Foto Friday – Weizmann Wonder Wander

April 22, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: education, Entertainment, Environment, Foto Friday, General, health, Holidays, Medical Breakthroughs, Picture of the Week, Travel 

Passover week in Israel is a time for family travels around the country and sometimes even the world, depending on your budget. The nature reserves have been full to bursting, movie-houses, amusement parks, music festivals and museums all working overtime as the population migrates northwards, southwards and anywhere but home.

There are also day trip destinations that are not so difficult to reach in a small country and, thanks to the Internet, are also accessible online. How about, for example, taking a turn around the Weizmann Institute’s Weizmann Wonder Wander popular science site that — along with articles, lectures, photos and videos — also features a campus tour?

In the real world, the Institute’s Barbara and Morris Levinson Visitors Center offers self-guided tours featuring four main visiting sites: the Weizmann House, Wix Auditorium, Solar Complex, and Clore Garden of Science, an interactive outdoor museum.

Online, you can tour the Institute’s architecture, sculptures and gardens as well as view video lectures on topics such as quantum computing, systems biology, brain research and more.

There’s also an extensive online photo gallery of scientific images, like these magnificent crystal structures as seen through the microscope…

More information about visiting the Weizmann Institute is available online.

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Will Dylan be blowin’ in the Ramat Gan wind?

April 22, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music 

One of the most anticipated concerts of the summer in Israel is Bob Dylan’s return to the country after 18 years for a show on June 20 at Ramat Gan Stadium. One of the most anticipated for sure, but possibly one of the most potentially disappointing.

The legendary songwriter and rock & roller offers nothing along the lines of crowd pleasers who have previously graced Tel Aviv’s stages, like Paul McCartney, Elton John and Leonard Cohen. They offered up pleasing career overviews of songs that sounded like the records, replete with repeated salutations to the crowd about how great it is to be in Israel, and in Cohen’s case, a priestly blessing in Hebrew.

Don’t expect any of that from Dylan – he doesn’t address the audience, he doesn’t play the hits, and if he does, he turns in renditions that most listeners wouldn’t recognize. He’s a musician, not an entertainer, and placing him in Ramat Gan Stadium and charging a bundle for tickets is setting him up for a big fall.

In a tongue in cheek look at the dilemma, my friend Alan Abbey wrote a wonderful essay for JTA called Tangled up in (Israeli) Jews, in which he whimsically but knowledgeably advised Dylan on what songs to play in order to win over the diverse but uniformly tough to win over crowd.

Here’s some of his suggestions:

Secular, leftist Israelis

“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” : This song’s anti-nuke message has even more prophetic impact now in the wake of Japan’s crisis. As a bonus, Dylan should bring up to the stage Israeli rocker Aviv Gefen, who has done a popular Hebrew version. Chances Dylan will do the song? Very good. It’s on the current set list in Asia.

Religious fans (open-minded)

“Highway 61 Revisited”: (“Oh God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son’ / Abe says, ‘Man, you must be puttin’ me on.’ ”) Chances? Excellent. It’s on the current set list.

Religious fans (yeshiva/haredi)

“A Satisfied Mind”: This obscure ditty paraphrases the Talmudic epigram about who truly is a rich man (“It’s so hard to find / One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.”) Chances? Slim to none. The song has been performed exactly once in Dylan’s 50-year career.

How about “Man in the Long Black Coat”? Just kidding.

Religious fans (knitted kipah)

“Forever Young”: Dylan’s reworking of the priestly/parental prayers includes a reference to Jacob’s ladder thrown in for good measure. Chances? Very good. It’s on the current set list.

There’s more, but don’t count on the gravelly-voiced Dylan to heed any of the advice. He plays what he wants and how he wants. The question is if that’s what Israelis are going to want.

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Pesach leftovers

April 21, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Food, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life 

You know that very satisfying feeling when you take some heading-on-old veggies from the fridge or aging leftovers and do something tasty with them before they’re completely dead?

Mine did not look as perfect as these, but still tasted good

Have been having that experience this week as we tend to the many leftovers from our for-25 seder the other night — the leftovers are our fault, I’m catching the disease of my husband’s family who are over-abundant in their amounts. But it wasn’t completely due to over-abundance. For example, we had bought scallions/green onions for the seder, in order to bop them over each others’ heads in Sephardic tradition. The custom was well-received, and the scallions were beauties, long and thick with lots of green for good bopping. But then what to do with the 25 scallions left over? I hate leaving them to rot in the fridge, just to throw them out after using them in a few salads.

So, scallion matzah meal pancakes for the women’s seder I attended last night; diced scallions and yogurt in our morning potato starch pancakes for a savory treat; and some sliced scallions in the sauteed swiss chard/garlic and sliced carrots (from another seder side dish) for dinner tonight.

Recipes follow, and they’re all great ways of using up that matzah meal and potato starch sitting on your counters. Enjoy!

Pesach Pancakes by Ruth Sirkis
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups water
6 tblspn potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp oil

1. Mix eggs, water, potato starch, salt and oil thoroughly. Mixture should look like heavy cream.
2. Heat a skillet; sprinkle with a little oil and brush pan with oil. Continue heating until a drop of water will dance on skillet.
3. Put 2 tablespoons batter (if using small skillet; if larger pan, use a 1/4 cup or so) into pan, tilt so batter spreads evenly but thinly on surface. When batter looks completely dry, turn over and fry on other side. Each pancake will be pale gold.

We like these spread with yogurt, jam, cottage cheese, peanut butter and chocolate spread (very delish), and, as I mentioned above, a more savory version with yogurt and sauteed scallions.

Swiss Chard Saute
1 bunch swiss chard
couple cloves garlic
Olive oil

1. Chop up the swiss chard, as well as the garlic.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil, and saute the garlic. Add the swiss chard, and the water clinging to the swiss chard should be enough to let it wilt and cook in the pan.

OJ/Ginger Carrots by Adeena Sussman

1 lb. carrots
Chunk ginger
Pumpkin seeds, roasted in oven or stovetop pan.
Orange juice

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Par-simmer whole carrots in OJ and ginger. Then roast on high till caramelized.
Serve room temperature with diced avocado, toasted pumpkin seeds and an orange-lemon vinaigrette.

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Holy fire in Jerusalem

April 21, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, Religion 

The Holy Fire in Jerusalem. (AP)

While the focus throughout the country this week has been on Pessah, with matza abounding, and bread and pita in scarce supply (unless you leave Jerusalem in which case you can find pita just about anywhere) – let’s not forget the religious diversity Israel has to offer.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims are also in Israel this week ahead of Easter this Sunday. In one of the more colorful rituals, many worshippers will fill the medieval chambers of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday for the tradition known as the Holy Fire.

Greek Orthodox and Armenian clergymen enter the Edicule, the small structure marking the site of Jesus’ tomb, holding candles that are then lit, according to tradition, by a divine flame. They pass the fire out to the crush of believers, who transfer it from candle to candle, filling the dark building with light.

The Holy Sepulcher, revered by believers as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection, is less a single coherent church than a conglomeration of ancient rooms and chapels renovated, destroyed and rebuilt over the years. The first church was built on the site in the 4th century A.D.

AP reported on the elegant ritual and on the fact despite the presence of fire and 10,000 people crowded into the storied church, the structure has only one entrance and no fire exit.

The saga of the emergency exit at the storied church has pitted common sense against religious politics and tradition at one of Christianity’s most sacred sites. The winner was never in doubt. Despite dire warnings from Israeli officials, safety concerns have been outweighed by a reluctance to upset a brittle balance of power among the six Christian sects in the Sepulcher. A fire exit still does not exist.

“Everyone understands that there is logic in it,” said Theofilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. “But there is logic in the desire that no unnecessary changes be made. It is volatile.”

According to the report, Israeli officials have been concerned since the late 1990s that a fire or stampede at the church, especially during the Holy Fire ceremony, will end in disaster.

But though the sects at the Sepulcher acknowledge the necessity of an emergency exit, Israeli efforts have come up against the intricacies of the Status Quo, a 155-year-old agreement that governs relations between the groups that control the church.

Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian clergy govern the Sepulcher building, with lesser rights accorded to Ethiopians, Copts and Assyrians.

The sects are typically backed by at least one foreign government. Every inch of the building and its immediate environs belongs to one of the sects, each of which meticulously guards its territory.

The most likely location for an exit would require the agreement of the Greek Orthodox, Copts and Ethiopians. But wherever a new exit is located, one of the churches would have to cede part of the sacred space under its control. “I don’t know where they’re going to do it,” said Father Samuel Aghoyan, the senior Armenian priest at the church.

So, the Holy Fire continues to create a fire hazard each Easter. A disaster waiting to happen, or divine intervention? Maybe because they’re in Israel, the mantra the followers are using is typically Israeli – Yihye B’seder (it will be alright).

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A Seder for 600

April 18, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

Front row, left to right, Israeli soldiers Roxanne Fogelman, Michael Eliav (in shorts), Ruth Stukalov, and Jonny Handler gather at the the Lone Soldier Center in Jerusalem, which provides a home away from home for ex-pats serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.

As Israelis sit down to their Seders tonight (and polls and statistics have shown that of all the rituals connected Judaism, the Seder is the most widely observed across the religious-secular spectrum), there’s an interesting sub-culture who will be experiencing Seder night.

Israel is home to an estimated 5,000 lone soldiers — either young men and women who come to serve from other countries, or who are newly-arrived immigrants to Israel, or whose families live elsewhere, or those with no family at all.

Many end up having the Seder with ‘adopted’ families around the country, but 600 of them will be experiencing a communal meal courtesy of the Lone Soldier Center.

In an article on the USA Today website, Michele Chabin explains that the center was formed in 2006 after Philadelphia native Michael Levin was killed in action at age 21 in a battle with Hezbollah along Israel’s northern border.

The center helps the lone soldiers procure everything from washing machines to apartments, and arranges weekly Shabbat dinners with local families and, during Passover, seders that offer a home away from home.

“We have more families to host on Pesach than applicants,” said Tzvi “Tziki” Aud, the center’s director. “Holidays, which are traditionally family times, bring up feelings of loneliness for lone soldiers.”

So, if you see a soldier at a bus stop or on the side of the road, make sure to stop and ask him if he has a place to go for Seder. He or she could turn out to be the guest you were waiting for.

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