Volunteering for Rhianna

March 14, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture, Social Justice 

Even a seemingly ‘everybody wins’ scenario can hit some snags when thrust into the realities of Israeli life. Take, for example, the upcoming concert at Jaffa’s Bloomfield Stadium by R&B sensation Rhianna.

The concert’s promoter and its sponsor, cell phone provider Orange, have hooked up with the international organization Rockcorps, which has successfully galvanized thousands of young music fans into performing community volunteer projects, by offering tickets to shows by artists like Lady Ga Ga, Nelly and Akon in the US and England to youth who sign up for and carry out four hours of volunteer work.

Tickets to Rhianna’s show cannot be obtained through normal means – you can’t buy them – you have to be between 16-25 years old and you have to sign up on a special Orange Rockcorps Web site for one of the hundred or so volunteer projects they list and then get authorization that you carried out your task. The projects listed on the Orange Web site include working in Keren Kayemet forests clearing brush or painting pathway marks, distributing food at soup kitchens and sorting donated clothes.

It sounds like a splendid idea that will benefit everyone involved, until you realize that there’s a hefty percentage of Israelis in that age group who are currently serving in the IDF. According to some soldiers, and their moms, the policy is unfairly discriminating against them, as their free time is severely curtailed by their military assignments.

“Most of the people in this country between the ages of 18-25 are soldiers and a great portion are soldiers living on bases. This is completely unfair to them,” said Sharon Bar-Lev, a Kfar Saba resident whose daughter, a diehard Rhianna fan, is currently serving in the IDF.

“I would like to know how soldiers, who come home once every two weeks, and leave their base around noon on a Friday, can possibly do four hours of community service and make it home before Shabbat, using public transportation to arrive at the volunteer site and from there back home.”

Bar-Lev added that she was more than willing to buy a ticket for her daughter to see Rhianna, but a call to the ticket office confirmed that no tickets were being sold to the show.

Bar- Lev hopes her grassroots campaign will get the policy changed. Just last week, frustrated Metallica fan Tal Mussman was able to force promoters of the the American hard rock band to significantly lower prices for the group’s Ramat Gan show by launching a page on Facebook calling on fans to boycott the show.

While applauding the efforts of Rockcorps and Orange, Bar-Lev said that her daughter and other Rhianna fans serving in the army shouldn’t be penalized for doing their jobs.

“Isn’t my daughter giving two years of her life to serve in the IDF enough of a volunteer project?”

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The roof is green

March 13, 2010 by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Business, design, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life 

The 'second' tier roofs at Ketura's guest housing, offering shade from the sun

We stayed home this weekend, enjoying some peace and quiet at the ‘ol homestead. But last weekend we headed down for our annual Shabbat at Kibbutz Ketura with my husband Daniel’s group of high school students — he runs a program called TRY, Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim, and they always spend a week at Ketura.

But back to my visit to Ketura, which I’m always amazed by each time we visit. Yes, yes, I do have that sentimental love of kibbutzim thing, which I’ve written about before. And even though I tend not to tour the kibbutz, I always find something new on their grounds that sparks my interest. This visit, it was a set of six new kibbutz houses, settled in by six veteran families. The houses are attached, with three bedrooms each, I believe and with a larger than average kibbutz kitchen, which was the draw for most of the families.

What’s striking about them from the outside are their high roofs, which, it turns out, have an environmental purpose to them. They’re essentially open to the elements, covered with simple wire mesh and house the cooling units for each house. They’re not technically green roofs, which are generally roofs covered with vegetation. According to Wikipedia, however, a green roof also indicates a roof using some sort of ‘green’ technology, and this, I imagine, would qualify.

And, according to our friends who live in one of these new houses, it is considerably cooler than their old, flat-surfaced house down the lane. That’s no small matter when you live in a region where 40 degrees Celsius is the norm.

Of course, green roofs are nothing new for Ketura, which owns 40% of Arava Power, one of Israel’s most promising solar energy companies. The kibbutz, just north of Eilat, is also part of the so-called Green Kibbutz movement and has pioneered many new ecologically sounder practices, as well as adopting more common environmentally friendly habits.

Still. I was impressed.

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Life as a board game

March 12, 2010 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: History and Culture, Life 

My life has become like a board game. Specifically, one that I created 38 years ago.

When I was in sixth grade in 1972, my friend David Saunders and I decided to create a Monopoly-like game with a board, dice, play money, and various cards which players would pick from a pile and then act on.

We called it the “Consumer Game” and it reflected our 11-year-old belief in what it was like to be an adult. The way you played was like this: each card you drew entitled you to buy some sort of appliance for the home. There were cards for washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, stereos and the like.

Once you had acquired the appliances, they started breaking down. The aim of the game was to accumulate enough money to fix them.

I remember conducting meticulous research for the game by going to our local Sears department store and taking notes on prices. The most memorable was the car which any self-respecting, slightly edgy suburban family needed to own: a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle for only $1,999.

It’s now 2010 and within a period of just a few weeks, it seems our entire world of conspicuous consumption is falling apart. The dishwasher is backed up with sewage water, the microwave lit up like a menorah before sparking to an inglorious state of disrepair, and the fancy steel nightlight next to my bed suddenly refused to turn off (I had to shut off the electricity for the entire house before the bulb cooled off enough for me to remove it).

Then my wife Jody’s cell phone wouldn’t wake up one morning, our water filter started leaking, and the Junkers system we use on cloudy days to produce instant heat for the shower is, according to the repair person, filled with rocks that cause the temperature to insistently rise and fall, making for a cleansing routine akin to navigating a car through stop and start traffic, hand always ready at the clutch.

And don’t even get me started about the roof – I wrote about that in a previous post.

My friend David and I never finished the Consumer Game. We couldn’t figure out how to end it. I mean, it’s not like you can repair all your appliances in one go and that’s it for the rest of your life.

I’m just hoping that our 15-year-old Toyota Corolla isn’t the next to go. With taxes on vehicles of nearly 100% in Israel, I think it will cost a tad more to replace than that state of the art Beetle back in 1972.

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Foto Friday – Biking to the Extreme

March 12, 2010 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Sports 

Israel is a natural location for extreme sports. Some would even venture that just living in Israel is an extreme sport, given our highway conditions and of course that pesky security situation.

Even the Israel Postal Company has gotten into the act, with a series of stamps celebrating windsurfing, and — of course — the ever-popular all-terrain biking.

Yes, there are bikers all over Israel’s terrain, particularly on the weekends. when they come out in droves. It makes sense. The sport combines the positive effects of outdoor exercise with the even more popular crazy Israeli driver syndrome. There are extreme bikers in the Jerusalem Hills…

In Tel Aviv…

Very extreme biking in Haifa…

The popularity of ultra-sports is constantly growing (for proof, check out ISRAEL21c’s video about Parkour in Tel Aviv) and there are events scheduled for every weekend in the coming months. Shvoong is central repository for all sports-related information but unfortunately, the site is only in Hebrew, as is ProSport, which runs some of the country’s most fun and creative events. For English, try the Israel Cycling Federation, Cyclenix – MTB Israel, Ayalot, the Israeli Club for Runners and Triathletes or Sarma, the Israel Extreme Sports and Rescue Association.

And consider signing up for a charity hike or bike trip: Tsad Kadima’s Hike for Hope, Hazon’s Jerusalem To Eilat Ride 2010; ALYN Hospital’s 11th International Charity Bike Ride. All worthy causes and good fun.

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Using the Mossad to sell food

March 11, 2010 by · 5 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, tv 

Actors portraying 'Mossad agents' in the ad for an Israeli supermarket chain.

The charade that Israel wasn’t involved with the Dubai murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in January continues, but that’s not stopping one advertising creative team from exploiting the scenario involving the Mossad to develop a TV commercial based on the killing.

Supermarket chain ‘Machsanei Kimat Hinam’ (The Almost Free Warehouse – one of the incredibly catchy names our retail geniuses here have come up with) has built a campaign for Pessah holiday shopping based on the infamous surveillance camera footage showing suspected assassins stalking Mabhouh.

An AP report on the ad says that the actors in the ad are carrying tennis rackets, and wearing hats, glasses and wigs — the same disguises worn by the alleged killers — as they make their way through store aisles.

The commercial’s tagline? “We offer killer prices.”

Local advertising executive Sefi Shaked admitted that the campaign was inspired by footage released by the Dubai police showing the suspects in their hotel. “It’s a funny take of this event,” Shaked said. “We were fascinated by the technique of using surveillance cameras instead of (expensive) high production commercial cameras, and the latest events in Dubai gave us a great opportunity.”

And there are wink and nods to Israeli involvement in the assassination with an actress wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat mimicking Israel’s policy of neither confirming or denying involvement, saying she “couldn’t admit to anything.”

The ad – like the Jerusalem building fiasco taking place now during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit here – points to the well-established trait of Israelis being totally oblivious sometimes to international sensitivities and norms regarding certain behavior and actions. When you first make aliya, it can be kind of charming, but sometime along the line, it becomes another one of those annoying things that make you wonder if we care at all how we’re perceived by the outside world.

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