Hallelujah!

September 25, 2009 - 10:05 AM by David · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, coexistence 
YouTube Preview Image

You just haven’t lived until you’re in a stadium with 49,999 other people, all of whom are singing along with Leonard Cohen as he performs “Hallelujah.”

This was just one of the countless transcendent, goose bump-invoking moments in Cohen’s concert Thursday night in Ramat Gan Stadium. It was one of those shows where you enter some kind of suspended time zone in which for three hours, somehow all seems to be right on the planet.

Full of joy, hope, great musicianship, and excrutiatingly beautiful moments, the show was perfectly placed only a few days before Yom Kippur, a time of reflection and self examination. Seeing and hearing Cohen sing his songs like in some long-carved-in-stone prayers transformed the stadium into the world’s biggest, yet most intimate synagogue. And when the singer offered a dramatic rendering of the Bikat Kohanim (the Priestly blessing) late in the show, it only added to that feeling.

The audience, consisting of ages from teen to Cohen-era 70s, hung on his every lyric and delivery. A few times when he kneeled, there were a few gasps from people fearful of a repeat of the fainting incident that occurred in Spain last week, but Cohen was only making the moves for dramatic effect.

The three and a half hour concert (including a 25-minute break in the middle), included a slew of encores, with Cohen seemingly unwilling to leave the stage on his last show of a huge European tour. In fact, he brought out all the crew members on stage, introduced them and thanked them at the end.

Even though there were definitely some Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in attendance, some involved in the Fund for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace, which was launched earlier in the evening with proceeds that Cohen donated from the show, I kept thinking how nice it would have been if the crowd had been half Jewish, half Arab.

If only Cohen’s message of hope, peace and reconciliation had been allowed to be heard in Ramallah as well, and not been banned by angry Palestinians who refused to let a planned concert take place there. Witnessing 50,000 Palestinians singing “Hallelujah” and applauding efforts for reconciliation would have been a real New Year gift for all of us.

Tags: , , , ,

Just another ghost in the Wall

July 15, 2009 - 9:08 AM by David · 6 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Technology, coexistence 

A poster for ther G.ho.st launch on the security barrier near Beit Jallah. (AP)

A poster for ther G.ho.st launch on the security barrier near Beit Jallah. (AP)

The security barrier is on lots of peoples’ minds lately – first it was the Cellcom ad, and now it’s a new Internet startup G.ho.st, launched last night by an Israeli entrepreneur and Palestinian software developers.

For this startup, the product may be less important than the people who created it.
According to the Associated Press, Israeli entrepreneur Zvi Schreiber partnered with Palestinian engineers to launch G.ho.st Virtual Computer, a Web-based operating system based in Jerusalem and Ramallah that recreates the attributes of a personal computer’s desktop from any computer with an Internet connection.

“Our idea is simply to use the Internet to give people a computing environment that is not just stored on a physical device, but is available on a Web page or any mobile device and gives you everything you need: your desktop, your files, your programs,” G.ho.st CEO Schreiber said at the launch, in the West Bank town of Beit Jalla, close to Jerusalem’s southern edge.

The company started more than three years ago after Schreiber sold his second high tech startup. He had never worked with Palestinians and knew very little about the fledgling software industry in the West Bank.

“I wanted to combine my technological interests with my social interests. I always wanted to do something to help resolve the complete mess that we’ve all made of this part of the world,” he said.

According to Schreiber, the company’s name refers not only to the virtual computer’s ability to float through the boundaries of a physical computer, but also to the G.ho.st team’s cross-border collaboration.

There’s a Palestinian staff of nearly 30 workers who confer with their Israeli counterparts mostly by video conference. Many of the engineers living in the West Bank aren’t able to get the permits needed to get into Israel, while Israelis are barred from most Palestinian areas in the West Bank due to security concerns. Schreiber has never been to the company’s Ramallah office.

Tuesday’s launch in Beit Jallah was against the backdrop of the security barrier – an intentional decision.

“Ghosts go through walls and the very first wall that G.ho.st goes through is the … wall and fence that Israel is building in the West Bank between itself and the Palestinians and which physically divides the G.ho.st team into two,” the firm’s Web site says.

AP reported that International Mideast peace envoy Tony Blair attended the launch, commended G.ho.st’s initiative and called for more such partnerships across the Israeli-Palestinian divide.

“One thing we know is of course we need a political solution, but we also know it’s not just about politics. It’s about business,” Blair said.

It would be nice if G.ho.st succeeded, not only with its Internet platform, but in forging real ties between people on both sides of the wall.

Tags: , , , , ,

Baruch Obama

July 24, 2008 - 7:37 AM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Politics 

Baruch Obama!Barack Obama had quite a whirlwind trip here yesterday. He met with three past prime ministers, the current prime minister and pretty much everyone who wants to be prime minister. It was as much as a photo opportunity for Israeli politicians who want to be seen with the possible next president of the United States as it was for Obama.

Obama was received quite well as he was shuffled from meeting to meeting, with a visit to Yad Vashem, a quick stop in Ramallah, an important visit to Sderot and a predawn visit to the Western Wall. Personally, I think the most important aspect of his trip was his visit to Sderot. Obama delivered his only speech of his trip there (and said all the right things of course). As a result, Sderot’s plight will get mentioned in nearly every newspaper in the world today and all three major television networks in the states surely mentioned it last night.

Politics here unfortunately tend to be single-issue oriented. I think we, as Jews, need to wake up and realize that while the security and peace for Israel is important for the America, it is not the number one issue. Yair Lapid nails this in an excellent column in Yediot this week.

Tags: , , , , , ,

 

© 2009 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap