Taking it to the streets

November 18, 2007 - 4:22 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Life, Politics 

We’re 30 plus days into the junior high/high school teachers strike, with no end in sight. I’ve been lucky with my teens – one has almost a half day of classes every day, and the other has daily volleyball practice. So both of them have to get out of bed, something many students around the country haven’t done much of in the last month.

The plight of the teachers has resulted in one encouraging development – solidarity throughout the land! Saturday night in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people came to support the teachers in their demands against the government.

teachers

Cynics claim that many of the attendees were students there for the ample musical entertainment, or looking for any reason to get out those beds. Either way, it looks like the teachers have claimed the inside track of underdog in this struggle. The question is, are we headed into the main stretch or are we still in the first turn?

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Kofi, Ted and me

October 30, 2007 - 11:29 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Food, General, Israeliness, Life 

I guess I’ve learned to expect the unexpected after living in the Jerusalem area for 22 years. But sometimes, something happens that reminds me that the ‘reality’ of life here can include some very surreal experiences.

Like last night, for instance.

I was invited by a very nice group of folks from the Beachwood, Ohio Chamber of Commerce (Hello Cleveland!) for dinner and chat at the elegant downtown Moroccan eatery Darna.

We’re into our first course and some wine, and discussing Israel’s perception among Americans and how Beachwood’s efforts to woo Israeli startups to their fair city dovetails nicely into our efforts in helping the rebranding of Israel get underway, when some major suits started walking in through the dimly lit narrow corridor.

First were a couple dark glasses, walkie talkie types, and then the influx started.

“Get ready for some VIPs,” I told the group, as we all started gawking, caring less about high tech.

First ID was Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general looking every bit as dapper as he does in the media. Then a few more important looking but unidentifiable people strolled in, veering off just before reaching us to enter a private room in the restaurant.

Kofi
Separated at birth? Kofi Annan and Ted Turner.

Turns out that it was a delegation of the United Nations Foundation whose mandate is to build public-private partnerships that address the world’s most pressing problems.

I had read in the papers that morning that Annan had just joined its board and was in Israel for meetings.

“There should be one more celebrity coming through,” I told the group. “Ted Turner is the foundation’s chairman.”

Sure enough, a couple minutes later the CNN founder shuffled in, talking on a cell phone, and joined his party.

Turning back to our food and conversation, our Ohio delegation was duly impressed that not only was Jerusalem a special place, but that they were indeed eating at a special restaurant.

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Goodbye to Israeli lines

October 15, 2007 - 3:36 PM by · 5 Comments
Filed under: Business, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life 

One of the constants of life in Israel is snake-like lines you encounter at bank, supermarkert, post office, or ATM machine. “I was behind him” is a phrase that most Israelis learn when they’re two years old and it stays with them for life, as they run off to buy tomatoes, say hi to a friend, feed the meter with some change, and manage to get back to the line just before it’s their turn. It should be an Olympic event.

bank
A typical line at an Israeli bank.

So, it was a shock when I entered a branch of Bank Hapoalim this morning to get a bank check… and there weren’t any lines! Everyone was sitting in rows – just like in a government office like the Interior Minstry or Licensing Bureau, holding little slips with numbers on them. But you can’t just rip the slip off of a ticker like in those other places – first you have approach a machine, punch in your ID card, then select which function you need to get done at the bank. The machine then issues your number and tells you which tellers deal with that particular transaction.

The 25 people or so waiting their turn, seemed both fidgety and unsatisfied – like they wanted to be fighting for their place in line instead of being resigned to waiting for their predetermined turn. It was all so civil… so cultured… so boring.

Thankfully, the spell was broken when a guy barged through the door and went up to a window just as number 295 flashed on the screen. ‘Wait!, I’m 294, I just went to buy some cigarettes’, he said to Mrs. 295 as she was also approaching the window. Then 296 flashed, and that lucky recipient also approached his designated window. So now there were three people vying for two windows. That’s the Israel I know… not the one where we’re all sitting and waiting quietly.

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A sunny future

October 11, 2007 - 3:58 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Technology 

One of the perks of my job – including having an Israelity logon – is to occasionally bring foreign correspondents to some out of the way place they generally wouldn’t get to.

This week, in collaboration between ISRAEL21c and our friends at the Israel Project and our very special friend Faye Bittker from Ben-Gurion University, a dozen correspondents from some very alphabety American, European and Asian media, took a day off from Gaza, the Knesset, Hizbullah, and the IDF, and bussed it down to Sde Boker.

Why? To see reputedly the world’s largest solar dish, courtesy of Professor David Faiman, Director of the National Solar Energy Center of Ben-Gurion University’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research.

faiman
Prof. David Faiman talks to reporters under his big dish.

Faiman is somewhat of a solar energy guru, and is the main mover in the world of concentrator photovoltaic cells (CPV cells), a new type of solar power cell which jusr might be the future of electricity for you and me.

Faiman’s apparatus, which resembles an enormous satellite dish, rises high above his modest offices in the middle of the Negev desert. Each of the dish’s mirrors can concentrate the sun’s energy by a factor of about 20 before reflecting it up to the solar cells that hang suspended over the apex of the dish. When all 50 of the mirrors used for the project are uncovered (sometimes only one or two are used for testing purposes), the cells are on the receiving end of the light of a thousand suns.

From there, I’m lost. While the reporters surrounded Faiman getting details, I along with Rachel from TIP were delving into the details for lunch at the Beersheva campus of BGU.

At the end of the day, it was an enlightening trip, pun intended. And one that hopefully you’ll be reading, seeing and hearing about on your favorite alphabet media soon.

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To send or not to send

September 11, 2007 - 2:27 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Holidays 

I don’t know about you, but my inbox has been inundated lately. No, it’s not only invitations to join Facebook (it’s funny how otherwise free-thinking 30 and 40 year olds can all be convinced to do exactly the same thing at the same time). It’s e-New Years cards for Rosh Hashana.

shana

Granted, some of them are quite artistic and touching, like this one from my friends at Studio Avidani in Jerusalem, but it opens up a whole issue. Do I need to respond to them? What if they’re from a PR firm which I tend to ignore all year anyway? Do I look like a callous jerk if I don’t send my own cards, investing hours in finding the right art and just the right sentiments to transmit?

As the ‘Mats sang so eloquently on Pleased to Meet Me – “I don’t know”.

But, at least if any of you toiled away to make the ultimate Shana Tova email card, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you – all the Israelity readers – a happy new year right back at ya. Just don’t expect a card.

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