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Adi Barkan’s BMI battle

Adi Barkan, a fashion photographer, has been working for years to get the Knesset to outlaw underweight models, following his own exposure to models suffering from anorexia and bulimia.

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.

Under Bar

Move aside Delta Galil and Tefron, Israel’s longtime underwear makers (albeit private label for companies such as Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein, The Gap, Banana Republic and others), it’s time for another Israeli undergarment maker, model Bar Refaeli.

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.

Nostalgia Sunday – ViewMaster Israel

If you are a person of a certain age, then the ViewMaster holds a special charm. Like its predecessor, the Stereoscope, the View-Master was the virtual reality viewer of its day: a device designed to present 3-D photo images. And, like its predecessor, the Holy Land was a subject of great interest and popularity.

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.

Foto Friday – Travels to Yemen with Naftali Hilger

Travel almost anywhere and you’re bound to find an Israeli. Yet there are still some places where Israelis do not tread. Most Arab countries, of course, where Israelis are barred from entry. And then there’s Jerusalem, our capital city, which many an Israeli doesn’t bother to see in person (e.g., the Google StreetView review in Ha’aretz).

Even within Jerusalem, there are places that go unvisited for years on end. It was with that thought in mind that I took myself to the LA Meyer Museum of Islamic Art yesterday. After all, museum entry was free-of-charge in honor of Israel Independence day, I live a 5 minute walk away and I hadn’t been there in 20 years.

Through art and artifacts, LA Meyer Museum presents the history of Islam; the styles that characterized the different ruling dynasties from the first Umayyad caliphs through to the Ottoman period and the end of the Muslim Empire.

There is a unique collection of antique watches and clocks — including timepieces made for customers in the Ottoman empire — that was stolen and missing for many years, then subsequently recovered. (The theft is a great story on it’s own, so more on that another day).

There is also Travels to Yemen 1987-2008, an exhibit of contemporary photos by photo-journalist Naftali Hilger…

Hilger’s reports combine vibrant photographs, personal experiences and in-depth information about places generally inaccessible to the Israeli tourist: Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Dubai, Pakistan, Tunisia and of course, Yemen…

Hilger is among the few Israelis to document the Jewish community still there…

The Internet makes Hilger’s photo-essay accessible to all…

Hilger, a member of photo agency LAIF, been a photo-journalist since 1990, working for leading Israeli and European publications such as Financial Times, GEO, National Geographic, Spiegel, Focus, Zeit, Welt, Bild, BamS, Cicero, Wirtschafts Woche, Masa Acher, Yedioth Aharonot, Ma’ariv,Globes and others.

Visit his website to view more photos from his expeditions to Yemen and other countries. There are riveting images documenting weapons traders — each man with a huge chaw of narcotic qat (gat) leaf tucked in his cheek — Sana’a, the capital city, with its beautifully decorated buildings and its few remaining Jews.

Made in Israel

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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  Israel is often seen as a place of conflict and strife. In reality there is much more: there's business and research; art and culture; community and family. At ISRAELITY, Israelis blog their daily thoughts, experiences and insights. It's the real Israel, not the media's Israel. It's people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary place.

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