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International Writer’s Festival a hit in Jerusalem

The International Writer’s Festival has returned to Jerusalem packing heat. The biennial event, which kicked off on Monday, has nearly as many international writers present as Israelis, many of whom defied pressure back home to steer clear of Israel, according to Uri Dromi, director general of Mishkenot Sha’ananim, the main location of the festival (events are also taking place at cafes, cinemas and even the Mahane Yehuda market all during the week).

Dromi was speaking at the opening to an enjoyable, often raucously funny meet-up between American writer Gary Shteyngart and Israeli surreal short story’ist Etgar Keret. My wife and I always try to attend at least one session during the festival, as much for the atmosphere – hundreds of Israelis who have come together for literature! – as well as the specific authors.

At the sold out dialogue between Keret and Shteyngart, the latter read from his latest book, “Super Sad True Love Story,” set in a dystopian future where everyone wears a necklace of sorts that broadcasts one’s social status and financial status – it’s Facebook gone crazy with any hints of privacy entirely eviscerated.

Keret mostly played the interviewer although he peppered his questions with a few stories of his own, mostly about his father who passed away six weeks ago. In a touching and original way, Keret has replaced the religious “Kaddish” that is traditionally said for a year after a parent dies with a pledge to speak about his dad in any public appearance he makes. His main story at the Shteyngart meet-up involved cancer, coughing and coffee.

The Mishkenot Sha’ananim setting is, to indulge in a cliché, picture perfect. Our session was held in a large white tent erected specially for the festival, open on one side, with a spectacular view of the Old City.

Other international writers appearing at the festival include Lukas Barfuss from Switzerland, Aimee Bender from the U.S. (whose latest book has the unflappable title “The Girl with the Flammable Skirt”), Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo, and Tracy Chevalier whose best known work, “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” sold four million copies and was made into a successful movie.

Chevalier was in the audience for the Shteyngart–Keret shindig, which was a treat for me because we both went to Oberlin College, graduating a year apart. I was sure that we must have known each other (I was a Creative Writing major, she was in the English department), but alas, it seems we never crossed paths and my chance at reminiscing with a true literary celebrity was reduced to a few friendly words and some pleasant small talk.

If you’re in Jerusalem and you have an hour or two to spare, the International Writer’s Festival continues until Thursday.

Nostalgia Sunday – The Templer German Colonies

The Israel Academy for Film and Television competition for the 2012 Ophir Awards will open on May 13, 2012, and will take place during the months of May, June and July at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. Winners will be announced at the Ophir Awards Ceremony, which will take place in September 2012.

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.

Nostalgia Sunday – Not the 9 o’clock news

Ladies and gentlemen, history was made on the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) nightly newscast at 8 minutes to 8 this evening when the Israel Broadcasting Authority announced that the Israel Broadcasting Authority nightly newscast would be broadcast at 8 minutes to 8 this and every evening henceforth. Earth shattering, I know, and only 20 years after it would have actually been a significant announcement. Coming as it does, in 2012, it is another in a string of dopey decisions made over the years. Let’s take a look back on a few, shall we?

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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*Some of IBA’s other slights against the public include bellyaching about salaries and how they’re under threat of being closed down, the lack of imagination that led them to sue the Israel Olympic Committee for misappropriation of IETV’s Kishkashta character instead of turning it into a win-win by granting the rights and bringing the beloved comic cactus international fame, plus their tendency to imply that in a national emergency they will simply shut off the tap and we’ll all be forced, once again, to watch IBA while sitting in our sealed rooms. But the real offender is the annual television tax, known in Hebrew as ha-agra — or as I call it, the agrrraaauuuggghhh! — which is supposed to fund quality programming. Here, you might compare IBA to the Ricky Gervais movie, The Invention of Lying, about a fact-based existence where even the most major of movie productions feature dour seated personages reading aloud from books about historical events. But that’s supposed to be a joke, kids, not reality.

Nostalgia Sunday – ViewMaster Israel

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 – A street view of Israel with Google StreetView

Earlier this week, Google let it be known that it would be launching the long-awaited StreetView application for Israel. The official launch date is this Sunday, April 22, but the soft launch apparently happened yesterday and seems to be working on Google Maps Netherlands at this point.

StreetView, which is part of Google Maps, lets users explore places around the world through 360-degree panoramic 3D imagery of city streets, public spaces, museums, national parks and more. (Here’s a quick video on how to use it).

Google accomplishes this by deploying a fleet of cars topped by a 15 lens camera taking 360 degrees of photos as it drives along. The car also also has motion sensors to track its position, a hard drive to store data, a small computer running the system, and lasers to capture 3D data to determine distances within the Street View imagery.

Google provides a nice explanation of how its done. And last year, this fellow posted a video of himself following the Google car down Tel Aviv’s Ben Yehuda street, writing “Look how lucky I am to capture the car that is capturing me.”

Given that Israel is a major R&D center for Google, the launch took longer than expected. This was due to concerns over security — not unjustified as Palestinian militants have stated that Google Earth satellite images have been used to identify targets in rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israel. Similarly, there were concerns about Google StreetView possibly being used by terrorists to attack critical locations and/or important personages. Privacy concerns were less of an issue — in Israel, security trumps privacy every time. Plus, we are the kind of people who feel “lucky” if we’re captured by a Google cam!

The Google Map of Israel…

View Larger Map

So far, StreetView has covered neighborhoods, universities and museums in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, plus a few smaller towns and tourist sites around the country.

The Jerusalem Theater…
View Larger Map

The Harp Bridge at the entrance to Jerusalem…
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The Knesset…
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Western Wall…
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And here’s where my running group, the Holyland Hash House Harriers, will be meeting tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 PM, right in the Valley of the Cross. All are invited and beer will be served.

View Larger Map

 

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