Anti-Israelity in New York
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Life, Religion
You meet them in the strangest of places. Or maybe it’s not so strange.
In New York today for The Jerusalem Post Conference, I left my hotel in the early evening to walk around Times Square and ran smack into a group of haredim on the corner holding signs calling Israel’s existence a blasphemy.
They were singing and chanting and attracting quite a crowd. A couple of young, female Japanese tourists stopped and took some photos. A hot dog vendor asked them if they were going to join the protesters. And the girls responded, “No, we’re not Jewish.”
After watching the sickening display outside the hotel, I almost wished I could say the same. But in the end, I said, “no, I’m Israeli.”
Nostalgia Sunday – ViewMaster Israel
Filed under: Art, Blogging, Business, design, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Movies, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Technology, tv
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
Filed under: Art, design, education, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Picture of the Week, Travel, tv
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.
When I’m 64
Filed under: A New Reality, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Technology
As the transition from the somber mood of Remembrance Day makes way for the celebration of Independence Day, there’s a plethora of inspiring video clips to help us mark Israel’s 64th birthday.
We’ve already focused on ISRAEL21c’s great ‘What does Israel mean to you’ clip, (now augmented by the top 64 innvoations from Israel) and here’s a few others.
Here’s a photographic appreciation of the natural beauty of the country by Efrat-based photographer Yehoshua Halevi, featuring the song “Desert Call” by Eden Mi Qedem.
No Independence Day would be complete without a tribute to our fighting forces that protect us day in and out. Here’s a well-done one created and filmed by Aviv Vana Post Production in collaboration with shooteast.com
Here’s a unique take on the country’s birthday – done in animation. According to the creators, it attempts to portray the complex reality that Israelis live in on a daily basis.
And how could we not include a message from Mr. Israel, our venerable president Shimon Peres, who gives his independence greeting in his inimitable English.
Go enjoy the next 24 hours, with the ubiquitous barbecue, outdoor singing and dancing, and fireworks. Happy birthday, Israel.
Celebrating independence with a Seder
Filed under: A New Reality, education, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life
I just returned home from my first Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) Seder. And it was pretty cool. The trend toward having seders besides the Passover one for other holidays like Tu Bishvat has been on the rise in recent years – a nonsectarian but traditional seder with four cups and readings but without religious content.
The Yom Ha’atzmaut Seder that we attended for our son’s fifth grade classes was devised by the Tali Foundation, the organization that brings traditional themes into largely secular schools.
The Seder table was lined with bottles of juices and water for the four cups, bowls of humus, olives and dates and plates of pita. Led by a trained professional, the Seder included blessings over the food, readings from such Zionist stalwarts as Natan Alterman and Haim Goury, quotes from David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin, and songs by Naomi Shemer and Uzi Hitman.
Less than an hour in length, it kept the 11-year-olds’ scattered minds at attention and engaged them in telling the story of their country and why Yom Ha’atzmaut is more than breaking out the new barbecue and spraying that disgusting foam on each other.
Maybe next year, every school will incorporate a Yom Ha’atzmaut Seder in their curriculum – it’s good for the students and it’s good for the parents.
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