Of housing and cottage cheese

July 24, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Social Justice 

The tent city set up along Rotschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv

The temperatures in Israel this summer hasn’t been as bad as the scorching heat wave in the easter US, but that doesn’t mean that things aren’t at the boiling point.

Starting with the cottage cheese revolution, and now moving on to the growing tent protests that began in Tel Aviv and are spreading to the rest of the country, this summer may be looked up on in future years as the summer in which Israelis said they were fed up and weren’t going to take it anymore.

On Saturday night, thousands gathered in central Tel Aviv for a rally against soaring housing prices and the high cost of living before marching from the Habima Theater to the Tel Aviv Museum in a show of strength.

The rally was the largest event yet in the social movement that started last week with a small tent city set up on Rothschild Boulevard and has expanded throughout the country. The protest movement was launched after 26-year-old Tel Avivian Leef’s landlord raised her rent and she opened a Facebook page calling for Israelis to camp out in Rothschild to protest the country’s housing costs.

The call struck a nerve with many Israelis of all walks, who are collapsing under the burden of high prices and low salaries, and hundreds joined Leef in the protest which has since steamrolled into a social movement.

As Ilan Evyatar wrote in The Jerusalem Post today, the protest is “about a lot more than Tel Aviv, and it is about a lot more than housing. It is about a shortage of 2,500 hospital beds; for the sake of perspective, that is the equivalent of almost two times the size of Israel’s largest hospital. It is about the decline of public services. It is about excessive profiteering, lack of competition, and prices for many goods that are way above those in other countries. It is about free education that is anything but free – and more than anything, it is about the fact that for the vast majority of people in this country, making ends meet has become nearly impossible.”

There is so much good in this country – virtues that are highlighted daily in ISRAEL21c and Israelity. But our high tech ‘start up’ nation which is leading the way in so many fields needs to take a step back and focus on our greatest natural resource – its citizens. We all deserve the right to live in dignity with decent wages and affordable housing, regardless of whether we’re working in a sleek, glass building in Ramat Hayal or waitressing at an Aroma bar.

If the tent protest and its related campaigns eventually fizzle out, it means that the peoples’ voice has been silenced, and will ultimately result in many young Israelis being forced to leave the country to look for greener pastures. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

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Foto Friday – Rick Blumsack tackles Jerusalem

July 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, design, education, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Sports, Travel 

Rick Blumsack finds inspiration for his photographs in simple encounters with people, wildlife and his surroundings. The former Cambridge, Massachusetts resident now makes his home in Jerusalem where he contributes to The Jerusalem Post and recently participated in his first Israeli group show, People and Places – A Photographic trip Around the World, sponsored by the AACI.

In addition, Blumsack serves on the media team of the Israel Football League… and if you didn’t know there was American-style football in Israel, then you haven’t been driving by Jerusalem’s Kraft Stadium. On any day of the week it is alive with flag football players – men, women, young boys and girls.

The stadium is named for Robert and Myra Kraft, owners of the NFL’s New England Patriots and one of the driving forces behind flag football in Israel. Sadly, Myra Kraft passed away this week of cancer at age 68. David has written more about this remarkable woman here.

It’s a point of great pride that IFL teams sing the national anthem, HaTikva, at every game.

Beyond the confines of the stadium, as he wanders through Jerusalem, Blumsack finds the encounters he seeks with people enjoying simple pleasures — like these two young men at rest, heads atop their cycle helmets…

Or this painter, working intently in the heart of Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda Market…

And children enjoying green spaces within the urban environment.

More works can be seen at Rick Blumsack’s website.

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Remembering Myra Kraft

July 22, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Sports 

Robert and Myra Kraft


One of the most vibrant places in Jerusalem over the last few years has undoubtedly been Kraft Stadium near the entrance to the city. Whether being used for women’s and men’s touch football, the American Football in Israel tackle league, sports day camps for the city’s youth or night time concerts like last week’s Woodstock Revival, the stadium has become an Anglo haven in the capital, introducing some of the delights of the ‘old country’ like baseball and football to new generations of Israelis, including former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi’s son, Itay, who has become a star football player.

The name of the stadium is derived from its benefactors, the owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft and his wife Myra, who passed away this week of cancer at age 68.

A lifelong philanthropist, Myra Kraft managed the Robert and Myra Kraft Family Foundation and was president of the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation, which has contributed millions of dollars to charities in the United States and Israel.

According to American Football in Israel President Steve Leibowitz, she held the Israeli football community that she and her husband helped cultivate very close to her heart.

“Over the past 12 years, Myra gave her love and support to the many thousands of people in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel who have been able to enjoy Kraft Family Stadium. Myra nurtured and adopted the Israeli women’s football program, and without her willing assistance, WAFI would have been hard pressed to reach its current level of success,” Leibowitz wrote in a statement.

For her contribution to the culture of Jerusalem and her love of Israel, we salute Myra Kraft.

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Israeli and American culture clash on ‘Bobby and I’

July 21, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, tv 

Bobby, right, messes with the mind of his host body Ofer.

An odd phenomenon on the Israeli TV screens has been the emergence of characters in sitcoms who speak in English. That may not be so strange, but the weird thing about them is how obnoxious they are.

Red, the life-size puppet rock star of the series Redband doesn’t have a mouth wide enough to contain his feet, as he insults, antagonizes and embarrasses the cream of the Israeli rock scene who appear as guests with his ill placed raunchy utterances.

And now – if inappropriate wasn’t ‘in’ enough – the Channel 2 series Bobby and I is taking low taste to new heights, thanks to the ‘ugly American’ title character.

Bobby, played by Israeli animator/writer Roy Iddan is the loud, vulgar, leisure-suited circa 1975 imaginary childhood friend of scruffy Haifa detective Ofer, played by the show’s co-creator Yuval Segev. While many children have imaginary friends, Ofer’s has stayed with him and grown up alongside him devolving into Bobby’s sorry excuse for a human.

Self-centered, flamboyant and gravely jealous of anyone that comes between him and Ofer, Bobby just blurts out profane, stream of conscious remarks as they come to him – like Ofer’s unedited inner voice, but in a broad American accent. Amid a show spoken totally in Hebrew, these English additions are hilarious, if you’re not easily offended.

“I try to be as outrageous as possible, because you can say whatever you want in English on TV in Israel,” said a decidedly sensible, non-flamboyant Iddan recently, explaining the concept behind Bobby. “I don’t think Bobby’s ever gone too far – I think he can do much worse.”

Iddan, who learned his perfect English – including the accent – while spending many childhood years with his parents in the US, said that he wasn’t making fun of Americans, but focusing on a particular type as personified by the fictional characters of some of his comic heroes – like the obnoxious Tony Clifton, Andy Kaufman’s lounge lizard alter-ego, and Jimmy Glick, Martin Short’s insufferable talk show host.

“I think that most Israelis who brave the show are smart enough to know that Americans aren’t really like that. If they know English well enough to understand the jokes, they understand American culture,” he said.

You may never have seen Israeli and American culture mix quite like this though. The second season of Bobby and I is broadcast on Channel 2 at 11 p.m.

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The new U.S. ambassador

July 20, 2011 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics 

So the new U.S. ambassador to Israel is a friend of a friend. That is, we have mutual friends, he just doesn’t know it yet. Daniel Shapiro, as he’s known, is the 18th U.S. ambassador to Israel, one of President Barack Obama’s closest Middle East confidants, and is active in the Washington, DC Jewish community, which is how I — sort of — know him.

In Washington, he was a member of the Conservative Adas Israel shul and sent his three kids to local day schools. The Adas Israel membership is one of our connections. The other is through Brandeis University, where another mutual friend introduced him to his wife. I found that one out through Facebook, where that mutual friend posted pictures of his swearing-in ceremony, during which his boss, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, alluded to his sophomore year spent at Hebrew University:

“At Hebrew University during the first intifada, Dan and his classmates spent many hours discussing how Israelis and Palestinians could one day live in peace, side-by-side,” she said. “Dan has seen firsthand that the status quo is unsustainable,” she said.

I don’t think we spent the same year together at Hebrew U., since he’s a tad younger than I, although it’s possible.

But what is worth considering is that mutual friends #1, who will be in Israel in August, and will be spending some time at my house, will also be hosted by the new U.S. ambassador and his family in their lovely Herzliya digs. Certainly a worthwhile invitation, considering the pool and great location.

So who knows? Maybe we’ll be receiving an invite ourselves, through the ever-narrowing degrees of separation. Me and the new U.S. ambassador to Israel? We’re like this.

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