365 days of inspiration in new app

January 1, 2012 - 4:54 PM 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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Donut guy is at it again – raises $10,000 for charity by eating sufganiyot

December 28, 2011 - 8:38 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Social Justice 

Elie Klein the donut guy

Elie Klein is at it again. Last year, the 31-year-old Anglo public relations account executive chowed down 70 sufganiyot (Hanukah donuts) for charity, raising over $9,000 for 44 causes around the world. This year, he set a goal of eating 100 donuts and, in the process, has raised over $10,000. As of this morning – with still a day of donut eating left to go, he’s reached the 101 mark.

To put that in perspective, if each sufganiya contains approximately 400 calories, that’s over 40,000 calories consumed for charity. We sure hope his arteries aren’t already flowing with Krispy Kreme.

Klein’s adventures in edible oil began two years ago as a “gentleman’s bet” between friends over who could eat more sufganiyot during the Hanukah season. Klein quickly realized that he could line up financial “pledges” from friends and family for each donut eaten, much like charity races raise money per kilometer run or pedaled.

Klein has run most of his “Dough for Donuts” campaign via Facebook – regular status posts update supporters on what he’s eaten and where the money is going. Yesterday, for example, funds went to two groups: Ramot for the Environment and Ahavas Yisrael of Baltimore.

Other organizations Klein has backed – this year the tally reached 47 groups -  include well known charities such as Zaka, Melabev, Meir Panim, and a variety of “Yad’s” – Yad Binyamin, Yad Eliezer, Yad L’Achim, Yad Sarah, and more. A full list can be found on Klein’s Facebook “event.”

One thing copiously absent from Klein’s postings: which sufganiyot he’s eating. Is he going for super gourmet award winners like those from the English Cake and Roladin bakeries (with its vodka double espresso “chaser”), or the more humble supermarket variety? The price difference is not insignificant: the over the top donuts can reach 8 shekels each, while a plain blob of fried dough and artificial jelly can be had for as low as 1-2 shekels.

Although I’d like to think that, if he’s going to be scarfing up all those sufganiyot, he at least ought to please his taste buds along the way, I hate to think of him eating up all the profits. Either way, Klein has shown that an individual really can make a difference – the charities he’s supported can attest to that. Perhaps they’ll throw him a party to celebrate. But please, serve carrots for dessert!

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Hanukah, extremism and light

December 26, 2011 - 5:26 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Holidays, Politics 

Maccabee t-shirt for sale on Australian website

Hanukah is probably the most confounding holiday on the Jewish calendar. If we move beyond the toys and the gelt of 20th century Christmas catch-up, the story itself has been interpreted in so many ways that it’s difficult to get a lock on the pshat (the simplest understanding).

For what is Hanukah? Is it the tale of a miraculous jug of oil that lasted for eight days, which today is commemorated in our lighting the candles on the hanukiah (the Hanukah menorah)? Or is it an historical account of a great military victory reestablishing, however briefly, Jewish sovereignty in our ancient land?

The answer is both…and neither.

It was “parent’s night” at the mechina (the pre-army seminary) where our daughter is spending a year before being drafted; a year of studying, volunteering and learning to get along with a group of forty other 18-year-olds (I wrote about it here). Part of the evening included a parent-child activity where we read selections from the first and second books of Maccabees, the two primary Biblical-era texts that refer to Hanukah (but which did not make it into the Hebrew canon).

The books present very different messages from the holiday. In First Maccabees, written about 40 years after the event itself by someone who presumably participated in one way or another, there is no mention of that universally known jug of oil at all; it’s all about the rebellion against the idolatrous Greeks and their assimilated Hellenistic Jewish wannabes. The second book, written 100 years after the first, downplays the military success and introduces the oil with an emphasis on God and miracles.

Historically, the attempt by the rabbis of the Talmud to sideline the fighting narrative makes sense, explained the head of our daughter’s mechina. There was at the time both a struggle between the rabbinic and priestly leaders for ascendency (the Maccabees were priests), and a desire to caution against military hubris (while the Maccabean revolt was successful, the next Jewish rebellions led to both the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of the Jews from most of the land of Israel, definitely not events to emulate).

Seemingly ignoring the historical post-rebellion fall out, modern Zionists have eagerly adopted the holiday as emblematic of the brave fighters who liberated the land in our days. Whether that represents a miracle depends on one’s political and religious orientation. But there is no lack of Maccabean symbolism: many of our sport teams are named Maccabi and, in a striking irony, so is the Israeli version of that greatest representation of Greek culture the Olympics (dubbed the Maccabiah Games).

But there’s a darker side to the Hasmonean era military victory that tends to be whitewashed. The Maccabees were religious extremists; their goal was to rid the country of not only its Greek overloads but to compel the overwhelmingly secular Jewish population to adopt more stringent religious practices. Anshel Pfeffer, in this weekend’s Haaretz cites the late Christopher Hitchens as referring to the Maccabees as “bloodthirsty religious fundamentalists.”

Clearly over the top, but that interpretation seems chillingly appropriate this Hanukah as modern day extremists are once again bent on imposing their rigid agenda on the wider population. Open any Israeli newspaper in the last two weeks and it’s all over the front page:  – from coerced separation between men and women on buses and sidewalks, to the removal of women’s images on outdoor advertising in Jerusalem, to the truly horrendous verbal and spitting attacks on an eight-year-old girl for “lack of modesty” revealed during a weekend TV news show. And don’t even get me started about what’s going on with the “price tag” burning of mosques, unprovoked uprooting of Palestinian olive trees, and now even Jewish attacks on Israeli army bases.

Is this what the pioneers intended when they adopted the symbol of the Maccabees as their own?

Perhaps what we need today is to look at the story truthfully and learn from it with eyes wide open. To quote from Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Religious power without accountability, without compassion and tolerance, necessarily leads to corruption (as happened, by the way, to the original Maccabees once they assumed the throne in ancient Judea).

The time has come to meld the two books of the Maccabees. Let us focus on light – the key symbol from the second book – as a metaphor for clarity; for the kind of clear thinking that can temper the violence of the first book. It’s as critical today as it was then. That would be a true Hanukah miracle for our times.

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Radio Free Nachlaot celebrates its second birthday

December 20, 2011 - 2:20 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Music 

Steve and Lorelai from Radio Free Nachlaot

Jerusalem’s Radio Free Nachlaot turned two this month. The Internet-only radio station, whose slogan is that it broadcasts from “an undisclosed location somewhere deep in the heart of Nachlaot” plays a mix of Grateful Dead (and Dead-inspired) music, mixed with Shlomo Carlebach and Torah talks “24/6” (the station rests on Shabbat).

Except on Wednesday nights, when the station’s founders, Anglo immigrants Lorelai Kude and Steve Levine, give me a chance to rock out.

Since August, I’ve been on the air playing everything except for the Grateful Dead. Whether that’s the latest indie rock (think of the improbably named New Pornographers or Death Cab for Cutie – hey, maybe there is some Dead on my show); classic 70s pop (be honest: you can never hear too much of “Amie” by the Pure Prairie League); or melodic grunge (Spock’s Beard or Smashing Pumpkins), come 7:00 PM, I’ll be spinning the tracks for two energetic, eclectic hours.

Running a radio station these days is a far cry from my stint as a DJ during college. Internet stations like Radio Free Nachlaot can now gain a worldwide following without the need for expensive transmitter towers, FCC licenses or ever expanding libraries of LP’s and 45’s.

In fact, there are no more records (or CD’s for that matter) at all. All you need is a computer, a one-time purchase of a broadcasting software program, a virtual stack of MP3’s, a decent microphone, and somewhere in the vicinity of $99/month for streaming bandwidth and, voila, you can be heard beyond the 10 mile radius that was my audience in 1983.

Moreover, you can even broadcast from a laptop in your bedroom (which Steve and Lorelai do in the wee hours of the night when shlepping to the main studio in Givat Shaul would be insomnia inducing).

That freedom is great, but computerization takes some of the fun out of DJ’ing – instead of cue’ing up two records and artfully mixing them together, now the software handles all the segues between songs – and frankly, most of the time, a lot better than a human being would.

Radio Free Nachlaot joins Rusty Mike Radio as the two main English-language Internet stations beaming out of Israel. The stations are unusual in that they feature real people behind the mic’s; most other Internet stations are either pre-programmed or custom-driven by the individual listener (see Spotify, Pandora and Last.fm).

The truth is, it’s somewhat of a miracle I got the gig at all. When Israelity colleague David Brinn made the initial shidduch, Lorelai’s first interview question for me: “So what’s your relationship with Jerry” (referring to the Grateful Dead’s late Jerry Garcia)?” I sheepishly replied that I had none and then proceeded to wax nostalgically about The Buzzcocks and The Tubes.

On its two-year birthday, Radio Free Nachlaot is averaging about 2,000 listeners a week, split almost evenly between Israel and the U.S., although there are also listeners from some 95 other countries. Lorelai told The Jerusalem Post’s Gil Zohar earlier this year that “considering we’ve never spent an agora on advertising and rely only on social media and word of mouth, that’s tremendous.”

You can listen from the station’s website or via iTunes Radio (it’s under the world/international category). In addition to my decidedly eclectic show (past playlists are here), there are programs featuring jazz, soundtracks from musicals, “homegrown” Israeli rock, and live broadcasts on Sunday nights that have featured the likes of Lazer Loyd from Yood and Yehuda Katz from Reva L’Sheva.

And let’s not forget the “9 Days of Jerry” broadcast in August to mark the birthday and yahrzeit of Jerry Garcia. Because at the end of the day, my show notwithstanding, Radio Free Nachlaot will live – and die – with the Grateful Dead.

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Apple fanboys rejoice: tech giant opening development center in Israel

December 19, 2011 - 5:52 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Technology 

Apple is reportedly buying Israeli chipmaker Anobit for a half a billion dollars.

My friend Eliezer is such an Apple fanboy that, when he heard that Apple is planning to open a development center in Israel in Haifa, he seriously considered moving or commuting there.

While I expect Eliezer will maintain his Jerusalem residence, the news was nevertheless exciting (especially for those – me not included unfortunately – who bought Apple stock when it dipped below $80/share at the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008 – it closed at $383 today – and believe a blue and white connection will boost that price even further). For the rest of us, well: Apple in Israel – wow! And even more so: this will be Apple’s first ever development center outside the U.S.

Apple’s plans materialized earlier this week when a delegation headed by Apple VP Ed Frank, visited Israel over the weekend, touring sites like Haifa’s Scientific Industries Center (MATAM), according to Ynet.

Ynet also reported that Aharon Aharon, former head of Zoran Corporation’s R&D center, has been named the head of the new development center in Israel. The Marker added that Apple has hired a real estate company to find it a site big enough to house about 200 workers.

The move apparently is not dependent on another big Apple announcement: the acquisition of Israeli chipmaker Anobit, currently in the works for some half a billion dollars, but the two will undoubtedly play off each other. Anobit develops flash memory for smart phones, tablet computers and music players – all three of which are Apple’s hottest properties. Faster flash could help speed up Apple’s devices, which would help keep the distance between iPhones, iPads and competing Android units.

How did Apple get interested in Israel? It may have started when the company hired Haifa  resident Johny Srouji in 2008. Srouji is a VP at the company involved in the chip-making field. Never hurts to have a little protexia in Cupertino.

Will a bonified Apple presence increase the adoption rate of Apple tech in the Holy Land? Judging from visits to my local Aroma café, Apple has nothing to worry about: I now see more MacBooks than Windows machines these days.

But hosting Apple’s first overseas development center certainly gives us bragging rights…that is until the next big deal in this hi-tech Holy Land is announced.

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