Back in 2007, after the death of former model Hila Elmalich who was 34 and weighed less than sixty pounds, he told me the following for Women’s Wear Daily:

“The problem is with society, and the low self-esteem of these girls,” says Barkan. “We need to put this out there, to make it a societal norm in Israel and the rest of the world. People need to see these anorexic bodies and move their butts and do something about this.”

Israel21c interviewed Barkan several times about the issue, and posted the following video:

In March, his perseverance paid off, as the Knesset passed what is being called the Photoshop law, for the aspect of the law that regulates the use of Photoshop to make women appear perfect in advertisements. That’s a huge accomplishment. The bulk — no pun intended — of the law focuses on banning underweight models based on their BMI, or Body Mass Index.

The law is making waves in Israel, and around the world. Can Israel set the precedent for changing the way the fashion industry views and uses models’ bodies?

Interestingly enough, it was on Israel’s new fashion channel, Fashion.net., that a panel of fashion professionals, including clothing designer Yosef and a local fashion magazine editor, agreed that despite the new law and its groundbreaking potential, the fashion world will still view impossibly thin model bodies as the ultimate in goal.

“No one wants to see a curvy, zaftig model,” said Naama Chaisin, who is the second generation in the Tovale designer line of clothing. “And I say that as someone who is curvy and has fought to lose weight my whole life.”

Here’s to hoping she’s wrong.

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YouPhone is one of the new cellular carriers hitting the Israeli market

Israelis won’t be saying “hallo” on their cell phones, but that doesn’t mean low prices aren’t coming.

A few weeks ago, a much-rumored new discount-priced Israeli cellular phone company called Hallo dropped its plans to launch after it emerged the company didn’t have the contacts in place it needed to operate . The company had promised an incredible deal – NIS 99 for unlimited talk time, unlimited messages and 2 GB of data surfing. A similar offer at one of the big three carriers – Orange, Cellcom and Pelephone, would cost at least double that.

But this week, three new operators hit the market with innovative pricing that will further shake up the cell phone market in Israel. It brings to five the number of “mobile virtual network operators” (or MVNO’s), a fancy way for saying that the new guys buy time from the existing carriers, piggybacking for a price on the antennas and infrastructure already built.

One of the new guys, Golan Telecom has the exact same attractive pricing that Hallo promised. Another, HOT Mobile, has a fee structure includes unlimited talk and text for just NIS 89 – NIS 10 less than Golan – but doesn’t include data in the price.

HOT Mobile also has a plan for “light users” – no monthly fee at all, then 10 agorot per minute and the same per text message and per megabyte of Internet access. Golan’s light user plan costs NIS 10 a month and includes 60 minutes of talk time, 60 text messages and 10 megabytes of Internet access. The third operator, YouPhone, will be charging NIS 18 a month, then 18 agorot per minute of talk time and 15 agorot for messages. Internet will also be 15 agorot per megabyte.

The different packages for each carrier sound confusing, but they’re actually a bit clearer (although not much) than the traditional cell phone deals which include x number of minutes free to other subscribers on the same network, another package of minutes to family and friends, discounts if you bought a phone via the carrier and speak at least 200 minutes a month…it got so confusing that Orange, one of the big three, came out with its own “clear” package that sets a base price of NIS 69 (and as a result, the cost of purchasing the phone through the company listed is listed separately).

If you’re a heavy mobile Internet user, HOT Mobile’s offer of 10 agorot per megabyte can add up. 2 GB = NIS 200, so the NIS 99 all you can eat package is a much better deal. If your Internet usage is less – say 250 MB a month like me, that’s only NIS 25. If you then talk 200 minutes a month and send, say, 100 text messages, that’s another NIS 30/month, making the combined price less than at the big carriers.

YouPhone’s doesn’t offer a more expensive package with a higher data level, so if you like to surf on-the-go, stick with Golan or HOT.

Perhaps the most intriguing element – at least for immigrants with strong ties to the “old country” – is Golan’s offer of free overseas calling to landlines in 29 countries. HOT’s overseas calling price is a shekel a minute.

On the other hand, YouPhone has a deal with the Mega chain of supermarkets and Alon gas stations (the same holding company owns all three) so that if you buy groceries or gas, you get free minutes. For every NIS 100 customers spend, they will receive 10 minutes of airtime at no charge, up to a maximum of 200 minutes per month per customer. The idea is that talking on the phone is as much a necessity as eating and traveling in your car, but that pricing brings us back to the familiar complexity the new companies seem to have been trying to avoid.

The other two MVNOs are associated with the Rami Levy supermarket chain and the Home Center DIY chain.

If you want a full service cellular carrier with a proper office and repair facility, you won’t get that with the newbies – YouPhone and Rami Levy are using their supermarkets and gas stations to sell their services and Golan has just a website – they’ll send you a SIM card in the mail.

The bottom line: if you’re willing to shop around, you can save a lot in the new cellular landscape. And that’s good news for competition. Now if only it would extend to cottage cheese.

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Bar in her new underwear

According to blog SheFinds, Refaeli is following the success of her colleagues, Elle Macpherson and Gisele Bundchen, and recently launched her own underwear line, under.me, because “underneath my clothes lies the real me. Nothing else…”

The line includes Under Her (for women) and Under Him (for guys). And soon there will be underwear subscriptions, one would assume so that you never find yourself in holey, tatty underwear ever again, as well as underwear gift certificates.

Finally, to see what the underwear looks like, and what Bar looks like wearing it, watch this video, and women, know that this sports bra will not really work like that for most women.

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A bit of history: the ViewMaster (or View-Master) was first introduced at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 by the partnership of Wilhelm Gruber, an organ maker and amateur photographer, and Harold Graves, who was in charge of the postcard division at Oregon-based Sawyer’s Photo Services.

Their idea was to update the old-fashioned stereoscope to the new Kodachrome 16-mm color film, printing small-format photo transparencies and mounting them in pairs on a disk to be viewed with a simple hand-operated viewer. Initially, the photo subjects were travelogues, such as Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon, quickly followed by more far-flung locations such as Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Collector and dealer Kip “Mr. ViewMaster” Brockman has several such travelogues on his site, as does the ViewMaster World blog. The disks were accompanied by a narrative booklet. For example, if you were to purchase Modern Israel, part of the Nations of the World series, as you viewed the stereoscopic image, you would read the following:

“Our El Al Israel Airlines plane lands at Lod Airport, near Tel Aviv. An attractive hostess welcomes us to Israel with a spoken greeting in Hebrew, from the Bible: “Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and when thou goest out.”

Tel Aviv, Israel’s No. 1 boom town, is the first all Jewish metropolis since Biblical times…The beach front is a Coney Island on the Mediterranean; booths sell corn on the cob, watermelon, or falaffel (“the Israeli hot dog”)…

Tel Aviv stands as a symbol of modern, energetic Israel. The country’s spirit is personified in its new generation. The native born Sabra— Hebrew word for cactus (tough outside, sweet inside) — is tall, healthy, suntanned, and confident, with the swagger of an adventurer.”

Oh my gosh! I would really like to visit that place where air-hostesses quote scripture, Israelis are tall and un-neurotic, and the notion of falafel as “the Israeli hot dog” doesn’t send me into paroxysms of laughter. But I digress.

After 1966, when Sawyer’s became a wholly owned subsidiary of the General Aniline & Film (GAF) Corporation, more child-friendly subjects like cartoons and TV series were introduced.

The full account of View-Master’s history of Mergers & Acquisitions is a long one; the short version is that the product is currently carried by Mattel subsidiary Fisher-Price, which in December 2008 announced that it would cease production of the scenic disks depicting tourist attractions. According to Wikipedia, “These disks of picturesque scenes and landscape scenery were descendants of the first View-Master disks sold in 1939.”

Fisher-Price continues to produce disks of animated characters, including Dora the Explorer who prefers to go places instead of just looking at them on-screen. Well, travel is easier nowadays. There was something magical, though, about looking at the tiny celluloid images through the ViewMaster lens. (It was, as my significant other says, “like having a tiny, personal TV” and if you squished the eyepiece sideways into your brow ridge just right, you could get the full 3D effect, however briefly). So you can still get a ViewMaster. As for getting hold of ViewMaster travelogues, there’s always eBay.

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It’s getting to be that time of year again – where the national holidays come fast and furious. Holocaust Remembrance Day just passed and this week we have Memorial Day and Independence Day right on top of each other as Israel prepares to celebrate its 64th birthday.

While there’s no shortage of subjects to be worried, fearful, skeptical or angry about, I would say that overall, the country’s in pretty good shape. But if the Iranian threat, the political situation, the social welfare crisis and the glut of TV reality shows are getting you down, take a couple minutes and check out this clip that ISRAEL21c’s Nicky Blackburn and Viva Sara Press have put together.

In addition to providing some surprising information about just what Israel has achieved in the past 63 years, it will undoubtedly raise your morale and have you whistling a happy tune going into the coming eventful week. Happy Independence Day Israel! We’re proud of you.

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Fortunately we don't have to file taxes as in this picture from 1920 in the U.S.

For the 17 years that we have lived in Israel, we have been boy scouts when it comes to paying our U.S. taxes. We file our 1040s dutifully, even though there is rarely any tax to pay (we pay our 45% pound of flesh to the Israeli authorities and then the double taxation treaty with the U.S. keeps us in the clear).

That doesn’t mean it’s easy: this last year we became aware that we’d never filed two forms – one for foreign owned businesses (I have one) and the other a declaration of most of our personal assets. Neither have any tax implications – they’re for information only – but failure to file carries a $10,000/year penalty. It cost a small fortune to get into compliance – and even that wasn’t a sure thing.

So when I received a thick envelope from the IRS (the U.S. Internal Revenue Service) yesterday, my heart started to pound. If it was just a statement of acceptance – or even a refund! – that would have been a one-pager.

We were being audited.

The letter tried to reassure us that it was probably just a random selection and in all likelihood we’d be fine. There was no mention of the two forms I’d filed late, which was a relief. But it summoned us to an examination by telephone, which would probably take “two hours,” it said. We would also have to send in advance a vast number of documents – bank statements, checks, proof that our children were dependents during the period for which we were being audited – all in English.

Our bank statements, invoices and receipts are in Hebrew of course. The letter said these would all need to be re-written by a “certified” translator, one with an Internet site to verify his or her credentials (and prices). No Hebrew speaking buddy would be accepted. Thankfully, there was no requirement for notification, which can run a good $100 per page.

I was audited a couple of years back by the Israeli tax office. They sent two women to my home office and grilled me over my business expenses. I had to call my accountant several times during the examination in order not to make a costly gaffe with my spotty Hebrew. In that case, my file was closed and I was off the hook. Hopefully it will be the same way this time.

Have you ever been audited by the IRS? I would love to hear about your experience. Please leave your comments on this blog.

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But there are several enterprising Israelis who have made flower accoutrements into a profession. One company I’m thinking of is design group T.H.+E, which created the VAZU, a thin, collapsible plastic vase imprinted with bold prints that is a fave gift of mine to give both for its creativity, durability and size — no searching for high shelves for storing this vase.

I also recently heard about Bouquoo, a father-and-daughter team that created a vase for tall flower arrangements. The vase includes a glass spine for keeping the flower bunch upright, and then set in a low glass that doesn’t detract from the flowers themselves. Again, given small Israeli spaces, it serves the vase purpose, but stores easily without taking up too much space.

Given that it’s not inexpensive to manufacture, Charles and Adele Yawitz, the father-daughter Bouquoo team, embarked on a Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000 in order to jumpstart their first manufacturing run. Kickstarter is an online funding platform for creative types. Those who pledge money don’t necessarily receive anything in return — although $300 Bouquoo ‘investors’ will receive a museum version of Bouquoo — except for the knowledge that they’ve helped someone realize their dream.

No pressure, though…

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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!

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An annual Hit Parade, based on the weekly ones, has been broadcast on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, since 1963. There are actually two annual Hit Parades, one on Galei Zahal (GLZ), the army radio network and the other on the Israel Broadcast Authority (IBA). GLZ decided to split the charts into Hebrew-language songs and international songs in 1967; IBA followed suit two years later. IBA pop station Reshet Gimel began operations in 1973 and took over the hit parade responsibilities for the network.

So there were two hit parades, both based on the tastes of teenage girls with time on their hands (and postage stamps) and 30-year old DJs — the two groups that traditionally call the shots in pop music. But despite the demographics, these do not a real hit parade make because real charts reflect record sales. And in a country where the two main record companies, Hed Arzi and CBS, essentially had no competition (until Helicon came along in 1985), such information was not made public.

I’m not sure why but like so many other things in Israel, probably it wasn’t out of meanness but more likely out of lethargy (it’s very hot here), ignorance (What, record companies in America tell people about their business? Why?) and because no one ever got around to thinking of it (reserve duty, Jewish holidays, wars, food shopping, etc.).

Enter Lahiton. Founded and edited by Uri Aloni and David Paz as a bi-weekly magazine in September 1969, a year later, Lahiton became a weekly, presenting a kind of journalism previously unknown in Israel: news and gossip about music and performers, record reviews, lyrics, pictures, full-color posters that decorated the walls of children and teens across the country, and charts — not only Israeli but foreign ones, too.

Lahiton also initiated a Gold Record award whose first winners were Shlomo Artzi, Dorit Reuveni and Igal Bashan. Following Lahiton’s lead, Israel’s record companies also began awarding Gold Records to artists with albums selling over 20,000 copies, thus tacitly releasing sales information.

In 1976, Lahiton merged with movie magazine Olam HaKolnoa and began reporting on movies stars as well as singers. The magazine’s popularity began to wane in the early to mid-Eighties as its editors moved on to found new magazines and as Israelis became exposed to more sophisticated fare like Melody Maker, Rolling Stone and Billboard.

Lahiton folded in 1990. The archive is not online although some kind souls have taken to scanning and posting select pages, including some scans of the Hit Parade page.

Recently, a Facebook page launched, dedicated to all things Lahiton, with a very active community of people interested in sharing pictures and comments, with some also wondering where the old Hit Parades are at.

In fact, the IBA website has a search engine accessing all annual Hebrew-language Hit Parades dating back to 1969.

An extensive interview (in Hebrew) with Lahiton founding editors Aloni and Paz by pop culture researcher Eli Eshed can be found here.

For those interested in buying or selling vintage copies of Lahiton — or just looking at some really cool cover art — look no further than the BookSefer site with prices ranging from NIS 160 (Michael Jackson in his “Bad” phase) down to NIS 70 (Izhar Cohen in his Michael Jackson in his “Bad” phase).

And of course, there is an online alternative to take the place of the write-in postcard vote: Charts.co.il, which provides the latest chart information — of the many, many charts now available to us — and gives users the chance to rate their favorites, just like the old days.

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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.

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