Nostalgia Sunday – Indian Movie

July 10, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Movies, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Profiles, tv 

There is very exciting news this week on the film front. A delegation of India’s top Bollywood leaders (here under the auspices of Project Interchange/ American Jewish Committee, in cooperation with AIJAC,) have arrived in Israel to explore joint ventures and scout location sites as well as participate in a panel at the Jerusalem International Film Festival.

You might think that Israelis view Indian cinema as a form of exotica but you would be wrong. Israelis are long-time lovers of Indian movies. In the the 60s, 70s and on through the 80s, a high percentage of the movies shown in Israeli cinemas were in Arabic,Turkish or Hindi – particularly in towns whose populations originated in the Middle East and India.

According to a 2005 article about Israeli fans of Bollywood from the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), “A majority of the [70,000] Indian Jews here are Bene Israelis, who hail from Maharashtra. Then there are the Cochin Jews, the Kutchi Jews, the Baghdadi Jews and the recently discovered Bene Menashe, Jews from Mizoram and Manipur in northeastern India, believed to be descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel.”

They are, the author says, “a community whose religion brought them to the Promised Land, but whose hearts still throb to Bollywood beats.”

To serve this audience, there are two Indian channels available today: one for movies, the other for soap operas. Its this sort of fare that inspired Pop star Dana International when she paid homage to the genre in her 2009 duet with Idan Yaniv, “Seret Hodi” (Indian Movie).

But my sentiments lie farther back in time, with girl group trio Shokolad, Menta, Mastik and their song-skit, “Seret Hodi Nehedar” (Wonderful Indian Movie). A take-off on the three hour-long viewing experience that runs the emotional gamut from comedy to tragedy and back again, the parody brings together all elements of Indian-influenced pop culture in the early 70s: star-crossed lovers, a domineering, knife-wielding father and the Fab Four.

Unfortunately, there are no clips of this silly ditty in a live performance but someone has kindly posted the music and lyrics. A translation follows… Read more

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Nostalgia Sunday – Yoram Levy ad king

July 3, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, tv 

It transpires that I am a big Yoram Levy fan and didn’t know it. Levy created some of Israel’s most memorable film advertisements back in the day when you had to get to the movies early if you wanted to catch the commercials — and we did! This one for Stock 84 brandy is notable not only for the 70s fashions but also because it is proof positive of our shared national belief that pilots are, indeed, the apex of Israeli manhood.

Tourists are funny! They have blonde hair, wear Speedos and happily drink our local brew, Maccabi beer, while we locals pine for a nice cold Heineken. But the market hasn’t yet been opened to imports.

More funny tourists! A Japanese couple and an Israeli saleslady drive one another into a mutual frenzy over Nili Textiles.

This last one is from the TV era. It’s an ad for Dapey Zahav, our local Yellow Pages phone directory featuring Dovale Gliksman as a flustered florist and a young Keren Mor as his hapless would-be customer. My favorite line: “Ah, I see you’re looking at the sunflowers”.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Service Women

June 26, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, education, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Politics, Social Justice, War 

This past Thursday, Brig. Gen. Orna Barbivai was assigned the rank of Major General and the position of Head of the Human Resources Directorate in a formal ceremony at the Chief of Staff’s offices in Tel Aviv. Barbivai is the first woman in the history of the IDF to attain the rank of Major General.

A previous post about the women in the British Army’s Jewish Brigade provides much information about the role of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the women’s corps) which served as the roots for CHEN, the women’s arm of the Israel Defense Force which was founded in 1948. Two important following dates: 1995, when Israel’s Supreme Court ruling abolished the limitation on women engaging in combat roles, and 2001 when CHEN was incorporated into the General Staff.

Feisty nonagenarian Esther Herlitz, a former ATS soldier, diplomat and politician, blogged about Barbivai’s promotion, stating: “Congratulations to Orna and Israel’s female population, they will serve as a model to be emulated of breaking the glass ceiling without getting hurt.

“But our congratulations come with a warning: Barbivai must not be showcased as “the woman general”… There are more jobs and more female senior IDF officers – the Chief Education Officer, for instance. The Home Front Command lacks a female senior officer…”

“The fact that only 42% of [young Israeli women] enlist… is a warning sign women’s organizations in Israel and the entire community. I’m sure the new major-general would not want to be without soldiers…

“Mandatory service of our daughters in the IDF is part of our heritage and our position in the world…Military service is the best school in general and in particular for one’s independence, family life and professional life.”

All photos courtesy of the National Photo Collection, newly opened to the online public.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Israel Does Dylan

June 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture 

I don’t know if anyone’s heard but Bob Dylan is playing a concert in Israel tomorrow night.

In honor of the occasion, here’s a small selection of Dylan covers as performed over the years by Israeli artists, starting with an adaptation by poet Yehonatan Geffen of Dylan’s ironic With God on Our Side.

The bitter lyrics in Geffen’s version refer to the Israel-Arab conflict; they are balanced out by David Broza’s sweet singing.

David Broza & Yehonatan Geffen - With God on Our Side

It’s only natural that, in addition to a poetic bent, Yehonatan Geffen’s son Aviv should also inherit an affinity for Dylan. And in the case of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, the son exceeds the father.

Aviv Geffen - A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

One usually doesn’t automatically think of pop singers together with Dylan but this rendition of Mama, You Been On My Mind — sung by balladeer Rita together with Shlomi Saban, a graduate of Kohav Nolad (the Israeli version of talent competition “Pop Idol”) — works.

Rita and Shlomi Saban – Mama, You Been On My Mind

Ninet is another Kohav Nolad grad who’s made good and her work with Aviv Geffen has apparently had an influence on her song choices. In this case: the Hebrew version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door which was translated by the late great Meir Ariel who, along with Geffen Senior and Junior, was one of the few Israeli artists with the guts to take on the Master’s works. (Unfortunately, Ariel’s version of the song has been taken offline).

Ninet Tyeb – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Another Israeli artist willing to take on Dylan is the controversial Ariel Zilber. One of the original Israeli rockers, Zilber became religious and a supporter of the Right-wing following Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Here, although all the while seated, he belts out a heartfelt version of Neighborhood Bully. The lyrics needed very little adapting — as they are, they say everything Zilber means .

Ariel Zilber – Neighborhood Bully

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Nostalgia Sunday – Dolls on Display

June 12, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, design, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Travel 

I collected dolls as a child. More accurately put: on our many travels and no doubt inspired by “It’s A Small World After All”, in each country, my parents would purchase a “look but don’t touch” doll in national dress. Sometimes two, like the boy gondolier and his Venetian lady-friend. Or the Greek soldier in his white pleated skirt and his Athenian lady-friend. The Spanish flamenco dancer and her gentleman friend with the guitar. And so on and so forth.

Once home, these would go on a shelf. As with all knick-knacks, if you get enough of the same things, they eventually become a collection and so it was.

In addition to the Italian, Yugoslav, Greek and Japanese couples, there were the Israeli sabras: the soldier boy and, of course, the pioneering woman, shouldering her orange crate, plaited braids peeping out from beneath her kova tembel hat. There was also a charming Yemenite family scene made entirely of colorful twisted phone wire. And “Srulik”, the quintessential Israeli cartoon character made of some bizarre rubbery plastic or strange plasticky rubber.

The dolls, of course, were not only looked at but were also touched. A great deal, in fact. So much so that many fell apart. Imagine my relief, therefore, to learn that some other children had obeyed the rules and kept their dolls whole so that they might now be put on display at the Eretz Israel Museum.

The exhibit, A Land and It’s Dolls – Israel and National Identity, looks at local national costume dolls as a 70-year long sociocultural phenomenon that began before the establishment of the State of Israel, and came to its end in the late 1980s.

The heyday for these collectibles, writes curator Dr. Shelly Shenhav-Keller, were between the 1950s and the 1970s. “These dolls were made by artists, artisans and craftspeople who used an array of techniques and styles, typically employing straightforward methods. Most of the doll makers and designers were not born in the country; some of them had had art or artisan education and others had a modicum of knowledge of the field.”

“The dolls were displayed and sold privately, in souvenir shops or in shops owned by institutional bodies such as WIZO, Maskit and Hameshakem. They were bought as souvenirs, mementos of a place or an experience, by Israelis and particularly Jewish tourists who took them home with them after they left the country, a scrap of their national homeland in the shape of ornamental dolls that depicted local types, later to be put on display in their faraway homes.

Well, that would be my collection in a nutshell.

Shenhav-Keller believes that the dolls in this exhibit “manifest symbols, values and myths that relate to the creation of Israeli identity: nationality, ethnicity, the melting pot, pluralism and multiculturalism… attempting to answer the question: did these dolls… reflect, represent, shape or invent the sought-after imagined and hegemonic Israeliness?” They are, she says, “…witnesses to the story we wished to tell ourselves as a society, the story we wished to show ourselves, tell ourselves and others. At the same time, they give a knowing wink to the essence of the story.”

Since I never, in all of our travels, ever encountered a Spanish flamenco dancer with a fan or a German boy wearing lederhosen — it was jeans and t-shirts pretty much everywhere you went — I can only conclude that most of the dolls sold to tourists the world over were manifestations of nationalist symbols, values and myths. (Shenhav-Keller herself puts the late 1980s as the date that the doll trend ended). I guess Barbie would be the embodiment of hegemonic American-ness, globalization, etc. etc. I don’t care. I liked the collection but Barbie was my most favorite doll.

A Land and It’s Dolls – Israel and National Identity runs through November 15, 2011 at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.

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