Come on Irene

August 31, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: education, Environment, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, News 

Office Depot's back-to-school ad for 1+1 deals

As David mentioned, school starts tomorrow and parents around here are mostly excited about the prospect of sending their offspring back to school.

There are the middle and high school parents, pleased to end their children’s summer-long sojourn of sleeping; the elementary school parents, looking forward to channeling their kids’ energy through the classroom and schoolyard; the first graders’ parents, nervous and excited about the fact that their six-year-olds are beginning a new adventure; and gan parents, like yours truly, who are looking forward to some time alone but apprehensive about sending little ones into the great big world.

And then, this year, there are those parents who don’t get to send their kids to school just yet because they’re stuck in the States following Hurricane Irene. I’ve got several friends in that situation, with families who traveled to the U.S. in August to visit family and friends, and planned to get back in plenty of time for packing backpacks and covering books for September 1. But Irene caused canceled flights and rescheduling them was a nightmare.

What’s ironic is that when the Education Ministry announced an earlier start to school back in May — moving it up to August 26 from September 1 — there was a public outcry against the last-minute planning, particularly for those who had planned summer vacations and would have to change tickets. The ministry then moved the starting date back to Sept. 1, but that hasn’t helped these families. They’re still going to be late to school, and on the very first day, no less.

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Summertime Blues turn into School Daze

August 31, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, education, General, Israeliness, Life, News 


The country as a whole made it through the summer of 2011 – one that will be remembered for a number of events:

- the tent city social uprising of protesters demanding fundamental changes to the way our society works.

- the arrest and indictment of Margalit Tsanani, the popular singer and TV star, for recruiting mobsters to threaten her manager, and for shady dealings on the Kochav Nolad (Star is Born) reality show.

Margalit Tsanani

- the infiltration and terror attack in and around Eilat leaving many victims, and raising tension on the Southern border.

And, of course, as we enter September, we have so many things to look forward to: threats of more potential attacks from Sinai, the whole Palestinian statehood question due to be presented at the UN, the future of relations with Turkey after the release of the Palmer Report on the Mavi Marmara incident, the results of the revolutions taking place in Syria and Libya, and the one issue that overshadows all the rest – the burgeoning Iranian nuclear threat.

But most Israelis will still be smiling when they wake up on September 1st. Because it means that school is back in session, and our kids are finally leaving the house after a two-month break in which many of us barely kept our sanity trying to keep them busy. Life is good.

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Parking maven

August 29, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Entertainment, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

Our lot was something like this, but worse

As I’m driving around town, there are often at least half a dozen times that I experience a near-miss of an accident, as my fellow Jerusalem drivers open car doors into oncoming traffic, swerve in and out of lanes as if we’re on a racetrack, make sudden turns without signaling, stop suddenly in the middle of traffic in order to say hello to someone…the list goes on.

So I was pleasantly surprised the other day with a particularly Jerusalem parking experience. We had cautiously parked in a rock-filled lot that was being used by several venues, Theatre in the Rough, Chutzot Hayotzer and probably some other summer event. It wasn’t even really a lot, just a roughly cleared space that dozens of cars were using for parking because the other nearby lots were mysteriously closed. (Why the city plans events and then doesn’t plan parking is another question.)

We were done early — having attended the wonderfully clever performance of Romeo and Juliet in Gan Bloomfield — and headed to our car. As we began pulling out, another car headed down toward our spot, clearly planning on taking it once we left. But that meant we couldn’t pull out.

And then our parking angels appeared. One was a jovial Israeli guy who told my husband — pleasantly — that his best bet would be to pull out, let the other car back in and then back out himself. You have to understand that very often when Israelis — usually men — give parking and driving directions, they’re know-it-all and you find yourself not wanting to do what they advise. Then another guy appeared, and began giving excellent directions for the exact maneuvers necessary.

“Turn the steering wheel 30 degrees, then straighten your wheels,” he said. “Great, great.” “What about that big olive tree he’s about to brush up against?” said the other guy. “I see it, I see it,” said the second guy.

Meanwhile, my husband and I were starting to laugh, because these two — who didn’t know each other — were making what could have been a tense situation much more pleasant, and, they knew what they were doing.”

“I’m the national directions-giver,” quipped the second guy, using the word ‘mechaven’, which means to direct, as in traffic. “They hire me out.”

He got us out, and the other cars in, with nary a scratch. We drove out, commenting that was the last time we would park in that lot. Until we exited onto the street and were confronted with a tow truck smack in front of us, and no where to go unless onto the truck bed. Turns out the tow truck driver had parked in the middle of the street and run into the local gas station store to grab a cup of coffee. Hey, there was no place to park! What’s a guy to do?

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DJ saved my life

August 29, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, News, Pop Culture, War 

While East Coast Americans were hunkering down as Tropical Storm Irene wreaked havoc along the eastern sea board, in Tel Aviv, high school students were gathering at the famed Haoman 17 nightclub for a back to school dance party.

Internationally known Israeli DJ Yinon Yahel was spinning the discs inside, and 1,000 teens crammed the club for one of their last free nights ahead of the school year which begins on Thursday.

Unbeknownst to them, however, right outside a drama was unfolding, as a terrorist, rammed a stolen taxi into the police barrier right outside the club. He then emerged from the taxi and went on a stabbing spree, injuring seven people, five Border Police officers, a security guard and one civilian.

The suspect was tackled, taken into custody, and brought to Wolfson Medical Center in Holon in light condition. Inside the club, Yahel was informed about a terror attack outside the club shortly after it happened, but was asked by management to keep playing.

“The management came and told me that there was an attack outside the club, but told me to keep playing and not to say anything, so that people wouldn’t panic. Everyone was inside by then so they didn’t seem to know what was going on,” Yahel told The Jerusalem Post.

An hour later, around 3 a.m. when the attacker had been subdued and the scene restored to order, the club was finally ordered evacuated and the teens sent home.

For the 33-year-old Yahel, who performs at some of the top clubs around the world, and is an in-demand remix specialist for dance artists ranging from Kristine W and Deborah Cox to Christina Aguilera and P Diddy, it wasn’t a typical evening.

When I talked to him last year for a story, he said that his music usually brings people together, regardless of their origin.

“I get Palestinians and Lebanese attending my shows and coming up to me to talk. In a club, we’re all just people,” he said.

Sunday night in Tel Aviv, his music almost became the backdrop for a horror movie, one that was thankfully averted. While the club goers interviewed by the Post made light of the situation after the fact when they found out about, it’s likely bound to be a back to school event they’ll never forget.

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Nostalgia Sunday – On the radio

August 28, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Entertainment, Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, tv 

It’s hard to describe how important radio was — and is — to Israelis but we’ll give it a shot. In a land where up until 20 years ago there was but a single television station — and a non-commercial one that shut down broadcasts at midnight, at the very latest — radio was where you got your news, every hour on the hour. Radio announced the founding of the State. Radio brought you the latest music. And it was radio that broadcast ads with catchy jingles which stuck in your head and the heads of everyone else around you, and everyone in the country, really.

The power of this collective commercials consciousness is so strong that even today, should you chant to people of a given age group, “Bo ligdol eetanu”, they will immediately snap their fingers twice and holler back, “Bank Hapoalim!” (click on this link and all the other links in this post and you’ll hear the jingles).

Shapam is the official broker for commercial airtime on the Voice of Israel and, by uploading a tiny portion of their archives, they have done a wonderful public service for all of those scratching their heads and going, “What was the name of that awful carbonated wine we used to drink because there was no good wine in Israel?” (Fantasia), “Did I imagine it or was that really Sassi Keshet singing the Dogli song?” (Yes, it is he), or “How long has Osem been using that same tag line” (At least since 1961, if we go according to the release date of this early “Zeh tov, zeh tov, zeh Osem” spot).

Some very famous singers supplemented their incomes by writing and singing ad jingles, from The Dudaim pitching Wissotzky Tea in the Sixties, Arik Einstein hawking Telma instant soup or Danny Sanderson promoting Yosef the Carpet King in the Seventies. It’s understandable, as Israeli artists didn’t earn much then — or even now.

Following the great egg dearth of the 1973-4 Yom Kippur War, entertainer Gadi Yagil was hired to promote egg consumption in 1977 in the spot known as “Beitzim, beitzim“. The ad became a classic due, in no small part, to the fact that the listening public didn’t necessarily associate the song with the primary topic but rather, with its secondary meaning.

That same year, the airwaves got up and boogied to the disco beat with an ad for a new soft drink named for that thriving metropolis, that glorious city on the hill, that new Jerusalem which beckoned to all Israelis: Queens. Seriously.

Shandy, a mixture of beer and lemon soda, has recently been launched on the Israeli market. But this isn’t the first time. For a brief moment in 1982, there was a beverage on the market known as “British Shandy“. It was apparently terrible (one friend used to call it “British shandeh“) but the jingle has looped in my brain ever since. Another that arises unbidden in the dark hours of the night: Achim Farag (Farag Brothers)… 1,2,3,4 photo studios!

If you, like me, know with certainty that Dor ha-jeans shoteh Queens (The jeans generation drinks Queens), don’t wait a minute longer. There are many more jingles to click on and listen to at the Shapam site.

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