Foto Friday – Haifa Flower Show preview

March 23, 2012 by · 5 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Business, design, Entertainment, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Holidays, News, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Technology, Travel 

Spring has definitely sprung. No more sudden snowstorms for us! The sun is shining, dogs are shedding their winter coats (believe me, I know) and a new crop of wildflowers decorates the fields, streets and sidewalks. With perfect timing, the city of Haifa will relaunch the annual Haifa International Flower Show, which will take place during the Passover holiday week at Park Hecht from April 7th-14th.

The nine halls and 25 outdoor exhibits will feature works by international and Israeli designers, including 14 top designers from Zuidkoop Natural Projects of the Netherlands.

Israeli firm O*GE, the creative directors, architects and lead designers of the Flower Show, have created nine huge exhibition halls — each one a world unto itself — which will feature flowers of all kinds, flown in from all corners of the world: rare flowers, genetically engineered flowers, wild flowers, greenhouse-grown flowers, dwarf trees, flower topiary, flower carpets and more.

The more than 500,000 blooms will be presented in very different environments: World of Flowers, Land of the Rising Sun, Hanging Garden, World of the Senses, Secret Garden, World of Fantasy, and World of Water. These photomontage illustrations give a sense of how amazing the show promises to be.

This exhibition covers an area of 30 dunam (​​7.5 acres) making this the largest flower exhibition in Israel’s history. In addition to the the flower worlds, visitors can enjoy wandering through herb gardens, a flower market and attend various workshops. Spectacular lighting effects at night will give additional enchantment. For more information: http://www.haifaflower.co.il/

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Israelis turn into recycling fools

March 15, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, education, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life 

The conservation culture in Israel has always been way behind that of the US. In fact, visitors used to comment at how, on the one hand, how beautiful the country was, and on the other hand, how roadsides were littered with mounds of trash thrown from car windows.

While there’s plenty of roadside garbage still out there, recent years have seen great strides being made to encourage the recycling of bottles and paper. Recycling bins are now commonplace in almost all residential neighborhoods and have become a welcome part of the everyday landscape.

So much so that the company that has the bottle recycling service, ELA, announced this week that the rate that Israelis are turning in their used plastic bottles is now exceeding that of the US and Europe.

According to the stats, Israelis recycled 50 percent of the country’s plastic bottles in 2011, overtaking Europe at 48% and the United States at 29%. The actual amount was 20,000 tons of plastic, up from 16,000 in 2010.

In 2011, 140 municipalities and regional councils across the country – including 20 new participants – installed about 4,400 new recycling bins, bringing the country’s total number of bins to about 15,000, the ELA report said.

I and my family certainly do our part, bringing our plastic bottles and old newspapers to the neighborhood bins on a weekly basis.

However, as afar as glass bottle requiring a deposit, I haven’t quite gotten there yet. Israelis collected about 77% of all beverage containers – plastic and glass – requiring deposit in 2011, exceeding the government’s target of 73% and amounting to about 600 million beverage containers.

I’m still am wary about using those bottle refund machines in the supermarkets, ever since I inserted a wine bottle and it came shooting back out like a rocket, landing on the floor in front of me and smashing into a million pieces while provoking the stares and ‘tsks’ of my fellow shoppers.

So for now, I leave that task to my wife, and concentrate on the plastic and the paper, as we join our fellow Israelis in our conservation future.

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Toronto’s “Slut” March Heads to Israel

March 7, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Environment, Politics, Pop Culture 

slut sign slutwalk manchester, Slutwalk israel, tel aviv, jerusalem, haifa

Last April a writer from my personal blog Green Prophet asked: Should the Middle East Have More Sluts? Of course we wanted to attract our reader’s attention, and we did with thousands of readers, hundreds of “Likes” and dozens of comments. Although I am not a feminist, I do recognize a critical link between women’s rights and environmental values. Look at the women from Barefoot College in Jordan: Women are often the first ones to transmit these values to their societies and children, and women without basic rights are not empowered to do anything. I know that linking sluts and the Middle East is a tough pill to swallow in the ultra-conservative Middle East but we wrote this article to grab your attention. To make you think.

Readers and activists were listening. According to DIY Tel Aviv the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem will be organizing their own slut walks, starting next week. Read more

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Nostalgia Sunday – What all the fuss was about

February 19, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Travel 

Excepting the city’s residents, everyone is very disappointed in Jerusalem today. That is because, despite the dire weather predictions, it did not snow in Jerusalem on Friday night, thus putting the kibosh on everyone else’s Saturday plans. We are a people with a short attention span and it is much quicker to drive the mere 50 minutes up to view the Holy City, instead of the 3 to 4 hour-long slog to gawk at the Hermon.

To understand what had the entire country looking hopefully eastwards, let’s take a look at snowy Jerusalems gone by.

One of the nicest photo-essays about coping with Israel’s bad winter weather can be found at none other than bus company Egged’s website. Oh, the irony! We may complain bitterly about their “the customer is always wrong” company policies, the drivers’ rude and aggressive behavior on the road and inside the bus, their tendency towards strong-armed monopolistic practices (with a healthy dash of nepotism thrown in for good measure) and horrible taste in bus depot design but when the going gets tough, we get going — to Egged.

According to the Egged essay (in Hebrew), the winter of 1950 was a particularly bad one, especially because many new immigrants to the young State of Israel were still living in makeshift shanties. “Nonetheless, it was a memorable experience for both children and adults and looking back, they remember it with a smile and longing.”

Hmmm… perhaps. Happier documentation may be found in this pre-State film from news service British Pathe, which captures the Jerusalem winter of two years earlier, in 1948.

Jerusalem in White aka Jerusalem Under Snow

A very sweet photo essay (in Russian) about the 1968 snowstorm describes the adventures of three friends who brave the storm in order to visit a snow-clad Jerusalem.

News Report: Snowy Day in Jerusalem, 1980

And the most recent big storm, which was in 2008.
Jerusalem in Snow from All About Jerusalem.com

Yes, Jerusalem did let everyone down this year but snow buffs can take heart: there are still a few more weeks of this miserable weather so maybe you’ll get your wish. As for me, I’m holding out hope for an early thaw.


© Леонид

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I’m dreaming of a white Shabbat

February 16, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life 

Will it or won’t it happen?

As Jessica pointed out, snow in Jerusalem is one of those once-in-a-few-years occurrences that gets even the most jaded city dweller acting like a dizzy child.

Even though it usually amounts to only an inch or two, general havoc prevails, the roads get jammed, kids and parents are out trying to make snowmen and sliding down hills wherever they are, the city is generally reduced to a winter wonderland.

The last time it snowed substantially – in 2008 – we drove to Mount Scopus near Hebrew University and spent hours with other revelers, Jewish and Arab, sliding down the steep declines, pushing each other into snow piles and, for me at least, recalling the years growing up in New England.

While we’re in the midst of a winter storm now, and forecaster predict that snow might fall in the Jerusalem area on Friday or Saturday, we’re trying not to get our hopes up too much.

But to wake up with Jerusalem blanketed in white, enveloping its residents with a warm and fuzzy feeling would be the perfect antidote the chilly winds of unrest blowing at us from virtually all our neighbors in the region.

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