63 Utterly Boring, Stupid, Absurd and Ugly Things About Israel

Ok, I lied: Benji Lovitt rips both humor and aliya a new one for Israel's 63 Independence Day:

Soon after making aliya 5 years ago, American immigrant Benji Lovitt began compiling slightly warped, but endearing aspects of what he loves about his adopted country. Here is his fourth annual list.

7 I love that you can talk to a complete stranger for five minutes, ask if his sister is single, and not get punched in the face.

8 I love how you can talk on a first date about how many kids you want to send to the army.

9 I love that during the summer, you could hike 40 kilometers underground and somehow still end up at an ice cream truck.

10 I love that I contacted Pelephone via Twitter, and within 24 hours, they had arranged for Ori, the customer service guy, to come to my house to pitch me their deal. (By the way, if you’re ever entering a hotel for a Twitter event and security asks you what you’re there for, just lie. Nothing sounds dorkier than “Tweet-up.”)

Do read the rest.

American - Israeli Blooz-Rocker Rocks Israeli Army Radio

Lazer Lloyd, a veteran blues-rock guitarist and American immigrant to Israel was recently featured in a live segment aired in Israel Army Radio, "Galatz" (Army Waves).

He and the midday live music show host, Yoav Kutner (himself a veteran local radio host and music maven), are chatting in Hebrew about Lloyd's background, musical influences and the fact that he's a devout Jew, succeeding in what secular Israelis often view that their own "cultural turf."

A bit ragged and out of tune, but what. ever. In any case, good stuff. (Thanks Sandy)

Here's Lloyd from a show at a local venue:


Added bonus: the commercial for a local bank's online services is fun, too...

Libyan Rebels 'Rock the Casbah' to an Israeli Beat

From The Jerusalem Post:

"Zenga Zenga," a YouTube clip, has gone viral amongst Libyan rebels in the past few days. What many of those opposing Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi don't realize is that the video, a mash-up of Gaddafi's speech and the hip-hop song "Hey Baby," is from Israel.

"The clip shows Gaddafi's speech on a balcony in Tripoli, and uses autotune to turn his words into a song. In the chorus, the Libyan dictator "sings" that he will clean Libya "inch by inch, house by house, room by room, alley by alley." It also features bikin-clad women shaking their hips in time to the music."

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)

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

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)

Two-wheelin' it in Tel Aviv

(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

Israeli 'kiddie ride' includes mud, rain, fog & exhaustion

Great blog post from a cyclist colleague in Israel, utterly bustin' it on a week-long children's charity ride:

"I just spent a week riding through mud.

Not the kind of nice warm Dead Sea mud that tourists buy. I’m talking about freezing cold mud. It gets on your arms, your legs, in your nose, and between your teeth. Every day after the ride you take a shower wearing your riding gear to try and get some of it off. But it’s just not possible.

The mud gets on your bike chain and in your gears. It gets in your brakes and clogs your pedals. Your bike weighs a ton no matter how often you try and clean some muck off.

What an amazing week."

The rain was so thick, you could hardly see where you were going. Then it started to get cold. Yael reminded me of the article I wrote before the ride about how we should just accept the inevitable and embrace the rain.

I told her to shut up."

Read the rest.

Jewish Youth, Lost & Found, Pro & Con

Haviv Rettig, in a very nuanced and insightful article at The Jerusalem Post, about the Jewish collective, and/or individualistic "Lost and Found."

The article comes in response to the uproar over a recent video ad campaign by Masa - "Trek" - an Israel-based group offering cultural programming geared towards stemming assimilation among diaspora Jewish youth, similar to the US-based Birthright program.

Un-embeddable video (what's up with that, editors?): http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1194419829128&pagename=JPost%2FPage%2FVideoPlayer&videoId=1251804482457

Read it all.

Israeli Press Center Hosts Suicide Bombers as Madonna, Baby Jesus

One of the paintings at the exhibition.

From the "days I just love my profession" file:

From Ynet News:

"Art exhibition including seven paintings of female suicide bombers depicted as Madonna holding baby Jesus in their laps slated to open Thursday at Journalists' Association in Tel Aviv. Following protest, association considers removing paintings. Artist: Art is meant to ask questions"

That's right. At the Bet Sokolow Journalists' Association.

"On a personal level, the paintings bother me," said Bar-Moha to Ynet. "If I need to weigh freedom of expression against the outcry of the bereaved families, I prefer the terror victims. They are more important to me than freedom of expression in this case. But I can't determine this. I am turning to my colleagues, one by one, and asking their opinion. As of now, I have spoken with four of them, and all have authorized the removal of the exhibition."

"...There are pieces that won't be taken down, such as the one on clumps of earth collected from the site of the suicide terror act on the Maxim restaurant in Haifa. There is no reference or halo around this earth, as opposed to the pictures of the female suicide bombers," said Bar-Moha."

So where's the Israeli diplomat to reply in kind, with his own brand of "public art," like then Israel Ambassador Zvi Mazel in 2004 at an "art installation" in Sweden? Wait a minute, Sweden... Huh. Wonder why? Any ideas, readers?


'Snow White and The Madness of Truth'

"Israel's ambassador to Sweden was kicked out of Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities after he destroyed an artwork featuring a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber, news reports said.

The incident, widely reported in the Swedish media, occurred at the opening on Friday of the "Making Differences" exhibit, part of an upcoming international conference on genocide hosted by the Swedish Government and in which Israel is scheduled to participate.

"I was really looking forward to seeing what the artists had done. Instead, I was met by a picture of a smiling suicide bomber, the woman who killed 21 people in Haifa a few months ago," ambassador Zvi Mazel told Swedish news agency TT.

The art installation, located in the museum's courtyard, featured a fountain filled with red water, designed to look like blood.

A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and on it was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the female lawyer who blew herself up in the Haifa suicide bombing attack in October which killed 21 Israelis.

"For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims. As ambassador to Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality," Mr Mazel said."

Legendary Dylan sideman emigrates to Israel

From Dave Brinn at The Jerusalem Post:

People may know the songs and albums he's played on more than his name, but a bona fide musical icon from the 1960s will be arriving on an August 4th Nefesh B'Nefesh flight of new immigrants to Israel.

Harvey Brooks calls his Jewish upbringing in Queens 'pretty ordinary,' and he credits his parents with instilling 'the basics' in him.

"Harvey Brooks, who will be making aliya with his wife Bonnie from Tuscon, Arizona, has played bass guitar on some of the most groundbreaking records of the post-Beatles era - including Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Miles Davis's Bitches Brew (1969), The Doors' The Soft Parade (1969) and 1968's Super Session featuring Michael Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills. And that's only a fraction of the some 100 albums he's appeared on or produced over the past 40 years on his way to cementing his status as one of the most respected figures on the American music scene."

Israeli Poet On Jerusalem & Exclusive Photography

'After Words. We'll Talk' (Dave Bender. All Rights Reserved)
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'Curved Sky' (Dave Bender. All Rights Reserved)
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'David's Silhouette' (Dave Bender. All Rights Reserved)
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Yehuda Amichai | Tourists:

"Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David's Tower. I placed my two heavy baskets at my side.

A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker.

'You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.'

'But he's moving, he's moving!' I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, 'You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family.'"

'Amichai's Arch' (Dave Bender. All Rights Reserved)

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(These and other photographs of Israel and other scenes are available for purchase at www.cafepress.com/davebender, and on my website photo page: www.davebrianbender.com )

Steve Vai, Israel Studio Guitar Legend Trade Shred, Decimate Tel Aviv

From Israel21c:

"With the media touting doomsday scenarios at every opportunity about a fracture between the Israeli government and US administration regarding the peace process, it’s nice to know Israelis and Americans can still make beautiful music together.

"Legendary American hard rock guitar virtuoso Steve Vai was in town this week, presenting his Alien Guitar Secrets masterclass to a Tel Aviv auditorium full of 1,500 adoring fans. While not my cup of musical tea, Vai, who in addition to an illustrious 20-year solo career, has played with everyone from Frank Zappa to David Lee Roth, was simply dazzling - both his guitar playing and his personality."

Go here for more.

Great NPR Profile on Israeli Musician/Producer

Idan Raichel

Click here to hear the interview (a pop-up player console will open).

From National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday, May 10, 2009:

"Israeli music producer Idan Raichel collaborates with many musicians from around the world. So far, he has worked with more than 90 artists.

"'I see myself as the director of many, many scenes,' he says. "We are 90 musicians: The youngest is 16 years old, and the eldest are 64, 79, 83 and 89 years old. For those listeners who are not familiar with the Israeli society, we are all kinds of immigrants. So we have singers from the Ethiopian community in Israel, and musicians from the Moroccan community. And we are proud to have all these singers joining us by MySpace, or by just writing to our Web site.'"

"It's all part of his ongoing recording work with what he calls The Idan Raichel Project. Raichel (pronounced RYE-kell — "with phlegm," he says) writes, arranges and performs on many of the songs, but he works with a far-reaching cast of musicians to record his compositions"
Read the rest.

And, despite NPR's perennial editorial animus towards Israel, and considering Raichel's stated hard-left politics, there nary a note against the Jewish State.

Israeli YouTubes Earth One Groove at a Time

This is so stinkin' cool. Yeah, I know it's not a new mashup - but, hey, it so grooves me first thing in the morning...


Turn it up and wail.

...and here's the list of kudos:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU8gmo... Theremin
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FX_84... drums
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-CxM... bass also at : playbassnow.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvw2Uu... Funk Guitar
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7IFYh... gts-solo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutUFs... Blues Harp & Vocals
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBS_6P... Rock Guitar
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXitAt... Contrabass trombone
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ged039... Trombone
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZQpK... Rhodes
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgwHtf... mute Guitar
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnbrUw... Tuba
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ0z4v... Bass 2 also at : playbassnow.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRM81J... Tenor Saxophone
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuein... guitar bridge
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJqqNE... Guitar bend
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE8Mv5... Hammond
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnMa9c... Orange team cheer
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJEcQs... Crazy Sax
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__aTf1... Theremin Sex?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw756f... guitar Licks
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Ke39... Trumpet kid

Brilliant Israeli Photography

Just found this site by ridiculously talented photographer Nehemia Gershuni and proteges, and, after drinking in the inspiration, hope you do too:

http://www.ngphoto.biz/links/index.php?lang=en

There's a lot to see on Gershuni's Flash-based site; it's worth a long look.

And not a shlocky touristy pic in the bunch...

(H-T: Media Backspin)

OMG - This Is So True About The Israel Army! (No Kidding - Really...)

Pals of yours truly, in one of my last IDF reserve duty maneuvers deep (and I mean no kiddin' deep) in the heart of the Negev Desert. (Photo: Dave Bender)

A wonderful item showing the reality of life in Israel and the Israeli Army, behind the headlines:

"This picture really doesn't have a lot to do with Independence day, this is just so significant a part of the military lore that every soldier (or ex-soldier) feels his/her heart warming up at the sight of this scene, as inevitable as it is unbelievable. To explain: imagine that your unit is going through an action-packed week or two of training on one of the most deity-forsaken pieces of real estate somewhere in the middle of nowhere. You breath dust, sleep in dust and eat dust, mixed with some barely bearable elements of combat rations and machine oil. Black coffee (with some dust) is the best you are able to get in the way of delicacies. The water you drink from twenty liter plastic jerrycans is warm and somehow contains more dust than water. You run, you schlep heavy hardware built mostly of sharp corners, you crawl, you shoot and sometimes (by mistake) get shot upon. You are not getting enough sleep, enough rest and you wonder when the heck it will come to an end. And then, when your unit commander declares a half an hour break and you turn your back to your tank or your APC to take a look at some non-military part of the environment, what you suddenly behold is a miracle. In the middle of nowhere, access to which is prohibited to civilians due to this nowhere being a fire zone, besides the said nowhere being totally inaccessible physically to any vehicle less robust than an APC, you see a dilapidated van, full of things you will normally pass on the street without giving them a second glance but here, in the... you know, being more attractive, seductive and debilitating then any wonder of paradise."
Read the rest.

More, maybe, all too personal accounts of IDF reserve duty, are here.

(H-T: Snoopy The Goon)

Terrorists + Israeli 'Southpark' + 'Guitar Hero' = Zany Hijinks!

NSFW (lot's 'o' cussin')


...previously on "Ahmed & Salim"

(H-T: Islam in Action)