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Have any lessons been learned from Rabin’s assassination?

Thursday marks the 14th anniversary of the death of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin – certainly one of the cataclysmic events of Israel’s short history.

The divisions among the country’s citizens which led to Rabin’s assassination are still very apparent, with venom from both the Right and Left toward each other spouting freely without any attempt to mask the hatred. The Right blames Rabin and his followers on the Left for the failed Oslo process and the Left blames the Right for the environment that enabled an Israeli to take the life of a prime minister.

While most of the country mourns Rabin’s death and marks each anniversary with sadness, there’s a not so small minority who don’t take part in the collective grief and go about their business like any other day. It’s not a holiday that brings the country together.

Still, there are attempts at unity. President Shimon Peres opened the 24 hours of commemoration saying that the former prime minister’s vision of peace will not be abandoned. The state ceremony, held at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, was attended by Rabin family members, ministers, members of Knesset, and students from schools throughout Israel.

“Israel’s young generation has kept in their hearts the knowledge that such a despicable murder mustn’t ever happen again,” said Peres. “When the criminal took Yitzhak’s life, he intended to extinguish all hope for peace as well, but his plot will not succeed.”

Peres added that while peace has many enemies outside of Israel, there are also many skeptics within Israel’s own borders. He added that “Rabin’s assassination delayed the entire process and hampered the diplomatic course, but the understanding between us and our neighbors has grown, and its urgency has not changed.”

Memorial ceremonies will continue Thursday throughout the country, and the state ceremony is scheduled to take place in Mount Herzl cemetery at noon.

I remember leaving my newspaper that night after putting out the Rabin assassination edition thinking that Israel was in mortal danger from within, and wondering if we would survive. 14 years, we have perservered, but still have many lessons left to learn and internalize about what kind of country we want to build here.

Hummus duels at 10 paces

As anyone who’s been to Israel knows, hummus is practically the national food. You can’t walk a block or two in any city without encountering a hole in the wall serving up the creamy homemade spread, with olive oil, snobars and lemon juice, served alongside piping warm pita. And I don’t mean that grainy, coarse stuff they try to pass off in the US as hummus – this is like the cream from the Gods.

With enough hummus to go around, you would think that the question of where the chickpea-derived spread originated would be a moot point. But our neighbors to the north – Lebanon – evidently haven’t taken too kindly to hummus being touted as an Israeli creation – in fact, an Israeli brand.

Businessmen in Beirut have even begun legal action to patent the dish as inherently Lebanese. And over the weekend, chefs gathered there to mix 3,000 lbs of mashed chickpeas, 88 gallons of lemon juice and 57lb of salt to break the Guiness Book of World Records, breaking the previous record set in Israel last year.

As a side dish, the Lebanese also prepared a 7,800 lb tabbouleh salad that included 3,520 lb of parsley, 3,300 lb of tomatoes and 924 lb of onions.

“Come and fight for your bite, you know you’re right!” was the slogan for the event — referring to the not-so-friendly rivalry between Lebanon and Israel over the ownership of the food.

“Lebanon is trying to win a battle against Israel by registering this new Guinness World Record and telling the whole world that hummus is a Lebanese product, its part of our traditions,” Fady Jreissati, vice president of operations at International Fairs and Promotions group, the event’s organizer, told the Associated Press.

“If we don’t tell Israel that enough is enough, and we don’t remind the world that it’s not true that hummus is an Israeli traditional dish, they (Israelis) will keep on marketing it as their own,” he said.

C’mon guys, isn’t there enough to bicker about in our region without dragging in the one thing that we all collectively love into the morass? How about a hummus taste-off pitting the five best Israeli hummus dishes versus the five best Lebanese? I’d volunteer to be a judge for that.

How Israel’s Military Secrets Translate To Clean Technology

Since its founding in 1917, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the JTA), has been a leading international journalistic source for communicating news and projects dealing with the world-wide Jewish community. Many JTA news articles have dealt with various developments in Israel and the Middle East, including those which are beneficial to the cause of peace.

A recent JTA article on clean technology, published on October 1 by Dina Kraft (also a New York Times reporter), takes a good look at a number of projects by Israeli clean tech industries and Israel’s military branches in the realm of renewable and alternative energy.

“Beating swords into green plowshares in Israel,” the article talks about solar energy energy companies such as Bright Source Energy Inc, which is involved in building solar energy plants in California’s Mojave Desert and other locations; and Rotem, which utilizes technologies developed in Israel’s aeronautical defense industry.

Rotem (read more about their work with the solar power company Aora here) is working on a number of commercial renewable energy projects involving solar and wind power, hydrogen fuel power, and biofuels.

Some of Rotem’s many projects involving the environment and renewable energy are a hydrogen storage research center, a center for geology and hydrology applied research, a center for environmental sciences, and a thermal solar energy applications technology center.

The Bright Source solar energy plants in California, and a wind turbine “farm” located near Kibbutz Ein Zivan on the Golan Heights (pictured above and below), are utilizing technology that formerly was used in developing and manufacturing rotor blades for military helicopters.

Israel’s Aircraft Industries (IAI) is now involved in developing technology to produce “cleaner and greener” commercial aircraft that will be able taxi on the runways of commercial airports without using their jet engines, according to Kraft’s article.

This will not only be more environmentally friendly, but will result in a big fuel savings as well.

In the automotive sector, an Israeli company, Better Place, is working on more efficient batteries for electric cars, and has now entered into joint ventures with automobile companies Renault and Nissan. The technology used in developing these batteries is derived from the aerospace industry.

Mr. Meni Maor, vice president for development at Rotem commented that these kinds of projects have resulted from a need to both preserve the environment as well as due to the increasing cost of oil.

“We definitely leverage a lot of know-how in a variety of disciplines — including materials, chemistry, thermal dynamics — accumulated from our experience with military and homeland security technology for developing renewable energy technologies,” said Meni Maor to the JTA.

Former IDF military officers, including retired General Yom-Tov Samina, are involved in many of these projects, putting knowledge learned during their military careers into raising funds for these development projects as well as being involved directly in the projects themselves. An example of their direct involvement is former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplansky, who is now holding the position of CEO of Better Place’s Israel operations.

The former military generals are very enthusiastic about their new careers and are happy to be making their contribution to preserving the environment. “Our training involving the importance of learning how to follow through on a mission has contributed to being successful in these new projects,” a former intelligence unit head was quoted as saying.

This article was written by Maurice Picow, who blogs at Green Prophet www.greenprophet.com. Follow Green Prophet on Twitter: @greenprophet. These pictures of Israeli wind turbines were taken by Karin on a recent trip to the Golan Heights.

::JTA clean technology article

Body shop makes a dent in insurance premiums

In a country where there’s nary a car that’s not pocked with dents, scrapes, and nicks, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have escaped being involved with any road accidents that required involving insurance companies. Until last week.

An older lady turned right at a stop sign, without really looking left, and sideswiped my car as I drove by. When we pulled over, I really wanted to wail on her, over how she typified the aggressive, sloppy Israeli driving style. But she was so apologetic and shaken up that I ended up telling her it wasn’t so bad and that she shouldn’t worry.

And it wasn’t that bad, just some paint scraped away, one door guard ripped off and a slight dent. I told her I would bring it to the body shop next door to my usual mechanic and see how much it cost. It the estimate was less than her NIS 1,000 deductible, which I was sure it would be, then we could avoid going through our insurance companies and the accompanying hassles.

The next day, I brought the car to the body shop and was given an estimate for NIS 1,600. So I tried a couple other places, but received similar estimates. Of course, at that point, the lady decided to go through her insurance company, which triggered a series of bureaucratic forms, faxes, phone calls and a visit to an accident assessor that over the next few days kept me busy for hours.

It’s an odd arrangement when the victim of an accident ends up having to do all the work to repair the damage caused by the other person. But that’s just a sideline to the main point here – yes, there is one.

I finally got the car repairs completed yesterday at the original body shop I went to and went to the office to settle up (I also didn’t know that I had to pay for all the repairs and accident assessor costs, and then file a claim with the lady’s insurance company to get reimbursed.)

When I asked the manager who to make the NIS 1,600 check out to, he said ‘no, that’s not how much it cost – it’s NIS 3,450.’

Now, I’m getting reimbursed anyway, but I couldn’t resist asking him, ‘You told me when I was going to do the repair privately that it would be NIS 1,600. You’re doubling the price because the insurance company is paying for it?’

He just shrugged and said the Hebrew equivalent of ‘That’s the way it is.’

Maybe I’m just naive, and this is the way of the world, not only in Israel but in most countries when it comes to insurance claims. But it just doesn’t seem right, does it. I’ve always wondered why our car insurance premiums are so outrageously high. And yesterday, I found out why.

Back to school daze

280,000 students started attending classes this week at universities and colleges throughout Israel. No strikes this year, which comes as a pleasant surprise.

An article in Yediot Aharonot over the weekend offered some interesting facts and stats about the the face of Israeli higher education which might be eye-opening for some, such as…

– There are 66 institutions of higher learning in the country, including 34 academic colleges (or junior colleges as they’re called Stateside) and 24 vocational schools.

– Tel Aviv University boast the biggest student body of the nation’s eight universities with 25,800 students, followed by Hebrew University with 23,000, Bar-Ilan University with 22,00, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev with 20,600, University of Haifa with 18,000, the Technion with 13,000, Ariel College with 11,000 and the IDC in Herzilya with 5,200 students. Evidently the Weizmann Institute – the home of recent Israeli Nobel prize winner Ada Yonath is considered a ‘research institute’ and not listed as one of the country’s universities.

– Out of the 221,000 students studying for a bachelor’s degree, 55% are women, and out of those studying for a master’s, 57% are women.

– Onto more important matters, the university cafeteria with the least expensive sandwiches for sale is Tel Aviv University, with a basic sandwich going for only 3 shekels (not sure what’s in that one, maybe just two slices of bread. While the most costly cafeteria sandwich is found at the Technion for 12 shekels (must be organic brain food).

– For a full meal, Bar-Ilan University tips the scales as the most expensive at 27 shekels ($7) with the University of Haifa trailing the field by offering some entrees at 15 shekels.

– Prices of dormitories also fluctuate with Hebrew University costing the most (between 900-1,300 shekels a month) and the Technion being the cheapest at 360-790 shekels.

With tuition becoming more costly each year, students and their parents are sure to be looking at these extra costs in deciding which institution to apply for. My daughter joined the ranks of the 280,000 students as she began classes this week at the instructional college Muzik, a Tel Aviv-based music school. I know that we’ll be urging her to eat meals in her apartment as much as possible.

Let the children stay

There hasn’t been a more sensitive issue on the Israeli table the last few months than that of children of foreign workers. Over 1,200 children of non-Israelis – mostly from Africa, who have been working in Israel for the last decade – are in danger of being deported by the government, despite the fact they were born here, speak Hebrew, and aside from the coveted identity card are as Israeli as anyone else.

The catch? They’re not Jewish.

This week, an interministerial committee was supposed to tackle the issue ahead of a November 1st deadline that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had set to come up with a solution to their plight. Their decision – to enable the children to remain in Israel through the end of the school year, and then we’ll see.

The campaign to deport the children is being led by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the leader of the Shas party. He’s been adamant that the children of foreign workers not be given residency or citizenship in Israel in order to preserve the Jewish nature of the country.

According to Ha’aretz, Yishai does not object to Monday’s decision to postpone deporting the children and their parents until the end of the school year, saying this was for “humanitarian reasons.” But he stressed that he will not agree to any further postponements and will vehemently oppose granting the children citizenship or residency.

Allowing these children to stay in Israel “is liable to damage the state’s Jewish identity, constitute a demographic threat and increase the danger of assimilation,” he said, adding that he would give up his ministry if the government decides to let the children stay.

On behalf of all forward looking people in Israel, let me say that we look forward to the day that happens.

Minister for Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman, representing the humane side of Israeli society, said he couldn’t envision Israel resorting to deporting the children, who want to stay here, serve in the army and be productive members of society.

According to Ynet, he referred in a speech to a precedent established by prime minister Menachem Begin in 1977, where he granted Israeli citizenship to 179 Vietnamese refugees who escaped their homeland on boats after a regime change occurred in Vietnam. No country agreed to take the refugees in after being pulled out of the sea by an Israeli cargo ship.

“The State of Israel will be blemished should those 1,200 children not be accepted as Israeli citizens. It is humanitarianly the right thing to do. The issue must be solved and we are obligated to acknowledge them equal citizens of the State of Israel,” said Braverman.

It’s clear what the right thing to do here is. And if I need to risk the possibility that one of my children might one day want to marry an Israeli who isn’t Jewish, it’s a small price to pay.

Foto Friday – The Israel Photography Exhibition

POV, a retrospective of new works by Israel’s leading photographers/curators took place this past week at Tel Aviv’s newest landmark, the refurbished old train station structure in Neve Tzedek (pictured left). For those who missed the show (and that includes your humble scribe), POV has provided video portfolios for the group, as well as individual photographers. A portion of these works are presented in this Foto Friday column, with more to follow. Enjoy! And for those who can’t wait, visit the POV website and YouTube channel.

Show Portfolio

Moshe Shay

Yuval Tebol

David Perlov

Of Matisyahu, Larry David and their [dis]connection to Israel

Just by chance, I’ve been interviewing quite a few American Jewish artistic types in the last couple of weeks – as disparate as Elan Attias, the vocalist for the late Bob Marley’s band The Wailers, iconoclast Brooklyn acoustic rocker Adam Green, Orthodox reggae rapper Matisyahu, and Seinfeld/Curb Your Enthusiasm icon Larry David.

It’s always interesting to learn how the American Jewish experience end up informing their views on Judaism – and Israel. For the 25-year-old, California-raised Attias, having an Israeli father was the key. He used to spend summers with his dad’s family in Kiryat Malachi, and liked it so much that he would lie to his parents about coming home and end up staying another month or two.

“One year, I did the Gadna military program – my Israeli friends said, ‘are you crazy, you’re volunteering?’ But I loved everything about being in Israel,” he told me.

It was also during his summers in Israel in the late 1980s that Attias – nicknamed the Young Lion – first grew to love reggae music, travelling every weekend to the Soweto Club in Tel Aviv.

“I was only 12 or 13 but I used to get on a bus in Kiryat Malachi by myself and go to Tel Aviv to the reggae clubs,” said Atias. “They had this DJ spinning the records, an Arab guy who loved the music but had no idea who he was playing, so they would ask me to announce the songs, and I’d hang out in the DJ booth all night long.”

Matisyahu also has a teenage Israel story which proved to be a life-changing experience. As a secular New York 16-year-old, he spent a semester in Israel at the Alexander Muss High School in Hod Hasharon.

“I remember one moment. They took us up to Mount Scopus around sunset to look at the Old City. For the first time, I got all emotional, and swept up in the idea of me being part of the Jewish people. Until then, it was a minor component of my identity, but it began to raise my awareness of the history and ancestry and rich background that I had. It was overwhelming,” he said, adding that it took a few years until Matisyahu became an Observant Jew and changed his name from Mathhew Miller.

These days, Matisyahu, who performed this week twice in Israel, spends a month here over the holidays every year.

Contrast the Attias and Matisyahu experiences with those of Adam Green and Larry David, born 30 years apart. David, who grew up ‘very Reform’ in Sheepshead Bay, New York, ended his Jewish experience after his bar mitzvah.

Since we were speaking a couple days after Rosh Hashana, I asked David how his holiday was, and he replied, “Uneventful.”

You don’t go to services on Rosh Hashana, I asked, treading dangerously close to a Larry David moment.

“Nah. I used to go to when I was married, that was part of my marriage arrangement, but it isn’t anymore,” he laughed.

Neither is Israel, apparently. When I asked if David had ever visited the homeland of the Jewish people, he answered, “No, I have no particular interest. Naturally, I want Israel to prosper and survive, but I’m not active in my support.”

Thirty years after David’s assimilation, a similar thing occurred to Adam Green, the quirky Brooklyn folkie, who as a member of The Moldy Peaches in 2001, co-wrote “Anyone Else But You,” the cloyingly charming song sung by the main characters in the 2007 indie sleeper hit film Juno.

Growing up in Mount Kisco, New York, he also was bar mitzvahed, but today, “I’m an atheist. I’m not at all observant now, what’s the point?” he said, adding, “I hope it’s not too late to make my first trip to Israel.”

Perhaps that’s the question all of American Jewry should be asking.

Inglourious Basterds strikes a chord in Israel

I finally got a chance to go to the movies on Saturday night in Jerusalem and see Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. I’ve been troubled ever since.

It’s not that I didn’t immensely enjoy the over-the-top Tarantino blood and dialogue trademark and the standout performances by Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz as ‘The Jew Hunter.’ I could even turn a blind eye to the Holocaust revisionism for the sake of comic book adventure heroic Jews who give Hitler and company what they deserve.

What proved most unsettling, more than the scalpings and crushed skulls via baseball bats, was the audience reaction at the screening. A good percentage of the sold-out crowd consisted of teenage Israelis and young American, religious students apparently studying here for a year.

Whenever another Nazi got his just reward, the crowd broke out in lustly cheers as if Alex Rodriguez had just hit another one out of the park. I know they’re heartless Nazis, but I felt like I was at a Kach rally.

On the one hand, it was liberating to be the avengers of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, but on the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t have been so happy about it.

It turns out that my colleague Dina Kraft over at The Faster Times related to the same issue in her much better post .

It is this ingrained Holocaust consciousness that colors Israelis’ alternating repulsion, delight, and fascination with the movie hailed abroad as “Kosher Porn,” a fantastical universe of Jewish revenge on the Nazis. It’s been playing to packed theatres and in some cities seats need to be ordered at least a day in advance. The audiences heartily cheer, clap and laugh through their cinematic ride with a band of Nazi-scalping U.S. Jewish soldiers alongside the accompanying parallel plot of a beautiful, blond Jewess plotting her final revenge.

Kraft quoted some of the viewers walking out of the screening, who had differing opinions on what they had just seen.

It was a pale, shaken-looking Erez Makovy, 31, who emerged from a darkened 500-seat theatre, filled to capacity. The crowd had gone silent watching the carnage climax in which the Nazi leadership is devoured by flames and automatic gunfire. But it broke into loud applause when Brad Pitt’s swash-buckling U.S. lieutenant character carved what became a trademark swastika into the forehead of the S.S. officer who serves as the film’s villain in chief.

“The movie left me with a bitter taste in my mouth,” said Makovy, a musician who was disturbed by the audiences’ cheers.

His friend, Itai Zangi, 27, a music producer, however, was among the laugh-out-loud, clapping masses. “It’s nice to be on the winning side, for once. I liked that he (Tarantino) turned things totally upside down.”

Nearby, also contemplating the experience, was Hila Schuman, a 32-year-old biologist. “It’s a bit too over-the-top. For Israelis, it’s hard to take a story out of the context we know so well. So we’re left asking: Is this a parody? Is it serious? … Or is this just what revenge would look like on LSD.”

As the film goes to DVD in the coming months, more Israelis will be able to ponder the same questions.

Autumn Nights in the Old City

There’s nothing like a Jerusalem night. After a hot day, it cools down but not so much that you’re shivering. That’s one reason the city is sponsoring its free “Fall Nights in the Old City” festival now until October 26 – it’s a way to get out and have some shirtsleeve fun while exploring the city’s historic Jewish Quarter.

Last night’s show was the Marsh Dondurma band – a motley crew of 15 brass musicians playing traditional ethnic music from around the world with a heavy emphasis on jazz, klezmer, funk and a smattering of pop too (I’m pretty sure I heard snippets of “Rock Around the Clock”).

The band includes trumpets, trombones, clarinets, saxophone, and assorted percussion instruments.

There’s no way to leave a Marsh Dondurma concert without a huge grin on your face. The music is infectious and the band members seem to be having such a good time on stage. And when do you ever get to see a dancing tuba player rocking out at close range.

The setting was spectacular – the Gan Hatekuma amphitheater set along an ancient wall not from the Western Wall itself. The audience was as eclectic as the performers – religious, secular, Jerusalemites and Tel Avivi’s with their shaved heads and small round glasses.

We were sitting right up front when some of the band’s fanboys started dancing right in front of us. Such chutzpah, we thought, to block everyone’s view like that. But when the bandleader exhorted the crowd to get up and boogie, we figured if you can’t beat them, join them.

Before long, a good portion of the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds, was grooving up front.

Marsh Dondurma has played all over Israel as well as at the Guca Trumpet Festival in Serbia (2006), The Montreal Jazz Festival (2007), and at venues in New York and Croatia. The clip above is from their Montreal performance.

You can catch more music from the band on their MySpace page.

The next show at Gan HaTekuma will be klezmer kings Oy Division on October 12. The full schedule is here.

 

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