Peace talks or target practice?
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War, coexistence
Security personnel inspect the car containing four Israelis which was bombarded with bullets on Tuesday night near Kiryat Arba. (AP)
It’s horrible, but unfortunately true. I think everyone is starting to remember how previous waves of terror began – a shooting here, a bus bomb there, and before you know it, it’s an everyday thing.
I’m getting on a bus in a few hours, and for the first time in years, I may be looking around and checking out the passengers getting on, doing my own personal profile checking.
I guess the big difference this time, though, is the fact that we have a security barrier which is supposedly preventing potential suicide bombers from arriving at their destination, and the facts that the cooperation we’re getting from the Palestinian security forces are helping to prevent and catch terror acts before they happen. But not always, as the last two nights have tragically shown.
I, like most Israelis who want the peace talks beginning today in Washington to succeed, want to believe Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when he said that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other Palestinian terror rejectionist groups are Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s common enemy.
But if all Israelis, and not just settlers (who for some, incomprehensibly, don’t count as they are bringing it on themselves by living in the West Bank) are now going to be open targets for the guns and bombs of terrorists, it’s clear that the peace attempts in Washington are going to fail miserably. And our Palestinian neighbors will only have themselves to blame when their statehood once again moves beyond their reach.
Gazoz
Filed under: Art, Business, Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Pop Culture
The drink and the album
The beverage in question was “gazoz”, which is really a retro drink these days, made of seltzer and various flavored syrups. It was gone for many years from the Israeli kitchen and restaurant menu, although home carbonation systems — and then just store-bought bottles of seltzer/soda water — carried on the tradition. But the last few years have brought gazoz back to the beverage list, and it’s a happy thing. Sure, you can have your limonana and iced coffees on a hot day, but the simplicity of soda water with a spritz of lemon, peach, pineapple, passionfruit, etc. syrup is easily refreshing too. And, clearly, quite cheap if a local restaurant is willing to offer free refills.
Interestingly, I always thought that the word gazoz was based on one of the European languages for gas, or carbonation. But a little Googling brought me to this Forward article, whose author found that the Turkish “Gazöz” means fizzy lemonade. “The Turks must have borrowed this word, along with the soft drink it designated, from the Italians — and since Palestine was under Turkish control until 1917, it is highly likely that Turkish rather than Italian was the immediate source of Hebrew gazoz. French, it almost certainly wasn’t.”
And like many popular Israeli terms, the word gazoz was popular for a while, so much so that a classic Israeli rock band borrowed the term; Gazoz was only around from 1978-1979 and released just two albums, including the now classic: http://www.dailymotion.com/videox9pfc7.”
Eilat – not just a third-rate Las Vegas
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Travel
Eilat – can there be anyplace more kitschy? A little tacky Las Vegas sans the gambling right within our friendly country confines.
But after spending a couple end of summer 100 degree days there, for maybe the 10th time, I can loudly proclaim that Eilat is a whole lot more than one gaudy hotel after another, a boardwalk that rivals any US beach front for mass culture tackiness, and a huge neon advertisement for conspicuous consumption.
Eilat is simply one of the nicest spots in Israel. The Undersea Observatory is a world-class delight, the Coral Beach one of the most magnetic, alluring sites in the country, the Dolphin Beach is incredible, the Bird Observatory is an international attraction for fans of the two-winged creatures, and the list goes on and on.
You don’t need to wallow in decadence in Eilat – you can use it as a jumping off point for some of the most amazing natural wonders Israel – or any country – has to offer. So next time you guffaw at someone for saying they’re headed to Eilat, just remember the blue water, the tropical fish of every color, and the tranquility of sitting and staring out on to a smooth-as-glass Red Sea.
Socialized sandwiches
Filed under: Business, Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, health
I have a lot that I could say and write about socialized medicine, but I’ll just tell this one story. I was waiting to see my doctor the other morning, a very popular doctor, I should add, given that we all waited about two hours each to see her. That’s because like all clinic doctors, she has an appointment scheduled every ten minutes, but gives at least fifteen to twenty minutes to each patient. Which is great when you’re finally in her office and speaking to her, but completely aggravating when you’re out in the hallway.
In any case, I spent my waiting time reading the entire newspaper, something I don’t usually get to do; chatting with other waitees, including someone who wanted to hire me for my writing skills; and returning phone calls. In the back of my mind, I figured that I would grab a sandwich from the woman who has a little stand just around the corner (1st floor, Maccabi building, Agrippas Street, Jerusalem) from my doctor’s office. When I had been waiting over an hour, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and ambled over to her stand to see what she had to offer.
As luck would have it, she’d just run out of fresh rolls. And in typical Israeli style, she noted that she only makes sandwiches from the freshest ingredients (this is why Starbucks never made it here), and would therefore have to pop down to the Machane Yehuda market just down the street to pick up some more rolls. But she couldn’t do that without someone to man the counter, and keep an eye on the espresso machine, soft drinks and croissants still available.
Well, I certainly had the time, given that I was #288 and #278 had just entered the doctor’s office. Plus, it was too chancy to leave the building and grab something to eat, and, I knew from past experience that she makes a good sandwich. And so, sandwich lady I became for a brief 20 minutes, as she ran out for fresh rolls and quickly returned. Nothing actually happened during that time, but we all exchanged smiling glances at the situations that an elongated wait can offer.
And the sandwich was worth it.
Nostalgia Sunday – Tel Aviv Zoo
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel, education
Here’s a tidbit of useless information: do you know why Tel Aviv’s Gan Ha-Ir mall is called that? Because there used to be a zoo — Gan Hayot Tel Aviv — on the site. Gan means “park”, hayot means “animals”, ir means “city”. So, “animal park” and “city park”. Hence the name.
On the other hand, maybe it’s not so useless, as the story of the zoo is, in microcosm, the story of the modern city of Tel Aviv.
The story starts in 1935 when Rabbi Dr. Mordecai Schornstein, formerly the chief Rabbi of Copenhagen and an animal lover, fled from Nazi-occupied Europe to British Mandatory Palestine.
En route, Schornstein purchased a number of animals in Italy. According to the Farkash Gallery (more about them below), “He opened a pet shop on Shenkin Street 15 and named it ‘Gan Hayot’ (‘zoo’ in Hebrew). The birds and mammals in the store soon became a local attraction, and after the ‘Eastern Fair’ [or the Levant Fair] of 1936, where Dr. Shornstein presented his animals, he founded his zoo on Hayarkon Street 65 [in 1938].”
“However, after a pair of lions and tigers was donated to the zoo, the zoo became a real annoyance to its neighbors. With pressure mounting by the zoo’s neighbors, a new compound was built for the zoo in the northern part of the city, which was at time mostly uninhabited. In November 1939, the zoo was relocated to its new location and was opened to the public.”
“The Tel Aviv Zoo was a source of pride for residents of the first modern Jewish city. The zoo displayed creatures from around the world as well as animals and birds of the Land of Israel. It also had a small aquarium. A visit to the Tel Aviv Zoo was a popular outing for children of the Land of Israel.”
The zoo’s proximity to Tel Aviv City Hall provided the perfect situation for a joke told by the late great humorist Ephraim Kishon. To paraphrase: “One day a lion escaped from the zoo, wandered over to city hall and began eating the clerks, one by one. This went on for weeks. It was only after the lion made a crucial error and ate the tea cart lady that anyone noticed.”
The zoo was also apparently one of few in the world able to breed flamingos in captivity, according to this 1970 study published in the Journal of Zoo Animal Medicine.
Another curio of this zoo story: During the World War II, a Polish army regiment was stationed in British Mandatory Palestine. The unit, the 16th Lwow Rifles Battalion, kept a bear as a mascot: Wojtek. The soldiers decided to bring him a companion and acquired Michael, a Persian bear.
According to the website devoted to Wojtek’s memory — he was much loved in that screwy Eastern European sort of way, meaning that in addition to being kept in captivity, the soldiers made him do tricks and taught him to drink beer and smoke cigarettes — “It was hoped that he [Michael] and Wojtek would become companions, unfortunately they had a vicious fight which put paid to that idea. So Michael was donated to the Tel Aviv zoo in 1943.”
Here’s the letter from the Mayor of Tel Aviv thanking the Lwow Rifles Battalion for their donation of Michael to the zoo. As for his would-be companion, “In turn they received a monkey called Kaska who spent most of it’s time teasing Wojtek.”
(BTW, after being demobilized in 1947, rather than subject him to Soviet occupation, the unit gave Wojtek to the Edinburgh Zoo where he remained until his death in 1963).
Originally located on the city outskirts, as Tel Aviv expanded, so gradually was the zoo surrounded by residential buildings. In 1980, the zoo was closed and the animals moved from the center of Tel Aviv to more the hospitable, humane surroundings of the Ramat Gan Safari.
The Gan HaIr luxury high-rise and up-market shopping center was built on the site and completed in 1989. A statue commemorating Rabbi Dr. Schornstein was placed at the entrance to a little garden to the rear of the building, on Hadassah Street.
The Zoo lives on in images, though. Some wonderful posters from its heyday available for sale online at The Farkash Gallery. And some of the children who loved the zoo, now adults, have posted home movies of their visits on YouTube.
Tel Aviv Zoo 1966
Tel Aviv Zoo 1970s
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