Dreaming of foliage
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life
We almost thought that fall was here. Last week, temperatures dipped into the 70s for the first time in months, and at night, there was nearly a feeling of a chill in the air.
There was even a day of heavy rain that announced the beginning of a healthy rainy season. People were taking out their long-sleeved shirts and bed spreads from the closets ready to place the days of 100 degree September heat deep in the recesses of their memory until next summer.
But here we are again, experiencing 90 degree plus temperatures in mid-October, as we suffer through yet another in a seemingly endless chain of oppressive heat waves.
According to the forecasters, it’s going to last for a few days, so instead of dreaming about heading to the Hermon in the next couple months for some skiing action, we’ll be thinking about heading to the beach this weekend.
And people wonder why we can’t get anything going with the peace talks. We can’t even get our weather together!
Surfer Joe hits the Mediterranean
(All photos by Debbie Zimelman - www.debzim.com
There’s everything under the sun offered, including cooking courses, sewing courses, outdoor survival courses, in addition to the normal day camps where you get ball thrown at your head and are tossed into swimming pools.
But I don’t think there’s ever been as exotic a summer camp in Israel as a surfing camp. Our good friends’ son Avidan has been going to one at Palmahim Beach, and these photos are the proof.
How do you say ‘hang 10′ in Hebrew?
Foto Friday – Beating the Heat at the Biblical Zoo
Filed under: Art, education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Life, Religion, Travel
This little fellow, a Grey-headed fruit bat, makes his home in the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in southwestern Jerusalem. Popularly known as The Biblical Zoo, it was recently named Israel’s top tourist attraction.
The zoo was in the news today because of the hot weather that’s keeping the animals indoors or – in the case of the resident hippos – in the water.
The zoo collection features animals from the Land of Israel, with special emphasis on those species mentioned in the Bible. For example, this Black python (Desert Cobra), mentioned no less than 25 times in the bible.
And the leopard, famous for this quote from Isaiah 11:6: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.’
Exodus 19:4: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles‘ wings and brought you to myself.”
The Bible doesn’t specifically mention elephants, but Chronicles 2:9, 17 does mention their still treasured but now contraband byproduct: “Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with pure gold.”
Photo: Ruthie Shuler
Our little pal the fruit bat, by the way, is mentioned in Leviticus 11:19, rounding up the list of flying birds of prey and scavengers that are absolutely unkosher and not to be eaten by Jews. So Mr. Bat can continue his peaceful daylight sleep. At night, he’ll have to duke it out for mice with the local owls — and there are many here. We’ll meet them another Friday.
Nostalgia Sunday – Dubon
Filed under: History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, War
See this guy? See the jacket he’s wearing? It’s called a dubon and, in the Seventies, whether you were in the Israel Defense Forces or not, this was your winter coat in Israel. It wasn’t simply a matter of fashion. The dubon was all there was to wear.
My significant other did some spring cleaning the other day and decided to donate his dubon to charity. This gave rise to some sentimental sighs and a discussion about the pros and cons of this iconic coat. First of all, there was the name, which means “teddy bear” — a perfect combination of playfulness in the service of the ferociously serious military function of keeping soldiers warm.
Then, there was the jacket itself, designed for the Israeli winter. For someone like myself, coming from New England ski country, the dubon was no match for a down parka or something called a “snorkel” that was all the rage for a couple of years (it zipped up over your nose).
But, as was pointed out to me, what the dubon lacked in insulation, it made up for in acreage; it covered every exposed centimeter of your upper body and was, therefore, perfect protection against the elements of the Israeli winter. Which boils down to a lot of chilly rain and not enough central heating.
The fact that there were only men’s sizes to be had just added to the dubon’s glamour. For example, a Scandinavian kibbutz volunteer — looking much like the fantasy version pictured here — traipsing around the communal kitchenette in wooden clogs, chain-smoking “Noblesse”, baking apple cake and hogging all the baking pans, while casually sporting an oversized dubon — the kind with the really good lining — was also sending a very clear message that she had access to men with dubonim. Bitch. You know who you are.
In fact, most dubon-wearers looked more like these guys here. Men and women, all wore standard issue dubonim, available in small, medium, large and extra large. To this day, girl soldiers look like they’re swimming, nay drowning, in their dubons. But, as my friend Efrat put it, “Of course I had one. Everyone had one. It’s the most Israeli you can get.”
If you were in the army, you wore olive drab. If you were in the navy, you got blue. Air force guys got polyester bomber jackets. (The camouflage version didn’t show up till the Nineties, after the first Gulf War, when loan guarantees required the IDF to procure a certain amount of gear from US manufacturers).
And if you served up in the Golan, you got the brass ring, the uber-dubon called the Hermonit, after white-capped Mount Hermon, which provided total body coverage against the snow. Again, as someone from New England, I can only sniff and say, “You call that snow”?
And here’s that Scandinavian babe again! But believe me, she was never issued one in real life. You had to do a lot more than bake cakes to score a Hermonit.
Focusing in on Haifa
Funny what a difference two years makes. In the throes of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the northern Israeli city of Haifa is thriving once again. And the proof in the pudding is the 24th Haifa International Film Festival, which is running during the Succot holiday from October 14-21 at the Haifa Cinematheque.
In addition to featuring over 150 films from all over the world, the festival is hosting guests like Jeanne Moreau, star of Truffaut’s Jules et Jim, director Paul Schrader, British actress Kelly Harrison, and Joseph Fiennes, best known for starring in Shakespeare in Love. Fiennes’ latest movie, Spring 41, was directed by Israeli Uri Barbash and is being screened at the festival. Moreau appears in Amos Gitai’s Plus Tard Tu Comprendras (One Day You’ll Understand), a movie about a woman who has kept her past as a Holocaust survivor a secret from her children, and she’ll receive an award at the festival.
The festival opened on Tuesday with the Israeli premier of Woody Allen’s latest offering Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. Original reported stated that the Woodman would be attending the opening, but alas, it was not to be.
Homegrown talent Ayelet Zurer, known internationally for her role in Steven Spielberg’s Munich, will attend screenings of her new movie, Fugitive Pieces, about a child whose family is killed in Nazi-occupied Poland and grows up longing for his lost sister.
And among the seven Israeli feature films being screened is Castles in the Air, Broken Wings’ director Nir Bergman’s look at a family gathering for their parents’ 35th wedding anniversary. Two films focus on the host city of Haifa and the effects the war had on it – Oren Gvili’s Secured Space looks at how that conflict affects a couple trying to hold its wedding, and Tamar Glezerman’s The Other War follows three women during that conflict.
So while it may rain on in most of the country during ‘hol hamoed’, dampening hikes and camping trips, the screening rooms at the Haifa Cinemateque will be dry, warm and full of provocative films. Thanks to The Jerusalem Post’s Hannah Brown for providing the information on the films.
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