No standing on ceremony here

February 19, 2011 - 6:41 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

We headed down south to Dimona this week for an army ceremony for our daughter who finished up a four-month commanders’ course.

I don’t think I’ve been in Dimona, about a half hour from the Beersheba, the nearest city, more than once in the 25 years I’ve been in Israel. Entering the nondescript town, our task was to find ‘the soccer stadium’. And following most of the cars in front of us, we located it on the other side of town pretty quickly.

Hundreds of vehicles were already lined up in the dirt parking lot, and the ‘stadium’ was little more than a crumbling concrete wall surrounding a soccer field, with one section of bleachers.

Maybe because the ceremony for the some 300 soldiers graduating from the commanders’ course was taking place in a soccer field, the mood among the spectators and family was somewhat less solemn than previous IDF landmark ceremonies we’ve attended. It was almost like attending a… soccer game!

Some soldiers had cheering sections with signs and megaphones they would use to should out their loved one’s nickname. All fine and in good spirits, except they were doing this in the middle of speeches by decorated generals and during roll calls for awards given for exemplary service by soldiers in the course.

Standing behind the cyclone fence generally used to keep hooligans off the soccer field, we even had to turn and ‘shhhh’ the neighbors more than once, exposing our genteel, Anglo allegiance to decorum.

Thankfully, the ceremony, like most in the IDF, was so short that our blood was only halfway to boiling before it was over and everyone crowded onto the field to find their special soldier. We can stand a little Israeli obnoxiousness, realizing that the recipients of the calls and cheers were kids our daughter’s age who had also just gone through the rigorous travails to become a commander.

As one father, who a minute before had been yelling out his son’s name at some inopportune time, told some other soldier’s mother who had muttered out loud that she couldn’t see where her son was lined up: “It doesn’t really matter. They’re all our children.”

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Game On!

November 14, 2008 - 12:30 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

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 mcnn1114.jpgean 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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