Israelis love gadgets on Google
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Business, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture, Technology
Ever wonder what Israelis look for on Google? If you thought it was photos of Bar Refaeli, than you’re only partially right.
According to Google Israel Ltd., Israelis are actually nerds – mostly interested in gadgets. The business site Globes reported Google’s assessment of Israeli behavior on the search engine, which found that we’re particularly interested in the…. global cellular market???
The anticipated arrival of the new iPhone in Israel and the expansion of cellular companies into the music content field with Pelephone’s Musix, Cellcom Israel Ltd. Cellcom Media and Partner Communications Co. Ltd. Orange Time have resulted in a high rate of search for these services, Google Israel media and telecom sector head Nir Korchak told the site.
“Without doubt, the biggest new buzz over the last six months was the much talked-about iPhone. The late launch did not curb the appetite of Israelis for the coveted handset and may even have strengthened it. Searches for it were astronomical and broke all records for handset searches.”
Korchak added, “We can draw conclusions from this about Israeli consumers. He loves gadgets and is quick to take up new technologies, and this trend is expressed in the largest number of searches even before the launch. In other words, the enthusiastic Israeli public sees itself as part of the global village, and does not wait for the local launch to get information about something which is already being sold abroad.”
He said, “The Israeli public uses the search engine at every stage in the purchasing process: from initial interest through searches like ‘critique of Nokia N97 through market surveys, ‘iPhone price comparisons’ and onto the order stage ‘buy mobile phone.’”
According to the study, Israelis also use the search terms ‘loans’ and ‘financing’ alot, but not in ways that characterize an economic crisis – 55% of Israelis looked for a loan to finance a vacation, 25% to renovate their home and only 20% in order to repay debts.
And demonstrating that Israelis aren’t just business minded, there have been two peaks in the last six months for searches for swine flu in both English and Hebrew – the first was after the initial outbreak in Mexico and the second was after the outbreak of the virus in Israel.
Of course, what the survey didn’t indicate was that according my own informal polling, after searching for all of the above topics, 93% of Israeli males also typed in ‘Bar Refaeli photos.’
Yoram, more wine please…
Filed under: A New Reality, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Religion
Karen Berg, and her husband Rabbi Philip Berg
On the day after the superstar’s second sold out show in Tel Aviv last week, I was offered a chance to interview Karen Berg, the Los Angeles-based co-founder of the Kabbalah Center, and the person most identified hooking Madonna up with the ancient Jewish mysticsm.
At first, the meeting was supposed to take place at the Kabbalah Center in downtown Tel Aviv, but the night before, one of Berg’s assistants called and asked if I would be willing to drive a little farther north to a private villa in a small, exclusive community north of Netanya, where Berg would be spending the afternoon. Sure, I answered, with visions of entering the home and finding Madonna reclining on a chaise lounge poolside, chatting with Justin Timberlake.
Well, it wasn’t quite that heady. But the house was magnificent, there was a beautiful pool, and there were people lounging around outside. It turns out the home belonged to a young couple who were students at the Tel Aviv center, and had invited a few people to lunch, with Berg as the guest of honor.
As I was sitting in the gigantic living room interviewing Berg, a hired chef in a white apron and chef’s hat was stoking the grill and flipping thick steaks and skewered chicken (all kosher of course). Guests began arriving including Madonna’s longtime Kabbalah teacher Eitan Yardeni, Berg’s son Michael, and a young couple who greeted Berg – and then she whispered to me ‘That’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s sister.’
As I was getting ready to leave and the guests were sitting down for lunch, the husband host came up to me and said, ‘won’t you join us?’
It would have been rude to refuse, so for an hour, I ate, drank, and talked about Israeli politics, the differences between raising children in Israel and the US, Madonna’s after-party the night before (attended by Natalie Portman, Sasha Baron Cohen and Bar Refaeli), and, it turned out, very little Kabbalah. One of the Kabbalah Center people whispered in my ear that the rule was that everything said was off the record, and I nodded affirmatively, because I was too busy eating to think about taking notes or remembering anything for later,
I could have stayed for hours, but I remembered I had a job, profusely thanked my hosts, and started the long drive back to Jerusalem. Thanks Madonna, I owe you one.
How does your garden grow? In Israel, not so well
The entrance to Ma'aleh Adumim (Photo: Jacob Richman)
If you’ve got a back yard or a garden, plan on decorating it brown this spring. Due to the drought-like winter and the Kinneret being a zillion centimeters below its red line, some drastic measures are likely to be put into effect to save water this year, including a ban on watering both public and private gardens.
And one sad byproduct of that is the likelihood that up to 30,000 Israelis who work in the gardening profession will either lose their livelihoods or have their income drastically cut back.
According to Green Gardens magazine (Ganim Yerukim), in addition to gardeners losing their jobs, there’s likely to be a domino effect on many businesses serving the gardening sector, such as gardening contractors, designers and manufacturers who are left without work.
The Mashov Group which publishes the magazine compiled data that showed that 2,000 workers in the gardening industry have already lost their jobs in recent months. That’s because there’s already been a ban issued by the Water Authority on watering public and private parks, gardens and lawns, effective until the end of April. However, since the winter’s been so dry, it’s likely the ban will continue into the summer.
And even without the water shortage, the Israeli Landscape and Gardening Association reports that the decline in new construction projects due to the the global economic crisis has led to a 60 percent drop in orders for new plantings of lawns and gardens in the private and public sector in the first half of 2009.
The good news, though, is that the Water Authority has hired supermodel Bar Refaeli to star in a campaign to urge Israelis to save water. Unfortunately, after watching the racy ads she’s done for Mei Eden spring water, the male viewers may be in need of cold showers.
Israeli model Esti Ginzburg shot in New York
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture
Bar Refaeli seems to be getting some positive attention headed Israel’s way, thanks to her recent appearance on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and other correlating accomplishments, as I enumerated earlier this month:
Bar is going to save Israel from a water crisis. Bar ate at these three Tel Aviv restaurants (I’ve eaten at all three as well). Bar wins a Women’s World Style Award. Bar appears on Ellen Degeneres. Bar’s body appears on the fuselage of a 737 jet. Bar eats a hamburger (this is news apparently). Bar shuts down the New York Stock Exchange. And my personal favorite, Leo (that kid from Growing Pains) must convert to Judaism in order to marry Bar.
I’m not the only one getting sick of her hotness. The Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) is apparently wondering about Refaeli’s contributions to the greater good of womankind.
Basically, the gist is, can’t there be another Israeli hottie about whom we can get excited? And the answer is decidedly yes. Meet Esti Ginzburg, a Tel Aviv teen who also featured prominently in the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, for which she was photographed in Naples.
She’s come a long way since her first modeling gig, for the Tnuva dairy farms, at age eight. Two years ago, she replaced Yael Bar Zohar as the face of Fox clothing, and she hasn’t looked back since. Ginzburg went on to become an international talent, representing brands like FCUK, Pull & Bear, Castro, Tommy Hilfiger. She also recently featured in promotional materials associated with the H&M clothing store’s Winter 08-09 line (pictured). She’s also been on the cover of the French version of Elle magazine four times.
Ginzburg was recently announced as joining the stable of Victoria’s Secret models on the Israeli website for the E! entertainment industry news channel (story in Hebrew). Apparently a shoot is already underway in New York, where Ginzburg is celebrating her 19th birthday. Mazal tov.
Should we lower the Bar (Rafaeli) already?
Yes, of course I think Bar Rafaeli is totally hot and think that it’s quite awesome that she made the cover of Sport’s Illustrated but I’ve been feeling that I can’t turn a corner in the interweb without coming across another a mention of apparently Israel’s greatest invention since drip irrigation and it’s getting quite old. Bar is going to save Israel from a water crisis. Bar ate at these three Tel Aviv restaurants (I’ve eaten at all three as well). Bar wins a Women’s World Style Award. Bar appears on Ellen Degeneres. Bar’s body appears on the fuselage of a 737 jet. Bar eats a hamburger (this is news apparently). Bar shuts down the New York Stock Exchange. And my personal favorite, Leo (that kid from Growing Pains) must convert to Judaism in order to marry Bar.
There is one bright moment and that is David Letterman’s interview with her. The man loves interviewing hot models. Good times.
Israel elections a defeat for everyone
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Politics, Pop Culture
The Siamese twins of Israeli politics.
If last night’s voting tally – showing a slight victory for Kadima and Tzipi Livni over the Likud and Bibi Netanyahu, but overall a stronger showing by the Right block – proves anything, it’s that our electoral system is as irreparably fractured as the population of the country.
We’re in a situation where the party that received the most votes is going to likely end up out of the government and in the opposition – sort of like Al Gore and the Democrats in 2000. Netanyahu, instead of graciously accepting defeat and offering Livni the opportunity to form a coalition – a task she failed to do last year which resulted in these elections, and which she’s unlikely to do now – instead claimed a from the back end victory.
While smaller Right wing parties like Habayit Hayehudi and the National Union sapped votes from Likud – not to mention Israel Beiteinu and Avigdor Lieberman maintaining their strong showing of 2006 despite predictions they would do even better – Kadima undoubtedly lost a mandate or two from those well-meaning souls who gallantly but gullibly threw their support to the Green Movement-Meimad or the Green Leaf parties.
The spread of parties in the next Knesset, therefore, is going to continue to be a representation of the total schism in Israel society, where Arab parties, the Sephardic stronghold Shas, the waning Left faction Meretz, and the fringe Right Wing parties all sit together and cause a paralysis.
It’s time to raise the minimum threshold to even run for the Knesset by 1,000 percent or so, and cap the number of parties to 10 maximum, instead of this year’s unmanageable, outrageous 34. It may not be democratic, but neither is the government we’re going to get next.
What in the world made people like Ephraim Sneh or Michael Melchior think they could garner enough votes to even get one Knesset seat? Can anyone name a difference between Habayit Hayehudi and the National Union? the Green Movement and the Greens? And for that matter, Kadima and Likud?
If the politicians really believed their mantra that the good of the country comes first, then next week, we would see a coalition announced consisting of Kadima, Likud, and either Labor, Israel Beiteinu or Shas. But don’t think for a second that’s going to happen.
Ah, the hell with it. I’m going to bury my head in the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue with Israel’s own Bar Refaeli on the cover. At least that’s something we can take pride in.
Licensed to be really really good looking
Ha’aretz usually gets kudos for catering to a common denominator that’s slightly higher than its primary daily newspaper competitors, the Yediot and Ma’ariv tabloids. But in the case of this schlockily-headlined item on their website, it seems that Ha’aretz is just trying to piggyback on the formidable wave of hotness that is Bar Refaeli buzz.
Aparently P Diddy spent 500,000 British pounds on the long-form, James Bond-themed promo video for his new I Am King perfume a video that stars Refaeli, but hardly as prominently as she deserves:
Let’s not forget, hotness as striking as Refaeli’s is rare and deserves as much publicity as possible. Her hotness even got French President Nicolas Sarkozy in trouble on live TV, when the politician, himself married to a model, couldn’t help but check Refaeli’s body out. And other publications are even taking note of her babe-itude as well, despite rumors that the fame is going to her head, and despite the controversies caused by her alleged anti-Israel talk.
And the photo shoot contracts don’t seem to be waning for her either, as she recently modeled for the Hurley International Young Contemporary Spring 2009 apparel and swim collection ads.
Hey – as far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t matter to what extent Ha’aretz is lowering its brow. Any Refaeli content is worthy of publication, by definition.
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