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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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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Mitch Pilcer in front of the grave he discovered. (Arieh O'Sullivan)

That doesn’t likely happen too often in most parts of the world, but it did in Israel, to Mitch Pilcer, who owns picturesque bed-and-breakfast country establishment in the Galilee village of Tzippori, the home of early rabbinic sages.

Pilcer’s 2009 discovery of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi’s grave, whose commentaries appear in the Talmud and legend has it was a close friend of Elijah the Prophet, has sparked an ongoing struggle with the Israel Antiquities Authority who have been demanding that Pilcer allow them to excavate the tomb.

According to a report by The Media Line, the IAA won a court order, and late 2009 it conducted a dig on the property and confiscated the headstone door, which had been inscribed in plainly legible Hebrew: “This is the burial place of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi Hakapar.”

Later the IAA filed charges against Pilcer for carrying out an illegal excavation, damaging an ancient site and possession of antiquities. Pilcer’s trial began at the Nazareth Magistrate’s court last week where he pleaded not guilty. He has also made formal demands to have the stone returned to its original site.

Full disclosure here is that Pilcer is an old friend, and I’m on his side of this battle over the ownership of the stone and the site. Read the full story about his battle with the ‘Man’ here.

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First, some facts: it is true that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, opposed introducing television into the new State of Israel. It is also true that television made it through the back door as an instructional tool in 1966, when Israel Educational Television (IETV) began broadcasting under the auspices of the Education Ministry, with programs initially received by 32 schools.

Needless to say, broadcasting was in black-and-white as the technology was less expensive and in keeping with the authorities’ frowning upon the whole affair. According to the Wikipedia entry on Television in Israel, “Arnon Zuckerman, the IBA director general from 1973 to March 1979, cites Golda Meir (Israel’s Prime Minister 1969-1974) saying about color television, ‘It is so artificial, I know it from America. There is no need for this’.”

No need, perhaps, but by the mid-seventies you couldn’t get black and white equipment so by dint of circumstance, Israeli consumers were only able to buy color televisions while IBA was forced to purchase color-enabled gear. You would think that Israel would have then naturally segued into color TV broadcasting and viewing… but you would be wrong.

Please note the underlying lunacy in this cut-and-dried account of what actually happened, again from Wikipedia: “According to Yair Lapid’s biographical book about his father, Tommy Lapid, who was the IBA director general from April 1979 to March 1984, the IBA had the necessary equipment for filming and broadcasting in color for nearly a decade before putting it into use; however the introduction of color transmissions was halted due to political pressure and threats of industrial actions.”

“Industrial action” refers to IBA technical staff who felt threatened by the introduction of video technology and color video at that. “Owing to this state of affairs, newscasts and other regular productions were filmed using black and white cameras; however many special productions ordered from private Israeli studios (in particular the Herzliya Studios) were filmed and taped in color.”

Then things got really crazy. “The Israeli government frowned upon the increasing import of color TV sets, which it considered a threat to Israeli economic stability and an improper pursuit of luxury, which allegedly increased social gaps. Therefore, the government ordered IBA and IETV to broadcast entirely in black and white and erase the color from any color-taped telecast.”

I know. IBA is beginning to sound like that movie Pleasantville.

So, with the great technical ingenuity that would serve Israel so well decades later as the “Start-up Nation”, IBA introduced the mehikon — literally, the “eraser” — which interfered with the color signal and triggered a “color killer” mechanism. And with the even greater ingenuity that would serve Israel so well decades later as the “Nation of Upstarts”, the average Israeli simply went out and purchased a color television set equipped with an anti-mehikon device that would restore the color signal.

It wasn’t perfect. “According to a report in Yediot Aharonoth from January 1979, the client had to manipulate the switch every 15 minutes on average in normal conditions, or up to 10 times an hour when special problems occurred, in order to restore natural colors or if the picture suddenly turned black and white.” But it served the public well enough until 1981 when the government allowed IBA and IETV to film productions in color.

Did I say 1981? I meant 1983 when the first IBA nightly newscast broadcast in color, because it took another two years to arrange for a settlement with the technicians’ trade union, who were demanding higher salaries for operating color equipment.

“Lapid also mentions that the anti-mekhikon system cost IBA 180 million Israeli lira yearly (approximately 64 million Israeli new shekels in 2011 prices).”

But the idiocy doesn’t end there. in 1990, the government approved the establishment of a Second Authority for Television and Radio and Channel 2′s Israeli News Company began broadcasting a nightly newscast in 1993. At 8′o clock in the evening. Which brings us to another dumb IBA decision.*

Imagine, if you will, that you are in charge of a nightly news broadcast with — get this — a 100% audience share!!! You have gravity and authority. For 25 years without a break, the entire country automatically turns to your show after dinner at 9 o’clock at night. Suddenly, a untried, untested competitor appears with an 8 o’clock news broadcast. What do you do?

Well, if you’re IBA, you move your news broadcast, a national mainstay whose nightly viewing is an ingrained habit, to 8 o’clock, too, and lose your market share. They still haven’t recovered from that self-administered shot in the foot.

Which bring us today’s news about the 8 minutes to 8 thingie. Haaretz reports that, in true IBA fashion, a tussle is in the works between management and staff. “Negotiations have been underway in recent weeks. The workers’ committee claims that the changes, including some in human resources, were made without any consultation. The broadcasting authority, however, says the committee is making demands unconnected to the channel changes – salary levels, for example.” Well, it’s nice to have traditions.

Here are few Mabat nightly newscast openers from yesteryear…

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According to Botanic Gardens Conservation International, “It is the only international botanical garden to have a community resident in it, which is a tribute both to the gardening staff and to the population of Ein Gedi. In fact, the development of the botanical garden and Kibbutz Ein Gedi are inseparable.”

Over years of trial and error, Ein Gedi’s gardeners have cultivated a collection of over 900 species of rare plants from all over the world…

The plants flourish in the summer heat, mild winters, and the mineral-rich Dead Sea atmosphere that encourages quick plant growth, so much so that some parts of the garden resemble a lush jungle…

Typical regional plants – date palms, olive, pomegranate and fig trees – can be found alongside tropical ones…

The adjacent Cactus Park is a rare collection of 1,000 species of cactus and desert plants from around the world…

At the garden’s northern edge is an observation point with a view of the entire oasis. (Click here for a 3D tour). And yes if you stay at the Ein Gedi hotel, you’ll likely meet one of these fellows…

The botanical garden office is open every day from 8:30 a.m-4:30 p.m. and on Friday until 2:00 p.m. For more information, please call: 08-658-444 or visit their website.

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the Ein Gedi Hotel. For more information, visit the hotel website and Facebook page.

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Yes, it’s the Camp Ramah reference, appealing to all those who attended one of the seven, now eight, Ramah camps in North America, established and run by the Conservative Movement, and with programs in Israel as well. It’s not the first Ramah reference on TV. On “Will and Grace,” actress Debra Messing sometimes dropped Ramah references, thanks to one of the screenwriters who attended, and supposedly Messing did as well.

Ramah Israel has also made onto the Israeli small screen, although more unobtrusively, as part of the opening scenes in “Srugim”, which shows images of Jerusalemites walking to shul on Friday night, when some cameraperson captured the students on TRY — Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim — making their way to a local synagogue.

It’s a small thrill, but a thrill nonetheless. Clearly, you write about what you know.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Go enjoy the next 24 hours, with the ubiquitous barbecue, outdoor singing and dancing, and fireworks. Happy birthday, Israel.

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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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