Unlikely Art
David Bogner of Treppenwitz likes to find beauty where you might not expect – the more unexpected the better:
I love ‘discovering’ little bits of art in unlikely places. Sometimes it can be a municipal or privately funded piece of sculpture. Other times it is a bit of unauthorized artwork by a ‘commando’ artist (a great one of this genre that comes to mind is the famous Pink Lady of Malibu… this weekend being the 40th anniversary of the creation of this short-lived landmark).
However, for me to like it, it must meet the following criteria:
1. It must be unique (at least to me)
2. It must be located where few people are likely to see it.The sense of discovery I get when I stumble across such a piece feels a little like having a private showing, or even a gallery opening… just for me.
While driving near Tel Sheva (the archaeological excavations where ancient Beer Sheva is said to have been located), I came across such an understated, unique and remote work of art. It was created by taking an existing part of the landscape – In this case a high-tension wire tower – and adding small (relatively speaking) colored accents.
The effect is extremely powerful because of the muted colors that make up the nearby desert landscape… and by the dull gray frame of the metal tower.
Polling Around
Personally, I hang up on these people. But it’s nice to know that someone gets some entertainment out of them. Go for it, Rafi.
I love answering polls on the telephone. All sorts of polls. Come dinnertime and the phone will ring and it is someone saying “Can I just ask you a few questions? It will take just two minutes.” For some reason I cannot resist. Usually the poll is about something mundane like what cereal I prefer or what kind of charities I donate to with boring questionairres. I feel as though I am having some sort of influence on the marketplace; of products and of ideas.
NOTE: I do not get these pollsters often. Just a few times a year.
Tonight I answered the phone and it is a polster. She wants to ask me a few questions. No problem, go ahead.
This was a pretty serious poll. It was about the state of security of the world. She asked me about the Iraq war increasing or decreasing the level of security. She asked me about workd keaders being dangerous or not. All sorts of questions that you could discuss with someone for hours and not come to a conclusion on any of them, yet I had to answer about 10 of these questions in one word sentences with 3 seconds to think about it. As a matter of fact, I now realize that your true opinions might be easier to get to when you have to be brief quickly. More so than when you have plenty of time to pontificate and play devils advocate…
Anyway, thinking back afterwards about the questions and my answers, I find it ironic that George Bush is lumped into categories with people like Ahmadinejad, Bin Laden and Kim (the North Korean guy).
And by the way, based on the way the questions were worded and the choices I had for answers, George Bush turns out to be just as dangerous to world security as the North Korean guy.
One more thing – they always want to know about you at the end of the questions. They need to know the demographics I guess. they ask how old I am and am I male or female, where I live, etc.. On equestion always irks me. They always ask, “What kind of Jew are you? Hiloni? Traditional? Haredi? Dati Leumi?”
I always answer, “Just a simple Jew”.
They usually get confused and refuse to accept that. They insist on putting me into a category. I always insist and say, “Just a Jew”.
If You Thought that Riding a Bus was simple…
Think again. There’s more to sitting down and waiting for your stop, especially when the bus is in Israel:
Choosing where to sit on the bus can be tricky. There are some rules that most of us are familiar with – you get up for an older (actually just old) person, a pregnant woman or even those woman with lots of children.
But are there some unspoken rules that I do not know. For example- I got on the bus tonight and it was pretty full. I ended up sitting on the aisle seat with my laptop bag and a big bag of goodies from the States. In order for me to sit down the woman sitting at the window seat needed to move her large plastic bag off the seat.
At some point in the ride I noticed her fidgiting and realized she had the bag not on her lap or on the floor but she was letting the bag hang off of her fingers. At the same time i realized that the two seats in front of us were not empty and I could move seats.To move or not to move that IS the question?
If I moved she could place her bag back on the seat and give rest to what appeared to be weary hands. I could spread out and not have all the bags on my lap. But by the time I came to my conclusion she had pressed the button letting the bus driver know that she wanted to get off at the upcoming stop.
Earlier during the week there was an old woman on the morning bus with me. I could tell by the out of date style of how she was wearing the shmatta on her head that she definately came from an Arab country.. Throughout the bus journey she would play musical chairs never venturing past the middle doors. She must have changed seats around 4 times in the 20 minute journey. The bus was not filled and I have no idea why she would change seats. Maybe she felt she needed to sit in every seat b/c maybe she wouldnt be here tomorrow to take the bus?
I feel like there is a deeper meaning behind where one sits on the bus. I automatically assume that a person giving up a seat on the bus has “kavod” or respect for not just the elders but for human beings in general. To get up and allow another person regardless of the reason to sit in your seat shows character. It means that even during the most mundane task of bus riding there are those out there that pay attention to others around them.
If we all paid attention to the needs of the general community regardless of faith… wouldnt this world just be in a better state?
Jump in, The Water’s Fine
Anyone who has ever lived in a foreign country and tried to speak the language knows about Elisheva’s stage of the game:
I made a commitment to myself that by the end of the second year of my aliyah, I’d feel comfortable enough with speaking Hebrew to ‘jump in’ and ignore the ice-cold water around me.
Look, it’s hard. I feel slightly guilty speaking to Israelis in English, but the truth is it only comes up at the office (except Israelis I don’t work closely with, I do my best) and with Israelis I’m friends with outside work (which is very few). In school I speak in Hebrew (except to Anglos, but those I can count on one or two fingers). In fact, in school I speak, listen, read, write and even think, at times, in Hebrew. With Israeli family who are not formerly Anglo, I speak in Hebrew. With any Israeli I have to make daily transactions with I speak Hebrew.
Casual conversation is not as free flowing as I’d like it to be, but I know if I just ‘jump in’ my self-expression will get better by the day. The problem is – obviously, since I have the skills – I’m so self conscious about it. More self conscious than I’ve ever been about anything in my whole life.
Why? Maybe because it matters so much to me. Because it’s about survival but also not necessary for survival. Maybe because I already knew the stigma is out there and I feel cut off. Maybe it’s the look that old timer Anglos give me – those who have been here longer and make a point of speaking with an Israeli accent (which actually sounds extremely crappy and is actually more frustrating than it is helpful). Which is funny, too, because I’m a self-hating Anglo myself.
Anyway. The two years are almost up; I’m starting to feel the pressures of Q4. I feel that the office may not be the place to start pushing because I feel like everyone is already looking at me. I’ll make the push outside of the office.
When I was younger, I hated the feeling of jumping into an ice-cold pool on a hot day, even though I knew it would be pleasurable. I also loved the feeling of jumping into an ice-cold pool on a hot day, even though I knew it would be painful.
That’s exactly what I feel like now.
Words are my life; expression is my health; language is my soul.
I’m so scared I’ll be bad at it, and cease to exist.
Kumbaya
The Israeli blogosphere’s most colorful peace activist, Jerusalem Gypsy, is always attending fascinating events. Her most recent adventure — a meeting with a Sikh guru from….New Jersey.
I was invited to Eliyahu’s home for his pretty regular monthly peace gatherings. This guy gets a cool bunch of eclectic folk into his home – and they come from all over – Bedouin, a visitor from Jordan, settlers from Tekoa and Elazar, visitors from Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, not to mention his guest speaker/chanter. He was Siri Om Singh, an African American Sikh who did kirtan, sacred chanting. What was interesting about this guy was that he wore the whole sikh get-up and is from Trenton, New Jersey. I expected him to say somewhere in the Punjab, but Trenton? Even more interesting was that his wife is Israeli and was the only one at the gathering, besides the tourists there, who left Israel for the US. Most others left the US for Israel.
“We have to have SOME kind of balance!” she laughed, as we all introduced ourselves.
My good friend or, rather, everyone’s good friend, Ibrahim from the Mt. of Olives was there telling us that everyone is invited to stay at his home. He has a rabbi living with him and this Friday 30 rabbis will be coming over to visit him. That’s alot of rabbis wandering around the predominantly Moslem area. But his neighbors are used to him and he’s well respected so hopefully no Moslem extremists will give him a hard time for befriending so many Jews. I guess another reason is that most of the people living on the Mt. of Olives are his relatives in one form or another. His family numbers 12,000 souls.
He went on – “We should stop saying this is Jewish land, this is Palestinian land. It is God’s land.”
He spoke about the significance of Ramadan – how this time of year is to reflect on the people who do not have enough money to buy the wonderful food seen in the markets, and to give charity to those less fortunate.
During the break I spoke with a gentleman from Edmonton of Arabic heritage (Lebanese, Saudi). He had been on the Haj and told me his take on things, particularly with regard to the Temple Mount. He said the Israelites never referred to it as a temple – rather – it was called a Beit Hamikdash (House of the holiest). He went on to tell me Al Quds, the Arabic term for Jerusalem is from the Hebrew word Kadosh, meaning Holy. Mecca is from the Hebrew word Mikdash. He said the Israelites walked around the temple 7 times during the holiday of Succot, much like Moslems do in Mecca around the Kabaa.
“You see, Abraham taught his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, the same things.” he told me, and indeed, as he voiced the similarities between us, I felt an even stronger kinship with my Moslem brothers.
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Entertainment
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- News
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Science
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts