Foto Friday – Israel is Birdwatch Central
Filed under: Environment, Foto Friday, General, Travel
Tiny Israel is located on a land bridge that forms one of the major routes for birds migrating between Eurasia and Africa. Each spring, hundreds of millions of birds fly north to Europe and Asia, and thousands of birdwatchers from around the world come to Israel to watch them at sites such as the Kibbutz Lotan Centre for Birdwatching, the International Birding & Research Center in Eilat (IBRCE), and other birdwatching stations.
View in HD Download 400p Version Visit Sassi Haham’s ExposureRoom Videos Page
Bird watching season opens next week with the 2nd annual Artists for Nature Festival , which will take place in the Hula Valley on 6-15 March 2009 The festival, organized by the Israel Ornithological Center of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) together with the Dutch-based Artists for Nature Foundation (ANF), is intended to raise awareness of top priority conservation issues through cultural exchange. Over 20 internationally-renowned wildlife artists will participate by drawing and painting alongside Israeli wildlife artists in the open landscapes of the Hula Valley. In addition, there will be nature tours, lectures and workshops that will be open to the general public.
View in HD Download 400p Version Visit Sassi Haham’s ExposureRoom Videos Page
Then, at the end of the month, the Ornithological Center, together with IBRCE, will organize the 3rd annual International Spring Migration Festival in Eilat on 23-30 March 2009. The program, timed to coincide with the peak week of Israel’s spring migration, will include activities for nature lovers and birders of all levels.
View in HD Download 400p Version Visit Sassi Haham’s ExposureRoom Videos Page
These activities dovetail nicely with the news that British nature magazine BBC Wildlife, declared the Hula Lake Park as one of the most important photography and observation sites in the world.
View in HD Download 496p Version Visit Sassi Haham’s ExposureRoom Videos Page
Sassi Haham is an avid photographer/videographer and birdwatcher who shoots amazing videos. Some of these are posted here with many more to view on ExposureRoom, and on Zapar.col.il, the Israeli birdwatching portal – which also has a comprehensive index of Israel’s birds.
View in HD Download 400p Version Visit Sassi Haham’s ExposureRoom Videos Page
Israel is for the birds
Gray cranes flock over the Hula Lake. More than half a billion birds of some 400 hundred species pass through the Jordan Valley to Africa and back to Europe when summer comes. (Getty Images)
Enviro-nerds that we are, we bring a bird-watching book, and over our four visits to the park in recent years, we’ve checked off a good three dozen birds sighted there. The Jewish National Fund-operated Hula Lake is one of the most important bird-watching sites in the world as annually, white cranes on their way to Southern Africa, stop there one last time before they begin the Sahara Desert portion of their flight.
And now, the Hula is getting some international recognition. BBC Wildlife Magazine, the world’s best-selling natural history and environmental magazine, has named it one of the most outstanding sites in the world for nature observation and photography. According to a JNF press release, it was ranked 9th on a list of 20 exceptional nature sites chosen by 300 international experts including scientists, photographers and television producers.
Even though it hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, we’ve never found it too crowded. But that could change with this international recognition. So get there soon. As an incentive, an international arts festival hosted by JNF and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel will be held at the Hula Lake on March 6-15. The festival will feature crafts workshops, tours, lectures, and meetings with artists from around the world.
Fridge central
According to a recent survey interviewing 330 participants, 88% of Israelis post some form of information on the fronts of their refrigerators, ranging from notes to themselves, Israeli flags, kids’ test scores, cartoons, and, most importantly to Golden Pages, a local publisher of magnetic directories and the survey conductor, advertisements of some kind.
It’s fascinating, really, as there’s much one can glean from the stuff stuck to another person’s fridge. My fridge front, for instance, has changed drastically in the last four years of my life. When I was still a swinging single, my fridge was carefully designed with pictures of my friends and family, neatly arranged in magnetic frames on the upper half of the fridge. When I married Daniel and became stepmother to Amira and Aiden, I really had to change my fridge front tendencies, and our fridge now includes their pics, my pics and our joint pics — including several ancient photos of the girls in their gan classes and the butchers at the SuperDeal formerly known as Falcon — their collection of decorative magnets, class lists, art from over the years, a list of metric exchanges used for cooking, and ads for only the places that we call the most, i.e. the pizzeria, cab company, electrician, dentist and a few choice others.
It seems that those magnetic ads we post lump us with 96% of the survey respondents who said they posted some form of service advertisements, and 61% who actually use said ads.
When we moved apartments and did a renovation on our new place, which included redoing the kitchen, we toyed with the idea of putting in a stainless steel fridge. The thing was, we wouldn’t have been able to put magnets on said refrigerator. I was excited about the idea; loving the thought of a pristinely clean, naked fridge. But the girls were aghast at the idea; “How would we find the important phone numbers?” asked Amira. “Where we would put my kindergarten picture?” said Aiden. (Mind you, she was nine at the time.) But, traditions prevail and a new house was change enough. We went for a traditional fridge, albeit with freezer on the bottom, and did a purge of the fridge paraphernalia, including the magnetic numbers and letters that the girlz hadn’t played with in years.
So the fridge front is still covered, and at times I have to resist just throwing it all out. But i can’t; for starters, I’d be excommunicated. And it would take that much longer to find the phone number for Burgers Bar. And so, the fridge remains in its catch-all magnet stage, but at least I have a place to list the babies’ chart of dirty diapers…
Tel Aviv gays to celebrate city’s 100th birthday
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Pop Culture
Tel Aviv’s Centennial celebrations which are kicking off this spring won’t be ignoring the city’s substantial gay community. According to Ynet, a tiny $23,700 amount of the city’s festivities budget of $10.4 million will be allocated for specific gay pride activities.
However, that amount, combined with the annual $71,400 budget for the city’s annual gay pride parade will amount to enough of a budget for Tel Aviv’s gays and equal rights supporters to celebrate in style.
A number of events have been discussed, and among the ideas are an exhibition of artist Rafi Peretz’s work. The acclaimed Tel Aviv artist is a graduate of the Beersheva school of Visual Arts where he studied from 1988 through 1992.
Other events being discussed include holding a gay book fair at the Cinematheque’s annual gay film festival. As usual, the annual parade will take place in June, this year on June 12 with a special picnic in the park. Unlike the gay pride parade in Jerusalem which is perennially fraught with controversy, threats of violence and cancellations, the Tel Aviv event is always an easy going, colorful affair.
Vote for the Gila dance video
ISRAEL21c’s video about the Gila dance troupe is in the running for Dance Media.com’s DanceSprit Video of the Month. There are still a few days left to February, so dance lovers and people who love dance lovers are invited to click here, register and vote.
The video is about Gila, a troupe of older women dancers whose choreography encompasses dance, acting, video, music, humor and life stories. Choreographer Galit Liss created the show two years ago, after interviewing elderly women and discovering the beauty of old age. Her aim: to show audiences across Israel that growing old can also mean growing young. Help spread the word about this unique project and vote!
If you have trouble viewing DanceMedia, see the video on ISRAEL21c’s YouTube Channel.
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