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Foto Friday – T-Market Tel Aviv 2012

We are back from the T:Market Tel-Aviv Passover 2012 and are now all kitted out for summer. The event, which has been going strong for almost a decade, gathers the city’s independent t-shirt designers together under one roof (it’s more of a tent, really) for a 3-day long festival of fashion, accessories and music.

T-shirts, according to a lengthy Wikipedia entry, are a form of personal expression. Fortunately, for those who have difficulty in expressing themselves, (or perhaps, in forming coherent thoughts), since the 1950s there have been manufacturers willing to fill the echoing gap and Israel has long been a part of that trend (check out my Entebbe Raid tee from 1976). Over the past few years, however, there has been an explosion in underground manufacturers using the t-shirt as a canvas to post artistic, social and/or political commentary and/or humor.

Their messages aren’t everyone’s cup of tea (or is that tee?) and the humor of today’s Israeli youth might not be accessible to all. For example, last year I did not get why a picture of a jihadist Smurf caused gales of laughter among the 12 year-old set, and you have to know who Uza the duck from Educational TV is to understand the Rambo-like image of “Uza and Uzi”. Similarly, you must be familiar with the wandering boy Marco from the children’s cartoon series The Heart to understand why he’s searching Google for “mother”.

This year, Passover was the theme for the T:Market’s promotional photo shoot, with matza anad gefilte fish playing an important part of the styling.

Photo by Ben Palhov

This karate chopping matza-mauling cutie sports a top by TwentyFourSeven…
Photo by Ben Palhov

Fashion house Chop Shop offers more conventional wares in an unconventional setting…

Haifa-based GhosTown were selling off their Winter 2012 collection, featuring designs by Broken Fingaz Crew…

Hand to Hand, based in Paris and Tel Aviv, offer a glimpse into their screen-printing process and, if you visit their Facebook page, into the ink drawing process as well.

Gelada Studio express their Russian origins with a nod and wink to Soviet realism…
Photo by Ben Palhov

And judging from the many Press & TV clips on their Facebook page, their Socialist-styled themes have resonated with the Israeli celebrity set!

There are another 30-odd exhibitors at the T:Market, which continues running through the weekend, with a full exhibitor list available at Dice Marketing. If you can, get on over there and if not, check out the T:Market page on Facebook.

I’m posting early as today (Thursday) is the eve of Passover’s second holiday. Chag Sameach to all!

Salami Seder

While most of my family spent Seder night around an overloaded table of food, groaning with the weight of delicacies lamb, fish, meat, chicken delicacies as well as all the traditional Passover foods (love that eggs in salt water), my daughter was having a Seder with her soldiers along the border with Egypt.

She had just finished 12 hours of patrols and assignments, and was able to relax and enjoy herself, with a spread, although not quite as sumptuous as ours, still featured a respectable chicken soup and matza balls and roast beef.

She was much luckier though, than soldiers in the Kfir Brigade, who according to reports on Israel Radio and Channel 2, had to make do with salami and matzah for their Seder meal.

Evidently, a chef on their base heated up the planned Seder food after the holiday began, rendering it unkosher according to strict Jewish law, and thus army rules, which follow the laws of kashrut. The kashrut supervisor on the base didn’t hesitate to throw away the entire batch of food, leaving the hungry soldiers, who had also just returned from a mission, only the salami and matza to eat.

Now, I’m one of the first ones to love the fact that when you’re in the army, or you go to a government office, or a sanctioned hotel, you can be assured that the food is going to be kosher – it’s one of the great aspects about Israel.

But, perhaps there are instances when a little common sense is required? I’m not sure what percentage of those Kfir soldiers keep kosher, but couldn’t they have been given the option – after an explanation of what happened – to decide for themselves whether they wanted to eat the heated food or not? After all, it’s not like the food isn’t really kosher – it was just heated up (by somebody else).

My wife says that this would have made the religiously observant soldiers feel especially bad, seeing their fellow soldiers feasting on Seder food while they were stuck with salami. What do you think?

I just know that if it was my daughter who had been served salami on Seder night because of an oversight by an army cook, I would have thought that we’ve lost track of what’s really important in our society.

Israeli startup gets in on ‘Hunger Games’

The Hunger Games may be breaking all the box office records in the US since its theater release last month, but its Facebook game is not far behind.

Developed by Israeli company Funtactix, the online game has become a big hit since being launched last week. Which should not be too surprising since the Jerusalem startup is apparently so talented that Lionsgate Films signed an agreement with them to develop the official ‘Hunger Games’ game – two months after it launched the Facebook game for Mission Impossible 4.

The Hunger Games online app enables fans of the film and the book dynasty to play with virtual friends based on the characters from the books and film.

“Even though we knew in advance that the movie would be a huge hit with teens we were still very excited when we saw the initial statistics, and we hope they will continue to grow and increase,” said Funtactix founder Yaron Leifenberg in a press release.

The (JVP) Erel Margalit-financed company was founded in 2006 and has developed a reputation in web-based gaming since its 2008 introduction of connected 3D multiplayer action gaming to the browser. Based in New York, with development teams centered in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Funtactix is another example of the burgeoning Hollywood-Israel connection in full bloom.

Foto Friday – Assaf Pinchuk images Israel

It’s the morning of Erev Pessach, Passover eve, and the country is in its final involuntary shopping, cooking and cleaning spasm. This evening, a blessed quiet will fall over Israel and for a few moments, all will be clean, orderly and in place.

That sense of balance, of everything being as it should be — dare I say it, of seder — is present in these images by commercial photographer Assaf Pinchuk, who specializes in architectural and industrial subjects. In his work, Pinchuk gives us a glimpse of the Israel we aspire to be. Even the unruly building blocks and winding streets of an old Tel Aviv neighborhood fall into place…

A office building lobby becomes a composition of light, shadow, contrasting colors and structural elements…

The city’s famously dynamic night life is omnipresent in the saturated green of a rest room…

A Tel Aviv rooftop apartment glows against a darkening sky…

In daylight, through the windowshades, the harsh Mediterranean sun paints white walls with shadow…

As always, the best days end with sunset on the Tel Aviv beach.

Assaf Pinchuk studied photography at Hadassah College, Jerusalem, after which he interned and worked with Cologne-based photographer Hans-Georg Esch. Together with wife and business partner Miri, Pinchuk opened his own studio in 1998, with the goal of producing unique, dynamic, smart and inspiring images for a client list that includes some of Israel’s leading companies and institutions.

The mad rush to the Seder

It may seem like just about every Israeli is out at the supermarkets and the malls preparing for Passover- that’s because it’s true.

It’s not just a religious holiday here, it’s a national one, with surveys citing 90% of the Jewish population attending Seders, far higher than the rate of religious observance in the country.

The country has been in overdrive this whole week, with households driving themselves crazy cleaning and shopping for the holiday which begins Friday night. We thought we would beat the rush and arrived at our local Rami Levy supermarket at 8 am Wednesday morning. And while there weren’t lines out the door, it was clear that we weren’t as smart as we thought, as the parking lot and the shopping aisles were pretty full, but not in a manic mode.

Since we’re having our Seder with our daughter’s future in-laws, we didn’t have an overflowing shopping cart, and the whole ordeal was pretty civilized. In the checkout line which was getting longer by the minute, the cashier took a breath between customers and said with a shake of her head, “It’s going to be like this until midnight.”

I’m sure it was, and it only got worse the next day. But come Friday afternoon, an aura of serenity will descend on the country, and families will start getting dressed for the big night of the year. And around 6 pm, there will be a different kind of exodus as cars fill the nation’s highways bringing families and friends together for their Seder. It’s one of those times where living here feels just about right.

 

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