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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An international panel of distinguished judges, comprising experts in both design and in Holocaust Education, selected the 16 best posters from more than 300 submitted by design students from France, Israel and the Czech Republic. They were asked to present works on the theme of Holocaust commemoration, with an emphasis on the nature of memory and the plight of children.

The three finalists designed posters that stood out for their originality, beauty, and meaning.

The work by Veronica Novakova, a designer from the Czech Republic, portrays a well-known childhood punishment. “Traditionally, to correct a child’s errant behavior, an adult will force the ‘naughty’ child to write his misdeed over and over again, until he ‘learns his lesson.’ In this case, the misdeed is written by a child who is forced to denounce his friendship with a Jewish friend.

Designer Martina Cejpova also explores the effect the Nazi anti-Jewish policy had on children. “In her poster, she depicts a universally-recognized image from childhood: a hopscotch board, chalked onto the pavement. This particular game, however, is marred by a hateful symbol of discrimination drawn onto its cross-arms – the yellow star. Its inclusion here indicates that the insidious and pervasive hatred perpetrated by the adult world has also filtered down to the world of children, destroying their innocence.”

French designer Boris Grzeszcak deals with another theme in his work – the nature of memory. “His black-and-white poster presents a striking image of a scarred tree cut to expose the rings. A deep gash cuts to the very core of the trunk, where the word “emet” (truth) is written in tiny letters… [The artist says,] ‘The truth resides in the act of remembering and above all, never forgetting these dramatic events.’”

Peter Chmela of the Czech Republic says, “This poster wants to show the impotence of Jewish children against the Nazi soldiers. I tried to illustrate this theme with a big contrast between soldier and child.”

Yael Boverman, Israel: “The object that a survivor carries throughout a lifetime enables him or her to keep their memory alive. The closet symbolizes a collective closet, reflecting the repressed memories of the Jewish people as a whole. For every survivor, the memory is forever present under the thin veil of everyday functioning, represented by the new shirts, but at the bottom of the stack, there always lies the shirt kept from a different time – the persisting memory of a past that refuses to be abandoned.”

The project is funded by the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF), together with Yad Vashem, Israel; Mémorial de la Shoah, France; and the European Shoah Legacy Institute, Czech Republic; in cooperation with the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

In addition to the posters, there is also a lesson plan that provides tools to aid students and teachers in discussing the more universal aspects of memory — as well as the challenges facing those who use the visual arts to commemorate the Holocaust today.

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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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The papers, both local and international, reported on her passing — she was indeed the symbol of the War of Independence generation and a singer of some of Israel’s most beloved songs.

But she was also loved for being a fixture on the Israel Song Festival and Children’s Song Festival circuits, in the 1960s and 1970s, respectively.

For many years, she was an unofficial cultural ambassador for Israel, who charmed visiting international celebrities like Sean Connery, Cliff Richard and Sammy Davis Junior.

Like many women performers with a strong personality and powerful stage presence she, like fellow diva Shoshana Damari, inspired a generation of local drag queens.

Most of all, Yarkoni was a dyed-in-the-wool performer who was born to be onstage. In later years, she came out strongly as a member of Israel’s peace camp. In this interview, she covers topics ranging from cataloging her gowns, (so that she would never wear the same dress twice to a given venue), to face lifts (she didn’t have one and shows the back of her ears to prove it). She also describes the time she went down to Sinai to perform for the troops and ended up giving an impromptu performance to an onlooker who happened to be an Egyptian soldier on the other side of the line. “On the way back, I said to myself, ya allah, maybe we can end this war simply with song?”

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The entrance to Ma'aleh Adumim usually looks like this.

It’s generally a boring place, despite the thousands of cars that pass daily, and the hundreds of construction workers – mostly from the neighboring Palestinian village of Azariyah – who on foot pass through the barrier on the way to their day jobs.

So, it was surprising to find out on Saturday night, after Shabbat came to an end, that a guard at the entrance had been lightly injured in a stabbing attack that morning.

According to The Jerusalem Post report, “a suspected Palestinian terrorist launched a knife attack against a security guard at the entrance to the Ma’ale Adumim settlement near Jerusalem on Saturday. The municipal guard was lightly injured in the assault. He was evacuated to hospital for treatment. Police and IDF forces were searching the area for the suspect.”

It took place on a beautifully sunny, mild winter’s day, less than a quarter-mile from my house, unbeknownst to the families in the neighborhood enjoying the day with their families.

An odd thing about the incident – generally Palestinians aren’t coming into Ma’aleh Adumim on Shabbat, since there’s no building or repair work going on. So either the perpetrator made a special trip to attack, or he had another reason to be coming to the city.

Either way, whether the attack was the result of cumulative anger, hate and frustration at Israeli ‘occupiers, or he had a personal vendetta about a work issue that left him humiliated or enraged, or whether he was mentally unstable and the guard was a natural target, the ‘business-as-usual’ feeling that passes for reality in the West Bank is a tenuous one that can be broken at any time with ease of a knife’s steel blade passing in the wind.

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Before surfboards arrived on our shores, there was the hasakeh, a sort of platform on which lifeguards would stand and paddle. Used from at least the 1930s onwards, there are several theories as to how this banana-shaped wood vessel came into being: one that it was used by Arab fishermen, another that it was based on a 1926 design by legendary surfer Tom Blake.

Its use by the Israeli Navy was immortalized in song in 1972.

Hasakeh

Riding the waves on a hasakeh, however, was not surfing. According to an online essay about the History of Surfing in Israel, that began with Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, an American surfer and physician visited Israel in 1956. Wikipedia states that he volunteered for the Israeli army during the Suez Canal crisis but was rejected. Nonetheless, during his year-long stay, he found happiness on the beaches of Tel Aviv where he conceived of a dream: to found the first Olympic surfing team from the young state of Israel. Paskowitz imported six long-boards imprinted with the Israeli flag and began scouting the beach for potential talent and for someone to manage the project.

“…he arrived on Frishman Beach, [where] he found a lifeguard named Shamai Kancepolsky, also known as Topsea, and presented the idea to him. Says [Topsea's son] Nir Almog, ‘There was an immediate chemistry between them and my father decided to take on the project.’

‘At that time, lifeguards caught waves using hasakehs alone. Dorian gave them lessons and slowly, the lifeguard booth gang began surfing. In those days, [before breakers were built] Israel had high waves that broke on the shore itself… and going into the sea to surf was considered an act of bravery bordering on insanity…”

“A few years passed and the gang gained experience… but there was still no Israeli representation abroad. Dorian [Paskowitz] returned a second time, bringing a load of surfboards with him that were distributed among the new members.”

“Nir Almog adds, ‘In the Sixties, a huge storm damaged the storeroom where the surfboards were stored, and broke some of them to bits. After that, my dad decided to restore one of the big ones and shortened it to 1.80 meters. I was the only one in Israel with a shortboard.”

“In the early Seventies, a paratrooper commander by the name of Yair told Topsea that the army used a material — a aerated plastic called polyurethane foam — made by a company in Haifa. The material was similar to that used to make surfboards. Yair raised the possibility of manufacturing surfboards made of this material… Topsea and Nir began trying to design surfboards… and began a small surfboards producing industry. Most were rented out, and so a new generation entered into surfing…”

Topsea managed a small workshop on Hilton Beach and, along with renting out Hasakehs, designed surfboards. He, his wife Naomi — Israel’s first female surfer — and their children, all became lifelong surfers.In 1977, son Nir founded Almog Surfboards, Israel’s first pro surfboard company. Topsea co-founded the Israel Surfing Association in 1986.

The sport has continued to grow in popularity; according to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, “Israel is home to about 15 surf shops and 10,000 surfers”.

Paskowitz, by the way, gave up practicing medicine to become a professional surfer. He and his family founded and run Surf Camps and are known as The First Family of Surfing. In August 2007, he founded Surfing 4 Peace together with his son David (along with Israeli surfer Arthur Rashovan and eight-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater) to deliver surfboards to the surfing community in Gaza.

A wonderful online photo archive, can be found at the Topsea Israel Surfing Center website. Topsea’s youngest son Orian runs the center, carrying on the tradition and legacy of his father. The Center also hosts a YouTube channel where there are more videos about the legendary Shamai “Topsea” Kancepolsky and the history of surfing in Israel.

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The modern city of Ashdod was founded on November 25, 1956 but the area has been continuously inhabited with human settlement in Ashdod dating back to the Paleolithic Period and urban settlement originating from the 17th century BCE under the Canaanites and then under the Philistines, who conquered the city in the 14th century BCE.

Ashdod developed into one of the five most important Philistine cities. During the Israelite period (600-1200 BCE), Ashdod was partially held by the Tribe of Judah and is mentioned 13 times in the Bible. By the way, Ashdod is home to the Corine Maman Museum, reputedly one of the only museums in the world dedicated to presenting the rich history and culture of the Philistine world.

The city was subsequently conquered by Assyrians — evidence of their presence was found at the Tel Ashdod excavations — Persians, Greeks, Byzantines, Crusaders, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, and in modern times, controlled by the British Mandate prior to the founding of the State of Israel.

Photo by Yair Aharonovic

I was actually in Ashdod last month* with my drinking and running group, the Holyland Hash House Harriers. As always, I was impressed by the city’s wide boulevards, spacious beachfront, green parks and public sculpture, of which there is quite a great deal — 300 statues, at last count.

In fact, modern Ashdod is an urban planning success story: it is the only city in Israel that was planned before being settled and is the fifth largest city in Israel, with a population of 230,000 living in 17 residential boroughs. The demographic composition is also unusual in that there is a balanced distribution of religious and secular Jews, Israeli-born sabras and new immigrants, the latter comprising 38% of overall population.

Photo by Yevgeni Doroshenk

Photo by Shai Mizrachi

Photo by May Castlenuovo

The city, old and new, is the subject of the exhibition, Bezalel in Ashdod, a collaboration between the Ashdod municipality and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. The exhibition will be on display for two days only – November 23-24 – at the old commercial center of Ashdod, Aleph District, and features works from 120 students and faculty of the Department of Photography who were guests of the city for a week last year.

Photos by Eli Singalovski (left), Neta Laufer (right)

During their stay, the students and faculty took photos of the different facets of the city: people and buildings, streets and parks, industrial and commercial areas, inside homes and of course, the port.

Photo by Vera Vladimirski

Photo by Sergei Litoinov

Curators Noa Zayit, Nir Evron and Noa Zdaka state, “The starting point of the exhibit was to concentrate on a single city, as it references examples of compassion, beauty and kindness, but also encompasses art criticism and conflict documentation – the result being a vivid, courageous and real-life picture of the city.”

Photos by Atalia Renaski (left), Gideon Levi (right)

*As luck would have it, we were just exiting the city when the siren sounded, warning of an incoming missile strike. That’s life in the Wild Wild Middle East.

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You wouldn’t necessarily think it of us but Israelis love rain and songs about rain, perhaps because we have so little of it. There are songs about the yoreh, songs about the last rain of the season, called the malkosh, and songs about raindrops and just plain rain, too.

Israelis love rain because it clears the air, calms the nerves and keeps us indoors where it’s cozy and safe. In anticipation of these attributes, needed so desperately at this time, and in addition to our actual need for rain to water crops, replenish Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) and the aquifer, we present a selection of songs about rain, starting with a golden oldie from 1968.

Geshem Yored – Lahakat HaBroshim

Lehakat HaNahal, the IDF Nahal unit’s entertainment corps was, at one point, the place for talented young performers to get discovered. The troupe had any number of hits to its credit, including this one, Geshem Bo (Rain, come). (Please note: The pictures are fun to watch but this video’s sound quality isn’t very good. Click here for a version with better audio).

Geshem Bo – Lehakat HaNahal

For some reason, rain was a very popular them in the Eighties. Here are a few examples:

Geshem – Benzin (featuring Yehuda Poliker)

Zeh HaGeshem – Nurit Galron

Geshem – Meir Banai

Singer Uzi Hitman, who died seven years ago today, was a prolific pop singer-songwriter who also made a good living putting out sing-a-long videos of classic Israeli children’s songs. Here is his version of HaYoreh.

HaYoreh – Uzi Hitman

For more recordings, check out the amazing Zemereshet website, an online archive of lyrics, songwriting credits and recordings.

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Three cars in Ashdod that were set alight by rocket fire from Gaza on Saturday. (Reuters)

Of course, those terrorists released in the Schalit swap aren’t the ones out there lighting the Grads and Kassams that have fallen on Ashkelon, Ashdod and other sovereign Israeli points over the weekend, killing a father of four and causing mass destruction and trauma. It would have happened whether the 1,000-plus terrorists would have been freed or not.

On the other hand, whether it’s due to infighting between Hamas and Islamic Jihad – one trying to prove the other is weak toward Israel, and doing so by cowardly acts of terror – one thing is clear: Israel is at war.

Foreign media reports are likely couching in terms of tit for tat – the rocket attacks were in response to the IDF’s weekend air strike in Gaza killing five people. Bad Israelis.

Don’t believe those reports, and refute them whenever possible. The IDF air strike killed an Islamic Jihad leader and four accomplices who were responsible for previous rocket attacks on Israel – attacks that were implemented in the days after Schalit’s release with no provocation whatsoever. Nobody was injured in those attacks, but that’s far from the point. The point is that Israelis are being targeted from outside the country. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Wherever this current round of violence takes us – back to an uneasy cease fire constantly broken by the Palestinians, or to a full-fledged invasion of Gaza aimed at stopping once and for all the deadly assault on Israel – it should be known that there was a beginning to this escalation. Israeli citizens were attacked without provocation with the intent of killing them. And as a result, whether we call it that or not, Israel is now at war.

It remains to be seen if we’re going to aim to win the war, or just scare the other side a little. History suggests the latter, but maybe, with Schalit now home, it’s time for the former.

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After more than five years of false alarms, the shuttle diplomacy of German and French mediators, inflated demands by Hamas of Palestinian prisoners to be released, and the heartwrenching images of Schalit’s parents – Noam and Aviva – sitting forlorn in their protest tent outside the Prime Minister’s residence, it didn’t seem likely that the early evening rumors Tuesday night of an imminent deal were likely to see fruition.

But they did! Within a couple hours, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a televised speech explaining that the cabinet was about to convene to approve the deal that would free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them murders serving life sentences, in a phased release for Schalit’s freedom. Unbelievable!

Of course, this being Israel, there’s no consensus about the deal that the government passed later that night by a 26-3 vote. Many citizens justifiably feel that the price for Schalit’s freedom is too high, that the released prisoners will return to terror and place Israel in unprecedented danger. And imagine how the families of terror victims must feel, with the deranged murderer who took the life of their loved ones, being set scot free.

But then think about Gilad Schalit, sitting in a room for more than five years, with his life precariously hanging on the line. There doesn’t seem to be much of a choice to me – the freedom of a young man versus the threat of potential terror.

Hamas and the other terror organizations haven’t been successful in kidnapping any other IDF soldiers since Schalit was captured, and there’s no reason to think they will be any more successful after his release.

And terror-wise, well, that’s why we had our security forces. With or without security fences, peace talks, rockets landing in Sderot and Ashkelon, and belligerent talk from the West Bank and Gaza, there have been attempts to carry out terror attacks on Israelis and they will continue. Unfortunately, it’s a fact of life in the neighborhood, as long as we have neighbors like Hamas.

To use the specter of ‘more’ terror as an excuse to keep Schalit in prison just doesn’t pass the muster. The decision has been made, and Israelis should now band together and welcome Schalit home, knowing that the right decision was made – one that should make us all proud to call ourselves Israelis.

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