Nostalgia Sunday – Bye-bye to butts

May 29, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, Environment, General, health, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture 

Well, it’s about time. While at their special David’s Tower meeting today, the Cabinet approved the establishment of a Health Ministry unit to combat the damages of smoking.

The goal, according to a Government Press Office release, “is to determine directives to improve the public’s protection against coerced exposure to smoking. To this end, the law against smoking in public places will be amended. The advertising and marketing of tobacco products will also be restricted.”

The move put Dubek, Israel’s sole manufacturer of cigarettes (Time, Noblesse, Mustang, Europe, Nelson, Sheraton, Montana, Broadway and others) on the defensive today but the company, founded in 1935, has dealt with such measures before. It’s spokesman told Israel Radio it was regrettable to punish a local manufacturer but that it would continue to supply quality products to those persons who already smoke.

Those persons, Israeli adults 18 and older, comprised 22.8 percent of the population in 2009 compared with 24.2% in the previous year according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. By contrast, in 1970, Israel’s smoking rate was over 40%, spurred on by ads like these:

As a non-smoker who has always gravitated towards professions and groups traditionally populated by smokers — the arts, theater, journalism, running — I find this sudden burst of governmental enthusiasm all a bit pie-in-the-sky.

A bit of history: Time was first launched in Israel in 1965 and is still perceived as the Israeli cigarette, both by locals and by thousands of visitors who remember with fondness sucking down one Time after another as an integral part of their summer and year-long programs, university semesters, IDF volunteering and kibbutz experiences. According to the Dubek website, “The brand enjoys high consumer loyalty and is considered to be the essence of the Israeli DNA.” Well, if not its essence, it certainly is something to the Israeli DNA, whose nucleotides are probably 25% nicotine at this point.

Because Israelis LOVE to smoke. They don’t just love it. To paraphrase Woody Allen, they luuurve it. The question is whether restrictions such as smoke-free areas in public places (already in effect), banning tobacco sales in vending machines, graphic warnings on packaging and a requirement to report tobacco product ingredients will curb the national tendency to take up smoking in high school, puff nihilistically throughout one’s army service, party on in a smokey haze, and then quit around child-bearing time (women, who take it up again as part of the post-baby diet) or after the first seizure (men).

I’m not saying that the measures taken today couldn’t work. They could. I’m just saying it’s not cigarettes that are the problem.

As for increasing tax rates on tobacco products, well, the Ministry of Finance said it would “reconsider” it. That’s a pretty weak sentiment, given that its the one measure which might actually work.

In addition, the Ministry of Education will decide on an experimental plan for smoke-free schools (They’re allowed to smoke in school?) and the Minister of Environmental Protection will formulate a plan to reduce the environmental damage caused by cigarette butts.

I’m not saying it couldn’t work. It could. But what, for example, will all the rest of the garbage strewn liberally about Israel’s streets, gardens, parks, highways and nature reserves do without their little friends the cigarette butts for company? They will have to make do with the rest of the lot: newspapers, tin cans, broken bottles, diapers, barbecue leftovers (i.e., rotting meat, greasy whole onions, burnt tomatoes and dried out old hummus), plastic plates and cups smoldering on still-burning coals… yeah, not having all those cigarette butts around is really going to put the kibosh on that party.

So, I’m not saying it couldn’t work. I’m just saying it’s not the cigarette butts that are the problem.

*By the way, the brand name Noblesse comes from the French expression Noblesse Oblige, “the obligation of those of high rank to be honorable and generous”. Who knew?

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A half full or half empty glass of water in Israel?

May 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life 

RED LINE ALERT: Israel's main water supply, the Kinneret

Usually by May, whatever rain we’ve received in Israel over the winter has ceased, and the skies are clear for the next six months or so. This year, however, has been a weather smorgasbord of showers mixed with sand storms amid chilly days followed by sultry heat.

The extra dirty rain hasn’t really helped fill our depleted water sources however. The national Water Authority said that due to the six consecutive years of drought-like rainfall, the country is currently missing close to one billion cubic meters of water, and still have not achieved an average amount of precipitation this year. By the end of April, Israel had still only accumulated 89 percent of the average rainfall, a report from the authority said.

Uri Schor, the spokesman for the Authority told The Jerusalem Post that “the situation in the water reserves of Israel – the Kinneret, the mountain and coastal aquifers – is still very, very critical. We will be under the red line this summer in all three main reserves.”

Sounds pretty dire, as TV ads regularly warn us to save water, and many lawns are left to wilt in a patriotic move by some home owners to do their part. However, a different take on the water crisis was provided this week by Prof. Uri Shani, until a few months ago, the head of the Water Authority and now a professor at Hebrew University.

He told Channel 2 news that due to the country’s progress in desalinization, and an increase in this year’s rainfall, there is no longer a crisis.

“I can say with caution that the water crisis has ended,” Shani, now a professor at the Hebrew University’s Department of Water and Soil Sciences, told Channel 2. “The main reason is not the rain of course, it is the desalinization facilities that Israel is building at perhaps the greatest speed in the world. Also, the recent water conservation practices of Israel, together with the important – although small – boost that the rain has provided us, has helped us reach an era in which we don’t have a water crisis.

“Until the end of winter, we were in a situation where we were afraid of a much more severe drought, and prepared a series of emergency Draconian steps, such as the prohibition of watering gardens,” he continued. “Today it is possible to say that this will not be forbidden. The existential danger from an unprecedented lack of water no longer exists.”

The Authority’s spokesman Schor hedged Shani’s optimism a bit, saying “we are definitely on the right track by now: we already have three huge desalinization plants that produce an amount of water that is equivalent to 40% of the total water that is going to households and cities, and by the end of 2013 we will desalinate a quantity of water that will reach approximately 70%. But we are still lacking huge amounts of water, and we will be between the red and the black line in the water reserves.”

Regardless of whether we believe Shani’s or Schor’s spin on the situation is a matter of whether you consider the glass half full or half empty. Either way, we only have half a glass of water, so I wouldn’t suggest heading out to water your lawn yet.

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Hotel Orchid

May 17, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

An Israeli orchid

So there’s this new hotel in town, for orchids. Based out of the Wendy Nursery in Modiin, the garden center offers overnight stays for about two shekels per night, and it’s useful for the owners of these delicate buds that can’t be left on their own.

According to several accounts, the pensione began when orchid owners started coming to the nursery with their orchids’ medical issues, which slowly grew into a kind of orchid kennel for orchid owners going on vacation. The nursery offers heat and humidity for the orchids, weather conditions they love most, purified water, appropriate lighting and a special growing soil of tree sawdust and peat soil.

As a current, nervous owner of a small orchid, I appreciate the effort. I’ve been told to talk to my orchid, feed it about half a cup of water every few days and keep it in the same place, without moving it around too much. Given that I knew about another orchid convalescent home, the one in Kibbutz Maale Hachamisha, I knew I could always head there if I was having serious orchid troubles. (They charge NIS 7 per month for orchid guests.) Plus, Modiin’s a little far for orchid hospitality, and it’s not really on the way to the airport.

The thing is, I won’t house my orchid elsewhere when I’m away this summer, because I’m not really the orchid type. Not that I don’t care if my orchid lives or dies, but I’ll just have my sister water it. But most orchid owners? The obsessive ones who belong to the Israel Orchid Society at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and meet to compare species? They’ll give these orchid hotels plenty of business, and hey, competition is a good thing.

If you’re partial to drinking sahlab, the hot beverage made from orchid flour, track down the van selling sahlab and other Turkish treats in a glen off Road #443 (just after the Ben Shemen exit when heading toward Jerusalem).

Happy orchid enjoyment.

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Israel’s message to neighbors: Get over it

May 16, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Technology, War 

Israel's first electric car is set to go on sale.

On the day when all of Israel’s borders were either infiltrated – or threatened with infiltration – Israelis went about their business as usual. Except for the unlucky poor soul in Tel Aviv who was crushed by a truck driver, who evidently, like those who bombarded our borders with rocks, is incensed that Israel exists.

Unless you were in the truck driver’s deadly route which killed one and injured 17, or one of the soldiers who had to faced the onslaught of Palestinian protesters who breached Israeli sovereignty in misplaced anger over the misguided decisions their leaders’ made over 60 years ago, then yesterday’s Nakba ‘Disaster’ festivities didn’t have much impact.

It’s certainly disheartening that after 63 years, Israel is still an island amid a sea of hostility. On Sunday, the IDF dealt with four simultaneous fronts – Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. And as Defense Minister Ehud Barak pointed out, the soldiers acted with unnatural restraint in the face of belligerent foreign nationals attempting to violently infiltrate the border.

“We used protest dispersal methods, but the number of people involved made this difficult. There comes a moment when there’s no choice but to fire at their legs and it is very good that forces acted with restraint and judgment and we did not have here a ruinous bloodbath,” he said, in response to the unprecedented assault on Israel.

The Hirya garbage dump has been transformed into an enormous environmentally sound 'paradise'

Still, the headlines focused on a Syrian being killed and dozens being wounded, as well as casualties on the Lebanon border, although it’s unclear still if they were the result of the IDF shooting or due to the Lebanese Army trying to keep the protesters away.

While our neighbors evidently continue to live in the past and prefer to wallow in anger and self pity, Israel is… well, moving on. On the same day as the protests, the announcement came that the first Israeli electric car is going on sale next week, and the opening of the environmentally friendly Ariel Sharon Park, on the site of the notorious Hirya garbage dump, is opening on Wednesday.

Just because we live in a bad neighborhood, it doesn’t mean our day is going to be ruined.

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Shedding it all at the Dead Sea

April 29, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Environment, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture, Travel 

A Spencer Tunick project in Switzerland.

Don’t be surprised if the next time you trek to the Dead Sea, you’re asked to take your clothes off. Spencer Tunick, the artist known for gathering together hundreds of naked volunteers, is planning his next project at the lowest place on earth.

US-born Tunick, 44, has photographed large groups of naked people in the UK, and cities including Amsterdam, Sydney and Buenos Aires, and his next target is Israel and the Dead Sea. And he’s hoping to realize his dream through the web-based fundraising site Kickstarter.

The campaign, called “Naked Sea,” will run through June 6 and aims to raise $60,000 to finance the installation, an amount which, according to the rules of the fundraising website, must be fully raised by the end date in order to receive any money, a statement from the artist said. After 24 hours, the project had ,raised $1,435.

According to reports in Bloomberg and The Jerusalem Post, Tunick is getting logistical help from his Israeli friend, Ari Fruchter, a high tech executive and patron of the arts.

“For the past few years I have been gearing up for this and working with Tunick. My first challenge was to see if the people of Israel were ready to get naked for art. Much to my surprise, the overwhelming answer was yes,” Fruchter said in the statement, noting that a group of five university students started a grassroots campaign to enlist public support, which has attracted thousands since.

“This project is dear to me, one that I have dreamed of since my early days as an artist,” Tunick said in an e-mailed statement seeking backers. “I look forward to your support in exposing a part of Israel that hasn’t been seen before and at the same time bring attention to the deteriorating situation of the Dead Sea.”

So if Tunick succeeds in raising the $60,000 by his June target date, expect to see a mass of Israeli nudity at the lowest spot on earth later this year.

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