Foto Friday – Viewing Israel with Rafael Ben-Ari

February 25, 2011 - 7:48 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Picture of the Week, Travel 

Rafael Ben-Ari is a noted Israeli photographer and educator with over 20 years experience. He’s worked for Israeli and international newspapers and magazines, traveled extensively and his photographs has been presented at exhibitions and countries around the world.

Ben-Ari also runs Israel Photo Tours, which offers one-on-one private photography workshops and lessons in Israel. These are day tours, says Ben-Ari, “for photographers on all levels who are serious about their craft and wish to improve their skills while seeing Israel.”

Ben-Ari’s experience with cameras ranges from analog 35mm, digital, and SLR to panoramic and underwater cameras. Light is essential to his work and on location, he makes use of both artificial and available light and light. His students, he states, “learn the art of using light to capture the true essence of Israel”.

He suggests various tour itineraries, such as the ancient, sun-washed city of Acre for those who love the picturesque…

© Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

The dusty Negev desert for those interested in archeology and nature…

© Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

Jerusalem, the city central to Judaism…

© Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

The places holy to three monotheistic religions…

© Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

And for a change of pace, the beaches, sun and fun of Tel Aviv.

© Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

There are a lot more wonderful pictures to view on the Israel Photo Tours website, along with contact information, itineraries and testimonials.

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Foto Friday – Discovering Acco with Elena Comens

May 7, 2010 - 5:47 PM by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Art, coexistence, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Life, Picture of the Week, Travel 

Acco (Acre) is a city that no one thinks about throughout the year — until the annual fringe theater festival comes around. It’s a shame because the old city of Acco hides hidden treasures like the Bahai gardens, (more beautiful yet less famous than their Haifa counterpart), that frame the Shrine of Baha’ U’ llah, founder of this secretive religion. Acco’s Crusader Era walls and the seaport are picturesque, and the fish restaurants serve generous and tasty portions.

One person who has picked up on the city’s charms is Elena Comens. New York-based Comens is an award-winning artist who began as a portrait painter, specializing in character study portraits. She picked up a camera after a photographer visited one of her art exhibitions, “and encouraged me to see my world through a viewfinder.”

The scope of Comens’ documentary photographic work “covers elements of poverty or wealth, social change, environmental locations, age relationships and how people communicate within their cultures.”

“Some have used the phrase visual anthropology to describe my work. Documenting people and places along my journey provided me with the opportunity to embrace the relationship of humanity within our environment.”

Comens’ online portfolio entitled, The Spirit of the Land, The Spirit of the People, Israel is a celebration of all areas of our tiny country. She writes, “Although small, Israel has welcomed immigrants from all over the world and consequently has a multi-national flavor, curious in its blend of east and west, remarkably diverse in its people and strikingly beautiful.” Acco, an city with both Arab and Jewish populations, is a good example of what Comens means.

“My primary focus is to capture the essence of a people within their cultural environment. This endeavor is even more rewarding when I can share my vision with others.” More images by Elena Comens, color and black and white, can be viewed at her online gallery.

NOTE: All images supplied by, and courtesy of, the models and/or photographer and are not public domain.

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Picture of the week: Acco festival back on track

October 7, 2009 - 11:17 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, coexistence, Picture of the Week 

pic of the week dressing cropThis time last year, rioting over Yom Kippur led to a temporary postponement of the much-loved Acco Festival – an alternative theater festival that spills out onto the streets of the old Crusader city every Succot.

The festival was held eventually in December , but much was written about how the rioting between Jews and Arabs had damaged the fabric of a city where coexistence is the norm, not the exception.

One year on, and the festival, an event devoted to coexistence, is back in its usual time slot and last year’s unexpected outbreak of violence is being put to rest.

Now in its 30th season, visitors to the run-down, but beautiful World Heritage city, have been enjoying some 450 performances from theater groups across Israel and the rest of the world, including a show that follows six Acco residents who took part in last year’s riots.

Picture by Shay Levy/ Flash 90.

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A tenuous coexistence

October 10, 2008 - 10:57 AM by · 5 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Religion 

AcreRiot.jpgThe Yom Kippur shutdown usually works. Whether you’re a secular Jews or a non-Jewish resident of Israel, you know that on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, you don’t drive or play music in public out of respect to those who are observing the holiday.

But one man in the northern coastal mixed Jewish-Arab city of Acre didn’t abide by the unwritten societal rule – and as a result, all hell broke loose.

According to The Jerusalem Post’s report,
Tawfik Jamal – a resident of Acre’s Old City – made his way to the predominantly Jewish Ben-Gurion neighborhood in the eastern part of the city, blasting loud music from his vehicle., Jamal denied he had intended to provoke local residents, saying he had driven with his 18-year-old son and the son’s 20-year-old friend carefully and quietly from the Old City to the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, three kilometers away, to pick up his daughter from her fiancée’s home.

But police dismissed Jamal’s claims.
“This was a provocation. An Arab driver arrived in a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur with blaring music, and refused to leave when asked to by local residents. We believe he was intoxicated. This was a deliberate act,” Galilee Police spokesman Ch.-Supt. Eran Shaked said.

The verbal confrontation between Jamal and the local residents quickly deteriorated into violence, as rocks and bottles were thrown at Jamal’s vehicle.
According to Jamal, he and his two passengers fled the car. The three were taken to hospital where they were treated for light wounds and discharged.

And then, to show you how rumors can spread faster than reason, false reports that Arabs were seriously harmed or killed by Jews reached the Old City, and then things began escalating.

Responding to the rumors, hundreds of Arabs set out from the Old City toward the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, walking down a main road, smashing store windows and cars along the way. Reports said the mob shouted “Kill the Jews,” “Allahu Akbar,” and “If you come out of your homes, you will die.”

At the same time, a few hundred Jews had congregated in the streets of the Ben-Gurion neighborhood. Fearing a deadly clash, police acted quickly, mobilizing “a very large force” to prevent the two groups from confronting one another, police said.

So, was it a deliberate provocation from an Acre Arab? An overreaction from the Acre Jews? And was the escalation simply the culmination of animosity that’s been built up between the two sides over years of living near each other?

Let’s not forget that in the scores of other areas in the country – in Haifa and the Galilee and in Jerusalem – there weren’t any similar reports. Let’s hope this was an aberration, and not a sign of a deterioration in relations between Israel’s Jews and Arabs.

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