Burning down the house

May 2, 2010 - 8:42 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life 

You don’t see a lot of firemen in Israel. With all of our various crack rescue and security teams available at a moment’s notice, it seems like the fire department is the forgotten arm of the country’s safety wing.

Growing up the US, you see fire stations all over the place, and visits to the firehouse are part of the elementary school curriculum. Here, most people would be hard pressed to tell you where the nearest fire station is.

Since most homes are built of stone, it drastically decreases the chances of fire – leaving the hot, dry summer and the advent of forest fires as the firemen’s busy time of the year.
But there’s one other day, when the obscurity of the Israeli fireman is unveiled to reveal him and her in all their splendor – Lag Ba’omer.

The celebratory evening of bonfires is the firemen’s Super Bowl – the day when they are rightfully seen as the heroes they are.

“This is our night,” Haifa firefighter Shimon Lahav told Ha’aretz on the eve of the holiday which began on Saturday night. “Suddenly everything we’ve dreaded the whole year happens – in an organized way. Bonfires everywhere, with the danger that they’ll spread.”

Aside from making sure over enthusiastic children or drunk revelrers don’t injure themselves in the huge fires tht are lit throughout the country, the firefighters’ greatest fear on this holiday is bonfires that are not put out properly.

“Such bonfires, with the wind the next morning after the people have left, can spread and cause fire and disaster,” Lahav says.

“On a visit in San Francisco I sat with a fellow firefighter and talked about work. I told him we had 35 firefighters in Haifa in charge of some 6,000 outbreaks a year. He turned white and couldn’t understand how we do it. In the United States, 12 firemen are dispatched to the smallest incident in which people are trapped,” Lahav says.

“With us it’s five at best, two or three at worst. So slowly people are beginning to understand that we’re the only sector that isn’t fighting for money, but we ask for more people because ultimately it affects our ability to save lives.”

Firefighters’ greatest fear on this holiday is bonfires that are not put out properly.

“Such bonfires, with the wind the next morning after the people have left, can spread and cause fire and disaster,” Lahav said.

Walking out this morning along the access paths and open spaces behind home in my neighborhood, it looks like the aftermath of a war scene: smoldering fires, scorched earth, the smell of burnt material of every kind.

The country’s least environmentally friendly holiday is over for another year, and the firefighters can return to their obscurity for another year – at least until the first summer forest fire ignites.

Tags: , , , , ,

Coke does it

February 21, 2010 - 10:55 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, Business, design, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture, tv 

Could the world’s soft drink giant be ripping off Israeli chocolate milk maker Yotvata?

Very possibly. It seems that Coca-Cola had a Super Bowl commercial last Sunday titled “Sleepwalker,” and it showed a guy getting up in the middle of the night and sleepwalking to a fridge with bottles of Coke in it. Let me say that the two ads are extremely similar, from the music, plot to even the placement of the moon in the background.

A Coca-Cola spokeswoman told “Advertising Age” that any similarities to the Yotvata Dairy ad were coincidental.

“Advertising Age” quotes Coca-Cola spokeswoman Susan Stribling as saying, “When we created the Coca-Cola ‘Sleepwalker’ commercial, we and our agency were unaware of this other ad. Now that we’ve seen the ad, we think both commercials are equally entertaining. While the two share a few common elements, any similarities are coincidental and unintended.”

Until now, Yotvata hasn’t made any complaints about the Coke ad, and according to a Globes articles, Israeli analysts said that the “near-imitation” could be considered flattery by Israel’s marketing industry. Which, of course, is just hilarious. But not unheard of. I’ve experienced more than one instance of Israeli copycat flattery. I’ve had articles published in the New York Times that were then translated and copied, word for word, in the Israeli press. When it was about the secondary mortgage market in Israel, the article in Yediot Achronot read, “The New York Times says…” blah blah blah.

Nice workaround, no? But alas, I, the writer, never got any credit. Ditto for Yotvata.

Tags: , , , ,

Springsteen – Born to play in Tel Aviv

February 1, 2009 - 9:51 AM by · 6 Comments
Filed under: General, Music, Pop Culture, Sports 

The BossIt’s Super Sunday here, just like in the US. Except that ours lasts all the way to 5:00 am, when the Super Bowl is likely to wind down.

This year I have no vested interest in either the Steelers nor the Cardinals, and would not even consider staying up all night, if it weren’t for the half time entertainment. How many times do you get to see Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band perform live, albeit for only 12 minutes?

Apparently, it’s the only way Israelis are going to see them live. Each time a new tour is announced – and the past few years with Springsteen’s prolific resurgence, he’s been on tour all the time – I anxiouxly wait to see the European itinerary hoping that Tel Aviv will finally be listed. The dates for his 2009 tour in support of his new album Working on a Dream have just been announced, and again we’ve been snubbed, with Bruce preferring the tried and true European venues he’s familiar with like Copenhagen and Barcelona.

Granted, the Boss’s Israel connections are a little tenuous. But let’s not forget that an Israeli – violinist Suki Lahav - played on Born to Run’s “Jungleland” back in 1975. And hey – isn’t “The Promised Land” about us? And as my friend Arthur once wrote, seeing Bruce play the song in Sultan’s Pool overlooking the Old City in Jerusalem would probably be one of the most transcendent moments of any concert anywhere.

But to get down to it, the real reason that Springsteen should come here is simple – I haven’t seen him perform since moving to Israel in the mid-80s. After seeing Springsteen a half dozen times in the late 1970s, I’ve been spoiled for life, and no other concert I’ve seen since has compared.

So, c’mon Bruce – hop inside, you know just what we’re here for. Talk to your pals Bono and Paul McCartney, I think they were pretty impressed with Park Hayarkon as a venue and the the enthusiasm of the Israeli audiences. We can take you and Patti out for some humous in Tel Aviv, you can go entertain some Palestinian children like Sir Paul did, and we can even import some of Clarence’s favorite chicken for after the show.

In the meantime, chances are I’ll doze through the first half of the Super Bowl tonight in order to stand at attention for 12 minutes during halftime for the greatest show on earth.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap