Foto Friday – Footprints
Sometimes it’s good to take a moment and see Israel from a different vantage point. In summer if you look down, for instance, you’re very likely to see “balatot” — the ubiquitous light limestone floor tile — plus a variety of fun footwear that takes you from work to the beach and back again.
A trip to the Dead Sea affords another type of shoe, suited to mud baths and salt water.
Which is different to what you’d wear to snap some sidewalk graffiti while walking up and down Rothschild Boulevard at Tel Aviv’s Laila Lavan all-night street fair. (This takeoff on the Peace Now logo says “Shalit Now” in reference to captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit).
And sometimes a girl needs to take a rest from those heels at a sidewalk pub (note the Ackerstein paving blocks so typical of Tel Aviv).
A little culture never hurt.
Though these shoes might — especially the price. (Three thousand-plus shekels!)
Thank goodness, at the end of the day, there’s a place to relax on the edge of the Med.
PR woman Efrat Gurman is a consummate media professional who’s made a career out of positioning things differently. She’s a colleague and friend to photographers and in her few spare moments, snaps pictures of her own, mostly of of things that interest her – or that she makes interesting. For more of her “Footprints” series click here.
Okra
Israelis love their fresh fruits and vegetables and it’s a facet of life here that I’ve gained a taste for as well, waiting until I’m at the supermarket or fruit store (‘yarkan’) before I decide what produce I want to cook for any given meal. It adds a certain surprise element to your menus, and I like that. So if it’s September/October, there are figs; late winter brings strawberries, while summer is the time for the usual summer fruits, and in abundance. Now it’s all mangoes and in a few weeks, it’ll be time for limes. As for veggies, I’m all about string beans and zucchini right now, and the root vegetables will be coming around in the late fall and winter. And so on.
As a produce maven, I enjoyed my encounter this morning with an elderly man at one of the vegetable counters in my local supermarket. I was pleased to find okra — a staple of the American South and, of Israeli cafeterias — and started thinking about how I would cook it. I, of course, in my usual rush, started scooping it into the plastic grocery bag, while he was carefully going over each one, and they’re small, making sure not to take any leaves into his bag. Probably because they make it weigh more, so a smart decision on his part, but not a process for which I would have enough patience. He did ask me if I knew how to cook okra, the kind of questioning that you often get in this part of the world (similar to the middle-aged man who yesterday pointed to my babies’ legs sticking out of the stroller — although fairly well covered by the extra sunshade on top of the stroller — and told me to put a blanket on them to save them from a sunburn. Thank you very much). I told the okra man that I was planning on a tomato-y sauce, perhaps cooking it with chicken, and he nodded in agreement. I guess he approved.
Here’s the recipe I’m making, a fairly traditional way, except for the curry, of handling okra:
Curried Okra with Chickpeas and Tomatoes (courtesy of epicurious)
yield: Makes 4 main-course or 6 side-dish servings
active time: 20 min
total time: 35 miningredients
1 1/4 lb small fresh okra, left untrimmed, or 2 (10-oz) packages frozen whole okra (not thawed)
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 teaspoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 (14- to 15-oz) can whole tomatoes in juice, tomatoes chopped, reserving juice
1 (19-oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (2 cups)
2/3 cup water
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepperpreparation
If using fresh okra, trim, leaving tops intact, being careful not to cut into pods.
Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté onion and garlic with ginger and curry powder, stirring, 2 minutes. Add tomatoes with their juice, chickpeas, and water and boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in okra, salt, and pepper and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until okra is tender, about 10 minutes.
The Ninth of Av
Tisha B’Av (the Ninth of Avi) is one holiday that’s grown on me. I had never heard of the fast day growing up in the US, but in Israel, it’s a soul-searcher right up there with Yom Kippur.
The holiday, which commemorates the tragedies and disasters that have befallen the Jewish people on that date in history, including the destruction of the Temples, the expulsion from Spain, and so on, continues to have relevance in modern day Israel, despite some claims that there’s no longer a reason to mourn since Israel has been re-established.
But you don’t have to be religiously observant and yearning for the building of the third Temple to realize that there’s no lack of shortcomings in our society that need to be addressed. Like in the rest of the world, homelessness, murder and crime are increasingly common, accepted aspects of life here. Maybe Tisha B’Av is the day people can think about the kind of society they want for the country and make decisions to work toward that goal.
The prophets say that the Second Temple was destroyed due to the senseless hatred within the Jewish people, and there’s also certainly no lack of that today. The haredim hate the secular, the secular hate the religious, the religious hate the Reform, the Right hates the Left and vice versa, and lets not even get into the situation with the Arabs.
Anyone who thinks that there’s nothing left to mourn about on Tish B’Av just needs to pick up a newspaper.
Leonard Cohen opens his pockets for Israelis and Palestinians
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, coexistence, General, Music
Most international musical superstars who come to Israel might pay lip service to promoting peace in the region – like Paul McCartney did with his ‘Friendship First’ concert – but few actually put their money where their singing voices are.
Leonard Cohen is apparently the exception. In the middle of a long world tour that has raised him to the ranks of the world’s most loved performers, Cohen could have easily skipped Israel at the end of his European swing. But not only did he want to perform in the country, he decided that he couldn’t take money out of the country.
According to his manager Robert Kory, who spoke to me on Sunday, the revenue from Cohen’s Ramat Gan Stadium show on September 24th will be donated through a new fund to benefit Israeli and Palestinian organizations that are working toward conciliation.
The Fund For Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace will provide financial support for organizations and individuals working in Israel and the PA, focusing on bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents who have experienced loss yet continue to strive to achieve peace in the region through their efforts.
Initial beneficiaries of Cohen’s altruism will be the Parents Circle – Family Forum, an NGO reprenting Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost children in the conflict and who have made the commitment to work together in building a consensus for peace, the Peres Center for Peace Children’s Medical Program, Combatants for Peace, an organization which attempts to bring together IDF veterans and Palestinian terrorists who have renounced their ways, and the Palestinian Happy Child Center, a developmental center that works with special needs children in Ramallah.
“I got a call from someone identifying themself as Leonard Cohen’s manager. I thought to myself, ‘what’s going on here?’” laughed the Parents Circle founder Yitzhak Frankenthal, whose son Arik was murdered by terrorists near Ramallah in 1994.
“Robert told me that Leonard would like to donate money from his show to people who have paid the price and still continue to do what they can to achieve reconciliation. They invited me to meet them in New York, and I discovered two wonderful people – Leonard and Robert, they complete each other. It was really special and unusual to find someone like Leonard who cares about what’s going on here in the Middle East and tries to do something to help.”
While Cohen will undoubtedly be razzed by some for trying to put his two cents into our region of the world, and for the fact that the fund is going to be administered by Amnesty International, not perceived as Israel’s greatests friends, the fact that he’s doing something concrete that seems to be only helping Israelis and Palestinians in a non-political manner, if that’s possible, can only be commendable. He’s my man.
And here’s a tip for Cohen fans out there – an announcement is going to be made this week about the launching of ticket sales for the show. Get your wallet ready.
Anatomy of a flu panic
Israel had its first death from swine flu yesterday. It hit the front pages of the online newspapers yesterday in a fairly modest way, and today has already been pushed off the all-important page by stories about foiled terror plots, the chances of a summer war with Lebanon, talks with the Palestinians and the ever-looming threat of Iran.
Compare it to Britain. For the last few weeks the country has been in the throes of swine flu panic, with scare stories predicting 65,000 deaths by Christmas, figures showing 100,000 new cases in one week alone, threats of mass school closures across the country, warnings of a break down in vital services, and pictures of commuters donning face masks on the underground.
Women were advised not to get pregnant during the crisis – then told it was ok, but now the government is threatening to shut down programming on the BBC and replace it with educational programs if schools have to close.
With a trip to various epidemic hot spots in the UK planned for August, and not much sign of swine flu here, I took the opportunity of asking my children’s doctor what she thought. (I had plenty of chances, my children have been sick with assorted bugs every week for the last three).
On the first visit she told me that she’d just seen two patients that she was sure had swine flu from the village next to mine. On the last she told me she thought half the village already had it, and the same was true in Petah Tikva, where she also has a clinic.
So what’s the difference? “We don’t check to see if it’s swine flu unless the person is hospitalized,” she told me. “We won’t ever know the real figures, but maybe it’s better that way, because no-one’s in a panic.”
Whatever the reason, swine flu remains low on the list of news items this summer in Israel. It may not be passing us by, but it definitely isn’t generating many headlines.
Perhaps the panic is still to come as more deaths follow. Perhaps it’s just too hot to think about right now. Perhaps we’re all too busy entertaining the kids during the long holidays. Perhaps Israelis don’t worry about their health so much, or perhaps – most likely of all – we’ve just got other more pressing things to worry about. There’s nothing like an existential threat to put things in perspective.
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