Foto Friday – Local Testimony
One of the troubling things about photography, especially at times like these, is that a picture is worth a thousand words – and not always the right ones. Israel’s military operation against Gaza is only entering its seventh day, and already, hundreds of thousands of images have flooded the web, the papers, the airwaves. Some are powerful, others are weak. Some are informative, others deceptive. Some are strong enough to make a statement on their own, others serve to illustrate text. And so many seem besides the point right now — but it may be too early to tell.
Sometimes, even in a networked world of instant communications and citizen journalists, a bit of time is needed before passing judgment on what makes a good news photo. And so, each year, concurrent with the international World Press Photo exhibition, Israel hosts its own photojournalism competition, called Local Testimony. The pictures chosen capture moments with both a media value and a human significance, and is also a retrospective on the events of the past year as reflected in its main categories: news, culture and art, nature and environment, portraits, daily life and sports.
The winning photo is by AP photographer Muhammed Muheisen was taken at the village of Bil’in in June 2008. It shows a Palestinian youth running to avoid tear gas grenades that were fired to disperse a demonstration against the separation barrier.
The winning photo series, Homeless, is by independent photographer Felix Lupa, who documented the lives of two homeless people living in an abandoned car in Tel-Aviv: blind foreign worker Boris, aged 54, and his self-appointed caretaker Genady, aged 70.
The winning photo in the sports category was taken by Dudi Vaaknin, a staff photographer at Ynet and Israel Hayom. It’s a picture of Beitar Jerusalem soccer player Yoav Ziv, and is pretty self-explanatory.
Up until last week, going by the topics covered in the exhibit, Israel was preoccupied with domestic politics, a stalemated security situation, social welfare issues and a hefty amount of navel-gazing. Now, it’s the war. There’s no telling what images will come to represent this new year when it ends. What’s for certain is that Israel is a fantastic canvas for photojournalists and that Local Testimony 2009 will continue to present the best of the best.
Local Testimony is on at the Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv until January 11, after which it moves up to the Open Museum at Tel Hai until mid-February. The full exhibition can be viewed here as well.
The Quiet Within the Storm
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War
You have to give Israelis credit; when the chips are down, even the ones who aren’t necessarily suspected of idealism come shining through.
As Israel went to war against Hamas over the weekend, the leaders of the major political parties all decided to suspend their political campaigns for the duration of the operation – which, both Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak said could be lengthy. Barak, who leades the Labor Party, said that he had to concentrate on the operation and had no time for politics.
The Likud, too, suspended its campaign, and has put on hold a radio campaign featuring ads attacking Kadima chief and Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni. Posters that bear the campaign’s tagline – “Tsipi, the job is too big for you” – that have already been put up will be taken down. In a statement Saturday night, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu said that “there is a time for debate and a time for unity, and today is a time for unity,” he said. “If our enemies thought we would not be united under rocket fire, they were wrong. The cannons roar, but we are united.”
With the elections coming just about a month from now – and the gap between the Likud and Kadima narrowing, according to the latest polls – the suspension of campaigning is really extraordinary. It wouldn’t be surprising for opposition politicians, for example, to accuse the government of timing its operation to cynically improve its standing in the polls, giving it a “January surprise” type of bounce that could sustain it until the elections. But no – politicians on the left and the right spontaneously announced (without any coordination, as far as I could tell) that they were holding off on the negative noise we are set to be subject to. Not that any Israeli, given the choice, wouldn’t opt for the noise if it meant that the south was secure. But it does show that our political leaders and would-be leaders are a better caliber than we usually give them credit for being.
(Photo courtesy One Family Fund)
Renewal
Filed under: A New Reality, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Profiles, War
It’s been said that everyone in Israel knows at least one family touched by terror, that is. The truth is, things are far better than they used to be on that front, certainly better than during they were six and seven years ago, when there seemed to be a bus bombing or shooting attack every week – and sometimes more often.
Terrorism aims to destroy lives – and often it does. But it’s not just lives: Families are never the same, even if the intended victim survives. Communities change, kids relate to their surroundings differently. We hear about the attacks, which make news for a few days, and move on; they often can’t. So when we see individuals and families who do manage to rebuild their lives, we can only stand back and gape in awe at their superhuman strength.
I had an “awesome” moment last night, when the son of a friend of mine got married. I won’t reveal their names, but I can tell you the story: While driving home from buying school supplies for the upcoming term, Jacob and Rachel (not their real names) were shot at by Arab terrorists. With them in the car were three of their five children. The shooter got their car point blank – killing Rachel, and leaving Jacob and their oldest daughter, Dina, in a wheelchair. Rachel was several months pregnant at the time. Also in the car were two boys – Shimon, 8, and Levi, 3. Not in the van were their oldest son Reuven, 13 (he had just had his bar-mitzvah two months earlier), and Sarah, 10.
Suffice to say that the family was shattered; the oldest boy became rebellious, the second son took after him, and the youngest boy, in the car when it happened, was basically shellshocked. Jacob tried as well as he could, but it was difficult juggling his family and work obligations. The community helped – a lot – but it just wasn’t the same. Rachel was one of those “super-moms” – always there for the kids, working to help others (she was a nurse), with a golden personality, always smiling. This was a family that had lost so much – and things looked bleak.
But the family experienced a rebirth – in large part thanks to Leah, whom Jacob married three years after losing Rachel. The kids were wary at first – she was a widow herself, and had three older kids of her own – and things were rocky at first. But with love and patience, things worked themselves out. The community helped a lot, too. Plus, the determination of Jacob – and the kids – not to give the terrorists the victory they so sorely sought.
And now see Reuven at his wedding! He grew up to be a fine, sensitive, scholarly young man, a veteran of the elite Duvdevan unit. The joy on his face, and on the faces of family and friends, was unique. This wasn’t just a wedding; it was a vindication, a confirmation of life, a message to the forces of darkness – Israel, and Israelis, are here to stay.
Them’s the (Data Line) Breaks
Filed under: Business, General, Politics, Technology
Israel, being the high-tech powerhouse that it is, should be able to handle something as simple as a computerized primary election. But for two weeks in a row, in two different primary contests, the computers seemingly caused more problems than they solved.
All three major parties – Labor, Likud and Kadima – had decided to dispense with traditional paper balloting in their primaries this year. A paper ballot election run by party insiders almost guarantees allegations of corruption – and past scandals have proven that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. In order to remove from party functionaries the temptation to, say, “lose” some ballot boxes (as has happened several times in the past) and to head off accusations of corruption, even if they were untrue, the parties decided to computerize the process.
Last week, the computer system crashed on Labor primary day, forcing the party to cancel the whole thing and reschedule for two days later. In Monday’s Likud primary, the system more or less worked, but it was slow – so slow that voting hours had to be extended for three hours, while party members spent hours waiting on line for their chance to choose. As a result of their rivals’ experiences, Kadima, which has its primary next week, has begged off using computers, and will instead go back to paper ballots, despite the problems.
Network experts still haven’t figured out what caused the Labor system crash, but in the case of the Likud slowdown, at least part of the problem was attributed to – a tractor. While digging the foundation for a structure outside Jerusalem, a tractor apparently damaged a fiber-optic communications cable, shutting down communications in the Jerusalem area (and beyond) for several hours, a delay from which the Jerusalem area Likud polls apparently never recovered.
Could a similar communications line cut have been responsible for Labor’s computer problems too? It’s very possible – because it happens far more often than people realize. Erez Ronen in Yediot Achronot tells the story of his trip to the mall to buy a computer – and how he couldn’t check how well it surfed the internet, because a tractor doing construction in the area had broken the data line. Clearly, it happens more often than we realize. It’s the digital age’s equivalent of a water main break (those still happen a lot, too).
It’s not just tractors that can break data cables – ships at sea do their share of damage. Earlier this year, in fact, most of the Middle East – except Israel – was off the net for several days, and in some cases for weeks, because a ship’s anchor had spliced through one of the main underwater communication cables running from Egypt to Europe. Most of the Arab countries, Iran, and India, used the line for their internet and e-mail connections to the rest of the world. Israel, which uses a separate cable (the MedNautilus cable, pictured), wasn’t affected – leading to accusations that somehow Israel had engineered the shutdown of the internet, in preparation for a war against Iran! Eventually the break was discovered, but countries affected, including Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and India said they lost billions of dollars. Losing our net connection is annoying, whether you’re running an election or just surfing. But for communication companies – like the ones that ran the Labor and Likud primaries – there’s a bright spot: You can always find someone to blame for the fashla!
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