Reporting from the Israwinexpo
So I returned Wednesday night from the first public night of the Israwinexpo 2008, Israel’s 2nd international wine trade show. While the two public days were mostly wine tastings attended by Israel’s growing oenophiles (and a few tourists, including my parents), the first day was only for professionals. Journalists from Wine Spectator, Decanter (one of Europe’s top wine magazines), several Asian wine journalists, and top wine critics (including Mark Squires, from the Wine Advocate, who recently wrote a piece on Israeli wine), and officials from several major supermarkets in the US and Europe.
I have to admit that, for me, this was very similar – but a tad more professional – than the Jerusalem wine festival, with a lot of people aiming to taste some top wines (although this event had a larger presence by the large producers and, given its location in Tel Aviv and attempt to garner shelf space abroad, a larger percentage of the non-certified kosher (such as Saslove, Sea Horse, and Vitkin) producers were in attendance. And, of course, admission included a very high quality glass to wrap around one’s neck during the tasting. Of course the crowds did make it hard to taste and only a small number (hundreds, instead of thousands) of wines were being poured.
But, more importantly, this was a chance to enjoy Israeli (and a few non-Israeli producers, including from Italy and Washington State – although the Israeli yayin tasted far better!) wines together. Personally, I discovered a new producer (Gvaot, made in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim) and changed my mind (positively) about another producer. More importantly, I was thrilled to see native Israelis enjoying high quality wines and was delighted that the Israeli wines were far tastier and enjoyable than the wines from North America and Europe.
From Yatir to Avidan to Gvaot, Vitkin, Sea Horse, Alexander, Saslove, Galil Mountain, Dalton, Golan Heights Winery and Carmel, Israeli wine is of high quality, diverse, and sophisticated.
I admit that this wasn’t always the case but it’s important to understand that Israeli wine of today is not the Carmel dreck of 30 years ago and there is no reason to do – as my father did – drink Carmel’s Rose (not a sophisticated wine) “for nostalgia’s sake” as that doesn’t represent Israeli wine in 2008. But, for those who were open to listening and learning and, above all, tasting, the event was a tremendous introduction to the growing wine culture in Israel – a land that has been producing wine for thousands of years.
(Crossposted on HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog)
A drink of culture
Last week, I had the immense pleasure of traveling to Tel Aviv (I admit, a rare occurrence!) to attend the book launch of Daniel Rogov’s 2008 Guide to Israeli Wines, the premier rating book of Israel’s top (and not-so-top) wineries. Only in the past 20-or-so years, with the beginning of Golan Heights Winery, has Israel begun producing world-class wines, and only in the past few years with older wineries that used to just make sweet, sickly “Kiddush” wines undergoing tremendous changes and renovations and hundreds of smaller wineries now on the scene and making wines equal to the very best and so Daniel Rogov, Israel’s most important wine critic, has only produced his guide since 2005.
While open only to winery officials and wine journalists, a few members of the Rogov wine forum were also invited to this event. While I won’t bore you with the details (the head of the Golan Heights Winery spoke, Rogov announced that there were over 600 new reviews and 15 new wineries) Of course, much wine was drunk (Yarden Brut at the entrance, and Yarden Odem Organic Chardonnay and Syrah at the event itself) and excellent hor’dourves were had. Best of all, the event, at Tel Aviv’s Wine Route’s fantastic cellar, allowed for a chance to pick up a special bottle of Recanati (a top Italian-style wine produced right here in Israel!) that was made specially for the wine store. It’s always good to experience culture in Israel.
If you haven’t opened up a bottle of good Israeli wine, now’s the time! L’chaim!
(crossposted on: HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog)
Next time take a taxi
I know ISRAELITY is supposed to talk about good news from Israel, but sometimes the reality of Israel isn’t always positive. Israel is sometimes accused of being an apartheid state … a libelous, false, accusation when referred to Israel’s relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. However, part of Israel’s bus systems do remind me of the old Jim Crow laws in the US … not between Arabs and Jews but rather men and women.
From Wikipedia:
The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965. They mandated “separate but equal” status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were almost always inferior to those provided to white Americans.
Replace black with women and white with men and you have buses in Israel that go through haredi (ultra-Orthodox) neighborhoods. It is customary (not the law, of course, but you try to do otherwise!) for the women to sit in the back of the bus while the men sit in the front (presumably so that they don’t have to look at the women or sit next to them). There have even been instances … including one instance today … in which a handful of haredi men beat up a woman sitting in the front of a bus next to an IDF soldier (who clearly didn’t have a problem sitting next to a woman) and then attacked the police officers who responded to the scene and punctured their tires. They have even beaten up religious women who dare to sit in the front of the bus. Religious non-haredi people like author Naomi Ragen have spoken out about this many times. Of course, how this doesn’t violate their practice to not touch members of the opposite sex (negiah), I do not know. These, of course, are on “segregated” (separate but equal?) buses, but even on the regular busses, some people try to keep the genders from mixing. Personally, though, I wonder what would happen if I sat in the woman’s section (I have never — and would never — take such a bus).
In fact, just last week on the regular city bus, come home from the grocery store, I sat down next to a woman and another woman asked me to get up and sit down next to a religious (not haredi!) man, who wouldn’t sit next to women. Reluctantly, I complied. However, I got into an interesting discussion. I hope I enlightened a few people. He, with his kippah on his head, told me that it was forbidden by Jewish law for men and women to sit together. Me, with my kippah on my head, told him he was wrong – the Jewish legal texts do not forbid men and women from engaging in non-sexual social interactions, certainly not from sitting next to each other on a public bus! Well, I don’t think I convinced him, but I hope that the secular people nearby overhead me and realized that not all religious people believe in such archaic behavior and I hope that the religious people nearby also learned that Judaism does not demand rigid segregation in everyday non-sexual activities.
Next time someone doesn’t want to sit next to the opposite sex, I have a suggestion ….
Take a taxi!
How to know when a holiday is coming up
Filed under: Food, General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Life
Well, it’s the holiday season in Israel. Nope, not Christmas but rather the tidal wave of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot … right after everyone just returned from school or work. Some people can tell the holidays are coming because of the special prayers recited before the morning prayers for the week or month before or the shofar blown every morning for the month before Rosh Hashana. Not me! I suddenly started to feel the holiday’s approach by the wine sales and the mad rush to the supermarket.
Around the world, the one thing that has united the Jewish people is a love of food and gathering around the table for holiday meals. Well, this requires tons of food and preparation. So, imagine how much of a balagan it is when the entire country all has to go to the grocery store at once to go holiday shopping. I discovered that on Monday, when I went to one of the large supermarkets in Jerusalem’s Talpiot industrial zone. I’ve gone there many times when it was crowded, and packed, and loud. But this was my first time there where they didn’t have shopping carts. As everyone needed them to buy cases and cases of drinks, fruits, vegetables, and other edible stuff, they were a rare commodity. However, surprisingly, this must have been a high class crowd as there seemed to be no mad rush, pushing and shoving all too common in Israel. A few people even left because they couldn’t grab a cart but a few of us just stood, mumbling and complaining, until a cart became available. As inconvenient as it was, we all took comfort in the fact that the entire country was all about to celebrate the same holiday. Not something I ever experienced in the U.S. except for maybe Thanksgiving.
But, oh, the universal wine sales before the holidays. This is why I love the holidays – the great wine sales. 25 shekels (6 dollars), instead of 40 ($10) for a decent bottle of some yayin. 35 shekels instead of 50. All over, good wine could be had at prices much less than the rest of the year (besides Passover, the supreme wine holiday). In fact, I heard that over 20% of all wine sales in Israel take place during this time.
Ahhh… crowds and wine … who knew this could give so much pleasure.
Shanah Tovah everyone!
Shhh… Be quiet…. or you might get fined
If you plan on doing any yardwork or hiring a gardener in Jerusalem, make sure no one is working between 2 and 4 PM. Apparently, that is mandatory nap time, according to this Ha’aretz video. (Now, I don’t know about you, but between 2 and 4, I’m at work. Think I can negotiate nap time into my work contract?) Apparently, a team of Jerusalem police officers are tasked to patrol Jerusalem and fine anyone making a bit of noise during these “enforced quiet hours.” Now, I don’t know about you but it seems like an extraordinary waste of my tax dollars (which I would like back … so I can pay …. wait … my TV tax….). According to this report, Israelis are paying more and more taxes and work for the government longer than for themselves. Probably because we’re paying for ridiculous things like quiet patrols (and TV taxes, but that’s a story for another time)! What is this? 1984?
Memo to cops: How about fighting crime instead? Several of my friends have recently been burglarized in the past few weeks … during quiet hours when they (like most people should be) are at work. But, really, if you are going to enforce quiet hours, how about tell the construction workers outside my windows to start working at a more reasonable hour – like, at least, 7AM!
From Capitol to Capitol.
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Life, Politics
One of the reasons I can only live in Jerusalem and not Tel Aviv is that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital city. While it’s certainly true that some politicians and government offices are based in Tel Aviv, that’s no different than New York in America. Growing up outside of Washington, DC my idea of celebrity watching was going downtown and watching administration officials and congressmen. Yes, it’s true, I got more excited when former Clinton Cabinet member Donna Shalala walked into a store I was working at in college than when The Nanny’s Benjamin Salisbury was in my college film class or when I spent a semester studying with Jerusalem-born Natalie Portman at Hebrew University (OK, maybe that one’s not true … but it’s Natalie Portman, every Jewish guy’s dream girl, so that’s a special exception). Yes, I’m more comfortable and feel at home when my friends work on Capitol Hill or the Knesset rather than in Hollywood or New York, or when my mother runs into Joe Lieberman at the supermarket or when I walk home from synagogue in Jerusalem on Shabbat next to Hadassah Lieberman. I appreciate it more when Congress members come to Jerusalem rather than Will Smith visiting the Western Wall (although I suspect, the female population would disagree with me there). Yes, I would rather work in a think tank than in high tech (well, except for the salary issue!).
Basically, I’m a Washingtonian born and bred who watches C-SPAN and the Knesset channel for entertainment and I’m proud of holding a political sophistication that most of America or Israel lack (how many people know the difference between hokei hayesod and a huka?). So, I always get a little homesick and a little happy when I have a little politico moment here in Jerusalem, no matter how minor.
I always feel just a bit better seeing motorcades and diplomats, such as when Condi Rice was just down the street from me a few weeks ago, staying at the David Citadel Hotel. Peeking from afar her covered exit and some of the secret services’ black SUVs, I walked home the rest of the way feeling just a bit more at home.
Walking down the street yesterday, I heard several sirens. Having lived here during the worst years of the second intifada, I was alert to a possible pigua (terror attack), which is normally what multiple sirens symbolize. But, I breathed a sigh of relief when the sirens were a police car, black Volvo, and several SUVs, carrying some dignitary – most likely bringing Prime Minister Olmert back to his nearby home. Oddly, though, I thought to myself, unlike the American presidential motorcade (OK, which I admit, I only saw once), the prime minister’s motorcade didn’t include an ambulance.
As Jay (also a Jerusalem transplant from DC) said, when he ran into the Meridor brothers (Dan and Sallai – a former Israeli justice minister and Israel’s current ambassador to the US) at the beer festival in Jerusalem:
I was talking with a former Justice Minister and the current Israeli Ambassador to the USA in the middle of the street in the middle of the night with no security guards. Up there with motorcades and the drones of surveillance planes in the middle of the night, random politician spotting makes this place feel more like DC. WOW.
Despite being Israel’s financial – but not political – capital, this just doesn’t happen in Tel Aviv … or New York.
Israel’s other king
Filed under: Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture
(Israel’s Elvis American Diner in Neve Ilan, Israel)
While Israel has had its share of kings throughout history: David, Saul, Solomon, to name just a few, it seems that a few Israelis are focused on a different king: Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll.
Hunk of burning love in Israel? According to this article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Israel has quite a few Elvis fans. Now, while I haven’t seen any Elvis impersonators here in Jerusalem, on the thirtieth anniversary of the King’s death (anyone saying kaddish for the ruler of rock?), Israel’s Elvis fans are coming out of the woodwork at the Elvis American diner (I wonder if they serve Elvis’s famed peanut butter and banana sandwiches with his favorite bacon fat?) off the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway.
On Thursday morning, Herzl Shimoni will pull on his white satin pantsuit, smooth back his black pompadour and, with a heavy heart, say a prayer for his idol, a man dead 30 years but alive in the hearts of fans worldwide. Even in Israel.
“When Elvis died, I mourned for the whole month. I didn’t want to lose him … I decided then that I would start to perform his songs,” said Shimoni, one of Israel’s best-known Elvis impersonators.
While American fans gather in Graceland and elsewhere to mark the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s Aug. 16, 1977, death, Shimoni and dozens of other Israelis will meet in what’s become a clubhouse for Middle East followers of the King.
The Elvis American Diner, at a truck stop off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, is hosting a daylong homage to the man whose hips and music shook the world.
About 10 Israeli Elvis impersonators — Shimoni included — are scheduled to entertain diners with tunes that shaped their childhood: “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
And it seems that one of the best Elvis impersonators in the country was born in Iran, only speaks halting English, and has never been in America.
Think the real king will show up?
Nu, kama kesef?
Filed under: Blogging, General, Israeliness, Technology
Ever wonder how much you should give as a gift for your co-workers wedding, or your cousin’s birthday party? Well, an Israeli website now calculates for you exactly how much you are expected to give. KamaKesef (how much money?) is a pricelist for guests of events. In Hebrew, this site is extremely Jewish. Why? Three reasons:
- Instead of “submit” the submit button is “Nu, kama kesef?) (Nu — is there really a translation for this? — , how much money?)
- One of the options for occupation is “Rothschild” a.k.a. really, really rich – a common expression in Israel, named for the famous Rothschild banking family.
- The final price is given not only in its exact calculation but also in “Chai” – increments of 18, because writing out “18″ in Hebrew (?”?) spells “life.”
Only in Israel!
(Hat tip: Lizrael Update)
Robbed blind
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
I was robbed last night. No, not literally but my wallet figuratively feels lighter after a trip to get new glasses (and a failed attempt at getting contact lenses!) and the ridiculous amount of money I paid, and the crazy Israeli experience. For several months I had been putting this off, but I was running out of disposable contacts and wanted new ones to be from a prescription less than 3 years old (and glasses even older). So, after work, I trekked down the block to Opticana, which promised me a discount as a member of Meuchedet Adif (my HMO’s “preferred” plan).
Walking in, I noticed that all the glasses displayed were sunglasses. Unlike American vision stores, which has all the glasses on display (albeit mostly behind glass, but still visible), I discovered that the clerk (or optician? What’s the difference?) basically had to show me each frame individually … a time consuming task, especially since there were others in the store and there was only one other staff there, who also gave prescriptions. This “personal service” did not put me in a good frame of mind as other customers needed help and I’m the type of person that just wants all my options in front of me and then left to make my own decisions with someone available if I have any questions. Of course, thinking that she was only showing me the frames that were most heavily discounted for Adif customers, I found out later just how wrong I was. Whoops, strike one for my pocket.
While waiting around (as they made me take off my contact lenses at least thirty minutes before given an eye exam – something that I had never experienced in the United States. Was this another Jewish mother bureaucratic/socialist requirement or was it that American optometrists are remiss?), customers kept on complaining that there was only one person available to help – and all I kept thinking was SAVLANOOT (PATIENCE) & DISPLAY THE LENSES SO THAT YOU WON’T NEED STAFF! (Annoyed? Bitter? Me? Never!)
But the really fun part of it all – the optician (there don’t seem to be optometrists – people with actual doctorate degrees – in Israel, unlike the US [although that’s also true in Europe]. She only had a Bachelors degree from Hadassah College!) refused to give me a prescription for new contact lenses. Supposedly you aren’t supposed to wear contacts all day – yet no American eye doctor ever told such thing to me – and she was mad that I was wearing contacts for 15 hours per day (OK, she also said it was messing up my eyes, but that’s another story). Only in Israel! (Although, if she’s correct, perhaps this is a case in which Americans are negligent.)
Yet, in the end, I still ended up paying almost 2000NIS (about $465) for glasses — more than a fifth of my monthly salary — (most of the cost being the lenses – 1400NIS (about $325)). Ridiculous, although a tremendous deal compared to what others seem to be paying! Next time I’m doing this when I’m in America. Because otherwise, I’ll be “robbed blind.”
Jerusalem wine nights
Filed under: A New Reality, Food, General, Israeliness, Life
So I said that I promised a follow up to the Jerusalem Wine Tasting Festival hosted by the Israel Museum and sponsored by neighbor Avi Ben, one of Israel’s best wine shops. Well, so I went on Tuesday – the opening night (but tonight is the last night, if you missed it go now. While perhaps less than 20 wineries were there, there was so much to choose from and so much quality wine, so there was way too much that I didn’t taste (I think I only poured out 2 glasses that didn’t meet the super high standards of the rest of the wineries … although I admit that I purposely avoided Carmel, which, while significantly improving still has a long way to go despite being the stereotypical image of “Israeli wine” for many abroad and does not (yet?) represent the pinnacle of Israeli wine, despite its historical importance).
From Yatir and Recanati (my favorites) to the boutique Kaslov (which everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy) to Saslove, Teperberg to the large and always excellent Golan Heights and Galil Mountain Wineries, much enjoying was had by all. The crowd was surprisingly young (particularly among the Israeli natives, perhaps as they are young and global enough to appreciate truly quality wine which has existed in Israel for only about 20 years. This is unique as in much of the rest of the world, the wine elite still ignores the young customer [check out this documentary Harvest Young]), though I was disappointed that the only identifiably religious people were originally from abroad (as wine is imbibed every week on Shabbat, I would have expected a higher appreciation of wine, but, yesterday, when I stopped by a haredi grocery store and saw only rancid Kiddush wine and grape juice, my expectations were shattered). Nevertheless, as someone who is missionary about spreading quality wine culture and emphasizing the high quality of today’s Israeli wine, the Jerusalem Wine Festival was a great start. What’s next? How about the beer festival (ending tonight or tomorrow)? Apparently boutique beer is the next big thing in Israel (and, I must admit, far more affordable than wine)!
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