Foto Friday – Purim Costumes, Israel style

March 9, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: design, education, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Travel, tv 

In our globalized wired world, its very hard to find a truly Israeli Purim costume. Gone are the times when little girls would dream of dressing up like Queen Esther and little boys live like wicked Haman for the day. Needless to say, the era of home-made dress-up has also passed — though many families do invest in having a seamstress whip up a bespoke fairy princess gown or two — and importers like Shoshi Zohar make their fortune each year at Purim time.

Nonetheless, a thorough perusal of the Shoshi Zohar online catalogue did yield some particularly Israeli fare, starting with this little Mossad agent…

I’m sure, despite the red Star of David on her cap, that this naughty nurse wasn’t trained by Magen David Adom…

This fellow seems as perplexed as I was at the idea of buying this get-up as a costume, when the real deal is easily available only a 15 minute drive away…

Shoshi Zohar actually has a whole section entitled “Costumes for Religious People” and here we do find some sentimental remnants of yesteryear’s costumes. Although the Megillah’s characters were curiously absent, I did find two out of the four Matriarchs. Here’s Rivka (Rebecca), her gown bedecked with camel appliques…

And Aharon (Aaron), the High Priest!

It was also nice to discover that local drugstore chain Super-Pharm had produced a series of instructional videos for the holiday about how to do face makeup and while Smurfette isn’t Israeli, the long-standing affection for the Dardasim, as they’re called here, is very much part of our local popular culture.

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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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Canadian Cop

March 2, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Life, Travel 

Toronto's Pearson Airport

The woman at the rental car agency desk at Toronto’s Pearson Airport eyed my Israeli driver’s license suspiciously. She looked at the laminated card, then up at me, then back and forth several times.

“You’re going to have a problem if a policeman pulls you over,” she finally said, explaining her hesitation. “There’s no English on this.”

I pointed to my name and birthday in clear English. “I don’t see it,” she assured me with confidence.

“I’ll take my chances,” I replied and, a few minutes later, we were walking to our rented minivan for the week. “Anyway, since when have I ever been stopped by a cop,” I sniggered to myself.

Imagine, then, my surprise when I was flagged down by an officer just a day later while returning to the very same airport to pick up some late arriving family members who were attending the wedding that had brought us to the Great White North.

“What’s your hurry?” the policeman asked. His tone was less aggressive than conversational, in that agreeably polite Canadian way.

“We’re picking up my wife’s 93-year-old grandmother,” I replied, which was true. She was waiting inside the terminal.

“You know you were going 60 in a 30 kilometer zone,” he said. Courteous, just a simple statement of fact, right? Nevertheless, he took my license. As he held it in his hand, I saw him trying to make out the writing. “This isn’t in English,” he said. Wouldn’t you know – the rental car clerk’s premonition had come to fruition. Without fully thinking through the consequences, I pointed out my name and birthday. “Thanks,” he said, almost jovially.

But rather than giving me my license back and graciously wishing me a good day, he sauntered back to his car. For the first time, I started to worry (while trying not to curse). Would the fine I now imagined as a viable possibility be more than the rental cost of the vehicle? Would I have to appear in Canadian traffic court? Should we have taken the bus?

Now, if this were in Israel, my polite policeman would have been replaced by a 20-something snarly Israeli girl cop who would have ignored any attempts at charm. She would then sit in her vehicle for a good 30 minutes with no explanation.

It’s happened to me before, just for a random check, and I’ve never understood what takes so long. Do they have to run my name by the Interpol database using the same sporadic Internet connectivity that plagues my home computer? Are they just sitting and drinking coffee for fun? Are they actually ordering coffee?

The Canadian cop still kept us waiting, but for only half the time (it probably was even less, but time slows down when you’re watching your bank account virtually drain). When he walked back to my car, the long rectangular paper in his hand did not bode well.

Fortunately, my nerves were for naught: the paper was just a warning. Wow – either Canadians really are nicer, or issuing a ticket to a foreigner with a driver’s license in a language with squiggly lines, with the added high chance I would skip town without depositing a check (which would undoubtedly have been written with even more squiggles) was simply too much complication.

As it turns out, I had to circle the airport while Grandma made her way to the curb. As I returned, I drove at the proscribed 30 km/hour. Do you have any idea how slow 30 km/hour really is? And yet, all the other cars I saw were following the rules and crawling along. My thoughts returned to Israel again: no way an Israeli driver would go that slow – even a ticket would be better than being a freier.

For the rest of the trip, I stuck to the speed limit. I probably would have gotten another free pass if I were stopped again, but I wasn’t taking any chances – squiggly Israeli driver’s license or not.

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