The marathon man
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Profiles, Sports, Travel, health
Among the hundreds of runners in last week’s Tiberias Marathon, was a 32-year-old visitor from Australia – Tristan Miller.
Miller was on the second week of his year-long quest to run 52 marathons in 52 weeks. Yes, crazy idea, but if anyone can do it, it might be Miller.
Catching up with him a couple days before the marathon at the Jaffa Youth Hostel where he was staying, Miller was getting used to the summer temperatures close to 27 centigrade, after flying in from Zurich where he ran his first marathon in nearly 0 degree temperature.
“So, far I love Israel. It’s so lively here in Tel Aviv, and the people have been so friendly and interested in what I’m doing,” he said.
Miller, who sold his home to finance his journey, which he’s making with his longtime friend Darren, hopes to raise money for UNICEF from people who contribute funds to his Web site - and he’s hoping for a few adventures on the way.
Talking to him a couple days after the marathon – which he finished in a respectable 3:52, Miller said that he suffered in the heat, but that the views on the route, which focused on the Kinneret were breathtaking – not a great thing when you’re running a marathon.
“It was much more beatiful than I expected,” he said. “I was running for a while next to a guy called Avraham, and he was giving me the history of the area and what happened with the Golan Heights and Syria – what it was like in the area in the past and how it changed. It was really interesting. That’s why I’m here, to hear stories, and learn from everyone whatever they have to offer.”
Miller was headed to Jerusalem for some sightseeing after enjoying a beer-drinking night out on his last night in Tel Aviv, and before heading to his next marathon stop in Mumbai.
A weekend hideaway in Israel
Filed under: General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Travel, coexistence
The little house on the Galil
And lately through the generosity of friends, the frequent destination has been to Poriya Ilit – a small, country community up in the hills about five miles southeast of Tiberias and the Kinneret.
With a breathkaking view of the Kinneret, and woodsy, kibbutz feel, the community of a few hundred families runs the gamut from multi-million dollar homes with picture windows, to ramshackle, small stucco homes covered in weeds.
A few years ago, our friends bought something in between – a modest one floor house, with about an acre in back. Even though they live in Ma’aleh Adumim, their idea was to fix the house up and use it as a vacation home and an investment.
They’ve done an amazing job of renovating the home both inside and out, and if they chose to, they could boast one of the nicest B&Bs in the area. But they don’t, preferring make a beeline on weekends and spend their time gardening, barbecueing and enjoying a swim at the nearby Kinneret.
I don’t know too many people in Israel with a ‘vacation home’ – most of us have enough trouble maintaining one home. So we feel incredibly fortunate when on one of the weekends they choose to stay put in their main home, they turn the keys over to us.
The feeling and the atmosphere upon arrival is totally different than that of suburban Jerusalem. The air is clearer, the spaces are wide open and it just smells healthier. We arrived late Friday afternoon after attending a bar mitzvah party for the twin boys of friends from Manof, another beautiful community high up in the hills of the Misgav region.
After a great Shabbat dinner, we took a walk around Poriya, joined intermittently by the some of the dozens of good-natured dogs who roam the streets unrestrained. There seems to be all types in the yishuv – some new age massagists with a teepee in their front yard, a few religious Sephardic families, a smattering of Anglo Christians, and for the most part, upper middle class Israelis who had the foresight or the family lineage to buy property at this mountain paradise.
On Shabbat, after a late sleep and leisurely breakfast, we drove down to the Kinneret and spent a few hours swimming at one of the free beaches on the southeast side. I tried to listen closely for the music from the annual Jacob’s Ladder Folk Festival that many of our friends were attending, but it didn’t quite make it across the lake.
After hanging out on the lawn in the afternoon at the house and wrestling with the boys, we had a leisurely drive back home the two hours to Ma’aleh Adumim. While we were away only a little more than 24 hours, it was enough to get re-energized and relaxed. Now, back to the madness…
How does your garden grow? In Israel, not so well
The entrance to Ma'aleh Adumim (Photo: Jacob Richman)
If you’ve got a back yard or a garden, plan on decorating it brown this spring. Due to the drought-like winter and the Kinneret being a zillion centimeters below its red line, some drastic measures are likely to be put into effect to save water this year, including a ban on watering both public and private gardens.
And one sad byproduct of that is the likelihood that up to 30,000 Israelis who work in the gardening profession will either lose their livelihoods or have their income drastically cut back.
According to Green Gardens magazine (Ganim Yerukim), in addition to gardeners losing their jobs, there’s likely to be a domino effect on many businesses serving the gardening sector, such as gardening contractors, designers and manufacturers who are left without work.
The Mashov Group which publishes the magazine compiled data that showed that 2,000 workers in the gardening industry have already lost their jobs in recent months. That’s because there’s already been a ban issued by the Water Authority on watering public and private parks, gardens and lawns, effective until the end of April. However, since the winter’s been so dry, it’s likely the ban will continue into the summer.
And even without the water shortage, the Israeli Landscape and Gardening Association reports that the decline in new construction projects due to the the global economic crisis has led to a 60 percent drop in orders for new plantings of lawns and gardens in the private and public sector in the first half of 2009.
The good news, though, is that the Water Authority has hired supermodel Bar Refaeli to star in a campaign to urge Israelis to save water. Unfortunately, after watching the racy ads she’s done for Mei Eden spring water, the male viewers may be in need of cold showers.
Drinking water
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Israeliness
Contamination scares don’t seem to terrify Israelis, even when it could be affecting their favorite bottled water brands. According to a survey last week for business newspaper The Marker, 62% of the respondents who buy Mei Eden and Neviot mineral water said they’re still buying their brands, even though both companies suspended production last month following contamination worries, due to the drought affecting the Kinneret.
Mei Eden and Neviot are by far the most popular bottled water brands in Israel, but bottled water as a whole is a pretty much a given in these parts, as consumers are seemingly averse to drinking tap water. “Industry observers say that less than one-third of Israelis drink straight tap water and less than one-third filter their tap water using one of the devices on the market. That leaves more than one-third of the population that regularly consumes bottled water.” That’s from a recent Ha’aretz article.
Why? 41% of the poll respondents said their main reason for drinking bottled water is they think it’s healthier. A smaller number, about 27%, say it’s all about taste, and 11% cite it as a habit. A Jerusalem Post story said this on the subject: “The experts’ contention that desalinated tap water is clean and healthy is countered by an opposite perception held by large segments of the population. While there are no hard figures showing how many people don’t drink any tap water – desalinated or not – preferring instead the bottled option, the phenomenon is prevalent, especially in the greater Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas.”
According to Professor Avner Adin, a member of the Faculty of Agriculture of Hebrew University and a former head of the government Drinking Water Standards Revision Committee, the quality of tap water in Israel is among the best in the world. He has said that he and his family drank it “without giving it a second thought.”
So do we. And ever since my husband picked up some Camelbak water bottles this summer — which can be taken apart and washed in the dishwasher — I’ve become a water-from-the-sink (albeit, filtered water) addict. And they’re BPA-free. So drink up, and save money.
In need of rain? Ask a government minister
Filed under: Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion
I feel like a fish that has been left out of water too long. I’m literally gasping for rain. Being one of those foreign transplants from grey, rainy Britain, Israel’s warm climate is a frequent source of joy. But while I enjoy the heat and the sunshine, I still need the storms and rain of winter to help me get through the long, hot, barren, endlessly blue and sunny summers where I seem to suffer a kind of reverse seasonal affect disorder.
Oh for a good heavy rainstorm...
This year I’m not the only one. Even the most hardened Israeli sun-lovers, who normally complain of depression after just one day of rain, are protesting. And with reason. It’s been the driest January since Israeli records began, and it comes after four other exceptionally dry years.
From 1980 to 2007, the available volume of water in Lake Kinneret was 328 million cubic meters a year. This year it will be just 45 million cubic meters. Prof. Uri Shani, head of the Water Authority said the probability of Israel having such a dry winter, after a series of four dry years, was practically zero – but when did probability enter into global warming.
There are all sorts of plans afoot on how to deal with this water crisis – plans which quite frankly should have been put in place a year or two ago, but possibly the most kooky of the lot comes from Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon, who has come up with the idea of changing all the mezuzot in the Israel Water Authority offices.
Under Jewish tradition, a mezuzah is a piece of parchment inscribed with specific Hebrew verses from the Torah, which is put inside a special case and attached to doorframes as a kind of blessing. Some people like to kiss their hand and touch the case as they go in and out of the building, for good luck.
Simhon’s big plan, then, is to change the blessings inside these mezuzot in an effort to change Israel’s luck with rainfall patterns. The minister explained his logic by telling other ministers that when Labor was at an all-time low in the polls, he changed the mezuzot at the Labor House, and the party doubled its strength.
Good to know the water crisis is in capable hands, eh? Perhaps we should also consider bringing a tribe of native Indians across to do a rainfall dance. Of course water rationing, and a desalination plant or two might also help. But hell, what would I know, I’m not a government minister.
Drought brings three faiths together in prayer
There were three men standing beside the Kinneret, a rabbi, a priest and an imam. Sounds like the start of a joke, but you can be sure it wasn’t a laughing matter for any of the three. They were praying for rain.
And when you look at the state of the Kinneret, you can’t blame them. I was there for the round the Kinneret cycle ride just a few weeks ago, and the water had receded an alarming distance from the shore. People were sitting close to the water’s edge, next to signs hammered into the ground reading Deep Water.
Where has the water gone?
And it’s not that we’re seeing any signs of a wet winter to come. On the contrary, the weather in Israel right now resembles, well, a desert. Hot and dry during the day, cold during the night. Lips are chapped, skin is dry and itchy, and who knows what’s happening to agriculture – it’s horrible.
So that’s why Rabbi Shlomo Didi of the Jordan Valley, Ian Clark – the priest of the Scottish church, and Muhammad Dahamshe, the Imam of Kfar Kana, got together to try to ease the situation with a little combined prayer and a whole lot of artwork from the dozens of artists who came to paint the service.
“A joint prayer does not consider differences of religion,” Didi told a reporter from an Israeli newspaper. “There is one god, we are all human beings and are all praying to the same god.”
“The dismal condition of the Kinneret threatens each and every one of us,” added Shimon Kipnis, general manager of the Scots Hotel, which offered up its beach for the prayer service.
“We see how the shoreline is receding and that the water level is nearing the black line.’ The purpose of this event was to unite all the religions and offer a joint prayer to the creator of the universe, that he bless us with a rainy season.”
Well, let’s hope their prayers are answered. It sure doesn’t seem that way right now. The forecast for the next few days according to Israel’s Meteorological Service: Warmer and drier than usual.
Running the Circuit
It wasn’t the New York Marathon, but the 10K race I ran in last week was big enough to attract star runners from all over Israel – even though there were no cash prizes for the winners. It was the first marathon I ever ran (even though I’ve been seriously jogging and running for nearly 10 years), and a great introduction into Israel’s running culture.
This is the third time the race I ran, called the Benaya Marathon (named after Benaya Rhein, who was killed in battle in Lebanon), has been run, and this year it attracted over 250 runners from around the country. While the first one was an ad hoc affair, where anyone who wanted to could run, the last two have been handled by a professional marathon management company, which gave all runners an electronic chip that recorded everything there was to know about the race – time, route, speed, pace, etc. Results were listed by age group, and about 15 minutes after the last runner crossed the finish line, the list of who came in what place was displayed, followed by the presentation of trophies to top runners in each category. It’s professionally run, but it does cost 50 shekels to register.
Never having run a marathon before, I treated the whole experience as an extended workout, running the 10K instead of doing my usual circuit on the treadmill. So, for me, the marathon was more of a “personal best” thing, and I was happy to beat the time I predicted I would make for the route. But there were quite a few competitive runners there, who apparently follow the circuit of mini-marathons, preparing for the “big ones” – the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv half-marathons (the latter had over 7,000 participants this year!), and the uber-race, the Tiberias Marathon, which follows a 40+ kilometer route around the southern Kinneret. That’s where the big money is – $25,000 for last year’s winner, Kenya’s Leonard Mucheru Maina, plus an additional $15,000 because he broke the course record. The winner of our race was David Raskai, a policeman who is a serious runner, having come in first in a raft of races over the past year. And yours truly? I’d rather not say – It’s a personal best thing, remember?
Riding the Kinneret
For cyclists in Israel, it’s one of the biggest events of the year – every November thousands of them descend on the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), to take part in the round-the-Kinneret ride.
We were planning to do it last year, but my husband – a mountain bike fanatic who likes to leap off large boulders and throw himself down steep hillsides – fell off his bike on a sedate family biking trip in Hiyarkon park and injured his knee.
This Saturday – barring any last minute falls – we’ll be setting off at 6.30am with the 10,000 or so cyclists expected to take part in this popular fall event.
I must admit, originally I was planning to take part in the 65 kilometer ride – right around the Kinneret, but I got cold feet when we drove there a week ago and I realized that the road, which always looked rather flat from the window of a car, was actually pretty hilly; and the other side of the Kinneret vanished threateningly into the haze, an alarmingly long distance away.
Still, I can’t make too much fuss, my 10-year-old is planning to do the long route with three of his friends, and a couple of parents more used to cycling long distances than I am (my idea of cycling these days mostly involves sitting on a spinning bike in an air-conditioned room for an hour with loud dance music and a teacher shouting encouragement.)
He’s either a great deal fitter than me, or he just can’t envision how hard it will be. I suspect the latter. I’ve warned him it will be hard. I’ve warned him he’ll be cycling for at least four hours. I’ve warned him that his butt will ache for days afterwards, and that the last 20km will be the hardest thing he’s ever done – but he won’t be swayed. Two of his friends did it last year and they’ve been boasting about it ever since. He may be 10, but it’s his manhood at stake.
We’re doing the 31 km ride, joined by my eight-year-old who is particularly interested in the medals they give out to all participants at the end (will it have a bicycle on mummy?), and my two and a half year old, who will travel in style in a pull-along buggy, milk, snacks and toys at an easily reachable distance.
It promises to be a beautiful day, and perhaps, after all the rain this week, the Kinneret will even be a little fuller. If any readers are taking part, do let me know – we can wave at one another as we go round.
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