We’ll Believe George Clooney Is Coming When We See His Plane Land
The New York Israeli consulate is getting all worked up and excited fantasizing about an upcoming visit to Israel by George Clooney:
It’s true; he is just as hot in person as on the big screen. And now, we all might get a glance of The Sexiest Person of the Year shopping on Shenkin, or lounging at the TA Port. We can confirm that Mr. George Clooney spoke to our very own Vice Premier, the elder statesmen himself, Shimon Peres, when the two bumped into each other for separate tapings of the Charlie Rose Show last week. Apparently, Peres invited Clooney for a visit to Israel, and the dapper, Oscar winning, A-lister enthusiastically accepted.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m as hot for George as the next girl. But if every celebrity that an Israeli diplomatic source was planning to visit Israel actually came, the place would be as star-studded as the Cannes Film Festival. I mean, George meets Shimon in the dressing room of Charley Rose, Shimon invites him publicly, what is George gonna say? “No, ugh, never…travel to that war-torn occupier? Are you nuts?!”
Maybe I’m too skeptical and underestimating the pull of the Peres charm. After all, Sharon Stone did make it over here, as did Richard Gere and Madonna albeit not when their careers were peaking the way that Clooney’s is right now. But hey, I’d be happy to be proven wrong — come on, George, we’re waiting.
The Hannukah Miracle that will Never Happen — a Low-Calorie Donut
Anyone who has every tried to stick to a diet in Israel knows that the Chanukah donut – called a “soovganiah” – is a caloric disaster zone. Traditionally soaked in oil, and in recent years draped with chocolate glaze, sprinkles, and filled with everything from bavarian creme to dulce de leche to vodka-laced vanilla pudding, every year they are under your nose for a month while the media screams how bad they are for you.
The donut-pushing bakery chains keep trying to think up new and ingenious ways of justifying giving in to temptations. Check out their clever strategies:
In previous years the sufganiya has shrunk from 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) to half its size.
This new sized doughnut has been given the name “mini”, with fewer calories. There is even a “bite-sized sufganiya” on the market now, and this stands at about 1.2 ounces. Anything to keep the consumer happy.The coming Hanukkah will witness a further donut upgrade. The Roladin bakery chain has declared a doughnut revolution, offering even healthier doughnuts this year: No longer will the doughnuts be fried in regular oil, but rather in canola oil, which is known for its cholesterol reducing capacities, will be used instead.
Roladin CEO Kobi Hakak explained that this year the sufganiya will be “smaller, healthier, and better – the mini jelly sufganiya will only contain 169 calories.” According to Hakak, this year, 90 percent of the chain’s doughnut products will be mini sufganiyot.
Canola or not, it’s like trying to make chocolate a healthy food. There are just some kinds of foods that will never be healthy, no matter what you do to them.
At Lehem Erez they have declared a “Hanukkah miracle” by offering non fried doughnuts. They propose to do this by making brioche, a “baked doughnut”. This has a slightly different look and texture, but is similar enough to the original sufganiya. Brioche is a French pastry, which is light and fluffy compared to the heavy, fried sufganiya.
“An amazing pastry with little sugar and a lot of butter, stuffed with cream,” the chain explained. “About a third or more of the brioche’s weight is butter.”
So where does the health come in? Erez Komrovsky , one of the chain’s owners explained that “butter is much healthier than margarine, since is doesn’t have trans fats, so we should make sure the amount of butter flowing in the veins is increased.”
Yeah, right, butter….that famous health food.
See you at the gym.
It’s a Wonderful Underwater Country
OK, it’s totally unclear to me exactly what frolicking underwater has to do with creating sharp satire, but in any case — this was the season’s promo for the incredibly successful “Eretz Nehederet” (A Wonderful Country) — the show that has set the standard for poking fun at everything for the past three years. The critics grumbled that the first show of the season fell a bit short of the high (water?) mark it has set in past years, with more giggles than belly laughs. One of the funnier moments was when the Prime Minister’s left-wing artist wife, Aliza Olmert, played the supportive spouse throughout a skit, at the end of which she had created a painting across which was written, “Go Home, you big Failure.” The host said that was a pretty strong statement about her husband’s performance and she just smiled and said, “That’s the wonderful thing about art — you can interpret it in so many different ways.”
Road Rage
David at Treppenwitz, who lives in the Gush Etzion block on the other side of the Green Line, is more than a little agitated at what’s going on with the roads there:
During the beginning of the Palestinian uprisings (intifadas) the Israeli government decided that having Israeli (Jewish) motorists driving directly through Arab towns and villages was too much of a temptation/provocation, and quickly set about building a network of bypass roads. The rationale was that the Arabs would continue using the existing roads that bisected their communities, while the Jews would go around them on these new bypass roads, thus removing what had become too-tempting a target for rocks, fire-bombs and gunfire.
However, as soon as these bypass roads were completed there arose cries of ‘Apartheid Road’ from the Arabs, from the Israeli left and from useful idiots civil libertarians and human rights-niks throughout Europe. Having been raised on a steady diet of liberal politics, I have to admit I too was somewhat bothered by the idea of certain roads being ‘Jewish only’, and was relieved to see these new bypass roads ‘integrated’, even though it obviously made the security situation significantly more complicated for those who had to patrol them.
So, that was that.
But not really.
You see, not far from where I live there was yet another proposed bypass road that was to be constructed from the eastern part of Gush Etzion, connecting it to the Har Homa neighborhood of Jerusalem. The road was many years in the governmental planning and approval process, but its completion was eagerly anticipated by all as it promised to cut a 40-60 minute drive (sometimes as much as 90 minutes during ‘rush hour’) to as little as 8 minutes! And best of all, like the other ‘bypass roads’ this new road would eliminate the need for cars from the affected Jewish communities to drive directly through the center of Arab communities.
This should have been a win-win for all involved. With the concept of ‘Jewish Only’ roads long ago set aside as legally untenable, this new road would end up serving Arab and Jew alike… Arab sensibilities would be protected from ‘offensive Jewish traffic’ in their midst… and a new, safer road would provide quick access to Jerusalem for all.
It’s all good, right?
Yeah right. Nothing is ever that simple in Israel!
You see, this shiny new road was recently completed and opened… but only to Arab traffic!
Yes, you read that right. Jews living in communities such as Tekoa and Nokdim are barred from using this new road, and still have to drive almost an hour on winding roads through Arab villages to reach Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Arabs whose communities are in the same area are given free access.
Look, I’m sensitive to moves that might smack of heavy-handed ethnic discrimination against the Arabs, but what could possibly be the point of excluding Jews from this new road (other than deliberately making their lives more difficult/dangerous)?
He can’t figure out why this has happened, and speculates on the possible reasons, and manages to discuss the issue while miraculously preserving his comments section as a “no-flame” zone.
Simple Pleasures
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. It’s incredibly easy to focus on the negative aspects of life in Israel, and all to easy to neglect focusing on what is great about it. One of the definite advantages is clear every time you walk into your local fruit and vegetable market or the produce section of a regular supermarket. Everything is fresh, delicious, ripe and tempting, something you really don’t appreciate until you leave the country and check out what the rest of the world has to offer. As Idan says (and illustrates) it’s a bonanza! Let’s take a moment to enjoy the simple pleasures.
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