Hotel Orchid

May 17, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

An Israeli orchid

So there’s this new hotel in town, for orchids. Based out of the Wendy Nursery in Modiin, the garden center offers overnight stays for about two shekels per night, and it’s useful for the owners of these delicate buds that can’t be left on their own.

According to several accounts, the pensione began when orchid owners started coming to the nursery with their orchids’ medical issues, which slowly grew into a kind of orchid kennel for orchid owners going on vacation. The nursery offers heat and humidity for the orchids, weather conditions they love most, purified water, appropriate lighting and a special growing soil of tree sawdust and peat soil.

As a current, nervous owner of a small orchid, I appreciate the effort. I’ve been told to talk to my orchid, feed it about half a cup of water every few days and keep it in the same place, without moving it around too much. Given that I knew about another orchid convalescent home, the one in Kibbutz Maale Hachamisha, I knew I could always head there if I was having serious orchid troubles. (They charge NIS 7 per month for orchid guests.) Plus, Modiin’s a little far for orchid hospitality, and it’s not really on the way to the airport.

The thing is, I won’t house my orchid elsewhere when I’m away this summer, because I’m not really the orchid type. Not that I don’t care if my orchid lives or dies, but I’ll just have my sister water it. But most orchid owners? The obsessive ones who belong to the Israel Orchid Society at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and meet to compare species? They’ll give these orchid hotels plenty of business, and hey, competition is a good thing.

If you’re partial to drinking sahlab, the hot beverage made from orchid flour, track down the van selling sahlab and other Turkish treats in a glen off Road #443 (just after the Ben Shemen exit when heading toward Jerusalem).

Happy orchid enjoyment.

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A Jerusalem festival in your house

May 17, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life 

This sounds too tantalizing to pass up. As part of ‘The Jerusalem Season of Culture’ taking place from Mid-May through the end of July, the city is hosting a series of riveting artistic experiences spanning the worlds of dance, music, poetry, philosophy, visual art, and new media.

Amid the plays and musical performances at some of the capital’s most celebrated venues, will be a special three days from June 22-24 called ‘A Festival of Dance, Theatre and Music in Private homes.’

According to the festival’s website, “Jerusalem’s most intriguing homes open their doors to dance, theater, music and poetry for unique encounters between audience and performer.

Imagine knocking on a door and finding yourself in an unfamiliar house in Jerusalem. A host greets you with a welcoming smile. You enter, perhaps apprehensively, after all it’s not every day that you waltz into a stranger’s home.

You find a comfortable seat, scan the furniture, peruse the bookshelves, chat with assorted guests. In just a few moments, the performance will begin. So lean back, let go of your inhibitions, and make yourself at home. You’ll see every dance movement from up close, hear every character’s whisper, catch every musical note in this uniquely intimate setting.

And best of all, adding to the intrigue of the event, the directions and addresses to the homes will be provided only after patrons reserve their tickets. They go on sale May 22.

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Do you like Like?

May 17, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Israeliness, Life 

Ah, that’s such a cute baby picture you’ve posted on Facebook. I’ll go ahead and “like” it. So, what’s her name? “Like.” Yes, I liked her on Facebook. But what are you calling her? “Like.”

If it sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine, that would only be half the fun – or weirdness, take your pick – in an Israeli couple’s decision to name their new daughter “Like.” The couple – Lior and Vardit Adler of Hod HaSharon initially downplayed the Facebook connection in an interview with Haaretz. “Like” simply has a nice, international ring to it, the father said.

He elaborated further: “To me it is important to give my children names that are not used anywhere else, at least not in Israel.” He then added, with a grudging nod to Facebook: “If once people gave Biblical names and that was the icon, then today this [Facebook] is one of the most famous icons in the world.”

I imagine his parents would have preferred their granddaughter to have received a traditional Jewish name like “Ahuva,” which essentially means “like” in Hebrew.

But that wouldn’t be in keeping with the names of the other children in this media savvy family: Dvash (“honey” in Hebrew) and Pie – as in the old Beatles song?

I wonder if Honey Pie will like Like or if Like will like Ike, and… oh you get the idea…

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L’ag b’Omer is Saturday night. Or maybe not

May 16, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Holidays 

The Jewish “bonfire” holiday of L’ag b’Omer is this Saturday night. Or maybe not.

L’ag b’Omer commemorates the day some 2,000 years ago that a plague that killing 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva ended. L’ag stands for lamed-gimel – in Hebrew the number 33. The Omer refers to a period of 49 days between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot. So L’ag b’Omer is the 33rd day of the Omer.

There’s a bunch more symbolism – check out this Wikipedia entry – but in modern times, the holiday has been celebrated by building bonfires, toasting marshmallows and barbequing steaks (what Israeli holiday doesn’t involve the ubiquitous mangal?)

This year, the 33rd day of the Omer falls on Saturday night. But since kids tend to get started early, hauling their cache of wood to an open space and getting the fire going before sunset, there is a not unlikely chance of “Sabbath desecration” where prohibited activities might take place before Shabbat has officially ended.

Which led this week to Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef along with Israel’s chief rabbis issuing a ruling that the holiday should be put off until Sunday night.

All well and good. It’s a religious holiday after all and the rabbis know best. But the general population might not have gotten the message.

You see, L’ag b’Omer is school holiday too. Sunday is an official day off. Sunday night, it’s back to the books as the matriculation exam season races towards an unholy conclusion. Are all those kids – especially the ones who don’t give much of a hoot what the chief rabbis say – going to push off the burning a day? Will there be two L’ag b’Omer’s this day?

Another question lingers: what took them so long. The ruling about the delay of the holiday was only issued last week. Didn’t the rabbis know about this holiday, well, like a hundred years ago? The calendar is fixed these days – we no longer mark the start of the new month by burning torches on the tops of hilltops.

Delaying the holiday would be just fine for our family. We’ll be away this weekend at the Jacob’s Ladder music festival and won’t get back home until late Saturday night. But I have a feeling that we’ll be smelling a few roasted  marshmallows on the way home.

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Israel’s message to neighbors: Get over it

May 16, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Technology, War 

Israel's first electric car is set to go on sale.

On the day when all of Israel’s borders were either infiltrated – or threatened with infiltration – Israelis went about their business as usual. Except for the unlucky poor soul in Tel Aviv who was crushed by a truck driver, who evidently, like those who bombarded our borders with rocks, is incensed that Israel exists.

Unless you were in the truck driver’s deadly route which killed one and injured 17, or one of the soldiers who had to faced the onslaught of Palestinian protesters who breached Israeli sovereignty in misplaced anger over the misguided decisions their leaders’ made over 60 years ago, then yesterday’s Nakba ‘Disaster’ festivities didn’t have much impact.

It’s certainly disheartening that after 63 years, Israel is still an island amid a sea of hostility. On Sunday, the IDF dealt with four simultaneous fronts – Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. And as Defense Minister Ehud Barak pointed out, the soldiers acted with unnatural restraint in the face of belligerent foreign nationals attempting to violently infiltrate the border.

“We used protest dispersal methods, but the number of people involved made this difficult. There comes a moment when there’s no choice but to fire at their legs and it is very good that forces acted with restraint and judgment and we did not have here a ruinous bloodbath,” he said, in response to the unprecedented assault on Israel.

The Hirya garbage dump has been transformed into an enormous environmentally sound 'paradise'

Still, the headlines focused on a Syrian being killed and dozens being wounded, as well as casualties on the Lebanon border, although it’s unclear still if they were the result of the IDF shooting or due to the Lebanese Army trying to keep the protesters away.

While our neighbors evidently continue to live in the past and prefer to wallow in anger and self pity, Israel is… well, moving on. On the same day as the protests, the announcement came that the first Israeli electric car is going on sale next week, and the opening of the environmentally friendly Ariel Sharon Park, on the site of the notorious Hirya garbage dump, is opening on Wednesday.

Just because we live in a bad neighborhood, it doesn’t mean our day is going to be ruined.

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