Giving insurance companies an (even worse) name
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life
This is about as mundane a subject as is out there, but it certainly reflects that the reality of living in Israel has very little to do with the headlines most people read, and more to do with the trials and tribulations we all face no matter where we live.
I wrote a few weeks ago about the hassles of making an insurance claim after being sideswiped in a traffic accident. Well, it all seemingly worked out well, and yesterday – less than two weeks of laying out over $1,000 to fix the car and sending in the claim to the insurance company (Migdal, in case anybody is interested, one of the country’s biggest insurance companies) – I received a check in the mail.
Hurray for a victory over Israeli bureaucracy, right? Not quite. The check was made out for the amount of the claim, minus 10%. An accompanying letter stated that the deduction was due to ‘contributing negligence’ on my part.
WTF? Now, a quick recap. I was driving down a road in Jerusalem in the Romema industrial area. My nemesis wanted to turn right onto my road from a small side street with a stop sign. After stopping and supposedly looking both ways, she turned right and clomped into my right back door as I was driving, minding my own business.
Was this 10% contributing negligence? I think not. Luckily Migdal’s claim manager’s name and number were on the letter, so I called her- and got through to her! I explained to her that I was not even one percent responsible for the accident, and when I asked her to explain her reasoning, she said, “do you even know the traffic rules? Do you know that at any intersection with a stop sign, that the driver with the right of way has a responsibility to slow down?”
I said I was not aware of that rule, and that even the driver of the other car, whom she insures, admitted to being 100% responsible for the accident.
“Well, that’s what I decided. There are some claims I take off 50% for negligence, I only took 10% off of yours,” she said.
“But you weren’t even there. You don’t know what happened,” I answered.
“So what? That’s the way it is.”
I realized that this was a futile conversation and ended it, and also realized it was a pathetic attempt by Migdal to save a few measly hundred shekels by bullying and shortchanging innocent victims of accidents.
So, if you ever get hit by another driver, and think that you’re going to receive complete reimbursement for the damages rendered, you might be better off settling with the driver without involving the cheating, conniving insurance companies.
Not just any third birthday
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion, War
One of the most quickly forgotten aspects following any terror attack is the survivors. We all mourn the victims, obsess about the perpetrators, and move on, as those left behind attempt to pick up the pieces of their lives.
Three-year-old Moishe Holzberg has proven to be the exception. A year ago, Moishe’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg, 29, and his wife Rivka, 28, were killed along with 170 other victims when Pakistani Islamic terrorists raided the Chabad house in Mumbai, India. The Holzbergs had lived in Mumbai for six years as official emissaries of the Chabad movement.
The two-year-old life of Moishe was saved when he was spirited away from the attack by his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel. He’s been raised at Kfar Chabad near Tel Aviv by his grandparents for the last year. And on Wednesday, the community hosted a memorial ceremony for the couple, which was attended by 2,000 people. During the event, Moishe celebrated his first haircut, a coming-of-age event for three-year-old boys, known as an “upshirin” in Yiddish or “chalaka” in Hebrew.
“Moshe may be without biological parents, but the entire Chabad family has adopted him,” the head of the Chabad Youth Organization in Israel, Rabbi Yosef Aharonov, told The Jerusalem Post which attended the event.
Across a blue-grey curtain on the wall of the womens’ section of the tent, dozens of blue and white balloons spelled out “Moishe, three years old.” Moishe himself was carried in by Sandra shortly before the beginning of the event, and stood before a gaggle of reporters and cameras, calmly, even lazily, taking in the spectacle.
Rabbi Holzberg’s father, Rabbi Nachman Holzberg, said that the outpouring of support for his family has been tremendous over the past year, and that Moishe was doing very well. Holzberg also expressed his hope that the tragedy “will only bring the entire world closer to redemption.”
Samuel, surrounded by a sea of reporters and swarmed by well-wishers from the moment she entered with Moishe, said that she was feeling a mix of emotions at the event, both great happiness that Moishe was doing well and sadness at the fact that his parents could not be with him.
Samuel said that “the baby is fine, he’s a normal kid, he plays, he jumps.”
With a mixture of sadness and joy, which, after all, is a regular recipe in Israel, the shortened lives of the Holzbergs and the hopefully long life of their son Moishe was celebrated in the only way Israeli know how – with all their hearts.
TIME cites Israeli for creating ‘new art form’
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Music, Pop Culture, Technology, design
We wrote about him back in March and now the rest of the world is catching on. One of the top 50 inventions of 2009, according to TIME magazine is the music video montage Web site created by Israeli musicians Ophir Kutiel, who goes by the name Kutiman.
Kutiel’s site, thru-you.com, has atttracted more than seven million viewers with its striking remixes of video clips by amateur musicians from YouTube. TIME called the work “video jams of amazing funkiness, in the process creating an all-new art form.”
Kutiman takes YouTube footage of people giving gear demos and lessons on how to play certain riffs and combines them into incredibily cohesive and soulful songs. Hailed as the “psychedelic funk architect” Kutiman brings UGC (Users Generated Content) to the next level.
According to his record company NMC, Kutiman sat in his bedroom studio and watched and sorted thousands of music videos uploaded to YouTube by mostly anonymous users. Kutiman chose around a 100 of these videos – made by users from all around the world, featuring both musical instruments, vocals, toys and other surprising artifacts, and fused them together into Thru You. Using only materials found on YouTube, not playing a single note himself, Kutiman’s Thru You is a 21st century version of Found Art.
On an inventions list consisting of primarily gadgets and technology, Kutiman’s Thru You is certainly striking an appealing chord.
Austrians forget how Hatikva goes
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Politics, Sports
People wonder why Israel is always on the defensive, when things like this explain it perfectly.
At an international fencing competition over the weekend in Austria, two Israeli teens – Dana Stralinkov, 14, and Alona Komarov, 13 – won the gold and bronze medals respectively.
However, at the ceremonies awarding them the medals, instead of playing the national anthem – Hatikva – as is the custom with every other winning athlete, there was only silence.
After standing in shocked silence for a few seconds, the two teens along with the entire Israeli delegation of 22 people, burst in to song and sung Hatikva, the teenagers’ coach Yaakov Friedman told Yediot Aharonot.
“It was a very moving moment,” Freidman said, adding that a similar incident occurred five months ago at a competition in Sweden. According to the report, the Austrian official in charge of playing the national anthems of countries of the winning participants, explained he was unable to find a recording of the Israeli anthem.
Yeah, sure. And we believe that Nidal Malik Hasan wasn’t an Islamic jihadist, but suffering from PTSD. These occurences, which someone with paranoid tendencies might attribute to European snobbish digs at Israel’s legitimacy, is becoming a bit tiresome.
Yossi Harari, chairman of the Israel Fencing Association told Yediot that he intended to submit a complaint to the European Union. Harari also advised supplying every Israeli delegation participating in competitions abroad, with a recorded disc of Israel’s national anthem.
If the Hatikva snub had happened to Yuri Foreman, he might have come out swinging. Foreman, an aspiring rabbi who mixes religious studies with work in the gym, made history in Las Vegas on Saturday night when he became the first Israeli boxer to win a major world title, outpointed Daniel Santos over 12 rounds to claim the WBA super welterweight crown.
The 29-year-old, who was born in Belarus but lived in Haifa from the ages of 10 to 19. Foreman, who remained unbeaten in 28 fights, emigrated from Israel to Brooklyn and began studying to become a rabbi three years ago.
Maybe we should send Foreman to Austria next to teach them Hatikva.
Shalom Haver
Bill Clinton speaking at the Saban Forum (Photo: AP)
Then I remembered that the Sixth annual Saban Forum was taking place from Saturday to Monday in Jerusalem and Ramallah, and among the guests were former US president Bill Clinton and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
During the two-day forum, dialogue between senior officials from both countries on US-Israel relations and Middle East strategic issues such as the Iranian threat, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, are being held. On Sunday, the delegates to the conference were travelling to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad.
Founded in 2004, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy has been working to promote independent policy dialogue between Israel and the US. Founder Haim Saban called the timing of the event “a critical moment in US-Israel relations.”
And even though neither Bubba nor Ahhnold were out strolling on the Mamilla Avenue mall, their presence during their visit is being felt.
Clinton, speaking to the conference on Saturday, urged Israel and the Palestinians to end our conflict, saying we cannot escape our common future.
“We are either going to hurt each other or we are going to help each other. Divorce is not an option,” AP reported Clinton saying.
“In the last 14 years, not a single week has gone by that I did not think of Yitzhak Rabin and miss him terribly,” he said. “Nor has a single week gone by in which I have not reaffirmed my conviction that had he not lost his life on that terrible November night, within three years we would have had a comprehensive agreement for peace in the Middle East.”
Clinton has remained hugely popular in Israel, where his “Shalom haver,” eulogy at Rabin’s funeral forever struck a chord in Israelis’ hearts. Despite some who believe Clinton’s hastiness and recklessness at achieving an Israeli-Palestinian accord led to the Second Intifada, Clinton’s still a star here. Welcome friends, and block the traffic as much as you want.
Music downloads? Israel goes CD retro
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
As more and more people are downloading music on the Web and choosing Ipods over CD players, where can you find the good, old fashioned mega-CD stores? In Israel!
True, Tower Records has taken a hit here, with its Jerusalem flagship store closing down last year, but instead of throwing in the flag, other outlets have taken up the slack.
Whenever I’m in Tel Aviv – like yesterday – I try and make it over to the Ozen Hashlishi (Third Ear) on King George St. It’s the closest you can get in Israel to imagining you’re at one of those sprawling vintage CD/vinyl shops in the Village in New York, where the clerks wear Black Flag t-shirts and look like they’d just as soon stab you as take your money.
Tons of used and new CDs, vinyl, DVDs, books, featuring ample sections of niche music like ‘Israeli indie’ and ’60s Psychedelic,’ the Ozen is one of the few places you can pick up a copy Television’s landmark Marquee Moon CD – and at a bargain price. They’ve also got a club which at night hosts eclectic Israeli rockers for intimate unplugged chats with fans.
But Tel Aviv doesn’t corner the whole market for the discerning music lover. In the nation’s capital, Hatav Hashmini, a music store that began more than a decade ago by importing CDs at cheap prices and has since grown into a massive chain with its own music label, recently opened a massive, 340-square-meter store. They claim it’s the largest music CD and DVD store in Israel.
According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, the store features ten listening stations that allow visitors to sample virtually any CD in the store, one of them in a room dedicated entirely to classical music and opera.
During the grand opening last Thursday, Hatav Hashmini’s stated commitment to “music you can hold in your hands,” as opposed to downloadable MP3 files, was in strong evidence, as several big names on the label’s roster assembled for brief impromptu concerts.
Hatav Hashmini’s label boasts such artists as pop performers Micha Sheetrit, David Broza and Shlomo Gronich, as well as jazz saxophonist Danny Zamir. The store promises to host its artists for small-scale performances in the future. The venue is certainly spacious enough.
While it’s unlikely to replace the Ozen in my heart as THE place to shop for music in Israel, I’ll be certainly giving Hatav Hashmini every chance to prove itself in the coming months.
Emma Shapplin crashes and burns in Haifa
Usually, when touring musical acts make their way to Israel, they rise to the occasion and put on a stellar show. Just look at Paul McCartney, Faith No More, Leonard Cohen – despite the lofty price tags, they delivered with consumately professional concerts that left audiences thrilled.
But there’s another kind of concert thrill – the train wreck. Even more surprising is the train conductor in this case – French pop soprano Emma Shapplin, who launched a world tour last week with two shows, in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Now we’re not talking about someone who you’d expect to be erratic, like grungy Pete Doherty. Shapplin has a distinguished track record of dazzling performances featuring spine-tingling vocals. Her 2003 show in Caesarea was so outstanding that she released it as a live album and DVD.
However, she’s had a few years between albums, and when I talked to her a few weeks ago, she seemed somewhat hesitant about rushing out to perform her new album Macadam Flower ahead of time.
“When we received the offer to do these two shows, I thought, ‘well, it’s a bit premature. The album isn’t finished yet, we haven’t started rehearsing,’” she said.
It turns out that Shapplin’s apprehensions were well justified. According to a review in The Jerusalem Post of the first night’s show by my colleague, Amanda Borschel-Dan, Shappelin was like a deer in the headlights.
Aside from obvious technical difficulties with microphones, etc., Shapplin was confused, forgetting words and musical phrases, once to the point of restarting a number twice and waving away the accompanist who was playing “a different arrangement… why did Shapplin decide to perform a series of classical soprano arias when she was obviously under-prepared?
While the concert-goers were justifiably unsatisfied with the performance, I found myself thinking that it was refreshing to see someone screw up in public. We’re so conditioned to perfection that any blemishes are considered to be horrible miscues and an affront to art. On the contrary, false starts, flubbed cues, and unreached notes are performance art at its most riveting.
Shapplin may have had an off night, or maybe she’s fallen off of her pedestal and is just showing her humanity. Rather than booing her, audiences should be embracing her flaws as well as her talent.
High school musical – the hike
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Travel
A uniquely Israeli creation, the tiyul shnati (Annual trip) has been part of our family’s lives since our oldest child was big enough for one of the outdoor overnight, multi-day trips.
Whether they attend secular or religious schools, the annual trips are generally chock full of walking the land, camping in the rough, rope and ladder climbing water hikes, barbecues, cameraderie, pranks, and living and breathing Zionism.
With 10 months spent cooped up in the classroom, middle and high schoolers earn their three days out in nature, and our 15-year-old son was up bright-eyed and ready at 5:30 am this morning waiting for one of us to drive him to school.
Of course, it’s not primarily about Zionism, it’s primarily about pranks. When I asked him what kind of pranks the kids play on each other these days, he recounted one successful mission last year of entering another tent in the middle of the night, and scrawling in red marker the name of a body part on the forehead of a ‘friend.’
The preparations begin days earlier, with the required trip to the candy story for obligatory ‘junk’ bag of everything we don’t let him have the rest of the year. The school list of required equipment includes enough bottles of water to stock a small pool, but he also insisted on buying a six-pack of Coke. Both the portable music player and the cell phone stayed at home, which was an accomplishment in itself, and almost worth the cost of the trip.
Which is a sore point – a number of students weren’t attending the trip due to the expense involved. On top of the annual school fees and miscellanous charges, the school charged NIS 790 (almost $200) for the trip. I know that there’s the costs of the buses, the guides, etc… but they’re not even staying in youth hostels or hotels, they’re camping out!
If it’s a class trip, meant to build a spirit of student togetherness, there should be a way for all the students to go, even if it means cutting out some of the schedule and shortening the outing by a day.
It’s a macro problem, but this morning, we were dealing with the micro, hastily digging the forgotten sleeping bag out of the closet at the last minute. With that squared away, our young man took his last shower for three days, packed an extra pair of shoes for the water, reluctantly stuffed in something to wear if it got cold at night, made sure he had his red marker, and put his candy in a water-proof section of his backpack. With attention to detail like that, he’ll go far in life.
Nostalgia Sunday – Take a Hike, Alte Zachen!
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
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.
Hang the blessed DJ
Infected Mushroom - number 12 on the Top 100 DJs list.
British dance music bible DJMag knows what to call it, and being the experts they are, their readers recently came out with its ‘Top 100 DJs’ list, and there are six Israelis on it! No British boycott of Israel going on here.
Just in case you care, the top three DJs in the world are Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, and David Gueta. But our interest piqued already by the number 12 slot, awarded to Israel’s very own Infected Mushroom.
According to the magazine, the long-time duo – Erez Aizen and Amit Duvdevani – are the most likely to cross over to the mainstream, thanks to their album ‘Legend of the Black Shawarma’, which featured vocal contributions from Perry Farrell of iconic rock band Jane’s Addiction.
“We are continuing to play the Infected sound, which is continually evolving and building,” Amit explains. “‘Legend of the Black Shawarma’ was almost three years in the making and it encompasses rock, trance, breaks, psychedelic and many more styles,” he says.
Stopping in a number 43 was Ofer Nissim, the Tel Aviv-based DJ who helped bring Dana International to stardom. Besides a residency at the club Forever, Nissim has earned a worldwide reputation for performing at gay pride parades that take place across the globe.
“This year I’ve been finishing a double album with Mya Siman Tov, a singer songwriter. I also did a remix for Whitney Houston, which was very special,” he says of the latest in a long line of high profile collaborations that include Barbara Streisand and Christina Aguilera.
To see the complete list of the top 100 DJs and who the other four Israelis are, check out DJmag.
Here’s a clip of Infected Mushroom performing at a festival in Rio.
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