Anka ticket angst
Israel is back on the rock concert map. We’ve seen some truly big names of late: Madonna, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney. But there have also been some visits by musicians slightly lower down on the food chain. A few months ago, it was Gilbert O’Sullivan, best known for the saccharine pop ditty Alone Again Naturally. And now it’s…Paul Anka.
I shouldn’t be so gloomy. A lot of people are big fans of the Canadian-born Anka. He has two shows scheduled during his tour of Israel. The 68-year-old contemporary of the Beatles (ouch, that’s a little hard to say in the same sentence) had a string of hits in the 1960s and by the end of that decade had sold more than 100 million records.
He’s been in the news again lately when it was revealed that he would receive half of the songwriting royalties for Michael Jackson’s new song, “This is It.”
I even thought it might be fun to attend his upcoming mid-November concert in Tel Aviv. But the prices, ranging from NIS 340 to NIS 1,000 ($92-$271), set me back in my chair: that’s an amount I usually tuck away for last minute emergencies like leaking roofs and car repair.
Madonna, McCartney and Cohen also had ticket prices in the same ballpark. One more lucid reminder that we’re not in the heartland of America where you can see a top performer for under $10. I have the ticket stubs to prove it. Pink Floyd: $8.75. Queen: $9.00.
Silly me. Like Anka, I was stuck in the 60s and 70s myself. Concert prices around the world today rival what we pay in Israel. Those ten-buck tickets have gone the way of the electric typewriter and the rotary phone. Even entrance to see oldies hit makers Three Dog Night now starts at $50!
Fortunately, ticket prices for Israeli bands are still relatively down to earth. You can see rockers Bet HaBubot or Erez Lev Ari for under NIS 100 ($26). Or catch them at a festival like Jerusalem’s annual Chutzot HaYotzer arts and crafts extravaganza where a full performance from a top star – Ivri Lieder, Yehudit Ravitz, Aviv Gefen have played in the last year – is included in the ticket price of NIS 40 (just over $10).
Try seeing Donny Osmond for a price like that!
Foto Friday – Reli Avrahami’s “Diary”
Beer Sheva-born Reli Avrahami is one of Israel’s premiere magazine photographers. A new exhibition of her work, “Diary”, will open next week at the Hadassah College in Jerusalem, where she once studied and is now a lecturer.
Avrahami has worked as a freelance portrait photographer since 1986, shooting celebrities, artists and politicians for Israel’s main newspapers and weekend supplements including “Maariv”, “Yediot Aharonot” and “Haaretz” where she is best known for her long-running series of Israeli family portraits.
In “Diary”, Avrahami invites viewers to look in on three generations of her own family: celebrations and tragedies, weddings and funerals, everyday life and unique occasions.
Her daughter – Botticelli curls cascading down her shoulders – en route to a Scout trip…
…the morning of her son’s induction into the IDF…
…her mother, fast asleep in a Netherlands zimmer motel…
or a “Girls Night In” with her sisters and mother.
“Diary” opens at 6:00pm, November 5, 2009 at the Hadassah College, 37 HaNeviim Street, Jerusalem.
Dead Sea skin
Salt at the Dead Sea
It seems the Export Institute has realized just how unique our minerals are, and has arranged ‘dozens of meetings’ for a collection of Dead Sea cosmetics companies during a two-day marathon at New York City’s Pennsylvania Hotel. The companies attending include B4U, Biscol, Canaan Chic Cosmetic, InterCosma, Odeyah, Paloma Dead Sea, Sea of Spa – Dead Sea, Spa Cosmetics and Spider Pharm Industries.
The Israel Manufacturers Association has even developed a quality label for genuine Dead Sea products, with the aim of discerning between the original DS cosmetics manufacturers and the frauds, or in more genteel terms, pirate industry. According to sources at the Manufacturers Association, the companies that produce genuine Dead Sea products, such as mud, lotions and creams have to prove that the source of their products is the Dead Sea and not some random body of water…and that it contains the rich combo of minerals that makes the Dead Sea a source of skin rejuvenation and vitality.
If you’re in NYC, check out the Dead Sea folk at the PA Hotel, just through tomorrow. And back home, consider some Dead Sea cream for that dry skin on the heels of your feet. It’ll do the trick.
Have any lessons been learned from Rabin’s assassination?
Thursday marks the 14th anniversary of the death of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin – certainly one of the cataclysmic events of Israel’s short history.
The divisions among the country’s citizens which led to Rabin’s assassination are still very apparent, with venom from both the Right and Left toward each other spouting freely without any attempt to mask the hatred. The Right blames Rabin and his followers on the Left for the failed Oslo process and the Left blames the Right for the environment that enabled an Israeli to take the life of a prime minister.
While most of the country mourns Rabin’s death and marks each anniversary with sadness, there’s a not so small minority who don’t take part in the collective grief and go about their business like any other day. It’s not a holiday that brings the country together.
Still, there are attempts at unity. President Shimon Peres opened the 24 hours of commemoration saying that the former prime minister’s vision of peace will not be abandoned. The state ceremony, held at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, was attended by Rabin family members, ministers, members of Knesset, and students from schools throughout Israel.
“Israel’s young generation has kept in their hearts the knowledge that such a despicable murder mustn’t ever happen again,” said Peres. “When the criminal took Yitzhak’s life, he intended to extinguish all hope for peace as well, but his plot will not succeed.”
Peres added that while peace has many enemies outside of Israel, there are also many skeptics within Israel’s own borders. He added that “Rabin’s assassination delayed the entire process and hampered the diplomatic course, but the understanding between us and our neighbors has grown, and its urgency has not changed.”
Memorial ceremonies will continue Thursday throughout the country, and the state ceremony is scheduled to take place in Mount Herzl cemetery at noon.
I remember leaving my newspaper that night after putting out the Rabin assassination edition thinking that Israel was in mortal danger from within, and wondering if we would survive. 14 years, we have perservered, but still have many lessons left to learn and internalize about what kind of country we want to build here.
Accessorize it
Eva Teffner necklace and earrings
With discounts of 20%-30% on the current season, and 60%-80% on previous seasons, deals are clearly to be had. And while I don’t know all the designers who will be present, I can tell you that Or Forbin, whose line of jewelry, Eva Teffner — named for her grandmother — will be there, and she offers some extremely clever and affordable costume jewels. She uses elements of collage, printing on metal and then incorporating that into the earrings, pendants and pins that are part of her inventory.
Picture of the week: Finding friendship in the ruins of war
Israel is a country of contradictions. While the world outside sees the conflict in the clean crisp black and white of headlines, here in Israel we tend to see things in myriad shades of grey.
Take these two kids for example. Maria Aman (in the wheelchair) is a Palestinian girl from Gaza who was hit by an Israeli rocket during operation Cast Lead. Orel Ilizrov, is an Israeli child from Beersheva who was left with severe brain damage after he was hit by a grad missile fired from Gaza in the same conflict.
Against all the odds, they are best friends.
Maria was left paralyzed when her house suffered a direct hit. Four of her family were killed. Orel, an only child, is lucky to be alive. His mother threw herself on top of him in an attempt to protect him from the missile.
The children were hospitalized at the Alin Rehabilitative Center in Jerusalem and were given neighboring beds. Despite the traumas that both suffered, they ignored the conflict – as kids so rightly do – and formed a deep friendship based on everything they have in common, and not everything that keeps them apart.
Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90
Ghosts in Israel? Not likely
Israel may be an ancient land, with an ancient, not to mention, bloody history, but despite this, it doesn’t seem to be a land of ghosts.
What with Halloween coming up, I thought I’d do a story on the top 10 hauntings in Israel, expecting to find some fascinating material dating back to biblical times that would scare the pants off even veteran ghost observer Melinda Gordon, AKA Jennifer Love Hewitt. I scoured the web. Then scoured it again. There were many references to ghosts and hauntings – but only the living kind.
“There isn’t a culture of ghosts in Israel,” said an American friend who’d done similar research just a few years ago and also drawn a blank. “They just don’t have a history of it.”
I asked my sabra husband. “Ghosts!” he said, looking baffled. “We don’t have ghosts in Israel!”
But wait a minute. This is the country that spawned Paranormal Activity – supposedly the scariest movie about ghosts around today.
I carried on my research and discovered an article from Ynet last year. Apparently, the research by the German Bertelsmann Foundation showed, only 16 percent of Israelis believe in ghosts and spirits. A pretty low figure that could explain the absence of ghost stories. Compare that to the US, for example, where 48 percent of the population say they believe in ghosts , and a sizable 22 percent say they’ve actually seen or felt a ghost.
Interestingly enough, however, in the same Israeli poll, 45% of participants said they believed in angels.
It would make an interesting research paper to examine why Israelis don’t believe in ghosts. I’m sure it reveals much about the society, since ghost stories are an essential part of most cultures around the world.
Is it because they are well-grounded people with a surprisingly strong sense of optimism (angels!)? Is it because a country that has so many living enemies doesn’t have time to waste thinking about spectral enemies? Or could it be that the country, founded as it is in the wake of the Holocaust, is haunted enough by the very real loss of six million people?
I did come across one haunting – on a base in Israel. See above. Speculation runs from a speck of dust on the screen, to an energy orb, or a dead motorcyclist haunting the road.
And I’d love to hear your ghost stories too. Come on, there must be one or two stories of troubled spirits in Israel.
A Night in the Desert
It’s been a couple of years since we last visited Succa Bamidbar, but as fall inches slowly towards winter, a visit to the magical “Succa in the Desert” would be warmly welcomed.
Succa Bamidbar is so far off the beaten track, there’s barely a road to get there. Located 5 km from Mitzpe Ramon, the establishment, founded in 1990 and run by the amiable Avi Dror and Chen Hadar, consists of 8 small succot – cabins made of wood and fabric – scattered across a barren rocky hillside. Don’t worry – they’re enclosed on all sides to keep the cold out.
Each succa is set no less than 150 meters from the next. There is no running water and many of the succot have no electricity either. You sleep on mattresses or low beds. Two eco-friendly outhouses are located at the center of the site.
The most striking element of Succa Bamidbar is the solitude. With no lights at night, you walk the narrow paths between the guest succot and the central “Succa of Abraham,” where two meals a day are served, with just a lantern.
Silence is also a major player in the uniqueness of the place. That is until 6:30 PM, when Avi and Chen ring an enormous gong, which sounds over the entire valley – the call for dinner. On our last visit, we had a delicious lentil soup with home-made croutons, macaroni and assorted vegetables. Our second night included freshly baked bread and home made sweet wine with a ginger cinnamon kick. The sweet potato soup and zucchini goat cheese casserole were both to die for.
Breakfast is also served: a panoply of home made jams, yogurts and cheeses, hard boiled eggs and a fabulous chunky humus (with an accompanying schug to warm up even the toughest desert denizen).
Succa Bamidbar is a 45-minute drive from hiking in the Machtesh Ramon; there is also a pleasant 25-minute hike from the Succa Bamidbar campsite to the edge of the crater with its breathtaking view.
Prices are not cheap but it’s worth it. You can find details on their website. But don’t look for an email – they don’t have a computer – or for that matter a cell phone. Now that’s roughing it!
Hummus duels at 10 paces
Lebanese chefs prepare their record-setting hummus - do you deliver to Jerusalem ? (Photo: Reuters)
With enough hummus to go around, you would think that the question of where the chickpea-derived spread originated would be a moot point. But our neighbors to the north – Lebanon – evidently haven’t taken too kindly to hummus being touted as an Israeli creation – in fact, an Israeli brand.
Businessmen in Beirut have even begun legal action to patent the dish as inherently Lebanese. And over the weekend, chefs gathered there to mix 3,000 lbs of mashed chickpeas, 88 gallons of lemon juice and 57lb of salt to break the Guiness Book of World Records, breaking the previous record set in Israel last year.
As a side dish, the Lebanese also prepared a 7,800 lb tabbouleh salad that included 3,520 lb of parsley, 3,300 lb of tomatoes and 924 lb of onions.
“Come and fight for your bite, you know you’re right!” was the slogan for the event — referring to the not-so-friendly rivalry between Lebanon and Israel over the ownership of the food.
“Lebanon is trying to win a battle against Israel by registering this new Guinness World Record and telling the whole world that hummus is a Lebanese product, its part of our traditions,” Fady Jreissati, vice president of operations at International Fairs and Promotions group, the event’s organizer, told the Associated Press.
“If we don’t tell Israel that enough is enough, and we don’t remind the world that it’s not true that hummus is an Israeli traditional dish, they (Israelis) will keep on marketing it as their own,” he said.
C’mon guys, isn’t there enough to bicker about in our region without dragging in the one thing that we all collectively love into the morass? How about a hummus taste-off pitting the five best Israeli hummus dishes versus the five best Lebanese? I’d volunteer to be a judge for that.
Nostalgia Sunday – Gil Gibli Investigates Past Crimes
Artist Gil Gibli is perhaps best known in Israel for the pen and ink cross-hatched portraits of Israel’s business elite that illustrate the pages of business daily Globes each evening. But Gibli is also a noted police forensic sketch artist — whose work has been cited in international professional literature — and when he looks back at the past, he often does so as an investigator into crimes whose trails have gone cold.
On his website, Gibli describes several cases where his forensic art brought the truth to light: reconstructing a portrait of Warsaw Ghetto uprising leader Pavel Frankel (pictured left) based solely on eye-witness accounts, bringing together two Yom Kippur War compatriots after 35 years, and the most chilling case: identifying a man, a nameless drifter, killed in a terror attack. The story – and Gibli’s uncanny ability to elicit details from eye-witnesses – was documented in the award-winning documentary No. 17 is Anonymous.
More of Gibli’s work may be found at his virtual gallery. He’s also a jazz aficionado and portraits include a series of jazz greats - more nostalgia, but of a cooler, gentler kind.
Gibl’s YouTube channel has several videos (in Hebrew) about his work.
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