A different kind of tower on 9-11
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics, War
I may have been one of the few people to have almost totally missed the horrifying events of September 11, 2001.
I was in miluim (reserve duty) and stationed at the military prison at the Megiddo intersection on the way to Afula. It housed a couple thousand Palestinian security prisoners who were awaiting trial for alleged crimes ranging from belonging to a terror organization to throwing Molotov cocktails at cars, to planning terror attacks, to probably just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As a military policeman, until that year, my duties each year at whatever similar prison dotting the country that I was sent to entailed, opening alot of gates, accompanying prisoners to see their lawyers, doctors, families on visiting day, and bascially enabling them to receive the basic neccessities of food, shelter and medical care. Unarmed and at arms length of the prisoners, we MPs were always watched over by armed to the teeth combat soldiers, sitting in tall guard towers with birds eye views of the primarily outdoor compound.
But this year, due to a combination of budget difficulties and shortages of IDF units, our miliuim assignment was to take over the towers and guard a different batch of MPs. On 9-11, I received the noon to 6 pm shift and the midnight to 6 am shift. However, instead of one of the towers facing inward toward the prisoner action, I got the plum position of the tower facing the bustling Wadi Ara road, Road 65, which led to the Megiddo intersection. The directive – to make sure there were no attempted infiltrations.
What that really meant is that I got to watch traffic for six hours, and sing as many Beatles songs as I could remember. It was another uneventful shift and nearing the end, the only item of interest was a car pulled over to the road right outside the fence, with the driver changing his flat tire.
At one point, he looked up at me, and over the din of the traffic, shouted out something. I couldn’t really make it out and asked him to repeat it. I could only hear “plane… crash…building.”
I smiled and nodded, and counted down the minutes until my replacement arrived at 6. He told me to go straight to the command tent and see what was on TV, that I wouldn’t believe it. When I got there, there were about 50 soldiers gathered around the TV.
“What’s going on?” I asked one friend. He filled me in on the chain of events, each one seeming more infathomable than the previous. I wanted to sit down, glue myself to the TV and try to comprehend the enormity of the events as they were still unfolding. But I had to eat dinner, shower, and try to sleep for two or three hours. Because at midnight, I went back up the tower for another six hour shift.
By the time I saw the sunrise on September 12, the rest of the world was in shock and mourning the thousands of casualties. I climbed down from my tower, trudged to my tent, and fell into a long dreamless sleep.
TV’s The Office to open a Petach Tikva branch
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Movies, Pop Culture
Exciting Israeli pop culture news has reached us with the recent announcement that the local satellite TV provider, Yes, will soon be running its own version of the landmark satirical half-hour comedy series The Office. A full 15 episodes have already been contracted, set to air in about a year from now, with the Israeli firm July August, which was behind the recent success of The Band’s Visit, handling production.
Co-creator Ricky Gervais was quoted in The Guardian’s piece announcing the project saying,
“I am thrilled and amazed that Israel are making The Office with local writers, directors and actors. I mean, who ever heard of Jewish entertainers?”
Ha’aretz reported shortly thereafter that screenwriting will be handled by B’tipul’s Uzi Weill and the director will be Eitan Tzur, who also had a hand in that Israeli television export’s success.
When Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant developed The Office as what would become a two-season sitcom for the BBC, they had no idea what levels of universal appeal their odd sense of humor had the potential of reaching. Sure, Gervais’ portrayal of oblivious, over-the-top, tasteless paper company branch boss David Brent was arguably grounded primarily in esoteric British dry humor stylings and in specifically British office culture-inspired mishaps. But the show also managed to tap into the universal phenomenon of “cubicle angst,” and its mockumentary-inspired packaging, complete with uncomfortable silences, helped rocket it into global cult favorite status.
Soon the BBC was licensing local versions of the show to markets outside England, with France, Russia, Chile, Canada and the United States (pictured) creating their own takes. While the US version got off to a rocky start (its short first season was more or less a remake of the original British one, just with some local flavor and accents added), it hit its stride towards the beginning of season two and is now enjoying its fifth successful season on NBC.
It can be argued that one of the reasons that the American Office has been as much of a creative success as it has been is that the writers have allowed for the characters to take on lives of their own in ways that are distinctively American. The action all takes place against the backdrops of corporate booze cruises, office outings to Chili’s (where family members’ drinks might or might not be comped), ridicule of those who count Legally Blonde as an all-time favorite movie, peeking at one another’s high school yearbooks – you know, American office culture type stuff.
Having watched both the British and American versions of The Office for several years, I have wondered many times how an Israeli version might manifest itself. Israeli office culture has its own cultural mores and archetypes.
Also according to The Guardian:
….Giyora Yahalom, head of production at the Israeli satellite broadcaster Yes, added: “We are sure that the universal experience of contemporary office life will speak to Israeli viewers. There is no doubt that our viewers will enjoy the same jokes as their contemporaries in the UK.”
And the Ha’aretz piece makes a good argument that the creators are taking the proper approach, reporting that the show
…will take place at the dreary workplace of “Super Office,” a fictional office-supply firm in Petah Tikva.
….The cast will include a variety of Israeli types – an Arab warehouse manager, an ultra-Orthodox saleswoman and a bitter Russian accountant. The Israeli answer to David Brent, the obnoxious boss of the U.K. program, will be named Avi Meshulam, though an actor has yet to be pegged for the role.
Exciting stuff. Hopefully the creative team will have enough self-depreciating perspective to do it right.
The Simpsons to bring peace to Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, History and Culture, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel, coexistence
Like most existential quarrels, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a nuanced and tricky beast. Those on the outside often take a paternalistic, “Oh, those silly Middle Easterners, why can’t they just realize that coexistence is the way to go, put their weapons down and start getting along?” attitude.
In the minds of most Israelis, I’d wager, this perspective is naïve and can lead to disaster. Many have argued that Bill Clinton’s personal need to end his presidency on a positive note led to over-simplified tactics at Camp David, which in the end backfired and brought about the Second Intifada.
I’m not sure that that thesis is itself sufficiently nuanced, but diplomacy analysis aside, a similarly paternalistic outsider’s view that has informed many tongue-in-cheek pop culture Mideast peace comments. And these comments also come off to us locals as either refreshingly naïve (as in the case of the dreamy conclusion of Tom Robbins’s Skinny Legs and All) or as not necessarily adding to the discussion but amusing nonetheless (especially when they are aimed at exposing the hypocrisies and general lack of vision among our leaders, like when Bruno stopped by last summer).
And our beloved Simpsons, probably one of the greatest TV shows of all time, if not the greatest, has a dodgy track record when it comes to understanding cultural nuances from an insider’s perspective. It’s all part of being an irreverent, edgy comedy.
According to Ha’aretz, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie are headed our way in the coming months:
Multiple media sources have quoted the show’s executive producer, Al Jean, as saying that America’s number one animated family will head to the Holy Land next year.
“I think we’re going to do one next year where they go to the Holy Land as we haven’t been there yet. The premise will be that the Christians, the Jews and Muslims are united in that they all get mad at Homer. It’s the only thing they can agree on,” Jean said.
Sometimes the international ethnic and otherwise-sensitive communities don’t manage to take The Simpsons with the appropriate grains of salt. Racial stereotypes as regular characters? But of course. Accusations of homophobia? You got it. And then there are the recurring episodes where the family travels internationally, ripping apart the cultural and ethnic mores of China, Italy, African banana republics, Ireland and Japan. They’re exceedingly funny, but sometimes people get offended. When the Simpsons traveled in South America in a 2002 episode, the Tourism Board of Rio de Janeiro reportedly seriously mulled a lawsuit against the Fox Network for libel. Or slander. Or something.
The episode that kicked off this recurring series is 1996’s “Bart vs. Australia,” which supposedly had Aussies in such a tangle that letter writing campaigns and public censuring ensued. But a closer reading of that episode reveals that it’s all tongue-in-cheek – its very plotline focuses on the Americans’ laughable lack of understanding of anything non-American, which is carried out throughout as the starting point of many quality jokes. The family barely escapes (pictured) with their lives.
So just because the Simpsons talk or act in a certain way, doesn’t mean that the show’s writers or producers want its audience to follow suit. But when it comes to Mideast peace, why not? Sometimes a little naïveté is what we need to break out of our most self-perpetuating, defeatist grooves.
IFCJ’s TV ad campaign
The Zionist community might be a little queasy about its relationship with The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. After all, can supporters of Jerry Falwell and the Gush Katif crowd really share a bed comfortably? But the fact is, Chicago and Jerusalem native Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s organization has done amazing work when it comes to fostering support for Israel.
Last month, Eckstein was interviewed on the decidedly Jewish-flavored Shalom TV, where he defended his work with characteristic eloquence, speaking about how terror groups’ publicity campaigns in South America, for example, must be offset by his own.
Eckstein is no stranger to TV. His very own Journey To Zion program, which has been airing for about a year and a half on Christian television networks in the US, provides a pulpit for Eckstein’s introductory Jewish teachings.
And for the past several months, the IFCJ has been running TV ads on Fox News – something which no other pro-Israel informational organization has had the nerve or means to do. The spots (example here) may be sensationalistic, and they may stray from the latest trends of pushing an image of Israel as a nation of high-tech and supermodels, but they’re poignant, and they have yielded results.
This past March, back in the early days of the ad campaign, the IFCJ reported having raised enough funds to make a difference:
IFCJ funded the renovation of 32 public bomb shelters in Sderot at a cost of $1.5 million. In addition, the organization has recently pledged to upgrade 400 bomb shelters in privately-owned residences in Ashkelon at an expected cost of $2 million.
Even Haaretz is taking note, running a story last week on the campaign under the headline “Jewish charity brings U.S. viewers Israel’s version of the war in Gaza.”
Where Bob and Obama meet
Can we fix it? Even my two and a half year old knows the answer to this one. “Yes we can!” Is he a political genius who has been following the Barack Obama election campaign closely. No of course not. He’s a fan of Bob the Builder.
Everyone is talking about Obama’s new slogan “Yes we can”, the new “Just do it”, of our era. Teamsters Union President James P. Hoffa even had thousands of Israelis chanting it at the memorial to Rabin on Saturday night, which was a piece of political engineering if ever there was one.
But I’d just like to point out that the much loved animated character, Bob, the head of a construction team of assorted tractors and diggers, was already saying “Yes we can”, when Obama was probably still thinking about a career in law.
The British-made show emphasizes conflict resolution, co-operation, socialization and various learning skills – and (translated into Hebrew) helped teach my kids the value of working together to solve a problem. Can we fix it? Yes we can.
In the UK the theme song – Can we fix it? Yes we can, became a million-selling number one hit, which, coming from the birthplace of the Beatles seems a little sad.
Anyway, I’m clearly not the only one to see the connection. I came across this video on YouTube – excuse the swear word at the end.
Israeli Emmys
Now Israel can boast about a new kind of successful export after “In Treatment,” based on the Israeli series “B’tipul,” took home two Emmy awards on Sunday.
The popular psychodrama series scored Emmys for actress Dianne Wiest, who won the award for best supporting actress in a drama series, and Glynn Turman received the Emmy for guest actor in a drama series.
“B’tipul,” which follows a psychoanalyst through his week, was created by Hagai Levi, who is now one of the executive producers of “In Treatment.”
The role of the therapist in “In Treatment” is played by Gabriel Byrne, while Israeli actor Assi Dayan (yes, the son of general and the black eye patch-wearing Moshe Dayan) played the role in the Israeli series. Wiest’s role was played by Israeli grande dame Gila Almagor in “B’tipul.”
The two Emmys are definitely a coup for Israeli television, and, as Israeli producer Zafrir Kohonofsky commented to me recently, perhaps a new version of Zionism, as this kind of exported culture allows Israel to show what life is really like over here.
I’m not sure “In Treatment” can do that, as the American version is an Americanized take on an Israeli concept. But one of Kohonofsky’s shows, “A Touch Away,” also recently purchased for American development by HBO, is a Romeo and Juliet story dealing with the relationships between a Russian immigrant family and an ultra-Orthodox one living in the same apartment building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak.
Kohonofsky told Ynet “certain changes” in the show’s original format “will naturally be made… but ultimately the American version will be very similar to its original counterpart.”
Those changes will remain to be seen, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Bnei Brak.
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