Israel Celebrates “Earth Day” Today Only Tomorrow, With Lights Out, Beach Cleaning, Concerts and Green Awards

April 22, 2009 - 9:13 AM by Karin Kloosterman · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment 

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(Photographer Yuval Chen spent almost two years snapping shots of hedgehogs in Tel Aviv’s urban landscape. For more see ISRAELITY).

Celebrated since 1970, Israel is for the first time celebrating Earth Day nationally. They didn’t put their lights out for an hour a few weeks ago to mark Earth Hour (there was a big football game after all), but plan to mark Earth Day, today, with full respect. Take note that other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan did mark Earth Hour.

With most Earth Day events held in Israel tomorrow, on April 23, reports Haaretz, lights out will be the central event, where cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will turn their lights out from 8 to 9 pm in a bid to raise awareness about energy conservation.

A concert at Rabin Square featuring the Balkan Beat Box and more will celebrate Earth Day, and rumor has it the event will be powered by human cyclists and biodeisel, in a similar style to last year’s Earth Event as Karen reported.

Israel joins other cities around the world who will turn their lights off for the green cause. The United Nations has ruled that the event be marked worldwide. Read more

Foto Friday – Tel Aviv Port

December 19, 2008 - 12:01 AM by Rachel Neiman · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Travel 

Conde Nast’s Concierge.com just named Tel Aviv tops on its “It List 2009” and about time too. Each year, Concierge “comb[s] the globe looking for the emerging places that will be on everybody’s lips two years from now”. So how great is it to already be in a place “that will make you feel all right about the world again”. Great indeed.

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Photographer Hanoch Grizitzky has captured the Tel Aviv’s enchantment and energy in a series of images of the old port and its new boardwalk in the rain. The image above is of the walkway and, looming in the background, the Reading Power Plant — a historic Modernist building whose tower was once accurately described by an old boyfriend as “the phallus of Tel Aviv”. Reading is now garishly draped in colored lights because we are the party city.

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Winter isn’t the most fashionable time to travel, but it has its advantages: the city air feels fresh, there aren’t a lot of tourists, and people are calmer, (relatively speaking – this is Israel, of course), in the absence of the summer swelter. The disadvantages are that it sometimes rains and gets dark very early, but these elements have their charms as well.

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Grizitzky freelances for leading Israeli news publications such as Yediot Aharonot, Globes, women’s mag La-Isha, entertainment rag Pnai Plus and others, photographing objects of beauty – be they desert flowers or spokesmodels. “My starting point is love of photography and beautiful things come from there,” he says. “Like the hummus commercial says, ‘Do it out of love or don’t do it at all.’”

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These small format images don’t begin to do justice to Grizitzky’s works, particularly this panoramic view. For a better look, visit his website and picture gallery.

 

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