Wave that flag, wave it wide and high
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics
(Photo: Marc Israel Sellem)
You just might be surprised where it was made. Some Knesset members were certainly taken aback when they discovered that the production of Israeli flags has gradually shifted over the years to countries like Turkey and China where manufacturing costs are lower.
That’s unpatriotic, the MKs say, as reliance on imports has led to economic difficulties for local textile plants which used to provide the bulk of flags, which are displayed year round, but are especially ubiquitous as Independence Day nears every year.
In addition, evidently there have been instances over the years of errors in the printing process abroad whereby the Israeli flags were not 100% accurate. Not sure if the blue to white ratio was wrong or the Magen David had extra point. But in any event, MKs from across the political spectrum succeeded Wednesday in passing in its preliminary reading a bill that would mandate that all Israeli flags be manufactured in Israel.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the bill not only restricts production of Israeli flags to Israeli-owned companies or Israeli citizens or permanent residents, but also forbids the sale of foreign-produced flags, including a special clause to prohibit the acquisition of foreign-made Israeli flags or symbols of the State of Israel by any institution that receives over 50% of its funding from the government.
Knesset Economic Affairs Committee Chairman Ofir Akunis (Likud) said that he would push to complete the legislation in advance of Independence Day, which will be celebrated on May 10, 2011. “This is both a national and a social law of the first order,” said Akunis. “We must do everything we can to encourage and develop Israeli industry, especially industries in the periphery, and it is appropriate that we begin by having public institutions purchase Israeli-made goods.”
The question is, does that start a slippery slope where in the future we won’t be able to import other product like humous (actually, who would want to when it’s so good here?) or sneakers? It’s something to think about as we wave our flags next year.
Images of Israel traveling across China
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel
Passover in the Far East? Old news. Israelis are known for traversing the world with nothing but backpacks. It was on a trip like this that Tel Aviv’s Sally Macklef fell in love with her camera as a conduit for artistic expression.
Now Macklef’s work has come full-circle, with her images joining those of 59 other Israeli artists to form Inside Israel, an exhibition which opened at the Three Gorges Museum in the Chinese city of Chongqing in December and is set to travel to the region’s leading museums and cultural institutions for the remainder of the year.
This isn’t the first time that Israeli art is being exported to China en masse, and the exhibit comes in the context of increases in Israeli-Chinese tourist and cultural cooperation over the past year.
Macklef’s work often portrays Tel Aviv as a place where the balance of ancient life gets lost in the shuffle of today’s concrete wastelands (pictured is her disaffected work Cactus), but her Inside Israel images of Hassidim performing holiday rituals come decidedly from a place of inspiration and appreciation, as she explained recently to The Jerusalem Post:
“All this happiness fascinates me, this power of community,” Macklef explained. “I realized that when you’re not happy, you can’t believe in God.”
Inside Israel’s 180 pieces depict our country as a place where natural wonders, community, contemporary urban life, ancient ethnicities and architectural marvels can be observed, as curated by Three Gorges Museum staffer Yang Chaupang and Israeli art scenesters Doron Pollack, Iris Elhanani and Esther Dollinger.
Beijing gets an Israeli tourist office
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, History and Culture, Politics, Travel
Israeli-style Falafel can be found in far-reaching places like Amsterdam and Mumbai, but that doesn’t mean that everyone the world over who’s enjoying a taste of Israel is interested in coming on over to check out the real thing.
And with the standard mechanisms for finding visitors to Israel running into trouble thanks to the global economic slowdown (foreign tourist hotel occupancy down by 13% during the final quarter of 2008, according to Haaretz), the Tourism Ministry is aggressively going after new sectors.
Last week, the Tourism Ministry opened its 15th office currently in operation outside of Israel, this time in Beijing (pictured). The office augments an active Israeli embassy in Beijing, which already serves as an active center for outreach to the Chinese, largely by co-sponsoring cultural events. But the Tourism Ministry outpost should have plenty to do as well, with projects including compiling and publishing tourism guidebooks to Israel in Chinese, assisting the Israeli private sector with marketing packages to Chinese audiences, liaising with Chinese wholesalers interested in selling Israel trips, and arranging introductory visits for Chinese tourism industry leaders and media types.
On the occasion of the opening, Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila released a statement:
“During the last decade, China’s outgoing tourist market has demonstrated rapid growth and it is still considered to have significant growth potential. The Tourism Ministry has made plans to realize this potential once the global economic crisis has passed and global tourism industry has recovered – both in terms of marketing and in the removal of obstacles, receiving tourists and welcoming them in Israel.”
It’s all part of the new tourism partnership between China and Israel, formalized this past fall. As I wrote back then….
Officials at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism ought to be drooling over this potential, given that the Chinese populace is currently estimated to be numbered at well over 1.3 individuals. So far, 2008 has shown a 45% increase in Chinese tourist arrivals here, and Israeli officials are aiming for a grand total of 15,000 Chinese visitors by the end of December.
It’s estimated that about 50 million Chinese tour in Israel’s neck of the woods, but very few of these actually make it to Israel. “We need to prepare to absorb some of that,” Israeli Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila announced at a press conference in China in early September.
The potential is being sought after further here in Israel as well, with last week also marking the launch of a Chinese-language course for Israeli tour guides, with 40 participants studying cultural idiosyncrasies and various dialects for over five months.
Image courtesy Jonas in China from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
So that’s how Israeli musicians make a living
In a country where you only need to sell forty thousand records to go platinum it always boggled my mind how Israeli musicians make a real living. Sure, most A-list pop musicians aren’t suffering – but they still have to do a few obligatory nights at the Caesarea amphitheater to keep up with their bills. While making it big in Israel is as difficult as everywhere else in the world, touring in Israel isn’t exactly an exhausting activity. Musicians are always within reasonable driving distance from their homes, so a good night’s sleep is their own bed is almost guaranteed. The Israel Independence Day concert circut is also considered a lucrative time, with many musicians playing multiple concerts in one evening and many even traveling abroad to play for Jewish communities in the Diaspora.
And some musicians just get lucky. Take Yael Naim for example. Naim was launched into the spotlight from obscurity (and is apparently back there again) after her song poptastic hooky song “New Soul” was featured on the commercial for the MacBook Air.
What’s a sure way to make a potential fortune? Easy answer. Have a hit in the most populous country in the world. And that is kind of what happened to Sarit Hadad. Her gargantuan hit song “In the Heat of Tel Aviv” has been translated into Chinese and recorded by Chinese pop singer Yumiko Cheng. According to Ynet it “has been sweeping the music charts in China and Hong Kong in the last few weeks and has also become a big hit at dance clubs.” On his blog, Chinese producer James Ting writes about how he came across the song, the recording process and expresses how excited he was to hear about the positive reaction to the song in Israel.
You can see the original followed by the Chinese cover below. Which one do you like better?
From ‘Fish to Akko’ to ‘Lychees to China’
The old English expression, “selling coals to Newcastle,” has its counterpart in the U.S. – “selling ice to Eskimos” – and in Jewish tradition, with the Talmud talking about “selling fish to Akko (Acre).” In each case, the idea is that it would be fo
olhardy to try and sell a commodity that already exists in the locale mentioned.
To that list we can add a modern day Israeli equivalent: “Selling lychees to China.” The lychee, that Far Eastern treat known to most Westerners as a dessert choice in Chinese restaurants, thrives in Israel – and thanks to Israeli agricultural technology, China has been able to improve its own lychee crop!
Lychees are grown in Israel at a number of kibbutzim and moshavim in the north, and in the Jordan Valley. There are at least two major Israeli contributions to the science of growing lychees that I am aware of: A patent by Dr. Israel Moran (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6093433.html), for “an improved process for preserving the product quality of lychee fruit,” and the work of Dr. Raphael Stern of Kibbuz Lavie (where we spent a recent Shabbat, the inspiration for this post), who determined the role of water management in the size and quality of the fruit.
Dr. Stern’s methods have been applied in other lychee -growing centers, including Florida, Spain, South Africa – and China, where he was specifically invited to help improve the lychee crop, in a country where the fruit has been grown commercially for hundreds of years. Talk about Israeli “chutzpah” – outshining the country that’s supposed to be the world leader in everything lychee! Luckily for lychee farmers in China, their government hasn’t stood on ceremony – and has gladly invited Israeli expertise to improve their crop of the fruit.
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