People of the Book

June 23, 2009 - 9:56 AM by Jessica · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, General, History and Culture, Israeliness

First Book Week, 1926

We made it to Hebrew Book Week on Saturday night on the very last night of the fair, which is a good thing because I don’t like to miss any annual countrywide events.

Hebrew Book Week, although it’s actually more like ten days, is a very quintessential Israeli event. It’s the ol’, People of the Book checking out books, mostly in Hebrew, obviously, and with book stands from all the major Israeli booksellers, from Keter, Modan and Am Ovad to the ’sifrei kodesh’ (literally, holy books), map makers and the newspaper mongers. In Jerusalem — as in other major cities where there are Book Week booths set up at some major central site — Book Week was held at Gan Hapaamon, Liberty Bell Park, where people and families pushing baby carriages brushed up against each other as they ponied up to the booths, checking out children’s books, adult fiction, the latest Mapa map books — that’s where we spent a lot of time — non-fiction, biographies, treastises on all kinds of subjects, and generally lots of printed pages.

There’s music blasting from mounted speakers, but not too loud, as to disturb one’s contemplation of a possible book purchase. And surprisingly for an Israeli event, no food, save for the beigale and cotton candy peddlers at the entrance to the park. I like that. It’s just about books.

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Tags: Am Ovad, Hebrew Book Week, Keter, Liberty Bell Park, Mapa, Modan

Working for the weekend

February 16, 2009 - 4:41 PM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life

The view from a building in Rechovot As we all know, everybody’s working for the weekend. And here in Israel, “the weekend” is a fluid concept. Most of us work on Sundays through Thursdays, with the weekend consisting of Friday and Saturday (the Jewish day of rest). Many offices and places of business are, however, open on Fridays, for at least a half day, which means that for many in the country, the weekend consists of one day. Many immigrants to Israel never fully get used to the schedule.

In the past, there have been efforts to change things, instituting a four- or five-day work week based on Sundays off, which would at least have the benefit of allowing Saturday nights to not be “school nights.” Debate in the Knesset has raged on the issue, with many arguing that Fridays make for the better standardized day off. Much of the opposition to shortening or otherwise tinkering with the work has been based on religious grounds, but trade groups and big business bodies have also expressed concern over the specter of diminished productivity.

But with the global economic crisis starting to be strongly felt in these parts, now it’s the businesses that are aiming to make their unavoidably lower output levels more affordable by lowering manpower costs. As a result, Haaretz reports, four-day work weeks, and corresponding cuts in worker benefits, are already being unilaterally imposed by many Israeli employers:

Hundreds of employees will have to get used to this new reality at Sapiens, Numonyx and Keter, as well as some hotels and other enterprises. The rationale is obvious: saving 20% of wage costs and operating costs on days when the firm is shut down. For workers, it means a 20% salary cut, and the “disappearance” of vacation days due to them by law, replaced by forced vacation days.

According to a lawyer interviewed by Haaretz, unless the employees complain, the companies are completely legitimate in their unilateral slashing of benefits, which extend beyond vacation days and include lowering deposits into schemes for pensions and stipends of various types. And are the workers complaining? In a climate where many feel fortunate to have jobs at all, not so much.

“In normal conditions I would have been angry,” [Rechovot-based Applied Materials engineer] Ami says, “but we recognize the reality. Just two months ago the company laid off 10% of its workforce, and luckily I survived that wave.”

Apparently, firms in the US have been taking similar measures since the economic fallout first took place in the fall, and the British government is considering going to a three-day week. Of course, over there, Sundays were days of rest to begin with.

Image of the view from a high-rise in Rechovot courtesy hofnik from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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