@Israel

September 26, 2010 - 12:37 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics, Technology 

It’s Sunday, which means today is deadline-day for the American, Israeli and Palestinian officials looking to broker a possible deal regarding Jewish settlement building, en route to peace talks.

Perhaps you’ve already read that news, whether online, in the newspaper or on Twitter. If you did read it on Twitter, you may have received it from @Israel, the latest effort from Israel’s Foreign Ministry to help improve its image.

Given Twitter’s runaway success, it’s definitely not a bad idea for Israel — the country — to have its very own micro-blogging presence. What’s interesting is how Israel acquired @Israel. According to the recently reported New York Times story on the subject, it was the Spanish owner of a pornagraphic website who sold the name to the state. The Spanish gentleman, Israel Meléndez, acquired @Israel in 2007, when Twitter was still quite unknown. According to the Times,

“He struggled to use his account…because every posting prompted a flood of anti-Semitic or anti-Israel comments from Twitter users, in a case of mistaken identity.

‘My account was basically unused because I was getting dozens of replies every day from people who thought the account belonged to the state of Israel,’ Mr. Meléndez said.”

According to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, wrote the Times, the ministry did purchase the name as part of its efforts to expand into social media. So you can join the PR effort if you like, either by ‘friending’ the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) on Facebook, or on Twitter.

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Free hugs in Tel Aviv

June 24, 2010 - 10:35 AM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture 

Can you hug someone who’s really prickly on the outside?

That question will be answered on July 8th when Israel joins the international ‘free hug’ phenomenon.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept, the Free Hug movement was launched in Australia in 2004 by a mysterious figure named Juan Mann, and basically involves loving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places.

According to Wikipedia, the campaign became famous internationally in 2006 as the result of a music video on YouTube by the Australian band Sick Puppies, which is one of the most popular on the site, having been viewed over 50,000,000 times. The hugs are meant to be random acts of kindness – selfless acts performed just to make others feel better, and recent years have seen massive hug-ins in most major cities around the world (except perhaps for Teheran.)

Now, according to Yediot Aharonot, a group of students, led by recent US immigrant, and with the backing of the Foreign Ministry, are going to show their love to Israelis. They’ll be gathering on Tel Aviv’s promenade on July 8 and offer every passerby a warm hug.

“I am a yoga teacher and I thought it would be nice to give people something positive straight from the heart,” Maya Politi told Yediot. “I’m thinking about a meaningful hug. Not just a second-long hug, but a warm hug that will last a few moments.”

The Foreign Ministry will be filming the hug-in for a YouTube extravaganza that will show that we are indeed, a kind and gentle people. Just watch out for those prickles.

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Brother less big now

October 6, 2008 - 8:23 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, General, History and Culture, Politics 

Big Brother from 1984 and not from IsraelIsraeli culture is one of the nation’s most important exports in terms of public relations, and the Foreign Ministry has been active in sponsoring international tours for Israel’s most exciting performers or some time.

ISRAEL21c has been reporting on the phenomenon for several years now:

“We have found that bringing Israeli musicians to the United States is an exciting and effective way of engaging students, said Aviva Raz Schechter, Minister-Counselor at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, DC.

“It provides us with the opportunity to highlight Israel’s cultural achievements and to show that Israel is more than just a conflict. Many American students are tired of debating about the Arab-Israeli conflict; music serves as a great way of connecting Jewish and non-Jewish young people with the country. We are particularly excited to be hosting Idan Raichel, who is not only a wonderful performer but also an example of the diverse society of which Israel is so proud,” Schechter told ISRAEL21c.

Rapper Shaanan Streett of Hadag Nachash has even publicly expressed dismay at the warmth with which his act has been received by local bureaucrats, despite the ensemble’s well-known proclivity for lyrics which are often critical of the homeland. This, despite the Foreign Ministry’s insistence that sponsored artists sign agreements nicknamed “Big Brother Contracts,” dictating that if they talk trash about Israel while on tour, they obligate themselves to pay the government back.

Regardless, Hadag Nachash and many other edgy acts have participated in performance and speaking tours to North America and Europe with governmental backing, spreading good Israeli cheer to the Diaspora, where identification with sabra culture can go a long way. And now, tours like these are getting easier to set up, with the Foreign Ministry having announced recently that the Big Brother Contracts are, like the real 1984, history. It’s good timing, coming just months after the government was criticized for unveiling new plans to keep an extremely close watch on its populace.

Quoting from a story in the Hebrew Yediot Acharonot tabloid, the McClatchy newspaper group’s Checkpoint Jerusalem blog recently celebrated the move, which was apparently orchestrated by authors A.B. Yehoshua and Meir Shiloh and championed by Arye Mekel, deputy director of the ministry’s Cultural and Scientific Affairs Department.

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