“Technology has caught up to the imagination of Lomax,” and his vision of a “global jukebox”, wrote the New York Times of the newly opened ACE storehouse of audio treasure. Locally, the same is true. Only a few weeks ago, Israeli nostalgia repository Nostal.co.il launched an online radio station of old Israeli songs. Late last summer, we reported on Shapam’s collection of old radio ad spots. And now, the largest collection of Israeli music from pre-State to recent times, has been made available to the general public.

The Kol Israel preservation project was conducted by the National Sound Archives which is part of the Music Department at the Israel National Library. The Archives has the world’s largest collection of ethnographic and commercial recordings of Israeli and Jewish music. The online collection is available both via the National Sound Archive and through the Israel Broadcasting Authority website.

In a radio interview on Friday, Dr. Gila Flam, Head of the Music Department and National Sound Archive, described the volume of the Kol Israel project. In 1983, 6,300 phonograph records belonging to Kol Israel to the National Library. The majority were recordings of radio broadcasts as well as commercial recordings. Flam noted that these were rare acetate master records produced specifically for radio broadcast.

An additional 20,000 records containing a variety of materials were transferred in 2002 of which approximately 5,000 were selected for cataloging and preservation.

Most of these records contain broadcasts from the 1950s and include many unique recordings, chiefly in the field of Israeli music. The labels, which were photographed and cataloged, contain relevant information, such as the name of the artist, production date, etc. There are speeches, such as Israeli Ambassador to the US Abba Eban’s speech on Israel’s 9th Day of Independence, holiday songs like Tu b’Shvat (a dolorous ditty but included here in honor of the upcoming holiday), Im Nin’alu performed by Yemenite immigrants (the song was later made famous in a dance-trance version by the late great Ofra Haza), and of course, no Israeli musicological collection would be complete without accordion renditions of folk dances like Simi Yadech b’Yadi (Put your hand in mine) and Hora Agadati.

There are curiosities as well, such as Arik Lavie’s HaSela HaAdom (The Red Rock) which is labeled quite plainly: “This record is forbidden from broadcast”. The reason for the banning? The song, which described a midnight trip across the border into what was once enemy territory, to visit Jordan’s legendary Petra, had apparently inspired many young people to make similar treks to their peril. And so, Israel Radio bore the national responsibility to quash the trend.

The Legacy Heritage Fund, which provided funding for the digitization project, states, “Because of their impaired physical state, the records cannot be played at all, even for research purposes. The majority are made of acetate and are considered to be at risk because of chemical processes which could cause them to disintegrate at any moment. According to the research and directives of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), these materials should be transferred to digital format immediately in order to preserve their content.”

“As part of this project the Kol Israel recordings, among others, are being transferred from analog to digital format. The Sound Archive includes studios equipped with instruments for optimal playback of old records and conversion to digital formats. After undergoing a cleaning and fixing process, the original materials are converted to both WAV files, for preservation, and MP3 files, to enable access. The preservation process is compliant with the IASA standards.”

Each month, dozens of new audio files will be added. The complete Kol Israel collection is currently being digitized and is scheduled to be uploaded by the end of 2012.

The library has also compiled collections of songs for ease of listening, such as a Nostalgic Hebrew Songs compilation.

The Music Department and National Sound Archive at the National Library welcomes public contributions and additions to the collections and knowledge database on any subject relating to Jewish or Israeli music and are happy to receive songs, recordings, manuscripts and any other material relevant to this field of study.

BTW: The ACE collection has almost no Jewish/Israeli content (Lomax researched the US, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain) but there is a radio show from 1948 that features part of this song, Dance the Hora: “Don’t be sad now, little one, little one / I command you to be happy / All our lives are sorrowful, sorrowful / Come forget your fears and troubles / Let’s have rhythm, let’s have dancing / Bring the music, bring the wine / Let the old and young clasp hands now / dance the hora /” etc. etc. It isn’t much of a folk song — or a song, for that matter — but the lyrics, sung in accented English to the accompaniment of an accordion (what else?) gives some insight as to the Jewish condition in that important year.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s the case anyway with the current TV ad campaign by cable provider HOT, which is promoting its ‘on-demand’ epidsodes of the popular spy-comedy show ‘Asfur’ by offering a free Samsung Galaxy tablet as enticement for prospective customers to sign up for the on-demand package.

In the ad, a bored Mossad agent stationed in Iran, apparently to monitor Iran’s nuclear development, meets up with three characters from the show who are also clandestinely in the country dressed as women. Sitting in a café, the agent shows off the Samsung Galaxy, explaining that he used his downtime to use the on-demand option to watch episodes of ‘Asfur.’

At the end of the clip, one of the three Asfur accidentally pushes an application on the tablet over the frantic efforts of the agent, and a nuclear reactor is detonated in the background.

Typical Israeli sophomoric, whistling in the dark, hilarious humor. But evidently neither Iran nor Samsung are seeing the levity in it. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post sourcing Iran’s Press TV, Arsalan Fat’hipour, who heads the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, said over the weekend that Tehran was considering imposing a complete ban on buying all Samsung products. And, of course, they’ll probably aim their first operational nuke at the HOT corporate offices.

Meanwhile Samsung issued a statement saying, “Samsung Electronics is aware of a recent news report in Iranian media regarding an advertisement aired by HOT cable network of Israel. This advertisement was produced by HOT cable network without Samsung’s knowledge or participation… As a member of the global community, Samsung is committed to demonstrating respect for all people and cultures around the globe.”

The question is, how did Iran know that HOT was even airing the ads? Do they have spy here who subscribes to the company’s ‘Three-in-one” cable/Internet/phone service? If so, I hope they’re just as frustrated as the rest of us at having ‘You, Me & Dupree’ screening a million times a month on its movie channels. But I also hope he doesn’t have an itchy trigger finger.

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Not that anyone other than those that participated actually saw anything, but overnight earlier this week, about 1,000 paratroopers in the IDF conducted a brigade-level parachute jump exercise.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the last time such a drill was held was over 15 years ago, even though soldiers in the Paratroopers Brigade, as well as some other IDF units, continue to undergo parachuting training on a regular basis.

The jump was kept hush-hush, but of course the families and friends of the families knew all about it, which means that most of the country was aware it was taking place. And when the army publicly disclosed the exercise 24 hours later and published photos and video of the jump, proud fathers and mothers scrutinized them for a glimpse of their sons.

According to military assessments, those sons are going to play an important role in any potential future conflict in the region.

“We cannot know what will happen in the changing Middle East and every western military which respects itself needs to know how to parachute large forces, bring them back together and then launch an attack,” Paratroopers Brigade commander Col. Amir Baram told reporters ahead of the jump which was done from Israel Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft over the Negev Desert

The jump went off as planned, and while the commanders were concerned that some paratroopers might be injured during the landing due to the heavy loads they were carrying, the IDF announced that only four soldiers required medical treatment for injuries to their legs.

Take a look at the jump here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Will Tel Aviv bars become the next university lecture hall?

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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Panoramic photography, states Wikipedia, “is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography.” (Click here for more about the methods used to create 360 images). Panoramic photo images have been around since the mid 1800s; this one of Jerusalem was taken in the early 20th century.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

As with everything else photographic, clearly, the technology has evolved. Take, for example, this amazing 360 degree panoramic photo of the Galilee.

Tel Yodfat, Galilee, Israel in Israel

The Church of All Nations is located on Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, next to the Garden of Gethsemane. Click on this photo — the link will take you to a panoramic view of the Church, the Garden and the walls of the Old City, courtesy of 3D Israel.

Israeli company Simply Live has developed a highly technologically advanced 360 degree video camera (only last week presented at the Bezeq Expo innovation showcase). Click on this photo of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — the link takes you to their site where you can view an interactive video that allows you to enter and move through the Church interior.

A fascinating if politically charged panoramic view of Israel’s coastline as viewed from the West Bank is available at MyIsrael.com. The site owners are very blunt about the purpose of the wide-angle shot: they wish to show how vulnerable Israel would be to an attack were pre-1967 borders to be reinstated. It takes only one look to see why the situation here is complicated.

Even on its own, the image is complex: a very wide-angle view (MyIsrael.com say it is the largest publicly available) with interactive controls so that viewers can zoom in on highly detailed close ups. Photographer Yaal Herman provides several pages of explanation on how the photo (really hundreds of photos stitched together) was accomplished. Click on this thumbnail to see the full version.

Whatever the political future holds, we can still hope for stability, quiet and — dare I say it? — peace. A few weeks ago, I was in Bethlehem once again for the annual Papal Peace Run. Instead of a highly secured, quick in-and-out, I would like to be able to return one day at my leisure to visit the Church of the Nativity. Till then, I will visit this way — and invite you to do so, too. Happy holidays to all.

Church Nativity Bethlehem in Israel

Grotto of the Nativity – Church of the Nativity, Betlehem in Israel

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Apple is reportedly buying Israeli chipmaker Anobit for a half a billion dollars.

My friend Eliezer is such an Apple fanboy that, when he heard that Apple is planning to open a development center in Israel in Haifa, he seriously considered moving or commuting there.

While I expect Eliezer will maintain his Jerusalem residence, the news was nevertheless exciting (especially for those – me not included unfortunately – who bought Apple stock when it dipped below $80/share at the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008 – it closed at $383 today – and believe a blue and white connection will boost that price even further). For the rest of us, well: Apple in Israel – wow! And even more so: this will be Apple’s first ever development center outside the U.S.

Apple’s plans materialized earlier this week when a delegation headed by Apple VP Ed Frank, visited Israel over the weekend, touring sites like Haifa’s Scientific Industries Center (MATAM), according to Ynet.

Ynet also reported that Aharon Aharon, former head of Zoran Corporation’s R&D center, has been named the head of the new development center in Israel. The Marker added that Apple has hired a real estate company to find it a site big enough to house about 200 workers.

The move apparently is not dependent on another big Apple announcement: the acquisition of Israeli chipmaker Anobit, currently in the works for some half a billion dollars, but the two will undoubtedly play off each other. Anobit develops flash memory for smart phones, tablet computers and music players – all three of which are Apple’s hottest properties. Faster flash could help speed up Apple’s devices, which would help keep the distance between iPhones, iPads and competing Android units.

How did Apple get interested in Israel? It may have started when the company hired Haifa  resident Johny Srouji in 2008. Srouji is a VP at the company involved in the chip-making field. Never hurts to have a little protexia in Cupertino.

Will a bonified Apple presence increase the adoption rate of Apple tech in the Holy Land? Judging from visits to my local Aroma café, Apple has nothing to worry about: I now see more MacBooks than Windows machines these days.

But hosting Apple’s first overseas development center certainly gives us bragging rights…that is until the next big deal in this hi-tech Holy Land is announced.

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Anaglyph images provide a stereoscopic effect when viewed through glasses with two different colored lenses. The technology is enjoying a 21st century comeback due to Photoshop and other programs that allow people to easily create anaglyph images and post them online. So, get your red and cyan spectacles on! It’s time to view the sights and sounds of the Holy Land in three dimensions!

There’s been a resurgence in anaglyph movies as well. Production company Highlight Films provides a range of services to facilitate and manage TV, film and video productions, including researchers, production fixers, camera crews, HD cameras and equipment, location scouting, personnel and, of course, 3D film and video. Enjoy.

3D HD landscapes of Israel

3D Dead Sea 7 Wonders

3D Jerusalem

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Moses (er...Steve Jobs) introducing the iPad

Late Apple founder Steve Jobs has often been likened to a hi-tech prophet, sensing consumer need before the public had any idea that they desperately desired a portable music player or a tablet computer. Now, Britain’s Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has accused Jobs of playing Moses for the modern day, “coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad 1 and iPad 2,” and laying down the foundations for a “consumer society.”

The result, Sacks says, is not positive this time. “We have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTunes. It’s all i, i, i, nowadays. (But) when you’re an individualist, egocentric culture and you only care about ‘i’, you don’t do terribly well.”

Now, Israel is certainly as i-Crazy as anywhere else in the world. I may be even more so. As a Mac-addict since nearly the beginning (I bought my first boxy Mac SE in 1998) and as part of a family that owns two iPhones, an iPod Touch, three iPods in various states of disrepair, and a growing brood of Macintosh computers (we only have one working Windows machine left), I don’t take particularly kindly to Sachs telling me my buying practices constitute values that “aren’t ones you can live by for terribly long,” and that western society has built “the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.”

Thanks, Jonathan, for bumming out my day, not to mention disrespecting the genius of Steve Jobs who undoubtedly had many more similarly debased tricks up his digital sleeve before his painfully premature passing.

Now to be fair, Sachs isn’t entirely off base. I fully agree that an overly consumer-focused society goes too far into making one pine away for what you don’t have, rather than being grateful for what you do. This is not a trivial problem by any means, and it’s certainly been an important subtext to both the recent Occupy Wall Street protests in the U.S. and our own social justice demonstrations this summer.

And Sachs solution – “the world of faith, which the Jews call the world of Shabbat, where you can’t shop and you can’t spend and so you spend your time with things that matter, with family” – is right on, whether you’re religious or not. In our house, when the Sabbath comes, we urge our family to do their best to unplug; to turn off the electronic devices, for at least those 25 hours a week.

We’re not always successful, but Sachs has got that one right, and it’s been a critical factor to our family’s cohesiveness. But that was no reason to go and dis Steve. And no matter what you say, Lord Sachs, I’m still buying that iPhone 4S, whenever Israel actually lets it into the country that is (see my previous post here).

One more point: Rabbi Sacks’ office has subsequently tried to tone down their boss’s comments, saying that, “The chief rabbi meant no criticism of either Steve Jobs personally or the contribution Apple has made to the development of technology in the 21st century.” He was simply “pointing out the potential dangers of consumerism when taken too far.”

And, the statement added, the Rabbi “uses an iPhone and an iPad on a daily basis.”

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Barbara Levine is helping to get the Tel Aviv light rail system on track.

And now, the country’s other major city, Tel Aviv, is following suit as it begins work on its own light rail system.

In early October, bulldozers started burrowing three 82-foot vertical shafts through which the mining equipment will be lowered to dig out the underground, Petah Tikva-to-Jaffa section of the Red Line. The entire route, planned to open in 2017, will reach as far south as Bat Yam and Holon.

In addition to the Red Line, Tel Aviv will get a Green Line, partly underground and partly at street level, and a Purple Line at street level. All are designed for easy transfers between LRT stops as well as bus stops and Israel Railway stations.

All told, the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Mass Transit System is the biggest infrastructure project in Israel’s history. And one of it’s prime movers who’s in charge of “rolling stock” – the vehicles, signaling, traction power, tracks and fare collection system is a transplanted American woman – 62-year-old Barbara Levine.
Read all about her on ISRAEL21c.

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iPhone 4S

Here they go again. The Communications Ministry has banned imports of the iPhone 4S, Apple’s latest. You would have thought Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon would have learned from the previous debacle, where his agency attempted to ban Apple’s iPad. That ended after massive public pressure forced Kahlon to change his mind.

In the iPad version of the story, the Communications Ministry claimed that the iPad’s WiFi specifications did not match Israeli standards and Apple needed to tweak the device before it could be imported. Everyone knew that the story was a bunch of hoo-ee. There’s no difference between WiFi in Israel and Europe and the iPad was designed to work with WiFi anywhere in the world.

The real reason, clearly, was that the cellular companies, which wanted first crack at selling the device, had colluded with the Communications Ministry to get a head start.

This time around, the Communications Ministry didn’t even hide its corruption. According to The Jerusalem Post, importers won’t be able to bring in the phone “until Israeli mobile carriers launch (the) iPhone 4S” and, until then, “the ministry will not issue a certificate for a new device and will not allow it into the country.”

Could they be any more obvious?

The article continued that this plan was part of a telecommunications law “reform.” I’m guessing that the social justice protesters this summer weren’t pushing for this kind of reform.

It isn’t clear whether the ban refers only to commercial importers or to individuals as well. In any case, since the iPhone 4S is identical in design to the iPhone 4 (which is permitted), unless customs officials are particularly savvy, it’s doubtful they’ll flag the phone. Unless the owner decides to declare it through the “red line” at the airport.

In response to inquiries, The Post quoted the Communications Ministry as saying, “Following the request by the importers and mobile carriers on this matter, the ministry is in the approval process, and commercial imports of the devices will be approved as soon as possible.”

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