Israeli unity in numbers
When I opened up my browser at 6:30 a.m. this morning and saw one Israeli news site with the headline ‘Elections off, Kadima joins national unity government,’ I assumed that the site had been hacked by pranksters.
So I switched to another favorite web source of news and, damn, it had basically the same headline. Could this be? How could a nation that at midnight was 95% of the way heading to early elections with the Knesset about to dissolve itself have veered so drastically in a few hours in which most sane people are fast asleep? Welcome to Israeli politics.
Whether the largest national unity government in the short history of the country is good for us or not, I’ll leave to the political pundits. But the whos, whys and hows behind the dramatic turnaround that caught everyone – including the nation’s usually plugged in media – totally off guard will be the subject of speculation and dissection for weeks to come.
Most people, whether they admire or disdain him, are calling this Bibi Netanyahu’s master stroke, strengthening his government and creating a national consensus for everything from changing the Tal Law to planning to cope with the Iranian threat. And it’s not a bad deal for Kadima either, which was on its way to the dust bins of history – with one leader, Tzippi Livni out the door, and its new figurehead, Shaul Mofaz fighting to create a persona for himself.
Now he’s a vice premier, and Kadima is in the government, even though he had repeatedly stated Kadima would never join a Likud-led government and has been widely quoted as calling Netanyahu a “liar.”
But that’s all politics, he told today’s joint press conference with Netanyahu where they announced the deal, and as opposition leader, he was required to criticize the leadership.
Fair enough. Regardless of the cynicism of self-serving interests surrounding the decision, it’s maybe time to let this government see what it can do, and determine if Bibi and Mofaz are just spouting more politics or are serious about working together to better the country at a critical time in its history.
I’m willing to give them a chance, but I’m a little scared about going to sleep tonight and waking up to find another unbelievable headline in the morning.
Indie rock discoveries at this year’s Jacob’s Ladder
Indie rock discovery: Jenny & Gilad
Jacob’s Ladder is my favorite weekend of the year. Located at the picturesque Kibbutz Nof Ginosar, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, the festival is billed as “a unique bluegrass, folk, country, blues, Irish and world music extravaganza.” It is in equal parts a chance to catch up with old friends in a laid back atmosphere that encourages camping and potlucks, and an opportunity to hear music by both world class performers and emerging bands who may just be the next big thing.
Jacob’s Ladder began as an “Anglo Festival,” started by Menachem and Yehudit Vinegrad who made aliyah in 1967 and missed the folk scene from back home. The festival has evolved considerably, growing from 700 attendees at the first gathering to well over 3,000 today.
The demographics have grown too. The once Anglo majority has been displaced by Israelis – I heard far more Hebrew than English – including a large contingent of teenagers and twenty-somethings (many the children and even grandchildren of Anglos) who grew up at Jacob’s Ladder over the years.
I may be reading into it, but the younger population also seems to have influenced the music – high energy rock and roll and world music is much more prevalent than in years past; even the Irish/Scottish Bodhran Band rocks out…with bagpipes. The presence of Shmemel, an Israeli ensemble combining wailing electric guitars, a full brass section (saxophone, trombone and trumpet – think Blood Sweat and Tears or early Chicago) with rap, funk and the occasional klezmer, had the outdoor dance floor packed.
All that is good news for me: I love the festival but have never been a big bluegrass or country music fan. So my personal music discoveries included a number of unsung indie rockers who I’d like to see gain more exposure.
My top pick: a singer-songwriting duo who go by the simple name of Jenny & Gilad. write their own music in English and Hebrew and perform with lovely harmonies. The overflow audience went wild like hardcore fans, especially impressive given that the two don’t even have a CD out (“we’re working on it,” they pleaded).
Also on my list of show favorites were Omri Vitis – an Israeli with a voice reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot who has spent the last 12 years in the U.K. and belts out folk-tinged rock influenced by Native American tribal beats; the bespectacled Erez Singer whose happy clappy upbeat pop songs sound like another Israeli who croons in English, Shy Nobleman; and The Love Birds whose lead singer Efrat Kolberg occasionally channels the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde.
Here’s a clip of Erez Singer:
Another element to the evolution of Jacob’s Ladder is the number of religious people who spend Shabbat listening to electrified music. A minyan set up overlooking the water was attended by more than 50 people. You could hear the sounds of the Friday evening kiddush being said all over the campgrounds.
Pulling off a festival of this size and complexity takes the full time attention of the Vinegrads – I’ve written about the “business” of Jacob’s Ladder previously – but it pays off and attendees respond in kind: you can leave your chairs and blankets on the main lawn and no one will steal them, smoking is now prohibited at the concerts; and after the show, everyone pitches in to clean up, leaving the kibbutz nearly as clean as it was beforehand.
But maybe the best part: after the final performance Saturday afternoon, our friends have a tradition – we all head to the beach, pull our plastic chairs into the shallow part of the lake, and dip our toes as the coolness water mitigates a hot and sometimes muggy day.
I can’t wait until next year.
Giving trash the boot
by Abby
Israel’s inaugural Clean the Land Day will take place across the country on Friday, May 18. This welcome initiative comes from four Masa Israel Government Fellows — Daniel Barnett, Max Friedenberg, Sam Silverlieb and Joel Wanger – who created a national trash pickup day out frustration with the countless cigarette butts, plastic bags and cups, and empty bottles and boxes littering the landscape.
A very user-friendly website invites would-be participants to register to join a cleanup crew. You get a packet with info, along with disposable gloves (better throw those away responsibly!) and trash bags.
I say it’s about time. The littering problem is among the few aspects of life in Israel that bothered me as a new immigrant in 2007. Anglos talk about it all the time with great disgust. Some other organizations have even tried to do something about it. Well, here’s a way to be part of the solution.
I couldn’t say it better than the founders do: “Clean the Land is a social movement that seeks to create a cleaner and greener State of Israel. The inaugural Clean the Land initiative is the first step toward the movement’s larger goal of establishing a socially and environmentally responsible Israeli society in which phrases like “leave no trace” and “reduce, reuse, recycle” are as common as “yalla’” (let’s go, hurry up) and “yihiyeh b’seder” (it will be ok).”
And that’s no trash talk.
Nostalgia Sunday – Not the 9 o’clock news
Ladies and gentlemen, history was made on the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) nightly newscast at 8 minutes to 8 this evening when the Israel Broadcasting Authority announced that the Israel Broadcasting Authority nightly newscast would be broadcast at 8 minutes to 8 this and every evening henceforth. Earth shattering, I know, and only 20 years after it would have actually been a significant announcement. Coming as it does, in 2012, it is another in a string of dopey decisions made over the years. Let’s take a look back on a few, shall we?
First, some facts: it is true that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, opposed introducing television into the new State of Israel. It is also true that television made it through the back door as an instructional tool in 1966, when Israel Educational Television (IETV) began broadcasting under the auspices of the Education Ministry, with programs initially received by 32 schools.
Needless to say, broadcasting was in black-and-white as the technology was less expensive and in keeping with the authorities’ frowning upon the whole affair. According to the Wikipedia entry on Television in Israel, “Arnon Zuckerman, the IBA director general from 1973 to March 1979, cites Golda Meir (Israel’s Prime Minister 1969-1974) saying about color television, ‘It is so artificial, I know it from America. There is no need for this’.”
No need, perhaps, but by the mid-seventies you couldn’t get black and white equipment so by dint of circumstance, Israeli consumers were only able to buy color televisions while IBA was forced to purchase color-enabled gear. You would think that Israel would have then naturally segued into color TV broadcasting and viewing… but you would be wrong.
Please note the underlying lunacy in this cut-and-dried account of what actually happened, again from Wikipedia: “According to Yair Lapid’s biographical book about his father, Tommy Lapid, who was the IBA director general from April 1979 to March 1984, the IBA had the necessary equipment for filming and broadcasting in color for nearly a decade before putting it into use; however the introduction of color transmissions was halted due to political pressure and threats of industrial actions.”
“Industrial action” refers to IBA technical staff who felt threatened by the introduction of video technology and color video at that. “Owing to this state of affairs, newscasts and other regular productions were filmed using black and white cameras; however many special productions ordered from private Israeli studios (in particular the Herzliya Studios) were filmed and taped in color.”
Then things got really crazy. “The Israeli government frowned upon the increasing import of color TV sets, which it considered a threat to Israeli economic stability and an improper pursuit of luxury, which allegedly increased social gaps. Therefore, the government ordered IBA and IETV to broadcast entirely in black and white and erase the color from any color-taped telecast.”
I know. IBA is beginning to sound like that movie Pleasantville.
So, with the great technical ingenuity that would serve Israel so well decades later as the “Start-up Nation”, IBA introduced the mehikon — literally, the “eraser” — which interfered with the color signal and triggered a “color killer” mechanism. And with the even greater ingenuity that would serve Israel so well decades later as the “Nation of Upstarts”, the average Israeli simply went out and purchased a color television set equipped with an anti-mehikon device that would restore the color signal.
It wasn’t perfect. “According to a report in Yediot Aharonoth from January 1979, the client had to manipulate the switch every 15 minutes on average in normal conditions, or up to 10 times an hour when special problems occurred, in order to restore natural colors or if the picture suddenly turned black and white.” But it served the public well enough until 1981 when the government allowed IBA and IETV to film productions in color.
Did I say 1981? I meant 1983 when the first IBA nightly newscast broadcast in color, because it took another two years to arrange for a settlement with the technicians’ trade union, who were demanding higher salaries for operating color equipment.
“Lapid also mentions that the anti-mekhikon system cost IBA 180 million Israeli lira yearly (approximately 64 million Israeli new shekels in 2011 prices).”
But the idiocy doesn’t end there. in 1990, the government approved the establishment of a Second Authority for Television and Radio and Channel 2′s Israeli News Company began broadcasting a nightly newscast in 1993. At 8′o clock in the evening. Which brings us to another dumb IBA decision.*
Imagine, if you will, that you are in charge of a nightly news broadcast with — get this — a 100% audience share!!! You have gravity and authority. For 25 years without a break, the entire country automatically turns to your show after dinner at 9 o’clock at night. Suddenly, a untried, untested competitor appears with an 8 o’clock news broadcast. What do you do?
Well, if you’re IBA, you move your news broadcast, a national mainstay whose nightly viewing is an ingrained habit, to 8 o’clock, too, and lose your market share. They still haven’t recovered from that self-administered shot in the foot.
Which bring us today’s news about the 8 minutes to 8 thingie. Haaretz reports that, in true IBA fashion, a tussle is in the works between management and staff. “Negotiations have been underway in recent weeks. The workers’ committee claims that the changes, including some in human resources, were made without any consultation. The broadcasting authority, however, says the committee is making demands unconnected to the channel changes – salary levels, for example.” Well, it’s nice to have traditions.
Here are few Mabat nightly newscast openers from yesteryear…
*Some of IBA’s other slights against the public include bellyaching about salaries and how they’re under threat of being closed down, the lack of imagination that led them to sue the Israel Olympic Committee for misappropriation of IETV’s Kishkashta character instead of turning it into a win-win by granting the rights and bringing the beloved comic cactus international fame, plus their tendency to imply that in a national emergency they will simply shut off the tap and we’ll all be forced, once again, to watch IBA while sitting in our sealed rooms. But the real offender is the annual television tax, known in Hebrew as ha-agra — or as I call it, the agrrraaauuuggghhh! — which is supposed to fund quality programming. Here, you might compare IBA to the Ricky Gervais movie, The Invention of Lying, about a fact-based existence where even the most major of movie productions feature dour seated personages reading aloud from books about historical events. But that’s supposed to be a joke, kids, not reality.
Let the Israeli party ad campaigns begin
Early elections seem to be a done deal, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announcing Sunday night at a Likud convention the plan to dissolve the Knesset and establish the election date of September 4.
Early elections seem to be a done deal, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announcing Sunday night at a Likud convention the plan to dissolve the Knesset and establish the election date of September 4.
Nobody really knows why virtually every party is clamoring for new elections over a year ahead of their scheduled appearance. But it’s clear why Bibi is agreeing – his Likud party stands to be the big winner according to all the recent polls.
With tour operators bemoaning the likelihood that Israelis are going to cancel late summer travel plans in order to be here for the elections, and the nation bracing for another symbiotic coalition of strange bedfellows, there’s not a lot to be optimistic about.
Luckily we have the campaign ads to look forward to. A truly entertaining exercise that wastes millions of shekels that could be better put to severely lacking social services, the party ads offer some unique ‘only in Israel’ moments that reveal a juicy cross-section of Israeli society.
You want to know what makes Israelis such a ornery, loveable bunch? Watch some campaign ads. Here’s a small sampling from 2007 – from Yisrael Beyteinu, Meretz and the defunt Shinui party.
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