Dating Sites Online and On The Earth, For Israelis

January 26, 2011 - 8:56 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Environment 

green heart dating israel picture

The winter weather (though fairly mild in Israel and the Middle East) makes us want to cuddle with loved ones while drinking hot cocoa and wrapped in blankets. This is easy enough if you already have a loved one, but if you find yourself single in December or January you may be scanning those dating site directories (JDate is obviously a favorite in Israel – listed on the directory). Even though Israelis have Tu B’Av, the Hebrew holiday of love, they are starting more and more to observe the North American Valentine’s Day.

So how do you set yourself apart from the crowd and also bring some eco-consciousness to your dating? Luckily, in Israel, there are lots of original ways to eco-date. Read more

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Macy Gray stands up to pressure to scrap Tel Aviv shows

January 20, 2011 - 12:17 PM by · 8 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, coexistence, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Music, News, Pop Culture 

It’s happened too often in the recent past – high-profile international performers like Elvis Costello and the Pixies who book and sell out shows in Israel, and then turn around and cancel them.

The pro-Palestinian presence on the Web and in campaigns calling for these artists to boycott Israel by using catch phrases like “Apartheid state” and focusing on its treatment of Palestinians is usually the main reason for the turn around in the artists’ decision to scrap their plans.

And at least on the surface, it’s what prompted American soul singer Macy Gray to post a status on her Facebook fan page questioning whether she should honor her contract to appear in Tel Aviv at the Reading 3 club on February 11 and 12.

“I’m booked for two shows in Tel Aviv,” Gray wrote. “I’m getting a lot of
letters from activists urging and begging me to boycott by not performing in protest of apartheid against the Palestinians. What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is disgusting, but I want to go. I have a lot of fans there that I don’t want to cancel on, and I don’t know how my not going changes anything. What do you think? Stay or go?”

Around 2,000 people reacted to Gray’s status update, with the majority
writing messages like “cultural boycott is an integral part of the fight
against apartheid” and “cancel your tour and stand up for human rights.”

Others responded differently. “Please don’t give in to the haters – they claim that Israel practices Apartheid, but the last time you played in Israel, the Arab students of Israel’s Hebrew University were equally able to watch you play. That’s not apartheid; that’s freedom!” wrote one referring to her last performance here in 2008.

Having evidently weighed the various responses, Gray, who has performed three previous times in Israel, announced via Twitter on Wednesday that she had decided to honor her commitment to perform in Tel Aviv. “Dear Israel fans. Me and the band will be there in 20 days. Can’t wait. See you then. Peace,” she wrote.

While the case seems closed, it apparently isn’t. According to a couple insiders in the concert promotion business, it’s not so much the performer’s conscience that suddenly lights up when met by the pro-Palestinian onslaught – it’s something much more concrete.

“Some of these artists are getting death threats,” said one member of a production team in Tel Aviv. “They’re generally apolitical and don’t know or understand the issues of the region. But when they are threatened, it suddenly jolts them. Hearing or reading ‘if you play in Israel, we’ll kill you’ can cause some people to cancel.”

That allegedly happened to Paul McCartney a few hours before his giant show in Tel Aviv in 2008, when a caller reportedly threatened to shoot him if he went onstage. Sir Paul didn’t give in and the show went on as planned.

Whether Macy Gray – despite her apparent decision to buck the boycott calls – will have the gumption to do the same, if the haters of Israel resort to such uncivilized tactics, remains to be seen.

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Um, I’ll have McFalafel with cheese

January 19, 2011 - 11:39 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture 

Something about this just isn’t right.

McDonald’s in Israel has announced that this week a new item will begin appearing on menus in the 160 branches dotting the country – the McFalafel!

I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. The McKebab has already been a staple on the menu for a while, in an effort by the chain, according to Israel CEO Omri Padan, to adjust their products to “the Israeli taste.”

The McFalafel will be sold either inside Iraqi pita bread with tahini and chopped salad, in a box containing three to five pieces with tahini, or as a meal with fries or green salad and a drink.

A Ynet report on the culinary development says that chickpea delicacy and Israeli fast food staple will be fried in canola oil and will meet the health standards set by the chain (which if you watched Supersize Me are obviously rigid). It contains 499 calories and only 6.7% fat.

It remains to be seen, with the thousands of falafel servers around the country, offering the fried balls in every imaginable combination, consistency and style, why someone who would choose to go to McDonald’s in the first place would choose to order the newest item on the menu.

But I remember thinking the same thing when I was growing up in New England and my local McDonald’s branches started making lobster rolls (I can’t remember if it was called McLobster or McClaw). The item is apparently still on the menu. And apparently, the McFalafel has been a popular item at McDonald’s outlets in Egypt and other Arab countries for years.

So there’s hope for the McFalafel in Israel – just wondering if there’ll be a ‘with cheese’ option.

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From Sudan to Jerusalem

January 18, 2011 - 5:49 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Politics 

Refugees travel from Sudan north through Egypt to Israel

One of the hot topics in the news these past months has been the steady influx of refugees from Africa who have crossed the border between Egypt and Israel, and Israel’s subsequent response of building a fence to keep the Africans out.

With 1,000 refugees arriving every month now, the issue is not trivial. It’s further complicated by the historical Jewish imperative to treat the less fortunate with kindness and compassion and not close the floodgates.

Until recently, the subject was mostly theoretical for me. I had never sat down and actually talked with someone who had made the long journey northward and slipped across the Sinai border.

So I was very intrigued when the opportunity arose to spend a Shabbat meal with a refugee from Darfur, now living in Jerusalem and working as a cleaner. “Jack” had earlier in the day given a talk at our synagogue. He joined us at the Shabbat table of our friends Bob and Ruth, accompanied by a volunteer from the U.S. who is helping him write and edit his speaking material.

Jack was quite articulate as he explained who was fighting whom, why, and for how long. We learned about peace agreements that have been broken, and the current struggles by southern Sudan to secede from the violent north.

Near the end of the conversation, I decided to ask a tough and potentially inflammatory question. What did Jack think of the fence Israel is building? He must be against something that would prevent his country-mates from finding safe haven in Israel, I imagined. His answer surprised me.

Jack was all for the fence, he said. He understood Israel’s dilemma and explained that, as a small country, Israel could not be expected to absorb refugees indefinitely. The fence should be built…but here was the kicker: all refugees already in Israel should receive legal resident status and be allowed to work and build their families here.

What would happen to other would-be asylum seekers, I asked? There were other countries in Africa that would take in the displaced Sudanese, Jack assured us. Once word filtered south that there was now a wall preventing entry into Israel, the flow would surely stop.

I’m not sure what to make of Jack’s response. Was he presenting a politically balanced position calculated to win Israeli favor, or was he thinking only about how to make the best of his own situation, while cynically turning a blind eye to others in a similar, bleak predicament?

The fence and the African migration test Israel’s conceptions about what kind of country we want to be. Should we be a refuge for at least some of the world’s most downtrodden? Or must we protect ourselves from the slippery slope of a demographic a danger.

I don’t have an easy answer. And neither, apparently, did our new friend Jack.

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Taking it to the bank

January 15, 2011 - 6:31 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Life 

Dealing with banks is hell everywhere, but in Israel, it’s just a little bit more hellish.

Whether it’s the new policy of not being able to telephone your branch, all those hidden service charges you have no idea what they’re for, or exorbitant interest rates they charge on overdrafts (what? you mean banks in the West don’t let you go into overdraft? oops, drop that complaint), it sometimes seems much more desireable to leave our hard earned shekels under our already lumpy mattresses.

But then, there are they times when they surprise you. Of course, it starts with aggravation. My daughter in the army gets her salary deposited straight into her bank account. When she opened the account a year ago, the clerk suggested that a certain amount be deposited into her day-to-day account, and the rest of the money go into a savings account which would collect interest. Whenever she wanted to transfer money from the savings to the checking, she just needed to call a number, give her code and easy as 1-2-3. Suuuure.

Whenever she’s attempted this process, she’s never been able to get past the code part, before being told, she’s typing in the wrong data. Since she’s virtually never home during banking hours, she’s been unable to clarify, and on Friday, she was basically out of money, unable to withrdaw anything from the ATM machine.

She called me at home and asked me to go into the local branch and clarify, and see if I could transfer some money for her. I got there soon before it was to close for Shabbat, presented the teller with the account info and the story. And she said, of course, only the person with the account can transfer money.

“Then talk to her,” I said, calling my daughter on her cell phone. She repeated the story about the code to the teller, who repeated her mantra that my daughter, herself, must come into the bank, get a new code and transfer the money herself.

“Do you expect her to go around without any money until then? She’s in the middle of nowhere, defending our country,” I argued. She gave me an initial shrug, continued talking to my daughter, and finally said, “It’s against our regulations, but how much do you want transferred?”

The transaction completed, my daughter sitting pretty with money for the Shekem (the army convenience store), and the teller and myself eyeing each other with a combination of wariness and satisfaction, we shared a “Shabbat Shalom,” aware that sometimes the rules must be bent.

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