From Modest Beginnings
Israel’s weekend papers were splashed with images of the country’s latest success story:
Avram Grant, former head coach of Israel’s national football team (that’s soccer for the U.S. greengos), was named head coach of England’s Chelsea Club over the weekend. He’s set to make his first formal appearance with the team at today’s match against Manchester United.
How’d it all come about? 
The 51-year-old Grant, who is the club’s director of football, is a close friend of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, this Haaretz report claims. Hmmmm…that might be a clincher.
What did he do before this? Technical director at Portsmouth, led Israel to the brink of World Cup qualification in 2006 and coached Israel’s Maccabi Tel-Aviv and Maccabi Haifa teams.
And yet…
Avi Cohen, the chairman of the Israeli Football Association said that “Avram Grant is very successful in Israel. He won the championship with several teams and he knows football, even so it is a shock that he was chosen.”
Oy.
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur – The Jewish Day of Atonement – is at the doorstep. If you’ve got someone to seek forgiveness from, hurry on up and get on that phone!
In the interim, start the year with humor courtesy of Dry Bones. And in general: Don’t forget to take humor with you while skipping along life’s path.
May you be signed in the Good Book….Your friends @ Israelity…
Tel Aviv…Fun, Fun, Fun
This is a nice – albeit VERY L-O-N-G – clip showcasing Tel Aviv.
Enjoy…And thanks IsRealli!
Peace-a-mistic Entry
Over at East Med Sea Peace, the vibe is pretty mellow. Along the lines of “let’s all get along and try to work out our differences in a peaceful, harmonious fashion, hmmm?”
The blog is made up of a combo of writers – Lirun, an Israeli lawyer living in Jaffa, Shawna, a Canadian transplant to Tel Aviv/Haifa and Nizo, a Palestinian living in Montreal.
Nizo blogged recently about his thoughts these days on potential harmonious meetings of the minds between Israeli-Palestinian types. Judging from the title – My Peacimistic Post - you get the drift.
A sampling:
Back in the Oslo years, my then Jewish ex and I formed a short-lived peace organization at McGill which we oh so imaginatively christened “Jews and Arabs for Peace”. I even ran a peace blog with quite a significant following until I had to take it off-line due to threats of bodily harm from locally based Hamasniks. I always wondered if my attendance at a Reform Lesbian wedding where I donned a lavender kippa made those sourpusses cranky.
Much has happened since Oslo, we had Intifada II, September 11th, not to mention the gradual usurpation of Palestinian dreams by the incorrigibly corrupt gang from Tunis and their alter-ego – the murderous Hamas neanderthals who used the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza as an opportunity to build a belligerent mini-Iran.
…my even bigger fear is the increased religiosity of middle eastern societies and the fact that my tribe of Christian Arabs are on their way to extinction. You see, while our mostly secular women are too busy maintaining their blond highlights in Montreal and Mississauga, Fatima and Rochel are busy popping out Youssefs and Yossels.
Read the rest here. It’s good stuff.
Payback @ McDonald’s
A group of Tel Aviv high school students got tired of waiting in line at their local McDonald’s and decided to do something about it.
Although the well known chain claims to serve up “fast food”, locations in Israel are often understaffed and service is generally pokey to downright s-l-o-w.
The ten students chose revenge with a capital “R” and exacted it by saving. Change. Lots of it. 5 and 10 agurot (equivalent to penny and nickel) coins.
It took a year of stockpiling but once the group had a suitable coffer, they traipsed on over to one of Tel Aviv’s busier branches and ordered up 600 shekels ($150) worth of grub.
When it came time to pay, they plunked down their bag of change. As this story tells it:
…at first, the cashier laughed because she thought they were just kidding. “Soon, however, she realized what was happening and started sulking. She called another employee to help her count the money. The branch lost an entire workday and had fewer workers because of us. Long lines were forming and they had to apologize to those who waited.”
Do YOU think things will speed up now that the group made their point?
Me neither.
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