Foto Friday – Flowers of Jerusalem

May 18, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Picture of the Week 

Sometimes, you just have to stop and smell the roses. That statement is particularly apt for Jerusalem where life is politically charged on both the national and international fronts. The city’s public parks provide a bit of shelter, relieve the tension and offer a break from the heat.


© Pes & Lev

One such oasis is the Wohl Rose Park (Gan HaVradim), located opposite the Knesset and government precinct, at the foot of the Israeli Supreme Court. Established in 1981, the park has over 400 varieties of roses, and is one of the few parks of its kind in the Middle East.


© pmos_nmos


© RomKri

Jerusalem is seldom described as green and yet the city’s neighborhoods are dotted with flowers, flower boxes and flowering trees…


© RomKri


© Pes & Lev

The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens (JBG) is another great place for those who love flora and fauna. It’s also located adjacent to Givat Ram and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


© RomKri

All photos are courtesy of the excellent Jerusalem Shots website where there are plenty more images to enjoy.

Tags:

Israel’s shake, rattle and roll

May 14, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Science 

The Grateful Dead used to sing, “If the thunder don’t get you, then the lightning will.” They might have been talking about Israel, where most people would think the existential threats from our neighbors are the thunder and the lightning.

But even when it looks like easy street, there is danger at your door. And I’m not talking about existential threats… but earthquakes.

Friday night was gorgeous, one of those spring evenings with a beautiful breeze that provided a nip to the air. We had dinner outside in our back yard with a few guests, including one visitor from the US on a 10-day tour of Israel.

After filling up on the great food, including delicious challot from Russell’s Bakery in Mahane Yehuda, we were sitting around the table munching on fresh fruit salad and rogelah from Marzipan.

I didn’t know it then, but it was precisely 9:48 pm when I felt my garden chair below being to vibrate. I immediately looked around to see if either of the people sitting to my left and right were shaking their legs against my chair, and was surprised that they weren’t.

After about five seconds, the vibrations stopped. I looked around at the seven people sitting around the table, and none of them had stopped, or expressed any kind of surprise in their faces. Well, I thought, maybe I was experiencing some kind of drug-induced flashback from my wild youth, because nobody else seems to have felt what I felt. So I didn’t mention it.

Imagine my surprise, when on Saturday night, after Shabbat, I went online to check out the news of the last 24 hours and read that a 5.3 magnitude earthquake shook the eastern Mediterranean on Friday night at 9.48 pm.

Thousands of Israelis evidently called the police to report the tremors which were felt from Rishon Lezion in the south to Safed in the north. Luckily, no damages or injuries were reported. Political pundits noted that the quake was probably just the seismic aftershocks of last week’s cataclysmic events in the government. Talk about thunder and lightning…

Tags:

Foto Friday – Yigal Pardo’s Dog (and Cat) Days

May 11, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Life, Picture of the Week, Profiles, Sports, Travel 

Photographer Yigal Pardo loves animals and has successfully parlayed that affection into a career.

Pardo studied photography at Hadassah College, Jerusalem, then worked in New York for a year, returning to Israel to open his pet photography business.

Pardo works with Israel’s pet food manufacturers, ad agencies, breeders, animal-related publications, professional and non-profit organizations as well as pet-lovers, shooting commercial studio work and portraits, and photographing animals in the great outdoors.

One organization that has benefited from his talents is Shaar HaGai Kennels, breeders of Israel’s national dog, the Canaan.

Pardo has documented kennel owner Myrna Shiboleth on her treks to seeks out new desert and Bedouin bloodlines so as to retain the natural characteristics of this “semi-feral” breed.

A previous post reported on Shaar HaGai’s current woes: the kennel — and with it its Canaan breeding program — is under threat of closure by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA). Shiboleth, a world champion dog breeder, dog show judge and the world authority on Canaan Dogs, is lobbying for public support via on an online petition. (50,000 signatures are needed and she’s up to 39,855, so if you support this cause, please sign and share the link).

Far from the wild, Pardo also photographs dog shows for the Israeli Kennel Club.

And cat shows, too!

A cat-owner himself, Pardo has stated that although his specialty is dogs, it is from cats that he’s learned the most about photographing animals.

“It is the dog’s nature to please his owner. When the owner brings them to a photographer, from the dog’s perspective, the photographer is an ally… The cat is not interested at all to please humans… but fortunately, he is also very curious and we can take advantage of this curiosity when we take the pictures.”

Great photos of animals of all kinds can be found on Yigal Pardo’s page at PetNet.co.il.

Tags:

Giving trash the boot

May 7, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Environment 

by Abby

Israel’s inaugural Clean the Land Day will take place across the country on Friday, May 18. This welcome initiative comes from four Masa Israel Government Fellows — Daniel Barnett, Max Friedenberg, Sam Silverlieb and Joel Wanger – who created a national trash pickup day out frustration with the countless cigarette butts, plastic bags and cups, and empty bottles and boxes littering the landscape.

Clean the Land

A very user-friendly website invites would-be participants to register to join a cleanup crew. You get a packet with info, along with disposable gloves (better throw those away responsibly!) and trash bags.

I say it’s about time. The littering problem is among the few aspects of life in Israel that bothered me as a new immigrant in 2007. Anglos talk about it all the time with great disgust. Some other organizations have even tried to do something about it. Well, here’s a way to be part of the solution.

I couldn’t say it better than the founders do: “Clean the Land is a social movement that seeks to create a cleaner and greener State of Israel. The inaugural Clean the Land initiative is the first step toward the movement’s larger goal of establishing a socially and environmentally responsible Israeli society in which phrases like “leave no trace” and “reduce, reuse, recycle” are as common as “yalla’” (let’s go, hurry up) and “yihiyeh b’seder” (it will be ok).”

And that’s no trash talk.

Tags: ,

Nostalgia Sunday – Canaan canines

April 22, 2012 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Politics, Pop Culture, Profiles, Social Justice, Travel 

Right off the winding road leading up to Jerusalem are the Shaar Hagai Kennels, home to the Canaan dog, a semi-feral dog that is Israel’s national breed. The history of these dogs and the modern State of Israel are intertwined as today’s Canaan was bred by request of the Haganah, the forerunner of today’s Israel Defense Forces.

According to an essay on the Shaar Hagai website, having decided to set up a canine unit, Haganah commanders turned to Dr. Professor Rudolphina Menzel, “a noted cynologist with a considerable reputation in her native Austria in the field of animal behavior… She quickly discovered that the European breeds with which she was accustomed to working, German Shepherds, Boxers, Dobermans, suffered greatly from the severe climate and difficult terrain and had a hard time functioning effectively.

“She began to observe the local pariah dogs living on the outskirts of settlements and with the Bedouin in desert and wilderness areas, and decided that this was a true breed of dog that had adapted to the conditions. She began a program of re-domestication, collecting puppies and adults from the pariah groups.”

“The Canaan Dog has survived for thousands of years on its own, living by its wits, and surviving in the wild and on the fringes of civilization by hunting and scavenging. Often puppies were captured, raised and used, especially by the Bedouin tribesmen, as guardians of the flocks and the tents. Like other wild or feral residents of the area, only the strongest, healthiest, cleverest, and most fit survived to breed and pass on their characteristics.”

Prof. Menzel called the breed the Canaan Dog after the Biblical Land of Canaan. Canaans have been part of the local landscape since time immemorial. The American Kennel Club history of the breed cites “Drawings found on the tombs at Beni-Hassan, dating from 2200 to 2000 B.C., depict[ing] dogs that show an unmistakable resemblance to the Canaan Dog of today.”

An essay posted by the Canaan Dog Club of America states, “As a breed the Canaan Dog proved highly intelligent and easily trainable, serving as sentry dogs, messengers, Red Cross helpers and land mine locators. During World War II, Dr. Menzel recruited and trained over 400 of the best dogs for the Middle East Forces as land mine detectors, and they proved superior to the mechanical detectors.”

“The Canaan is also one of the very few breeds known that has successfully adapted to a desert environment,” the Shaar Hagai essay notes. “Studies done at Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev have shown an astonishing ability in this breed to adapt to extremes of temperature and lack of water. The breed has developed physiological adaptations to prevent waste of fluids and overheating.”

Prof. Menzel was responsible for gaining recognition for the breed; her breed standard was accepted by the La Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) in 1966, where it is classified in FCI Group 5, a subgroup of primitive dogs. She exported the first Canaans to the US in 1965 and to Germany shortly after. (An interview with Prof. Menzel about her work by noted naturalist Dvora Ben Shaul makes for fascinating reading). In 1970, Shaar Hagai Kennels joined in the development and breeding of the dogs, carrying on Prof. Menzel’s work after her death in 1973.

Over the years, urbanization and cultivation have led to the gradual disappearance of the Canaan’s natural habitat and there is a danger that the wild dog, which is the original breeding stock, could disappear. Added to that is a new threat: after 42 years, the Shaar Hagai Kennels have received a notice of eviction by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA), which holds title to the property. Such a move could mean the end of their breeding program and consequently endanger the breed overall.

Myrna Shiboleth, who has run the Kennels for 42 years, now finds herself in an unusual plight and has been actively lobbying for public support. She has successfully recruited 38,505 signatures (so far) on an online petition that will be submitted to the ILA. 50,000 signatures are needed, so sign the petition, join the Facebook page, and pass the word on.

I should mention my personal interest in this story; when we adopted her two years ago, we couldn’t figure out our dog Nili until we learned about Canaan dogs. Then it all made sense: she may be part Canaan in breed (check out those giant ears) but she’s all Canaan in ‘tude: highly intelligent, very loyal but never blindly obedient. All in all, a true Israeli sabra.

Tags:

Page 1 of 4912345...102030...Last »

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap