New guy at Teva

January 3, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, health, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

The new guy

There’s another fairly well-known American running around town, and he’s making aliyah for the sake of his job, unlike long-time Israel Museum director James Snyder but similar to Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer. Interestingly, Jeremy Levin, the new CEO of Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, is also from South Africa — Fischer is from Zambia, part of South Central Africa — and is also an American citizen, although he has also lived in Zimbabwe, England, Switzerland and Israel.

And, like Fischer, Levin also speaks Hebrew, not however, as well as Fischer; not yet, that is.

What Teva is known for...

Like others in his position — several Maccabi Tel Aviv and Haifa basketball players (the teams require a certain number of Israeli citizens on the court during a game, so they recruited Jewish Americans), in addition to central bank governor Fischer — the CEO of Teva has to be Israeli, in addition to fairly knowledgeable about pharmaceuticals, which Levin is, as a former executive at Bristol Myers Squibb, and several other drug companies.

Of course, it’s a fairly major deal to become the chief executive of Teva, which has become one of the world’s largest drugmakers. But nice to know they also require their chief to be a local.

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Sabras in JLiving

January 2, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Business, design, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Pop Culture 

As a writer/journalist type around here — writing about the fun stuff, granted, very little politics and diplomacy crossing my computer — I tend to be mostly familiar with many of my stories. That is, I know a little bit about many different subjects and issues, having written about them at one time or another. That can be good, in the sense that I’m familiar with the interview subjects, and the trajectory of the story, whether it’s about import prices in Israel or Tel Aviv fashion shows.

When I write for a publication that’s new to me, or new in general, it helps turn up the volume on my subject matter. I have to be the ultimate arbiter on the subject at hand, making sure my new readers and editors will understand the piece, and be able to read between the lines, particularly if it’s about something Israeli that may not be known to this particular audience. I’m thinking about this because I just read through the premiere issue of JLiving, a new Jewish living magazine out of Los Angeles, which just launched.

I wrote about the top six Israeli resorts for the issue, as well as a piece about a creative entrepreneurial partnership, StudioVE, out of Tel Aviv. Neither piece broke any new news; I’m sure most of you reading either one of them will think, “Yeah, I’ve read about this before.” And perhaps you have, particularly from the resorts piece.

But because I was writing about it for a new magazine, one with readers who don’t necessarily regularly read about Israel, it made me look at people and places a little differently, with an eye as to how these places and people look and sound to those who don’t know them well, or have never come across them before.

So have a look, although it is a little annoying to read through the magazine widget. But it’s flashy and fun, and very California. And hey, it’s good to have some Sabra stuff in there.

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Bluegrass in Jerusalem

January 2, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture 

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You might not expect Israel to cultivate a big Americana roots music scene, and you’d be right.

However, small bastions of down home of ragged but righteous acoustic mayhem are cropping up here and there, and for a New Year’s treat, here’s one of the best – Natan Galili and The Scavengers, with special guest Yehuda Ledgley performing the rousing gospel standard “I’ll Fly Away” at a recent Jerusalem house party.

Galili and The Scavengers – Assaf Amgar on fiddle and Liad Mor on upright bass – are Israelis who love the sounds of rural America, and they’ve been performing in local Jerusalem clubs for the better part of a year, building up a loyal following.

Ledgley, originally from Canada, is an accomplished singer/songwriter in his own right, and regularly joins the band for shows, bolstering the sound with his heavy metal country acoustic guitar and twangy vocals.

When Galili and Ledgley recently performed as a duo at the monthly Jerusalem Folk Club, they wowed the crowd with their originals and covers. The hall was packed for that show, which featured a half dozen other acts, proof that folk and country sounds sound good no matter where they’re played – in Nashville or Jerusalem.

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Nostalgia Sunday – A look way back

January 1, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture 

It’s the first day of 2012. A good day to check what was happening in Israel a decade ago, courtesy of the wonderful Wayback Machine, an online historical archive of preserved web pages going back to 1996. The Wayback Machine crawls the Internet, taking “snapshots” of websites which are added to the archive. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can then type in a URL, select a date range, and view the archived versions.

On December 16th, 2001, when Wayback Machine visited The Jerusalem Post, the headlines were concerned with an IDF crackdown on the Palestinian Authority in the wake of shelling from Gaza, a falling Cost Price Index and relations with PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. JDate was the dating site of choice for Jpost readers.

The lead story on Ynet on December 17th, 2001, (only available in Hebrew at that time), was about victims of a shooting attack. Other stories included the opening of a second McDonald’s franchise in Jerusalem and the Bank of Israel’s fight against forged checks while online messaging pioneer ICQ offered up its ultimate tip guide and Ynet ruminated over who would be its choice for Person of the Year. Cupid.co.il was the premier dating site for Hebrew-speaking Israelis at that time.

That same day, December 17th, 2001, Haaretz also ran the story about the West Bank attack victims. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said the US had no plans to invade Iraq and Arafat called for an end to violence against Israel. (It must have been true ’cause it was in the papers!) And JCupid, the English-language version of Cupid.co.il, was offering an end to lonely singledom.

Wayback didn’t crawl Globes around January 2002. It visited Globes on November 8, 2001, at which time the financial news headlines were concerned with, among other things, the acquisition of cement block maker Ytong, the public sector workers strike and the short-lived reopening of troubled Phoenicia Glass Works. There were no dating ads; the one advertiser was a bank.

Israelity didn’t get started until 2005. When it did, it looked like this:

And what of our own Israel21c? Unfortunately, due to its archive structure, the Wayback Machine isn’t able to reconstruct its “snapshot” — good thing I made a screenshot some time ago for another posting!

The Wayback Machine is operated by the Internet Archive, which collaborates with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. It’s great fun to go in and crawl around.

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365 days of inspiration in new app

January 1, 2012 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Art, History and Culture 

Israel365 app

Got an iPhone? Love the diverse and often dazzling landscapes of Israel? Enjoy a bible quote every now and then? Then a free iPhone app from a newly minted immigrant, Rabbi Tuly Weisz, should keep your fingers swiping in inspirational bliss.

Weisz’s app, Israel365, is a visual calendar of sorts. Each day has a different picture and quote from the bible. The quotes are in English and Hebrew with transliteration. And that’s it. Nice and simple. Well, not quite: If you want to dig deeper there’s also a Hebrew lesson based on the passage. But most people will probably just look at the pictures.

Which is absolutely fine, because they’re really quite pretty. Weisz assembled some 30 Israeli photographers who donated their pictures to the app. Inspiration aside, the app is also a form of subtle advertising  (if you like what you see, you can contact the photographers and Israel365 takes a 50% cut).

Weisz says he got the idea after reading that, when Herzl was considering establishing the state of Israel in Chicago, a Christian pastor named William Blackstone set out to visually illustrate the connection of the Jews to Israel, not Africa, by underlying every passage referring to the Promised Land in the bible.

Weisz was fascinated and did the same thing. “I couldn’t get over the fact that [references to Israel were] on nearly every page,” he says. Before you could say Holy Sand Dune, Weisz had made aliyah, launched a non-profit called “Teach for Israel” (it connects rabbis back in the States with their local Christian Zionist communities, something Weisz was already doing as a congregational rabbi in Ohio), and found an enterprising software developer who could get the app out in time for the beginning of the 2012 calendar year.

Weisz has big plans for Israel365, including versions that will run on the Android and other mobile platforms, along with the addition of more languages. “Since the content is limited to 365 bible verses and the bible already exists digitally in other languages, this should be very do-able,” he says.

The app is officially published by the United with Israel organizations, which calls itself “the world’s largest pro-Israel social community with nearly 900,000 supporters on its Facebook page alone.

You can get a preview of the app here.

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