• Home
• Archives
• About
• Videos
• Links
• Contact

Foto Friday – Edward Kaprov helps splice the ends

Splicing the Ends is the name of a new art exhibition that opens next week, November 28th, at the Amiad Center in Old Jaffa. Over the past two years, Amiad has emerged as a unique center for the arts in Jaffa’s newly revived Flea Market area, now a hot nightlife spot for Tel Aviv’s young bohemian set.

According to the organizers, the exhibit celebrates the winter season festivals for the three major monotheistic religions — Hannuka, Christmas and Eid ul Fitr — by “telling the story of mankind through the different religions… exploring the themes of immigration, living as an individual and as part of a community, and how one relates to oneself and to one’s environment.”

The show features works by over 30 painters, sculptors and photographers , including Edward Kaprov. A veteran immigrant to Israel from the former Soviet Union, Kaprov has worked with Israel’s biggest newspapers including business daily Globes, Haaretz and Yedioth Aharonot. His features have been published by National Geographic, GEO, and Russian Newsweek as well as other publications.

His work on display in “Splicing the Ends” deals with how religion informs day-to-day life in Israel, whether in the army…

…at a soup kitchen for hungry children…

…motivating political protest…

Kaprov’s work ranges from news and commercial photography to personal projects, including a series on Shamanism in Israel.

Splicing the Ends runs from November 28 through December 21 at the Amiad Center. A portion of the proceeds from the exhibit will go to ILAN, Israel’s Foundation for the Handicapped.

Nostalgia Sunday – Old ads are more fun

If we are to learn anything from Mad Men, it’s that advertisements are most fun and best viewed in retrospect. We look back in “What were they thinking?” wonderment at the positioning of certain products. For example, here’s a slideshow of Israeli advertisements from yesteryear – including one for Osem’s Bamba as a crispy late-night party snack – a far cry from it’s primary role today as the ultimate teething toy.

Or this one, for Elite powdered instant coffee. Although it employs a completely archaic production method, “Cafe Ness” is still being consumed happily by millions. Or thousands. Or at least by me.

Here’s something you don’t see every day – an advertisement for cigarettes! With actual smoking!

And to close, an ad featuring the Yarkon Bridge Trio (Shlishiyat Gesher HaYarkon) — Benny Amdursky, Yehoram Gaon and Arik Einstein racing around town and touting the wonders of Tadiran’s new-fangled electronic devices.

As you watch, bear this in mind: TV in Israel was black & white until 1980, broadcasting was limited to one commercial-free station until 1993 and ads were shown only in movie houses.

Foto Friday – Israel through the IR filter with Yariv Drory

Winter is upon us, more or less. Last week, the rainy season began in earnest, then backtracked for a week of unseasonably warm weather. Now, they tell us, it is now due to return with some serious cold, wet weather. It’s too early to tell if there will be snow this year but this series of images by Yariv Drory brings the thought to mind.

Drory has a particular interest in infrared cameras and his images of the Israeli summer landscape through the IR filter are almost hallucinatory.

In real life, the trees are green and the skies are blue but through the IR filter, the trees turn a feathery pink, the skies are black, the seas white, and spiky brush and weeds turn cottony and soft.

According to Wikipedia, which has a very nice entry about infrared photography, “When these [IR] filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, very interesting ‘in-camera effects’ can be obtained…false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance… mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow.”

Also, according to Wikipedia, “…other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze… compared to visible light.”

More photos by Yariv Drory are on view at his website.

Nostalgia Sunday – Take a Hike, Alte Zachen!

It’s the end of an era. Ynet News reported today that following six-year struggle, Tel Aviv has become the first city in Israel to prohibit the entry of horse-drawn carriages into its territory.” That phrase, “horse-drawn carriages” is a pretty euphemism for the age-old Jewish profession of dealing in rags, bones and bottles. In other words, alte zachen. (The phrase is used universally even though for most Israelis in the trade it is about the only Yiddish word they will ever know).

According to Ynet, “The Tel Aviv Municipality and the Ministry of Transportation recently completed the posting of 23 road signs across the city’s southern entry routes which ban the entry of horses. The step completes a six-year long struggle to remove metal traders and junk peddlers from the city, who do their business using horse-drawn carriages.” So, no more surrealistic traffic jams like this:

“Attorney Reuven Ladiansky, who was elected as a Tel Aviv Municipality representative a year ago together with his Latet Lihyot (Let Live) movement, led the campaign against horse labor in the city. He was joined by Councilman Dr. Moshe Tiomkin, who acts as head of the municipality’s Transport & Parking Authority.”

Kindness to animals is a value in which I believe – and trust me, legislation of this sort was necessary as the horses working in the service of the local rag n’ bone men never seemed to be the happiest of creatures. Nonetheless, part of me will miss the clash of images that was so emblematic of this country: modern 20th and 21st century electronics being transported by ancient means.

It’s also unclear how the Tel Aviv ban can possibly affect animal-drawn carriage use everywhere else in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, where beasts of burden have traditionally been, well… just that. It looks like organizations like Latet Lihyot, Hakol Chai and Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holyland will still have plenty of work to do.

Foto Friday – Inspecting the Pipeline with Chaim Daon

Chaim Daon is a welding inspector working on one of the country’s most important energy infrastructure projects: the natural gas pipeline. When complete, the gas pipeline – an extension of the El-Arish-Ashkelon gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel, which became operational in 2008 – will be able to transport up to 7 billion cubic meters per year, relieve some of our industries’ dependence on oil, help clean the atmosphere and give additional economic weight to our cold peace with Egypt.

The project, under construction for several years now, comprises hundreds of kilometers of pipeline with joins all along the way, so the work done by welding inspectors like Daon and his colleagues is crucial for keeping pipes intact and leaks at bay.

Daon – or Captain Caveman as he’s known by the Holyland Hash House Harriers, an international drinking and running disorganization (to which I also belong) – allows us a peek at what’s going on just a few meters below the surface…

The tender to build the pipeline was won by a foreign multinational and the teams working on the project come from all over the globe. They work by day…

And by night…

The pipeline is intended to serve Israel’s major industries, chiefly Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), which is in the process of converting its oil-driven power stations to natural gas. IEC noted in its most recent Environmental Report that since the introduction of natural gas in 2004, a carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 11%. More information about the Gas Market Law and gas reform in Israel is available at the Ministry of National Infrastructures website.

Nostalgia Sunday – Shaare Zedek Hospital’s Schwester Selma

I didn’t know Schwester Selma but there is one time when perhaps our paths might have crossed. That would be in 1973, when my sisters and I were rushed to Jerusalem’s old Shaare Zedek hospital after a car accident (we came out with minor cuts, bruises, a few stitches in my sister’s forehead and a lifetime of self-enforced responsible driving ahead of us). Schwester Selma served from 1916 as head nurse and retired in 1973, so who knows?

The country’s first trained nurse, Schwester Selma was one of those legendary Jerusalem institutions from the pre-State era that people of my mother’s generation knew well, their children knew somewhat and their grandchildren know not at all. I encountered Schwester Selma’s biography while looking into the background of a series of photos documenting the old hospital building, which believe you me, was nothing like the new one – I can still remember the patchwork of floor tiles – but thank goodness the hospital was easy to reach and not in the middle of some out-of-the-way forest like some other Jerusalem hospitals I could mention if I cared to.

Here it is on Jaffa Road. The building now houses the Israel Broadcast Authority offices.

Then, as now, Shaare Zedek prided itself on being the only centrally located hospital in Jerusalem. There were the Misgav LaDach birthing hospital and general hospital Bikur Holim was under construction but Shaare Zedek was pretty much it during the World War I when Selma Meyer arrived to do her wartime service in Palestine (the Turkish Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during the war).

Her autobiography includes a couple of juicy tidbits about illness and cure back in the so-called Good Old Days: “There were two epidemics right them. We were the only Jewish hospital in the new city. The old Bikur Cholim had also started building in the new city, which, however, could not be continued because of the war. Typhoid, typhus, and meningocael meningitis, all very severe cases, were hospitalized with us. Thousands of typhoid cases were passing through our hospital, probably caused by dirt; there was hardly any water. Additionally the people suffered terribly from hunger; there was hardly anything to eat.” Out of discretion to the reader, I’ve cut out the part about the lice bath.

It must have seemed like heaven for patients to come to a place like Shaare Zedek, which had a European-trained staff and clean sheets. There was no running water, but who had running water in those days?

After all, Jerusalem was no modern city. “There was still no transportation. The transportation of patients was therefore still very complicated. If somebody had to be brought it would have to be done by stretcher. We did not have enough personnel to send along and therefore the relatives had to help or hire two porters.”

During the global polio epidemic, Schwester Selma ran the country’s only isolation ward. “In those days the isolation department was even more primitive than the main house. The bathtub was made of tin, on wheels. It used to be filled with water that was brought in and then wheeled into the respective room. The toilets had no plumbing. Of course there was no heating system. In spite of all this I can maintain with a good conscience that we ran this department as a real isolation station even if this demanded many many efforts, which were well worth it in every respect.”

Schwester Selma founded the country’s first nursing school in 1934 over the objections of her hospital director who believed that too much theory and not enough practicum was a bad thing in a young nurse. But Selma, together with one father who wanted to make sure his daughter got a good education, prevailed. (Selma seated 2nd row, 3rd from left).

In recognition of her achievements, “Schwester” Selma Meyer was named a Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem (Yakir Yerushalim). She died in 1984 at the age of 100.

More amazing photos of Shaare Tzedek hospital and other Jerusalem landmarks, can be found at Photography in Jerusalem, an online archive sponsored by Hadassah College Jerusalem and educational website Snunit.

Foto Friday – Reli Avrahami’s “Diary”

Beer Sheva-born Reli Avrahami is one of Israel’s premiere magazine photographers. A new exhibition of her work, “Diary”, will open next week at the Hadassah College in Jerusalem, where she once studied and is now a lecturer.

Avrahami has worked as a freelance portrait photographer since 1986, shooting celebrities, artists and politicians for Israel’s main newspapers and weekend supplements including “Maariv”, “Yediot Aharonot” and “Haaretz” where she is best known for her long-running series of Israeli family portraits.

In “Diary”, Avrahami invites viewers to look in on three generations of her own family: celebrations and tragedies, weddings and funerals, everyday life and unique occasions.

Her daughter – Botticelli curls cascading down her shoulders – en route to a Scout trip…

…the morning of her son’s induction into the IDF…

…her mother, fast asleep in a Netherlands zimmer motel…

or a “Girls Night In” with her sisters and mother.

“Diary” opens at 6:00pm, November 5, 2009 at the Hadassah College, 37 HaNeviim Street, Jerusalem.

Nostalgia Sunday – Gil Gibli Investigates Past Crimes

Artist Gil Gibli is perhaps best known in Israel for the pen and ink cross-hatched portraits of Israel’s business elite that illustrate the pages of business daily Globes each evening. But Gibli is also a noted police forensic sketch artist — whose work has been cited in international professional literature — and when he looks back at the past, he often does so as an investigator into crimes whose trails have gone cold.

On his website, Gibli describes several cases where his forensic art brought the truth to light: reconstructing a portrait of Warsaw Ghetto uprising leader Pavel Frankel (pictured left) based solely on eye-witness accounts, bringing together two Yom Kippur War compatriots after 35 years, and the most chilling case: identifying a man, a nameless drifter, killed in a terror attack. The story – and Gibli’s uncanny ability to elicit details from eye-witnesses – was documented in the award-winning documentary No. 17 is Anonymous.

More of Gibli’s work may be found at his virtual gallery. He’s also a jazz aficionado and portraits include a series of jazz greats - more nostalgia, but of a cooler, gentler kind.

Gibl’s YouTube channel has several videos (in Hebrew) about his work.

Foto Friday – Robert Gorsoun sees Israel’s beauty

Robert Gorsoun is a photographer who takes pictures for the love of it. Wherever he travels, he snaps pictures and Israel is beautiful through his lens…

…the Banias in Israel’s north…

…a rainbow, captured in mid-storm over the Herzliya beach…

…a field of flowers by the roadside, stretching on forever…

…a water lily…

…or flowering cacti at the Utopia Orchid Park…

…and on through to the crater at Mizpe Ramon.

More photos by Gorsoun — including some spectacular panoramas that don’t fit on an Israelity page but should be seen — are posted on Panoramio.

Nostalgia Sunday – Lod Mosaic

It may be more historic than nostalgic, but the big news in archeology last week here was that the Israel Antiquities Authority made an interesting discovery while detaching a magnificent floor mosaic for transfer to the IAA conservation laboratories in Jerusalem. They found ancient footprints! Apparently, while working on the plaster bedding (done before laying down the mosaic) the artisans trod on it in sandals and in bare feet.

The floor is a story in itself. According to the IAA: “The 1,700 year old mosaic, which is one of the largest and most magnificent ever seen in Israel, was exposed in the city of Lod in 1996 and was covered again when no resources could be found for its conservation. Thirteen years after efforts were made to raise the large amount required to treat the unique artifact, the IAA received a contribution from the Leon Levy Foundation that is specifically earmarked for the purpose of conserving and developing the site, in cooperation with the Municipality of Lod. The mosaic was re-excavated, exhibited to the public and is now being removed from the area for treatment in the IAA conservation laboratories.”

“The mosaic, which constitutes a real archaeological gem that is extraordinarily well-preserved, is c. 180 sq m in size. It is composed of colorful carpets that depict in great detail mammals, birds, fish, floral species, and sailing and merchant vessels that were in use at the time. It is believed the mosaic floor was part of a villa that belonged to a wealthy man in the Roman period.”

Hopefully, the floor’s restoration holds the key — along with other innovative social welfare efforts reported on by ISRAEL21c — to turning Lod around from the center of drug-related crime to the tourist haven it ought to be. The IAA stated that, “The municipality, in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, plans to integrate it into a tourism circuit that will include a number of historic sites in the city.” Given the magnificence of the artifact, there is every chance that the plan could work.

 

• Subscribe

  Subscribe to Israelity via email:

• Social Media

  • Twitter
  • YouTube
• • Facebook

• Tag Cloud

  knesset Nostalgia Sunday Waltz with Bashir Gaza photograhy Religion vote israeli photography Food photo shopping Rosh Hashana photography election Foto Friday Environment israeli nostalgia Israelis photographer Yom Kippur race photographers Paul McCartney Dead Sea tourism Music nostalgia coexistence IDF holiday succot Tel Aviv hamas Sderot Kadima Art Travel jerusalem photo exhibition Green Prophet Israel War Politics festival Operation Cast Lead

• Categories

  • A New Reality
  • Art
  • Blogging
  • Business
  • coexistence
  • Crime
  • design
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Foto Friday
  • General
  • health
  • History and Culture
  • Holidays
  • Immigrant Moments
  • Israeliness
  • Life
  • Medical Breakthroughs
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Nostalgia Sunday
  • Picture of the Week
  • Politics
  • Pop Culture
  • Profiles
  • Religion
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • War

• The Face of Israel Today

• 

• About Israelity

  Israel is often seen as a place of conflict and strife. In reality there is much more: there's business and research; art and culture; community and family. At ISRAELITY, Israelis blog their daily thoughts, experiences and insights. It's the real Israel, not the media's Israel. It's people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary place.

• Free newsletter

  Sign up for ISRAEL21c's free weekly newsletter Email:

• Stories from ISRAEL21c.org

  • Taking the pulse of the sun
  • Israel to desalinate Cypriot water
  • Sustainable “milk and honey”
  • Israel No. 4 in scientific activity

• Popular Posts

  • Oud v’Rikoud
  • Emma Shapplin crashes and burns in Haifa
  • Ghosts in Israel? Not likely
  • Have any lessons been learned from Rabin’s assassination?
  • Picture of the week: Finding friendship in the ruins of war

Recently Written

• Foto Friday – Edward Kaprov helps splice the ends
• Giving insurance companies an (even worse) name
• Beaujolais Nouveau
• Room 124
• Not just any third birthday
• Picture of the week: The Ethiopian journey comes to an end
• TIME cites Israeli for creating ‘new art form’
• Protesting Israel-style
• Austrians forget how Hatikva goes
• Nostalgia Sunday – Old ads are more fun

OUR COMMUNITY

Recent Comments

• Raine Marcus on Emma Shapplin crashes and burns in Haifa
• Beaujolais Nouveau | ISRAELITY on Yekev fun
• Maskil on Religious ruptures
• Radixx Travel Solutions on Foto Friday – Puppet Festival
• Steve Lieblich on Austrians forget how Hatikva goes