Foto Friday – Hanukkah light
Filed under: Environment, Foto Friday, General, News, Religion
Hanukkah, like its other winter holiday counterparts, is all about light. This fact was pointed out to me once by a religion news reporter (yes, there are such beings), who also noted a peculiar human trait: that of making the best of things: as the days grow short, rather than curse the darkness, we celebrate the days with candles and light.
We light candles at Hanukkah (or wicks floated on olive oil) to honor the memory of the Temple rebuilt and its seven-branched menorah, with a nine-branched variant: one flame for each day of the holiday, plus the central, utilitarian shamash.
How sad, how sad and terribly ironic that the holiday which we celebrate with tiny points of light should be marred by the largest conflagration in modern Israel’s history. The winter drought – also history-making as Israel’s longest – made it a snap for the fire to take hold and spread in all its fury.
Tonight, as the flames begin to die down, we will light the third candle of Hanukkah and Friday night candlesticks. Sabbath will be followed by the work week where, together with our national mourning for lives lost and the destruction of our environment, there will be the inevitable finger-pointing, holding-of-accounts and passing-of-the-buck. Before the noise begins, take a quiet moment to consider light, the kind that illuminates the darkness and brings us joy.
© RomKri
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.
Nostalgia Sunday – Pre-state Passover
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Nostalgia Sunday, Travel
Rishon Le-Zion is a fast-growing metropolis and Israel’s fourth-largest city. As home to a newly-opened IKEA — the largest in the Middle East – as well as a dizzying array of malls, mega-markets and movie multiplexes, we sometimes forget the important role Rishon Le-Zion plays in our country’s history as the second Jewish farming settlement.
Fortunately, the municipality of Rishon Le-Zion does remember. It has restored and preserved some of the scenery of its past in a unique open-air museum. Located in some of the oldest buildings of the settlement (the moshava), the exhibits retell the story of the city’s pioneer past and the beginnings of modern Zionism
One permanent exhibit, “Jewish Holidays in the Moshava” is a lovely presentation of domestic life in pre-State Eretz Israel. Many of the first families came from Eastern Europe with fine porcelain place-ware and tea sets. These were not used every day, but were reserved for special occasions and holidays, and handed down from generation to generation.
“Despite difficult living and economic conditions, most [settlers] did not abandon the household customs considered acceptable in their countries of origin,” writes curator Yona Shapira.
Afternoon tea was one such custom. Michael Pohachevsky, who arrived to Rishon in 1886, described being hosted at the home of Berta and Yosef Feinberg (the family is pictured left): “The tea was set in European style, in every detail and feature, and for a moment, it was possible to forget that you were in a young colony just being established in an ancient land.”
In 1890, Haim Hissin described a holiday meal at the Drubin household: “[the table] was set not at all in country style and was set with separate plates, forks and spoons, napkins, wine-glasses, pitchers of water and wine. The courses were, naturally, simple and few but prepared well and served in good taste.”
The exhibit also includes three monogrammed pieces from a set belonging to the Baron Edmond de Rothschild, patron of Rishon Le-Zion and other early settlements.
By the way, the connection between the Passover holiday and Rishon Le-Zion is long-standing as it was for over a century the home of Matzot Rishon Le-Zion. In 2008, in a grand upset for the bread-of-our-affliction sector, the veteran company was purchased by Matzot Yerushalayim.
Although one major industry might have been lost, the city can take heart in the fact that it still headquarters Carmel Wineries, long-time producer of crap sweet wine (what we in Israel call yayin patishim or “hammer wine” because of its effect both on the palate and the brain). And Carmel can take heart in the fact that in the past few years it has shaped up and begun producing some very decent fine wines.
Rishon Le-Zion itself continues to be forward thinking. Take, for example, this video clip produced by the College of Management R&D Institute for Intelligent Robotic Systems, where even the machinery celebrate in style. Here’s wishing a chag sameach to them — and have a happy and kosher one yourselves!
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.
The white holiday
Filed under: Food, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness
Shavuot is approaching, and what I like about this holiday in Israel is that you can celebrate it from a variety of approaches. If you’re observant, there’s the standard ‘yontif‘ handling of the holiday, which means food, prayers, something white to wear, and heading to a tikkun on Shavuot eve to learn all or part of the night.
But as one of the three pilgrimage festivals — Sukkot and Passover are the other two — Shavuot ranks up there in Israel, with all kinds of alternative and traditional festivities that appeal to even the most secular of Israeli Jews. There are the kibbutz celebrations, which include small children dressed in white, arms akimbo in order to hold baskets of recently picked fruit and vegetables to mark Shavuot’s stance as an agricultural festival. There are the usual family gatherings, as Israelis so love to do, including tables groaning with all kinds of homemade dairy fare, since this is considered to be the ‘dairy’ holiday. (See this great JTA article about alternatives to dairy on Shavuot.)
And since Israelis also love their dairy — we have more types of yogurt drinks per capita than any other country — one of the local dairy companies, Tnuva, puts out a Shavuot magazine each year, as an insert in the local newspapers, with dairy recipes from the kitchens of their employees. Nicely done, and, I have to say, it has been the source of more than one good recipe that’s come out of my kitchen.
There are also the learning celebrations, given Shavuot’s source as the holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah, and that has led to the traditional tikkun, all-night learning that takes place on the night of the holiday. In my city of Jerusalem, a city of much learning, there are hundreds of tikkunim to choose from, held at every synagogue, yeshiva, school and place of learning. But what I’ve loved in years past is to head to Tel Aviv, where the streets are full of people dressed in white heading to all-night lectures of the more alternative type. Those can include poetry readings, yoga and Torah, discussions about the place of Torah in a secular society, or, for the more party-oriented, all-night clubbing in honor of Shavuot. For that matter, since Tel Aviv is considered the white city for its collection of Bauhaus architecture, you could celebrate Shavuot by doing a midnight tour of Bauhaus structures.
I will be making cheesecake, but I won’t be heading out for some all-night (not that I ever did) learning this year. But if you’re in J-town, I did notice some great options for the Tikkun, including an Israeli singdown and a 12:30 am walk around the Old City, hosted by the Tower of David Museum.
Happy learning and eating.
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