Nostalgia Sunday – Israel Does Dylan

June 19, 2011 - 10:10 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture 

I don’t know if anyone’s heard but Bob Dylan is playing a concert in Israel tomorrow night.

In honor of the occasion, here’s a small selection of Dylan covers as performed over the years by Israeli artists, starting with an adaptation by poet Yehonatan Geffen of Dylan’s ironic With God on Our Side.

The bitter lyrics in Geffen’s version refer to the Israel-Arab conflict; they are balanced out by David Broza’s sweet singing.

David Broza & Yehonatan Geffen - With God on Our Side

It’s only natural that, in addition to a poetic bent, Yehonatan Geffen’s son Aviv should also inherit an affinity for Dylan. And in the case of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, the son exceeds the father.

Aviv Geffen - A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

One usually doesn’t automatically think of pop singers together with Dylan but this rendition of Mama, You Been On My Mind — sung by balladeer Rita together with Shlomi Saban, a graduate of Kohav Nolad (the Israeli version of talent competition “Pop Idol”) — works.

Rita and Shlomi Saban – Mama, You Been On My Mind

Ninet is another Kohav Nolad grad who’s made good and her work with Aviv Geffen has apparently had an influence on her song choices. In this case: the Hebrew version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door which was translated by the late great Meir Ariel who, along with Geffen Senior and Junior, was one of the few Israeli artists with the guts to take on the Master’s works. (Unfortunately, Ariel’s version of the song has been taken offline).

Ninet Tyeb – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Another Israeli artist willing to take on Dylan is the controversial Ariel Zilber. One of the original Israeli rockers, Zilber became religious and a supporter of the Right-wing following Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Here, although all the while seated, he belts out a heartfelt version of Neighborhood Bully. The lyrics needed very little adapting — as they are, they say everything Zilber means .

Ariel Zilber – Neighborhood Bully

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Foto Friday – 5683 miles by Yael Ben-Zion

June 17, 2011 - 2:30 PM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Art, design, education, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture 

5683 miles — the distance between Tel Aviv and New York — is a stretch that Israeli-American photographer Yael Ben-Zion knows well. Born in the US and raised in Israel, she has spent the last ten years traveling the NYC-TLV – TLV-NYC route and considering the differences between the two.

Her first monograph, also called 5683 miles away, presents personal, intimate photographs of places and people as Ben-Zion questions the notion of “normal life” in an emotionally, socially and politically charged place such as Israel…

On one hand, her images of day-to-day life in Israel offer “a poetic reflection on the way people spend their lives…”

On the other hand, they “allude to the complexity of the political climate in Israel, and question its emotional and social consequences…”

Often, the photos tell a story with humor…

And sometimes their titles hint at irony…

Ben-Zion now lives in New York City. Her work has been exhibited in the US and Europe. In 2007, her photograph Crash was selected for the cover of American Photography 23. 5683 miles away (Kehrer, 2010) is her first monograph; it was selected as one of photo-eye’s Best Books of 2010, featured in the PDN Photo Annual 2011, and was also a nominee for the German Photo Book Award 2011. More works by Yael Ben-Zion can be viewed on her website.

Images copyright Yael Ben-Zion. Published by permission.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Dolls on Display

June 12, 2011 - 9:58 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, design, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Travel 

I collected dolls as a child. More accurately put: on our many travels and no doubt inspired by “It’s A Small World After All”, in each country, my parents would purchase a “look but don’t touch” doll in national dress. Sometimes two, like the boy gondolier and his Venetian lady-friend. Or the Greek soldier in his white pleated skirt and his Athenian lady-friend. The Spanish flamenco dancer and her gentleman friend with the guitar. And so on and so forth.

Once home, these would go on a shelf. As with all knick-knacks, if you get enough of the same things, they eventually become a collection and so it was.

In addition to the Italian, Yugoslav, Greek and Japanese couples, there were the Israeli sabras: the soldier boy and, of course, the pioneering woman, shouldering her orange crate, plaited braids peeping out from beneath her kova tembel hat. There was also a charming Yemenite family scene made entirely of colorful twisted phone wire. And “Srulik”, the quintessential Israeli cartoon character made of some bizarre rubbery plastic or strange plasticky rubber.

The dolls, of course, were not only looked at but were also touched. A great deal, in fact. So much so that many fell apart. Imagine my relief, therefore, to learn that some other children had obeyed the rules and kept their dolls whole so that they might now be put on display at the Eretz Israel Museum.

The exhibit, A Land and It’s Dolls – Israel and National Identity, looks at local national costume dolls as a 70-year long sociocultural phenomenon that began before the establishment of the State of Israel, and came to its end in the late 1980s.

The heyday for these collectibles, writes curator Dr. Shelly Shenhav-Keller, were between the 1950s and the 1970s. “These dolls were made by artists, artisans and craftspeople who used an array of techniques and styles, typically employing straightforward methods. Most of the doll makers and designers were not born in the country; some of them had had art or artisan education and others had a modicum of knowledge of the field.”

“The dolls were displayed and sold privately, in souvenir shops or in shops owned by institutional bodies such as WIZO, Maskit and Hameshakem. They were bought as souvenirs, mementos of a place or an experience, by Israelis and particularly Jewish tourists who took them home with them after they left the country, a scrap of their national homeland in the shape of ornamental dolls that depicted local types, later to be put on display in their faraway homes.

Well, that would be my collection in a nutshell.

Shenhav-Keller believes that the dolls in this exhibit “manifest symbols, values and myths that relate to the creation of Israeli identity: nationality, ethnicity, the melting pot, pluralism and multiculturalism… attempting to answer the question: did these dolls… reflect, represent, shape or invent the sought-after imagined and hegemonic Israeliness?” They are, she says, “…witnesses to the story we wished to tell ourselves as a society, the story we wished to show ourselves, tell ourselves and others. At the same time, they give a knowing wink to the essence of the story.”

Since I never, in all of our travels, ever encountered a Spanish flamenco dancer with a fan or a German boy wearing lederhosen — it was jeans and t-shirts pretty much everywhere you went — I can only conclude that most of the dolls sold to tourists the world over were manifestations of nationalist symbols, values and myths. (Shenhav-Keller herself puts the late 1980s as the date that the doll trend ended). I guess Barbie would be the embodiment of hegemonic American-ness, globalization, etc. etc. I don’t care. I liked the collection but Barbie was my most favorite doll.

A Land and It’s Dolls – Israel and National Identity runs through November 15, 2011 at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.

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Foto Friday – Dance at the Tel Aviv Port

June 10, 2011 - 5:41 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, design, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Music, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Sports, Travel 

Tel Aviv based Uri Rubinstein is a freelance stage lighting designer and technical director who also doubles as a talented stage photographer. Yesterday, Rubenstein was down at the Tel Aviv port, documenting Rokdim Ba-Namal, a dance happening celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Israeli Choreographers Association (ICA).

About 60 artists and dancers presented excerpts from various works choreographed by ICA members. Despite the heat, Rubinstein says, the event was a party, with all credit due to the dancers, choreographers and all others involved in setting up multiple stages under a broiling sun.

The idea behind Rokdim Ba-Namal is using the existing environment as both backdrop and dance space to create interesting, different and diverse works.

Aside from a few props, the performances took place without sets or lighting, making passersby and fishermen part of the stage scenery…

An airplane heading towards the Sde Dov airport landing strip becomes a dramatic overhead element…

And street lights illuminate the works at dusk…

The audience was also invited to get into the act, joining tribal fusion choreographer Sigal Ziv in a belly-dancing flash mob.

There are plenty more photos by Uri Rubinstein on view at his Facebook page. Video from Rokdim Ba-Namal hasn’t been posted on their YouTube channel so, in the meanwhile, enjoy the sights and sounds from a previous ICA happening, Dance Galil Mountain.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Train to Damascus

June 5, 2011 - 9:53 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: coexistence, General, History and Culture, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics 

This is narrow gauge 0-6-0 tank locomotive No. 10. Built by Krauss, Germany in 1902, it is the only complete steam locomotive remaining in Israel. Its original use was operating along the Hedjaz Railway, a line that once ran from Damascus to Medina with a branch line to Haifa.

Given that the cliched Israeli vision of peace with Syria, that of “eating a smear of hummus in Damascus”, seems even father away today, it seems right to look back to a time when Damascus was both inhabited by Jews and visited regularly, as the local big city, by Jews living in the Land of Israel.

As described in a 2005 Reuters article, “Built by the Ottoman Sultan during the golden era of railways in the 1900s, the Hejaz (sic) ran for 1,300 km (812 miles) from Damascus to Medina, ferrying pilgrims to Islam’s holy sites and troops to rebellious Arab provinces under Ottoman rule.”

Traders traveled to Damascus for business, in particular the textiles, bronzeware, brassware and inlaid wood items for which the city was famous.

Such visitors, among them my great grandfather Hanoch Dubno, a Jerusalem-based manufacturer of mother-of-pearl buttons, would have ridden a crowded train, disembarked at the magnificent Hedjaz Railway Station — so much more impressive than own dinky little stations in Jaffa and Jerusalem — and passed by the monument to the railway in Damascus’ central square.

And here’s a glimpse into more of the sights and sounds they might have seen.

It would be nice if we could see the Hedjaz Railway Station as it is today and even visit the Rolling Stock Museum of the Hedjaz Railway. Meanwhile, we will have to settle for little old Locomotive No. 10. You can learn more about it and the history of our region’s railways at the Israel Railway Museum site.
Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

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