Power, one of the most respected indie rockers over the last 15 years, was scheduled to perform for the first time in Israel on Sunday night at Reading 3 in Tel Aviv. However, on Thursday, the singer, whose real name is Chan Marshall, posted a message on her Facebook account expressing a change of heart.

“Due to much confusion in my soul, playing for my Israeli fans w/such unrest between Israel and Palestine I can’t play, as I feel sick in my spirit. XX,” she wrote.
She also tweeted: “Music is healing and it is not humane if all cannot have the choice, the right, to attend,” apparently referring to Palestinians who would not be able to travel to Tel Aviv to see the show. The announcement came after Power had tweeted earlier in the week asking her fans to “find a show in Ramallah… for the people of Palestine”.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Does Cat Power actually think there are Palestinians in Ramallah – or anywhere else – who would come out to see her in concert? Even Paul McCartney and Leonard Cohen realized that there’s not enough of an audience for Western music among our neighbors, and they found other ways to show their solidarity for the plight of the innocent members of Palestinian society affected by the situation, whether you believe it’s caused by Israel or by their own leadership. McCartney visited a Palestinian music school and Cohen donated the proceeds from his concert to a fund for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

With a little thought, Cat Power could have come up with something to ease her pained conscience. Ironically, as a friend pointed out on Facebook, the night before her decision to cancel, she performed in Turkey, the same day that Turkish troops killed 13 Kurdish rebels who have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast since 1984.

I guess Elton John wasn’t right when he defiantly roared from the stage at Ramat Gan Stadium in 2010 that musicians “don’t cherry pick our conscience” over where to perform. Cat Power seems to do it just fine.

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Madonna performing in Tel Aviv in 2009 with an Israeli flag draped over her.

The Material Girl, who provided a spectacle-filled half time show for attendees and viewers of the Super Bowl on Sunday night, scored her own Hebrew touchdown this week when she announced that her mega-tour to promote her new album MDNA would kick off on May 29 at Ramat Gan Stadium.

In a press conference, Israeli promoter Shuki Weiss disclosed that the 54-year-old cultural icon will arrive in Israel two weeks before the concert, accompanied by an entourage of more than 300 people, to carry out intensive rehearsals for the show.

And since debuts of world tours of someone of Madonna’s caliber are international news events, hundreds of foreign entertainment journalists are expected to descend on the country.

This provides an amazing PR opportunity for Israel to gain worldwide exposure for a news event that has nothing to do with the things we’re usually in the news for: Iran, Palestinians, Hezbollah, separate seating for men and women, or any other of the issues that the foreign media tends to focus on when Israel is the topic.

How cool is it that instead of more of the same, this time we’re going to be seen hand in hand with the world debut of Madonna’s show that is going to travel to over 50 other cities in the world and probably one of the biggest-grossing tours of the year. While it may be a coincidence that the tour is starting in Israel, Madonna’s past indicates that she’s developed a real affinity for the country and its people ever since she performed here for the first time in 1999 at Hayarkon Park.

Since then, she’s returned a number of times for event as the Kabbala Center in Tel Aviv, and in September, 2009, she closed her Sticky & Sweet tour back at Hayarkon Park with two shows.

“It isn’t even a regular visit anymore when she comes,” Weiss said at the press conference on Tuesday. “It’s as if she is the process of making aliya.”

What he probably meant was that Madonna likely feels comfortable with the country and its lifestyle to the extent that she decided to use it as a base for two weeks ahead of the tour’s opening.

“Every time I come here, I get so supercharged with energy,” she said onstage in 2009. “I truly believe that Israel is the energy center of the world. And I also believe that if we can all live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world.”

By choosing to open her tour here and bringing the world’s focus to our small country, Madonna is doing a great service in promoting the above ideals and spreading the word that what we have here is indeed the energy center of the world, and proving that in addition to whatever other monikors that she’s had hoisted upon her, there’s one more that fits her to a T: Zionist.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s the case anyway with the current TV ad campaign by cable provider HOT, which is promoting its ‘on-demand’ epidsodes of the popular spy-comedy show ‘Asfur’ by offering a free Samsung Galaxy tablet as enticement for prospective customers to sign up for the on-demand package.

In the ad, a bored Mossad agent stationed in Iran, apparently to monitor Iran’s nuclear development, meets up with three characters from the show who are also clandestinely in the country dressed as women. Sitting in a café, the agent shows off the Samsung Galaxy, explaining that he used his downtime to use the on-demand option to watch episodes of ‘Asfur.’

At the end of the clip, one of the three Asfur accidentally pushes an application on the tablet over the frantic efforts of the agent, and a nuclear reactor is detonated in the background.

Typical Israeli sophomoric, whistling in the dark, hilarious humor. But evidently neither Iran nor Samsung are seeing the levity in it. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post sourcing Iran’s Press TV, Arsalan Fat’hipour, who heads the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, said over the weekend that Tehran was considering imposing a complete ban on buying all Samsung products. And, of course, they’ll probably aim their first operational nuke at the HOT corporate offices.

Meanwhile Samsung issued a statement saying, “Samsung Electronics is aware of a recent news report in Iranian media regarding an advertisement aired by HOT cable network of Israel. This advertisement was produced by HOT cable network without Samsung’s knowledge or participation… As a member of the global community, Samsung is committed to demonstrating respect for all people and cultures around the globe.”

The question is, how did Iran know that HOT was even airing the ads? Do they have spy here who subscribes to the company’s ‘Three-in-one” cable/Internet/phone service? If so, I hope they’re just as frustrated as the rest of us at having ‘You, Me & Dupree’ screening a million times a month on its movie channels. But I also hope he doesn’t have an itchy trigger finger.

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So, in a refreshing change of pace, one of the first Israeli singers in English – Yael Deckelbaum – is bucking the trend and has just released her first exclusively Hebrew-language CD, Joy and Sadness.

A long-time fixture on the Israeli-Anglo club and festival circuit, Deckelbaum combines the folkie elements of Joni Mitchell and the bluesy wail of Janis Joplin into a cohesive whole. She’s the daughter of the late David Deckelbaum, who immigrated to Israel from Canada as a youngster and with his banjo led the bawdy folk/country/Irish Jerusalem legends The Taverners throughout the 1970s and 80. That’s where young Yael learned about music, and not even into her teens, she was joining her father onstage at The Jacob’s Ladder Folk Festival – Israel’s annual version of Woodstock.

By her early 20s, she stepped into the solo spotlight, and has been a live mainstay on Israeli stages – becoming even more well-known when she joined up with singers Karolina and Dana Adini to form the vocal trio Habanot Nechama.

After releasing her debut solo album in 2009 called Ground Zero, Deckelbaum began focusing on writing songs in Hebrew – her actual native tongue. And the result is Joy and Sadness, featuring a poignant photo of a young Deckelbaum riding on the shoulders of her father.

She promises she hasn’t abandoned writing and performing in English, and when she takes the stage for the album’s debut this month in Tel Aviv, she’ll be bi-lingual, and backed by two different bands – her own and special guests Mashina.

Whatever language Deckelbaum sings in, it seems to come out magic.

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Kishkashta and Shpitzik - separated at birth?

On one side we have Kishkashta, the thorny singing star of Israeli Educational TV’s children’s broadcasts for over 30 years. And on the other side is Shpitzkik, the spiky sabra mascot designed for the Israel Olympic Committee and the team of athletes headed to the Olympics this year.

IET has filed a motion with the Tel Aviv District Court to prevent the IOC from using Shpitzik because they say the two mutant sabras are too similar in appearance.

This case is actually being covered, and while not as urgent as the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, it is causing nail biting and nervousness among cartoon plant life around the country.

According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, Kishkashta made his first TV appearances in the 1970s, as part of the children’s show Ma Pit’om! (“What on Earth!”), and became known for his deep, somewhat lugubrious voice and signature song “They call me Kishkashta.”

In December, the IOC chose Shpitzik, a jaunty cactus clad in Israel’s official Olympic strip, as the mascot that will accompany the Israeli delegation to the London 2012 Olympic Games later this year.

The case is in court now, and our wise judicial sages will undoubtedly and down a just ruling. Sabras everywhere are bristling waiting for the answer. But in my mind, you can’t beat Kishkashta’s talent.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Eretz Nehederet actors portraying American-Jewish participants of a Birthright trip in ecstacy over learning they're going to visit Yad Vashem.

Only a few months ago, there was the controversy over the video campaign by the Ministry of Absorption to convince expatriate Israelis to come home. Whether due to lack of understanding by the makers of the videos (claim critics) or over sensitivity by those offended by the videos (claim advocates), the results proved that we don’t really see each other in the same we see ourselves.

That’s why it’s good for someone to come along once in a while and flatten the playing field by being so offensive that you can’t help but laugh. And that someone this time is Eretz Nehederet, the irreverent Channel 2 comedy/satire series poking fun at current events, national leaders, and in this case of the premiere of its ninth season last week, the Birthright/Taglit program.

As Haaretz put it, “In a rare jab at visiting Diaspora Jews, Israel’s premier satirical television show, Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country), took on Taglit-Birthright Israel during its Monday night season premier.”

The skit in question follows a Birthright group as they travel by bus through the country accompanied by an Israeli guide.
You’ve got all the Diaspora Jewish stereotypes, as seen through Israeli eyes – the Jewish American Princesses, the partying, vulgar frat boys and the drug and the sex-addled South American participants.

Cynical to the nth degree, the skit – conducted in a mixture of Hebrew and English -manages to make fun of American Jewish allegiance to Israel, Birthright’s use of Holocaust guilt to encourage the participants to hit up their parents for contributions, and the cocky Israeli mentality as portrayed by the tour guide whose bravado gets him blown up by a land mine.

The skit (available here at least temporarily) loses steam half way through, but it’s still worth searching for in Hebrew on YouTube for its first few minutes for the setup, which provides some of the sharpest parody the show has created.

If American Jewish-Israeli ties were tenuous before this, I shudder to think where they’ll go after the sensitive American Jewish community views this.

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From right: director Joseph Cedar, actor Shlomo Bar Aba, and producer Moshe Edry stand together during a press conference after the film 'Footnote' was nominated for an Oscar last week. (AP)

Cedar, an American-born Israeli, who also directed the 2008 Oscar entry, the Lebanon war film Beaufort, focused Footnote on something completely different – on two professors of Talmud, a father and son, dueling for academic prestige and the prestigious Israel Prize.

It doesn’t sound like standard fare for a gripping movie, but it is, thanks to a winning script and ace acting by stars Lior Ashkenazi and Shlomo Baraba.

“‘Footnote’ deals with the question of what happens when, while you’re living your daily life, a prize is offered, which really takes over your moral reasoning and changes your perspective and sometimes completely destroys your perspective,” Cedar told TIME magazine, summarizing the film’s main plot line.

TIME devoted a story to Israel’s booming film industry – stating that “the budgets are bare-bones and the talent pool is limited, but Israel has emerged as a surprising powerhouse in the foreign film industry.”

It notes that many of the country’s film deal with the Israeli-Arab conflict, citing the last three Israeli films that made it to the Oscar shortlist – Cedar’s Beaufort, nominated, and 2009’s animated Waltz with Bashir, both explored Israeli soldiers’ experiences in Lebanon. Ajami, the 2010 nominee, centers on Arab-Jewish tensions in violence-ridden Jaffa.

The article details the history and struggles the Israeli film industry has and continues to deal with, regarding funding, and how in the late 1990s, when the industry was at a nadir, the Israel Film Fund was created and received government backing to develop new filmmakers, Cedar among them.

The Israel Film Fund supported his first feature, “Time of Favor,” which debuted in 2000.

“We didn’t know him, but he had enthusiasm. There was something about his passion,” said Katriel Schory, executive director of the national fund. “We took a chance.”

The chance has certainly paid off, and we’ll see if it results in Israel’s first Academy Award.

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Only a couple weeks after Tel Aviv was named by the website Gay Cities as the Best Gay City of 2011, The Washington Post has published an AP feature touting the fact that Israel is one of the world’s most progressive countries for gay rights.
Among the points the story makes are that gays serve openly in the IDF and the Knesset, and the Supreme Court has granted gays a variety of family rights such as inheritance and survivors’ benefits.

The story relates to the government efforts to promote gay tourism to Israel, and finds a Tel Aviv University law professor, Aeyal Gross, to accuse authorities of “co-opting the gay community to deflect attention away from violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and African migrants who seek refuge in the Jewish state.”

“The more Israel brands itself as a liberal democracy, the less pressure will be on it internationally,” Gross said. “If you care about gay rights, then you should also care when the rights of others are abused.”

The story then goes on to admit that on the beaches and wild nightclubs of Tel Aviv, not many people are thinking about a ‘spin’ to the lifestyle that – according to The Tourism Ministry – attracted almost 100,000 gay men and women from Europe to vacation in the country in 2011.

Dennis Muller, a 22-year-old tourist from Berlin, gave AP an eyewitness account.

“You enter Tel Aviv and you are in the gay dream,” Muller said on a recent weeknight inside the packed Dreck nightclub. “It’s like entering a bubble of peace for homosexuals or LGBT people in the Middle East.”

So, why shouldn’t Israel be promoting itself as a prime destination for gay travelers, and what in the world does it have to do with the problems the country faces in so many other spheres? I say, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

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The renovated Habima Theater (Photo: Haaretz)

The Habima was one of the first Hebrew language theaters, emerging out of Russian origins after the 1905 revolution. Because its performances were in Hebrew and it dealt with issues of the Jewish people, it met with persecution by the Czarist government. Beginning in 1918, it operated under the auspices of the Moscow Art Theater and in 1926, the theatre left the Soviet Union to tour abroad, with some members staying in New York and others taking the company to mandated Palestine. The first play in Tel Aviv was staged in 1928 – Der Oyster (The Treasure), a play in Yiddish by Sholom Aleichem.

In 1945, the company built the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv, which has been officially considered the national theater of Israel since 1958, the year in which it received the Israel Prize for theater.

Sunday’s grand re-opening, occurring some two months after the theater began to stage productions again, was attended President Shimon Peres, Culture Minister Limor Livnat, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, and many dignitaries from the acting world.

Despite the big budget and lavish attention that went into the renovations, the management was surprised a few hours before the opening, when the heavy winter rains sweeping Tel Aviv caused the ceiling to leak in a few places, resulting in water dripping onto the actors during rehearsal. By show time, the rain had stopped, but there was still other controversy.

A few dozen people stood outside the theater protesting against the allocation of funds for the renovation, which they claimed came at the expense of those in need of housing in Tel Aviv.

“On the one hand we are protesting against a lack in public housing and on the other hand we see in front of our eyes the opening of Habima, with nicely dressed people enjoying refreshments,” one of the protesters told Ynet.

It was a fitting dramatic debut for the theater which will continue to lead Israeli theater into the coming decades.

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Whatever the answer, Alon Day undoubtedly will bring his rich experience on Israeli roads to Belardi Auto Racing’s Firestone Indy Lights 2012 roster.

The 20-year-old Day grew up in Ashdod, and for his 10th birthday, his parents his parents bought him lessons. According to Racer website, Day, through his teens, he earned more than 60 titles and trophies in Israel and Europe before moving up to 2-liter cars in Formula Renault in Asia and Hungary. In 2009, the 17-year-old clinched the Asia Formula Renault Championship.

Last year, he was given a deferment by the IDF to delay his army service due to his career accomplishments. Instead, he competed in the German Formula Three Championship and was later selected by ex-Formula 1 driver Alexander Wurz to be one of 12 FIA Ambassadors as part of the FIA Institute Academy Initiative. This year, Day will compete in 12 events across the U.S. and Canada.

“I am very excited to welcome Alon to the Belardi Auto Racing family for the 2012 Indy Lights season,” team owner Brian Belardi said. “Alon really blew us away when he came down to test with us at Palm Beach in December. His very first time in an Indy Lights car could not have gone better, and we are very lucky to have him join our program. I think with Alon’s natural talent and determination, he will have a really great season as a rookie in the Firestone Indy Lights series.”

Since he’s managed to navigate through Israel’s treacherous highways and byways, he indeed should have a great rookie season in the US.

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