Israel now the second most educated country in the world
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Photo by milan.sk, under a GNU free documentation license
It seems like we only hear bad news when it comes to Israel’s educational rankings these days. Where once we were known for our prowess in math and science in particular, annual polls consistently put us near the bottom of the list for developed nations. Inside the country, we are warned that if educational budgets are not increased dramatically, there will be no next generation of hi-tech entrepreneurs.
So it’s refreshing to read that we are actually number two when it comes to how many Israelis have completed post-secondary education: 45%. We’re right after Canada and before Japan, the U.S., New Zealand, South Korea, Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Finland.
True, that’s talking about the current rankings, and there’s no guarantee that young Israelis growing up in today’s system will maintain that level, but there’s no reason to spoil the party just yet.
The data is from a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which also says that 78% of the money invested in education in Israel is taken directly from public funds.
Foto Friday – Winter Wildflower Wonderland
I am not a great fan of rain and so this winter has been a particularly miserable one. Rain, rain, rain and more rain. However, even a sun worshiper such as myself can admit upside to the horrible, awful, gray, chilly, soggy, foggy, never-ending wet and damp: the landscape is green, the waterline at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) has risen and the winter wildflowers are coming into full bloom.
This month, Israel’s nature-lovers will take their annual trek through field and forest in search of their favorite flowers. The Society for the Preservation of Nature (SPNI) is hosting a series of tours in celebration of the season and the upcoming Tu b’Shvat holiday. As always, they will seek out the shy and elusive Persian Cyclamen…
Photo by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel
Fields dotted with blood red Crown Anemones are always a magnificent sight, but their light purple cousins are no less lovely…
Photo by Amikam Shoob – Wildflowers of Israel
The Common Narcissus, whose fragrance is nothing if not controversial…
Photo by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel
The elegant and stately Wild Hyacinth…
Photo by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel
And of course, Tu b’Shvat wouldn’t be complete without the blossoming almond tree!
Photo by Mike Livne – Wildflowers of Israel
Aspiring nature photographers take note: Wildflowers in Israel, in conjunction with Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and FujiFilm, is holding a photo contest and there are still a few days left before the deadline closes on February 8. Information and a list of subjects (in Hebrew) is available here or submissions can be emailed directly.
Jerusalem’s ugliest building (hint: it’s not the Holyland)
The Amir Center in Jerusalem
For years, whenever I have driven down King George Street, near the Great Synagogue and the Leonardo (formerly Sheraton) Plaza Hotel, the building at the corner with Agron Street has pained me – a tremendously ugly, 7-story, dilapidated monstrosity that I have waited patiently for some announcement of its pending demolition that never comes.
And now I learn that the building was not only once considered a paradigm of daring optimism and ”modernity,” but the architect behind it has become one of the most celebrated in the country’s history.
That’s not to say that the Amir Center (as the building is officially called) won’t someday be torn down to build another luxury apartment tower; other high-rise buildings have already been approved in its immediate surroundings. But a retrospective, almost loving article in today’s Haaretz may temper those ambitions.
In 1958, architect David Resnick was asked to design a new residential building at the intersection in question. In an interview, he praised its innovations, which broke out of the classic Jerusalem Stone look and feel to splash a dose of modernist paint on the city. The Amir Center was built on a large 10 dunam plaza, its 7 floors propped up on stilts, with a Supersol supermarket (the first in Jerusalem) down below.
While Resnick was pleased with his creation (it even won an award in 1963 for technological innovation), the building was immediately dubbed “Jerusalem’s ugliest building” in street interviews that took place at the time, Haaretz reports.
That controversy, however, helped raise Resnick’s public visibility, and the architect went on design such more acclaimed Jerusalem landmarks as the dome shaped synagogue on Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus, the Mormon Center on Mount Scopus and the Van Leer Institute, among many other always-modernist style projects.
That said, Resnick admits that the Amir Center has been “modified” beyond its original clean lines: residents have enclosed balconies, added unattractive air conditioning units. Indeed, Resnick says “When I walk past the building today, I look the other way. I can’t bear to see what they did to it.
The city is promoting a plan where a contractor is given the rights to build an extra floor or two at no cost provided the residents’ current living space is upgraded (including making it earthquake proof). But the building’s shell, apparently, isn’t strong enough to bear the additional weight, so for now, it’s either demolish or stay ugly.
While “to date no plan has been formulated or submitted,” according to a municipality spokesperson, Resnick would undoubtedly be opposed. “The question of nice or not nice is irrelevant,” he says. “I think that the Israeli establishment does not understand what architecture is and its importance to the state.”
In another 50 years, will they be talking this way about the Holyland project too?
In English or Hebrew, it’s Yael Deckelbaum
The number of Israel rock and pop artists singing in English in recent years has exploded. Between Assaf Avidan, Geva Alon, Tamar Eisenman, and a plethora of others, it seems sometimes like there’s more English than Hebrew out there.
So, in a refreshing change of pace, one of the first Israeli singers in English – Yael Deckelbaum – is bucking the trend and has just released her first exclusively Hebrew-language CD, Joy and Sadness.
A long-time fixture on the Israeli-Anglo club and festival circuit, Deckelbaum combines the folkie elements of Joni Mitchell and the bluesy wail of Janis Joplin into a cohesive whole. She’s the daughter of the late David Deckelbaum, who immigrated to Israel from Canada as a youngster and with his banjo led the bawdy folk/country/Irish Jerusalem legends The Taverners throughout the 1970s and 80. That’s where young Yael learned about music, and not even into her teens, she was joining her father onstage at The Jacob’s Ladder Folk Festival – Israel’s annual version of Woodstock.
By her early 20s, she stepped into the solo spotlight, and has been a live mainstay on Israeli stages – becoming even more well-known when she joined up with singers Karolina and Dana Adini to form the vocal trio Habanot Nechama.
After releasing her debut solo album in 2009 called Ground Zero, Deckelbaum began focusing on writing songs in Hebrew – her actual native tongue. And the result is Joy and Sadness, featuring a poignant photo of a young Deckelbaum riding on the shoulders of her father.
She promises she hasn’t abandoned writing and performing in English, and when she takes the stage for the album’s debut this month in Tel Aviv, she’ll be bi-lingual, and backed by two different bands – her own and special guests Mashina.
Whatever language Deckelbaum sings in, it seems to come out magic.
Sabras battle it out in court
Kishkashta and Shpitzik - separated at birth?
On one side we have Kishkashta, the thorny singing star of Israeli Educational TV’s children’s broadcasts for over 30 years. And on the other side is Shpitzkik, the spiky sabra mascot designed for the Israel Olympic Committee and the team of athletes headed to the Olympics this year.
IET has filed a motion with the Tel Aviv District Court to prevent the IOC from using Shpitzik because they say the two mutant sabras are too similar in appearance.
This case is actually being covered, and while not as urgent as the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, it is causing nail biting and nervousness among cartoon plant life around the country.
According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, Kishkashta made his first TV appearances in the 1970s, as part of the children’s show Ma Pit’om! (“What on Earth!”), and became known for his deep, somewhat lugubrious voice and signature song “They call me Kishkashta.”
In December, the IOC chose Shpitzik, a jaunty cactus clad in Israel’s official Olympic strip, as the mascot that will accompany the Israeli delegation to the London 2012 Olympic Games later this year.
The case is in court now, and our wise judicial sages will undoubtedly and down a just ruling. Sabras everywhere are bristling waiting for the answer. But in my mind, you can’t beat Kishkashta’s talent.
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