Tel Aviv bars get physical

December 29, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, education, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Technology 

Will Tel Aviv bars become the next university lecture hall?

I used to get dizzy from studying physics in high school. But that’s because I had no idea what the teacher was talking about. Israeli participants in a new science lecture series have a better reason for feeling a little light headed though. The talks are taking place in Tel Aviv bars.

According to Ha’aretz, the series of lectures on everything from quantum physics and linguistics to space and high tech is the initiative of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, which is looking for ways to broaden their student base.

“”We were thinking about how to get to the general public, who might find science lectures interesting but just doesn’t know it. If we arrived at where they were, they might listen,” Weizmann Institute spokesman Yivsam Azgad told Haaretz. Especially if there’s some really good dark beer on tap, he might have added.

At first, the idea was met with skepticism by the hip, Tel Aviv night club establishment.

“Bar owners were reluctant to give away their establishment on Thursday nights. There were those who told me ‘you don’t know bars in Tel Aviv, they’re loud, people drink and make out, how would the lecturer feel?’”

Only that it turned out that the skeptics were in the minority, with the project now taking place in 40 bars, including some of the biggest and most successful in the city, with another 50-venue project in the works.

Some offshoots to the project include “User Interface on a Beer,” a series of lectures taking place in bars and geared at programmers and Internet professionals. Another is Wize, which hosts bar lectures on a weekly basis. The upshot is that the science geeks and the beautiful night lifers are finding out they’re often one and the same. And, if nothing else, there are surely some very original pick up lines coming out of the lectures. Did you hear the one about the wave function who couldn’t walk straight?

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A very merry Christmas

December 27, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Religion 

It’s always a little shocking how Christmas can just come and go around here with little awareness that it’s been and gone. Sure, there are the Christmas decorations on the southern end of Hebron Road, heading toward Bethlehem. And there are the occasional articles or public service announcements about where to pick up one’s KKL Christmas trees, or storefronts decorated with Christmas-like ornaments. There’s also my upstairs neighbor who decorated his window box plants with Christmas lights that twinkle from 6 pm to 10 pm most nights. I’m not sure where he got the idea — he’s a fairly born-and-bred Israeli — but the awareness is out there.

I had an interesting conversation with a local minister about Christmas in Israel, and how it characterizes itself in this land of many Jews, whether identified or not. Reverend David Neuhaus, the Latin Patriarchal Vicar at the Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel, said the following in Expeditions:

“It’s really more meaningful in Israel,” says Neuhaus. “Christmas is ultimately religious here because there’s nothing commercial or social going on, and there’s so much of that elsewhere. And then you’re celebrating it here, where everything happened.”

These days, it’s a diverse crowd celebrating Jesus’ birth. You’ve got foreign workers from all over the world, Christian Arabs, missionary types, pilgrims, and the smattering of Israelis who just like to attend Christmas Mass, which smacks of ‘chul‘ — the world out there — for them. Indu, a Sri Lankan woman I know, lit up when I asked her today about her Christmas. While it was bittersweet because she wasn’t with her four kids and family, she got to go to Bethlehem twice, on a van chartered by her and her friends.

“It was mobbed,” she told me. “So many people celebrating together.”

A different kind of Christmas, which is hopefully a good thing.

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Hanukkah at the Dead Sea

December 26, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Religion, Travel 

The country is in full Hanukkah mode this week. Arriving late afternoon at a Dead Sea hotel for an overnight stay, we were kicking ourselves for forgetting to bring our Hanukkia with us in order to light candles.

But soon after checking in, and returning from a quick walk to the Dead, we returned to the hotel, and found tens of guests in the lobby with hotel staff lighting around 15 different hanukkiyot. We joined them – some observant, some not, some even non-Jewish tourists (and without any separation between men and women) – and then participated in singing a few Hanukkah songs. A hotel worker wheeled out a tray of fresh sufganiyot and passed them out to everyone.

Even though I appreciated the gesture, I’ve already eaten my share of fried dough and jelly for the next few years, so I passed, and headed to the hotel spa. Not a bad way to spend the sixth day of Hanukkah.

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Forever 21, forever Israeli

December 25, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, General, Israeliness, Life 

I know that fashion is usually Jessica’s territory, but I couldn’t pass this one up.

The Forever 21 youth oriented international fashion chain has spent the past few months getting ready to break into the Israeli market with a two-story flagship store in Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Mall.

But the veteran clothiers – strategically going up against H&M here in Israel – never anticipated the reaction the opening of the store would prompt from the apparently fashion-starved young Israeli public. According to Ynet, some 4,000 people have been showing up each day since the store opened last week, leaving huge piles of clothes and beverage cans scattered around the store.

The clothes racks were in utter disorder. It was difficult to find a single stand with the same item in different sizes, as one would expect to find in any organized fashion chain, apart from several racks that were out of the shoppers’ reach.

Customers were seen trying on clothes outside the fitting rooms and throwing them on the floor in complete mess… Many of the items, like bras, were sold out on the very first day and the entire store appeared to be out of control.

“It looks like the scene of a terror attack, Heaven forbid,” one of the customers said to a saleswoman. The latter responded, “More like a war.”

Another customer mumbled, “It looks like a second-hand store, a market.” The saleswoman replied, “You’re right.”

I guess they’ve never been to the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv where protocol is a dirty word, or for that matter, to Filene’s Basement in Boston.

When I lived there, you were taking your life into your hands by venturing to the discounted bottom floor of the clothing store in downtown Boston. Women would be slugging it out over hand bags, and trying on blouses and dresses in the middle of the aisles. The goings on at Forever 21, detailed in the Ynet story, seem positively tame by comparison

“There was a woman who wanted to take a bracelet off a stand and just ripped it. People are stepping on the clothes. It was organized in the morning, I swear.”

“We’re really trying, but the customers are storming the store and leaving clothes on the floor. We no longer know what belongs where. I’m really sorry.”

A representative from the chain took the onslaught in stride, explaining that they’ve learned that Israelis are the world leaders in the number of items bought at the chain: All over the world the average is two to three items per person, while in Israel it’s seven and a half items per person.

“Now it’s clear why we experienced this mess. A girl who wants to buy seven items has to try on 20. As there is no available fitting room, she tries it on outside, creating a mess.”

The short-term solution is to bring in more sales help, especially from Japan, where similar behavior took place at Forever 21 stores. However, as a store rep said, “In Japan the stores were stormed too, but they are organized people and put everything back in place neatly. The Israelis aren’t as organized.”

Welcome to Tel Aviv, Forever 21.

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Hadarat Nashim

December 23, 2011 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, education, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Religion 

On my way downtown this morning on the Egged bus (the 74, which makes its way from the southern end of Jerusalem to the northern end via Derech Hevron, then onto Keren Hayesod and King George), we sidled alongside a protest of some sorts, taking place on the street, along King George. We on the bus all looked on in interest, trying to figure out who and what was being protested.

For my part, I noticed the, by and large, lack of kippot or covered heads for women, so it was a clearly mostly secular crowd. It wasn’t until I saw one of the signs that mentioned “הדרת נשים”, that I realized it was another protest, one of many of late, demanding respect for the exclusion of women. And so, when the woman across from me — wearing a sheitel — asked what the protest was about, I was able to tell her. And she nodded, along with others in the bus.

The only reason I now know the term hadarat nashim, or exlusion of women, (I originally wrote dignity of women, as it was first described to me), is because it’s become a catchphrase in our daily language over the last few weeks. After the recent spate of incidents on buses, with women being told to sit in the back, to segregate themselves from the men, people are speaking out in the streets, in the newspapers, and on the buses.

I learned the term at a parlor meeting with Councilwoman Rachel Azaria, who’s becoming well-known in these parts for her great work on the part of young families in Jerusalem, but primarily for having her portfolio taken away by the mayor for petitioning the High Court of Justice to immediately remove gender barriers in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods that were erected during Sukkot. It was once more of a ‘gender studies’ kind of term, a friend of mine told me, whose sister teaches gender studies, but has now become much more common, because we appear to need to understand the concept in these parts.

In the meantime, back to the protest. Got off the bus, just across from the plaza in front of the former Hamashbir department store, where the protesters were gathering and dancing to some Hadag Nachash being blasted from the speakers.

And who should I bump into but Rachel Azaria, just making her way into the crowd, and getting ready to speak. We said hi, and I told her thanks for teaching me the term hadarat nashim. She responded, “You would have learned it sooner or later.” True, I told her, but more memorable to learn it from her.

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