Controversy Over Rabin Memorial
By Nathan Jeffay
There’s something of a tug-of-war developing over the annual anniversary rally for assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday night for the event, 14 years and a week after he was killed (it was delayed because of the rain last Saturday).
Attended by politicians from three of the five biggest Knesset factions, Labor, Kadima, and Likud, it was seen by some as the coming-of-age of an event that was once a show of strength of the traditional peace camp. Likud lawmaker and education minister Gideon Saar declared from the podium that rightists have been “pushed out of the mourning tent for too long” and said that the time has come for everybody to mourn Rabin together.
Saar sees the county, and the event, as nationalizing Rabin’s memory, some see this as a cop out. Voices from the left are claiming that making the rally less political may make it more inclusive, but say that it’s coming at a cost of Rabin’s legacy.
August 28, 2009, 11:37am
Will City Bus Service on Sabbath Save Lives?
By Nathan Jeffay
We’ve seen major secular-religious clashes in Jerusalem this summer. Here’s a heads-up that over the coming weeks you may well be hearing about clashes in Tel Aviv.
They are likely to be angrier than past clashes. While in most past clashes, the secular side has been arguing against religious coercion and for public convenience, it looks like in the row brewing now in Tel Aviv, the secular case will be far more emotive — Sabbath desecration, it will be argued, saves lives.
This Friday afternoon in Tel Aviv, bars and cafes were busy with people enjoying the slightly cooler weather. Friday afternoon is a great time to go out, but by 6 p.m., anyone relying on buses to get home starts to head home. It may be city that never sleeps; but from Friday afternoon until nightfall on Saturday, all the buses take a 25-hour-plus nap.
Mayor Ron Huldai wants to introduce buses on the Sabbath. He’s apparently not motivated by a desire to secularize the city, but rather because of road safety statistics.
August 3, 2009, 10:03pm
Gangs of Tel Aviv
By Nathaniel Popper
In its most impressive feat since its recent launch, Tablet magazine has just closed out a long series on the Israeli mob after a five-day run.
The piece was smartly adapted to Tablet’s online-only format by appearing in short installments over the course of a week — like the old newspaper serials — and accompanied by some evocative black-and-white images. “Holy Land Gangland,” as the piece is titled, does what so much of journalism strives for, by taking you inside an unknown world and decoding it; in this case, the first installment literally goes inside the gritty offices of a Tel Aviv loan shark, where the scene is set:
Glaring in the background were the monitors of a closed-circuit surveillance system, showing four different camera angles on the approach to the office. We sipped espresso, and every few minutes a new face would be buzzed inside, his hand full of shekel notes.
The series’ subject and writer are well matched — given Douglas Century’s past writing on American gangs and Jewish pugilists. It turns out that among the young Israeli mobsters, “kickboxing gyms are the hang-out — and stress reliever — of choice.”
But kickboxing is old school. Century finds out that Israeli’s mafia is entering a new era of indiscriminate violence:
While rarely reported about outside of Israel, the new generation of criminals, young and ruthless, are emerging as the country’s biggest homegrown menace.
Century doesn’t just give the curious and chilling facts, such as the frequent use of ultra-Orthodox garb to camouflage drug running and assassinations, or the creation of Israel’s first witness protection program. He also digs for the societal causes of the violence and pins the blame on the rapid privatization and rise of inequality in Israel over the last two decades. It all comes out sounding depressingly like post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s. But in Israel, the story is not nearing an end.
March 4, 2009, 6:07pm
Israeli Designs: From Tel Aviv Via the Web
By Gabrielle Birkner
If you can’t go shopping on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street, Coolil (as in Cool Israel) may be the next best thing.
The recently launched Web site features the wares of 10 Israeli jewelry and leather goods designers. There are tote bags by Efika, clutches by Daniella Lehavi, and etched silver and gold necklaces by Augusta. Many of the labels have had little or no prior exposure stateside.
Jewish-themed gifts on Coolil range from leather-bound books of tehilim, bracelets inscribed with the Shema prayer, and various Hamsa and Star of David necklaces. Diaper bags by Heidi and plush toys by Manuella are also available on the site.
Coolil is the brainchild of Israeli Eran Shor. When Shor moved to New York three years ago, he found himself receiving frequent compliments about the clothing and accessories he had brought with him from Israel. So he made it his mission to bring Israeli designs to the American market — and Coolil was born.
February 18, 2009, 11:39am
Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hitler in Tel Aviv
By Gabrielle Birkner
In the second parking-related hubbub that has infuriated some Jews in about as many months, a YouTube clip that shows the likeness of Adolf Hitler enraged over a 250-shekel parking fine in Tel Aviv, has some Holocaust survivors up in arms. The parody, which borrows footage from “Downfall” — the 2004 movie about Hitler’s final days — shows the Nazi leader calling Tel Aviv’s municipal government “worse than the S.S.”
The Hitler of the parody goes on to complain to his deputies that “all of the money goes to this corrupted city council which for seven years is renovating the same meter-on-meter in Ibn Gavirol” — referring to a street in Tel Aviv.
And, don’t even get “The Fuhrer” started on the city’s public transportation system.
The clip, which contains an expletive, follows.
Haaretz is reporting that the chairman of the Centre of Organizations of Holocaust survivors, Noach Flug — himself a survivor of the Mauthausen concentration camp — wrote to YouTube demanding that the offending clip be removed.
In December, Facebook removed from its site the page of a group called “The Jew Parking Appreciation Club.” The group mocked with hateful language the way Jews park in a Sydney, Australia neighborhood.
February 17, 2009, 12:59pm
Israel Searches for a Hero, Spiderman Will Do
By Nathan Jeffay
It’s just days after the general election, and Likud and Kadima are at it again — arguing over the issue of territory.
But if you’re getting the impression that the two parties have stopped bickering over who won the election and started talking about Israel’s peacemaking policy, you are mistaken. Instead, think teen movies and specifically the turf wars over who gets the best table in the cafeteria.
This territorial debate going on in Knesset concerns the “sovereignty” of the largest (and on the authority of Knesset insiders comfiest) conference room.
This room goes to the party leading the government, but with two parties claiming they will lead the government, there has been a clash. Kadima is so insistent that it has dibs on the room that it reportedly stopped Likud from holding a meeting there. Likud says its ranks grew so much as a result of the election that it members can’t possibly fit in a smaller room anymore.
At times of political paralysis like these, Israel is in need of somebody to look up to, a unifying figure, a national hero, if you will. Well for a few minutes on Sunday night, it not only got a hero but a superhero.
Dozens of drivers near Rosh Ha’ayin, called police to notify them there was a man dressed as Spiderman jumping from car to car wielding ropes that were apparently meant as a substitute for a web. Police arrested the man, but say that he has still not managed to explain why he was wearing a Spiderman outfit.
Equally mysterious is how Tel Aviv municipality managed to send out a letter to a resident calling her a bitch. “Mrs. Cohen the bitch,” began a letter to Na’ama Cohen who wrote to the municipality disputing some parking fines.
According to reports in the Tel Aviv media, the municipality described the letter as a “regrettable mistake” and promised to apologize to Mrs. Cohen and send her flowers. There was no information on wording for the card accompanying the flowers.
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