Thumping the watermelon
It’s not a great summer for fruit in Israel; prices are high as a result of the extreme heat we’re experiencing this summer, and the Farmers’ Association reported that the main fruits affected by the heat wave are peaches, plums, grapes, nectarines, and watermelons. A shortage of these fruits is likely, they say, and moreover, their quality isn’t great. The peaches turn rotten within seconds, the nectarines aren’t as sweet as usual and the watermelons aren’t worth the trouble.
When we cut open a “personal watermelon” yesterday afternoon, besides being full of seeds — horrors! — it just wasn’t any good. Which led to a discussion of how the watermelon had been chosen.
“Did you ask for help?” I asked my husband, Daniel, who handled the food shopping this week. He looked back at me in disdain, as if he would need help for such a task.
At that point, my brother-in-law chimed in with his watermelon-picking story of the previous week. He was choosing a watermelon, which in his case meant looking over the selection and sticking one in his cart. Meanwhile, another customer, an older Israeli gentleman, was busy thumping all the watermelons in the case, clearly checking for that hollow sound that lets you know the watermelon is ripe and ready for eating. When he saw that Ira was picking without checking, he was astounded by the carelessness of his act.
“What, you’re not gonna check to see if it’s ready?” he asked Ira. Knowing Ira, he probably smiled and shrugged. Maybe he smirked. So the older man thumped it, nodded and handed it back to Ira.
The moral of the story? I’m thinking that regular watermelons are probably better this season than the engineered kind. As for our dud, I ate some with feta cheese, which saved it a bit. As for the rest, I’m going to try a granita, which is never a bad thing during this kind of weather.
Meet the (new) Israel Museum
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Business, design, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life
Two and a half years to plan, two and a half years to execute at a cost of $100 million. But on Sunday, Israel’s leading museum and one of the world’s best – the Israel Museum - completed its intensive renovations and unveiled its new, sleek look.
Last week, amid workmen with hardhats, drills, paint and much tumult, the museum’s longtime director James S. Snyder, who masterminded the elaborate facelift, showed reporters around the new facilities.
Featuring the comprehensive renovation and reconfiguration of the museum’s three collection wings – the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing, the Edmond and Lily Safra Fine Arts Wing, and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life – as well as the reinstallation of its encyclopedic collections, the overhaul of the country’s flagship museum was a labor of love for Snyder.
“Our idea was to celebrate, invigorate and realize the original vision for the powerful site and setting,” he said.
And that, he succeeded in doing. Much more than a facelift, it’s more like a rebirth of the 45-year-old museum, which was originally built as a project by the venerable late mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek.
Overseen by James Carpenter Design Associates of New York and Efrat Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv, the architects were determined to complement to the original museum, designed by Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad.
The spectacular results of Carpenter’s and Kowalsky’s efforts will become evident to anyone who visits the museum. Arrivals will no longer have to brave the scorching sun or blustery wind and rain on the uphill outside Carter’s Promenade to make their way from the entrance to the displays.
A new, glass-enclosed, temperature-controlled route of passage situated directly below the promenade brings visitors into the lowest level of a new three-story gallery entrance pavilion, providing centralized access to the Museum’s three collection wings and temporary exhibition galleries on its main floor.
With fewer objects on display and almost twice the space the view them, the feeling of claustrophobic overload has been replaced by open spaces and logical presentation.
“The renewal of the preexisting architecture is about the complete reordering of the preexisting museum in order to double our collection galleries from 100,000 square feet to 200,000,” said Snyder, stressing that the redesign ultimately focused on quality of the content – “the reordering within our existing campus and providing a unique experience of the march through material cultural time.”
The museum, which is open to the public as of Monday, will be celebrating with a full week of public programs and events, including concerts, activities for children, and programs featuring artists, writers and performers.
Always a crown jewel in the moasic of Jerusalem, the Israel Museum will now undoubtedly join the pantheon of the world’s top museums and become a magnet for any visitor to Israel.
The war against croutons
In the war against croutons, Bamba, and cleaning products, the “Badatz Free” protest group is claiming its first victory: Massive food manufacturer Nestle has launched its new Joya line of gourmet ice creams without the controversial kosher certification of the Eda Haredit.
Several months ago, Badatz Free launched a campaign calling on the public to boycott products with the “Badatz Yerushalayim” sponsored by the Eda Haredit, a group that has been at the forefront of many of the more extreme conflicts between halacha (Jewish law) and the running of a modern state.
The Eda Haredit, a small but vocal ultra-Orthodox sect numbering just a few thousand in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh and comprising such Hassidic courts as Satmar, Toldot Aharon, Dushinsky and Breslav, was behind the recent rioting against the construction of the rocket-resistant emergency room at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.
The Eda Haredit also rioted to protest the opening on Shabbat of a parking lot near the Old City of Jerusalem, which was intended to relieve severe illegal parking on sidewalks, and the Shabbat operation of an Intel’s fabrication plant in the Har Hotzvim Industrial Area, even though it would have been operated entirely by non-Jews. Collectively, these riots have resulted in millions of shekels of damage as traffic lights were destroyed and trash bins set on fire.
The Eda Haredit is also one of the most public anti-Zionist groups. A YouTube video shows numerous signs in Jerusalem’s Meah Shearim reading “Jews are not Zionists” and “No passage to Zionists,” along with pictures of Eda Haredit members burning the Israeli flag.
Badatz Free is urging consumers who don’t agree with the policies and actions of the Eda Haredit to hit the group in its collective pocketbook by not purchasing products for which the Eda Haredit provides kosher supervision (and receives payment in return).
That won’t be easy – especially for families with young children. In addition to Nestle, on the boycott list are Osem (the makers of perennially popular snack foods Bisli and Bamba along with a popular brand of salad and soup croutons), Angel (the number one bread maker in the country) and, inexplicably, Sano which makes cleaning products, not food.
The boycott campaign was kicked off several months ago by an article from journalist Nahum Barnea, writing in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, who asked why, if one checks the price, the ingredients, the weight and the expiration date of products we buy, why not also its kosher certification? A follow-up piece by Michael Hirsch in the Jerusalem Post agrees, urges that those “who are careful in their adherence to the kashrut laws should question the validity of kashrut supervision provided by an organization (Badatz) which condones and implicitly supports…anti-religious behavior.”
A recent poll found that 23% of respondents said that, given a choice, they would prefer to purchase products with a different group’s supervision and 21% would endorse a full boycott.
The term “boycott” is controversial, to say the least. Israelis bristle when educational institutions overseas put our country on the no contact list. Others say a boycott will never work and suggest a letter writing campaign instead. When I put this out on Facebook, many responded that the most stringent kashrut supervision is the only way to ensure Jewish culinary unity.
Nevertheless, the decision of Nestle to separate its new Joya gourmet ice cream from the company’s overall Eda Haredit heksher was welcomed by Badatz Free as proof that a boycott campaign can work. The organization vows to plow on until all Nestle products are supervised by a different group.
In the meantime, the Badatz Free website provides a list of controversial products and alternatives you can buy instead (substitute Vita croutons for Osem). The group also has a Facebook page with nearly 1,500 members.
Israel’s super market show
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel, tv
The Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.
The local cable TV show ‘Market Values’ (Shvakim in Hebrew) recognizes that knowledge and has been taking viewers for in-depth looks not only at the rich, colorful open air markets of Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem, the Carmel Shuk in Tel Aviv and the Acre Shuk, but has travelled around the world to expose viewers to some of the planet’s most bizarre bazaars including Istanbul’s Great Bazaar, Mumbai’s Crawford Market, Bangkok’s Jatujak Weekend Market, and Marakesh’s Bazaar.
The show, hosted by Yishai Golan, uses the markets to present the local culture, cuisine, and musical traditions of the area surrounding the market.
Now, the rest of the world is going to gain from the Israeli experience in shopping in exotic locations. After only 13 episodes of the series have been aired, and the second season being filmed, both the BBC and The National Geographic Channel have bought the series from its creators, Tel Aviv-based Ananey Communications.
National Geographic TV will air ‘Market Values’ beginning in September on its channels in France, Belgium, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. And the BBC will air it on its various channels in Asia.
“The uniqueness of the series is that it brings to the television screen a bridging between cultures and forges a common denominator that transcends continents to reach a broad audience,” said Ananey manager for international business Sigal Shaldag in a press release issued after the BBC acquistion.
“We’re proud that National Geographic Television has bought ‘Market Values’. It is important in these times that the world see Israel through more than just CNN, and also see Israel’s beautiful markets,” she added in another statement released this week announcing the National Geographic purchase.
With Israeli shows and formats being bought right and left in recent years, here’s one show that’s going to really get around. And soon, maybe we’ll be hearing vendors around the world starting to scream out in Hebrew: “Tomatoes five shekels a kilo!”
T+L Love J-Town
This is fairly hot off the press, as the magazine issue isn’t even on the stands yet. Travel and Leisure magazine has named Jerusalem as the best city in Africa and the Middle East, according to a reader questionnaire that ranked cities according to sights, culture and arts, restaurants and food, people, shopping and value. This was the first time that the holy city received a high ranking since 2000.
FYI, South Africa’s Cape Town was ranked in second place and Tel Aviv in third place, the first time Israel’s Big Orange placed in the survey.
New York was the overall number-one city, while New Orleans and Washington, D.C. (full disclosure, that’s where I am now), made a comeback, returning to the magazine’s top-ten list in the U.S. and Canada, while Bangkok, Thailand; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Florence, Italy; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and Rome, Italy were voted the top five cities overall in Travel + Leisure’s 2010 World’s Best Awards readers’ survey.
According to NY Blueprint’s interview with Israel Tourism Commissioner Arie Sommer, tourism to Israel in 2008 and 2009 broke all records, and early statistics show that 2010 will be the best year ever for tourism to Israel.
Published by the American Express Company, Travel+Leisure publishes its annual World’s Best Awards in the magazine’s August issue, which will be available on newsstands on July 23.
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Entertainment
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- News
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Science
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts