Foto Friday – Puppet Festival
Sometimes, a set of photos comes across one’s desk that is so arresting, little introduction is needed. I might be prejudiced — as a graduate of the Eleanor Boylan puppetry summer camp in Newton, Mass (1970 and 71) — but judging from the photos, the program for the 12th International Puppetry Festival looks just great. Details below but first, see these:
The festival mascot.
Traditional Indian puppets meet video in “The Magic Box”, a co-production between Israel’s Teatroni and the Holon Theater Center.
Award-winning Italian puppeteer Laura Kibel and her one-woman show, “Gone With The Feet”.
Above, a dramatization of Max Velthuijs’ fantasy, “The Painter and the Bird” (Photo: Giora Shlomi). Below, an exhibition of wooden puppets from the Czech Republic. (Photo: Jan Rosner)
Also on exhibit: puppets from the show “Avenue Q”. The festival will run from July 22-25 at the Holon Theater Center, 13 Remez St. Holon — a suburb of Tel Aviv that is cleverly reinventing itself as Israel’s capital of niche museums and the arts — and tickets are reasonably priced for adults (NIS 50 to 70) and kids (NIS 25-50). Activity workshops available for kids, too. To order: 972 3 502 1555.
Hassidism at Boombamela
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture, Profiles, Religion
A long-time disciple of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and a seasoned grassroots organizer, Michael Golomb used to spend his efforts marching against the Vietnam War. But since moving to Israel along with many of Carlebach’s Hassidim as part of that community’s mid-Seventies exodus from Haight-Ashbury, Golomb has busied himself with spreading a message of love at gatherings, encounter events and festivals – even mainstream, teenybopper-y ones like Boombamela, Shantipi and Beresheet.
Golomb and his crew have helped to organize Tents of Love and Prayer at several of these festivals, with the sub-camp serving as a festival within a festival for many party-goers. According to a statement released this week by director Guy Peleg, Boombalema’s planners love Carlebach-style Judaism because of its emphasis on happiness and love of mankind, making Golomb’s contributions key elements to the eye-opening, pan-spiritualist experience Peleg is trying to forge.
At the festivals, the Tent of Love and Prayer offers kosher food (which is even harder to come by during Passover), prayer services, meditation sessions, low-impact lectures and the like.
But it’s not always easy to keep one’s mind on lofty ideas when corporate sponsorship banners are flying high and scantily clad perky young ones are doing the same. And the mainstream festival circuit has received plenty of criticism in recent years about these trends from the hippie hardcore populace that first provided their critical mass about a decade ago. But Carlebach-style outreach was never afraid of “elevating the sparks” (as the Hassidic masters might have put it) out from the ditches. As The Chicago Tribune did put it back in 2007:
…Carlebach was one of the first emissaries of the Lubavitcher movement, a Hasidic group that pioneered outreach to disaffected Jews in the 1950s. Carlebach found himself particularly drawn to lost souls: drug addicts, runaway young people, the homeless.
Golomb carries this torch proudly, dancing while carrying a Torah scroll into the throngs of drum circle, sunset-hailing revelers at the opening evening of each festival. And it’s nice to see Boombalema’s leadership, which essentially represents the ultimate in the crossroads between mainstream pop culture and new-age (which usually means post-Jewish) spiritualism, appreciating his efforts.
This year’s three-day Boombamela Festival on Nitzanim Beach is set to kick off on April 9, with plans for this year including utilization of solar energy to cut down on electricity waste by half.
Belly dancing on the Red Sea
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture, coexistence
In a trend that runs parallel to the exploding popularity of pole dancing lessons among North American soccer moms, Israeli women – even Baby Boom-generation Ashkenaziot (Jews of Eastern European descent) – have been flocking to belly dancing activities and workshops in recent years.
The art form’s renaissance in Israeli culture, which always seems to be searching for ways to marry Middle Eastern folk arts with contemporary lifestyles, was on display in full force this past weekend in Eilat, where the fifth annual International Belly Dance Festival took place with much fanfare at the Golden Tulip hotel, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Workshops with over 20 instructors from around the world introduced participants to a variety of schools of thought on the subject of abdominal writhing. A wares fair offered goods like Turkish outfits, Indian jewelry and Egyptian recordings. A belly dance-off allowed participants from Russia, France, Germany Belgium and Israel to compete for a slot in an upcoming Berlin competition as part of that city’s Bazar Oriental festival.
And recital performances kept those in attendance entertained, thanks to shimmying from the likes of Egyptian-bred Magdy El-Leisy and Moroccan-raised Mayodi.
Image of an Israeli belly dancer courtesy YanivG from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Jazzy Jay and other esoteria
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Music, Pop Culture
Just because the Israeli concert-going market can’t support more than one or two performances from A-list-ers like Paul McCartney each summer, doesn’t mean that we need to deal with washed-up international talents like Deep Purple the rest of the time.
The best of the not-quite-mainstream pop talent whose art is uncompromised, esoteric and less disposable have been entertaining us here more and more often, whether it’s Devendra Bernhardt, Low, Blonde Redhead, Lee “Scratch” Perry or Morrissey. Thankfully, more and more performers along these lines have been making their way to Israeli stages in recent years.
And despite the ongoing violence in the south of the country in recent weeks, the show must go on. No notices announcing a cancellation of this Friday’s Urbanology Festival have reached this cultural correspondent’s desk so far, which means that old-school talent DJ Jazzy Jay is still expected to hit the decks this weekend at the Cult Club at Herzl St. 154, Tel Aviv (tickets available at 057-777-4422).
Jazzy Jay is one of the founding fathers of hip hop. A scratch turntablism pioneer, he spun at street parties in the Bronx in the late Seventies and in downtown Manhattan clubs in the early Eighties. Part of Afrika Bambaataa’s Universal Zulu Nation collective, Jay was also a co-founder of the influential Def Jam Recordings. His “It’s Yours” single was the label’s first-ever release, and he helped broker the partnership between notorious trailblazing rap moguls Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. His own Jazzy Jay’s Studio was an early home to luminaries like A Tribe Called Quest Brand Nubian.
Jay comes to Israel for the Cult Club’s Urbanology party, branded as a celebration of everything associated with old-school hip hop culture – rap, breakdancing, graffiti and more. Events like these have been taking place at venues across Israel for years, but none with a marquee performer of this stature. Other participants include local talents like the disco funk-fixated DJ Alarm, DJ Mesh, local old-schoolers Quami and Kottage, the Tachlis Band and alt-rappers Peled and Ortega.
Paper boats for three solstices
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Religion, coexistence
Every year, Chanuka is arguably the biggest week for children’s entertainment offerings across Israel, with options ranging from lavish pop stage productions like Festigal to museum activities to themed expositions at shopping malls.
Somewhere in-between all of the above is the free Origami Festival set to take place at the Jaffa Port tomorrow and a week from today. The festival explores the nautical theme inherent to its setting by offering workshops on how to fold square pieces of paper into sailboats according to Japanese craft traditions. Participants will also be given the opportunity to race their boats against one another on a specially prepared track, complete with fans to help replicate windy conditions, and prizes will be awarded to the victors.
The other theme to the festival that resonates with its setting is coexistence. Jaffa is home to sizeable Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities that live side by side, so the festival is a celebration of the winter solstice holidays of all three faiths – hence the justification for its pre-Chanuka launch.
Origami actually has a tradition of being tied to coexistence-themed initiatives. Famed Hiroshima atomic bomb victim Sadako Sasaki, who died in a hospital in 1955 of leukemia, spent her final days folding paper in to cranes, inspired by an old Japanese adage that those who fold 1000 cranes are entitled to a wish. Since then, Sadako and her folding efforts have been employed as a symbol for mankind’s longings to get along, and it was based on these teachings that Miri Golan founded the Israeli Origami Center, based in Ramat Gan, in 1993.
Golan and the IOC have held many ethnic-encounter workshops and events, including a major convention in Jerusalem’s Old City this past July, which was attended by many of the world’s ambassadors to Israel, many of the superstars of the international Origami scene and 1500 folded works of art sent as blessings for peace in Jerusalem by craftsmen of many faiths. The organization’s activities have also included Folding Together, a series of workshops bringing Israel’s Muslim and Jewish youth together via origami since 2002.
Fusion and ethno-preservation at the International Oud Festival
Jerusalem’s annual International Oud Festival is undoubtedly one of the highlights on the country’s cultural calendar. When it comes to Israeli performance art, often, the name of the game is “East meets West” (largely thanks to our country’s location and international alignments), and the Oud Festival is perhaps the finest example of what this theme has to offer.
Over the years, the festival has presented amazing fusion experiments, with elements thrown into the mix including the cantorial music of Syria, ancient Persian folk sounds, the contemporary folk-rock of Meir Banai, the para-liturgical poetry of the Ben Ish Chai, Egyptian post-war pop songs, Orphaned Land’s acoustic metal, the Greek blues, medieval Moroccan Sabbath table hymns, Dutchmen with laptops outputting layers of white noise, the sublime rhythmic textures of Zohar Fresco and guitar heroics courtesy of Turkish-bred rock god Berry Sakharof. The shows don’t always directly include the music of the Arabian fat-bellied lute we love to call the oud, but they are always spiritually grounded in an artistic landscape embodied symbolically by the namesake instrument.
In a trajectory that is arguably parallel to the growing popularity of ethnic music and para-liturgical poetry traditions (known collectively as the canon of piyut), over the past nine years, the Oud Festival has grown from a modest few shows held in a small auditorium each fall into a major two-week event, drawing sell-out crowds from all over the country, from all ages and from all walks of life.
This year, the festival was slightly less experimental and fusion-oriented, with an emphasis placed more on covering authentic ethnic territories new to the proceedings. This trend culminated at the end of last week with a performance by Divana (pictured), an ensemble hailing from the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Divana draws from the ancient traditions of the Manghaniyar and Langa tribes, who historically served as bards to the local Rajasthani Brahmin and Rajput aristocracy, purveying sublime chants on the subjects of love, war and mysticism. The contemporary ensemble is among the last remaining descendents of this tradition, and hearing them play was a major treat. The six-piece included two string players, two vocalists and two percussionists one of whom flailed his arms about wildly while rapidly flicking mini wooden planks together with his fingers (the outcome more than slightly reminiscent of the old-time spoonmen.
The Divana show served as the closing performance of the 2008 Oud Festival, an ecstatic and poignant summing up of Israel’s status in the international cultural scene. Festival Artistic Director Effie Benaya was visibly moved as spoke about the bureaucratic struggles to obtain visas for the band’s personnel just days after the terror attacks in Bombay, and he apologized to the audience for the absence of Navtej Singh Sarna, the Indian ambassador to Israel, who had planned on attending but was regrettably stuck in traffic.
Cholentpalooza
Now that the winter months are upon us once again, it’s time to bust out the old crock pot. The heavy stew that we call hamin or cholent might not have been so appropriate during the heat of the summer, when the manner in which it sits in the stomach can become cumbersome (although many argue that it should be served 52 Saturdays a year), but now pretty much all of us can agree to dig in.
It’s the definitive savory, hot, dense pan-Jewish comfort food, and it always has been. When you are forbidden by your Deity for thousands of years to light a fire or cook on Shabbat morning, loading up a pot with savory goodness on Friday afternoon and praying for a yummy mush to come off the fire 30 or so hours later made a lot of sense. Even the goyim agree that slow-cooked stews are the way to go.
In my home, when late February rolls around and we start to get a little less excited about the standard Ashkenaz combination of barley, beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, cubed beef and our off-the-record blend of seasonings, we sometimes opt for alternate recipes, like pseudo-East Asian cholent (heavy on the shitake mushrooms, green beans, sesame oil and soy sauce) or pseudo-Hindu cholent (coconut milk, whole cinnamon sticks, many sweet potatoes and no meat).
Others keep cholent new by adding secret ingredients, such as lamb fat (gives the whole thing a glossy coating of sinful flavor), whole heads of garlic (fun to peel and spread on bread), beer, hot dogs and the like. There are many recipe variations out there.
Now Netanya’s Blue Bay Hotel is gearing up for its first annual Hamin Festival, a celebration of the onset of cholent season. With festivals – especially those built around consumerist themes – popping up across the land at an alarming clip, why shouldn’t they? From 11 a.m. through 2 p.m. on each Saturday in December and January, Blue Bay is set to offer a cornicopia of hamin options, including traditional recipes from the Ashkenazi shtetl, Persia, Morocco and even Libya (they put beets in it!).
There will even be traditional ethnic musical performances (bouzouki, oud and wind instruments abound) to enhance the flavors, and when the weather permits, guests will be invited to sit outdoors, facing the sea. Admission costs NIS 59 for adults (children pay slightly less, dessert costs slightly more), and there are takeout options as well.
In the Simpsons episode “Homerpalooza,” Homer goes on a festival tour thanks to his formidable stomach. If he thinks getting shot in the belly with a cannon makes for a difficult yet exhilarating gastronomical festival experience, he should try visiting the Blue Bay Hotel over nine upcoming Saturdays in a row.
A festivus for the kosher eaters in us
Filed under: Business, Food, General, Religion
Running parallel to the kosher wine revolution (which has taught us over the past 15 years or so that it doesn’t have to be grape cough syrup to be rabbinically approved) has been the kosher food revolution (which has taught us over the past 10 years or so that it doesn’t have to be boiled chicken necks to be rabbinically approved). Much has been written about the kosher gourmet scene in various cities, and as affluence and religious observance become decreasingly exclusive concepts, the scene has only flourished.
Case in point with the Chef Eats Kosher Festival, already underway at 40 restaurants all over Israel and running through Thursday. Part co-opted marketing campaign, part celebration of a niche business community’s renaissance, and part charity drive (more on this below), Chef Eats Kosher is the brainchild of production company One Mouth. In a statement released through their publicity agents, One Mouth principles Tal Nechemia and Eran Zingler summed up the wave they’re riding:
“In recent years, we’ve seen a steady increase in crowds of people looking for experiences going out that are high-quality yet kosher. Tens of thousands came to the first kosher festival in Petach Tikva that we put on this summer, and the success of the Chef Eats Kosher Festivals in recent years has encouraged us to bring it back….”
The main draw to this fourth incarnation of Chef Eats Kosher is its affordability: When else can one enjoy a specialty three-course meal at a top-tier (well, most of them are top-tier, anyway – Jerusalem’s only participating eatery is, strangely, the local branch of the Yotvata café) restaurant for the extremely affordable price of NIS 84?
And at every Chef Eats Kosher-participating table are envelopes for donations to Table to Table, a Ra’anana-based organization which rescues leftovers from restaurants and events and serves them to the needy. The Table to Table-Chef Eats Kosher charity drive alone aims to help some 5000 schoolchildren, although the envelopes on the tables are for cash donations.
A partial list of 2008’s Chef Eats Kosher restaurants appears in English, along with some recommendations, here, while the full, Hebrew-only list can be seen here.
Photo courtesy Dan Peretz.
Edgy thespian workshop
Run by Tel Aviv University’s prestigious Theater Department, the SmallStage festival kicks its seventh year of operations off this Sunday for five days of fringe drama performances.
The festival is constituted of productions headed by those studying in or otherwise associated with the department, which is the country’s largest and arguably most respected drama program. Many of its alumni have moved on to become among the elite in Israeli theater and entertainment, including the festival’s founder, Lilach Dekel-Avneri, who now works with the Tmuna troupe.
Including staged plays as well as off-stage dramatic “happenings,” the festival itself maintains a decidedly fringe vibe thanks to the hunger and integrity of its participants, but also thanks to strict guidelines that all shows stick to low spending budgets, high standards of edgy creativity and a crisp 50-minute duration ceiling.
This year’s festival has been largely conceived by artistic director Liron Libskind, currently working on his master’s degree in theater. Among the intriguing performance titles are Three Small Silences (pictured), She and Birdman.
You Day
The anticipation and excitement began already last week, even while we were celebrating Sukkot – an exciting enough event on its own, if you ask me. But when that letter came, we just started counting down the days – and then the hours – to Sunday.
Why all the excitement? You Day! 
So what’s You Day, you ask? Only the best day of the year to go shopping! You Day is the reward for us loyal customers who frequent a local “big box” supermarket all year, buying groceries with their You Card branded Diner’s Club debit card. The previous two times the store ran You Day, there were great bargains to be had – so much so that by the time me and my Significant Other arrived, they were out of half the sale items!
Well, this time we weren’t going to lose out – so bright and early on Sunday morning, we shlepped down to the store to take advantage of the bargains. And what bargains they were! Would you believe half-price – on a whole bunch of stuff we actually use! And unlike the usual requirement to get deals at this store, there was no minimum purchase of non-sale items required. Just free and easy shopping for a whole bunch of half price items! The only limitation – you could purchase just two of each item. Fair enough – and for us, not a problem, since my SO had her own You Card. So we were able to get four of each item!
Now, I’m no fool; I know how sales work (in Israel, the U.S., or anywhere). Loyalty program or not, nobody is giving away anything for half price. So you expect a little pre-sale price inflation, where the store raises the price on items and puts them back “on sale” – so you end up saving less than you expect. And You Day prices were no different, although I have to say some of them were genuine bargains (except for the instant coffee, where they basically doubled the price, so you would end up paying the “normal” price in the deal).
And so we shopped. And shopped some more. And when it was all over, we took our purchases up to the cash register, and watched with great satisfaction as the printout listed an item, a price – and a 50% discount!
There’s a theory about grocery shopping that says how sales and bargains, no matter how good they are, are basically a consumerist ripoff. Just walking into the big supermarket with the bargains means you’re going to end up spending more than you planned; far better to do your shopping at the not so cheap and much more limited neighborhood makolet (grocery store). The bigger the bargains, the more you end up spending, buying stuff you don’t really need.
But does that theory really apply when almost all the items in your shopping cart are half price? Did we buy items we didn’t need? I’ll admit it; we bought four of almost all the sale items, including things we didn’t buy on a usual basis (because they’re usually too expensive!). So, in one sense, it was a good day for bargains – but on the other hand, the makolet would have helped keep spending down. I guess the strategy works – even with all the bargains, we still spent nearly 1,000 shekels between the two of us, the second highest amount we have ever spent in any “walk down the aisle” at a supermarket!
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