John Galliano on kibbutz

March 8, 2011 - 10:06 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Business, design, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, News, Pop Culture 

The Daily Squibb's image of Galliano in Nazi gear

With fashion house Christian Dior having fired its fashion director and muse, British designer John Galliano, for his anti-Semitic slurs and shouting “I love Hitler,” satiric British newspaper The Daily Squib took the opportunity to take it a step further and poke fun at Galliano’s apparent love for all things Nazi.

In this piece datelined from Haifa, Daily Squib ‘writer’ Louis Gazpacho writes that a “much touted fashion show” in an Israeli kibbutz may be cancelled after fashion designer Galliano changed the models’ clothing to Nazi gear “resplendent with fabulous swastikas and SS uniforms.”

I liked this paragraph as well:

“We know this is fashion but since when has a model goose stepping around a stage wearing a Hitler moustache been in good taste? I’m all for couture but this is outrageous. It’s bad enough that the size zero models all look like concentration camp victims but when Galliano said that he wanted the models on the catwalk to throw raw pieces of bacon into the crowd, this is where we drew the line,” Chaim Bodenheimer, one of the organisers for the fashion show at the Ariel Sharon Kibbutz, 43 kms from Haifa, told Haaretz on Monday.

Sometimes, you just have to find what’s humorous in the heinous. With Galliano now in rehab in Arizona, talk is of his supposed Jewish ancestry, the fact that he always hung out in Le Marais, the Jewish neighborhood in Paris that is popular with the gay community (and the stage for his now infamous anti-Semitic rant) and that one of his regular models sports a small Jewish star tattoo. In any case, the ADL has announced that it forgives Galliano for his rant, following his own apology.

Tags: , , ,

Nostalgia Sunday – Kibbutz Centenary

October 10, 2010 - 8:15 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday 

The Kibbutz Movement launched its centennial celebrations last week with the message that collectivism is alive and well. These are glad tidings for a movement that was declared dead and gone time and time again over the past few decades. The Kibbutz Movement reports that a growing number of young people – singles and families – are seeking to join kibbutzim, either as permanent members, or as non-member residents.

A few more statistics: there are currently 256 kibbutzim in Israel (including 16 religious kibbutzim), most located in Israel’s outlying periphery. The total registered kibbutz population is approximately 106,000 persons, of which over 20,000 are children under the age of 18.

Every kibbutz celebrates the anniversary of its founding and many have begun uploading videos and slideshows about their histories to YouTube and the Kibbutz Movement site. Here are just a few:

Kibbutz Gvat – Photos by Amatzia Ben-Dor

Collective Adventure – Kibbutz Negba

En Gev Pioneers 1937

Kibbutz Shaar Golan 70th Anniversary
Tel Yosef – Then and Now

Gesher HaZiv Seniors – Youth – oral history project

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Going eco

May 5, 2010 - 1:12 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Business, design, Environment, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life 

The outdoor porch of the main building

Here’s a cool place to head to for a meaningful Shavuot, whether you celebrate with water fights, cheesecake or all-night learning.

Take yourself to Vertigo Eco-Art Village, a working experiment in ecological and artistic living, founded by members of dance troupe Vertigo. The main members of the village are three of four sisters and their families who are also the backbone of this very Israeli contemporary dance troupe, considered the Batsheva of Jerusalem, the city which has always been its home base. But a village of their own was always a dream of this troupe, and they finally found a home on Kibbutz Netiv Halamed Hei, in the heart of the Haela Valley of the Yoav Yehuda region.

The outdoor showers

In between their performances in Israel and abroad, and work with children, adults with physical disabilities and potential dancers, Vertigo has turned the kibbutz’s defunct chicken coop into an ecological arts center, complete with dance studio, communal kitchen, guestrooms, outdoor showers and a water system that relies primarily on recycled rain and gray water. And, it’s all housed in a renovated structure that includes ‘green’ walls made of mud bricks.

A lighting element from the mudbrick guestrooms

The mud bricks come from ‘Adamahee’, the play on words that means ‘She is the earth,’ which is Vertigo’s mud brick venture, and Adamahee has created small but quaint mud wall guestrooms with everything that you need for a short Shavuot stay. There will be yoga, picnics, learning, jam music and dance sessions, tai chai, and other suitably eco-art activities. Prices range from NIS 120-NIS 240, depending on whether you pre-register and sign up for one day or both days. Overnight accommodations are additional, and it probably makes sense to contact Vertigo for more information.

I was charmed by the place, and would love to try a night there myself. Let me know if you make it out there.

Tags: , , , ,

Kibbutz changes

January 27, 2010 - 10:17 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Environment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Technology 

I’ve always been a sucker and romanticized kibbutz life, probably because I’ve never lived it. But I have enduring admiration for the kibbutz pioneer types, whether of the present or yesteryear, whether they’re building plastic pipe fittings, growing algae or creating alternative educational centers.

That said, things have been changing in the kibbutz for some time, and probably for the better. In fact, it’s really a matter of seeing what works in the new century of cooperative living rather than holding on to what used to work.

So here’s some interesting kibbutz research from the University of Haifa. According to their recent surveys, some 72% of all kibbutzim are now converted to the ‘renewing kibbutz’ model, which means members are paid differential wages. Over the course of the last year, five more kibbutzim converted to the model, and, Dr. Shlomo Getz, head of the Institute for the Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea, believes that by the end of 2012, there will be more kibbutzim switching to some alternative model.

Just to review, there are three kibbutz compensation models these days. The collective kibbutz/kibbutz shitufi, in which members are compensated equally, regardless of what work each member does; the mixed model kibbutz/kibbutz meshulav, in which each member is given a small percentage of his salary along with a basic component given equally to all kibbutz members; and the renewing kibbutz/kibbutz mithadesh, in which a member’s income is solely comprised of his individual income from his work and sometimes includes income from other kibbutz sources. You can call that the capitalist kibbutz.

Since the end of last year, 188 kibbutzim (72% of all kibbutzim) have become renewing kibbutzim, while just 9 are mixed model and 65 still maintain the original, familiar model. But there are changes taking place even in the old, familiar collective kibbutzim. Eighteen of them offer different forms of payment for work carried out beyond the members’ regular jobs, such as rotation duty in the dining room or kibbutz services on Shabbat. And on some of the collective kibbutzum, members have partial ownership of kibbutz businesses or their homes. Finally, in at least half of the collective kibbutzim, members must pay to eat in the central dining room.

(That must mean much less schnitzel eaten on a regular basis. Then again, I would pay to eat kibbutz schnitzel.)

Tags: , , ,

Kfar Blum’s Pastoral Pastures

October 12, 2009 - 10:33 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Travel 

pastoralI’ve always had a thing for the kibbutz, that is, the kibbutz lifestyle, where you live in a tight-knit community of people whom you hopefully like, can avail yourself of the kibbutz pool and have the opportunity to eat freshly fried schnitzel at almost any given time. I mean, hey, that’s living, right?

So you can imagine how pleased I was to be spending part of our Sukkot vacation at Kibbutz Kfar Blum’s hotel, now known as Pastoral Kfar Blum. What was once just a run-of-the-mill kibbutz hotel has become a higher-end version of this Israeli standard, with lush grounds, a truly stupendous breakfast and dinner spread and great access to all the local attractions.

As a New York Times article quoted back in 1990,

“When I asked the manager of Mitzpeh Rachel, whom everybody calls Juhah, to explain the difference between his hostelry and ordinary hotels, he answered: ”At the kibbutzim the staff owns the hotels, so everybody cares. It isn’t just a job. And where else will you see a guest and a waiter – a kibbutz member – sitting after dinner and chatting over a cup of coffee?” A guest there put it this way: ”A hotel is a place where you sleep. Here, I am at home.”

19 years later, much of what Nitza Rosovsky wrote in her review of Israel’s best kibbutz guesthouses still rings true, and many of the kibbutzim have taken it a step beyond, with renovated guestrooms, sumptuous spreads, spas — yes, spas — and a very casual, easy atmosphere that makes it comfortable for all sorts. There’s even a Kibbutz Hotels Chain, with a website, although it seems to be closed until October 19, strange.

In any case, as the website points out, kibbutz hotels are everywhere — well, anywhere where there are kibbutzim — from Eilat’s Red Sea to the snowy slopes of Mount Hermon.

Kfar Blum, which is an easy ride to Mount Hermon and other northern destinations, was founded in November 1943 by the Labor Zionist Habonim (now Habonim Dror) youth movement, according to Wikipedia. The founding members of the kibbutz were primarily from the United Kingdom, South Africa, the United States and the Baltic countries, and the kibbutz was named in honor of Léon Blum, the Jewish socialist former Prime Minister of France who was the focus of a widely-publicized, and ultimately unsuccessful, show trial in 1942 mounted by the collaborationist Vichy regime.

Besides working with agriculture, light industry and tourism — including the hotel and the kibbutz kayaking/rafting company, the kibbutz was once home to Hapoel Galil Elyon, a top division basketball team, which in 1993 became the only club from outside Tel Aviv to win the championship. I’ve also heard that its Olympic size pool was once the only one around for miles, and was used for Olympian trainees, but couldn’t confirm that particular fact.

Prices are not cheap, particularly during the high season of the holidays. But if you’re looking for an easy getaway, and for a guestroom that doesn’t have a Jacuzzi next to your bed — a common feature in many Israeli tzimmers — I’m voting for Kfar Blum.

Tags: , , , ,

Page 1 of 212

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap