Israelis love a good wedding — the gatherings here tend to amass in the hundreds — and making merry is de riguer, as are cash gifts, which are calculated to cover the price of one’s food serving plus a little extra depending on your relationship to the happy couple (an online calculator, Kama Kessef, has been developed to assist in doing the math). Bringing a date to a wedding is optional but an accepted practice, as is eating, drinking and talking durng the chuppah. And of course, pinching the groom’s cheek to the point of pain.

Jerusalem-based Photographer Chaim Meiersdorf has, for the past 30 years, made a career specializing in such happy occasions.

Where sometimes tears are shed, but for joy…

And joy will make you jump, too!

Meiersdorf lives in Jerusalem and his clientele comes mainly from the various Orthodox Jewish communities there and around the country. More of his work can be viewed on his website.

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Seeing the forest for the trees

Two academics, Dr. Rachel Barkan of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Professor Shai Danziger of Tel Aviv University spent more than a little time examining the areas of choice and advice, and their findings look a little bit like the conclusions of writer Malcolm Gladwell in his book, The Tipping Point, but maybe that’s just me. They’re not looking for Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen, nor how a trend is made, but rather Advisers and Choosers, and how and whether positive reinforcement makes a difference.

“It is a matter of seeing the forest for the trees,” Barkan explains, “The advice we give is not anchored in the choice we would make. When we give advice, we do not consider what we would have done in the same situation. Instead, our role as adviser distances us from the dilemma at hand. From afar we see the forest. We consider long term goals that are worthy and desirable. As advisers, we overlook the trees and discount obstacles and impediments on the way to this goal. As Choosers however, we cannot avoid seeing the trees – sometimes to the extent of losing the forest. As choosers, our mindset is oriented toward implementation and we give more weight to concrete details of feasibility and pragmatism.

In other words, are you an Adviser or a Chooser? The goal-reacher or onlooker? It seems clear that the world is filled both kinds of people, and even more possibly, that we all fill both roles at different times in our lives. Clearly, we need advisers when looking to follow a dream, to hear from those who are cheering us on, as well as receive the pragmatic, ‘look at the trees’ advice so that we can anticipate some of the obstacles ahead.

In the research gathered, Barkan and Danziger found that advisers tend to be more idealistic than pragmatic, on the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’ and tend to act as cheerleaders. And so, they concluded, in order to follow a dream, there need to be two people in the equation, the one who believes in the dream, and cheers on the person actually following the dream.

In other words, positive reinforcement isn’t a waste of time, it may actually help make something happen. Go on, help someone fulfill their dream.

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This has been a glorious spring in Israel and we still have a few more weeks to enjoy it before the dog days of summer set in and the great green countryside begins its inexorable slide into brown and yellow until the rains return in the fall sometime after the Sukkot holiday.

While everything is still green, I found myself thinking back to this past winter during which, for the first time in seven years, we received the amount of rain Israeli meteorologists and farmers hoped we would. In each of the six years before this one, the official “weather people” at the Israel Meteorological Society have declared a drought. The results were obvious to anyone strolling in city parks or traveling in Israel’s rural areas.

This year, though, things have been different. Along with thousands of other Israelis, I have gone on a binge of hiking and outdoor touring to take in all the newly beautiful and green sites. My wife moved to this country six years ago after having spent the previous 20 living in an especially verdant part of Japan and she is just amazed to see the countryside looking as pretty as it does because she has never seen it this way before.

In mid-March we headed out to a place called Lupine Hill (Givat HaTurmosim in Hebrew) in the Elah Valley where tradition has it that David slew Goliath with pebbles from the stream there. After hiking all day we stopped in the Elah Valley winery and bought five bottles for the Passover Seder. The week before Passover we went up north to see the blooming Gilboa Iris and we hiked there and among the waterfalls of Wadi Parod. During Passover, we made it to the new hanging trail in the Banias National Park and it was as gorgeous and full of water as I remember it 20 years ago.

With the Shavuot holiday coming up, get out of town and enjoy some of Israel’s beautiful natural places yourselves! Enjoy the Israeli spring!

Took this shot of a Gilboa Iris with my iPhone.

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This what the Old City looked like, just days after the war ended.
(Click on image to view larger).

Israeli citizens began flooding to the Western Wall…

Soldiers and civilians alike (you can count my parents among them) took a close look at enemy weaponry…

A makeshift memorial of flowers and a small plaque was set up in memory of five paratroopers from Division 80 Reconnaissance Unit 75 who were killed in the battle for Jerusalem…

This was eventually replaced with a larger memorial, by sculptress Yona Palombo, for Paratrooper Division 80′s fallen. Today, it includes the names of 47 more soldiers killed in Israel’s wars and stands on the outskirts of the Old City.

This photo courtesy of the Paratrooper Brigade website. All other photos graciously provided by Moshe Lavi.

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© 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.

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Etgar Keret not being bothered in Tel Aviv. (Marc Israel Sellem)

Who can forget the Kotel dustup between Leo’s bodyguards and photographers when he and Bar Raphaeli went to pay a visit, or Bieber escaping the hordes on a moped and running over the foot of a lensman?

But aside from teeny boppers who hang out in hotel lobbies hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite performer or artist, I think most Israelis are respectful – and even blasé about spotting celebs.

Earlier this week, I met Israeli author Etgar Keret (whom Brian wrote about attending the International Writers Festival) at a café in his Tel Aviv neighborhood.

Now, I’m not attempting to compare Keret to an international celebrity like Madonna, but he is one of Israel’s top authors and on his way to becoming an international icon in the short story field, with glowing reviews in the New York Times for his latest collection Suddenly, A Knock at the Door.

I think most Israelis who read probably know what he looks like (as opposed, say to how few Americans would recognize John Grisham at a local Taco Bell). However, he sat at that café for almost two hours, and aside from the server calling him by his first name (which could be due to the fact that he’s a regular), not one patron or passerby looked, approached or talked to Keret.

Maybe it’s because Israelis have a cool quotient that prevents them from acknowledging things like that – or maybe it’s because there just isn’t that gap between every day people and celebs here. They eat at the same places, take their kids to gan with your kids, and have the same complaints about long lines at the supermarket. In other words, our celebrities – in their own environment – aren’t glamorous, which is kind of nice.

However, if I see Bar Raphaeli in a Tel Aviv café, all bets are off.

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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.

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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…

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Among the 38 documentaries entered into the competition this year is Shadows In Palestine, a new look at the millennial movement of German Templers (not to be confused with the Crusader Knights Templar), a community of religious Protestants who lived in the Holy Land for three generations, from 1868 to 1941, in settlements known today as the “German Colonies” of Haifa, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Sarona (in central Tel Aviv), Wilhelma (adjacent to today’s Ben Gurion Airport), Waldheim (now Moshav Alonei Abba) and Bethlehem of the Galilee.

The Templer sect (Tempelgesellschaft) was a German Protestant sect with roots in the Pietist movement of the Lutheran Church. They believed that living in the Holy Land would hasten the second coming of Christ and were expelled from the church in 1858 because of their millennial beliefs. In 1868, at the urging of their leader, Christoff Hoffman, the emigrated to the Holy Land and built their first colony in Haifa.

According to Wikipedia, “The colonists built an attractive main street that was much admired by the locals. It was 30 meters wide and planted with trees on both sides. The houses, designed by architect Jacob Schumacher, were built of stone, with red-shingled roofs, instead of the flat or domed roofs common in the region.

“The Templer settlement of Sarona was one of the first modern agricultural settlements in Palestine… In August 1871, the Templers purchased 60 hectares of land from a Greek monastery north of Jaffa.

“The colony’s oranges were the first to carry a ‘Jaffa orange’ brand, one of the better known agricultural brands in Europe, used to market Israeli oranges to this day. The Templers established a regular coach service between Haifa and the other cities, promoting the country’s tourist industry, and made an important contribution to road construction.

“In 1873, after establishing colonies in Haifa and Jaffa, members of the Templer sect from Württemberg, Germany, settled on a large tract of land in the Refaim Valley, southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem. The land was purchased by one of the colonists, Matthaus Frank, from the Arabs of Beit Safafa.”

The Templers brought modern farming methods to the region, importing agricultural machinery, introducing soil fertilization, better methods of crop rotation and new crops with a focus on crops and products they could readily sell. ‘The researcher and author Sven Hedin wrote of his visit to Sarona in 1916 ‘…many plants were in blossom. They mainly grow grapes, oranges and vegetables, [but] like in old times they also produce milk and honey.’”

But the idyll began to fracture when in 1917, during World War I, General Edmund Allenby conquered Palestine from the Ottomans. “The German colonists were regarded as enemy aliens. Many of the colonists were recruited for the units of the German Imperial Army, which fought together with the army of the Ottoman ally against the British conquest.”

The German colonists — now into their third generation — chafed under British rule and became increasingly influenced by German nationalism. “In 1937, 34% of the Templers were Nazi party members. At the start of World War II colonists with German citizenship were rounded up by the British and sent, together with Italian and Hungarian enemy aliens, to internment camps in Waldheim and Bethlehem of Galilee. 661 Templers were deported to Australia via Egypt on July 31, 1941, leaving 345 in Palestine.”

“Sarona, together with the three other agricultural settlements – Wilhelma, Bethlehem of Galilee and Waldheim – became ‘perimeter’ compounds into which all Germans living in Palestine were interned. Sarona held close to 1,000 persons behind a guarded, 4 m high barbed-wire fence. In July 1941, 198 people from Sarona, together with almost 400 from the other internment camps were deported to Australia on the Queen Elizabeth. They were interned in Tatura in Central Victoria Australia until 1947. By November 1944, most of the remaining Sarona residents had been moved to the camp in Wilhelma. The last group was sent there in September 1945.”

However, according to the new documentary, “during the thirties, the Templers were pressured to embrace and form a Nazi party” and fell victim to a secret exchange between Germany and Britain. “The Nazi party set free a number of Jews from concentration camps and in exchange Britain, who controlled Palestine at the time, sent the Templers back to Germany. Despite the fact that only a third of Templers joined the Nazi Party, all of them were forced to leave their new homeland.”

It will be interesting to see this new account of the Templer’s history. (Right now there is only a movie trailer on YouTube). The movie includes first-hand interviews with Templers who speak about the past and their exit from Mandatory Palestine. For Israelis who don’t necessarily know the background to these German Colony neighborhoods, it’s a chance to learn about the Templer movement, its accomplishments and contributions to the development of the modern State of Israel.

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The international musicians of The Bridge Project.

But it was no joke for Ittai Shaked, Andy Bussuttil and Umit Ceyhan who make up The Bridge Project - based in cyberspace but coming down for landing this week in Israel.

All three musicians have a day gig at the successful Israeli startup Waves, which was profiled in ISRAEL21c a few years ago. Violinist Shaked is a quality assurance manager for the Grammy Award-winning company that develops audio mixing software for the digital age for sound engineers and producers. And Bussutil, a multi-talented musician who runs his own recording studio in Australia, and Ceyhan, the Turkish Muslim who currently lives in France and teaches sonic and cinematic arts at the University of Toulouse, are part of Shaked’s team testing the company’s new products.

When, over a year ago, Shaked posted a message to his more than 100 testers around the world asking if anyone wanted to get together virtually and create some music, Bussutil and Ceyhan responded. Thus began ongoing file sharing and music creation between the three, with each adding his own instruments and ideas onto the previous take of their world music combining everything from Middle Eastern sounds to klezmer and Balkan beats.

The chemistry between us was amazing – we found out we shared and loved the same kind of music, more or less, with different spices,” Shaked told me. “And all three of us play instruments that combine together very nicely. At some point, I realized that what we’re doing here is making an album.”

The result is Three Waves Under the Bridge, the fruits of their online efforts, and the arrival in Israel of Bussutil and Ceyhan this week to meet Shaked and each other face to face and perform a series of live shows around the country.

Three Waves Under the Bridge, mixed by Shaked and mastered by Bussuttil, is a reflective world music mosaic brimming with musical ideas, and featuring a genre-hopping range of instruments – North African percussion like bongos and darbukas, strings ranging from violin, viola and cello to clarinet and sax, and traditional Turkish instruments like the duduk, kopuz and saz.

The music is only part of their accomplishments. As Bussuttil said, “Our efforts were an attempt to unify people rather than divide them. And we hoped to demonstrate that people from different backgrounds can create more than conflict, we can create things of beauty as well.”

If you’re in the country, you can catch the Bridge Project on May 14 at the Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv. Other shows on the mini-tour, supported by the Foreign Ministry and the Australian Embassy in Israel, include The Jame Club in Acre on May 17, The Jazz Club in Mitzpe Ramon on May 18, and Hemdat Yamin in the Galilee on May 19.

But anyone can enjoy their music here.

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