Foto Friday – Time is Now! Yalla!

September 2, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Blogging, coexistence, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Life, News, Picture of the Week, Politics, Profiles, Social Justice, tv 

INSIDE OUT is a large-scale participatory art project that asks participants to upload their photo, receive back a poster and then paste it publicly in their communities. The project, spearheaded by a Paris-based artist, photographer and and TED Prize winner known only by the initials JR, is intended to “transform messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work”.

In early March,JR announced his wish to turn the world Inside Out. A group of photographers and organizers in Tunisia were the first to participate in an InsideOut community project, which they named Artocracy.

Now it’s our turn. The Time Is Now, Yalla! – InsideOut in Israel & Palestine project got underway yesterday and today and will continue tomorrow.

On Wednesday, the word went out on Facebook that InsideOut were building photo-booths in Ramallah and Bethlehem…

On Thursday, a new post read: “Guys, we are ready to start the action in Tel Aviv!! We really need help tomorrow (Sept 2) and Saturday (Sept 3) to paste, help tell people on the ground about the project & get them participating. Please let us know by emailing us: jr@insideoutproject.net. Tell us what day(s) & time(s) you can help. For the rest of you, stay tuned for details on where/when the actions will take place. We can’t wait to see you there!”

And so, last night a rolling studio-truck in Tel Aviv started its journey fittingly enough, at the epicenter of the social justice protest, the Tent City on Rothschild Boulevard.

Today came another post: “Waiting for you now !!!! Come and take your Time Is Now portrait … In Tel Aviv, on the Habima, North of Sderot Rothschild – In the truck. In Bethlehem, at the bus station opposite St Joseph School. In Ramallah, in Baladna center.”

Tonight Rothschild sleeps before the big rally tomorrow night, after which the tents will be dismantled. The InsideOut in Israel & Palestine project is due to continue tomorrow. Go to the Facebook page, click “Like” and keep an eye on the postings. Go on, the time is now! Yalla!

More great photos of this exciting project are being posted here.

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‘March of the Million dance’ in Tel Aviv

September 2, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, education, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Social Justice 

This weekend could be the ‘make or break’ time for the social protest movement depending on how many people show up on Saturday night for the touted ‘March of the Million’ taking place in cities throughout the country.

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Flyers and posters around the cities have the tag line “Where were you on September 3?” in an attempt to give it the weight of another cataclysmic Israeli event – when the question “where were you on November 5” was asked following prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s 1995 assassination.

Itzik Shmuli, head of the National Union of Students, one of the march’s organizers, also spoke in prophetic terms about the protest, saying in a statement that “this Saturday we are taking our socioeconomic fate into our own hands. If we don’t come to the protest we will hand our fate over for the next 25 years.”

Another organization decided to promote the march in a different way. Earlier this week, the Public Movement decided to hit the streets with a mass dance session.

A few dozen mobilized at a busy Tel Aviv intersection in a flash mob of folk dancing and revelry. One of the group members, Saar Szekely, explained that dancing creates a “thematic solidarity between people.”

And aside from a couple irate drivers, the dance protest seemed to achieve its goals in their two-and –a-half minute dance. Chances are there will be a whole lot more people out in the streets on Saturday night.

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Darkness at the edge of town

September 1, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Life 

As the darkness settled over us, I felt an unanticipated sense of panic. I had been expecting to be unsettled, startled, certainly disoriented; I didn’t realize it would bring up so many deep and hidden emotions.

To set the stage: my wife Jody and I were dining in the Black Out Restaurant at the Nalaga’at Center in Jaffa. Nalaga’at calls itself a “cultural, entertainment and training center” for deaf, blind and deaf-blind Israelis. A troupe of a dozen actors puts on a play each evening that is at once heartbreaking and heartwarming as it illustrates what it’s like to live with their particular disabilities.

Many theatergoers choose to start their night with a meal at the Black Out, a restaurant where blind and seeing impaired waiters guide their guests through a meal in total darkness. Not just “dark,” but total – not a speck of light seeped through the heavy curtains. We were even instructed to check our cell phones before entering, to prevent any light if they flashed from swarming through the room like Internet-savvy fireflies.

Our waitress Ma’ayan introduced herself to us and then led us to our table by placing hands on shoulders. We had to feel for our chairs, locate our water and glasses and silverware as if we were blind – which for the next two hours we essentially were.

There are two meal options at the Black Out – dairy and fish; we opted for the former. Within each option, there are three entrees and a “surprise me” choice, where the chef picks the dish and the diners try to discern what they’ve been served (mine was some sort or ravioli with sweet potato and peas – unusual but good).

First, though, we were brought a basket of fresh baked bread, pre-buttered with garlic and dried tomatoes. Perhaps (or probably) because one of our senses had been taken away, the taste of the bread was astonishing.

Jody and I also used the breadbasket to navigate the table, and to find each other’s hands to hold as the volume from the other diners in the small space cranked up towards metal head level, threatening to sonically overwhelm us. Ma’ayan explained that when you can’t see someone and you’re not used to that, you naturally tend to shout. The ears also compensate for the lack of sight, amplifying everything.

Which is when I started to panic. The sound level, which I am loathe to call deafening for abuse of a cliché, although it might nevertheless be the most appropriate, became oppressive, much like the humidity we’d earlier slogged through outside on the Jaffa beach.

I became silent. Jody tried to engage me in conversation. I couldn’t respond. It was then Jody’s turn to panic – had I left the table without telling her? Where was her usually unstoppably chatty husband?

Upon hearing Jody’s concern, I snapped out of my momentary melancholy fairly quickly, but my words were forced, uttered more for the sake of compassion than ordinary discourse.

Once the main meal came, my alarm was mitigated somewhat. I tried my best to eat with a fork, but lapsed too often into using my hands – after all, no one could see me, right?

Everyone will react differently to the temporary deprivation of one or more of their senses. Jody was calm but couldn’t keep her eyes open. My response to the sounds around me (made worse by the presence of a particularly boisterous group of un chaperoned teenagers) was not entirely surprising: I have always been sensitive to noise and the Black Out restaurant magnified that susceptibility a hundredfold. I can’t imagine how it must be to live like this all the time. I am thankful I don’t have to. And saddened that others do not have that choice.

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