Jeopardy Does Jews' Clues in the Holy Land
By Laura Sinberg
I’ll take Israel for $2,000, Alex.
That’s what contestants on Jeopardy will be saying on Monday, November 23, when the famous quiz show is scheduled to have a Double Jeopardy category titled, “A Journey Through Israel.”
Host Alex Trebek and his team, The Clue Crew, traveled to the Holy Land in early September in what was the show’s first time there to tape questions that will air in the upcoming segment and will be scattered as individual clues throughout the year.
They spent nearly three weeks exploring and filming, starting in Tiberias and winding their way around the country.
The questions will give a taste of four of the locations Trebek and two of the three Clue Crew members visited, according to Jimmy McGuire, a Clue Crew member for the past nine seasons.
November 17, 2009, 2:11pm
Offbeat Israel: A College Reference Contingent on Joining the IDF
By Nathan Jeffay
Want a reference from your teacher? Then enlist in the army.
There’s deep concern in the IDF about draft dodging, with the figure of army-age males avoiding compulsory military service nearing a third. Of recent, there have been several unusual moves to stem the trend. One was an advertising campaign harnessing the power of sex appeal, as discussed in this Forward article. Then the Interior Ministry began exploring the option of withholding passports in the case of draft dodging — see this Haaretz article.
Now teachers are getting involved.
At Iron Chet, a religious boys’ school in Tel Aviv, the percentage of students obeying their conscription orders stands at 96 — up from 75 in 2006. The school has been doing a hard sell to students on the importance of serving their country. It has also started to withhold benefits to those approaching the end of their school careers, but not yet signed up. For them there’s no place in the graduation ceremony, just a certificate in the mail. They don’t get letters of recommendation for further study and they’re not welcome to return to the school to visit. It will be interesting to see whether this kind of thing spreads to other schools and whether, if it gets the back up of some students, it become the subject of a legal challenge.
Herziliya, the NIMBY capital of Israel, is up in arms. The wealthy seaside town is to continue to play host to an airport. The municipality, backed by residents, is desperate to have it closed down, but the National Council for Planning and Construction has rejected the petition to do so. Herziliya, heavily populated by top-level businessmen and diplomats, probably counts the country’s most frequent fliers among its residents. But they are concerned that the airport is noisy and lowers the value of their homes.
September 18, 2009, 3:21pm
Poll: Israeli Ill Will Toward Germany Is Dissipating
By Nathan Jeffay
Is bad will towards Germany vanishing from Israeli society?
Once, it was common to hear people say they refuse to buy German goods. A new Hebrew University poll reveals that today only 6% of Israeli citizens today do so.
In fact, Israelis are pretty engaged with German culture. A third of respondents said they had watched a German movie of recent.
Among Jewish Israelis, pollsters found that some 61% are very satisfied with how Germany has dealt with Holocaust memorial and four in five think that Germany today is a “different Germany” to that which carried out the Holocaust. When the same pollsters asked that question on several occasions during the 1980s, the figure was always fifty-something percent.
In the new poll, when asked about German’s role in the Middle East, Jewish Israelis were very positive. Some 54% said they have confidence in Germany — 9% more than have confidence in France. Interestingly, only 27% of Israeli Arabs said they have confidence in Germany. This reflects a feeling among Arabs that Germany is pro-Israel. But it goes deeper.
Israelis Believe Their Country Has Become Safer
By Nathan Jeffay
One of the most interesting phenomena regarding Israel’s security situation is how differently Israelis perceive it than many who live abroad.
A year ago, this writer was sent by a British newspaper to cover the Paul McCartney concert in Tel Aviv. The commissioning editor was not interested in the music or the performance. He just wanted a running update of how many people had pulled a gun at various points throughout the performance.
The contrast between this image of ultra-dangerous Israel and the country as its citizens perceive it is underscored by a new piece of research. Tel Aviv University’s monthly public opinion research project, the War and Peace Index, asked Israelis to describe the level of national security. Some 38% described it as high, 37% as medium, and just 22% as low.
The figures indicate that Israelis believe their country has become safer in the last two-and-a-half years. In April 2007 24.5% described national security as high, 36% as medium, and just 39% as low.
People also feel greater personal security than in April 2007. Back then, 42.5% rated their personal security as high, 42.5% as medium and 24% as low. In the new poll, the figures are 49%, 29% and 19% respectively.
Despite all the talk of a possible attack on Iran, some 48% of respondents to the poll see a low or very low chance in the next five years of an all-out attack on Israel by one or more Arab states. A large minority of 44% sees a high or very high chance of such an attack while 10% do not know.
If war does come, most Israelis believe they are in good hands. Asked about the Israeli army’s ability to cope with the military threats 85% rely or very much rely on it to defend the state of Israel and its citizens successfully in the event of an attack by Arab states.
Nevertheless, a large majority of Israelis, 72%, say that the need to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very urgent or moderately urgent, compared to only 24% who do not see it that way. People across the political spectrum take this view, with a surprisingly narrow discrepancy between different shades — 82% on the left, 79% in the center and 66% on the right.
August 31, 2009, 3:18pm
Israel's Education Minister: 'Ghetto' Conditions at Petah Tikva Schools.
By Nathan Jeffay
It is one of the most emotive education stories to hit the Israeli media in a long time. There are 109 Ethiopian immigrants in Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv who don’t know where they are going to school when studies start tomorrow, because the local religious schools won’t take them.
Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar today spoke of schools creating “ghetto” conditions in this report and video and opposition leader Tzipi Livni is on record saying that the schools “don’t act according to the basic principles of equality. Sa’ar has cut state funding to the schools, which are all semi-private meaning this constitutes a loss of 60% to 75% of their income.
In Petah Tikva, children and parents demonstrated, carrying signs saying “enough with discrimination,” “enough with racism,” and “since when do schools teach racism?” Ethiopian-born Kadima lawmaker Shlomo Molla has called on the Education Ministry to “complete the puzzle and take away the three racist schools’ licenses.”
August 6, 2009, 7:17pm
Wedding as Political Statement
By Nathan Jeffay
Everyone hopes that their wedding will make a statement. But not in the same way that Olga Samosvatov and Nico Tarosyan’s wanted.
They tied the knot earlier this week at the Tel Aviv landmark Dizengoff Square, and their ceremony was a public polemic against Israel’s marriage laws. To them, the ceremony was the real thing, but according to Israeli law it meant nothing.
Both bride and groom are unable to marry in Israel under the law of the land. Israel, in its 60 years of statehood, has never overhauled its system for registering marriages, which it inherited from the Ottomans via the British. Only religious authorities — the Orthodox-controlled chief rabbinate, mosques and churches — have the power to solemnize marriages. This means that 350,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who had enough Jewish lineage to qualify for aliyah under the Law of Return but who are not Jewish according to Orthodox religious law, are unable to marry.
Samosvatov, 29, immigrated to Israel from Ukraine in 1995 with her Jewish mother. A secretary in a Tel Aviv law firm, she is able to prove that she is Jewish and would be entitled to marry in an Orthodox wedding. Tarosyan, 34, immigrated to Israel in 1995 from Moscow, Russia by himself. He served in the Israeli army and currently works as a computer technician. Although both his parents are Jewish, he cannot prove he is Jewish and is not entitled to marry in an Orthodox ceremony.
They came together on Monday under a chuppah in a ceremony put together with Havaya, a secular organization which is fighting for the state to recognize non-Orthodox marriage. Given the current rules, as they want the state to recognize them as husband and wife, they will travel abroad for a civil marriage there (though there are no civil unions in Israel, the state recognizes foreign civil marriages).
In a statement, the bride said she hopes that their very public ceremony will highlight the struggle of Israeli’s who can’t marry and help “to change the law in Israel so that people can have whatever type of Jewish wedding they want.”
The groom said: “In Russia we were hated because we were Jews and here in Israel we are discriminated against as Russians.”
August 3, 2009, 10:07pm
Sabras and Olim on Israel's Arab Minority
By Nathan Jeffay
More than half of Israel’s Jewish public supports encouraging Arabs to emigrate from Israel. Breaking down the figures, some 77% of immigrants favor this course of action compared to 47% of Sabras. These figures come from the Israel Democracy Institute’s annual Democracy Index, released today.
They reflect a growing sense of concern among Jewish Israelis about the loyalty of the Arab minority to the state. This has been manifest in the success of Yisrael Beiteinu in February’s general election after pedalling a proposal to make all citizens swear allegiance to the state and the ongoing passage through Knesset of the so-called Nakba Law.
Interestingly, the question of who is harsher towards Arabs — immigrants or Sabras — is not as clear cut as responses to this first question suggest. While immigrants are harsher towards Arabs on this issue, when it comes to the question of Arab rights, it is the other way round. Some 38% of the entire Jewish public think that Jewish citizens should have more rights than non-Jewish citizens. This belief is held by 43% of Sabras and 23% of immigrants.
There’s another figure that challenges attempts to paint, on the basis of this survey, a simple picture of Israeli society. Some 54% of the public says that only citizens who are loyal to the state are entitled to benefit from civil rights. This question seized on the theme of Yisrael Beiteinu’s idea of a citizenship law, which has riled many, especially Arabs. But interestingly, almost one in three Arabs polled said that civil rights should be dependent on loyally — possibly a case of them actually using the survey to demonstrate the very loyalty that is being questioned.
Moving from politics to lifestyle decisions, immigrants from the former Soviet Union appear lukewarm to Israel. Among parents aged 31–40, four out of five Sabras is certain they want to raise their children in Israel, while only 28% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union feel the same. And while 80% of Israeli-born citizens are certain they want to live in Israel, among immigrants from the former Soviet Union the figure drops to 48%.
Israel’s lawmakers went on recess today, and thank goodness they did. Like a bunch of naughty school kids they were starting to get very mischievous as the semester came to an end. A few hours ago, they got a well-deserved telling off from speaker Reuven Rivlin. “If this is the way you behave, no wonder the public thinks this is a circus,” he said. This seems a little harsh… on circuses, which feature genuinely talented people doing impressive things. In comparison, on Thursday the lawmakers were reading children’s books, checking their text messages, and doing crossword puzzles. Read why here.
July 16, 2009, 7:05pm
Maccabiah Update: A Softball Miracle and Misplaced Nostalgia
By Nathan Jeffay
Congratulations Team USA! The American delegation to the Maccabiah is delivering the goods.
Yesterday, American pole-vaulter Jillian Schwartz set a new Maccabiah record, reaching 4.24 metres. She broke the record set just a few minutes previously by Israeli national champion Morin Azizi. Obviously, Schwartz won a gold medal in the process.
There was another gold medal for America yesterday thanks to Brown University student Samantha Adelberg. She ran the 800m race in 2:13.65.
The U.S. basketball, softball and baseball teams are all undefeated, and the first US fustal team to enter (fustal is a variant of soccer played indoors) won its first game, which it played against Estonia.
So American sportsmen and women are doing their country proud, but coaches beware: Israel is out to poach them. As the media here has reported, Israel is offering cash incentives of more than $3,000 for members of foreign teams to move to Israel.
If you read a past Bintel Blog on the Maccabiah, you will know that organizers were left red-faced after failing to get a licenses needed to stage softball games. They were canceled by police as a result. Given the Israeli passion for bureaucracy which means that most licences take an age to arrive it’s a miracle, but organizers managed to secure the necessary license yesterday, and the softball is back on.
Another topic discussed in this previous Bintel Blog is the suggestion by some that the Maccabiah is not really a serious sporting tournament anymore, and is more of a social event. We put this claim to Ron Carner, head of the U.S. delegation. Here’s what he had to say: “It’s a very high-level competition, and it’s a social and Zionist event. One doesn’t detract from the other. The number one part of the program is the sport, and everything else flows from that.”
After reading this piece in Haaretz about what the Maccabiah used to be like, one wonders whether those claiming the competition has gone downhill are indulging in a bit of misplaced nostalgia. At least nowadays medalists actually get their medals.
July 14, 2009, 3:00pm
Maccabiah Speed Dating?
By Nathan Jeffay
The Maccabiah, widely dubbed the Jewish Olympics, officially got underway today following last night’s grand opening ceremony at the Ramat Gan Stadium. Americans can be proud that the loudest cheers at the ceremony came when Olympic gold medal swimmer Jason Lezak entered the stadium, and lit the Maccabiah torch.
And if you’re rooting for the States, you are likely to have cause to celebrate.
Almost one in eight athletes competing is American; in other words 950 of the 8,000. Maccabi USA will compete in 28 sports divided among 88 individual teams. The youngest American participant is 15. The oldest is Howard Bromberg from Riverdale, New York, who at 87 is competing in Grand Masters Tennis.
All has not been smooth sailing in the first day of competitions. Israelis are notoriously slipshod about getting the right licenses for events and Maccabiah organizers are apparently no exception. As the Jerusalem Post reports, police canceled a softball game between Israel and Mexico, as well as all further games in the competition because organizers do not have the necessary license.
Nor was the opening ceremony entirely smooth. Haaretz reported that the Maccabiah banned competitors from wearing ribbons to show support for the campaign for Gilad Shalit’s release. One Shalit activist was quoted as saying she believed that Maccabiah organizers did not want to embarrass government officials who attended the ceremony. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who some Israelis claim is not doing enough to secure his release, was in attendance.
It’s interesting talking to Israelis about the Maccabiah. Opinions range from extreme pride that a worldwide sporting event takes place here to complete indifference. Some see it as yet another event for Diaspora Jews with little relevance to them, and some stare blankly when asked about it and say: “What’s the Maccabiah?” Reuters journalist Ori Lewis is convinced that there is hardly any interest at home.
He argues in this blog post that more than it is a serious sporting event, today the Maccabiah is something of “a jamboree for Jewish athletes from all over the world to express solidarity with Israel” and “an event where young Jewish singles get the chance to meet an enormous number of potential future partners in a jovial environment.”
July 9, 2009, 2:42pm
Golda Meir's Legacy, and Parsing the 'War and Peace Index'
By Nathan Jeffay
Three in five Israeli Jews supports Benjamin Netanyahu on settlements. But when they are asked to factor in that implementing his policy could lead to a deterioration of relations with the U.S., support drops to two in five. The new figures come from Tel Aviv University’s latest monthly survey of Israeli public opinion, the War and Peace Index.
What they show is that on the one hand, Netanyahu seems to representing majority opinion among voters. In short, polls are helping to build up a picture of mainstream Israeli opinion today as unsympathetic towards and prepared to dismantle outlying settlements; expectant that settlement blocs will remain part of Israel, and hesitant about stopping all building in settlements without getting anything in return for doing so.
Netanyahu’s stance that Israel will not establish new settlements, but will expand existing ones according to natural growth seems to fit in with the views of mainstream Israel. On the other hand, what we have long known to be true still applies: Israelis still care deeply about not clashing with the U.S., and at least one in five will, on the basis of this concern, withdraw support for a course of action they otherwise favor.
This month the pollsters surveyed the public on their attitudes towards the Palestinians and came up with some intriguing findings. Golda Meir, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel, famously said in 1969 that there was “no such thing as Palestinians,” and some 32% of people polled do not recognize the existence of a Palestinian people. They were not asked why, but it seems that Meir’s logic, shared by many past Israeli leaders, has survived.
If we recall, Meir’s explanation for her statement was that there has never been an independent Palestinian state. She said: “It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”
The statistic is fascinating not only because it indicates that a rejection of Palestinian peoplehood, which many presumed to have died out in recent years is alive and well. It also suggests that some Israelis are in favor of creating a state for a people that they claim doesn’t exist.
How so? Well in recent polling support among Israeli Jews for the “two states for two peoples” solution to the conflict, or the creation of a Palestinian state, has been as high as 70%. But in the new Tel Aviv University poll, only 62% believe a Palestinian people exists.
Of course, the tongue-in-cheek response is to ask who would live in and run the state proposed by Israelis who don’t believe in the Palestinians. But the apparently contradictory figures point to the way that backers of the two-state solution increasingly cite pragmatic reasons — and not deeply held convictions that the Palestinians deserve a state. While back in the 1990s, advocates of the two-state solution were often heard talking in terms of every nation’s right to autonomy, today you can believe that the Palestinians don’t exist but still want to give them a state in the hope of a quiet life.
This point is illustrated by considering what happens when pollsters, instead of asking whether respondents support the establishment of a Palestinian state, ask in terms of whether Palestinians have a right to and deserve a state. This is exactly what the Tel Aviv University pollsters did, and only 50% of respondents said they do.
The Tel Aviv University poll also found that some 56% of Israeli Jews oppose Israel taking even partial responsibility for the suffering caused to the Palestinians by the 1948 war, according to a new Tel Aviv University poll.
Respondents were asked for their feelings on the prospect of Israel taking some responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem, even if the Palestinians were to officially take part of the responsibility for the events of 1948. This indicates that while there is majority support today for a dovish position on many issues that could be on the table in peace talks — most importantly dismantling settlements deep in the West Bank — the public is not giving way on this issue.
July 6, 2009, 6:30pm
The Flowers of Mount Hermon
By Nathan Jeffay
A total settlement freeze in the West Bank still looks a long way off. But there is a scaling back of Israeli activity in another disputed area — the Golan Heights, where the Israel Defense Forces have halted operations on Mount Hermon. Is it a “confidence-building measure” requested by the U.S.? Or could it even be a gesture to Syria preceding talks over the Golan? The answer lies in neither of the above. Rather, it reflects a newfound enthusiasm in the IDF for … flowers.
Mount Hermon, as well as being widely regarded as strategically significant, is also a home to special flora and fauna, and numerous species of birds. The IDF has agreed to halt all operations in the natural habitat of the Hermon, so that flora and fauna can grow without disruption from tank tires and birds can nest without the noise of bullets.
It is one of the perennial questions asked in Israel: How effectively does the country absorb its immigrants?
Traditionally, the answer is that Israel has effectively forged a national identity from diverse immigrant groups, and has done a pretty good job. But this is a point for discussion. For decades now, Eastern Jews have claimed neglect and/or discrimination and many Ethiopians say that their integration into Israeli society is far from complete.
A new piece of research, that second generation immigrants are poorer and stand a greater chance of dropping out of school than the children whose parents were born in Israel, reinvigorates the debate.
One in ten children in Israel has immigrant parents. But In 2007 a quarter of all children living below the poverty line were children of immigrants, according to a new report by the Absorption Ministry and the Israel National Council for the Child. Given that immigrants from western countries are often better off than others, this seems to paint a depressing picture of the process of absorption among immigrants from other places, including Ethiopia.
The research also raises a question about whether education can be relied on to help poor second-generation immigrants climb out of poverty. Just 1.8% of all Israeli children drop out of school. However, the report showed, among the children of immigrants, the figure is 3.8%.
Israel-Friendly Group Banned from Trade Union Conference
By Alison Cies
Those living on the other side of the pond were struck with confusion this week when UNISON — Britain and Europe’s largest public sector union, with more than 1.3 million members — prohibited Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) from attending its annual conference in Brighton, which wrapped up Wednesday. TUFI has attended this conference for the past four years without issue.
According to statements made by UNISON conference organizers, TUFI was not allowed to attend the conference because UNISON could not guarantee the safety of TUFI campaigners, who were perceived by the public to be “pro-Israeli.”
As reported London’s Jewish Chronicle, UNISON told TUFI director Steve Scott that “they had complaints from members in the regions about Gaza.” Scott added, “We issued a statement about Gaza but obviously we didn’t condemn Israel’s actions, so they said we should not be exhibiting this year.”
According to UNISON conference organizer Bill Gilby, he and his staff hesitated at offering TUFI a place at the conference “because of the union’s long-standing policy position on the Middle East, and concern about the welfare of individuals if such a stall were to be there.” Gilby asserted that he would not describe TUFI’s “absence” as a “ban.”
Consequently, TUFI held a separate event this week, attended by more than 50 UNISON delegates, in the hotel outside of the conference center. Speakers included Terry McCorran, a UNISON branch secretary from Northern Ireland and founder of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel, and Eric Lee, who discussed the new organization Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP), of which TUFI is part. According to TULIP’s Web site, the event went smoothly, with the vast majority of attendees supporting TUFI’s pro-peace, anti-boycott message.
TUFI was established to strengthen ties between the Histadrut (the Israeli TUC), the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the British Trade Union Movement.
June 19, 2009, 3:35pm
Israeli Jews to Diaspora: Think of Us When You Vote
By Nathan Jeffay
There’s a truly fascinating new poll out on Israel-Diaspora relations, which shows that among adult Israeli Jews:
• 57% believe that American organizations that lobby the US government in support of pro-Israel policies should always support the policies of the current Israeli government while 32% said that such organizations are free to openly oppose the policies of the current Israeli government.
• 46% believe that American Jewish organizations are not doing enough to bridge policy differences and ease the tensions between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. Only 23% say the organizations are doing enough on this front.
• Almost two-thirds of respondents support using their tax money to provide basic services like education, healthcare and food to Diaspora Jewish communities that are struggling in light of the recent global economic situation. The younger the people surveyed the more likely they were to agree with this idea — among youngest age bracket polled, 18–24, support stood at 73%.
• 44% support the State of Israel recognizing Reform and Conservative conversion while 49% insist that only conversions performed by the Chief Rabbinate should be recognized by the state.
• Around half think that Diaspora Jews should think of Israel when voting, and around 40% thought Israelis should think of the Diaspora when voting.
The poll was commissioned by the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, B’nai B’rith International’s public affairs arm in Israel. It was conducted by Keevoon Research.
June 8, 2009, 1:39pm
Offbeat Israel: Polling Israelis on Obama and Settlements
By Nathan Jeffay
Every month, Tel Aviv University pollsters gauge Israeli public opinion, and the Bintel Blog closely follows the results.
The latest poll, which was conducted last week just before Barack Obama’s speech, found that 55% of the Israeli public felt that the American president leans in favor of the Palestinians.
Few Israelis, 5%, said that he favors their county’s position, and 31% said they view him as neutral.
As Obama sets about changing America’s relationship with the Muslim world, 60% of Israelis do not trust him to protect Israel’s interests in the process.
Asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, 65% of respondents said it was unsuccessful and just 19% deemed it successful.
Given all the international attention to settlements, the pollsters decided that in this month’s survey they would gauge opinion on this subject.
More Israelis feel that settlements are bad for the state’s interests than those who think they contribute: the figures were 48% and 43% respectively.
Nevertheless, Israelis tend to expect large settlement blocks close to the Green Line to remain part of Israel in any peace settlement (as do most analysts), and therefore 53% of respondents said Israel should not agree to evacuate all settlements, even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians hinged on doing so, while 41% said it should.
The figures were very different when it came to illegal outposts and smaller settlements that are among Palestinian towns and villages. Regarding these, just 29% of respondents were against evacuation while 53% were in favor.
May 19, 2009, 4:18pm
Impressed by Israel, Not Sold on the Holocaust?
By Nathan Jeffay
Earlier this month, the Bintel Blog reported that Israeli Arabs were overwhelmingly impressed by the achievements of the State of Israel and keen to continue living here. It’s indicative of the increasingly complex identity of Israeli Arabs that new research out shows that the percentages who are prepared to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is taking a sharp downturn.
Even more noteworthy is the fact that two out of every five Israeli Arabs claims that the Holocaust never occurred.
Haifa University’s index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel carries out an annual survey of attitudes among the Israeli Arab public. When it was launched in 2003, 65.6% recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. This year, the percentage dipped to 41%.
The percentage claiming this year that the Holocaust never happened — 41% — is a sharp increase from the 26% who made this claim in the 2006 survey. Some 37% of those denying the Holocaust in this year’s survey are products of post-secondary school and higher education.
In other statistics, 53.7% of Israeli Arabs recognize Israel’s right to exist as an independent state, compared to 81.1% in 2003. Just 56% agree that the right of return of Arab refugees should only be to a future Palestinian state — and not to Israel — compared to 72.2% in 2003.
Some 41.4% said that they participated in the past year in protests, compared to 28.7% who did so in 2003.
Regarding the use of violence, 12.6% support use of all means, including violence, in the struggle to improve their situation, compared to 5.4% in 2003.
The survey also indicated that Israeli Arabs are becoming less enthusiastic about social interaction with Israeli Jews. The percentage opposed to the idea of having a Jewish neighbor has almost doubled since 2003, from 27.2% to 47.3%.
May 5, 2009, 5:07pm
Aipac Forum, Day 3: Your Refrigerators Are No Good Here
By Nathan Guttman
Before loading the buses en route to Capitol Hill, Aipac delegates got a dose of reality with Vice President Biden reminding the pro-Israel activists just what it is the administration believes in.
Biden, it turns out, doesn’t necessarily buy into the Peres–Netanyahu doctrine of moving forward with the peace process without mentioning the term “Palestinian state.” Speaking on the last day of the Aipac policy conference, Biden actually used the term “two-state solution” and went on to say: “You’re not going to like my saying this, but [do] not build more settlements.”
This message is coming not only from the administration. Senator John Kerry, speaking in advance of Biden’s address, made a similar point: “Settlements make it difficult for Israel to protect its own citizens,” said the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But while differences might exist with the administration, one thing is clear: The Israelis felt perfectly at home. President Shimon Peres told the Israeli press that the atmosphere was so warm that “even all the refrigerators in the world could not chill it.”
Maybe it sounds better in Hebrew.
To watch video from the Aipac conference, or to read transcripts of the addresses given there, click here.
April 29, 2009, 3:54pm
A Flu by Any Other Name
By Gabrielle Birkner
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox top health official earlier this week said that, within the Jewish state, “swine flu” would be called “Mexican flu.” Perhaps he thought that all the talk of the potentially deadly flu associated with pigs would cause a run on pork chops, bacon and deli-style ham — even though the outbreaks have been having the opposite effect.
But then Mexico’s ambassador to Israel — concerned that his country’s name was being dragged through the pig sty — lodged a formal complaint with Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and officials in the Jewish state agreed to refer to the virus by its treif name.
Now its American pork producers who want to rebrand the virus so to reverse the recent, precipitous drop in pork prices, according to Reuters. Their moniker of choice: North American flu.
Take that, North America!
The Reuters story also reports:
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there was also talk of stripping the “swine” from swine flu, which CDC acting director Richard Besser said was leading to the misapprehension that people can catch the disease from pork.
“That’s not helpful to pork producers. That’s not helpful to people who eat pork. It’s not helpful to people who are wondering, how can they get this infection,” Besser told a briefing.
In other Jewish flu-related news, four of the six Israelis who were thought to have been infected with swine flu — or whatever you want to call it — have tested negative for the disease.
And the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel issued a press release, relating that its division of education affairs had provided its 600-plus educational institutions with “a question-and-answer sheet prepared by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and a sample letter to parents, prepared by the New York State Education Department.”
These documents, the release made clear, are “easily modifiable for use by yeshivos across the country.”
April 27, 2009, 12:00am
Watch King Abdullah's 'Meet the Press' Moment
By Gabrielle Birkner
During an interview Sunday with David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” King Abdullah of Jordan said that all of the problems in the Middle East stem from the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He told a seemingly incredulous Gregory:
Unless we solve the core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab challenges, then we will always be an area of instability that costs all of us. … Any crisis you want to talk about — whether it’s Al Qaeda, Iraq Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan — all comes back to the sore, the emotional issue that is Palestine and Jerusalem. … What is Al Qaeda’s platform? It’s the plight of the Palestinians and Jerusalem.”
A portion of King Abdullah’s interview can be seen below:
Leonard Cohen, Macy Gray Headed to Israel
By Nathan Burstein
Two musical hit makers are on their way to Israel.
“Hallelujah” singer Leonard Cohen has announced he will perform in the Tel Aviv area on September 24 as part of his ongoing world tour, which is currently winding its way through North America. Details have yet to be announced, but the musician and poet may perform at Ramat Gan Stadium, with the appearance following the cancellation of a concert in the country last year. Cohen’s previous audiences include Israeli soldiers, for whom he performed during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Also headed to Israel is Macy Gray, a Grammy winner for her 1999 hit “I Try.” The singer will be the only non-Israeli to perform at a festival honoring students and the city of Jerusalem. The concert will take place May 20 in the city, and follows three performances Gray gave in Tel Aviv last summer. The singer also performed at the Caesarea Amphitheater nine years ago.
April 15, 2009, 3:40pm
Barbara Walters Imagines Interviewing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
By Nathan Burstein
The Queen Bee of American TV interviewers has opened up about her Jewish background and impressions of the Middle East’s most influential leaders.
In an interview published today in Yediot Aharonot, Barbara Walters describes the late Israeli foreign minister Moshe Dayan as a “brilliant and extraordinary” man, and says she wishes she could catch up socially with Rachel Dayan, his wife, more often.
The veteran ABC newswoman said one of her greatest political interviews — a joint Q&A with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat — was actually Begin’s idea, and that Sadat agreed only after the Israeli leader “personally requested” it during Sadat’s 1977 visit to Jerusalem.
Other interviews in the region had a less amiable feel, Walters said, recalling how conversations a few years earlier with Sadat, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin had to be broadcast on different nights as a precondition for the interviews.
Arafat in particular could be a challenge: Walters remembers the PLO leader without affection, recalling his “habit of saying one thing to American journalists and something completely different to his people, the Palestinian people — though I never let out my anger or dissatisfaction during interviews with him.”
Born to non-practicing Jews in Brookline, Mass., Walters said she “never had a desire to travel to Israel” but found the country “amazing” when she arrived there on business. “Many people in the world would change their minds about Israel if they were to visit, to experience its tiny size and understand the region in which it’s located. When you look at a map, you don’t have an understanding of the reality,” she said.
Speaking of maps, if Walters could sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, she’d “present him with 10 facts about the Holocaust and ask him to respond,” she said. “If he said he wanted to wipe Israel off the map, I’d ask him how he wanted to erase an entire nation, millions of women and children.”
Although she’s racked up decades of experience, Walters is not necessarily a great interview herself, Yediot Aharonot writer Yaniv Halili noted. “She tends to answer questions with questions,” he reports, “despite the fact that she, the queen of interviews, knows that nothing is more annoying.”
April 2, 2009, 2:52pm
Sound Bite Comes Back To Haunt Israel's New Gov't
By Nathan Jeffay
Three questions created by the installation of the new government:
1). Just how hawkish will it be?
Everyone has had their crack at answering this question, but the most notable attempt must be that of the London-based Guardian. It got so carried away that it ended up printing this correction in today’s paper: “In an article headed Netanyahu ready to take charge as wrangling ends, 31 March, page 19, we said that Avigdor Lieberman and Binyamin Netanyahu were reported to have struck a deal last week to build 3,000 new settlements around East Jerusalem. In fact, the alleged deal involves 3,000 new housing units.”
2). Can you trust what Netanyahu has to say?
How the public loves it when a politician’s words come back to bite him, and that is just the spectacle we are seeing at the moment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done exactly what he has been dead against in the past, namely constructing an enormous government.
After giving cabinet posts to everyone he promised during coalition agreements there are 30 ministers, eight deputies, and new furniture in the cabinet room to accommodate everyone. In fact, it is the biggest government in Israeli history.
When Olmert built a 25-member cabinet Netanyahu described it as wasteful to an unprecedented degree.
He went on to strongly support a bill to cap the government at 18 ministers.
One of the instigators of this move was Likud lawmaker Gideon Saar who is now education minister. At the time, Saar said, “The cost of appointing so many ministers constitutes a waste of public funds at the expense of essential needs.”
3). Mission (allegedly) accomplished, will one of the nation’s favorite newspapers fold?
This most unusual question is being discussed in media circles.
Yisrael Hayom (translation: “Israel Today”), founded in 2007 by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has always promoted a right-wing agenda. It has been rumored that he only started the paper to get his friend Netanyahu in to office — a claim given exposure last year in a New Yorker profile of Adelson.
So what now? If it has achieved its aim, will it fold? In interviews this week, Adelson said no.
Even if it does close, its journalists shouldn’t be too worried. After all they did to swing the election, and given the new ethos on cabinet building, they could probably find jobs in Netanyahu’s new cabinet.
Exiled Ayatollah: Iranian Regime on Verge of Collapse
By Nathan Jeffay
As the country is busy speculating whether the brand new Benjamin Netanyahu-led government will end up going to war with Iran, a former member of Iran’s Khomeini government has said that Israelis are over-estimating the life expectancy of the Iranian regime.
“I guarantee that within two years Iran’s regime will collapse,” Ayatollah Dr Mehdi Haeri Khorshidi told an audience at an international conference at Haifa University called “Looking at Iran.”
Khorshidi, who now lives in exile in Los Angeles, was justice minister in Khomeini’s first government and was imprisoned for five years after that for criticizing the regime. He said: “Iran has powers that can stun and even defeat the government. There are other elements that wish to separate state and religion.
“They see that as long as Islamic rule forcibly clings to the government, religion is connected with all that is bad, which harms [the religion]. These elements include religious persons, university lecturers, judges, and members of parliament.” He added: “We need no foreign element to replace the regime for us. We can and must do it alone.” Once the regime is replaced, the Ayatollah predicted, the new government will be on friendly terms with Israel too.
He said of the state of academia and culture in Iran: “Fifty percent of the university openings are reserved for people associated with the government, and in order to be accepted in the remaining places, the candidates must undergo tests that are of political character and not at all related to the study material.
“A respected 106-year-old Ayatollah, who can no longer see or hear, determined that using satellite is forbidden since it provides only sex-related films. For fifteen years, it was forbidden to use video machines, because the religious bodies feared that the youth would use them to view sex films. Thankfully, today the thirty million youths are less interested in the government’s propaganda against the West.”
Khorshidi said that the poor state of the Iranian economy is bad news for the government. “Prices go up twice a day and inflation is higher than 50 percent,” he said. “In the past we have seen despotic regimes that have been able to survive for extended periods, but there the financial situation was reasonable. Due to the impossible financial state of affairs in Iran, along with the youths’ desires, the only thing that preserves the regime is the military – but how long can this situation continue?”
March 31, 2009, 9:42am
Offbeat Israel: Heists, Ultimate Frisbee and the Peace Process
By Nathan Jeffay
At last we have it. An answer to the million-dollar question: How do you bring Israelis and Palestinians together?
And it is … crime.
A bank in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank city of Ramallah was robbed last week, and the thieves made off with the equivalent of $30,000.
Palestinian police have revealed that of the six thieves, three were Palestinians, two were Israeli Arabs, and one was an Israeli Jew. Now isn’t that just a picture of a harmonious interdenominational group?
Palestinian police Colonel Adnan al-Damiri has reportedly said that the Israeli Jew “was the mastermind of the operation.” He said that coordination between Arabs and Jews could signal a “dangerous” trend in crime.
There is a more legal — though equally quirky — proposal for bringing together Israelis and Palestinians being put forward at the moment.
A group of American and Israeli Frisbee enthusiasts think their sport could be the answer to this region’s troubles.
Ultimate Peace, which they are organizing this week, is an Ultimate Frisbee festival which will bring together disadvantaged youth from Palestinian and Jewish communities from the West Bank and within Israel.
The idea followed a visit to Israel by the American Ultimate Frisbee team, the Matza Balls. During that visit, the team taught Israeli children and promoted the sport of Ultimate Frisbee. The American visitors returned home happy at what they achieved with Israeli youngsters but upset that their game was not being played by Palestinians.
The American Ultimate Frisbee enthusiasts are joining forces with Israeli enthusiasts and the Peres Center for Peace to run the event. Gal Peleg, Director of Sports at the Peres Center for Peace, says on the event website: “Sport has an unparalleled ability to overcome barriers of language, politics and religion. Especially a sport like Ultimate Frisbee, which emphasizes fair-play, team cooperation and mutual respect, and offers a unique chance for Israeli and Palestinian youngsters to set aside their differences and work together to achieve a common goal.”
Peleg’s department has produced this video on its ethos of using sport to bridge gaps between communities:
March 23, 2009, 2:14pm
Offbeat Israel: Japan's Falafel Connoisseurs
By Nathan Jeffay
They say that all Israelis reckon they are experts on falafel – where the country’s finest can be found, in what order the pita should be stuffed, which salads deserve to be included. Well that was before sushi arrived. Now that virtually every shopping street in the country has a bar serving up the Japanese delicacy, Israelis have lost interest in the falafel and turned their critical attention to sushi.
So who will take up the mantle as connoisseurs of falafel?
The answer, believe it or not, is the Japanese.
Israel is becoming a hugely popular destination for Japanese tourists. Japan’s most popular travel guide series, Globetrotter, has just revealed that its guides to only one country — Mexico — sell better than guides to Israel. And yes, there is a detailed section on falafel, which Japanese tourists can be seen enjoying and reviewing across Israel.
In fact, the popularity of this guide points to a wider phenomenon that travel to Israel from across East Asia is on the rise. Some 135,000 visitors from East Asia arrived in Israel during 2008, an increase of 20% on 2007 when 112,000 tourists from the region visited.
Israel is keen to encourage the trend. The Tourism Ministry recently opened an office in Beijing.
Back on the subject of eateries, can McDonald’s manage what Starbucks could not — namely to convince Israelis that they want neither Arabic-style “mud” coffee nor European-style espresso-based coffees, but rather American-style drip coffee? Starbucks tried the Israeli market but left. McDonald’s has just announced that it will open its McCafé chain — currently only at Ben Gurion airport — at several locations in Israel.
A Mrs Robinsonesqe trial ended in Israel yesterday. An English teacher from Rehovot was convicted of having a three-month affair with her 17-year-old student.
The teacher in question was found by the court to have regularly driven the student home at the end of the school day and had sex with him in her car, a rented room, or the home of a female friend of the student’s.
The friend took pictures of the two kissing, and rumors spread of the affair. The teacher and her husband were accused of making threats against the friend.
The case was not heard in full as the teacher agreed to a plea bargain, according to which she will plead guilty to having an illicit affair with a minor over 14 and abusing her position as an educator, pay financial compensation to her former lover and his friend, and undertake six months of community service.
March 11, 2009, 1:10pm
Offbeat Israel: The Bollywood-Style Video Taking Israel By Storm
By Nathan Jeffay
The video that has Israel talking this week is, believe it or not, a Bollywood-style musical by the country’s leading weapon’s manufacturer, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
It has emerged that at Aero India, a trade fair organized last month by India’s Ministry of Defense, Rafael screened a movie of Israeli dancers in Indian costumes singing about how the potential for Indo-Israeli defense trade ties. They are dancing around mock-ups of Rafael’s products.
Bloggers who write on security issues have derided the video. Noah Shachtman, contributing editor at Wired magazine and the editor of its national security blog Danger Room, writes:
Every element of the promotional film is just plain wrong. The sari-clad, “Indian” dancers look all too ashkenaz and zaftig. The unshaven, hawk-nosed, leather-clad leading man appears to be a refugee from You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. Then of course, there’s the implication that the Indian military is somehow like a helpless woman who “need(s) to feel safe and sheltered.”
But for my rupees, the worst thing about the video is the damn theme song they’ve concocted for the thing. To pimp its weapons, Rafael produced a sitar-heavy twist on Rick Astley’s love letter to Satan, “Together Forever,” complete with a new chorus: “Dinga dinga, dinga dinga, dinga dinga, dinga dinga dee.” The rest of us now have to suffer for that bad, bad choice.
And how has it gone down in India? The Indian men’s lifestyle portal MensXP.com calls the lyrics “drivel.”
It’s odd that the reception in India was so unkind when Rafael’s research process seems to have been so thorough. “In Israel we have Jewish people from India, so we know about Bollywood and the song and dance numbers,” Assy Josephy, the director of exhibitions for Rafael, told the South Asian defense and strategic affairs site StratPost when asked about the background to the video.
March 3, 2009, 2:53pm
Bar Refaeli: Resident Water Specialist
By Leah Koenig
Back as a bored Hebrew school kid in suburban Chicago, I passed the time by staring at the map of Israel that hung on every classroom wall in my synagogue. Although I’d never traveled there, I knew the shape and topography of the country remarkably well — the ironically shrimp-shaped swath of brown, ringed by three pools of blue: the Mediterranean Sea to the West, the Red Sea to the South and the Dead Sea to the East.
So imagine my surprise when, on my first trip to Israel two years ago, I eagerly visited the Dead Sea to find out that it’s gone — or at least shrinking at an unprecedented rate, along with the rest of Israel’s water supply. I felt cheated. All I wanted to do was float about in those intensely salty waters I’d read about my entire life. Instead, my pilgrimage merely introduced me to “Israel’s chronic water problem.”
Luckily, water specialist (er, Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition model), Bar Refaeli, is on the case. According to the blog, Green Prophet:
The [Israeli] Water Authority has recruited [Refaeli] to help educate the public about Israel’s water crisis. [She] will participate in an ad campaign to increase awareness and encourage water conservation practices.
Local actress, Renana Raz, participated in a similar public service announcement, with the catchphrase “Israel is drying out.” You can watch the Hebrew-language clip here (oh, if I had only paid more attention in Hebrew school.)
I can only hope that these efforts prove more effective than PETA’s campaign to use a nude Alicia Silverstone to convince people to be vegetarian.
February 10, 2009, 4:04pm
Who Voted How Where
By Gabrielle Birkner
It’s 10 p.m. in Israel — and the polls are now closed.
Real-time election results by city and sector (Kibbutzim, Bedouin, etc.) can be tracked here.
February 10, 2009, 12:02pm
And the Winner Is ... the Bowling Alley
By Nathan Jeffay
More than you could feel a palpable interest in the elections on the streets of Israel today, you could feel a strong sense of desperation from parents — huddling in shop doorways sheltering their offspring from rain showers and searching for an activity that would keep them entertained.
Election Day here is a public holiday when schools close and most people are off work. And Israel is not really geared up for rainy days.
So while the counting of the votes has not even begun, we can reveal the real election winner: the indoor entertainment industry. Luring thousands of parents with the promise of fun out of the rain, bowling alleys, children’s play centers and cinemas are enjoying sky-high takings. Many have queues stretching beyond their doors.
February 8, 2009, 11:57pm
In Israel, Change You Can Xerox
By Gabrielle Birkner
In advance of Tuesday’s election in Israel, candidates of various persuasions have shown no shame in cribbing from the storied presidential campaign of Barack Obama — regardless of their ideological similarities or differences with the American president, The Daily Beast reports.
The Shas Party, whose constituency traditionally has been composed of Orthodox Sephardic Jews, has gone so far as to reappropriate for its own purposes Obama’s “Yes We Can” slogan. Meanwhile, the leader of the centrist Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni, is evoking Obama’s message with the catchphrase, “You have a chance to make history,” and Benjamin Netanyahu, of the center-right Likud Party, last year hired on two Obama strategists.
Echoing a recent Forward story, Ashley Rindsberg, in The Daily Beast, writes:
“Far more than just a source of borrowed slogans and talking points, Obama has become a political weapon. The Kadima and the left-of-center Labor parties have campaigned on the notion that ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu simply won’t be able to get along with Obama. In the Israeli media, the portmanteau ‘Obibi’ is used to describe Netanyahu’s rise to front-runner against the backdrop of a liberal American president who might be less than sympathetic to his positions.
But it’s not completely clear that even the centrist or left contenders would simply line up for Obama once in the government. Livni has tried the hardest to identify with Obama, going so far as to print campaign leaflets for Hebrew-speaking voters that read, in English, ‘Believni.’ Although Kadima led the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza under Ariel Sharon, there’s little indication that Kadima under Livni would follow the same path in the West Bank, no matter how much President Obama might desire such an outcome.”
February 7, 2009, 4:00pm
The Source of That Mysterious Maple Syrup Smell: Israel
By Gabrielle Birkner
The source of a mysterious maple syrup-like odor, which wafted over the island of Manhattan on several occasions since 2005, appears to be the 76-year-old, Haifa-based company Frutaron, according to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The New York Times reports:
“The city revealed on Thursday that the culprit was the seeds of fenugreek, a cloverlike plant, which are used to produce fragrances at a factory across the Hudson River in North Bergen, N.J. It turned out that the city had never given up trying to determine the aroma’s origin. It had quietly created a crack maple-syrup team that remained on the case.
The North Bergen factory, owned by a company called Frutarom, used the herbal seeds to manufacture food flavors, releasing a pungent, generally pleasant smell in the process. Under the right weather conditions — high humidity, no rain — the aroma drifts across the Hudson onto the West Side of Manhattan.
‘I think it’s safe to say that the mystery of the maple syrup mist has been solved,’ Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference at City Hall, cautioning that the city was still investigating several leads.”
Frutarom, “a flavor and fine ingredients company” was founded in 1933, originally under the name Frutarom Palestine Ltd. According to its Web site, “The company’s foundation was promoted by Professor Haim Weizman, the first President of the State of Israel and a known chemist,” the site states.
To see a gallery of photographs documenting Frutarom’s early days, click here.
Today, Frutarom is listed on the Tel Aviv and London stock exchanges.
The company apparently never caught wind of Mayor Bloomberg’s investigation and, according to the The Jersey Journal, issued the following statement:
“We have been made aware of the statements made by Mayor Bloomberg this morning regarding the source of the maple-syrup odors in [New York City]. The naming of our company as one of those potentially contributing to this condition came as a surprise to us.”
January 7, 2009, 5:12pm
‘Joe the Plumber’ Puts Down the Plunger, Heads to Israel
By Gabrielle Birkner
“Joe the Plumber” won’t be unclogging any toilets, at least not while war is raging in Gaza. Samuel J. Wurzelbacher — the Ohio plumber and would-be country music star who became a fixture of John McCain’s presidential campaign — is heading to Israel for 10 days as a war reporter for the conservative Web site Pajamas TV. There will be no pretense of objectivity. CNN reports:
“The famous plumber will be focusing on the Israeli perspective on the situation. ‘It’s tragic, I mean it really is,’ Wurzelbacher told CNN affiliate WNWO ‘I don’t say that in any little way. It’s very tragic, but at the same time what are the Israeli people supposed to do.’
Wurzelbacher told WNWO he’s not worried about the potential dangers of his new gig. ‘Being a Christian I’m pretty well protected by God I believe. That’s not saying he’s going to stop a mortar for me, but you gotta take the chance,’ he told the CNN affiliate.”
One of the last times Wurzelbacher spoke publicly about the Jewish State — specifically in regard to Barack Obama’s positions on it — he was taken to task by Fox News’s Shepard Smith.
December 29, 2007, 9:41pm
Israel’s ‘Non-Jewish Jews’
By Daniel Treiman
The JTA has a great story on the hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel under its Law of Return, and yet are not officially regarded as Jews by the state because their mothers are not Jewish. They live in Jewish society, many have Jewish ancestry and identify as Jews, they serve in the army, and yet they have to travel abroad to get married (at least if they’re marrying someone who is defined as a Jew under halacha, since the Chief Rabbinate has a monopoly on marriage, and won’t allow a Jew to marry someone who is not Jewish under halacha).
The JTA’s Dina Kraft does a great job of humanizing an issue that is a great challenge for the Jewish state, and for the entire Jewish people. (Although some of Kraft’s descriptions of her subjects’ ancestries are quite confusing.)
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
December 17, 2007, 7:41pm
Loving Israel's 'Bazaar of the Bizarre'
By Daniel Treiman
Jacob Savage has penned a colorful love letter to Israel’s most maligned building: Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station.
He writes:
Subcultures have embraced various corners of the building. Some storefronts are exclusively in Thai, some in Russian, some in English. Of course there is Hebrew, which in much of the station seems almost like an afterthought.
A mini Asiatown has formed inside the bus station. A two-story advertisement for Cellcom, the Israeli mobile phone company, features a Thai woman posed on her cell phone and text in Thai. Asian supermarkets, fast food noodle joints and remittance agencies have signs incomprehensible to most Israelis.
The Russians have an even larger niche, with at least four bookstores, several tattoo parlors and a body oil shop. Russian might be the building’s lingua franca.
The Ethiopians have their “Ethiopian style” hair salon, cosmetics stand and restaurant. A store sells Rasta clothes, Jamaican flags, Ethiopian music and T-shirts that read “I Love Ethiopia.”
People watchers have no better place. Soldiers come and go on leave. Religious Ashkenazim try on jewelry. Ethiopian teenagers walk hand in hand. Heavy-set, elderly Russian women mumble to themselves as they try on bras.
Read the rest of the article on the JTA’s Web site.
October 25, 2007, 4:11pm
The Yankees Look East to Zion
By Aram David
The Yankees may not have yet picked a successor for departing manager Joe Torre, but they have made some minor announcements in the past few days, signing two stars from this season’s Israel Baseball league to minor-league contracts.The Yankees organization picked up Jason Rees, an outfielder with the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox who hit .362 and led the league in home runs and runs batted in, and Eladio Rodriguez, starting catcher for the Modi’in Miracle who was the co-winner of the Hank Greenberg Most Valuable Player Award. Neither player is Jewish.
October 15, 2007, 12:17pm
We the Israelis
By Daniel Treiman
Ha’aretz’s Shahar Ilan offers a fascinating and thorough look at efforts to draft a constitution for Israel.
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