Foto Friday – Visit Israel the Virtual Way
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Travel
“Snob! Have you been to Tiberias yet?” The late great Israeli humorist Ephraim Kishon quipped that those words were scrawled across the Acropolis, chastising those Israelis who preferred to travel abroad rather than tour their own fair country. Today, fortunately, Israelis — and anyone else for that matter — can sit in the air-conditioned comfort of their Athens hotel and visit the sites of Israel in full color — thanks to a new feature on the Ministry of Tourism website: the Virtual Tour of Israel. The new multimedia experience includes 100 videos, 130 panoramic views and dozens of photographs. Here’s a classic:
Ten virtual, ten-day tours are available online, including: general interest itineraries, Jewish interest, Christian interest, Culture and History, Nature, Family, Archeology, Active interest, Mobility challenged and — last but certainly not least — Food and Wine.
Sites that can be visited include Caesarea… Jerusalem… Mitzpe Ramon… the Dead Sea…
The Bauhaus architecture of Tel Aviv …
Here’s Tiberias – we are not snobs!
The Haifa Port, where my running club, the Holyland Hash House Harriers, will be running this weekend with 40 sailors on shore leave!
By the way, the Ministry of Tourism website is available in 11 languages and is updated on an ongoing basis.
Israeli wine buying season – even on a budget
The weeks leading up to Passover represent the lion’s share of the kosher wine industry’s annual sales. Just like December is the peak season for general retail revenues every year, post-Purim early spring is where it’s at for kosher wine transaction volume. Young wines from the fall harvest are starting to be bottled and marketed at this time, and those handling the wine buying for a Seder must procure enough for the proverbial four cups consumed by each participant as part of the Haggadah’s rituals, meaning around one full bottle per person – plus whatever’s consumed separately during the meal.
And just as consumer retail columnists formulated analyses and advice columns this past December, focusing on how to make solstice holiday purchases where one garners maximum bang for one’s buck in today’s tough economic climate, Ha’aretz’s renowned wine critic Daniel Rogov recently released a highly practical guide to affordable spring 2009 kosher Israeli wines:
For several years, knowledgeable wine drinkers have known that the best buys in the country were the Tabor, Galil Mountain and Dalton wineries as well as in the Gamla series of the Golan Heights Winery. Those wines are now being joined by wines from the Zion winery and, while those may not make for the most sophisticated drinking, they do offer excellent value.
He goes on to rate nine kosher Zion winery (their Hebrew-only official site) products, all of which falling well within his “good to very good” stratum of scoring.
Rogov is getting out there more and more nowadays, serving as a formidable advocate of Israeli oenophilia. I’ve written about Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV before, and the enthusiastic eccentric personality also seemingly has Passover fever nowadays, having welcomed Rogov himself recently on the program (check out the fascinating 38-minute episode here). The banter-laden rapport between the two alone makes the video worth watching.
To Israeli wine lovers like you and me, this is not all big news (the fact that kosher wine no longer exclusively resembles cough syrup, and the fact that great Israeli wine is not exclusively kosher – we’ve known these things for years), but it’s great to see more and more mainstream wine-oriented media channels recognizing the quality coming out of this part of the world.
Coffee roasting and other gourmet hobbies
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, Israeliness
Hyper-specialized gourmet-themed hobbies are getting really big in Israel. It’s no longer enough to just be a “foodie.” I have a friend who has made really good beer, and I’ve met several people who have been involved in one way or another in boutique wine-making. Homemade-style chocolate boutiques are springing up everywhere now. Olive pressing (for olive oil) and curing is emblematic of the region’s symbology, with many of my peers debating various methods of cracking and spicing the fruit.
And then there’s coffee. Israel is one of the few countries that has actually survived an attempted Starbucks infiltration – and has responded by exporting our own espresso bar chain to the USA. The Eretz Nehederet sketch comedy TV show once spoofed newfound Israeli coffee snobbery with a poignant vignette (viewable here with English subtitles)
When I visited Vietnam a few years ago, I had the opportunity to enjoy “weasel coffee” (if you need to ask, click here), so I probably out-snob any of the local coffee snobs – without taking myself as seriously, of course. I buy cans of ground beans at Café Joe, after all.
But check this guy out. He takes coffee snobbery to a new level. Dima Ingret, a 36-year-old high tech worker who lives in metro-Tel Aviv, apparently likes to roast his own exotic beans, which he orders on eBay when he travels abroad on business. But more and more of these varieties are apparently appearing in Israeli stores, making things easier for Ingret and his fellow enthusiasts.
According to the piece in Haaretz which profiles Ingret, as well as Shaul Rubin, CEO of coffee and coffee accessory importer Amigo, the Israeli coffee aficionado scene has clearly reached a turning point:
Israelis have jazzed up their hobby with shiny machines and home roasters to such an extent that the hard-core members of the coffee clubs are invited to the launchings of designer machines (bothersome events that were reserved until now only for top-of-the-line machines). The coffee market in Israel has turned into an experts’ market….
Maybe we would’ve been better off had Starbucks succeeded here.
Image by jevnin from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Israeli wine demarginalizes settlers
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Politics, coexistence
The Israeli settler movement is often cited as a thorn in the side of peace, a rag-tag band of Wild West-inspired radicals who are keeping Israel of reaching her goals of progress. This over-generalized perception might or might not be accurate, although the headlines last month out of Hebron don’t necessarily make them look so good.
The settler movement holds a tricky place in the culture, no matter how you slice it. And even if many sectors of Israeli society make sure that the government’s attitude towards settlers remain as ambiguous as possible, the fact is that the state depends on these people to garner us international diplomatic leverage by creating “facts on the ground” rather than theoretical claims to territory, and their lifestyles – no matter how ideological or pragmatic – are therefore highly subsidized by the national budget.
For the fall holidays, the settler movement, embodied by the Yesha Council (a consciously anachronistic acronym for “Judea Samaria and Gaza”), launched a major tourism promotion campaign which packaged the territories as a kitschy roots discovery destination for mainstream Israelis (a harsh but poignant analysis of the marketing message appears here).
Now Yesha is further trying to endear itself to the center of the country by piggybacking on the oeno-tourism trend, a trend that has people around the world and around the nation visiting remote locations of Israel to check out various vineyards and barrel caves. Many of Israel’s up-and-coming wineries are kosher, but the trend is not only for the God-fearing – especially when it comes to the increasingly developed pallets of local connoisseurs.
In addition, institutions of higher learning, bed and breakfasts and olive oil presses have been employed as “facts on the ground” that have the potential to rally support from the settler-skeptical. Haaretz recently got some interesting comments on the matter from a Yesha leader:
Bentzi Lieberman, a former chairman of the Yesha Council, acknowledged shortly before leaving his post that “the settlers are living on borrowed time: if we don’t create something else for the public, something dynamic, relevant and up-to-date, if we don’t use a different, Israeli, language, that will connect the public to us, the danger of us becoming irrelevant will increase.”
Lieberman at the time cited Ariel College and the Barkan Industrial Zone as examples of successful marketing, “that blur boundaries, roadblocks and the Green Line, projects that cross borders and span across opinions, that are beyond all the little fears and connect the broad Israeli public to here.”
“If we are not able to create these kinds of projects, in terms of language, content and essence and also in the economic sense,” Lieberman warned then, “if we don’t speak a language that Israelis understand, we won’t be here.” Today, Lieberman’s vision is taking shape and increasing numbers of Israelis are visiting Judea and Samaria for reasons that are not political. Instead they are going for the experience and the fun.
Photo from flickr user ePublicist under a creative commons license.
Israeli kitchen makes me hungry and inspires
I’ve been blogging in some shape or form for over six years now and though food has always been a topic I’ve written about it’s never been the exclusive topic of any of the blogs where I’ve written. About three years ago I considered starting a blog called “The Middle East Confit” but the idea never came to fruition, it just marinated in my mind. Then we had a baby, then work got real busy and then…well…yeah. I barely find the time to blog at my own blog – most of it coming from lack of inspiration rather than time.
I’ve been thinking about writing exclusively about food and plan on redesigning my blog in the coming weeks (months?) Where did this inspiration come from? The excellent Israeli food blog Israel Kitchen. Written by Miriam, a current resident of Petach Tikva who has live in both Jerusalem and Tsfat and even spent some time in Venezuela. Her recipes are varied. Running the gamut from that Ashekenazic staple Kasha Varnishkas to Tunisian Mafroum (meat stuffed potatoes). She also makes her own wine.
Miriam’s photography is top notch as well with colorful photos of her travels around Israel. She visits shuks, cheese makers, wineries and restaurants.
So if you are looking for a taste (nyuk nyuk) of Israel not to be found elsewhere be sure to visit Israeli Kitchen.
Sommeliers-in-training
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Business, Food, General, Israeliness
One of the most cleverly snide Israel-related blogs out there, Zabaj pines for an Israel that makes the most of her potential. But Zabaj conveys this message by bitingly yet lovingly calling natives out on their shortcomings. A recent Zabaj rant cuts an up-and-coming sommelier collective down to size nicely.
Israeli wine tastes have steadily been improving over the past decade or so, and with the growing number of delicious wines now being produced here, the country has become a destination for oeno-tourism. So it only makes sense that firms like Premier Cru are starting to pop up, offering wine catering for private upscale events, consulting services for discerning (or discerning wannabe) customers and special tastings.
Nevertheless, the launch of the Premier Cru website is surely an occasion for ridicule.
The most interesting part of the site, however, is “The Team,” where they provide detailed bios on all their wine connoisseurs.
In this case, knowing the people behind the company makes you lose any interest in actually working with them. The impression you get is that most employees are students at Tel Aviv University (many seem to be majoring in biotechnology) and are also children of the former soviet union.
But wait – it get’s more entertaining and scathing….
And if you have any doubt, make sure to read Tal’s profile, where you’ll learn that she enjoys “light athletics” (don’t ask me what that means) and “banji.” I wonder if she packs a beg of mashrooms while on her way to do banji.
Does anyone get the impression from the website these people can do what they claim? No references, no real pictures, no stories… just glamorous-sounding mumbo jumbo. And, by the way, all the pictures on the site were taken in a furniture store.
Ouch. Alright – so their transliteration from Hebrew-appropriated English into proper English isn’t the most accurate. And they don’t really have sense of what kind of marketing content would be impressive to potential customers. If only I could find the address for that furniture store….
Miraculous space pulp
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, General, History and Culture, Technology
Curators at the Israel Museum have worked in conjunction with Israel’s State Archives to sort through millions of archived documents and are now presenting a special exhibition entitled “Blue and White Pages: Documenting the History of Israel,” opening two days from now and closing February 7, 2009.
In celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, most of the documents on display at the exhibit are available for viewing by the general public for the first time ever. Some of the highlights include the blood-stained copy of “A Song to Peace” lyrics found in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s pocket on the night of his assassination, Israel’s original Declaration of Independence and peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.
But perhaps the piece de resistance is two pages restored from the remains of a journal kept by Ilan Ramon while in space. Israel’s first-ever astronaut, Ramon and his co-crew members died when the Columbia fell apart while attempting to land on earth on February 1, 2003. Remains of his diary, which fell several miles to the ground, were found two months later in a field in Palestine, Texas. Years of restoration by the Museum’s Paper Conservation Laboratory yielded 37 rescued pages, most of which are being kept private as per the requests of Ramon’s family.
The Jerusalem Post has this to add:
A little over two months after the shuttle explosion, NASA searchers found 37 pages from Ramon’s diary, wet and crumpled, in a field just outside the US town of Palestine, Texas. The diary survived extreme heat in the explosion, extreme atmospheric cold, and then “was attacked by microorganisms and insects” in the field where it fell, said museum curator Yigal Zalmona.
“It’s almost a miracle that it survived it’s incredible,” Zalmona said. There is “no rational explanation” for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he said.
According to a statement released by the Museum’s spokespeople, the two pages on display “include Ramon’s description of the experience of life in space and a handwritten copy of the Kiddush, the Jewish blessing over wine, intended for use in live transmission while on board the Columbia spacecraft.” Read more
Weird Wednesday
The medical-oenological world was all aflutter this week. A story hit that researchers at the Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology have developed a white wine with the same health benefits as red wine by boosting the anti-oxidant properties of your favorite chardonnay.
The ISRAEL21c news desk was equally thrilled at reporting another Israeli contribution to the betterment of society, until we discovered that we’d already run the story in 2002.
At that time, researcher Professor Michael Aviram was asked about the difficulty in finding age-appropriate human test subjects and answered, “For $200 a student will drink or eat anything… But what I need to do is look at the effect on arteries”. This time around, Aviram – clearly a man with a gift for the memorable sound bite – is quoted as saying: “There has been an incredible response from those that have heard about the research, with many thinking of taking up drinking white wine more seriously.”
Now, serious drinking of white wine is indeed the sort of story that should be reported on regularly and championed by organizations like Society of Medical Friends of Wine. However, the Technion spokesman assures us that no new research developments have happened. What is news is that Binymina Wineries, which cooperated on the development, is reportedly going to launch the new product in the US later this year.
No word yet on whether the headache I get after drinking white wine has also been eliminated by the new technology.
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