Stencil time
I’ve been collecting these for several weeks, some stencil graffiti selections from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, although it is hard for me to view them as graffiti. They’re just cool, and a creative way to state the artist’s opinion, on whatever it may be:
This one says: Iran is here
The middle text can read: Release the occupied or pickled cucumbers
And, of course, it's always about legalizing pot...
Hot fun in the summertime
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel
When you live in Israel, you get used to being in crowds – especially in August. Everyone’s on vacation, and doing basically the same things.
I grew up in New England and it took me a long time to adapt to the elbow to elbow nature of the great Israeli outdoor and leisure scene. My wife, however, used to the elbow-to-knee nature of the Eastern seaboard fit in just fine.
It’s ironic, then, that 25 years later, I’m the one who can cope better with massive throngs of people. The best thing to do in August is to stay inside in the air conditioning, so it was a curious decision indeed to take our 8-year-old son yesterday to the country’s largest water amusement park, Yamit 2000, in Holon.
Packed to the gills, with trouble finding both a parking place outside and a sitting place inside, Yamit 2000 was the definition of a zoo. They have a huge outdoor pool, but it was covered with people, with little snippets of blue background seeping out. The average lines to the dozen or so stupendous slides there were about 45 minutes, and full of shouting, rambunctious youth.
Either you simmer inside at their overselling admission to the joint, or you surrender to the moment and go with the flow. I chose the latter. As noisy and crowded as the outdoor pool was, the indoor setup was even wilder. There, a wave machine and sprayers simulated a storm at sea, and the decibel level inside approached that of a Megadeth concert. Still, Matan and I plunged into the mass of people and got caught up in the storm, screaming along with them. It was exhilarating.
My wife couldn’t stand the noise and left for the refuge of our outside umbrella and chairs for the duration. “I can’t stand all the crowds and noise,” she said.
“What crowds and noise?” I answered, as we got back in line for another run on the banana slide…
Nostalgia Monday
Israelis drive nearly as many gas guzzlers as the rest of the world (although I am seeing more Prius’ on the road these days), but they also have an abiding love for certain antique cars, particularly the smaller, European compacts that were so prevalent in these parts years ago. The Volkswagen Beetle is completely common on the Israeli street, and I’m not talking about the new version, but the trunk-in-front, engine-in-back model of the 1970s. The original bug, as well as its sister, the Volkswagen van, can often be seen on the Israeli street, offering the opportunity for an impromptu game of Punch buggy.
There’s also a slew of ancient Fiats, Volvo stationwagons and Sabra Sussita’s, the short-lived Israel-manufactured automobile. I often think that while they’re classified as collector’s items, they’re really just that proof of that yekke tendency to care for something very well, and not admit to the comforts of driving a newer version. Here’s a selection of some cars from my neighborhood:
Remembering Elvis in Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
Elvis Presley impersonators (from L to R) Herzl Shimoni, Eran Levron and Dvir Viedenbaum at the Elvis Inn (Reuters)
The 50s-style diner boasts Middle Eastern cuisine and tons of Elvis memorabilia, including a garish statue outside, and dozens of framed posters, pens, and postcards inside.
And on the anniversary of Elvis’s death, the Israel Elvis impersonators come out in full force. August 16th marked the 32nd anniversary of the King’s passing, and the usual suspects gathered at the Elvis Inn to mark the event with good cheer and bad impersonations.
‘I (have been) imitating Elvis Presley (for) about 29 years and I love him. Today we’re singing for Elvis, for his memory. We’re going to celebrate his death, his life, his legacy,’ Eran Lev-Ron, an Israeli Elvis impersonator told Sky News.
American Jewish Life magazine had the following description that sums up the weirdness of visiting the Elvis Inn.
Set a bit off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, near the Kibbutz Neveh Ilan Guest House, is the shrine of shlock, the ultra in kitsch: the Elvis Inn gas station, restaurant, bar and grill and tourist trap, run by owners and brothers Amnon and Uri, along with Uri’s son, Amir, and several staffers.
While it’s certainly not Graceland, the neo-50s and 60s décor does get you in the mood, with a 16-foot-high golden statue of Elvis in the parking lot alongside the entrance, and a second even larger one nearby, with one arm raised, seemingly waving towards Jerusalem.
There are more than 1,000 pictures, posters, and postcards covering nearly every flat surface, sent by fans and like-minded Elvis lovers worldwide. There are also four life-sized Elvis statues scattered around the premises in various poses, sitting at a table, strumming a guitar, and, in general watching over the place.
Inside, artist Uri Ard painted and constructed the show stopping Sistine Chapel-esque ceiling a decade ago, featuring illustrated highlights of Elvis’ life and times dramatically outlined in glowing orange neon.
If you have a chance, even if it’s not on the anniversary of Elvis’s death, don’t miss a visit to the Elvis Inn.
Nostalgia Sunday – Young Judaea Year Course 1978-9
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday
Here’s where I’m not. I am not in New York City this weekend, at the big Young Judaea Year Course 1978-9 reunion. As much as I reconciled myself to that fact months ago, I still feel a pang of regret at not meeting up with people from that first, most formative and important year of my post-high school life.
Here’s the end-of-year photo of Year Course Section 3. What you see is a group of hormone-addled teens relieved to have made it to the end without killing one another, and bewildered by the thought of starting college after a year of “real life in Israel”.
Whereas the other Year Course groups, Sections 1 and 2, spent most of the year studying in Jerusalem and toga-partying on kibbutz, Section 3 had a unique module that placed us for four months as para-social workers in development towns, in our case, Dimona and Mizpe Ramon. And so, while living in these “Turn Left at the End Of the World” places gave us a more than slightly skewed notion of “real life in Israel” — and our contributions to the field of social work were minimal– we did have our own apartments! Which is pretty heady stuff when you are 18 years old and just out of the house. No wonder I felt compelled to document the Dimona digs. Here’s our kitchen, complete with the ubiquitous Armenian pottery mugs from the Old City…
And our fab apartment block!
Prior to development town, we lived on Kibbutz Neot Mordechai, on moshavim (agricultural towns) and in Jerusalem. Like all other groups, we toured the Golan and Galil. Here’s the Good Fence between Israel and Lebanon — probably a lot smaller than you imagined.
And the Negev, Arava and Sinai, where we made like Bedouin trackers, but with little sense of direction and even less sense of style.
Like all other groups of young people in Israel at that time, Israeli and non, we happily wrecked our tailbones for life on that mode of transportation known as a “Tiyulit”, a sort of tin box on wheels, the interior lined with long hard wooden benches.
What can I say? We were a geeky bunch. Plus, we didn’t get haircuts for months at a time. (Yes, that is me in that image below, on the far right, under that mop).
One place our section didn’t get to spend much time, regrettably, was the youth movement’s Kibbutz Ketura. The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive has an amazing movie from 1976 , called Arava, that documents the founding of the kibbutz — an inspiring miracle in the sand that is still making the desert bloom to this very day with algae farming, exotic plants and solar power.
Kids, there were no cell phones (I probably spoke to my family three times that year, mostly because I couldn’t be bothered to wait in line for the public phone), we barely had any cash (certainly no credit cards), parental visits were not encouraged and you only flew home to the States if you were kicked off the program. Ah, those were the days…
A good number of the members of Young Judaea Year Course 1978-9, from all sections, live in Israel and while few of us could be at the real-life reunion, Facebook has provided a platform for a virtual one. Feel free to take a peek.
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