The Bieber, Bibi and Sderot
The Bieb on the beach
In any case, even if Bieber did refuse to meet kids from the Kassam-deluged Sderot, they’ve still gotten themselves invited to his concert, thanks to the folks at the ROI Community funded by the always generous Lynn Schusterman and the Morningstar Foundation. The two funds raised $30,000 to cover the cost of discounted tickets and transportation for 700 kids living in Sderot and other nearby communities to go to tonight’s concert.
So even if Bieber didn’t wanna meet them in person, they’re gonna see him on stage, at Biebermania in Tel Aviv. But chances are, Bibi won’t be there.
Graffiti overcomes Kassams in Sderot
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, design, General, Israeliness, Life, Social Justice
Fixing a hole - one of the urban artists from Artists 4 Israel in Sderot. (Photo: Ron Friedman)
That’s why an international group of graffiti artists under the Artists 4 Israel moniker have descended upon the southern city to brighten up the surroundings and give the residents of Sderot some color back in their lives.
“Unfortunately, people here have to live with bomb shelters. We’re here doing a little something to bring some color to something that’s here for an ugly reason,” said American graffiti artist Cycle, summing up to The Jerusalem Post the aim of the group’s “Murality Project’ mission to Israel.
The 25 urban artists from the United States, Spain, Mexico and Israel, including some of the top names in New York City urban art, have been decorating the city’s bomb shelters for a couple days already beautifying the bombarded city’s public bomb shelters.
“You can still feel the tension in the air. People aren’t at ease,” Texas graffiti artist Saul Schister told The Post.
“One of the artists was working with headphones on, listening to music, and a resident came up to him and yelled at him. He told him that it was dangerous because with the headphones on, he wouldn’t be able to hear the sirens,” said Schister. “I guess that for them, these bomb shelters on every street are a constant reminder that they live in a war zone.”
An Israeli artist who goes by the name of Psycho said that the experience was even special for him – because he wasn’t used to painting public buildings with the permission of the municipality.
“I used to paint illegally, but then I was caught by the police. Since then I’ve been doing commissioned work,” he said. “I don’t really care about the politics. For me it’s more about the art. But I know that the people here have had a rough time and if my work can help, I’m happy to do it. So far people’s reactions have been really positive. Some people have even asked if we can come paint their house.”
My Israeli flag, love it or not
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Movies
The blue and white of the Israeli flag has never been more closely analyzed and inspected than in the documentary film My Flag by Toronto filmmaker Igal Hecht.
The 30-year-old, Israeli-born Hecht has made about 40 documentaries over the last decade, with most of them in recent years focusing on Israel, which he calls his “obsession.”
My Flag , which is having its Israeli debut on Thursday night at the Sixth Jewish Eye Film Festival in Ashkelon, finds Hecht traveling around the country during its 60th birthday year and asking those he encounters one question – ‘what does the Israeli flag mean to you?’
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=36087766The answers range from humorous to biting to reflective, accurately mirroring the fractures of Israeli society and the attempts by its citizens to understand the nature of their country amid their first identity crisis.
Hecht traveled to Sderot where a man whose wife was seriously injured in a Kassam attack angrily says, “This flag is nothing to me – if you weren’t here, I would burn it like the Arabs do.”
In Mea She’arim, he walked around with flag wrapped around him, like a more thoughtful Bruno, evoking residents to respond, “It’s a rag, I wouldn’t even wash the floors with it.”
“We don’t need a flag, we have Hashem,” another says.
But for every negative connotation, there’s patriotic responses, from singer Saraleh Sharon who says, “The flag of Israel is our home.” Or from a Druze Israeli in the North who says “I am proud to be a son of this nation.”
In a process similar to that in the US, where in recent years, the symbol of the flag has been coopted by a decidedly right-wing, nationalist viewpoint, the Israeli flag has also inadvertently become a symbol of the Right. My Flag is an attempt to return the flag, representing both the achievements and blemishes of an imperfect country, to the Center.
“I learned that there’s frustration in Israel,” Hecht told me. “I end the film with a speech Ezer Weizman gave in 1996 in Germany. He talked about the country standing at a crossroad and unsure of where it was going. Unfortunately, that’s the thesis of the film ultimately. There’s a lot of uncertainty and lack of vision for many Israelis. That can be still translated into love and appreciation of the flag, but it also provokes hesitancy and grasping at trying to understand what’s going on in the country. Is it Zionism, or post-Zionism? What is the new Israel?”
That’s the question we’re all trying to grapple with.
Sderot solidarity on display
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, History and Culture, Religion, War
Thank the good Lord, the rockets haven’t been falling much in the southern part of the country lately. Sure, not all the news coming out of the Gaza border area is positive, but at least the rate of Qassam fire into Israel has slowed dramatically in recent months.
Several grassroots, cultural initiatives have aimed at making the situation on Israel’s southern front as comfortable as possible, and at expressing or fostering solidarity with those effected (on these pages, we’ve written in the past about a lot of them, including one initiated by musicians looking to bring aid into Gaza, a community of local young bloggers sharing their experiences under fire with the world, and even one rock and rocket-themed film project).
A year ago, the Connections Israel non-profit, which has been in operation for 11 years and aims to strengthen ties between Jewish communities in the Diaspora and those here, raised the question, “To what extent do Jews around the world feel responsible to one another in the context of the situation in Sderot?” The organization mobilized its network of young people the world over to submit answers to this question that were expressed via original works of art. The solidarity-themed exhibit that resulted from the campaign opened in a Sderot community center last month (a slide show from the opening can be seen here), with plans for the exhibit to travel the world in the works.
Mordechai David Cohen, Connections Israel’s director, is proud of the work the organization had done. From his statement in the exhibit’s catalogue:
“We believe in the power of energy conservation. The energy that a young artist expends, even in a place as far away as the United States, is transferred to the person viewing his creation here in Israel!”
Connections Israel received hundreds of submissions from Europe, the former Soviet Union, South and North America, with works including sculptures, photos, paintings, poems, multimedia and even large installations. 25 of the best submissions were included in the exhibit, curated by Noa Lea Cohen, with the top three receiving prizes.
Pictured is Jerusalemite Yedidyah Ish Shalom’s “From You to You I Shall Flee,” its title taken from a poem by Rabbi Yehuda Helevi as an expression of the duality of our interconnectedness, its subject matter taken from a newspaper photograph depicting a Qassam landing area.
British rapper raps Israeli security
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Life, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel, War
Lowkey - unwelcome in Israel?
For better or worse, we invented profiling – if you stray outside of their accepted categories of low risk visitor – for instance if you’re black, or Muslim – or if you’re a radical British rapper with ‘Long Live Palestine’ splashed across your Myspace page – you better be prepared for some grilling and some uncomfortable moments.
Justified? Well, yeah. The ultimate goal is to prevent people dying in a terror attack. Could we do it in a friendlier, gentler way that doesn’t create long-standing bitter feelings? Well, yeah.
But it’s still hard to swallow the sour grapes spewed by minor talent British rapper Lowkey, of the hip-hop/indie left-wing collective Mongrel who claimeed he was recently detained at the airport for nine hours.
According to the British New Musical Express, the rapper had been travelling to Tel Aviv to take part in a series of charity shows in the country, and in the Palestinian Authority to raise funds to help rebuild the Gaza Strip.
“As soon as I stepped off the plane with my AA guide to Israel tucked under my arm, I was pulled away to the side and interrogated as to why I was in Israel, by a man who wore no uniform identifying himself as any type of security but was clearly heavily armed,” Lowkey explained.
“After this I carried on through to passport control. After giving over my British passport it was confiscated. I was then detained for nine hours. During this time I was interrogated about many aspects of my life, what the purpose of my trip was, where my parents are from and where I planned to go in Israel.
“Eventually I was told my story was a lie and was subjected to a bout of the Israeli polices paranoid mind games. I was eventually released, knowing that no matter how frustrating what I just went through was, I knew that it was not even a miniscule fraction of the degradation Palestinian people are subjected to on a daily basis.”
Well, thanks for the soap box, Lowkey. I haven’t received an answer yet from the airport authority regarding the validity of the events as Lowkey related them. But as one commenter to the NME story responded:
Maybe it had something to do with the fact you have – LONG LIVE PALESTINE TOUR IN PALESTINE!!!!. across your MYSPACE page you d***… of course they are gonna watch your arse when you step foot off the plane…
It’s unclear whether Lowkey actually performed in Israel or raised any money to rebuild Gaza. But I would bet money that he didn’t visit Sderot or Ashkelon during his stay here.
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