Antigone Rising raves about Israel

March 7, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, coexistence, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture, Social Justice, Travel 

Kristen Henderson, second from left, Nini Camps, second from right, and Cathy Henderson, right, all of Antigone Rising pose with two Arab students after their performance in Beersheba.

I recently wrote about the upcoming visit to Israel of American female country rock band Antigone Rising as part of the US State Department’s Cultural Envoy program.

Well, the quartet was here and gone, and they were fantastic. Not only that, they had a great time, as they themselves pointed out in blog postings on the site After Ellen.

Let’s take a peek at singer/rhythm guitarist Nini Camps’ observations after only a few days in Israel for the first time.

Today we played at Eshkol Ha Pais in Beer Sheva for about 250 Bedouin and Jewish students from local high schools.

Throughout our careers we’ve played tons of shows for high school and college students. Sometimes even in remote towns in the nooks and crannies of the U.S., but it’s safe to say that we have never played for kids that have never heard American music — at all.

I look around the town and it is developed as much as many American cities. But here, unlike in the U.S., there is such a diverse mix of cultures that a girl in jeans and uggs is walking next to a girl in full cover. I can’t think of anywhere in the U.S. that has such polar cultural diversity within such a tiny radius. We’ve been told the entire country of Israel is the size on New Jersey.

And then here we come blazing in. Ha, culture shock indeed!

We played for about an hour and it was hard to read some of the faces. Some were visibly interested and clapping, swaying, but some looked away or looked down and you couldn’t help but wonder if they were bored, shy or just not comfortable with what was happening onstage. Or all of the above, for that matter.

After the show we sat along the edge of the stage. It took a few brave souls to break the ice but once they did it was like a torrent rushing the stage. They all came up to say hello, teach us how to say hello, tell us their names, take pictures and some just came up to stare at us.

One boy couldn’t wait to tell me he loved Eric Clapton! One girl, pretty well covered up and with great English skills came up quickly to say how lucky she felt to have been at the show. Before I realized it she was gone and I was left wanting to tell her it was the other way around — that we were the lucky ones.

And here’s bass player and band founder Kristen Henderson’s take on the show in Beesheba.

We just played our first show in Beer Sheva for a mixed group of high school students, both Israeli Jews and Arabs. All of the Arab female students were covered from head to toe, a few only had their eyes showing.

One of our hosts from the U.S. Embassy told us that this would be a very culturally diverse group of students. That in most cases, these kids would never be in the same room with one another, but part of the U.S. State Department’s initiative was to bring them together from time to time in an effort to create peace and understanding between the cultures.

As the room filled, it was very clear who belonged to which group. The Israeli Jewish kids filtered down to the front rows. The boys stuck with the boys and girls with girls, but they were “Westernized” in the sense that some wore Adidas sweat jackets and carried iPhones. You didn’t get the sense they were intentionally divided by gender, but it was obvious they were divided by culture.

The Bedouins (or Israeli Arabs), on the other hand, sat further back – boys in the middle of the room and the girls fully covered from head to toe in the back of the room. At one point Nini came over to show me that two of the girls were cautiously clapping along during our set, unsure if they should be visibly enjoying the show.

After we performed, an Arab girl approached us accompanied by her teacher. She thanked us for sharing our culture with her and told us that our show, seeing four women on stage playing music, “empowered her” (her words; she spoke impeccable English).

A U.S. Embassy worker later told us the girl comes from a village with no running water or electricity. Her mother recently passed away and she is the oldest of six siblings. She is one of the brightest students in her school and hoped to go on to study science and technology, but due to her family’s situation she is now responsible for bringing up her siblings. The Embassy worker went on to say that seeing us perform today gave her hope that she can still have more for her life.

Here’s a short video montage of the band’s visit to Israel.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Adloyada-yada-yada

March 5, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Movies, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, Social Justice, Travel 

Could it be true that the Adloyada Purim parade is returning to Tel Aviv? According to Ahbar HaIr (City Mouse) weekly, there’s a grassroots movement forming among last summer’s Social Welfare Protest organizers to bring the legendary celebration back to its birthplace and natural habitat. Finally! A concrete aspect to the nebulous Protest — and one that I can back one hundred percent.

Briefly put, the phrase “Adloyada” comes from “ad lo yada” or “unable to differentiate”, referring to the Purim tradition of drinking until one is unable to tell the difference between evil Haman and good Mordechai. The first Adloyada parade was held in 1912 in Tel Aviv and continued until 1936. It was reestablished in the 1950s and shut down again in the 1960s. In the early 80s, the Sheinkin Adloyada came and went — fast and furious like the punk music that inspired it — and that was it. Until now.

(The full background to the Adloyada’s historic Tel Aviv roots — and its relationship to debonair choreographer and filmmaker Baruch Agadati — may be found here).

Last week, the organizers of this latest incarnation put in a request to make the renewed Adloyada an official Tel Aviv municipal event but received no response. No matter. “We don’t need permission from the establishment to go out and party,” city council member Sharon Louzon told Ahbar HaIr.

Well said — and probably the right attitude as it doesn’t look like municipality is going to back the revival any time soon. “The Adloyada was cancelled for two principle reasons,” ran the official municipal statement quoted by Ahbar HaIr, “budget and logistical complications that shut down the city almost entirely on a day of heavy traffic. In addition, it should be noted that the city of Holon hosts a very successful event, and we think it would not be right to enter into a competition as there is a concurrent event only 10 minutes driving distance away.”

Holon! Sacrilege!

The public procession is scheduled to start this coming Thursday at 11:00 AM at the end of Ibn Gabirol Boulevard (corner of HaYarkon Park) and will proceed southwards towards Rothschild Boulevard, Allenby Street, Levinsky Park and the New Central Bus Station, ending at Hatikva Park at around 3:00 PM.

More photos of Adloyadas gone by may be viewed here – plus see below for some rare footage from the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive. You can check out the Holon Adloyada from last year (also below) — it looks very fun, actually, and I think Agadati would have appreciated the Rio carnival dancers.

Purim Sameach! Have a happy Purim holiday!

Adloyada 1932

Adloyada 1960

Holon Adloyada 2011

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Loving Israel through its music

March 3, 2012 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture, Travel 

Infected Mushroom will be mesmerizing the US and UK bloggers this week in Tel Aviv.

It’s not a new idea, but it’s a really good one. For the last few years, government offices like the Foreign Ministry and Tourism Ministry, and private advocacy initiatives like ISRAEL21c, StandwithUS and the Israel Project, have been flying over journalists, policy makers and celebrities to Israel. Their aim? To show them the Israel that we write about – the vibrant country behind the headlines that’s leading the way in high tech, innovation and the arts.

It’s a great idea because you can’t get every person to come and visit Israel, but if one popular blogger comes over and gets a good impression of the country, then everyone who follows that blogger is going to be reading about Israel in a different light.

A new player in the game is Kinetis – a young Tel Aviv-based advocacy organization that aims to promote Israel as a vibrant and inspirational source of creativity and innovation. Their pet project focuses on bloggers and is called Vibe Israel.

Previous Vibe Israel trips have focused on ‘mommy bloggers’ and design bloggers, and this week, their third group has landed, consisting of five popular music bloggers.

• Rebecca Schiller of the New Musical Express from London,
• New York’s Samantha Edussuriya of MTV Iggy
• Luke Britton of This Fake/DIY from the UK
• Rory Hamilton of Feel My Bicep from Scotland
• and Brandon Bogajewicz of The Burning Ear, blogging from California.

Collectively, they boast over nine million readers.

Their week-long visit, which encompasses the Mardi Gras-like atmosphere of Purim, includes meeting a slew of top Israeli musical talent including Koby Farhi, the frontman for Orphaned Land, Idan Raichel, Geva Alon and Ivri Lider. The group will also attend a Purim show by Mashina and Infected Mushroom in Tel Aviv.

There’s no way they’re going to come away with a bad impression of them, or of Israeli music in general, and maybe, with their clout, it could start a groundswell that will push the names of some of them into the international spotlight. And if not, the bloggers’ posts from their week in Israel will surely open the eyes of their readers to the astounding variety of world class music we have here.

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Embracing Maccabi Tel Aviv

March 3, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Sports 

After living in Israel for over 26 years, there’s not many times I can say that I did something for the first time. But this week, I did indeed attend my first Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball game.

Maccabi Tel Aviv is the Yankees, Lakers and Cowboys of Israeli sport, all rolled into one.
With 5 European Championships, 49 Israeli Championships, 39 Israeli Cups, and 3 League Cups, Maccabi has been the most successful basketball team in Israel. It is also the fourth-most successful club in European history, and one of the most successful teams of the past decade in European basketball, having won three titles and reached the finals five times in that period.

The team boast a great lineup of legendary past players – native Israelis and American imports – such as Tal Brody, Miki Berkovich, Motti Aroesti, Kevin Magee, Doron Jamchi, Earl Williams, and Aulcie Perry, and more recently Derrick Sharp and Anthony Parker been among the elite of Europe’s basketball players.

But even though I had been a sports fanatic in the US growing up, I’ve failed to attach myself to Israeli sports in the same way. No shame in that – a Red Sox fan can’t change his colors overnight, or in a quarter century.

But that doesn’t mean that my youngest son can’t. Since he started an after-school basketball league this year because his friends were all doing it, he’s become enamored with the game – and with Maccabi TA. So after months of nudging from him, I was finally able to secure a couple tickets to a game this week at their home Nokia Arena.

And, to put it bluntly, it was a blast. From the comfortable on-top-of-the-game arena to the enthusiastic but civilized crowd and the superlative play of the team, it was as much fun for me as going to see the Boston Celtics back in the day.

I don’t know why I waited so long to lose my Israeli basketball virginity, but now that I have, I know it won’t be my last game.

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Meet the Mossad

March 1, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics, Profiles, War 

It’s not every day that you get to meet the one-time top spy in Israel. If you’re expecting Efraim Halevy to walk out of the pages of a John Le Carre novel or a James Bond movie, then you’ve got the wrong impression of the former head of the Mossad and a career spook since 1961.

The British-born Halevy is an unassuming, mild-mannered gentleman, evoking the cultured tones of Abba Eban and the appearance of an uncle you look forward to visiting with.

I was honored to introduce Halevy when he spoke to a rapt audience in Jerusalem this week as part of a lecture series at Kehilat Moreshet Avraham, a Conservative synagogue. Halevy spoke on the subject of “Are We The Victims of our own Biases?” – a title I didn’t really understand until he explained it.

According to Halevy – and he’s been involved with events in the region whose details will likely go to the grave with him – the Palestinians and the Arab world aren’t the only ones who’ve intentionally or not, prevented the normalization of relations between Israel and everyone else in the neighborhood. We’re also to blame.

Halevy, who led the Mossad from 1998 to 2002, doesn’t think Israel needs to insist on the Palestinians or anyone else for that matter recognizing Israel as a Jewish state or approving its right to exist. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, he said that Israel is a Jewish state and that any treaty or agreement signed with Israel by any other state or entity is tantamount to recognition, and it’s one of our biases based on insecurity that we insist on that extra step.

After reaching a peace agreement with Egypt, which had been Israel’s “most formidable enemy,” Israel should have surely gained an enormous injection of self-confidence, because in this achievement, Israel had broken the Arab anti-Israel alliance of solidarity, said Halevy.

Although Israel has many near miraculous achievements to its credit, Halevy believes that Israelis have not overcome an inherent Jewish perception of being the victim. After 2,000 years of suffering, being despised among the nations and victims of anti-Semitic actions that resulted in massive loss of life, Israelis still have difficulty in being self-confident when it comes to personal and national security. Israelis always labor under threat despite the fact that “we have the most efficient, most capable and most brutal defense capability in the region.”

Halevy also ruffled some feathers in the crowd when he said that Israel is wrong to always focus on and end to the conflict.

. “There will never be an end to the conflict. We need to translate conflict into something you live with in different terms, he said, citing several conflicts in which the adversaries have found a way to live together without peace treaties or final borders. “So why should we demand a final border?” he asked. “Why should we always want the ultimate?”

It was food for thought from someone who’s been in the trenches of diplomacy and espionage for decades. And thankfully, at the end of the evening, he hadn’t disclosed any secrets that would have necessitated disposing of the entire audience.

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