A (c)hair raising experience

March 17, 2010 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion, Social Justice 

Praying in the Jewish tradition can be hazardous to your health – at least if you’re a woman at the Kotel.

On every Rosh Hodesh – the Women of the Wall - a coalition of Conservative, Orthodox and Reform women – gather on the women’s side of the Wall for the morning Shaharit service. And on every Rosh Hodesh, there violent attempts by seemingly religious men to stop them.

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On Tuesday, chair throwing was the violent act of choice. Rena Magen, one of the participants in the service described it like this:

I thought you would like to see this video of our “c-hair raising” experience at the Kotel this past Tuesday when I went to daven with the Women at the Wall.. it was not even 7:00 am yet (the starting time of the minyan) and we were simply standing around waiting, not even 10 of us.

All of a sudden, chairs started flying at us from the men’s side of the mechitzah, with great force. About 10 total, one after the other, very quickly. It was so outrageous that we hardly had time to be afraid. I am amazed that whoever shot this clip had the presence of mind to do so.

The police came quite quickly after it was all over and from that moment on there were MANY police guarding us on either side of the mechitzah. We had a nice service after that, complete with the requisite angry incessant shouting from the men and the nasty comments and curses from the women.

The group’s next minyan is Thursday, April 15, Rosh Chodesh Iyar. Let’s make it a big one…

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Light, Shadow and Color

March 17, 2010 by · 12 Comments
Filed under: Art, General, Life 

Dan Diamant seems like a straight-laced, soft-spoken systems engineer. He is, in fact, a systems engineer. But he also has a completely different side of him that comes out in his fabulous photographs, which have slowly but surely been gaining an audience in a series of local exhibitions.

For this Budapest-born photographer, living in Israel for the last 20 years, photography is a form of self-expression, and an art form that he has been working on since he was 17, combining the worlds of science and art.

Here’s what he writes about his craft in his website:

In 2007, an estimated 80 billion digital pictures were created in the United States alone. Sometimes I wonder if there is a reason in creating any more photographs. But photography, for me, is like life itself, it happens without a reason. I look around me and I just wonder. I see the extraordinary in the ordinary, the special in the common. Photography makes me stop in my everyday rush and take a deep breath. It is a wonderful world, here and now. My photographs are still and silent. They stop the time flowing. They let you enter into another frame of mind. To understand that each of us is extraordinary and special.

Dan’s subjects are nature, landscapes, gardens and everyday scenes. Some of his photographs are produced with the help of a special method resembling the original meaning of photography “drawing by the light.” He uses long exposition time and camera movements to create photographs that appear to be paintings but still represent reality. And I liked what he said here: “My photographs are ready a long time before they are taken, they were created in my imagination. I should only find them [sic] somewhere and to operate my camera at the decisive moment.”

Dan’s current photograph collection, “Light, Shadow and Color” is being exhibited at the Weizmann Center in Tel Aviv, 14 Weizmann Street, March 10-June 10, 2010.




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A little Yolki Palki

March 16, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Immigrant Moments, Movies 

Last night I attended the final evening in Beit Avi Chai’s fine film series “Fact and Fiction.” Each movie, curated by film historian Amy Kronish, presented a different slice of Israeli life from Ethiopia to Russian aliyah. The latter was the subject for last night’s event.

When “Yolki Palki” was first aired on the YES television network a few years back, it garnered controversy for documenting the less than rosy reception some of the million plus immigrants from the Former Soviet Union received on their arrival in Israel.

Indeed, after the film, Dr. Ze’ev Khanin, chief scientist with the Ministry of Absorption and a lecturer at Bar Ilan University, joined Kronish on stage and was at pains to stress that not every Russian oleh suffered the same fate as those depicted on screen.

That said, the interviewees in the film were by and large content with their lives here, despite many falling into the usual stereotype of a former engineer now working in the cow shed at a kibbutz, or a violin virtuoso spending days behind the meat counter in a supermarket.

Has the absorption process changed over the years, I wondered? In the past, most immigrants – wherever they were from – had to take steps down in their careers.

Is that still the case? With hi-tech (and the economy in general) booming in Israel, it’s quite possible for a talented aliyah-bound youngster to land with a high-paying prestigious job already in his or her pocket even before leaving the old country.

Economic success, of course, was not the driver for leaving Russia, those in the film pointed out. Wanting to live in a Jewish country coupled with discrimination and threats back home were much more potent.

At one point in the film, a Sabra informs a Russian immigrant that his children will do fine in Israel, but for him, “your life is over” (the Israeli was presumably referring to his career). The Russian replied “but I’m only 30!” He eventually found a well paying job.

And the violinist working as a butcher – he’s shown later in the film making a comeback as the leader of a Balkan-Gypsy-world music band called Yolki Palki, upon which the film took its name.

The film was ultimately an uplifting, if candid, portrayal of the experiences of one of the largest immigration waves to our small country. Highly recommended if it plays again on TV or appears at a Jewish Film Festival near you.

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On the road again

March 16, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel 

Israel may be a relatively tiny country, but we’re doing some heavy-duty travelling in the next few days.

Tonight, it’s a family wedding in Ariel, in the West Bank near Petah Tikvah, only a comparatively short hour plus drive from Jerusalem. Then tomorrow, we’re making a trek down to Sde Boker in the Negev for the swearing in ceremony of my daughter’s IDF unit upon completion of their first phase of basic training.

Many combat units have their ceremony at the Kotel in Jerusalem’s Old City, but maybe because this is a mixed unit of men and women, the rabbinical authorties decided that they didn’t want the two sexes near each other at the religious site. So, we’re looking at a two-three hour trip each way for the hour-long ceremony. Of course, we’d drive all day for this moment, but a quick jaunt to the Kotel would have been nice.

And then, Sunday morning, we take off for the 4-hour drive to Eilat, where we’ll park the car, walk to the border crossing control center and enter Egypt for a few days excursion in Sinai, inaugurated by a sure-to-be wild taxi ride down to Nuweiba.

But I hope that will be the only thrills we’ll experience on the roads. I’m going to drive alertly, responsibly and defensively whenever I’m onthe open Israeli highway – or stuck in traffic on the blocked Israeli highway. Let’s hope that my countrymen do the same.

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Nostalgia Sunday – The Womens Corps

March 14, 2010 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, War 

A new exhibit has gone up at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv: Women in the Service of the British Army. The exhibit tells the story of the women in the pre-State Israel Yishuv who served in the British Army during World War II.

Curator Batya Donner writes, “The volunteers, who were called to enlist into the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, and the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force), may have marked a turning point in historical decision-making.

“The national question whether to enlist into the British Army, like the men who served in the Jewish Brigade, revived deliberations on helping the British, who initiated the White Paper in the war against the common German enemy, or enlisting into the nascent Israeli organizations. The central issue of stormy discussions focused on the enlistment of women into the British Forces, was gender-oriented – would it be right to allow the Yishuv’s women to serve in uniform side by side with British soldiers?

“The act of enlisting women into the British Forces was unprecedented in the Jewish or Eretz Israel context, and in hindsight perhaps heralded the enlistment of the women of the Yishuv in World War II and the establishment of CHEN – the Women’s Corps – in the IDF, whose first commanding officers were a group of women trained in the ATS.”

The exhibit shows posters encouraging women to join the British army, insignia, badges of merit and other medals given to the women, service books and discharge books, as well as video interviews with some of the surviving volunteers.

There are also photographs depicting the variety of their roles in the British army: they worked mainly in hospitals, served as clerks, cooks and nursing auxiliaries, and worked in the quartermaster’s store, etc. Some were also jeep drivers, such as Sonia Peres, the president’s wife, and Sarah Stern, legendary proprietor of Cafe Tamar.

An excellent essay about the ATS by former MK and diplomat (and my mother’s boss at the Israel Consulate in the early 1950s) Esther Herlitz, who herself served in the corps, is available online at the Jewish Women’s archive.

Herlitz also mentions the book by Zivia Cohen, entitled We Volunteered for the British Army: Jewish Women from Palestine in World War II, which was published (in Hebrew) in 2005.

The ATS has a permanent collection on display at Beit Gdudim Museum, Moshav Avihayil near Netanya. Beit Gdudim is devoted to the history of the Jewish volunteer brigades in both World Wars, and the women’s corps finally received its due credit a few years ago.

Some more great posters from the era are on view at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

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