Foto Friday – Inspecting the Pipeline with Chaim Daon
Filed under: coexistence, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Profiles
Chaim Daon is a welding inspector working on one of the country’s most important energy infrastructure projects: the natural gas pipeline. When complete, the gas pipeline – an extension of the El-Arish-Ashkelon gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel, which became operational in 2008 – will be able to transport up to 7 billion cubic meters per year, relieve some of our industries’ dependence on oil, help clean the atmosphere and give additional economic weight to our cold peace with Egypt.
The project, under construction for several years now, comprises hundreds of kilometers of pipeline with joins all along the way, so the work done by welding inspectors like Daon and his colleagues is crucial for keeping pipes intact and leaks at bay.
Daon – or Captain Caveman as he’s known by the Holyland Hash House Harriers, an international drinking and running disorganization (to which I also belong) – allows us a peek at what’s going on just a few meters below the surface…
The tender to build the pipeline was won by a foreign multinational and the teams working on the project come from all over the globe. They work by day…
And by night…
The pipeline is intended to serve Israel’s major industries, chiefly Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), which is in the process of converting its oil-driven power stations to natural gas. IEC noted in its most recent Environmental Report that since the introduction of natural gas in 2004, a carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 11%. More information about the Gas Market Law and gas reform in Israel is available at the Ministry of National Infrastructures website.
Israeli wine demarginalizes settlers
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, coexistence, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics
The Israeli settler movement is often cited as a thorn in the side of peace, a rag-tag band of Wild West-inspired radicals who are keeping Israel of reaching her goals of progress. This over-generalized perception might or might not be accurate, although the headlines last month out of Hebron don’t necessarily make them look so good.
The settler movement holds a tricky place in the culture, no matter how you slice it. And even if many sectors of Israeli society make sure that the government’s attitude towards settlers remain as ambiguous as possible, the fact is that the state depends on these people to garner us international diplomatic leverage by creating “facts on the ground” rather than theoretical claims to territory, and their lifestyles – no matter how ideological or pragmatic – are therefore highly subsidized by the national budget.
For the fall holidays, the settler movement, embodied by the Yesha Council (a consciously anachronistic acronym for “Judea Samaria and Gaza”), launched a major tourism promotion campaign which packaged the territories as a kitschy roots discovery destination for mainstream Israelis (a harsh but poignant analysis of the marketing message appears here).
Now Yesha is further trying to endear itself to the center of the country by piggybacking on the oeno-tourism trend, a trend that has people around the world and around the nation visiting remote locations of Israel to check out various vineyards and barrel caves. Many of Israel’s up-and-coming wineries are kosher, but the trend is not only for the God-fearing – especially when it comes to the increasingly developed pallets of local connoisseurs.
In addition, institutions of higher learning, bed and breakfasts and olive oil presses have been employed as “facts on the ground” that have the potential to rally support from the settler-skeptical. Haaretz recently got some interesting comments on the matter from a Yesha leader:
Bentzi Lieberman, a former chairman of the Yesha Council, acknowledged shortly before leaving his post that “the settlers are living on borrowed time: if we don’t create something else for the public, something dynamic, relevant and up-to-date, if we don’t use a different, Israeli, language, that will connect the public to us, the danger of us becoming irrelevant will increase.”
Lieberman at the time cited Ariel College and the Barkan Industrial Zone as examples of successful marketing, “that blur boundaries, roadblocks and the Green Line, projects that cross borders and span across opinions, that are beyond all the little fears and connect the broad Israeli public to here.”
“If we are not able to create these kinds of projects, in terms of language, content and essence and also in the economic sense,” Lieberman warned then, “if we don’t speak a language that Israelis understand, we won’t be here.” Today, Lieberman’s vision is taking shape and increasing numbers of Israelis are visiting Judea and Samaria for reasons that are not political. Instead they are going for the experience and the fun.
Photo from flickr user ePublicist under a creative commons license.
Eight wicked branches
Filed under: General, Holidays, Religion, Technology
It’s been a while since there was a bona fide technological development in the world of the chanukia. I’m not sure if the all-ice ritual candelabra of 2004, displayed proudly in Russia, counts – that’s more of one-off stunt than a development that helps the layman.
For a few years now, a product called Ner Light has been making oil wick setup easier. Lighting olive oil candles is considered to be more a beautiful and authentic practice than lighting standard wax candles, so Ner Light’s approach, which takes messy pouring and the frustratingly time-consuming wick floating process out of the picture, is a major enabler – even if it’s less fun than getting your fingers all greasy.
Now, with Chanukkit, a Pardes Chana-based independent product designer/inventor named Jonathan Bar-Or has done for wax users what Ner Light did for oil lovers. No more melting your candles to their clumsy metal cups for eight nights. Now the chanukia is the candles, so there’s nothing to set up.
With nearly 20 years of experience under his belt, Bar-Or specializes in biotech, agricultural, cosmetic and consumer innovations. His previous product design projects have included devices for treating orthosis, for DVT prevention, mouth guards for epileptics, a telemedicine sensor glove, a spine traction neck brace, a produce labeler, a facial skin treatment patch, an oral imaging system and a tooth-mounted electro-saliva stimulation device.
The world of kitschy religious ritual items seems to be new to him, but when Bar-On was hired to develop the Chanukkit as a corporate gift, he saw great potential for mass-market appeal.
With four nights remaining until the start of Chanuka, it might not be too late to order a set via the ArtLook catalog and other niche retailers.
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