Cooperative ceramics
Work by one fave ceramist, Marcelle Klein
For the uninitiated, the artist cooperative, often materialized in Israel as a ceramicists’ cooperative, is a group of artists who join together to rent a storefront and sell their creations. From what I’ve gleaned from my internet research — namely, not a whole lot — there are such cooperatives all over the world, although Israel seems to possess a large number of them. I like to think that’s because of our communal way of thinking, in which the thought is that it’s always better to work together than apart.
In any case, I stumbled upon yet another ceramists’ cooperative in Machane Yehuda the other week, Pri HaAdama (Fruit of the Earth), which features the work of 14, yes, 14, different ceramicists. The collection is wonderful, with many pieces to choose from and at surprisingly low prices.
While I’m at it, I’ll mention two other favorite ceramic cooperatives, Shmone B’Yachad, or Eight Altogether, at 8 Yoel Solomon Street in Jerusalem’s Nachalat Shiva neighborhood, downtown. The other fave is Shlush Shloshim in Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv, on 30 Shlush Street (You can find Marcelle Klein’s work there).
Missing in Israel – Jack in the Box
Residents of Haifa have a new unlikely neighbor who is hardly anonymous – Jeremy Tyler, is an 18-year-old basketball-playing phenomenon from San Diego who signed with Maccabi Haifa this past summer and has been acclimating himself to his new enivrons.
The 6′-11″ 260-pound Tyler decided to skip his senior year in high school in order to gain experience in professional basketball playing in the European League with Mac. Haifa as a prelude to reaching the NBA in the 2011 draft.
Last year, he averaged 28.7 points during his junior year at San Diego High to lead the club to the CIF-San Diego Section Division I quarterfinals.
After a few weeks here, Tyler is convinced he made the right move, telling The Jerusalem Post’s Aryeh Dean Cohen that playing basketball in Israel will be “a good story to tell my kids about, and their kids’ kids.”
But he also admitted that he’s still getting used to some of the basic elements of life in Israel. As far as the food goes, he likes “absolutely nothing” that’s prepared locally, and has a constant craving for his his favorite meals at Jack in the Box.
He also misses his family and his Jewish girlfriend Erin, with whom he hopes to visit Jewish sites here when she arrives for a visit this year. So far, Tyler’s ‘I’m not in Kansas anymore’ moment came on Yom Kippur, which he called “that holiday where we had to stay in the house – Yom Kippur… I’ve never seen a city, a whole country like this shut down. It was like ‘Wow’ to me.”
That’s alright Jeremy, I’ve been here 25 years and am still in awe when that happens.
Welcome to Israel, and good luck with Maccabi Haifa.
Foto Friday – Robert Gorsoun sees Israel’s beauty
Robert Gorsoun is a photographer who takes pictures for the love of it. Wherever he travels, he snaps pictures and Israel is beautiful through his lens…
…the Banias in Israel’s north…
…a rainbow, captured in mid-storm over the Herzliya beach…
…a field of flowers by the roadside, stretching on forever…
…a water lily…
…or flowering cacti at the Utopia Orchid Park…
…and on through to the crater at Mizpe Ramon.
More photos by Gorsoun — including some spectacular panoramas that don’t fit on an Israelity page but should be seen — are posted on Panoramio.
Spontaneous Thriller
So, have you seen that video of Oprah opening her 24th season with a ‘spontaneous dance’/'flash mob dance’ along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile? If you haven’t, 
Story is that her staff — and 20,000 people — pulled off the surprise, for Oprah, of performing a choreographed piece to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.” And now this kind of spontaneous dance is becoming a worldwide trend, one which, natch, is making its way to Israel.
Several production companies and the City of Tel Aviv-Yafo are putting on their own spontaneous dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” scheduled for next Friday, October 30, at 12:30 in Dizengoff Square (the one with the Agam fountain at the middle).
If you want to participate, however, you gotta learn the dance, and by that I mean the dance steps to ‘Thriller,’ those danced by the moondancing maniac Michael Jackson. You have just one week: 
How Israel’s Military Secrets Translate To Clean Technology
Since its founding in 1917, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the JTA), has been a leading international journalistic source for communicating news and projects dealing with the world-wide Jewish community. Many JTA news articles have dealt with various developments in Israel and the Middle East, including those which are beneficial to the cause of peace.
A recent JTA article on clean technology, published on October 1 by Dina Kraft (also a New York Times reporter), takes a good look at a number of projects by Israeli clean tech industries and Israel’s military branches in the realm of renewable and alternative energy.
“Beating swords into green plowshares in Israel,” the article talks about solar energy energy companies such as Bright Source Energy Inc, which is involved in building solar energy plants in California’s Mojave Desert and other locations; and Rotem, which utilizes technologies developed in Israel’s aeronautical defense industry.
Rotem (read more about their work with the solar power company Aora here) is working on a number of commercial renewable energy projects involving solar and wind power, hydrogen fuel power, and biofuels.
Some of Rotem’s many projects involving the environment and renewable energy are a hydrogen storage research center, a center for geology and hydrology applied research, a center for environmental sciences, and a thermal solar energy applications technology center.
The Bright Source solar energy plants in California, and a wind turbine “farm” located near Kibbutz Ein Zivan on the Golan Heights (pictured above and below), are utilizing technology that formerly was used in developing and manufacturing rotor blades for military helicopters.
Israel’s Aircraft Industries (IAI) is now involved in developing technology to produce “cleaner and greener” commercial aircraft that will be able taxi on the runways of commercial airports without using their jet engines, according to Kraft’s article.
This will not only be more environmentally friendly, but will result in a big fuel savings as well.
In the automotive sector, an Israeli company, Better Place, is working on more efficient batteries for electric cars, and has now entered into joint ventures with automobile companies Renault and Nissan. The technology used in developing these batteries is derived from the aerospace industry.
Mr. Meni Maor, vice president for development at Rotem commented that these kinds of projects have resulted from a need to both preserve the environment as well as due to the increasing cost of oil.
“We definitely leverage a lot of know-how in a variety of disciplines — including materials, chemistry, thermal dynamics — accumulated from our experience with military and homeland security technology for developing renewable energy technologies,” said Meni Maor to the JTA.
Former IDF military officers, including retired General Yom-Tov Samina, are involved in many of these projects, putting knowledge learned during their military careers into raising funds for these development projects as well as being involved directly in the projects themselves. An example of their direct involvement is former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplansky, who is now holding the position of CEO of Better Place’s Israel operations.
The former military generals are very enthusiastic about their new careers and are happy to be making their contribution to preserving the environment. “Our training involving the importance of learning how to follow through on a mission has contributed to being successful in these new projects,” a former intelligence unit head was quoted as saying.
This article was written by Maurice Picow, who blogs at Green Prophet www.greenprophet.com. Follow Green Prophet on Twitter: @greenprophet. These pictures of Israeli wind turbines were taken by Karin on a recent trip to the Golan Heights.
::JTA clean technology article
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