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Foto Friday – Post-Election Fun

This just in: President Shimon Peres has tasked Benjamin Netanyahu with forming the government. And so, the coalition-building process begins. Against the background of political posturing, jockeying for positions and a moment before disillusionment sets in, Tomeriko, photographer, photo editor and informal archivist of Israeli press photographers, has posted a new series of images on his Israel Press Flickr photostream. Entitled Elections 2009, it provides a humorous behind-the-scenes peek at the recent elections.

Photo by Koko, courtesy of Israel Press

The series, contributed by any number of Israeli press photographers working for various media outlets, deals with the run-up to election day, including things that people living outside Israel might not have known about.

Photo by Koko, courtesy of Israel Press

For example, Kadima party head Tzipi Livni on the cover of womens magazine La’Isha. When she was a little girl, could she ever have imagined this day would come?

Photo by Idan Kenan, courtesy of Israel Press

Inevitably, there are instances of campaign poster abuse…

Photo by Aviad Herman, courtesy of Israel Press

With some enthusiastic party workers perhaps taking the “green” message a tad to far…

Photo by Tamar Matsafi, courtesy of Israel Press

There are those who use election day to promote their own personal agenda…

Photo by Adi Yisrael, courtesy of Israel Press

And some who just tag along…

Photo by Alex Kolomoisky, courtesy of Israel Press

But the big question remains: do we know which way we’re actually going?

Photo by Adi Yisrael, courtesy of Israel Press

Nostalgia Sunday – Blue Box Redux

Here’s a fun fact: Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with more trees than it had at the beginning of the 20th century. For years, tree-planting in Israel was synonymous with the Jewish National Fund, which itself was synonymous with the small blue coin collection tin. Some of these are now on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as part of an exhibit entitled The Map of Israel as Illustration, Artwork, and Icon.

The exhibit, curated by Orna Granot, looks at the map not in geopolitical terms but as a graphic element used “to increase the viewer’s familiarity with the land [of Israel] and to strengthen love of the land in experiential, educational, and aesthetic ways”.

Etzleinu be-Khitah Alef (In Our First Grade) by Shlomo Kadesh, Illustrations: Shlomo Cohen; Ever Publishers, Jerusalem, 1952. Courtesy of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Of course, the Blue Box is a wonderful icon in itself. So much so that Keren Kayemet-JNF, has re-launched the beloved “pushke” after a 30-year absence. This time though, says KKL-JNF world chairman Efi Stenzler, rather than land acquisition, the coins collected will go to furthering Israeli environmental conservation projects. As part of the relaunch, Stenzler has been distributing Blue Boxes to dignitaries of note, including Pope Benedict XVI, who plans to visit Israel in May.

Given the season – political, not meteorological – Israeli party candidates have been also been getting on the KKL-JNF bandwagon. Benjamin Netanyahu today planted one of 7 million saplings KKL-JNF has planned for the next several years. And here’s Ehud Barak with his 2009 model pushke.

The KKL-JNF website has a lovely timeline of Blue Boxes throughout history – it’s in Hebrew only but definitely worth a look.

It’s also a good opportunity to plant a tree in honor of Tu B’Shvat and to take a moment to consider Israel’s green future and how to best “strengthen love of the land”.

Nostalgia Sunday – Elections in Israel, Part 2

Elections are coming up on February 10th and now seems the appropriate moment to take a look at how we do it here. The Ministry of the Interior has very efficiently issued a guide in four languages (including English), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has put out a comprehensive backgrounder, and the Knesset has posted an explanation of the Israeli electoral system. But these dry documents can’t possibly convey how much fun voting is here – the bright colors, the block letters, little pieces of paper and funny TV ads.

Okay, that sounds a bit infantile, but look how cute the inside of an Israeli voting booth is! Every one of those letters represents a different political party. So you go in, put a little “petek” in the envelope, seal it, go outside and slide it into the ballot box. And no matter how bad you want to, you mustn’t put in more than one! However, if you are sorely tempted, you can stuff your pockets full of ballots from funny parties you would never vote for, and give them to your friends later in the day, just for laffs.

This past summer, the Ministry of the Interior issued a tender for computerized voting in November’s municipal elections. That’s as far as we’ve gotten with introducing IT into the electoral system and, given the computer crashes that plagued both Likud and Labor’s primary races – which left Silicon Wadi with egg all over its face – that’s as far as we’re going to get right now. But, even without computers, look how far the system has advanced in 60 years.

Okay, maybe not so much.

These two photos are part of a wonderful WZO slide show entitled Celebrate 60 Years with Israel – “Fulfilling the Dream”. Click here for Nostalgia Sunday – Elections in Israel, Part 1.

Nostalgia Sunday – Elections in Israel, Part 1

Let’s go back in time, shall we? The year was 1988. Israel still had only one television station but, then as now, was blessed with a multitude of political parties that, for the first time, were allowed to present their platforms on the air, thus providing the entire country with an evening’s entertainment. So there we sat, transfixed. Remember: there was only one TV station. Also, some of the ads were nothing if not amusing, especially if you go for Theater Of the Absurd.

This man, for example, from the “Quiet Party”, advocated getting rid of government stagnation and corrupt politicians by either voting for his party – symbolized by the ever-popular letter “zayin” – or putting in a blank ballot, or just not showing up at all.

The logic still escapes me but they look like a fun bunch, floating on the Dead Sea in their inner tubes.

But the most memorable catchphrase of 1988 was, without a doubt, “Noar, Noar, Noar” (”young folks” repeated three times), from the ad presented by Tarshish, a Netanya-based party headed by Nissim Douek. Although his party’s symbol was “zayin ayin mem” (there’s that zayin again!) — meaning “rage” — Douek seems more doleful than angry as he tells the country’s Sephardic youth they has been lied to by the government, then promises to found a university in Netanya.

To see all the election commercials from 1988, visit the Nana-Channel 10 portal.

Compare these clumsy awkward efforts of yesteryear with media-saturated today. Every political party, TV and radio station, has a YouTube presence. A good one is Channel 2’s Election 2009 channel, where Israelis (celebs, demi-celebs and non) sound off about… well, whatever.

It’s also important to keep up with weekly satire show Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country) which, having finished up with the war, now turns its attention to the elections.

Another fun online tool for keeping up with things is the Israel Democracy Institute’s 2009 Israel Election Compass. A joint project of IDI and Ynet , the Election Compass guides users through a series of questions that help them identify which political parties and Prime Ministerial candidates most closely reflect their views on Israel’s most pressing social, political, economic, and security-related questions. It’s amazing what you can learn about yourself in filling out these questionnaires. Apparently, I should vote Labor, although in fact, that wasn’t my plan.

Fred Teng Gets It

Given the avalanche of hate against Israel on the internet, at anti-Israel protests around the world, and in the media (of course!), it’s easy to believe that “nobody” likes us. By “nobody,” I mean, of course, folks from the wide world. And even if they are willing to overlook our “crimes” in Gaza (no, of course I don’t mean that), they still don’t “get it” – they just can’t understand what we’re up against.

So I wanted to share with you a message I got from a friend who’s in New York right now. There was a big pro-Israel rally this past Sunday, featuring speakers from the Jewish and general community. According to the message I got,

“The most powerful speaker at Sunday’s massive rally for Israel was Fred Teng, president of the Chinese Community Relations Council of NY. His words would have been exceptional even coming from an Israeli — and how much more striking for having come from the heart of a New Yorker and a member of the Chinese community.”

Suffice to say Mr. Teng “gets it.” He’s got Hamas’ number – comparing them to the gangs of big American cities who get their jollies running drive by shootings against innocent people. In the words of Mr. Teng,

“Enough is enough”

“These Qassam Rockets and the people behind them are like Drive-by Shootings. We have to put every gang member away for good, not just the ones that did the shooting. These Qassam Rockets and the people behind them are like a Fire in the Forest, You can’t STOP only half of the fire in the forest, and thinking you will be safe. If your house is next to the fire, you won’t think so. It is not the Qassam Rockets; it is the people behind the Qassam Rockets that we need to go after. This is an epidemic threat to the entire world.

“In the last 60 years, every gesture of peace by Israel only met with escalated violence. Every peace proposal, whether it is multi-lateral, bi-lateral, or uni-lateral was never honored by the terrorists. However, in this time of extreme difficulties, we shall not lose hope. We shall say yes to Peace. We shall say yes to Life. And we shall forever say yes to an eternal Israel Am Yisrael Chai.

Maybe someone should tell this guy we have an election coming up? Sounds like he’d make a good prime minister!

Knesset poster decay

With all the attention on the war against Hamas, one could be forgiven for not remembering that in less than a month, Israel’s going to be electing a new prime minister and Knesset.

Little by little, the campaign posters for the 613 parties running (ok, it’s only ???) are starting to appear on busses and billboards, and the media moguls and spin doctors are gearing up for the always entertaining TV ads which begin airing later this month.

But if you’re waiting for it all to be done and finished, at least one political observer is on your side. Rafi Mann, a veteran journalist for Hebrew paper Ma’ariv, and currently their oped page editor, loves to take photographs of campaign posters – but months and years after they’ve been posted, when they’ve been torn, faded, and petrified by the elements and grafitti artists.

Mann’s been shooting these pieces of ‘art’ for over 12 years, and now, ahead of the February 10th elections, he’s putting on a photography exhibit of some of the best posters – called appropriately ‘Poster Mortem’.

“Sometime after the 1996 elections, I saw some election posters that were still on billboards, pasted one on top of each other, and it was fascinating what happened to them, how they deteriorated and blended together,” Mann told me this week.

“I took some photos, and since then I carry a small camera around and when I’m traveling around the country, whenever I see an interesting old poster still up, I take a picture.”

Poster Mortem promises to be a fascinating look at the political culture in Israel – where Ehud Barak’s face on one poster blends into Bibi Netanyahu’s on the poster beneath it to create a kind of Bela Lugosi hybrid only someone like Tim Burton could think up.

“My sense is that the way the posters look after the elements and time have gotten to them is kind of a metaphor of what happens during elections and the promises that are made,” said Mann.

Let’s hope this year it’s different. But don’t bet on it.

Poster Mortem opens on Thursday evening at Beit Sokolov in Tel Aviv, and will be on display through the elections.

A letter to Joe the Plumber

Dear Joe the Plumber Opportunist,

I’m a bit confused as to why Pajamas Media have chosen you of all people to cover the current conflict in southern Israel and Gaza. Maybe it’s just the circles in which I travel, but I have never heard your name uttered in any serious way whatsoever – just in jest. Being in the right place and at the right time propelled you into the bizarre world of pseudo-celebrity and somehow you’ve managed to turn your 15 minutes into a 20. I want to officially welcome you to Israel. I know you aren’t the most knowledgeable about the conflict. That was evident in your comment back in October where you agreed with a supporter of John McCain that a vote for Barack Obama “is a vote for the death of Israel.” Shepard Smith of FOX news even called your views “frightening.” I hope you read up a bit on our country on the flight over. At the very least you should watch the movie “Ha’Instalator.” Here’s the plot. Perhaps you can relate.

In this madcap Israeli satire, a clueless plumber somehow finds himself elevated to the position of Minister of Finance for the whole country. Because he is inexperienced in politics, he takes his brief seriously and fails to perpetuate the kinds of graft and greed that his predecessors were party to, puzzling everyone — most of all the poor plumber himself, who cannot comprehend the kinds of political depravity he is being invited to participate in.

He succeeds in his post and ends up providing, among other things, a solution to the electricity crisis generating electricity via flushing toilets. Perhaps this bodes well for you. Maybe through your over simplified views of foreign policy you’ll offer some fresh ideas that will solve the current crisis (or perhaps the entire Arab-Israeli conflict) that no Israeli leader, politician, intellectual or professor has thought of yet. Best of luck.

Cheers,
Harry

The Quiet Within the Storm

You have to give Israelis credit; when the chips are down, even the ones who aren’t necessarily suspected of idealism come shining through.

As Israel went to war against Hamas over the weekend, the leaders of the major political parties all decided to suspend their political campaigns for the duration of the operation – which, both Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak said could be lengthy. Barak, who leades the Labor Party, said that he had to concentrate on the operation and had no time for politics.

The Likud, too, suspended its campaign, and has put on hold a radio campaign featuring ads attacking Kadima chief and Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni. Posters that bear the campaign’s tagline – “Tsipi, the job is too big for you” – that have already been put up will be taken down. In a statement Saturday night, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu said that “there is a time for debate and a time for unity, and today is a time for unity,” he said. “If our enemies thought we would not be united under rocket fire, they were wrong. The cannons roar, but we are united.”

With the elections coming just about a month from now – and the gap between the Likud and Kadima narrowing, according to the latest polls – the suspension of campaigning is really extraordinary. It wouldn’t be surprising for opposition politicians, for example, to accuse the government of timing its operation to cynically improve its standing in the polls, giving it a “January surprise” type of bounce that could sustain it until the elections. But no – politicians on the left and the right spontaneously announced (without any coordination, as far as I could tell) that they were holding off on the negative noise we are set to be subject to. Not that any Israeli, given the choice, wouldn’t opt for the noise if it meant that the south was secure. But it does show that our political leaders and would-be leaders are a better caliber than we usually give them credit for being.

(Photo courtesy One Family Fund)

Come Say L’Haim At The First Green Drinks In The Middle East

Green Drinks, the loosely organized and phenomenally successful international meeting group for green people of all walks of life, is starting up its first chapter in the Middle East today.

That’s right folks: Be a part of history on Monday night (Dec. 15 — tonight) as Green Drinks TLV holds its inaugural event at the Gilda pub on Ahad Ha’am Street, starting at 8PM.

Open to the public, just walk in and ask someone: “Hey, are you green?” (You might want to try it in Hebrew: “Shalom, ata/at yarok/yeroka”), and you may find yourself engaging in a potentially very interesting conversation with all kinds of people who share your passion for the environment �� from the tie-wearing politician or clean tech professional all the way to the professional activists who hang out at Salon Mazal.

Who knows, maybe you’ll strike up a new business deal or find the love of your life at one of the regular meet ups?

Seeing that Israelis are far more susceptible to over-eating than over-drinking (should there be organic hummus?), I (as one of the organizers) am not really worried about scraping someone off the floor. But TLV does know how to party. Thanks to Green Drinks, we�ll have a few more environmental partiers out on a weekday. And maybe we’ll make the world a little better while we’re having fun.

For more information please visit the Green Drinks TLV Facebook group.

Or visit TreeHugger.

Game On!

Intense, heated arguments, where opponents vociferously defend their preferred choice; hats, t-shirts, stickers, and buttons announcing to the world whose side you’re on; anthems, loyalty oaths, and in-depth analyses in the paper, on TV, the web, and “talking heads” who get paid to blather on incessantly, trying to figure out who’s going to win. And, finally, the big showdown, the final battle in which one contender tastes the thrill of victory – or the agony of the feet (I mean defeat!).

It could be only one of two things: Sports – or politics. Both inspire feelings of glory, contempt, anger, and, of course, hope. The correlation between the two is an interesting example of how opposites meet. Politics are in the front of the newspaper and sports in the back, so you could essentially read the paper from right to left and get the same information – which is good for us Hebrew readers. But that’s another subject.

Here’s another example of the correlation between sports and politics – with a Hebrew (Israeli) connection, no less. On election night, a hologram of CNN political correspondent  Jessica Yellin was beamed into the network’s New York newsroom, making it seem as if she were standing there giving her report. But she wasn’t in New York – she was in Chicago covering the celebration of Barack Obama’s election by residents of his hometown. And the technology that made this possible was developed by a company based in Kfar Saba, called SportVU – which designed the technology for broadcasters of sporting events!

According to CNN, network officials saw the system in action at soccer games in Europe, and decided it would work for them on election night. SportVu has been used extensively in Germany, Spain and Italy, company marketing director Shimon Katzubes told me in a recent interview. It’s easy to run, too, Katzubes says. “All we need are three stationary cameras – no panning is necessary – to take in the live action, and the SportVU applications do the rest.” The fact that a system developed for sporting events could be deployed so easily to broadcast an election may just be coincidental – technology is supposed to be multitaskable. But what does the correlation between sports and politics mean for voters? That we should be looking at elections as spectator sports? Something to think about for 2012, I guess.

 

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