Nostalgia Sunday – Israel Electric
Filed under: Business, Environment, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday
Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) is amongst our country’s most hated monopolies, and today we got another dose of why that is. According to a World Bank report reported by Globes, “Salaries at Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) are among the highest among utilities in the world…”
“IEC commissioned the report in an effort to prove that Israel’s electricity tariffs are low. While the utility got the answer it sought, it also received an unsolicited sting about its employees’ high salaries.” (Full story available here).
It’s very nice to find out that we pay lower tariffs… right now. (Despite the recent price cuts, the World Bank believes that is going to have to change). But it doesn’t make up for decades of abuse at the hands of surly overpaid technicians and clerks who for many years — and I’m not sure the World Bank knew about this one — also got their electricity for next to nothing.
The free electricity thing was so out of control that back in the Seventies, when our family would go visit cousin Sasha, a veteran IEC employee, we would count the number of unnecessarily electrified appliances he had, such as wall clocks, stove top cookers (Israelis usually have gas ranges) and the occasional extension cord trailing out of a window — just to help out the neighbors.
At a certain point, sometime after the other hated monopoly, Israel’s phone company, was privatized, IEC got wise and started behaving more like a service provider, less like a price gouging monolith. And you have to give IEC credit where it’s due: in the span of some 80 years, it has created a modern power infrastructure serving the entire country.
It is also one of the only companies in the world capable of providing complete turnkey service, from building power stations to providing billing services.
IEC has also made public a good number of pictures from their archive, on view at the PikiWiki site. Here are a few nice ones, for starters. This is a picture of Israel’s first power station, in Haifa.
Electric company workers laying high-tension wires.
The next time they built a power station in Haifa, it was bigger…
An interior shot…
And some might recognize this location, the mouth of the Yarkon river near the Reading power plant and the Tel Aviv port.
Foto Friday – From the Antiquities Authority
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, History and Culture
A 2,000 year old gold earring inlaid with pearls and precious stones was discovered in the excavations at the car park adjacent to Jerusalem’s City of David. This makes me sad both for the lady who lost it 2000 years ago and for the truly lovely silver earring I lost last year at the Reading parking lot in Tel Aviv. (If anyone has found it, please contact me at c/o ISRAEL21c). On the bright side, there are treasures aplenty to view at the Israel Antiquities Authority’s website. A few choice items:
Left: Assemblage of cosmetic products, Late Roman period; Right:
The Akeldama tombs, gold earrings from Cave 1, the Late Roman period (1st-4th centuries CE)
Above: Decorated and red-painted stone ossuary from Tomb 3, the Second Temple period; Below: Large glass bowl, the Late Roman period
and, of course, 2,000 Year Old Gold Earring, Inlaid with Precious Stones, Discovered in Excavations in Jerusalem
More collections and sites and finds are on view at the Antiquities Authority site.
Nostalgia Sunday – Simchat Torah flags
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Holidays, Religion
It’s Jewish flag day! Well, not really. Tomorrow is the last night of Sukkot when we finish up reading the Torah for this year, and the people are readying to dance in the streets.
The tradition of children dancing with flag aloft, says Tel Aviv University historian Dr. Chaim Grossman, dates back to 17th century Ashkenaz, Eastern Europe’s pale of Jewish settlement. Unfortunately, he adds, no flags exist from that time, as these were made of delicate paper, then put in the hands of small children, and so were destroyed within hours (and not by Cossacks).
In Israel, Simchat Torah is still one of those holidays were secular Jews turn up at the local neighborhood shul if only to gawk at the dancing revelers. This is particularly true of secular Jews with children who’ve made a flag in school, or purchased one at the dollar store. This one actually sells online for NIS 2.5, and even features an 3-D pop-open window, just like the old-fashioned ones
At times, Israel’s military might has been honored in flags:
And here’s a particularly lovely one from the Seventies:
Like its New Year’s counterpart the Shana Tova card, the Simchat Torah flag is one of those holiday items that isn’t written in any place – and likely were adopted from another culture – yet has become part of tradition.
In the US, at least in New England where I’m from, the Simchat Torah flag tradition has been conflated with the other autumn holidays and children top their flagpoles with candied apples. In Israel, flags often come with a small horn, though there is some question as to whether or not the kids are permitted to tootle on a holiday.
Links to previous posts:
Nostalgia Sunday – Heaters
Nostalgia Sunday – Yom Kippur
Nostalgia Sunday – Rosh HaShana
Nostalgia Sunday – Old Coins
Nostalgia Sunday – Historic Homepages
Nostalgia Sunday – Tango
Nostalgia Sunday – Tel Aviv Night Run
Nostalgia Sunday – Missing Dad
Nostalgia Sunday – Clique HaClick
Nostalgia Sunday – Tel Aviv 100
Nostalgia Sunday – Eurovision
Nostalgia Sunday – Old Israeliana
Nostalgia Sunday – Classic Movie: The Blaumilch Canal
Nostalgia Sunday – Plaid Bedroom Slippers
Nostalgia Sunday – Historic Photo Shop Shuts Its Doors
Nostalgia Sunday – New Israeliana
Nostalgia Sunday – High Windows
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