Israeli wine demarginalizes settlers
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics, coexistence
The Israeli settler movement is often cited as a thorn in the side of peace, a rag-tag band of Wild West-inspired radicals who are keeping Israel of reaching her goals of progress. This over-generalized perception might or might not be accurate, although the headlines last month out of Hebron don’t necessarily make them look so good.
The settler movement holds a tricky place in the culture, no matter how you slice it. And even if many sectors of Israeli society make sure that the government’s attitude towards settlers remain as ambiguous as possible, the fact is that the state depends on these people to garner us international diplomatic leverage by creating “facts on the ground” rather than theoretical claims to territory, and their lifestyles – no matter how ideological or pragmatic – are therefore highly subsidized by the national budget.
For the fall holidays, the settler movement, embodied by the Yesha Council (a consciously anachronistic acronym for “Judea Samaria and Gaza”), launched a major tourism promotion campaign which packaged the territories as a kitschy roots discovery destination for mainstream Israelis (a harsh but poignant analysis of the marketing message appears here).
Now Yesha is further trying to endear itself to the center of the country by piggybacking on the oeno-tourism trend, a trend that has people around the world and around the nation visiting remote locations of Israel to check out various vineyards and barrel caves. Many of Israel’s up-and-coming wineries are kosher, but the trend is not only for the God-fearing – especially when it comes to the increasingly developed pallets of local connoisseurs.
In addition, institutions of higher learning, bed and breakfasts and olive oil presses have been employed as “facts on the ground” that have the potential to rally support from the settler-skeptical. Haaretz recently got some interesting comments on the matter from a Yesha leader:
Bentzi Lieberman, a former chairman of the Yesha Council, acknowledged shortly before leaving his post that “the settlers are living on borrowed time: if we don’t create something else for the public, something dynamic, relevant and up-to-date, if we don’t use a different, Israeli, language, that will connect the public to us, the danger of us becoming irrelevant will increase.”
Lieberman at the time cited Ariel College and the Barkan Industrial Zone as examples of successful marketing, “that blur boundaries, roadblocks and the Green Line, projects that cross borders and span across opinions, that are beyond all the little fears and connect the broad Israeli public to here.”
“If we are not able to create these kinds of projects, in terms of language, content and essence and also in the economic sense,” Lieberman warned then, “if we don’t speak a language that Israelis understand, we won’t be here.” Today, Lieberman’s vision is taking shape and increasing numbers of Israelis are visiting Judea and Samaria for reasons that are not political. Instead they are going for the experience and the fun.
Photo from flickr user ePublicist under a creative commons license.
Far and Away
It’s not hard to feel somewhat detached from the reality of what is going on in the south. For several years now the citizens of Sderot have been forced to run to their bomb shelters numerous times a day in the wake of Hamas missile volleys while us who live further north just go about our normal lives. I’ve had to force myself to really think about what life must be like down there. It’s certainly intolerable and I support the government’s military action (though I wish it came earlier) though what’s happening down there seems like it is happening in another world. I felt the same way during the first days of last Lebanon war. Though as the days went on things changed very quickly. The tipping point was first receiving a hysterical call from a friend who was just a hundred meters away from the ketyusha missile that killed 13 soldiers in Kfar Giladi. The second was receiving a chilling text message from one of my best friends in the reserves right now that read Anachnu Olim L’Gvul – We are heading to the border. Out of some stroke of luck I wasn’t called up in the last war and I hope my luck doesn’t change though I would
It’s been announced that the IDF is calling up of almost 7000 reservists. The only person I know who has been called up thus far is a friend of a friend but nearly everyone I know is anxiously waiting for their phones to ring. We are praying they don’t, but if they do, we are ready.
Photo from flickr user paul-simpson.org under a creative commons license.
Twittering the war
After so many times of kicking ass on the battlefield, but losing the media war, various government bodies are paying much closer attention this time to explaining Israel’s positions and justification for their current operation in Gaza.
Fortunately, most people can think back longer than two minutes and understand the context here – that the air force strikes in Gaza were precipitated by years of Hamas rocket attacks in Israel’s southern cities and communities. But for those too blind to see the full picture – or for informed people who just want to receive more information, there’s some assistance and visual aids available thanks to our friends at both the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the IDF.
And these government officials learned the lesson finally, that most people aren’t getting their information anymore from the talking heads on CNN or from the oped pages of the New York Times… but from Twitter and YouTube.
On Tuesday, Israel’s New York consulate held a “live citizen press conference” on Twitter hosted by David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs. The conference saw thousands of on-line “attendees” who followed the consulate’s Twitter page during the two-hour discussion.
“This is a young audience that doesn’t want to hear history or long-winded stories. It wants clear, short and on-topic responses. That’s Twitter and that’s our goal: short and precise responses that answer their questions,” said Saranga.
“Since the start of the Gaza situation, we’ve noticed a very active discussion on Twitter that hasn’t been very complimentary to the Israeli side,” Saranga explained. “On Twitter, anyone can say whatever they think without giving a name, and they can present supposed facts and are believed. So we felt it was important to present a voice that is not anonymous, where people know the source of the information.”
Meanwhile, Saranga’s colleagues over at the IDF Spokesman’s Office have launched their own
YouTube channel, to disseminate footage of precision IAF bombing operations in Gaza.
“The blogosphere and new media are another war zone,” Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich told The Jerusalem Post. “We have to be relevant there,” she said. “The important thing is to get the truth out there,”
I wonder, though, if footage showing an an IAF airstrike targeting a group of men the army says were loading rockets onto a pickup truck, to be driven to the border and launched into Israel, is going to win over and minds and hearts.
Those who support Israel will be gung ho, but those who feel that we’ve gone too far with this offensive might grudgingly admit that the men who were hit were about to launch an attack on Israel, but there must be some other way to prevent them from carrying it out… maybe like asking nicely?
Leibovich was’t too concerned that the footage might have some ’snuff film’ element to it. “The intelligent audience watching the footage will know that people killed did not have peaceful intentions toward Israel,” she told The Post. “I don’t believe they’ll be disturbed.”
With talk of a temporary cease-fire being bandied about, the online innovations adopted by the IDF and the Foreign Ministry may have to temporarily be put on hold. But it’s nice to see the opportunities are being utilized to aid our war effort in the just as important hasbara war.
I’m still not sure about those snuff films though.
Israeli rock band animates YouTube
An Israeli animation is now creating a buzz on the Net. It got 160,000 views in just two weeks, and a special review at Aniboom – the world’s biggest animation site. It was also featured on YouTube Spain, Mexico, Ireland, Netherlands and Israel.
It’s an animation music video for the Israeli alternative rock band, Eatliz. Called “Hey”, the 3D animation took almost two years to make, with a crew of 15 animators.
The project is the brainchild of Guy Ben-Shetrit, a freelance animator who has worked for commercials, TV programs and computer games. Ben-Shetrit is the founder and composer of Eatliz, wrote the featured song, directed the movie, and was the lead animator. (He quit his job and took a year off work to complete the project.)
The video, which is going to be featured in the next issues of animation and design DVD magazines Stash and IDN, is a weird Sci-Fi fantasy journey taken by a little girl and her special pet friend, a huge toad.
This is the second animation music video by Eatliz – the first “Attractive” was directed by Yuval and Merav Nathan. The film won Best animation category in Israel’s annual animation festival, Asif.
Enjoy.
Kylie remixes Roni Superstar
Aussie dance-pop pixie Kylie Minogue is set to celebrate her 2009 Grammy nomination with the release of a remix compilation called Boombox in early January. Named after a previously unreleased Kylie track that features prominently on the disc, the album sports 15 remixes from the past nine years of the international superstar’s canon.
Among the DJs and producers who have contributed to the collection is LA Riots, a West Coast duo that has in recent years earned a reputation thanks to its bouncing sets at club and warehouse parties. LA Riots has also created some landmark remixes for mainstream rock acts including Weezer, Chris Cornell, The Cure and The Verve.
The LA Riots addition to Boombox is actually an Israeli endeavor, which confirms what we’ve al known for some time: that the road to Israeli superstardom (with a reach as far as Oceania) leads through California. LA Riots’ “Boombox” remix features Roni “Superstar” Duani, the bubblegum songstress who has served as a soldier in the IDF, as a TV host, as a star of the stage and as a fashion spokesmodel. With a teen temptress persona and a wardrobe that favors plaid miniskirts, many have compared Superstar to Britney Spears, but the Israeli performer has understandably distanced herself from those comparisons in recent years. While rebranding, Superstar has hunkered down in the studio, hard at work on her third full-length effort, scheduled to hit stores later in 2009.
As the latest Roni “Superstar” Duani singles trickle out towards radio outlets, it’s nice to know that people with profiles as formidable as Kylie Minogue’s are paying attention to our hit parade. Audio for the Kylie-LA Riots-Superstar “Boombox” remix streams here.
Don’t change your mind, cousin Steve
My wife’s cousin Steve is due to land here next week on his first trip to Israel. That is, unless Operation Cast Lead scares him off.
He’s a high school guidance counselor in Long Island and is arriving on a trip sponsored by MASA, aimed at bringing back to his students the educational and career options available in Israel. MASA’s a non-profit that offers various programs for Jewish kids around the world to spend a semester or a year in Israel.
We’re pretty excited about his visit, since we don’t get too many relatives over here to see us. We’ve been dropping hints to Steve and his family for many years to make Israel one of their annual vacation spots, but like most American Jews, they prefer to go elsewhere.
Until this professional opportunity brings him here. So now, we have a day or so to show him what he’s been missing. If you could take a first time visitor to see Israel in one day – what would you show him? Through his program with MASA, he’ll be going to the Kotel, the Dead Sea and Masada. But what else typfies the kind of Israel we want him to see?
Here’s hoping that Steve doesn’t get cold feet, or that MASA decided that now’s not the best time to bring a group of guidance counselors to Israel. Come on cousin Steve!
Nostalgia Sunday – Hannuka like it used to be
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, War
Back in the old days, children, Hannuka was a simple holiday without all the hoopla surrounding it today. The Hannuka menorah had eight branches and space for a ninth shamash candle in the center.
We lit the menorah with candles from Israel that came in a box decorated with some young fellows who became part of the family, meaning that, as the years wore on, one barely noticed that they were weird-looking and awkward – just happy to see them again.
We ate latkes, deep fried and slathered in sour cream and applesauce. We were given hannuka gelt, in both chocolate and coin form, and gambled it away playing dreidel. Yes, here and there an elderly relative would try to get us to play for walnuts, as they did in the olden days, but we were hard-nosed little capitalists and stuck with the legal tender.
There were none of these new-fangled conceptual art menorahs, like this one here, called Hanukit. 
Just plain old cast metal hannukiyot.
As the leitmotif of the day, it seems appropriate to explain that the name “Operation Cast Lead” comes from a children’s song by our national poet Haim Nahman Bialik. Translated, it goes: “My teacher gave me a dreidel / A dreidel made of cast lead / Do you know what it’s for? / Do you know what it’s for? / It’s for the hannuka holiday.” And so, they who name military campaigns, in their attempt to be clever, have ruined something lovely; will we ever again be able to sing that song without irony?
Christmas vacation
Palestinian youths throw stones towards border police in Issawiya in east Jerusalem (Photo: Reuters)
Operation Cast Lead (reminder to the IDF Spokesman: work on those titles) is no laughing matter. Borne out of no alternative to constant rocket attacks on its southern communities, the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries – and so far, more rockets landing in Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot and even Ashdod, some 25 miles away from Gaza.
I got an inkling that the operation was impending when my daughter came home from her police shift on Thursday and said she had been briefed about mobilizing in the South when the army attack began in order to keep calm in the communities where retaliation from Hamas was likely.
On Saturday night, however, she was still patrolling her usual areas around Jerusalem. Evidently, the response to Operation Cast Lead among the Palestinian population in the West Bank and around east Jerusalem was serious enough to keep police troops very busy.
“There’s all kinds of riots going on here,” she said on the phone around midnight, “so they can’t send us to the South.”
As a parent, I’m not sure which option I prefer – having her quell rioting in the streets of east Jerusalem, or being in the direct line of Kassam fire by helping the residents of the South stay calm.
I’d actually prefer the skiing in Aspen. But the week between Christmas and New Years is a world away in this Israelity.
Israeli Tots At 82 Kindergartens To Learn Green ABC’s
In a special ceremony, held in Bar-Ilan University earlier this month, some 48 green kindergartens located in the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, central and southern districts of Israel were certified “green.”
An additional 34 kindergartens were certified earlier in the month, on December 3 in Haifa, 8 of which came from the Arab sector, reports the Ministry of Environmental Protection website. This is good news to our ears.
In all, 82 Israeli green kindergartens were certified in 2008, compared to 32 in 2007. But what does it take to make Israeli tots green? Do the ganenets feed them organic food? Do they learn about recycling? Maybe they plant trees?
In order to be officially certified, kindergartens must demonstrate their achievements in three areas:
- Environmental curriculum
- Rational use of resources
- Contribution to the community
According to the Ministry, kindergartens have a critical role to play in setting the educational infrastructure or basis for the understanding of basic concepts at the personal and social levels. “Cultivating environmental literacy in the kindergarten is of major importance since it is at this early age that we can try to instill positive attitudes toward the human and physical environment, in the present and in the future,” they write.
Accreditation of Green Kindergartens Come With $ Incentive
The aim of the “Green Kindergarten” program is to lead kindergartens through an educational process in which the children, kindergarten teachers, assistants and parents take part in incorporating environmental subjects into the kindergarten.
The accreditation process for Green Kindergartens was initiated in 2006 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Coming along with a cash incentive, going green can also boost enrollment (it’s a new thing moms and dads can brag about at the park). In Israel it seems that most kindergartens are privatized. So the added marketability of teaching tots to go green can be a selling point.
Recycling Corner in a Petach Tikva kindergarten
The Quiet Within the Storm
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War
You have to give Israelis credit; when the chips are down, even the ones who aren’t necessarily suspected of idealism come shining through.
As Israel went to war against Hamas over the weekend, the leaders of the major political parties all decided to suspend their political campaigns for the duration of the operation – which, both Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak said could be lengthy. Barak, who leades the Labor Party, said that he had to concentrate on the operation and had no time for politics.
The Likud, too, suspended its campaign, and has put on hold a radio campaign featuring ads attacking Kadima chief and Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni. Posters that bear the campaign’s tagline – “Tsipi, the job is too big for you” – that have already been put up will be taken down. In a statement Saturday night, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu said that “there is a time for debate and a time for unity, and today is a time for unity,” he said. “If our enemies thought we would not be united under rocket fire, they were wrong. The cannons roar, but we are united.”
With the elections coming just about a month from now – and the gap between the Likud and Kadima narrowing, according to the latest polls – the suspension of campaigning is really extraordinary. It wouldn’t be surprising for opposition politicians, for example, to accuse the government of timing its operation to cynically improve its standing in the polls, giving it a “January surprise” type of bounce that could sustain it until the elections. But no – politicians on the left and the right spontaneously announced (without any coordination, as far as I could tell) that they were holding off on the negative noise we are set to be subject to. Not that any Israeli, given the choice, wouldn’t opt for the noise if it meant that the south was secure. But it does show that our political leaders and would-be leaders are a better caliber than we usually give them credit for being.
(Photo courtesy One Family Fund)
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