Nostalgia Sunday – Blue Box Redux

February 8, 2009 - 4:23 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture 

Here’s a fun fact: Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with more trees than it had at the beginning of the 20th century. For years, tree-planting in Israel was synonymous with the Jewish National Fund, which itself was synonymous with the small blue coin collection tin. Some of these are now on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as part of an exhibit entitled The Map of Israel as Illustration, Artwork, and Icon.

jnf_blue_boxes_old_new

The exhibit, curated by Orna Granot, looks at the map not in geopolitical terms but as a graphic element used “to increase the viewer’s familiarity with the land [of Israel] and to strengthen love of the land in experiential, educational, and aesthetic ways”.

jnf_blue_box_illustration
Etzleinu be-Khitah Alef (In Our First Grade) by Shlomo Kadesh, Illustrations: Shlomo Cohen; Ever Publishers, Jerusalem, 1952. Courtesy of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Of course, the Blue Box is a wonderful icon in itself. So much so that Keren Kayemet-JNF, has re-launched the beloved “pushke” after a 30-year absence. This time though, says KKL-JNF world chairman Efi Stenzler, rather than land acquisition, the coins collected will go to furthering Israeli environmental conservation projects. As part of the relaunch, Stenzler has been distributing Blue Boxes to dignitaries of note, including Pope Benedict XVI, who plans to visit Israel in May.

jnf_blue_box_pope_benedict1

Given the season – political, not meteorological – Israeli party candidates have been also been getting on the KKL-JNF bandwagon. Benjamin Netanyahu today planted one of 7 million saplings KKL-JNF has planned for the next several years. And here’s Ehud Barak with his 2009 model pushke.

jnf_blue_box_ehud_barak

The KKL-JNF website has a lovely timeline of Blue Boxes throughout history – it’s in Hebrew only but definitely worth a look.

jnf_blue_box_timeline

It’s also a good opportunity to plant a tree in honor of Tu B’Shvat and to take a moment to consider Israel’s green future and how to best “strengthen love of the land”.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Nostalgia Sunday – Hasamba!

January 18, 2009 - 11:55 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Art, General, Israeliness, Movies, Pop Culture 

Someday, Israeli adults of the future are going to be very nostalgic for Deus, a cyberpunk series on the Children’s Channel that I’m rapidly becoming addicted to. And for good reason: Deus is absolutely great. It has all the elements of 90210 – acne-ridden angst, mean girls, star-crossed puppy love – fused with HAL from 2001.

deus_group

I don’t want to give too much away because while researching Deus – also written OIXT in a bit of Hebrew-English typographic wordplay (read it backwards in Hebrew)– I found out that there are 52 episodes – and I’ve only seen, like, a few, and don’t want to spoil the surprise for myself.

What you can know is that Deus is produced by Movie Plus, (the same people who brought you “Beaufort”) for Yes satellite television, is directed by Gidi Dar, and stars some very cute young Israeli actors and actresses. And the opening theme by Ady Cohen is really good too.

deus_logoSo, this is what I know so far: Danny is a high-school hacker who, together with gamer pal Tomer, becomes embroiled a world of intrigue and danger, after hacking into the local mall security cameras to broadcast footage of the class teacher on a date, as revenge for an unjust punishment, posting it on a blog run by classmate Dafna, an aspiring journalist whose father has been arrested on suspicion of illegal business dealings, but the police discover that Dr. Werner, the missing partner in a company called Deus, run by the nefarious Mr. Gold, appears on the tape, after which intrepid policewoman Schneider begins investigating Danny against the wishes of her cantankerous commander, and meanwhile, Danny has fallen for fellow hacker, the beautiful Adissa, and class king Idan has gone missing only to return with a mysterious memory loss that binds him to Deus… and now, all the kids in school are installing Deus software on their computers, which watches them constantly via a big giant eye… and Deus has just been introduced into the classroom as a teaching aid… and there’s a big Deus dirigible hanging over Tel Aviv… and a hit man went after Danny… omigod… omigod…and we’re only up to Episode 10!

hasamba_book_jacketSo, what were the big tween hits of yesteryear? Hasamba! Israelis of a certain age reserve the same sort of passion when speaking about Hasamba that their kids do for Deus today. Hasamba was a series of books by Yigal Mosenzon about a group of do-gooder kids – Yaron Zahavi, Tamar, Fat Ehud, Menashe the Yemenite, Skinny Uzi and Moshe Yerachmiel – who fought crime and brought evil gangs to justice. A sort of kova tembel-wearing Emil and The Detectives, if you will.

In the 1970 movie, Hasamba and the Delinquents, underworld kingpin Elimelech Zorkin hires a gang called The Black Handkerchiefs to do a job, but is foiled by the members of Havurat Sod Muhlat Behehlet, roughly translated as “the absolutely positively secret society”, whose acronym is… Hasamba!

You may recognize a young Shlomo Artzi, for many years now a singer, as the actor playing Yaron Zahavi.

377px-dani_dinThen there was Danny Din, “the watchful unseen boy”, who starred in a series of books in which he executed missions on behalf of the Israeli security establishment that they could not do, but a 10-year old invisible boy could. You know how that is, Harry Potter fans. This book jacket is from “Danny Din In the Six Day War”. Compare that heroic effort with Deus’ Danny, who believes that he’s being hounded by the Mossad. How times have changed.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap