Foto Friday – Miss Kaplan Loves Tel Aviv
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
Natalie Kaplan sees things a little differently. Given that she’s an cartoon series scriptwriter, it’s only right that she has the ability to animate found objects and imbue each one with life, history and — through their titles — humor.
Happy Face
Working under the nom de plume Miss Kaplan, she wanders the streets of Tel Aviv, seeking and finding vignettes she likes. Or loves. “I fell in love,” she writes, “with that wooden wall. and i fell in love with the backyard of that wooden wall.”
I Fell In Love
Tu B’Av, the so-called “Jewish Valentine’s Day”, seems the perfect time for celebrating the love Miss Kaplan sees all around in Tel Aviv. Sometimes it’s right in front of you…
Lovely Mailboxes
Sometimes it needs to be coaxed out gently… She calls this one, Will u stop hiding?
But always look on the positive side… this one is called Half Full
And you can find love even in the most unexpected places. It Touched My Heart, she says.
Read more about Natalie Kaplan at Mint Magazine or visit her Flickr photostream for more Tel Aviv Magic.
Foto Friday – The Face of Passover
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Religion
Passover is almost here! The supermarkets are bustling and there isn’t a cart to be had as people load them to the brim with Kosher for Pesach foodstuffs to replace the leavened ones, new cleaning products in closed containers to replace the open ones and perhaps a new electric kettle or microwave, just because appliances are cheaper than food nowadays.
Most people think that Passover in Israel looks like this…
Or this…
And they’re right. But Passover in Israel also looks like this…
And this…
And this…
And this…
If you’re not one of the 240,000 Israelis traveling abroad during the Passover holiday, there are dozens of activities to enjoy at home. (We’ll be buying the top half of our summer wardrobe at the T-Market in Tel Aviv next weekend). For ideas, in addition to the usual sources, check out the listings on The Big Falafel and Green Prophet.
Sivivon, dance to the beat
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture
Infected Mushroom
Yes, it may not have been around in Maccabean times, but modern day Israel is a hotbed of innovative electronic music. So, why not mix the levivot and the sufganiyot with a little psy trance, the form of dance music that Israeli artists have become identified with around the world?
Thursday night, the immense parking lot near the Supreme Court building in Jerusalem, is going to witness a Hannukah blow out, featuring probably the most successful Israeli musical artists the country has ever produced – Infected Mushroom.
Celebrated DJs who perennially make the top DJ list in international magazines every year, Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani (Duvdev) formed their electronic music project more than a decade ago near Haifa, after having been exposed to the trance music coming out of the Goa region of India.
Their music has evolved into a full-fledged rock-tinged extravaganza, and their latest CD, titled The Legend of the Black Shawarma (honoring the group’s favorite restaurant – Shawarma Hazan in Haifa), features guests spots by Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction and Korn’s lead singer Jonathan Davis.
While the band relocated to Los Angeles a few years ago for career advancement, Duvdev told me that they wait with anticipation to return to Israel to perform for a hometown crowd.
“It’s definitely different coming back to Israel to perform. It’s like a homecoming, but the expectations are so high when we come back, there’s more pressure on us to have a great show in Israel than in other places,” he said.
Also performing on the electronic dance fest will be Astrix, an Israeli DJ originally born in Russia and the Matbucha Project which combines Middle Eastern music with electronica.
Certainly, it won’t be a traditional Hannukah event, but one that will likely make the capital a bit brighter on this Festival of Lights.
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.
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