The Israeli mosaic

October 22, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, General, Israeliness, Life 

It’s interesting and enlightening to read some of the feedbacks to the posts here on Israelity.

Unlike the credo clearly stated on our blog – Israel is “people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary place” – some pro-Israel readers seem to think that this is supposed to entail only an unblemished, photo-shopped look at life here.

That means that topics like the proliferation of couple-swapping sites (proves how decadently Western we’ve become) or a military commando training center for toursists that enables them to become Rambo for an afternoon (reinforces the stereotype of Israel as a militaristic society) should be off limits.

However, both of those random topics are just two tiny – but valid – tiles of the maddening and irresistable mosaic that is Israel. If we ignored mention of them, or the thousands of other endearingly weird, incomprehensible, controversial, and downright silly sides of Israel, we’d be doing our readers a disservice and also breaching our definition of trying to expose the Israel that the world often doesn’t see.

Instead of whitewashing the truth and only accenutating the positive, the hope is that this ‘warts and all’ approach will, in the end, show that in its multi-dimensional existence, Israel indeed cannot be pigeonholed or co-opted to justify a particular point of view.

Shabbat Shalom.

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Datelines

October 21, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

David’s post and all the newspaper, web and radio pieces about Rabin got me thinking about my own relationship to dates, particularly the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars, which are the two calendars we use regularly around here.

I myself was at a friend’s 30th birthday dinner the night that Rabin was shot. I remember feeling very adult at that gathering, which was at a Jerusalem restaurant, and being somewhat consumed with what was happening around me. When we heard the news, we quickly paid the bill and went our separate ways. Having moved to Israel only a few months earlier, I was still living with my parents and we gathered around the television set, waiting for news.

And so, for me, Rabin’s death is always wrapped up in my first months here, when I was figuring things out and deciding whether I wanted to stay here. The date that I think of is November 4, not the 12th of Heshvan, and the current remembrances and ceremonies seem almost early to me. The length of time, however, 15 years, corresponds with how many years I’m living here. Long, and yet not so much time.

But as I settled into life here, I not only got used to the army clock — i.e., it’s 13:00 right now — but have certain dates in my own life that I think of according to the Hebrew calendar, and not the Gregorian one. While I still don’t really know my Hebrew birthday date, and yes, there are those who only celebrate their birthday according to the Hebrew calendar, the dates that I instinctively think of in Hebrew are my wedding anniversary and the birthday of my twins.

Why? Probably because my anniversary is on Lag B’Omer, which is a big celebration day around here, and we specifically chose that day for our marriage, liking that we’d be one of many celebrations that day, including bonfires and cookouts. So sometimes we celebrate on Lag B’Omer, and sometimes on the ‘loazi’ date of (meaning, roughly, Gregorian), May 27, which basically just gives us more than one option for marking the day.

As for my boys, they were born on Erev Sukkot, the eve of the holiday, about six weeks before their due date. They were not what I was planning to do on that particular holiday, but now that they’re very much here, I like remembering that day during Sukkot, as well as weeks later, on October 13.

Then again, there’s something to be said for commemorating a moment, happy or sad, on two different dates. The perspective changes, but the memory remains the same.

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15 years later

October 20, 2010 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Crime, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics 

President Shimon Peres lighting 'Ner Yitzhak' on Tuesday night. (Mark Neyman/GPO)

Nothing seems to be more polarizing in this country than the memorial day for prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, which is taking place now on its Hebrew date (Rabin was murdered on November, 4 1995.)

As Gil Hoffman point out in The Jerusalem Post , Rabin’s legacy has become whatever the politician who is speaking explains it as – an advocate for peace and a Palestinian state, or a cautious statesman who would not have sold Israel short and retreated to 1967 borders.

As each year goes by, there’s less pomp and circumstance surrounding the memorial day, with fewer events taking place and not as many people showing up for them.

But according to Dani Inbar, a film maker whose documentary “Where Were You When Rabin Was Killed” aired last night on Channel 2, there’s still plenty of raw emotion surrounding the assassination.

When he took on the project, Inbar told me that the Reshet broadcasting company published a public announcement asking people for interesting stories about what they went through the night of the assassination and how it affected their lives.

“I was a little skeptical because, 15 years later, I thought, ‘Will people remember? Will they care? Will they cooperate?’” said Inbar in a phone call. “It was amazing – we got thousands of people calling us, leaving messages, crying on the phone. And that turned out to be the heart and bones of the movie.”

The pessimistic message that emerges from the film is that, according to Inbar, the mood has gotten worse during the ensuing 15 years since Rabin’s murder.

“I said I didn’t want to use cliches [in the film], but the problem is that the biggest cliché is also the saddest truth of what is going on today – 15 years later, the situation is worse. That’s what people talk about in the second half of the film – the loss of hope, the feeling of no light is at the end of the tunnel.

“I think the clear and sad outcome which many people in the movie convey is that [Rabin assassin] Yigal Amir won. Simple as that. And you can see it in black and white. The peace process was killed, and Yigal Amir is sitting in jail now smiling. That’s the saddest thing of all.”

Inbar may be looking through a narrow lens in his assessment, but for the rest of us, it’s worthwhile to reflect on his conclusions as we mark 15 years since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

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Miners for Xmas

October 18, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: education, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, News, Religion, Travel 

With every other country and organization doing their bit to welcome the Chilean miners back to the world, including iPods from Apple, sunglasses from Oakley, and invites from soccer teams, Israel’s Tourism Ministry wanted to contribute their piece as well. And so, they’ve invited the miners and their wives to visit the Holy Land on a spiritual journey this Christmas, in order to give special prayers of thanks for their rescue. Their trip, natch, will include sightseeing of various sites that are holy to Christianity.

In his invitation, Minister Misezhnikov wrote: “Your bravery and strength of spirit, your great faith that helped you survive so long in the bowels of the earth, was an inspiration to us all. It would be a great honor for us to welcome you as our guests in the Holy Land. This December, Christians around the world – and here in the Land of Jesus – will celebrate Christmas. During that time, we welcome tens of thousands of pilgrims and we would be pleased to offer you this uplifting and extraordinary experience, as our guests.”

Working with the hotels, airlines and holy sites, the ministry invite includes flights, rooms and full board for five to seven days. Not bad for the peak season of Christmas. Having just finished updating the hotels. restaurants, cafes and nightlife section for the Fodor’s guidebook 2011, I’m wondering where the ministry is planning on hosting the miners. The American Colony in East Jerusalem is lovely, but pricey at $430 for a standard double room during high season. The Ambassador or Addar hotels are more affordable at $200 and $180 per room, while the much simpler Lutheran Guesthouse is much cheaper at $120 a night.

But no matter. Whatever the choice, I’m sure it will be welcoming and comfortable, as Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov stated that the ministry wants to turn Christian tourists into tourism ambassadors for Israel back home. After all, pilgrimage, according to ministry figures, represents one third of incoming tourist to Israel. 2008 was still the record year, with Christian pilgrims accounting for 62% of the three million tourists, and in 2009, some 58% were pilgrims.

Why shouldn’t we include the 33 miners in the figures for 2010?

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Israeli property market is hot…maybe too much so

October 18, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News 

Going up...and up...and up

When my wife Jody and I were first thinking about buying an apartment a decade back, we were livid that Israeli banks demanded at least 40% down for a mortgage, and usually much more. Where was the easy financing of the old country, where all you needed was 5-10% and that nice little tract home in the suburbs was all yours?

Of course, in hindsight, we now realize that it’s been Israel’s lack of sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps and money doled out without even checking if the recipient had a job that have been a big part of why the country has been sailing so smoothly through the global economic crisis.

But now our “success” is coming back to bite us: in a world where foreclosures are rampant, Israeli housing prices in the second quarter of 2010 rose sixth fastest in a ranking of 36 countries, according to a study released last week by the trade magazine Global Property Guide. Indeed, property values in Israel have jumped some 30% since 2008.

That’s great, right? A sign of a robust economy? Not necessarily.

As Ynet reported yesterday, both young and even some veteran Israelis are being priced out of the neighborhoods they desire. A three-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv can cost $560,000. In relatively “poorer” Jerusalem, prices rose 19% in the last year to $403,000 for an average apartment in the holy city. We are regularly hearing of apartments – not mansions or free-standing villas, just decent apartments in a nice neighborhood – going for well over $1 million.

But why have prices skyrocketed just as the rest of the world tanked? One possible reason: Israel’s economy has taken an entirely different track than pretty much anywhere else in the last two decades. What other Western country has had the privilege to welcome over a million new immigrants – 15% of its total population – since the early 1990s?

The influx of Jews from the Former Soviet Union created an intense demand for real estate. But why are prices spiking now, 20 years after the initial rush? Here’s a speculation: maybe it’s the kids of those immigrants who are now graduating from university with plum jobs in Israel’s booming hi-tech industry who are now ready for their own starter home?

Whatever the reasons, beleaguered, bullied little Israel, under threat from multiple fronts, has one of the hottest property markets in the world. Hey, things could be a whole lot worse.

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