Nostalgia Sunday – Heaters
Heaters! Kerosene, electric coil, space heater, oil radiator, electric blankets – I’ve had every single kind of heating device you can get in this country and I’m still cold when the chill wind blows in. Here are some pictures of some of the ridiculous contraptions I’ve had to put up with in my never-ending quest to stay warm in the Israeli winter.
Kerosene heater
Radiant coil heater
Many of the above two were manufactured by a company called Friedman, which also made those squat little fridges so popular with the hipster retro crowd today because they never had to actually use one.
Just for laffs, here’s a picture of the natural gas heater I could never afford to own: glowing ceramic plates heated by pricey blue and orange flames. Ahhh…
Gas heater
They haven’t yet been able to make a heater that can warm an apartment built from porous sandy bricks (1920s to 1930s) or holey cinderblock (1940s to 1960s), not to mention moisture-absorbing Jerusalem stone (a favorite building material from time immemorial). Certainly this kind was tried and found wanting.
I’ve never yet had the pleasure of living in an home built from Ytong, the insulating cinderblock, but I’m doubtful it works. Because people here don’t really believe its cold. Basically, Israelis refuse to accept the reality that it is not really a hot country. Israel is a cold country with a very long hot season.
Over the years, my wintertime philosphy has become: seal up the windows, move into the bedroom, get under the covers, crank up the heat and hang the expense — sort of. I cannot still, in good faith, run the A/C on heat continually for 3-4 months, so the best solutions I’ve found, to date:
Space heater
Combination coil/space heater with thermostat
Comments and tales of woe from fellow sufferers of the cold are welcome.
Links to previous posts:
Nostalgia Sunday – Heaters
Nostalgia Sunday – Yom Kippur
Nostalgia Sunday – Rosh HaShana
Nostalgia Sunday – Old Coins
Nostalgia Sunday – Historic Homepages
Nostalgia Sunday – Tango
Nostalgia Sunday – Tel Aviv Night Run
Nostalgia Sunday – Missing Dad
Nostalgia Sunday – Clique HaClick
Nostalgia Sunday – Tel Aviv 100
Nostalgia Sunday – Eurovision
Nostalgia Sunday – Old Israeliana
Nostalgia Sunday – Classic Movie: The Blaumilch Canal
Nostalgia Sunday – Plaid Bedroom Slippers
Nostalgia Sunday – Historic Photo Shop Shuts Its Doors
Nostalgia Sunday – New Israeliana
Nostalgia Sunday – High Windows
Nostalgia Sunday
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, War
Jerusalem on Yom Kippur of 1973. I am 12 years old and fairly confident I’ll be able to make it through the day – it is already the second or third time I’ve fasted. My Israeli mother has decided, despite the heat, that she and I will walk to the Kotel and has assured me that on Yom Kippur you can walk in the middle of the street without fear, because no one in Israel would dare drive on Yom Kippur. This sounds like fun.
The Western Wall glares an unmerciful white in the mid-morning heat and after a short while, we begin trekking down to Emek Refaim and Masaryk Street, where my Aunt Mary and Uncle Mac live. My sisters and I are still a bit skittish of traffic, having been in a bad car accident the week before, so it’s a bit unnerving that there do seem to be cars on the road, each with a few guys inside, and going pretty fast. We can’t walk in the middle of the street, which is disappointing. Perhaps my mother has been out of the country too long? She too, is wondering what’s up.
Aunt Mary opens the door and we can hear the radio is on. Why is she listening on this, the holiest of holy days? “The BBC is reporting tanks are moving on the Egyptian border,” she tells my mother. Cousin Jerry – a star naval commando – is already in uniform and rapidly wolfing down some nice chopped liver. Breaking his fast in the middle of Yom Kippur? He has to go join his unit, Mary tells me. I’m an awkward, pudgy pre-teen, eager for attention from my tall, handsome cousin, so I try to make conversation but he’s in brusque, monosyllabic mode. He finishes eating and dashes out.
We hang out around the living room for a long time, playing and reading. My mother dozes off in an armchair, a magazine on her lap. All of a sudden, I hear a sound that I’ve never heard before – a long loud tone that fills the entire neighborhood. Half-asleep, my mother mumbles, “We have to get down to the bomb shelters.” I have no idea what she’s talking about.
My mother wakes up, completely weirded out by her pre-State WWII flashback, after which there’s some discussion among the adults about why there was all-clear signal instead of an rising and falling siren. Only later do I come to understand what this means. Israel Radio finally breaks its Yom Kippur silence and resumes broadcasting. It’s official: Israel has been attacked and even though it doesn’t feel like it here in placid Emek Refaim, there’s a war on.
Nostalgia Sunday
Filed under: Art, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Pop Culture
I don’t know Hayim Shtayter personally but he is a man after my own heart. Shtayer, a veteran Israeli graphic designer, has an extensive collection of antique and period greeting cards for the Jewish New Year, some of which can be found online.
What is nice about this season is that even today, if you go down to the open market shuk, there are still stands selling this sort of card. Brightly colored, often embossed and/or sprinkled with sparkles, these are hopeful messages for the near future, a mix of national pride, military might and religious symbolism.
And sometimes, with a new house and a new car thrown in for good measure!
The “Shana Tova” (good new year) style – described by graphic designer David Tartakover in a 1978 book as “folk art created by anonymous artists” – was honored by the Israel Postal Service in 2000 and 2001 when it commissioned Shtayer to create a series of stamps using images from Rosh HaShana cards.
If you like the Shana Tova style, there’s still time to send an e-card to friends and family. The one I got was really sweet. In any case, best wishes for a New Year filled with health, happiness and a bit of peace, wherever we can find it! Shana Tova!
Nostalgia Sunday
Filed under: Business, General, History and Culture, Israeliness
While handing my cabdriver some change the other day, I noticed, at the last second, that one of the coins was an old 10 agorot piece. For those who’ve never seen one, or never had a jarful in their house, the 10 agorot coin looked like this:
It was first issued in metallic gold-tone, but as hyper-inflation took hold in the early 80s, it was subsequently issued in silvery cheap crap and then done away with altogether. That is, until now. The Israel Government Coins & Medals Corporation is offering this lovely item for your refrigerator door.
I don’t mean to burst the Coins & Medals Corporation’s bubble, but I’ve been making these by myself for years with some magnets, contact cement and that jar of old coins.
For serious numismatists, the Bank of Israel website is the place to go. Their Banknotes and Coins Catalog has pictures and information about every banknote and coin since the Anglo-Palestine Bank series was issued in 1948.
I was a little disappointed that the central bank hasn’t updated the catalog to include our latest innovation, the plastic 20-shekel note, first introduced into circulation in April. According to the Bank of Israel press release: “In light of the advantages offered by polymer, its use is growing throughout the world, and currently twenty-six countries use it in the production of their banknotes, including Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore. Israel thus becomes the twenty-seventh country to adopt polymer banknotes.” We’re number 27! Yeah!
The bank goes on to explain, “The design on the polymer notes is the same as that on the paper notes, except for small changes in the security features. The most notable of these is a transparent window in the polymer notes, as shown below, which is easily recognizable by the public. The window has the number ’20′ embossed on it.”
And in case you’re still not sure what it is you’re looking at, they include a picture:
The bank concludes by saying, “Some operators of automatic machines have not yet completed the process of adjusting them to the polymer notes; they are expected to do so in the next few weeks.” Last week, I tried — as I have several times — to buy a train ticket with one of these, and was once again cruelly rejected by the machine. The central bank’s expectations, it would seem, have yet to be realized.
Nostalgia Sunday
I thought it might be nice to check the Wayback Machine for a few favorite sites. For those who don’t know about this valuable resource, this is a site that crawls, aggregates and archives homepages, so that when you’re trying to figure out who was first online, The Jerusalem Post or Globes, you have an easy way to settle that argument.
So here it is: WayBack’s first record of www.jpost.co.il is from October 17, 1996. On the other hand, it’s first record of slightly better designed www.jpost.com is from December 30, 1996.
Meanwhile, Wayback’s archive for Globes first online edition dates back to November 05, 1996. However, as memory serves, “Israel’s Business Arena” – as it was called then – was up and running even before then. Oh well. The Wayback Machine is not infallible.
Some other maiden versions of popular English-language Israeli sites whose initial efforts have been consigned to the cyber-dustbins of history include Haaretz’s first online attempt, Israel Online – IOL, Dry Bones, and of course our own ISRAEL21c.
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