now they are going to diversify and set up shop in Tel Aviv. The news comes just after the announcement of the establishment of a new IBM software lab in Israel — bringing the number of IBM Labs in the country to three.
It’s the Little Acts of Kindness That Get You
David Bogner at Treppenwitz overheard this conversation:
[Setting: Standing on line in a bakery on Friday afternoon, casually eavesdropping on two women having a conversation behind me]
Woman 1: I’m running really late today… I wonder if they’ve already locked the cash registers.
Woman 2: ‘Locked the cash registers?’ What does that mean… they won’t take our money?
W1: Yeah… basically. 30 – 45 minutes before they officially close, the owner goes around to each cash register and locks the drawers… and then goes home. The cashiers have instructions to tell anyone coming after the drawers are locked that they have no way to accept money so whatever the customers have picked out is free.
W2: I don’t get it… why would the owner do that?
W1: Don’t you see… it’s just like in Machane Yehuda [the open air produce market in Jerusalem] where a lot of the vendors who sell perishables slash their prices an hour before closing for shabbat. That way the poor people can ‘buy’ the things they need for shabbat with dignity… and the vendors basically give things that can’t be stored over shabbat to a worthy cause. And because some of the people doing last minute shopping really are simply running late, there is no shame for the poor because nobody knows who is who.
W2: Wait, so you’re telling me it’s an open secret that poor people come here during the last hour before closing and they get their baked goods for free?
W1: Exactly, only everyone’s dignity is protected by the fact that some shoppers are actually running late… and by the owner’s little charade of the locked cash registers. This way everyone wins; The owner of the bakery performs a ‘hesed’ [roughly translates as an act of kindness]… the cashiers get to take part in the act… and the recipients can just as easily be genuinely running late as poor… so there is no embarrassment to anyone at being on the receiving end of the act.
W2: [after a brief pause] Y’know… sometimes I love this country!
David notes that he does, too.
The Drama of a Falling Torah
A holy Torah scroll must never, ever touch the floor. Usually, there is little danger of such a catastrophe unfolding. But the risk increases during the recently celebrated festival of Simchat Torah, when the scroll is unrolled, displayed, rolled up, and danced around with — getting more of a workout than usually.
Disaster was afoot at Jameel’s synagogue (shul), and he describes the action with the precision of a sports announcer doing a play-by-play. It all began when the Torah was unrolled for the “display and celebrate” portion of the service, called “hagba’ah.”
In slow motion, the shul watched as the left hand side of the Torah started to unroll, more and more, making this one of the widest hagba’ot every witnessed. The Torah scroll now started to sink and fall towards the floor.
Frozen in shock, the scene unfolded as no one in the shul could move; everyone was watching in horror, realizing that they may have to skip their lunch on Simchat Torah, and 30 more as well, as there is a month-long mandated fast for a “fallen Torah.”
Two people reacted — one of the largest people in shul moved faster than a speeding bullet. Coming out of left-field, this very large person scrambled with the gait of a gazelle, the grace of a figure skater, and the brute force of a Dallas Quarterback — as he hurtled over the heads of people toward the bimah (front of the synagogue.)
With only milliseconds to spare, this holy man, crashed through throngs of people at the bimah and grabbed the top handle of the Torah — sheer milimeters before it hit the ground.
The slow-motion crescendos of “Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!” (say that slowly in your mind to get the full effect) that was the background to the seemingly slow-motion charge of the person running to catch the falling Torah, quickly switched back to real-time (Tivo users can use the “catch up to live” metaphor) — and the shul erupted into a roaring cheer, congratulating “the man” who had saved the day!
Yet one other person reacted even faster than the “man” who saved the day — an even larger individual who ran like the devil out the door of the shul. Jumping Jack Flash — this guy was out in a split second — so that he wouldn’t be present at the “falling of a Sefer Torah”… and therefore, wouldn’t have to fast.
I kid you not — this story took place in our shul, and 3 different individuals insisted that I blog it for posterity.
And to “the man” — the community is in your debt.
Branding Terrorism
If you didn’t think that rocket attacks on Israel don’t have a lighter side, you haven’t read the Jewlicious post regarding this picture:
Thanks to entrenched Palestinian terrorism, after several decades of trying to figure out what they are really about, the Palestinian terrorists have finally figured it out: advertising!
Today, a Qassem rocket landed near a Western Negev kibbutz, one of over 1200 Qassems fired into Israel since the disengagement from Gaza. This rocket, however, was different. It was marked with the words, in Hebrew, “Al Quds.”
Why?
The rocket was fired by Islamic Jihad gunmen [Ed. note: they are terrorists, dear Reuters; they are terrorists targeting civilians, not gunmen]. The group’s spokesman in Gaza, Abu Abdullah, explained to the Reuters news agency that the decision to write the rocket’s name in Hebrew was aimed at ensuring that credit for the attack goes to the appropriate group.
“This is meant at distinguishing between our rockets and rockets fired by other organizations,” he stated.
You heard right! Branding!!
And since this conflict and its ongoing attacks are heavily televised and covered by the media, we can also call this a form of Product Placement.
Oh my gosh! Think of the possibilities! You want to fly a plane into a skyscraper? Paint its sides with the logo of your choice. You want to blow yourself up on a crowded street? Lots of those who’ve tried have been decapitated in the process, so tattoo your forehead. The publicity is free and worth millions.
In fact, why stop there? Why not sell your services to corporations? You think that explosives manufacturer wants to remain unknown while you garner all the credit for killing yourself and lots of innocents? Think again! They will pay and pay well to have all this publicity. Maybe some important Saudi minister wants to gain some publicity? How about a ruthless dictator looking to show his people he really likes dead Jews? Hmmm…maybe Jewish blogs can buy space…
In fact, now that I think about it, why not sell sponsorships? “This attack on an IDF outpost has been brought to you by XYZ Financial Brokerage…we know how to dig deep for information, find the light at the end of the tunnel and bring you results that’ll knock you dead and that keep on paying dividends for months and years.”
Being Prime Minister Ain’t What it Used to Be
Rinat spent a day at the Knesset, where she used to work every day, and talks about how times have changed. Those who remember Rinat in the early days of her blog, when she arrived in Israel as a wide-eyed, somewhat confused new immigrant, will be impressed at how she has been completely transformed into a savvy experienced observer of the Israeli political scene….
I’m writing just to say I wouldn’t want to be Ehud Olmert these days. I hadn’t been in the Parlament for nine months at least. It was weird to go into fifth floor, to the parties weekly meeting and enter Kadima’s meeting room (that used to be Likud’s one once) and to see Olmert sitting in a place which… doesn’t fit him, I guess. Anyway… After Olmert and Netanyahu (the opposition leader) speeches, I just ran to the third floor in order to wait for the MKs to leave the assembly. A few minutes later, Olmert left and headed towards the office of Knesset spokeswoman, Dalia Itzik. It was even weirder. Surrounded by bodyguards he walked through the journalists and even talked to some people.
I remember that at Sharon times, noone could even approach the PM. The security guards would stop everyone. People would stand for long minutes without moving in order to let the PM and his guards pass. We knew that the PM was about to come many minutes before he actually did because of security.
I also remembered Olmert as a populist. The kind of politician who likes shaking hands with everyone around. I myself shaked hands with him many times when I used to work for the Knesset channel and he was just a minister. He carries on keeping his sympathic style. It’s nicer than the tight security system that intimidated and annoyed journalists and regular people when Sharon was in power. At the same time, Olmert’s era shows us that more than leadership, Israeli politics has definitely lost its magic. The time of the big leaders is definitely over. At least here. At least now.
A Pilgrimage to Furniture Mecca
After regaling us with photos and commentary from his trips to insignificant places like the Old City of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, our friendly attache from the Phillipines, Ernest, is finally getting down to business and checking out the important, key locations — the real Israel.
He went to IKEA. And he’s got the full report, with captioned photos, as always
The Israel Wayback Machine: (pre, pre, pre, pre – ‘Skype Out’)
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
Click here or on the image for the translation
One Jerusalem has a cute item illustrating what I’ve been trying to tell my kids for a long time: what using telephony here was like BEFORE the Internet, and the advent of SkypeOutMSNMessengerAOLYahooGoogle, cellphone SIM cards, prepaid calling cards, you-fill-in-the-blank, etc…
Remember these? My kids don’t. Israeli asimon
telephone tokens, with graphics helpfully
imprinted right on them!
(Cross-posted at Israel At Level Ground)
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