Israel Loves NY

October 2, 2008 by Jessica · 2 Comments
Filed under: Art, General, Pop Culture

I Love NY.jpg So it’s a well-known fact that Israelis love New York — think Aroma in SoHo, the number of post-army Israelis working for Moishe’s Movers and the amount of Hebrew one hears on the city streets — but Fern Penn, the owner of Rosebud, a SoHo boutique that sells only Israeli-designed clothing, is taking the I Love NY slogan back to Israel.

On her last trip to Israel, she brought four dozen I Love NY t-shirts to each of the designers she features in her store, and asked them to “fashion them up” in their own style. The one-of-a-kind t-shirts, recreated by 12 different designers, are being featured in Rosebud throughout October. On sale for $100 each, all proceeds will go to Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan, Israel, and to Elem/ Youth in Distress in Israel.

The designers participating in the project include Ronen Chen, Kedem Sasson, Yael Orgad, Katomenta, Naomi Maaravi, Comme Il Faut, Keren Mualem, Delicatessen, Maya Negri, Fishndag, Dorit Sade, and Ido Recanati.

C’mon, don’t you love New York?

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Tags: Aroma, Comme Il Faut, Delicatessen, Dorit Sade, elem, Fern Penn, Fishndag, i heart ny, I Love NY, Ido Recanati, Israelis, Katomenta, Kedem Sasson, Keren Mualem, Maya Negri, Naomi Maaravi, New York, Ramat Gan, Ronen Chen, Rosebud, Shenkar College, SoHo, Yael Orgad, Youth in Distress

Life at the zoo

October 2, 2008 by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Travel

Gorilla I miss being lazy. I yearn for the days of sitting around doing nothing on Friday and Saturday. Catching up on TV, lounging around, eating leisurely meals, etc. However, those days are over and will only be available again about 20 years down the line or so. It was a bit easier when my daughter was younger and napping twice a day. That was a guaranteed 4 hours I had to chill. These days she’s napping once a day for only an hour and a half. When she’s awake she is a high octane ball of energy and she gets bored around the house pretty easily despite the dozens of toys. With this in mind we recently purchased a membership to the Ramat Gan safari/zoo. We’ve been going pretty much every weekend for the two months and the reasonable cost for yearly membership has already paid for itself. A good, sound investment, and only 20 minutes away. She already knows her way around. She know the “elephen” is to the left and the “monkey” is to the right. She doesn’t care much for the birds. But said “woah” when a giraffe almost licked her. Her favorite animal is still the “beebras” (zebras). Its amazing how much she retains from the few hours we spent at the zoo. Just yesterday, five days after we visited she jumped on my wife’s back and said “tzofie baby monkey.” She now requests “baby monkey” every five minutes. I love this kid.

Some kind of varmint

Elephants in Ramat Gan

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Tags: baby, child, daughter, down time, Gorilla, monkey, raising, Ramat Gan safari, relaxation, zoo

National pastime

October 2, 2008 by David · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Sports

As the Jewish calendar enters the High Holiday period, the weather in Israel is beginning to feel a bit like autumn. Cooler nights, high clouds and even a couple downpours have indicated that the season is changing, and always triggers in my mind an October connection between the ‘hagim’ and the weather.

Another perennial October connection is getting up in the middle of the night to watch the Major Leagues baseball playoffs and World Series. Or if a game’s on the West Coast at night, then it means sleeping in til about 5 am.

With my team, defending world champs The Boston Red Sox, making the playoffs for the millionth time in a row, we’re entering the sleepless night phase. All three playoff games played on Wednesday were on TV here – if you have cable, on Fox Sports and ESPN – or, of course, always available on your computer through a subscription to MLB.com.

I’m not enough of a fanatic to stay up all night and watch all three games, but I did set an early wakeup call for 5:30 to watch the Sox take on the Angels in Anaheim. I’ll be missing some games, as they invariably fall on Friday nights or on Yom Kippur. But following baseball is light years more advanced than it was during my first decade in Israel.

Then, it was two-day late scrawny wrap-ups in the International Tribune, and occasional overseas phone calls to get more details. It had its advantages though, as I was pretty much out of it when the 1986 Bill Buckner debacle took place, and didn’t feel the rage and sorrow that the rest of the Red Sox Nation went through.

But with their recent resurgence in the 2000s (did someone say dynasty?), it’s reassuring to know that the Sox are just a TV station away – as long as you don’t mind burning the midnight oil. There’s plenty Red Sox caps and t-shirts on display on the streets of Jerusalem these days, in English and Hebrew. So I know I’m not alone in setting the clock for 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, and receiving rolling eyes glances from their spouses. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all part of being Israeli.

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