Toilets here and there

November 3, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Life, Travel 

Fortunately in Israel, we have nicer bathrooms than this one in Nepal

Abby Leichman has written one of the most off-beat and yet voyeuristically engaging Top Ten Lists I’ve read in a while on Israel21c. It’s a compilation of the best public toilets in Jerusalem. Now, while such a grouping is necessarily gender subjective at best (after all, Abby couldn’t visit the men’s side of her chosen bathrooms), it still represents an alternative eye into Israeli society.

I have to admit that moving to Israel has brought up my own fascination with public facilities. On the one hand, it’s the often-lacking comparison with the luxury of North America. I remember a month back, when my mother came to visit Israel for the first time, she was decidedly less than enamored of the old school gas station toilets (the ones out back, around the side of the station, not the newer “lavish” facilities inside the mini-mart).

Still, she has nothing to complain about. A few years ago, I was driving with the family from San Diego to Los Angeles at 3:00 AM to catch an early morning flight from LAX back to Israel. We needed to use the restroom, so we stopped at a gas station. “Sorry, it’s out of order,” the not particularly interested clerk mumbled. We got back on the highway but the next station we pulled into also had a toilet that mysteriously was “being cleaned” (there were no cleaning supplies nearby). After the same thing happened another couple of times, I got the message and found a bush in back of a Denny’s (which apparently wasn’t one of the 24-7 restaurants I remember from my youth). Bottom line: I’ll take stinky Israel over non-available America any day.

An outdoor bathroom in the Serengeti

It’s also hard not to appreciate the lowly Israeli facility after traveling in the third world. Most Israeli toilets flush; they usually have seats (other than a few in the Old City, squatters are a rarity in Israel); any bad smells tend more to the urine spectrum (don’t even think about the other side!); and these days you can even find toilet paper and soap.

Here’s one more praise for the Israeli restroom: very frequently, the walls for your stall go all the way to the floor, so that you’re actually in your own separate room. Nearly uniformly (and especially at hotels and airports), North American public toilets have short knee-length dividers between stalls so that you are forced to see your neighbor’s shiny shoes wiggling around (not to mention the uncomfortable audio feedback).

So, thanks Abby, for bringing to light the unseen heroes of the Israeli toilet. If you want to go even deeper into the bowels of the public facilities, visit the user-generated toilet site urinal.net, which has literally thousands of photos of the fabled stand up facility from all over the world (I particularly liked the one from the Mir Space Station).

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Finding the ‘Muzika’ in Israel

November 3, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Music 

Geva Alon being interviewed by Igal Hecht for 'Muzika'. (Photo: Ziv Kenet)

Americans and Canadians are going to be able to get a crash course in Israeli music and the people who make it when Muzika, a new half-hour 52-part TV series that focuses 52 of the most captivating musical voices in the country, begins its run this month.

Among the artists highlighted and interviewed in the series are Ahinoam Nini, David Broza, Hadag Nahash, Geva Alon, Asaf Avidan, Idan Reichel, Karolina, and Subliminal. The series is the brainchild of Canadian/Israeli filmmaker Igal Hecht, whose Chutzpa Productions boasts 40 documentaries – many of them about Israel – to his credit, and it’s co-produced by Israeli filmmaker Lior Cohen.

“The musicians will talk about their careers, highlights and their music,” Hecht told the Canadian Jewish News. “It offers a rare opportunity for people to enjoy some of the best music in the world, while at the same time see a different Israel.”

Hecht said that he shied away from delving into politics with the musicians, preferring to stick to their musical story. And rather than just focus on mainstream artists, he said that the show presents an accurate portrayal of the diverse melting pot of musical influences coming out of Israeli musicians, so there’s Ladino, hip hop, Hassidic, Mizrahi, reggae, and everything in between.

And one of the perks for Hecht was to be in intimate situations with some of his favorite artists – like sitting with David Broza in the musician’s living room and receiving a personal concert, or joining Ivri Lider in the studio.

While North American Jews and Israelis living abroad are natural target audiences for the series, Hecht is confident it will appear mostly to music lovers, regardless of what they know of Israel. Muzika will be screened beginning November 20 on CTS, Cross Roads Television in Canada, and on Shalom TV in the US.

Check out the show’s YouTube channel for some previews.

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An Israeli Halloween

November 1, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Business, Entertainment, Environment, Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Movies, Pop Culture 

Halloween cookies from the Cupcake Caterers

Halloween’s over, and I’m thinking about how this Celtic and then Christian holiday has entered the Israeli consciousness, or at least to my knowledge.

Not having celebrated myself growing up — rabbi’s kid, although we did hand out candy to all the neighborhood kids — I don’t have any strong connections to the holiday. And because we were the rabbi’s family, our house did not usually get pelted by raw eggs and such — neighborhood protection. So it was the best of all worlds; appreciating someone else’s ‘chag‘, despite the anti-Semitic associations (we lived in a fairly non-Jewish neighborhood) but not having to take it on ourselves.

Living in Israel, I haven’t really given it much thought, except for cruising through various online store catalogs for Halloween costumes that could work well for Purim. But something’s happening this year, at least through my lens. Halloween has always been different for me than Thanksgiving, which I’ve always celebrated here in Israel, and have continued to do so, despite light censure from Israeli-born nieces, nephews and stepdaughters who think that the American-born adults in their lives are crazy to continue with such a blatantly chulnik (Israeli slangish for ‘foreigner’) celebration.\

Maybe it’s Facebook, and the exposure offered to what other people are doing and celebrating. Or perhaps it’s that global village thing, in which we adapt and adopt others’ trends and rituals because they seem worthwhile. All I know is, Halloween is out there, now translated to ליל כל הקדושים, All Hallows Eve.

There are parties advertised online, mostly hosted by Americans, exhorting invitees to “Do it the same in Israel as we would at home!!” There’s also the potential for doubling up on costumes, wearing what you wore for Purim on Halloween, and vice versa. And there are the comments from many, missing that easy availability of candy corn, half off Halloween candy the day after.

Halloween isn’t the American version of Purim, as Senator John McCain once mistakenly noted, despite the similarities. But it does have its appeal, particularly to those of us who hail from the land of the U.S.A. Check out the cookies made by Sidra Collins Muoio, owner of Cupcake Caterers, for her co-workers.

And, finally, there’s Rabies, Israel’s first horror film, which had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last May and played in Toronto in honor of Halloween.

If it’s a celebration of candy, costumes and good times, I’m actually all for it. And I can never argue with an Israeli film that succeeds on North American terms.

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