Exposing Tel Aviv Fashion Week

November 22, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Business, design, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Travel 

Designs by Shenkar students will be among those on display at the Israel Fashion Week.

I just returned from a long weekend in Milan, but the real fashion sense seems to be in Tel Aviv.

Israel Fashion Week is taking place, featuring 18 shows by foreign and local designers. Among the local designers presenting their summer 2012 collections will be Sasson Kedem, Mira Zwillinger, Dorin Frankfurt, Galit Levy, Gideon Oberson, Shai Shalom, and Alon Livne, along with fashion works by students from the Shenkar fashion school.

The guest of honor is Italian designer, Roberto Cavalli, who will display his summer 2012 collection, but the focus will be on Israeli design, which is slowly but surely taking its place behind the marquee Paris, New York and Milan magnets.

To make sure that Tel Aviv is given the proper media exposure, the Tourism and Foreign Ministries are hosting over leading fashion and lifestyle journalists from elite magazines around the world.

“Fashion aficionados tend to follow new and leading trends, and are attracted to cultural, historical and entertainment options which are all part of Israel’s unique tourism product,” Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov said in a statement released this week.

At the gala opening Sunday night at the Old Jaffa Railway station, a reception hosted by Italian Ambassador Luigi Mattiolo and attended by Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, an agreement was signed between Ofir Lev, the deputy CEO of the Israel Fashion and Textile Association, and Mario Boselli, president of the Italian Fashion Chamber chamber, which basically adds Tel Aviv to the international fashion calendar.

It appears that from now on, there won’t be any excuse for Israelis to continue dressing down, like I do. It may be time to move to Italy…

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Nostalgia Sunday – The Yekke spectrum

November 20, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, design, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Movies, Nostalgia Sunday, Profiles, Travel, tv 

Yekke. The term, according to Urban Dictionary.com, “refers to Jews originating from Germany. Sometimes used in a derogatory or cynical manner, it refers mainly to their attention to detail…The origins of this title are unclear, ranging from referring to their short jackets… to a conjugation of the Hebrew dayek – to be precise.”

Between 1931 and 1939, 100,000 Jews came to pre-State Israel, most of them from Germany having fled the rise of Nazism. Unlike the previous four waves of aliya, the members of this Fifth Aliya were not necessarily kibbutz bound. Instead, they headed for towns like Tel Aviv, where they engaged in five o’clock tea dances and other bourgeoisie amusements and Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighborhood, home to professors and intellectuals. German-Jewish immigrants founded Nahariya, home to some of Israel’s leading entrepreneurial families: Strauss, Soglowek and Wertheimer.

Once considered an embarrassment among young German emigres trying to fit in among the native-born sabras, their children and grandchildren are now exploring their Yekke roots, discovering that there was much more to the German-Jewish immigrant experience in Israel than simply being a nicely dressed, punctual minority among the Russian-Polish Socialist-Zionist majority, chronically late and clad in dusty, drab workman’s gear.

Two movies have come out recently that reflect aspects of the German-Jewish immigrant experience in pre-State Israel. Duki Dror’s Mendelsohn – Incessant Visions, explores the life of Erich Mendelsohn, the man who changed the face of modern architecture.

Dror’s fascination with Mendelsohn began in 2003, when UNESCO declared Tel Aviv a World Heritage Site. “I tried to understand the connection between this ugly city, where I was born and raised, and this declaration of cultural significance. I started looking at buildings… and I tried to figure out where this town came from… Who was the source of these modern ideas? Very quickly my investigation led to Mendelsohn It was clear that his presence infuses the plaster and concrete of Tel Aviv. And then I realized he had never built in Tel Aviv, but influenced all of the architects who built it.”

Dror tells the story of Mendelsohn’s life through the architect’s correspondence with wife Luise Mendelsohn. The letters, along with excerpts from Luise’s diary, provide personal insights into history: Mendelsohn’s technique of crafting tiny sketches with the power of a large rendering was the result of paper shortages during World War I. Luise, a cellist who played in a string quartet with neighbor Albert Einstein, wangled Mendelsohn’s first important commission: the Einstein Tower (Einsteinturm) in Potsdam, Germany– an astrophysical observatory built to prove (or disprove) the theory of relativity. At the height of his success, Mendelsohn’s architectural practice had commissions from all over Germany for buildings in his pioneering International Style. Luise tells of Erich’s obsession in creating their dream house — completed just in time for him, along with all other Jewish members, to be ejected from the German Architects’ Union. Realizing that their assets were about to be seized by the Nazis, the Mendelsohns left Germany for the England in 1933.

It was in London in 1934 that Mendelsohn met Chaim Weizmann. The future President of the State of Israel invited the architect to design the future State of Israel according to his modernist vision. Mendelsohn had already been to Palestine before, in 1923, on the invitation of Pinhas Rutenberg, head of the Palestine Electric Company who had the British Mandatory government concession to create an modern electrical infrastructure. Although his design for the first power station was rejected by the British for being avant garde, Mendelsohn was captivated by the idea of fusing ancient and modern in a Jewish homeland.
Read more

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American grandma to power Tel Aviv light rail

November 16, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Technology, Travel 

Barbara Levine is helping to get the Tel Aviv light rail system on track.

Despite some major hiccups, the Jerusalem light rail system is up and running. The ticketing system still doesn’t work, so the line, which runs from Pisgat Ze’ev in the north of the city, to Mount Herzl in the west, is still free. The drivers are threatening to quit because their pay is considerably less than that of their previous jobs as bus drivers, and because the synchronized light changing system which will allow smooth train sailing still isn’t working at most intersections, the trip is considerably longer than expected. But otherwise, hey, it’s great.

And now, the country’s other major city, Tel Aviv, is following suit as it begins work on its own light rail system.

In early October, bulldozers started burrowing three 82-foot vertical shafts through which the mining equipment will be lowered to dig out the underground, Petah Tikva-to-Jaffa section of the Red Line. The entire route, planned to open in 2017, will reach as far south as Bat Yam and Holon.

In addition to the Red Line, Tel Aviv will get a Green Line, partly underground and partly at street level, and a Purple Line at street level. All are designed for easy transfers between LRT stops as well as bus stops and Israel Railway stations.

All told, the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Mass Transit System is the biggest infrastructure project in Israel’s history. And one of it’s prime movers who’s in charge of “rolling stock” – the vehicles, signaling, traction power, tracks and fare collection system is a transplanted American woman – 62-year-old Barbara Levine.
Read all about her on ISRAEL21c.

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Hollywood actors, Jerusalem scenery

November 14, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, education, Entertainment, General, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel 

Rob Morrow in Northern Exposure - will he be adding Jerusalem to the pole?

I know that some readers weren’t too happy with the headline of my last posting which stated that Crosby, Stills and Nash were performing at a tapas bar in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda shuk. Sorry about that, I didn’t think it would be that realistic to the point someone might actually believe it.

However, speaking doogri, as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is fond of saying in his gangsta persona, this item is 100% true – if you hang out on the streets of Jerusalem this week, don’t be surprised if you run into Ralph Cifaretto from The Sopranos or Dr. Joel Fleishman from Northern Exposure.

The actors who played those iconic roles – Joe Pantoliano and Rob Morrow respectively – are in town with almost two dozen of their Hollywood brethren (actors, producers and directors) for a week-long visit to meet with Israeli and Palestinian policy leaders, members of the arts, culture and business communities, and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

There’s no Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johanson in the delegation, but joining Pantoliano and Morrow are some pretty big and once-big Hollywood names, including Emmy Award-winner Patricia Arquette (Medium, Holes); Matthew Modine (Batman – The Dark Knight Rises, Full Metal Jacket); Stephen Baldwin (The Usual Suspects, Born on the Fourth of July); and Griffin Dunne (After Hours).

The trip is the brainchild of The Creative Coalition in conjunction with the American Israel Education Foundation, an AIPAC-affiliated organization. The Los Angeles-based Creative Coalition is a non-profit group founded in 1989 by prominent members of the creative community, and according to their write up, “is dedicated to educating, mobilizing, and activating its members on issues of public importance,” using “the power and platform of the arts and entertainment communities in award-winning public service and advocacy campaigns.”

Actor Tim Daly (Wings) serves as the organization’s president and is leading the delegation in Israel.

I wouldn’t mind having coffee at the David Citadel Hotel in the capital with any of the participants, but I do have particularly soft spots for Morrow, whose role as Dr. Joel Fleishman in the series Northern Exposure codified the American Jewish experience as well as Woody Allen, and Griffin Dunne, whose writing and acting, particularly in the spoof After Hours has always been inspired.

Maybe as a result of their visit, we’ll see an upcoming series about an American medical student who pays off his financial assistance by being sent to a development town in Israel.

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Crosby, Stills and Nash play Jerusalem shuk

November 12, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Entertainment, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Music 

Long Time Gone playing in front of the Zavit Hamidrash synagogue in Mahane Yehuda.

We spent Thursday evening out and about in Mahane Yehuda, the historic fruit and vegetable shuk in the heart of Jerusalem. But we weren’t there buying produce.

In the last few years, the venerable ‘old world’ market that has been a Jerusalem institution since long before the state was established, has become a nightlife magnet. Cafes, pubs, tapas bars and chic restaurants have opened their doors attracting a young, hip clientele.

Being neither young nor hip, my wife and nonetheless ventured out after dark into the shuk, and made our way to the Que Pasa tapas bar. Situated in an alley between Mahane Yehuda’s two main streets, the bar is directly across from an old, hole in the wall synagogue.

About 50 patrons were sitting out in the alley at tables to listen to a set by Long Time Gone, a well-known local trio who do a spot on acoustic show of songs by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. They were smoking and the audience was grooving for a good two hours in the cool, but refreshing, Jerusalem evening air.

The band was set up directly in front of the synagogue entrance, which had been closed for the evening after Ma’ariv services. I thought the juxtaposition of the tapas bar, the band and the synagogue perfectly reflected the irresistible mosaic that encapsulates Jerusalem life. May it ‘carry on’ for a long time comin’.

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