A mole or a victim?
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Social Justice, War
Anat Kam in January (Photo: AP)
The case of the ex-soldier who allegedly stole 2,000 IDF documents – some of them extremely sensitive – and gave them to a reporter for Ha’aretz, has riveted the country, even though until today, Israelis could only read about from foreign news sources. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.
As the case unfolds, none of the sides involved – Kamm, the army, the Shin Bet, Ha’aretz – are looking very attractive, but if what’s being reported is true, it’s Kamm who comes out smelling the worst.
Foto Friday – Danny Yanai’s Israeli Walls
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Crime, design, Environment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Picture of the Week
Israel is all about walls. Read the daily news headlines and you’ll come to believe that all Israeli walls are either Western or Separation. But Israel has other walls, more modest and colorful, less emotionally charged and politically burdensome. It’s these sorts of walls that photographer Danny Yanai has collected into into an online gallery entitled “Mainly Walls”.
Wall – Neve Tzedek Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
Yanai looks at walls both close up…
Lock – Peki’in Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
And at arm’s length…
Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
There are walls that depict a slice of life…
Wall – Tel Aviv Mural by Rami Meiri. Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
A city’s extreme energy…
Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
It’s history…
Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
Even it’s seamier side… or as Yanai puts it: “Shit happens”.
Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com
Danny Yanai specializes in documentary and geographical photography. His work is on display at the HP Israel offices in Raanana, and he has exhibited in both solo and group shows. Yanai has an extensive online gallery on a range of subjects, most recently the Kumbh-Mela festival in India. But perhaps the most moving series — and the most heartbreaking — is Baby Sivan Fighting For Life that documents the short life of his daughter who died of cancer last year. Sivan was treated at Hadassah Medical Center’s Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation And Cancer Immunotherapy and donations in her memory are gratefully acknowledged by the family.
Oscar fever in Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Crime, General, Israeliness, Movies, Pop Culture
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!
A moral dilemma on King David Street
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life, Social Justice, Sports
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.
Remember who the victim was
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War
Johnny Depp playing Hunter Thompson playing me...
Sure, it’s undoubtedly a jolt to find out that your identity was absconded with, without permission, to perpetrate an act of murder. On the other hand, look at the victim.
Mabhouh helped found Hamas’s armed wing Izzadin Kassam in the 1980s and was perhaps most infamous for being behind the kidnapping and murder in the first intifada of IDF soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon. According to Liat Collins in The Jerusalem Post, Hamas held out against revealing the location of their bodies, neither of whose last minutes were spent in anything like a luxury hotel. Sasportas’s body was discovered after three months, while it took seven years to find the remains of Sa’adon and offer his family closure.
Mabhouh was also reportedly behind the weapons convoy that, foreign reports claim, was bombed by Israel in the Sudanese desert during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.
If any of the Israelis whose names were utilized in the operation were asked beforehand if they would contribute in the effort to remove Mahbouh from the world terror active list, how do you think they would have responded?
Probably they would have said yes. If any of them served – or are serving in the IDF – then they’ve likely taken part in some aspect of protecting Israel from threats. And they were probably proud of it.
I’d like to think that if my name had been stolen from me temporarily to rid the world of a terrorist aimed at Israel’s destruction, I might be a little dumbstruck at first, but soon after I would feel only pride that I had been able to contribute to the effort in some small way.
I’d only hope that Steven Spielberg would allow me to choose the actor to portray my doppleganger in the film adaption of the operation. I’m thinking maybe Johnny Depp in his Hunter Thompson haircut mode?
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