From Rothschild Boulevard to a Jerusalem living room

September 20, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Music 

We first met Niv Kaikov a few months back at Tel Aviv’s White Night celebration. We were strolling on Rothschild Boulevard – yes the same one that’s been filled with tents all summer – which, during White Night, is instead filled with musicians. Every block, sometimes even every half a block, there is another band set up. The music is mostly rock, with a little world/ethnic thrown in to remind you of what part of the world we live in.

YouTube Preview ImageNiv Kaikov performing “A New Way” live at house concert in Jerusalem. Here’s the official video for the clip.

As my wife Jody and I made our way down the boulevard, we’d stop to listen to maybe to a song or two, before moving on to the next performer. We did this musical shuffle for a good hour until we got to a young singer-songwriter whose tunes we really liked. We stayed for a couple songs. Then a couple more. A woman in the crowd was selling his CD. We bought it. We never buy CDs on the street from bands we don’t know, but there was something about this particular artist that spoke to us. That was Niv, of course.

Afterward, we struck up a virtual conversation via Facebook, during which time we decided to bring Niv to Jerusalem to put on a house concert. It would be romantic with wine and candles; an intimate acoustic performance. Niv was excited – it would be his first time playing in the Holy City. And, entirely by coincidence, the date that worked best was my birthday.

Now, here’s the 21st century spin: all the planning was done entirely virtually. We never once spoke to Niv over the phone. We didn’t even know what his non-singing voice sounded like. Still, when he walked in the door, I gave him a big hug, feeling like I’d known him forever.

Niv turned out to be as charming in person as he is in his songs. Moreover, his story is inspirational to any budding artist: he had been working as a project manager at an e-commerce company in Tel Aviv. His boss offered him a promotion and laid out a 5-year success path where Niv would become CEO and have 30 people working for him. But Niv actually hated hi-tech. And so on the same day as he received the promotion, he quit his job to pursue a full-time career as a musician.

Niv sings about his career choice in Derech Hadasha (A New Way), the first “single” from his CD (it got some airplay, he says). Other songs relate to his experience after a near-fatal motorcycle crash, and his wedding at the top of a mountain at sunrise (“we got lost on the way…the groom almost didn’t make it!”) He is at once professional and sincere, heartfelt and driven. And it doesn’t hurt that his voice and styling’s are reminiscent of a younger Ivri Lider.

For the show’s finale, Niv and his band (he brought a second guitarist and a percussionist with him) belted out his “second” single – the song Pesak Zman. When he sings about the value of “taking a break” (the English translation of the song title) from life’s many “statuses” (he mentions cars, jobs, jewelry) in order to step back and reflect on what’s truly important, you believe him. Indeed, Niv says, his dream would be to morph into a kind of motivational speaker using music as punctuation for transformation and change.

Making it in the music business these days is tough: it’s rare to be “discovered” by a big record label mogul anymore; most of the promotion work and expenses fall on the artist. Indeed Niv has invested in several professional music videos and the recording of his songs with a full band. He is very active on Facebook and social media to build a community of committed fans.

We were delighted to move from the virtual to the real and celebrate my birthday with this dynamic, talented musician. While this blog isn’t a platform for in-your-face PR, my recommendation to check out Niv’s MySpace page is born from the best intentions: to support a young musician who truly moved me…and perhaps to help him from needing to return to that corporate day job.

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Certain benefits

September 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

A side effect of being the Fodor’s Jerusalem writer for hotels, restaurants, shopping and other fun activities — at least to me — is becoming a kind of reviewer. I say ‘kind of’ because with Fodor’s, I update details about a place, offer comments as to its amenities and services, but I’m not a reviewer per se. That said, places are included or left out of the guide based on my recommendations. Yes, power on a very, very small scale.

And there are also the perks. They don’t pay well, but in order to review a hotel or restaurant, you do need to pay a visit once in a while. See how the menu is faring, check out the rooms, and when necessary or possible, stay in said hotel. When you live in Jerusalem, it can feel strange to stay in a hotel that’s just five minutes from home. But that geographical proximity has its benefits as well. No long rides, a 24-hour vacation just minutes from home, and you get to spend all your time relaxing and very little time mapping and navigating.

So when Fodor’s recently asked me to pay another visit to the King David, nominated for its Grande Dame category, I thought, why not? Didn’t stay there last time, have never stayed there, but why turn down a great opportunity? Off we went, my husband and I, for a new version of the staycation in town. A five-minute ride brought us to the front door of the King David, and we then spent a great 21 hours inside the historic walls of this particular Jerusalem hotel. We learned a lot. For instance, did you know that they redid the pool and added a kind of jacuzzi section at one end? That there’s a new, young chef at the restaurant who is adding wasabi, beet and corn sorbets — delicious, really — to the dessert menu. And, that they recently added a 250-square-meter duplex room at the top of the hotel that includes a gym — looking to fend off the competition from the soon-to-be-completed Waldorf Astoria down the block?

But they’re pretty calm about the local competition, and get along quite well with the other hotels. They utilize each other’s space whenever there’s an overflow of regular guests and royalty or political leaders. The King David and American Colony Hotels, the only two Israeli hotels that are part of the Leading Hotels of the World club, let each other know when a LHW staffer in disguise is lurking around. And, bottom line, there’s nothing like sitting in the King David lobby, taking in the crowd around you. On our night there, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross was making notes on a sheaf of paper, while two ‘shidduch’ couples were drinking OJs and several families of tourists gathered to review their day.

And on my way out the door, as I was heading to take a bus home, I bumped into U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro, as he and his crew drove up in their big black Chevrolets. Only at the King David.

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Tel Aviv tent protests wind down

September 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, education, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Pop Culture, Social Justice 

Tel activists dismantling a tent site earlier this month (Getty Images)

The tent protests which occupied our minds and hearts throughout the summer in Israel have received their final notice.

On Sunday a Tel Aviv district court judge ordered the remaining tent dwellers to dismantle their campsite on the city’s Rothschild Boulevard by Wednesday, extended an interim order prohibiting the municipality from dismantling the tents, to allow the tent protesters to do so themselves. The issue went to court when the municipality and the protesters couldn’t reach a compromise on enabling the tent sites to stay up through the upcoming High Holidays.

However Tel Aviv officials said the tents in Jaffa and the Hatikva neighborhoods (where some of the protesters are actually homeless or living in dismal conditions) could stay, but not on Rothschild Boulevard, Ben-Gurion Boulevard, Nordau Boulevard and Levinsky Park, where the protests have been largely symbolic.

Following the huge end of summer rally in Tel Aviv which capped the summer-long protest, the leaders of the movement decided to change tactics, awaiting the conclusions and recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee on socioeconomic change set up by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sometime in the next few weeks.
Whether the spirit and hopes galvanized by the summer protests will be cause for real change in the country remain to be seen, but Israelis have every right to be proud of the movement, and of the privilege of living in a country which enabled free protest and exchange of thought in the most civil of manners.

Goodbye tents, we will miss you.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Sound the Shofar

September 18, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, education, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion, War 

A new exhibition, Sound the Shofar – A Witness to History, has opened at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem.

This exhibition traces the shofar from animal horn to icon. On display are shofarot from around the world, each marking a pivotal event in history, a poignant personal story or the quest for religious freedom. The timing, is of course, perfect for the High Holidays.

The shofar is amongst the earliest musical instruments played by mankind. It is also one of the oldest and most recognizable symbols of Judaism, which has been in continual use for more than 3,000 years. Throughout the millennium, the shofar has been a powerful witness to the turbulent history of the Jewish people in both times of rejoicing and triumph, sorrow and devastation throughout Jewish history.

The exhibition displays a wide variety of shofarot and their depictions on a range of objects from ancient times to today. Among the ancient artifacts on display are: a two sided carved synagogue chancel screen depicting a Menorah, Shofar, Lulav and Ethrog from Ashkelon (4th-7th centuries CE); a Jewish Tombstone depicting Menorah, Shofar and Lulav from Caesarea (4rd – 7th centuries CE); a facsimile of the Rothschild Miscellany manuscript depicting a shofar blower in front of Jewish worshipers (15th century CE, Italy); a facsimile from the Mantiba Haggadah depicting the prophet Elijah sounding the shofar to announce the coming of the Messiah (1560 Italy).

The exhibit moves through history to display, for the first time in Israel, a shofar that belonged to Israel who was murdered in the Buchenwald concentration camp during the Holocaust. In 1943 the Mizrahi family was captured and expelled to the Mechelen transit camp, where the Jews of Belgium were imprisoned before being sent to concentration and extermination camps. All their property including the shofar was left in their house. After the war ended, Esther, who survived together with her two children, returned to their home in Antwerp, where a few possessions were recovered including the shofar that belonged to her husband Israel.

Another special shofar on view is one which was blown at the western wall during the British Mandate period. Between the years 1930 – 1947 the Members of Brit Habirionim, Beitar and Etzel would blow the shofar at the western wall at the end of Yom Kippur, in spite of the prohibition imposed by the British Mandate. This exhibition includes an inspiring short documentary film (produced by Toldot Yisrael and the History Channel) about this courageous group of people who risked their lives to perform the mitzvah of blowing the shofar at the Kotel.

The exhibition includes artifacts on loan from museums, institutions and private collections, many of which have never been previously been on display, including the famous shofar blown on June 7th, 1967 by Rabbi Shlomo Goren at the Western Wall upon reunification of Jerusalem.

Sound the Shofar – A Witness to History will be on display at the from September 2011 through February 2012.

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Twilight in Jerusalem

September 18, 2011 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Entertainment 

Young fan meets her vampire idol in Jerusalem yesterday (picture submitted by Jeanette Gory-Shavit)

The news that Kellan Lutz, the actor who plays vampire Emmett Cullen in the hit Twilight films, was staying at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem sent some young fans into spasms of celebrity stalking, camping out on a blistering hot Shabbat afternoon for a glimpse at their hero.

I know this because we were there too, but not to check out Lutz. We had walked my mother back to the hotel where she was staying (on her first visit ever to Israel, at age 79 – but more on that in another post).

The small gaggle of chattering, cell phone-addled girlhood had been waiting more than an hour for a Lutz sighting but to no avail. We didn’t care much until we ran into an old friend who had driven up all the way from Yavne with her 14-year-old daughter to sneak a peek.

Lutz was in Israel, along with actor Miguel Ferrer, Columbian singer Carolina La O, and Cuban performer Didier Hernandez as part of a trip sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Americas Voices in Israel, and El Al Israel Airlines.

America’s Voices in Israel, which is the prime mover behind this and other celebrity journeys, brings media and entertainment personalities to Israel with the aim of spreading more positive messages about the country. Previous visits have included stars from TV’s Full House, Ally McBeal, 90210, House and Raising Hope.

On the current trip, Lutz was the only participant to have been to Israel before. He told Arutz Sheva that “I’m amazed at the scope of history here. In the US, there is 200 years of history and here we are talking about thousands of years of stories and tradition that truly fascinate and amaze me.

Back at the Inbal, we left without seeing Lutz, but a Facebook posting later that day by our friends who’d driven up from Yavne breathlessly revealed that the vampire had indeed shown up and was quite generous with his teenage fans, posing for pictures and being a real sweetheart, albeit a blood sucking one. But hey, these days we can’t choose our friends. Vampires work for me.

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