“Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on……..ehhhhhhh…….”
I recently talked to my friend Noga who’s been following my adventures. I was interested but not surprised by her impressions of my writing. She was a tad irked (ech omrim “irk”?), not as much by what was on this site as much as what was NOT. “If I didn’t know you, I would wonder if you were enjoying yourself in Israel. You make fun of things a lot but you don’t always talk about what’s great.” The thought had in fact crossed my mind before; street cons, the toilet paper lady, and cold showers. Maybe she has a point. Those who know me are well-aware that I’m not cynical about life here (apparently unlike every Israeli, according to their opinions of themselves). It’s just more fun to make fun of the ridiculous stuff in life.
Nevertheless, the following is dedicated to Noga to let her know that I do think there’s plenty of great stuff in this country. With apologies to Julie Andrews and the typical Yom Ha’atzmaut-ish “Top ___ Things about Israel”, these are a few of my favorite things…
- I love that the women are not only hotter than Mitzpe Ramon in July but that they also have a Passover Seder. (Much like the fourth dimension, my human brain is incapable of processing this.)
- I love the outdoor cafes/kiosks on Rothschild Blvd. in Tel Aviv and that Israelis universally agree that Starbucks (the altar to which American consumers bow their heads and pray) is crap.
- I love that the Ulpan teachers talk to you like you’re four and that immigrants from all over the world come together to speak the same language.
- I love that falafel is a healthy snack (OK, maybe I just love choosing to believe the American myth while I scarf it down forty-seven times a week.)
- I love that people I know from all over the place are always visiting this place, the center of the Jewish world (no, it’s not the Upper West Side.)
- I love wearing jeans to virtually any social event.
- I love the kumkum and the utter shock on every Israeli’s face when they ask “but how do you make coffee in America???” in the same manner that teenagers ask how we survived before cell phones. (Since it takes an hour for my dud to heat up during the winter, I plan to shower in the kumkum until March.)
George Jetson, meet the kumkum
- I love that it’s 12:48 AM, tomorrow is a work day, and Cafe Aroma is still hopping. HOW DO THESE ISRAELI PEOPLE DO IT??? (This warrants its own post.)
- I love cab drivers and how they’re genuinely interested in what I’m doing here (and not because I have to tip them.) Sabras/tzabarim say this will wear off. I say we’ll see.
- I love expanding my already unrivaled vocabulary of ridiculous Hebrew and Arabic slang (kishta!) and that Israelis think I’m fluent because I can say “defecate” 47 different ways.
- I love arsim (from afar. When they’re leaving me alone.)
- I love Friday in Tel Aviv.
- I love English words which are directly absorbed into the Hebrew language. “Slicha, yesh li peepee!“
- I love how warm and proud of each new immigrant the former olim are and how so many treated me to an “aliyah beer” or dinner. I’m excited to pass it on to the next generation. Shoshana K., I’m waiting for you.
- I love how cheesy American pop music is welcomed with open arms here. For this reason, someone hypothetically can sit in the barber’s chair, get a proverbial spring in his step when “Backstreet’s Back” comes on, look around, and realize that nobody finds it the least bit weird that said song is being played. This is all hypothetical of course. It never happened.
- I love that I went to World AIDS Day and had my AIDS awareness raised by two macho sperm kicking a soccer ball. (Ok, Noga, I’m back to making fun of this country now.)
This is just a short list. So, my loyal readers, I ask you: what do you love about this place?
The Day After the Attack on Eilat
Yesterday, I wrote:
Eilat is a vacation getaway, with glitzy hotels, crowded restaurants, and shopping centers lining the Red Sea, amusement parks, an IMAX theater and a dolphin park. It’s Israel’s answer to Miami Beach.
Floating off an Eilat beach in the crystal water, the Jordanian resort town of Aqaba is clear on one side, the dramatic mountains of the Egyptian Sinai on the other. Despite the high hotel prices that Israelis grumble about, they bring their families back for vacation year after year, particularly since security warnings have discouraged them from visiting more affordable beach getaways like the Sinai and the Turkish Mediterranean coast.
Though part of Israel, and so visibly close to Arab neighbors, Eilat has always felt like something of an oasis from the Middle East conflict, somehow immune from it. Much of the reason – no suicide bombing had ever taken place in this city of sun and fun.
That all changed today, as glass shattered across the blood-stained bread trays of a downtown bakery.
That was yesterday? What of today? Today, the hardworking population will wake up, bury and mourn the victims of the attack, then dust themselves off, and get back to business, shaken but determined. Hopefully, we will all get busy booking our next vacations in Eilat. I know I will. (pretty cool — to get to relax at a fabulous beach hotel and feel like you are making a noble statement at the same time…)
Israel Conquers Sundance!
Not one, but two Israeli films grabbed major awards at the industry buzz-maker Sundance Film Festival. Congratulations!
‘Sweet Mud,’ an Israeli narrative of a boy coping with his mother’s mental illness on a kibbutz in the 1970s, won the jury prize for world cinema Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival.
“This is unprecedented,” said ‘Sweet Mud’ director Dror Shaul in a phone conversation from the United States. “The Israeli filmmaking industry bombarded Sundance as Simon Dotan’s ‘Hothouse’ won the documentary award and we won the international competition.
“We were not prepared for this, it basically hit us, but we are very happy particularly because Israeli filmmakers are now sitting in Cineart in Rotterdam and trying to come up with co-productions. Every such win boosts Israeli filmmaking,” he added.
‘Sweet Mud’ portrays kibbutz life in the 70s, questioning the socialist idealism of the kibbutz movement and breaking many taboos.
It tells the story of Dvir, a captivating 12-year-old boy (played by talented 14-year old Tomer Steinhof) growing up on a kibbutz. The story spans four seasons from the summer of ’74 to the spring of ’75.
It is the year of Dvir’s Bar Mitzvah and he and his classmates are forced to undergo a series of “initiation” tests before reaching manhood to prove their allegiance to the kibbutz movement.
The autobiographical storyline draws on the writer/director Shaul’s memories of growing up on a kibbutz alongside his mentally unstable and widowed mother. In the movie, Dvir’s enchanting mother Miri, who teeters on the edge of insanity, is impressively portrayed by first-time actress Ronit Yudkevitch.
Israel Drives America Into Therapy
Who would have thought that the first Israeli television series successfully sold to a major American network would be so …. neurotic?
But here it is, coming soon on HBO — starring Dianne Wiest and Gabriel Byrne, no less. Here’s the full cast list.
And here’s the story:
HBO has ordered 40 episodes of “In Treatment,” a half-hour drama starring Gabriel Byrne.
Based on the popular and critically acclaimed Israeli series of the same name (“BeTipul” in Hebrew), “Treatment” centers on a therapist (Byrne) who is calm, smooth, insightful and non-confrontational with his patients but turns into a testy, self-doubting individual full of barely concealed anger when he is a patient seeing his own shrink.
In the pilot stage, HBO ordered five episodes of “Treatment.” The series pickup brings the total to 45 half-hours, the same as the original Israeli series.
It is not clear how HBO will schedule “Treatment.” In Israel, the show aired five nights a week for nine weeks, with every episode focusing on one of several families and their weekly therapy session.
Meanwhile, the second season is gearing up in Israel, with a new shrink and a bunch of new patients – according to the creators, only two patients are returning — they sought therapy as a couple in a bad marriage, and their new therapy sessions will be post-divorce. The first-season shrink, played by Israeli film enfant terrible Assi Dayan, will move up the food chain and become the senior shrink, who gives the regular therapist therapy.
The Katsav Dam Bursts
I was in the minivan, on my way to pick up my 10-year-old from a birthday party in video arcade hell at the mall (yes, we have those in Israel, unfortunately) when I flipped on the radio for the news and heard President Katsav ranting and raving live about the injustice of it all, the evil police, the vindictive legal system, and of course, the slimy, slimy media and how all of them were out to get him, and how all three had conspired to create rape and sexual harassment charges out of thin air.
His voice cracked, it sounded like there might be a few tears, and even on the radio, you could hear him banging on the table. I was frustrated not to be watching it.
That was at about 7:15 PM, I think. When I got home, in between all the fuss of getting kids ready for bed, I made a mental note to switch on the television to catch the top of the news so I could see what he looked like. When I did, I couldn’t believe it….he was STILL talking live. How long did has this been going on?
(LATER — Ahhhh, I get it now! He wanted to make sure his speech ran long enough to completely upstage Prime Minister Olmert speaking at the Herziliya Conference at the same time, calling for his resignation…very clever. And apparently, when Olmert called for Katsav to quit, he got applause. First applause he’s heard in a long time.)
I can understand how he has a lot to say. This thing has been in the press for what — seven months — it broke before the Lebanon War this summer, and he’s stayed pretty much silent through the whole ordeal, through some incredibly nasty stories describing him as every secretary’s octopus boss from hell. He’s crying McCarthyism, he’s crying Dreyfus, he’s crying everything that will make us feel sorry for him.
His bottom line — he’ll take a leave of absence, but he’s not quitting: “I yield my immunity so an indictment can be filed against me, but the law does not demand I resign.”
If there is an indictment, he says, then he’ll resign.
What do the people think? Unscientifically, a Ynet poll found that 89 percent of the public wants him to resign now. Ynet also reports that the Education Minister wants to take his pictures down from public school walls.
I do feel a little sorry for him being indicted, tried, and convicted in the court of public opinion, before an indictment has even been handed down. But I find it hard to believe that they would hand down charges this serious against the president of Israel without some real evidence. And there’s so much smoke, there has to be some fire, so his song and dance about his wonderful perfect marriage ring pretty hollow.
Speaking for every Israeli parent, I’m for any solution that can get him off the front pages so I don’t have to discuss rape and sexual harassment every other week with my young children.
The Jerusalem Post has a nice chunk of his rant translated. As you can see, he’s playing the race card big-time.
“My friends and I have stood against a vile attack while my name and reputation have been dragged through the mud,” he said.
“I have refrained from responding…and even during these difficult days I do not intend to lower my head in humiliation. I will struggle with all my strength to clear my name,” said a president choked up by his tears.
“Citizens of Israel, don’t believe the accusations! There is one truth. I am the target of one of the worst hunts in the history of the State. Over the past few months an unprecedented brainwashing of the public has occurred. You’ve heard hair raising stories presented as truth by the media. I’ve survived because the truth stands with me,” said Katsav.
“This public trial at the hands of the media has prevented me from defending myself…my truth. None of you have seen any evidence. I promise you that no such evidence exists. No one has asked for my side, and you grabbed onto these stories as truth. No one, at any point, stopped to ask if these accusations are true.
Charging a smear campaign carried out by the media and using words such as “McCarthyism” and “persecution,” an enraged Katsav said, “No radio or television station has searched for the truth.” At one point Katsav attacked Channel 2′s anchorman Gadi Sukenik, saying, “Channel 2 has spilled my blood. The same Channel 2 that cancelled an interview with me because they preferred Muhammad Dahlan.
“Citizens of Israel, it is you who will be struck dumbfounded by the truth. The truth, no newspaper will be able to hide. I have never hurt any man or woman. I have always carried out my duties with honor.”
Katsav, who was born in Iran, implied that the charges against him were motivated by racism against Israelis of Middle Eastern origin, who had traditionally be marginalized by Jews of European heritage.
“I saw myself as a symbol for all those who are not part of the elite clique born with silver spoons in their mouths … who believe that only they can represent the people of Israel,” he said.
Yup, that’s the race card.
Oh, boy, how badly is it going to play if he gets pushed out of office and gets replaced by Shimon Peres. The uppity brown-skinned Persian is shamed and humiliated as the elite clique of Eastern European founding fathers returns to the top of the hill in the President’s mansion. It’s going to get ugly.
LATER: Two similar reactions. Lisa calls me up, “Lord, did you see how red-faced and embarrassed Katsav’s attorney’s were? They looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.”
At the same moment, columnist Nahum Barnea writes:
Two top attorneys, David Libai and Zion Amir, sat in a small room packed to the gills with cameras and microphones on Tuesday afternoon while squirming about uncomfortably in their seats. Both are experienced in defending lost cases but never before had they defended such an embarrassing case.
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