Israel Independence Day
Filed under: Blogging, History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
Benji and hummous -two Israeli institutions
As the smells of barbecued meats permeate the country, let’s keep in mind what’s special about Israel – besides everyone barbecuing on Yom Ha’atazmaut.
One of the funniest – and most astute – lists has been written by Israelity contributor and stand up comedian par excellance Benji Lovitt – You can read the whole list of ‘61 More Things I Love About Israel’ here.
But a few of my favorites are:
31. I love that my cab driver offered me a peach and that I accepted it. That will happen in America when falafel balls fly.
43. I love words like “teetchadesh” that neither exist nor make sense in the English language. “Wow, cool shirt! Enjoy using your new thing!” Nice try.
57. I love the superhuman Israeli hearing which allows them to pick up the “beep beep beep” of the news even while someone is using a jackhammer three feet away.
Whatever way you celebrate Israel Independence Day, may your celebration be joyous.
Day of Remembrance
Remembrance day. Oddly enough, this is the one “holiday” that I always feel thoroughly connected to. Not sure why. I’m just not really a spiritual fellow. Ever since I was a little boy I had dreams of serving in the IDF. For years it was just fantasy and of course the first time I ever fired a gun as a soldier the reality of what being a soldier really meant sunk in.
I was lucky enough to serve in the IDF during a “quiet” time – relatively. It was before Israel pulled out of Lebanon and a few years before the second intifada started. I knew some guys who were seriously wounded in Lebanon, one guy in my unit killed himself during basic training (at home on a weekend off) but other than those instances, I didn’t personally know any soldiers who died.
So what do I usually think about during the sirens? I think about my friend who lost five of his former soldiers in a horrible brush fire in Lebanon during a firefight with Hezbollah, just a week after he was discharged (I’d met one of the guys the week before at my friend’s army release party). I went with him to two of the funerals. I think about the father of an old roommate who was killed by a sniper as he got out of his tank during the Yom Kippur War just hours after the ceasefire was declared. My roommate was 11 months old at the time. And I think about the history of my unit, the Seventh Brigade, and the sacrifices they made as they fought to protect our borders from our enemies in every single one of Israel’s wars. Victims of terror is another story all together. Some good friends have narrowly escaped with their lives (but with both physical and psychological scars), others I’ve known did not.
Photo courtesy of kodak agfa from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Israeli film takes over New York City
A scene from 'A Matter of Size'
Here’s Heeb’s look at some of the most notable:
Defamation (Hashmatsa) — Yoav Shamir’s documentary examines anti-Semitism in today’s world. From the Anti-Defamation League’s attempts to keep it in check to Norman Finkelstein’s theory that it’s being exploited by the Jewish establishment, Shamir throws himself in the middle of the debate.
A Matter of Size (Sipur Gadol) — An underemployed chef in Ramla becomes fascinatied by sumo wrestling while working as a dishwasher in a Japanese restaurant. He and three friends escape their weight-loss group to learn the art of the sport in this light-hearted comedy.
Partly Private — Israeli-born director Danae Elon explores the cultural, religious and medical issues surrounding a quick snip as she decides whether or not to have her son circumcised.
Rachel — A documentary by French director Simone Bitton about Rachel Corrie, a 22-year-old American member of the International Solidarity Movement who died trying to prevent an Israeli army bulldozer from knocking down Palestinian homes in Gaza.
Seven Minutes in Heaven — A year after surviving a bus bombing that claimed the life of her boyfriend, a woman tries to piece together the events of that day. Debut director Omri Givon deftly blends narrative threads and moods as the film plays like part mystery, part drama and part metaphysical thriller.
Clearly, not all these films are going to present a positive image of Israel – especially Rachel, which with a French director and its title surely has no chance of presenting a fair portrayal of the subject matter. But the breadth and scope of the topics is testament to the vibrancy in our culture and in our democratic values which enables us to reflect on ourselves – warts and all.
Bauhaus travels
If you can’t make it to Tel Aviv this year to celebrate its centennial birthday, there’s a great traveling exhibit by a favorite photographer of mine, Yigal Gawze, showing his collection of Bauhaus photos, Fragments of a Style. The exhibit opened in Chicago, recently moved to San Francisco, and will then be moved to Europe, including the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, Germany, as part of the 90th Anniversary of the Bauhaus school.
What’s really lovely about Yigal’s photos in this exhibit is that he hones in on the details and sunlit curves that we all see in Tel Aviv, but in a much gentler light on the normally harshly sunlit buildings.
In his explanation of the photos, Yigal writes:
“It was during the winter season, when the normally harsh outdoor light was softer and more easily tamed, and the white facades stood out against the backdrop of the deep blue sky. I was a tourist in my hometown, and my eyes developed a new sensitivity to my surroundings.
I chose to work in color (in contrast to the historical documents and the modern photographic work done on the subject), in order to better convey the character and the atmosphere created by the local light. The shadow of the palm tree falling on the white facade represents the special encounter that takes place in Tel Aviv between a building style originating in Europe and the Mediterranean glare.From the start, I chose to focus on the fragments. I felt that I could capture the spirit of this architecture by focusing on an essential part of the structure, which carries within it the genetic code of the whole. It was also an attempt to convey something of the utopia of the years which saw the building of the ‘White City’. Only in the last part of the work, did I step back to deal with the whole building and its relationship to the street as part of the city.”
Nostalgia Sunday – Hagana Archive 1947-8
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, War
The Ministry of Defense’s Hagana Photo Archive is an online treasure trove of the State of Israel’s history from the people who defended it. The collection is so rich, it’s hard to make a selection. Here are a few gems in honor of both Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers, which begins Monday night, and Israel Independence Day, which commences on Tuesday.
This image, from Mandatory Palestine, is of the illegal immigration ship, the Chaim Arlozorov, captured by British soldiers.
The British army withdraws from Palestine.
The tense moments as the UN voted on the resolution to establish a Jewish State.
The Jewish settlement comes under attack and the War of Independence begins. This is Jerusalem under mortar attack:
Jerusalem blockaded.
The conquest of Jerusalem’s German Colony by the Hagana. (The militia was later consolidated into the Israel Defense Forces).
Tel Aviv celebrates the establishment of the Jewish State.
This selection doesn’t begin to represent the amazing collection of photos, dating back to 1880, that exist in the Hagana Photo Archive. For anyone interested in Israel’s history, it’s a must-see.
It’s flu, but not as we know it
Well, a few years ago, it looked like avian flu was going to be the great pandemic that would lay waste to the world’s population. Experts debated it, newspapers wrote billions of words on it, and a whole generation of children stopped picking up feathers. As the pandemic failed to materialize, however, gradually the fear subsided.
Is that pig safe?
Now a new flu has suddenly emerged, and it’s spreading fast. There have already been some 80 deaths in Mexico from swine flu, and cases in the US and New Zealand. Now there’s a suspected case in Israel, of an Israeli who has just returned from Mexico.
With the World Health Organization declaring the disease a “public health event of international concern”, with “pandemic potential”, flu is once more the hot disaster story of the season, making rather a nice change from Iran.
Anti-viral drug Tamiflu is being touted as an answer, but Israel also has a possible alternative – Sambucol. This herbal extract has been on the market for years, selling well in the US and in over 17 countries around the world as a remedy for flu.
The herbal remedy, made from elderberry, was developed by Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu, a world-renowned Israeli virologist, and is said to cut the duration and severity of flu by up to half.
In 2006, a British medical research institute ran cell culture tests (clinical trials were off the agenda for obvious reasons), and announced that it was 99% effective against the avian flu virus, H5N1.
A year earlier, another study showed that the remedy was not just effective against human and avian flu, but also swine flu as well. Of course at that time no one really cared about flu from pigs.
I interviewed Mumcuoglu after the 2006 tests, and she told me then that it didn’t really matter where the flu originated. “Our research has shown that the antiviral effect of Sambucol is not strain-specific. It was effective against all influenza viruses tested,” she said.
“If you stop the flu virus at the beginning then you stop it going to the lungs, or from creating the additional complications that are normally the cause of death,” she added.
Now we have still to see what actually happens with swine flu. Newspapers love to scare the public, and the public apparently loves to be scared.
In Mexico, the government is recommending that people stop going to public places, kissing friends, or shaking friends with colleagues. Though I’m clearly no expert, if swine flu one day reaches your community, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to also try taking Sambucol as well – just in case.
Ahmed and Salim – Israeli satire stretches the limits of taste
Filed under: General, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, coexistence
What happens when you cross irreverent South Park-type animated humor with the Middle East conflict? The no-holds-barred provocation of Ahmed and Salim.
The animated web series developed by two young Israelis, 21-year-old Tom Trager, a journalist and graphic designer, and 20-year-old Or Paz, a video editor, has become a YouTube sensation, with one of its six four-minute episodes attracting over half a million viewers.
The self-defined “sitcom about terrorists” is sure to offend just about everybody, as it uses dark humor to describe the life of the two sons, Ahmed and Salim, of an Arab arch-terrorist, who’s constantly trying to send his sons off on terrorist missions that inevitably go awry.
According to the McLatchey newspaper chain, which wrote about the series, Ahmed and Salim “appear to be typical teenage brothers. They spend hours in front of their computer playing Wii and posting crude updates on Facebook. They jam with Guitar Hero and watch bad American sitcoms. They bicker and call each other names.
The animated stars of an incendiary new Internet cartoon series aren’t typical, however. They’re young Arabs who spend their afternoons trying to bomb Israeli buses, gun down Jewish girls and incinerate crowded cafes, and in the three months since their debut, their caricature of Islamic extremism has attracted a growing cult following in Israel.
Its creators and fans see a humorous series that resembles “South Park” – at least visually – and mocks Islamic terrorism. Its critics see a hate-filled cartoon that uses crude stereotypes to dehumanize Muslims, intensify Arab-Israeli divisions and inflame the conflict between Muslims and Jews.
“What they do is strengthen old stereotypes of the Arabs and Muslims as radical and stupid and terrorists,” said Yizhar Be’er, the executive director of Keshev, an Israeli media-monitoring group. “These episodes are so full of hatred that if an Arab did this about Jews, immediately the Anti-Defamation League would make big noise about it.”
ADL officials in Israel said they hadn’t heard of “Ahmed and Salim.” However, Phyllis Gerably, the director of the group’s Israel office, said the cartoon sounded “counterproductive.”
The initial episode which attracted the huge YouTube reponse focuses on the father bemoaning the fact that his sons haven’t gone off on a suicide mission and killed lots of Jews.
“Why can’t you two die already and make your father happy?” the father says before shooting one of his many veiled wives in a fit of rage.
Ahmed and Salim reluctantly head off with a box of dynamite that their father tells them to put on an Israeli bus. Before they carry out the mission, however, Salim throws a tantrum and demands an ice cream. The brothers then mistakenly put the bomb on a Palestinian bus, killing dozens and disgracing their father in front of his terrorist friends
According to Ynet, Paz and Trager hope to eventually be able to turn the series into a television production, but admit that so far no one has made them an offer to this effect.
They are aware of the controversy that the series has prompted, and that even led to some death threats, but say they receive many supportive, positive responses as well.
It seems that the Arab world is taking a special interest in the comic show. Al-Jazeera has already run an item about it and Paz and Trager say that many articles, for and against the series, have been published in Arab and Muslim newspapers.
“We do want to offend, but we have no intention of offending Muslims or Arabs,” Trager told the McLatchey chain. It’s a silly carton that doesn’t represent any reality, that’s about a bunch of idiotic stereotypes with no basis in reality.”
The Hearts of Israel
Everyone has a blog (soapbox) these days where they wax poetic about politics, pop culture, business, etc. If you are a blog junkie like myself it can certainly certainly get overwhelming at time. Being inundated with too much information confuses the mind and distracts and who can retain all that information anyway? I I recently came across a lovely little Israel-based blog simply titled levavot, or “hearts” in English. It’s mission statement is simple. Every day a photo will be uploaded of an image of a heart that the anonymous author comes across in her day. When the heart is linked to a cause, she will provide that link, with the goal being to “spread the love.” Her mantra is love is everywhere, sometimes you just need to look.
It’s a fascinating way to look at life. Many of the images are of objects that intentionally have hearts on them – be they products, art, clothing. The really special images however are hearts that are purely from nature or noticed in her surrounds. I’ve selected a few of my favorites. The first (see right) is a nice heart on a dalmatian’s back. Trees may or may not feel pain, but after see the below photo you can’t deny that they do not have hearts. Even paint chipped away on a parking spot reveals a heart (Wonder how she spotted this one?). And finally, maybe somewhat obvious, but Israel flora reveals a heart as well.
For more images where hearts in Israel lie (both conventional and unconventional places visit Levavot.
A proud parent
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Sports
Alright, this is delicate. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I don’t think there’s any way around it.
I didn’t think I’d be raising Torah scholars when my wife and I started having kids some 20 years ago. But I was hoping they’d find their own way to express their Zionism and sense of being Israeli. I guess she could have done this anywhere, but the fact of the matter is second daughter Sarit chose to stand out in volleyball here in Israel. And she’s made herself, her family and her friends proud to know her by the way she’s conducted herself these last few years.
Through no initiative of my own, The Jerusalem Post identified her as a sports person of note in their weekend magazine column ‘Holding Court’.
“When she came to me in seventh grade she was very quiet and delicate,” recalls her coach, Oron Ashery. “She asked just to practice and not to play, and since then she’s just grown and grown in the sport. She’s a very special player in the group. She’s the captain of the team, which made the Final Four. She’s been a significant member of our starting six for a while. Sarit is very brave. Over the years she’s gained confidence, and goes after balls that other players don’t even bother with. She makes it to every practice and helps organize the team – she’s the one who maintains the contact between the players.”
And
It’s pretty likely that when Sarit Brinn’s doctors do a chest X-ray, they see a volleyball beating inside her heart. The 17-year-old Ma’aleh Adumim senior and team captain is so devoted to her sport – which this year saw her team, Tali Beit Hinuch, come out of nowhere to claim third place in the high-school league with a 9-6 record – it’s taken over her life, and she loves it.
Not content to just play for her high-school team, Sarit also joined Hapoel Beit Hinuch Jerusalem in a women’s league that includes older players, and her club finished first, advancing to a higher league for next season.
So when she’s up at 2 a.m. making up the class work that she missed because she’s been at one of three practices or two games a week, it just doesn’t faze her. “It gives me energy to play,” she explains in a phone interview recently near the end of the regular school league season.
At home, she can be like any other teenager at times. But the story did capture her big heart, her dedication and her enthusiasm. Now, if we could just get her take out the garbage.
Foto Friday – Running Around the Holyland
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Pop Culture, Sports, Travel
The sixth annual Pope John Paul II Pilgrimage Peace Marathon took place on Thursday. Although not truly a marathon — it is best described as a non-competitive 10k walk-run from Manger Square in Bethlehem to Notre Dame outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls — it is nonetheless a unique and truly moving event.
Italian and Palestinian participants did the first 2k within the Palestinian Authority, then met up with their Israeli counterparts — myself included — at the Rachel Crossing checkpoint, and ran the remaining distance together. The photo is of the festive ceremony at Notre Dame where everyone got a medal…
…including my pal Yaron Rochin, of Jerusalem’s Beit HaLohem, who organized the Israeli group.
Yaron is quite a story in an of himself. An IDF veteran with legs wounded by shrapnel, he is nonetheless a fixture at all Israeli running events where he always picks up the rear — which is where you can find me — with his infectious energy.
Yaron led the Papal Peace Pilgrimage pack with cries of “Yalla, hevre!” and the next day, did the Tel Aviv Marathon — a true 42.2k — in a hand-powered bicycle.
More about this unique event can be found in a previous post and on this YouTube video, courtesy of Italian news service Rome Reports:
As for the Tel Aviv Marathon, the energy and spirit among participants was great and, hopefully, the city’s residents won’t be too hateful and the event will be allowed to continue and grow. Here’s the starting line. I’m the one in the orange shirt.
Yaron crossing the finish line.
And the winner, Daniel Kones of Kenya, who finished in 2:38:06.
More information about running in Israel, as well as registration for events, can be found at Shvoong. The site is, unfortunately, only in Hebrew. Another event organizer is ProSport – and they do have an English site. On-on and happy trails!
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts