A (c)hair raising experience
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion, Social Justice, coexistence
Praying in the Jewish tradition can be hazardous to your health – at least if you’re a woman at the Kotel.
On every Rosh Hodesh – the Women of the Wall - a coalition of Conservative, Orthodox and Reform women – gather on the women’s side of the Wall for the morning Shaharit service. And on every Rosh Hodesh, there violent attempts by seemingly religious men to stop them.
On Tuesday, chair throwing was the violent act of choice. Rena Magen, one of the participants in the service described it like this:
I thought you would like to see this video of our “c-hair raising” experience at the Kotel this past Tuesday when I went to daven with the Women at the Wall.. it was not even 7:00 am yet (the starting time of the minyan) and we were simply standing around waiting, not even 10 of us.
All of a sudden, chairs started flying at us from the men’s side of the mechitzah, with great force. About 10 total, one after the other, very quickly. It was so outrageous that we hardly had time to be afraid. I am amazed that whoever shot this clip had the presence of mind to do so.
The police came quite quickly after it was all over and from that moment on there were MANY police guarding us on either side of the mechitzah. We had a nice service after that, complete with the requisite angry incessant shouting from the men and the nasty comments and curses from the women.
The group’s next minyan is Thursday, April 15, Rosh Chodesh Iyar. Let’s make it a big one…
Cellphone coexistence
Anyone’s who had a cellphone in Israel and traveled to the Dead Sea region has had the experience of having their phone bleep and let them know that they are now using a Jordanian cellphone carrier. In fact, if you continue heading north toward Beit Shean on Highway 90, the Jordan Valley road, your phone may bleep a few more times, going in and out of Jordanian and Israeli cellphone coverage. It’s cellphone coexistence.
What’s funny about all this is the billing. Here’s the story. My 18-year-old stepdaughter, Amira, is currently living in the Beit Shean area, known as Emek Beit Shean or the Beit Shean Valley, just over the hills from Jordan. She’s in a mechina, an army prepatory program, located in a moshav in the area, and has been there since September. Her cellphone bill comes to the house, and we noticed that there were a lot of calls sourced in Jordan on her most recent bill. It took a minute for the aha! factor to settle in, and then we realized: Because of her location, some of her cellphone calls end up being made using a Jordanian carrier, while others remain on the Israeli side of the border. When we talked about it with her, she was completely clued in, as she’s not the only member of her mechina to experience this. In fact, it depends on where you are in their campus; some rooms and buildings veer toward the Israeli carrier, while others end up using Jordanian coverage.
So yeah, it’s cellphone coexistence. But it’s an expensive venture.
Oscar fever in Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Movies, Pop Culture, coexistence
Ajami directors Scandar Copti (left) and Yaron Shani in Hollywood over the weekend (Photo: Reuters)
It’s the third year running that an Israeli film has been nominated (after Beaufort and Waltz With Bashir). And Ajami’s intense portrayals – intertwined stories of a young Muslim in the crime-ridden Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa gets caught in an Arab clan feud and his own forbidden romance with a Christian woman; a Jewish police officer in search of his missing soldier brother, and the tale of a Palestinian youth who sneaks into Israel for menial work – are making it, if not a favorite, then at least a strong contender for the Oscar.
And, as Hannah Brown wrote in The Jerusalem Post, Ajami has already won just by getting to the Hollywood ceremonies. Directed by an Arab – Scandar Copti – and a Jew – Yaron Shani, “it’s hard to overstate the symbolic value of the collaboration and friendship between these two, who are from different ethnic groups, religious affiliations and backgrounds. They spent seven years working on this gritty film about the crime-ridden Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa, which they managed to get into the Cannes Film Festival, where it won a special mention. These two young, first-time directors who had to live with relatives while making the film because they had put all their money into it, have seen it win honors and rave reviews on three continents.”
It’s been fun watching the the two, along with the cast and their families first forays into Hollywood – most of the cast consisted of Jaffa residents who weren’t really acting too much in their portrayals of the working class; for many, it was their first trip outside of Israel and for some, their first airplane ride. Star Shahir Kabahar, 25, had to take vacation days from his job as a bureka baker at his family’s Jaffa bakery, in order to travel to the ceremony.
Footage of them walking outside the Kodak Theater and staring wide-eyed at the spectacles on Hollywood Boulevard demonstrate the huge journey one can make with film and the impact on lives it can create. Good luck to Ajami tonight!
Haman rears his ugly head
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Politics, War, coexistence
Ahamadinajad, Assad and Nasrallah - a summit of the villains with humous. (Photo: AP)
It was like one of those scenes Batman or Austin Powers where the idiosynchratic but well-costumed villains stage an evil summit to hatch new plans for world domination. There’s some eerie synchronicity going on – we’re gathering to hear the Megilla reading in Israel and around the world, being reminded of Haman’s plan to wipe out the Jews. And generations later, these anti-Israel professionals – one, Nasrallah, actually in his best Penguin meets The Joker garb – are gathering around humous and eggplant salad to discuss the very same thing.
We’ve sat down at the peace table with some unsavory folks in the past – Yasser Arafat anyone? But even that was within the realm of possibility, as he talked about making peace with Israel and living side by side, even if his actions didn’t resemble his words. And King Hussein and Anwar Sadat always seemed like level-headed leaders, even when they were our enemies, so it was no great leap to find commond ground with them when the time came.
But what about the terrible trio of Assad, Ahamadinajad and Nasrallah? Are we ever going to be able to sit around the humous table with them? Or is it going to play out like a Purim story, where one side has to triumph over the other? Stay tuned, same Bat time, same Bat channel.
Purim costumes
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, Religion, coexistence
Purim is here, and amid the remains of a lightning-filled 48 hour winter storm, we’re headed out to hear the Megilla at our local havurah gathering.
It’s interesting to be part of – and the instigators – behind an egalitatrian minyan in a community where most people are either secular or orthodox, and where the chief rabbi of the city is a Conservative and Reform-hating Jew. We sort of have to keep things under the radar and it’s a little paradoxical that the religious pluralism American Jews – for instance – enjoy as a matter of fact is not available without a fight in the Jewish state.
Costumes, as usual, are last-minute. The young son is going as a Man-in-black Secret Service type, the teenage son was going to go as a soldier until he decided to stay home instead.
My wife chose a mix and match American football player motif, while I decided to be somewhat timely. I’m wearing a tennis outfit with tennis raquet and sunglasses. Can anybody guess who I am?
I guess the ‘Dubai’ sign sort of gives it away…
Happy Purim!
Lego my toilet
Here’s one that gladdens the heart. Tamra, an Israeli Arab town in the Lower Galilee, is hosting the regional high school competition for LEGO robotic construction, as part of the FIRST Lego League. This is the sixth time the competition has been held in Israel, but the first time that it’s being held in an Arab Israeli town, a good thing for coexistence and high school robotics. Tamra will be hosting 18 teams from the north, 30% of which will go on to the finals in Tel Aviv.
Just so you have a sense of what LEGO robotics can do, check out this flushing system:
Stay tuned for comments on who won the competition…
A moral dilemma on King David Street
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life, Social Justice, Sports, coexistence
I’m not sure if I was taken in by a 3-Card-Monty sidewalk scam or callous in not fully helping someone in need.
I left Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Friday with my tennis partner Calev after our weekly doubles game (Why we get to play at the venerable hotel’s outside court situated in it’s beautiful poolside courtyard is another story worth telling some day).
As we were walking to Calev’s car, a neatly dressed woman holding two young girls – aged maybe six and four, dressed in their Friday finest approached us.
“Excuse me,” she said in an accented English that revealed her Arab origins. She was tall and thin, and wearing a fashionable black pant suit.
“I’m from Haifa, and I had to come to Jerusalem to take one of my girls to the hospital for an appointment. But I lost my pocket book, and now we have no way of getting back to Haifa. Do you have any money you can give so we can go home?”
What would you do?
Calev, who grew up in New York, immediately scoped out the situation as a classic tourist scam, aimed at bilking the high-scale King David clientele out of their money.
I looked at the little girls, and took NIS 20 out of my pocket and handed it to the woman.
“This will get you to the Central Bus Station,” I said. “You can ask Egged (the bus company) to help you get home.”
The woman wasn’t happy with that offering.
“But I need NIS 150 to get home,” she insisted.
Claiming that the money I gave her was all I had, we continued walking to the car. Calev said, “I’m sure she’s from east Jerusalem and does this every week.”
As we drove onto King David Street, he suggested we look for the woman and offer her a ride to Haifa. If she declined, then we’d know that I had been taken. If she accepted, then it was going to be a long afternoon driving two hours each way to Haifa.
Alas, we couldn’t find them on the street anymore, and we were left to speculate. Ultimately, I didn’t feel bad at my NIS 20 contribution to the woman. Even if she was a clever scam artist, the money would hopefully go to feeding her children. But we may never find out who she was… unless she’s there again next Friday when we finish our tennis game.
Vacationing with the amcha
Filed under: Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Travel, coexistence
Part of the crowd, in matching t-shirts, on a hike in the region
First, there was just the sheer mix of people, or amcha, loosely translated as ‘your fellow citizens.’ There was the gamut of religious and secular types, lots of Russian Israelis — who I feel are very skilled at doing the rounds of the whole Dead Sea dipping-sauna-steam room-Jacuzzi thing — many Druze families and, of course, German tourists (they get significant discounts from the German government to spend time at the mineral-rich Dead Sea and take care of their psoriasis).
In that situation, Shabbat takes on a slightly different cast, as you can’t help but be affected by what’s going on around you. My feeling is you need to just go with it, while attempting to create your own atmosphere.
So, we enjoyed doing our own Shabbat services as a family, but poked our heads into the ‘Ritch Ratch’ lounge, where two singers performed Shabbat medleys, a la kindergarden favorites, on Friday night after dinner. And then there was the optional Shabbat lunch by the pool, where, accompanied by INCREDIBLY LOUD music, one could be served a menu of cholent, kishka and ptitim. For those of us who are more accustomed to eating our cholent in a Shabbat-like setting at home after shul, it’s an ironic turn of events.
I’m sure our fellow hotel guests were also amused by us, a group of 22 ‘Anglos’, wearing matching turquoise tee-shirts that said “Dorothy’s 80th birthday weekend” (and on the back, “I’m not 80, I’m 29 with 51 years of experience.”)
But we all got along fine, because, hey, who’s not happy to be hanging out by the pool and being fed at regular intervals? Happy birthday, Mom.
An excellent jobnik
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, coexistence
Natan at his desk
So, Natan, my 19-year-old nephew, who made aliyah with his family just three and a half years ago when he was 16, and entered the army last year, was nominated to receive the Presidential Excellence Award, the highest honor you can receive in the IDF.
Natan is a ‘jobnik’ in army parlance, which means he has a desk job. In his case, he works out of a large army base near Tel Aviv, where he does several things, including troubleshoot computer issues and teach English. He fell in with a great commanding Druze officer and a good crew of fellow soldiers, and despite worries at the start that the army would be a huge adjustment for this NYC-born and bred boy, he’s done just fine. His commanding officer and fellow soldiers sometimes don’t know what to make of Natan, who’s into musical theater, choral music and making bizarre flavors of ice cream, among other things, but it’s a testament to him and his mostly easygoing character that they all get along really well, and even came to see him perform Shakespeare.
Anyway, I wasn’t really surprised that Natan was nominated for the award, which includes getting pinned by President Shimon Peres in a public ceremony. He already knows that he’s not receiving the award, but will be receiving a lower level excellence award with a less public ceremony, and, a new uniform, which he’s pleased about. But what he talked about most, besides the intense interview that he underwent at a Herzliya hotel, was the food at the hotel, which was “out of this world,” compared to his now lowered army food standards. Hey, there are benefits to lower level excellence.
Israeli Oscar nomination imitates life
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Life, Movies, coexistence
A scene from 'Ajami'
The bad news – if it wins, some of the actors might be in jail instead of at the ceremony in Hollywood.
The film, about the lives of Arabs and Jews in the impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods of Jaffa, uses amateur actors to capture the gritty realism that prompted its nomination. However that realism spilled over into… um… reality last week when two brothers of the film’s co-director were arrested for fighting with police in a scene that could have been pinched directly from the film.
According to an AP report, Yaron Shani, a Jew, and Scandar Copti, an Arab — shot “Ajami” on location in the rundown, scrappy neighborhood of the same name in the city of Jaffa, and used local residents to play the main roles in the film. One of them was Copti’s brother, who along with a third brother, was arrested in the skirmish over alleged drug use.
Residents said that on Saturday evening, two teenagers were burying a dead dog when police arrived, suspecting they were hiding drugs. When they questioned the youths, Arab neighbors, who generally distrust law enforcement, came to the scene, some scuffling with police.
Tony Copti, 29, who appeared in the film, told The Associated Press that police are often harsh with Arab residents. After confronting police, he and his brother Jiriass were handcuffed and sprayed in the face with pepper spray before being taken away for questioning, he said.
Police said they briefly detained the men for attacking officers, releasing them after questioning. They gave no further details.
In the ‘Ajami,’ police enter Ajami to arrest a drug dealer and neighbors protest, allowing the dealer to slip away. In the next scene, Jewish police blame Arab residents for preventing them from cleaning up the neighborhood.
“The story in the film, that’s how it really happens in Jaffa,” Tony Copti told AP.
While the whole incident was greatly unpleasant for the principals, it may inadvertently drum up better publicity for the film than a full page ad in Variety.
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