Jerusalem Holds Day-Long War Drill

(Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

By Dave Bender

Israel's National Emergency Authority (NEA) on Tuesday held a comprehensive eight-hour war drill in Jerusalem to prepare the city's residents for an all-out war with the Jewish state's adversaries.

Read the rest: http://www.davebrianbender.com

Israel: Hitchhiking Home

'Efrat: Misty Morn' Dave Bender, all rights reserved (Click the photo to embiggen for that panoramic look)

Not long ago, I hitchhiked my usual ride home from Jerusalem with an Efrat neighbor who was passing by the Gilo junction where everyone either catches a hitch, called a "tremp" in Hebrew, or an intercity bus - which comes by every 20 minutes or so.

It's usually much faster and often more interesting to hitch - and every time's a chance to meet someone new, learn something, often hear great music (speaking as a past radio programmer and DJ, folks in Gush Etzion and points south have awfully good musical taste) - and give someone a chance to rack up the mitzva points en route.

Dozens of riders, from teens to the elderly, regularly crowd together under the streetlamp alongside the bus bay, holding plastic shopping bags, backpacks and whatever else you'd lug along home after a day in town, at work or school.

They wait for rides to their communities, and - from firsthand experience - commonly not more that 10-15 minutes until a car or van going their way slows and shouts out the destination. The potential rider closest to the vehicle usually shouts out the destination for others who are going the same way.

Most evenings, there are two, three and sometimes even four vehicles pulling up at a time offering rides home. Amazingly, I haven't seen anyone hurt or a collision (yet...) as they clumsily merge back into the traffic lane alongside.

Guess that's just the way we roll in the Holy Land, so to speak...

After getting off a bus from in town, I stroll up to the junction and a car soon pulls up alongside.

The woman driver calls out, "Efrat;" I recognize her as a neighbor.

I get in, and a moment later a young woman walks up, carrying a infant, a car seat for the baby and a back pack.

Read that last sentence again, I'll wait...

...a slight young woman with a 1.5-mo.-old babe in arms, and baby gear, hitchhiked a ride with total strangers on a ride through the wild "West Bank," aka here, the hills of Judea.

Stop - hold that image.

She was headed to her village, Elazar, a short distance before Efrat along Rt. 60.

Our driver pulls out and we make small talk about visiting home towns overseas and family as we head off for the 14-km/9-mi drive along the two-lane road.

Our 15-min. southbound route under a brilliant full moon takes us into the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, past Bethlehem, Beit Jala and several other Palestinian Arab villages.

There have been numerous horrific shooting attacks against Jewish residents of our communities in the last several months, years, decades and more, but, on an evening like this, it somehow struck me as though we were somewhere in a would've, could've should've been small town, maybe somewhere in the rural U.S. dozens of years ago, before the idea of even a burly tough guy hitchhiking was an assumption of dangerous lunacy for either the driver or the ride.

Now think about that; hold that thought for a second.

Again, imagine the bond of trust, elemental "derech eretz" (innate decency, here), and healthy shared societal assumptions that brought together that vignette of the four of us, what it implies, and what it says about the hesed (grace), resilience and plain old decency and gumption of this society - as opposed to everything you read on the news about life here in Israel.

Now, could you envision such a scene like this anywhere else - really?

Shabbat Shalom.

'It's like a religious Pac-Man!' Totally hysterical. Made. My. Morning.

"A clip from the British show "An Idiot Abroad." On this episode Karl Pilkington visits Israel."



No British boycott here... (oh, the stupid - it burns!)

Jerusalem Sunset

Jerusalem Sunset
Originally uploaded by Dave Bender

On the right is the cantilever "Bridge of Chords," pillar towering over the entrance to the city. The Calatrava-designed tower is a striking architectural centerpiece of the municipality's soon-to-be-completed light rail system.

More photos embossed on calendars, posters, mugs and such, for sale (via Paypal) are here: http://cafepress.com/davebender

Western Wall at Night ( Exclusive Panorama Photo)

Western Wall Plaza. Dave Bender (All Rights Reserved)
Click on photo for larger panorama.

"Folded notes of prayers, blessings and personal requests to the Almighty, pressed into the crevices of the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City. What happens when all the cracks between the Herodian -era stones are filled?

The answer is here: www.davebrianbender.com"

Exclusive Israel Photography For Sale

Just a reminder for those who appreciate my photography: it's for sale here: http://www.cafepress.com/davebender

Jeff Beck Rocks Tel Aviv

"Higher"


"A Day in the Life"

From Ha'aretz (which - of course - must politicize everything, ideally, to Israel's detriment):

"Beck is one of a few high-profile foreign stars who have ignored calls to boycott Israel as part of a campaign that has seen a series of acts pull the plug on plans to tour the country.

Several pro-Palestinian groups had urged Beck, who first found fame with The Yardbirds in the 1960s, to scrap the show.

“We’ve chosen to rehearse in Israel and settle there for a few days, rather than rehearse in England and get off the plane – we want to acclimatize ourselves,” Beck was quoted as saying by website Israel 21C ahead of the tour, apparently unaware of the significance of the term 'settle' in regional politics."

Hamas Releases Shalit Death-Threat Video

Link: http://www.mako.co.il/news-military/security/Article-13483a90f3f2b21004.htm

The military wing of Hamas in Gaza on Monday published an online video clip purporting to show how Israeli Army captive Cpl. Gilad Shalit would be put to death if Israel does not agree to its demands for a Palestinian prisoner release.

In the video, which appear with running Hebrew commentary on Israel's Channel Two tv news site, Shalit is shown sitting at a table in a darkened room.

He is flanked by two captors. One unpacks a bag with what appear to be his belongings, including a letter to his family released earlier, and apparently orders him to write a "farewell letter." The second captor loads and cocks a Kalashnikov rifle.

The screen goes black and shots ring out, and the screen shows the words: "Is the mission over!"

The video is one in a series of psy-ops clips, intended to put pressure on Israel.

Shalit was abducted from an outpost within Israel alongside the Gaza border on June 25, 2006.

Hamas has refused to allow the Red Cross to visit Shalit.

'From Jerusalem to God - by Kotelevator'

Click here for the full-sized image.

By Dave Bender JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Worshipers and tourists at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest site, will soon have a new way of approaching the Lord above: an elevator.
Read more: http://www.davebrianbender.com

‎(Video) Knicks' Amar'e Stroudemire in Israel

Amazing who you run into at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market: the Knicks' Amar'e Stroudemire: http://www.davebrianbender.com/

Israel Unwraps Major Museum Facelift (photo series)

Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum: home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the world's oldest Biblical documents. (Dave Bender: All Rights Reserved)

After three years and 100 million U.S. dollars, the Israel Museum, founded in 1965, is about to pull the wraps off a near-total renovation.

The project, which covered every segment of the 20-acre (some 80,937 square meters) campus, "is the largest collective philanthropic effort ever undertaken for a single cultural institution in Israel," museum officials said in a statement.

Read more and view more photos here.

(Exclusive Audio) Gaza Flotilla: Catching the Next Wave

So-called activists from Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Germany and several other countries are planning on sending waves of blockade-busting sea craft towards Gaza in coming days and weeks.

In an exclusive interview, Dave Bender speaks with an American-Israeli maritime security expert who says Israel must take a harder, clearer tack in averting a humanitarian disaster in the Hamas-led Palestinian enclave - and a possible military one on the high seas between Israel and its sworn enemies.

Listen in: http://www.davebrianbender.com

'A Terrorist's Guide to Improving Israel's Media Coverage'

A wickedly delicious, satirical, Machiavellian romp through the media looking glass in A Terrorist's Guide to Improving Israel's Media Coverage:

"If Israel wants the same supportive coverage that Fatah and Hamas get, it needs to play by their rules. Press credentials would then go to those who provide positive coverage. Those reporters who want to take pictures of wall graffiti and stage photos of Muslim children throwing stones at Israeli tanks need not apply. If the New York Times or NBC News can't find anyone willing to play by those rules, the way they do in Gaza and Ramallah, then they can stay home and they won't be able to do their jobs.

"The mainstream media will be outraged, you say. There will be even more negative coverage. As if there isn't heaps of it now. And what will the negative media coverage be of? Reporters forced to stay home. Foreign correspondents who have to cover an election in Hungary, instead of eating caviar in a Jerusalem hotel and writing vicious articles about Jewish Middle Eastern refugees living in East Jerusalem.

Ha'aretz reporters will have to move to London to write biting columns in the Guardian about how racist the country they used to live in, is. Before they move on to the inevitable theater reviews and finally begin writing ad copy for insurance agencies. Oh the pathos, the pity. No one will care."

Read the rest.

'Israel Okays Plan to Raze Palestinian Squatters' Homes'

Palestinian nationalistic graffiti at the entrance to a home in Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood. (Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved)

By Dave Bender
The Jerusalem Municipality says it wants to move the residents temporarily during construction, and then relocate them at the same location, but in better housing. The master plan includes replacing roads, water and sewer infrastructure, adding municipal services, hotels, and an archaeological park. Palestinians are skeptical of Israel's promises and intentions. Read more.

Israel: Chillin' on a Blisterin' Day

Acre sunset (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

It's been far, far too hot yesterday and today, so I offer a virtual chiller of a photo I shot at the Crusader-era Old City of Acre (Acco). Enjoy.

'Novartis, Israeli Startup Ink Pharma Deal'

By Dave Bender
Biopharmaceutical firm NasVax has signed a deal with Swiss pharma giant Norvartis to develop new vaccines together, including influenza-fighting strains. "What's significant is that Novartis is one of the five largest vaccine companies in the world," Dr. Ronald Ellis, NasVax senior vice president and chief technical officer, tells ISRAEL21c, "and they found it attractive to work with us." Read the rest.

'Israel Eases Gaza Aid Blockade, Naval Siege Continues'

By Dave Bender, Geng Xuepeng

JERUSALEM, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Israel on Monday began allowing more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, while promising continued enforcement of its naval blockade on the enclave, a spokesman with Israeli Prime Minister's office said. Read more.

Tel Aviv: Extreme Sports Are Hoppin'

'Jumping for Joy' on the Tel Aviv beach (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Athletic jumpers, using stilt-like springs (so, does this qualify as an 'extreme sport?') wow the crowd, on a late afternoon alongside the Tel Aviv beach.

BREAKING: Helen Thomas Quits WH, Retires

From the Huffington Post:

"Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately," a Hearst Newspapers statement said. "Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet."

Oddly enough, "doyen" (as in, 'The doyen' of the Washington press corps.") is pure Biblical Hebrew for "judge." Wonder what Helen would think of that ("Oh - cackle - the irony! It burns!").

So burn, baby, burn (in the Florida sun, in retirement, with all those Jewish bubbies and zaydies all around).

Bridge of Size: Jerusalem's Light Rail

'Bridge of Size' (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

This dramatic Calatrava-designed cantilever bridge post buoys a curving cable matrix over Jerusalem's long-delayed light rail project.

This means, as long as you just look up, and it's at this sort of abstract B&W image, it's ok - otherwise it's a frikin' uglificious, soul-killing mess for residents, businesses, and private and public transportation along the route):


(Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)


(Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

...and from the driver's POV:

(Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Israeli Apartheid: Proof!!!

Give it up for 34-year-old Nikia Brown, an American singer on the Israeli version of American Idol:


She and her husband converted, and up and moved to Israel, and say they are very happy here.

(Geez' peeps, we have just GOT to work harder on that haterz' stuff, huh? And yeah, and that was a bait and switch headline... so sue me)

Gaza flotilla: both sides vow new confrontations

By Dave Bender, Gur Salomon, Yuan Zhenyu

JERUSALEM, June 1 (Xinhua) -- A day after the Israeli commando' s deadly raid on the Gaza aid convoy, there is no sign of an end to the hype. Both Israeli officials and international activists are standing their ground and say they're preparing for the next round.

Israeli government on Tuesday began dealing with repercussions of the incident. While most of the pro-Gaza activists are still under detention, Israeli military, after strict security check, delivered several trucks of aid unloaded from the flotilla to the coastal enclave.

Read more.

One-on-One with Israeli Dep. FM on Gaza Flotilla Debacle

Read my one-on-one int'v with Israeli Dep. FM, Danny Ayalon on the Gaza flotilla debacle at http://www.davebrianbender.com. Video on the way...

Single Chinese Woman 'Be-moms' Orphaned Toddler for Israeli Heart Surgery

By Dave Bender, Hao Fangjia
Quan Shiyi, a volunteer of Beijing, China, is caring for a one-year-and-half-old orphan suffering from a life-threatening congenital heart defect.

Gretel, her English name, is 26 years old and unmarried, and had never looked after a baby, even not changed a diaper. But all that changed in 2009 when she met Qian Baoxin at an orphanage in Beijing, where Gretel volunteered as a translator.

There, she learned the meaning of motherhood. Read the rest.

Israel Finds 2000-year-old Bridge, Aqueduct in Jerusalem

Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist, Yehiel Zelinger, stands alongside a Mameluke-era bridge and aqueduct outside Jerusalem's Old City walls. Construction workers uncovered the site two-weeks ago, while laying pipe for new water lines. The structure was built on the ruins of similar water courses that brought water from springs in Bethlehem to Jerusalem's residents since antiquity. (May 11, 2010) (Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved)

By Dave Bender
JERUSALEM, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) on Tuesday announced the discovery of segments of an arched bridge and aqueduct at an excavation site outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Yehiel Zelinger, the IAA archaeologist responsible for the dig, termed the find "spectacular."

He said the bridge was originally part of an ancient aqueduct that brought water to the Temple Mount during the Second Temple period (between 536 BC and 70 AD), when an estimated number of 50,000 Jews returned from the Babylonian exile to build the Second Temple on the site of the destroyed First Temple.

Read the rest.


Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist, Yehiel Zelinger, examines an 1898 topographic map by German archaeologist Konrad Schick of the area outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. Water company construction workers there uncovered a Mameluke-era bridge and aqueduct two-weeks ago. The structure was built on the ruins of similar water courses that brought water from springs in Bethlehem to Jerusalem's residents since antiquity. (May 11, 2010) (Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved)

(Video) Comedy Central: So, Can We Call it Cowardly Antisemitism now?

This is beyond appalling:



Comedy Central website has published an anti-semitic game called "I.S.R.A.E.L. Attacks," in which a murderous robot called Israel is called upon to wipe out every cartoon character on the show. The short animated movie that introduces the premise of the game portrays a "Jew Producer" being "busted" for stealing cartoon characters. "I.S.R.A.E.L" is then sent out to destroy them all. (H-T: Israelinsider)

And that includes consecutively blowing up small kids as part of the action (viewable on the video clip on my site). Y'know, it's just what Jews do.

This slick, Hamas-level toxic Jew-hatred is aimed straight at small children who do not know better, while their parents ignore it, likely assuming it's just another silly online Flash video game. And what's even more galling is that it's from the same major media outlet, Comedy Central, that censored out any visual or verbal reference to Mohammed in a recent South Park episode, after receiving threats from Muslims.

But my post here isn't about or against Muslims or Islam. It's about virulent, poisonous Jew-hatred slowly welling upward into mainstream corporate American media (...and I just wonder how many Jews worked on this production, thinking it was cool and edgy, indie comedy).

Folks, keep your eyes on the ball, here: this isn't an overreaction to a silly animated cartoon for jaded kids. Cultural references like this - bizarre as they are - are also a reasonable barometer of what Jew-haters and their ilk can "get away with" injecting into the public discourse of an increasingly distracted, media-saturated populace under the rubric of "entertainment."

Little kids watch and play this game, imbibe saccharine Jew-hatred between jokes and bad animation, and then Jews and others wonder where the hate's coming from far down the road.
[screen grab appears here]

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/game_player/index.jhtml?game=271497

Wait - I know! Howzabout' we just change the series name to "J.I.H.A.D. Attack" and let's see what happens - just for sh*ts and giggles, you know; let's see who gets death threats first.

Nahhh. On second thought, let's run with it as is, and see who screams first that we're all paranoid and obsessive Yids shutting down valid debate about Israel via important illustrative cartoon metaphors, or some such drivel.

So, again I ask: can we call it cowardly antisemitism now - and do something to stop it?

From Shanghai to Jerusalem: A Jewish Refugee Looks Back

Ninety-four-year-old Sarah Ross of Jerusalem is eyewitness to the birth of two modern nations, both led by ancient peoples: China and Israel. She grew up as a Jewish refugee in Shanghai during World War II, and has lived in Israel since 1948.

Text version.

'Ani Yehudi - I Am a Jew' (music video)

Single Chinese Woman Becomes Orphan's "Mom" in Israel

"Gretel" (Quan Shiyi), comforts one-and-a-half-year-old Xin Bao at the pediatric ICU at Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel, 05/04/2010. Xin Bao is recovering from successful open-heart surgery, via the Save A Child's Heart organization. (Photo: Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved).

Single Chinese Woman Becomes Orphan's "Mom" in Israel

By Dave Bender, Hao Fangjia

Quan Shiyi, a volunteer of Beijing, China, is caring for a one-year-and-half-old orphan suffering from a life-threatening congenital heart defect.

Gretel, her English name, is 26 years old and unmarried, and had never looked after a baby, even not changed a diaper.

But all that changed in 2009 when she met Qian Baoxin at an orphanage in Beijing, where Gretel volunteered as a translator. There, she learned the meaning of motherhood.

'Fire Extinguisher Judaism'

David Hazony pree-ty much nails it:

"Of course, there is nothing wrong with combating anti-Semitism or fighting the Iranian bomb ... But just as an individual’s life cannot be defined solely through his struggle for survival, isn’t there something disturbing about a Jewish identity defined principally by the constant effort to put a halt to terrible things? Welcome to fire extinguisher Judaism."

Read the rest.

One From the Heart: Israeli Docs Save a Chinese Orphan's Life

"Gretel" (Quan Shiyi), the caretaker of one-and-a-half-year-old Xin Bao, comforts him at the pediatric ICU at Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel, 05/04/2010. Xin Bao is recovering from successful open-heart surgery, via the Save A Child's Heart organization. (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Wow. Really moving experience video interviewing a Chinese young woman and the orphaned infant she's brought to Israel for emergency congenital heart-surgery via "Save a Child's Heart" org, at Wolfson Hospital in Holon.

Gretel, as she calls herself here, is Xin Bao's court-ordered caretaker for the duration of the operation, until they both return to their home city of Beijing, hopefully soon.


"Gretel" (Quan Shiyi), cheers up one-and-a-half-year-old Xin Bao with a "chamsa," good luck charm at the pediatric ICU at Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel, 05/04/2010. Xin Bao is recovering from successful open-heart surgery, via the Save A Child's Heart organization. (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Also on hand in the ward and at the hospital were Palestinians patients from Gaza, Israeli Arab volunteers, an Ethiopians doc, and kids from Zanzibar and many others.

Will post moving clips, photos and story in coming days at www.davebrianbender.com

Israel and Palestinians Grapple Over Restarting Talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu ponders his government's initiatives during its first year in office, at a press conference in Jerusalem , April 7, 2010. (Photo: Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved).

by Dave Bender

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are set in Cairo on Monday, Israelis and Palestinians are grappling over what restarting talks actually means.

"We're talking about a complex decision," Netanyahu said on Saturday night of the Arab League foreign ministers' call that day in the Egyptian capital suggesting the Palestinians renew negotiations.

However, Netanyahu cautioned, "Israel still awaits the official Palestinian announcement of their willingness to begin talks.”

Read the rest: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-05/03/c_13276185.htm

Al-Jazeera Rips Lid Off Latest Zionist Plot!

Breathtakingly, head-smackingly malicious stupidity by my media "colleagues" over at al-Jazeera.



This morning's imbicilitude is all about the nefarious Zionist plot to hurt Palestinians by long red traffic lights during morning rush-hour at Jerusalem's northern French Hill junction:

View Larger Map

No, no really - they're seriously claiming this. Either that, or poor Brit brat reporter Jacky Rowland is miffed over getting to their plushy offices late at the far southern end of town (I've been at those offices - they're in the shiny office tower at Malcha mall) - so, I mean obviously the Israeli occupation's at fault.

So let's fisk (see below), shall we? Oh golly, where to begin...

• The so-called "Israeli settler road" shown in the story is used by West Bank Palestinians coming into town from their cities, towns and villages, and Israelis, alike.
• It has to be wider at the intersection, since it carries much more traffic throughout the day, into, and around the city center: the traffic artery links up with the two main western and northern exits from the city.
  
• The rail line is part of the Jerusalem rail system which all Jerusalemites are "suffering" from, including traffic delays across much of the city, years-long delays, cost overuns, and gridlock - for Israeli Jew and Palestinian Muslim alike.
• Oh, and the rail line workers? Palestinians. Willing to bet. Good jobs with a major construction company, bringing home the, umm, bacon, as it were to their families.
• The Jerusalem Municipality, at a cost to taxpayers (note: mostly not the Palestinians embroiled in the am traffic jams) of tens of millions of dollars to improve traffic flow around town, including Palestinian towns of Beit Hanina, and Shuafat, noted in the story.
• The same Palestinians in Beit Hanina and Shuafat will also have use of the rail system - whenever it's completed.
• No Jerusalem traffic official is quoted about the computerized monitoring system that changes to timing to reflect the varying traffic loads throughout the day.
  
• I used to live in the immediate area, and am familiar with the issues of traffic on and around this junction, and I say: the woman's talking unmitigated rubbish.
• I could fisk more, but why bother - since this is what passes for "hard news" from here.
  
• Sigh.

* Fisking: A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form.^[2]

Israel, and getting ObamaCare 'Right'

ObamaCare supporters and detractors please take notes; there will be a test (...or maybe several. "Oh, it's probably nothing to worry about - but let's schedule to run some tests just to be on the safe side, ok?"):

"Physicians, health-policy analysts and insurers from the US are learning from the Israeli example about how to provide universal coverage and excellent healthcare at low cost."

Photo courtesy of Chen Leopold/Flash90.

In Israel healthcare begins at birth.

Read the rest.

Jerusalem's 'Un-Holyland'

"Sickness Land" (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Jerusalem's Holyland Park luxury apartment complex is under harsh legal and media scrutiny over alleged bribes paid to a string of senior Israeli figures to allow its construction.

The Hebrew letters to the left of the streetlamp had originally spelled out "Holyland." But a protester added a segment to the first letter on the right - "hay," changing it to, "chet." Now the sign says "Cholyland" - a most excellent pun, meaning "Sickness Land" - in this case, of the political and moral variety:

Those under investigation include former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky and a series of other government and business officials.

The Jerusalem Post has a great article and graphic by opponents of the project.

My Interview on the Previous 'Mohammed Cartoon Scandal'

My interview with an expert in the previous "Mohammed cartoon scandal" (one in a developing series, sadly, apparently...):

Israel at 62: Fireworks!

(Photos: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Israel at 62: Fireworks
Originally uploaded by Dave Bender

I shot these from a party held at the home of some new friends', overlooking Kfar Saba's central square.

Shot with my Samsung Omnia i910, using the "fireworks" setting, and lightly p'shopped for crop, color correction.


(Photos: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)


(Photos: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)


(Photos: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)


(Photos: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)


(Photos: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Holocaust Remembrance Day: The 'Virtues of Memory'

Detail from a sculpture at the exhibit. (Photo: Dave Bender)

Holocaust Remembrance Day: The 'Virtues of Memory'

By Dave Bender

On April 12, Holocaust Remembrance Day, a new exhibition, “Virtues of Memory: Six Decades of Holocaust Survivors’ Creativity” will open at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem.

The exhibition, “tries to explore for the first time how survivors actually remember a place we too-often said was indescribable,” according to Yehudit Shendar, who directs the center's art department and is senior art curator of Yad Vashem's Museums Division.

Virtues of Memory, “is an opportunity for all of us to try and understand what the survivors have experienced – this time, not with our ears, or with our word capacity, but rather with our eyes,” Shendar told reporters at a pre-opening exhibition.

“In my opinion, the Holocaust is one of the major characteristics of Jewishness today,” said Raul-Israel Teitelbaum, 80, a former Israeli journalist and painter. One of his paintings, a dark oil-on-canvas, “Boy at Bergen-Belsen,” is hosted at the exhibition.

“Other elements are sometimes disputed, but the Holocaust is one thing that actually crystallized the identity of Jews today. It's a part of the history, and a very hard history of the Jewish people,” Teitelbaum told reporters, standing alongside the painting.


Shen-Dar and Teitelbaum, stand beneath his painting, "Boy at Bergen-Belsen (Photo: Dave Bender)

“When I was very young, I was very busy with my daily life … with age, the memories come back,” Teitelbaum said, describing a pattern familiar to survivors, of painful memories they often tried to suppress over the intervening decades of rebuilding lives and families.

One of his horrific experiences is captured in the 67.2 x 42 cm. portrait of a gaunt young man, clad in torn blue rags and sitting on a stone in a muddy, stockaded courtyard in the camp. In the agonizing scene, his back is turned away from the viewer and his face is unseen.

“I think about an intimate moment in Bergen-Belsen. It was when we got our daily ration of bread, and all of us would try to hide it from the others there, and I was trying to show this moment,” said Teitelbaum, who now lives as a retiree in Jerusalem.

Teitelbaum was born in Kosovo, Yugoslavia in 1931, and was an only child. He was imprisoned in the hellish death camp when he was 13-years-old, along with his mother and father.

He and his mother managed to survive there until the Nazi surrendered to Allied forces. Their father did not.

Teitelbaum remained in Yugoslavia after the war, in order to finish his schooling. He then made his way to pre-state Israel, where he settled and worked as a journalist for the next 30 years at the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

“...and now I am very active to tell my story to my granddaughter and her friends,” the now silver-haired and robust Teitelbaum said, in recognition of a sobering, unavoidable fact: When he and his generation are gone, there will no longer be anyone left alive to pass the memory of the horror, and the vision of the hope, on to the next generation.

Teitelbaum's memories and artistic vision are an integral theme of this year’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day events in Israel.

The artwork of 300 survivors, including paintings, wood and metal sculpture and mixed-media are the first time such a show has ever been attempted.


(Photo: Dave Bender)

“We are so accustomed to think about the Holocaust in black-and-white,” Shen-Dar told reporters viewing the vivid images and sculpture arrayed throughout the expansive hall, “but the 'black-and-white' was the camera of the perpetrator – not what the victims have seen.”

But, “colors don't mean that something is happy,” Shen-Dar cautions.

“It just means that it was real. It was not on another planet, it was right here on our planet with greens and reds and blues, that we all know well.” That awful reality is something Shen-Dar and her colleagues at Yad Vashem are struggling hard to memorialize, and tell the world. They are in a race against age, and in the face of Holocaust denial, and renewed outbreaks of antisemitism worldwide.

Shen-Dar and her team assembled the hundreds of artifacts out of the collection of thousands of object d' art stored at Yad Vashem in the six decades since World War II.

“No, no. They were certainly human beings. Uniforms, boots,” writes Israeli poet, Dan Pagis, in one of many vivid quotes about the Holocaust experience inscribed over the sections of the exhibition.

Shen-Dar says that quote is prophetic, since many of the images feature the same Nazi uniform elements again and again.

“That is to tell us that the perpetrators were not some outside creatures. They were real people,” Shen-Dar reminds the reporters.

“Unfortunately, too many times we say that they don't belong to the human race,” she says of the Nazis. That the death and labor camp tormentors, “are not part of what we call, 'humanity.' But they were.”

“They were human beings, some of them very well educated,” Shen-Dar said. “And they did what they did with a clear mind and an ideology, and thus, we should not spare them by saying 'they were beasts.'”

Finally, according to Shen-Dar, the exhibit does not detract from the visceral experience the survivors went through, or allow an gauzy artistic aesthetic to lessen the elemental impact of the images:

“I would say the reality of these works of art is quite blunt, and they spare nothing” she says of the works of art. “This tells you that they believed that the reality needs to be seen as is. Not beautified, not adorned, and not spared from us.”

“I believe that part of the power of this exhibition,” Shen-Dar concludes, “is to allow this voice to take the stage.”

Since Israel officially follows the Hebrew lunar-based calendar, the opening ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day begins Sunday evening, and concludes Monday evening.

Israel's President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are scheduled to address the ceremony, and Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council and himself a survivor will kindle the Memorial Torch.

The exhibition will be on display for a year.

(An edited version of this story appears in China's People's Daily Online)

Netanyahu Touts 1st Year in Office

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu points to a PowerPoint presentation at a press conference held at the Prime Minister's Office, Apr, 7, 2010. Netanyahu touted his government's initiatives during its first year in office, during the 32nd Knesset session. All Rights Reserved, Dave Bender, 2010.

By Dave Bender

"'The whole world is not against us,' Israel's embattled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday at a press conference touting a list of accomplishments in his government's first year in office.

"This, despite a bloody deadlock with Palestinians, nuclear trouble brewing with Teheran, and a gnawing diplomatic spat with Washington."

The rest of this article is posted here: http://www.davebrianbender.com

Video: 'Jerusalem Blues' guitarist: Just Riff It

Natan Zohar is about the best electric street busker, riffing over hip backup, through Hendrixy blues changes and freeform jazz on a blonde Strat, on a windy, freezing afternoon in Jerusalem, well, that I've ever come across... And the tiny dancer at 2:24 - pure delight. Enjoy! (Shot on my Omnia cameraphone - apologies for the audio)

You Must Read This Post. Now. (Really)

From the keyboard of a ridiculously talented screenwriter wife of friend of mine:

"Today I scanned all the faces on the bus and I felt relatively safe.

"You know why? Because we got them. The bombmakers and the masterminds and the organizers and all the eighteen year olds who couldn't wait to get recruited. We got them all, pretty well. We took them on, and we dismantled their networks and we rocketed their bomb factories and we listened to their phone calls and blocked their bank accounts, and when any of their top brass forgot to be vigilant, we assassinated the hell out of them.

"As well as doing all of this, there was the small and simple matter of involving our children in this fight. That's right, all our little boys, the ones who had been playing with meccano and lego and playmobile on the living room floor. The ones who loved reading Tintin and Asterix or the Israeli equivalent, and who gobbled their Frosties for breakfast every morning before getting the bus to school. All our beautiful boys - the ones who were on Ritalin and the ones who weren't, the ones who loved football and the ones who were too nerdy for sports.

"The ones who wore kipppot and tzitzit and the ones who didn't. We waited till they turned eighteen and then we put them in uniform and trained them to use weapons and taught them to speak Arabic, and they went into every one of those viper's nest towns like Jenin and Ramallah and Nablus, usually during the night, and they arrested every single person hiding a weapon or in possession of explosives. When your children were at university doing law or medicine or engineering, our children were in those towns. Every night."

Read the rest.

Irrefutable Proof the Mossad Was Behind Dubai!

They've started selling the t-shirt:

"SALES OF Mossad-themed T-shirts, available by mail order, have risen tenfold since the Israeli spy agency was linked to last month’s assassination in Dubai.

"Despite the fact that Israeli leaders are refusing to confirm or deny Mossad involvement, orders for the garments have flooded in over the past few weeks – from Israelis and particularly from diaspora Jews."

Also: ¡¡pooɯ ɯıɹnd ǝɥʇ uı ʇǝƃ oʇ ƃuıʇɹɐʇs Heh.

(H-T: EoZ)

(Audio Exclusive) Israelis, Palestinians 'Lawyer Up' For Battle

Nitzana Darshan-Leitner making a point to the audience during her address at the recent Jerusalem Conference. (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli right-wing activist attorney, runs the Shurat Hadin Law Center. She told the recent Jerusalem Conference, and Dave Bender about what is increasingly being used as a courtroom cudgel against the Jewish State: "Lawfare," and how she's turning the legal battle against Israel on it's foes.

The interview, and her surprising comments are here: http://www.davebrianbender.com

(Video) Tracking Jews Back to 'Abraham's DNA'

JLTV's Brad Pomerance reports on Author Jon Entine's Book "Abraham's DNA: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People."

(Cartoon) Purim & Programming: Unsafe At Any [processor] Speed

'Debacle or success? Experts doubt Mossad's role in Dubai assassination'

My first published article for China's Xinhua News Agency, datelined Jerusalem (yes, you read that right):

News Analysis: Debacle or success? experts doubt Mossad's role in Dubai assassination

By Dave Bender, Gur Salomon, David Harris

JERUSALEM, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Israeli analysts on the Mossad cast doubt on international reports assuming the legendary spook shop is behind the killing of top Hamas commander, Mahmoud al- Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room on January 19, and whether the operation was even a success.

Read more.

(The article is a compilation of three stories that I edited together, Gur's, David's, and mine, which was part of a video interview I held this week with Yediot Aharonot intel, and investigative report, Ronen Bergman, on the liquidation and it's aftermath).

No Joke: 'Purim Gift Baskets Middle East'

No Joke: Purim Gift Baskets Middle East - Egypt, EG Iran, IR Israel, IL Jordan, JO Kuwait, KW Lebanon, LB Oman, OM Qatar, QA Saudi Arabia, SA Syria, SY Turkey, TR United Arab Emirates, AE Yemen, YE

(Head-smacking moment annnnnnysecondnow...)

(Photo) Netanyahu: 'Sanctions With Teeth' Against Iran (UPDATED)

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu striding towards the podium at the seventh annual Jerusalem Conference, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010. (Photo: Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved).

By Dave Bender

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “sanctions with teeth,” against the government of Iran, including imports of gas, and energy exports, in an address to a packed seventh annual Jerusalem Conference.

"'The argument is over,' Netanyahu said of the possibility that Iran was trying to make a nuclear weapon, and added that Iran was a threat to world peace, and to Israel...."

Meanwhile, in a related item, The Jerusalem Post's Sarah Honig, commenting on the Dubai Hamas hit (that, just to keep in mind, was aimed at stopping a Hamas/Iranian attempt to get even more, longer-range weaponry to use against Israel), says pretty much what I've been telling many over the years - often, unfortunately, to little avail:

"'dam butlab dam' (blood begets blood– but only for some)'

"As in yesteryear, so in the 21st century, it’s axiomatic that Arabs have the right to inflict incalculable harm on Jews, but the Jews’ attempts to deflect such blows are evil, outrageous and deserving of merciless punishment."

---

Other conference updates, audio and photos will be posted here: http://www.davebrianbender.com

Two-wheelin' it in Tel Aviv

UK Peer + IDF + Haiti = 'Teh Styupid is Strong in This One'

Jenny! Look!: That must be an Israeli baby-organ bandit sizing up his next meal now!

From the UK Jewish Chronicle:

Tonge: Investigate IDF stealing organs in Haiti

Baroness Tonge, the Liberal peer, said this week that Israel should set up an inquiry to disprove allegations that its medical teams in Haiti “harvested” organs of earthquake victims for use in transplants.

Her call has been sharply criticised by fellow LibDems, but party leader Nick Clegg has refused to act against her.

The organ theft claims were published last week in the Palestine Telegraph, an online journal based in Gaza of which Baroness Tonge is a patron.

Previous Haiti posts: http://betbender.blogspot.com/search?q=Haiti

Trying Out For 'American Idol' - in Israel

An utterly frikin' WONDERFUL take on trying out for Israel's version of "American Idol." With pics!

(VIDEO EXPOSE') What Israelis REALLY Think of US Airport Security

(H-T: Israeli satire site: Latma)

(Video) Elvis at 75, in Israel: 'It's Now or Never'

The 'Neon Sistine' Elvis ceiling. More here (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

I just love sweet, yet mildly bizarre subculture stories, don't you?



Great vid. I covered this a few years ago in print, with photos - and in video, too:

'Blue Suede Jews'

"Memphis has Graceland. Vegas has impersonators. And Israel - yes, Israel - has the Elvis Inn, a bizarre desert Mecca for Middle East Elvis enthusiasts. It's the Holy Land, people, and the King has risen."... See More... See More

Read More: http://www.atlantajewish.com/content/012006/bluesuedejews.html

http://www.davebrianbender.com

(VIDEO) Israel: 30 countries at mass-casualty, NBC drill

"Preparing for a germ warfare attack, Israel stages its largest ever drill on emergency preparedness as hundreds of emergency response experts from around the world attend a simulated biological attack on Tel Aviv."

Israel: Just Jew it (developing post)

Which is to say that I'm returning to Israel, to resettle after three amazing years working and living here in Georgia among some pretty amazing folks, both in Atlanta and elsewhere, statewide.


Atlanta skyline. (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Rav Kook wrote:

"When people are asked why they are unwilling to settle in Eretz Yisrael [The Land of Israel] right now, they have all types of cheshbonot - calculations - as to why now is not the time.

One says his chesbon is that his children need to finish school or college; another's chesbon is that he has to vest his pension, and so on.

If we look in the Torah, though, we will see that before the Jewish people entered Eretz Yisrael, they first killed the King of Chesbon.

Once the King of Chesbon is killed, the decision to move to Eretz Yisrael becomes easy."

In more contemporary terms:

This post will be developed and expanded, as I try to get more nuanced feelings about this whole process of being here and there down on pap- 'er, blog...


Sunset panorama outside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City. (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Comments welcome.

'Flying While Jewish' vs 'Flying While Arab': Poll

I'm just wondering what you readers think here about the imbroglio on US Airways Flight 3709:

On Thursday, a flight attendant on a US Air flight from New York to Louisville mistook the religious prayer article as a bomb after the Jewish passenger, Caleb Leibowitz, 17, had taken them out to pray, according to reports. Tefillin consist of two black boxes, each connected to leather straps.

The passengers and crew were taken off the plane in Philadelphia. Fire trucks and police met the plane on the runway.

Leibowitz was questioned and released. No one was arrested in the incident.

Seems to me that what's interesting in the story of the Orthodox Jewish kid being hassled on the flight for strapping up in his seat is the worldwide Jewish reaction in the news, online, in blogs, etc to the whole story: somewhat embarrassed amusement, internal backbiting, justifications and explanations, etc. followed by... ho-hum, and maybe a stern lecture from a rabbinic pulpit about "not making a 'shonda' in front of the goyim."

But nothing beyond that, except maybe some understandably ruffled feathers, if that, among the other passengers forced to switch flights towards their destinations...

Whereas in the Arab world (as per the "Sheiks On A Plane" aka the "Flying Imams" event): the usual response would be law/warfare, sometimes including riots, torched embassies, screaming denunciations, enraged fatwas, indignant press conferences and vitriolic talking heads on news programs.

That says something. What do you think that "something" is, I'd like to know. Drop a comment below, if you please.