Tel Aviv: 'Tower of Power' (photo)

'Tower of Power' Tel Aviv. (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights reserved)

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.

Two-wheelin' it in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv is Jumpin For Joy!

'Jumpin for Joy!' Click photo for more on the series. (Dave Bender: All Rights Reserved)


'Jumpin for Joy! II' Click photo for more on the series. (Dave Bender: All Rights Reserved)

I'll be adding to this photo series of an afternoon along the Tel Aviv boardwalk, Jerusalem's Old City and pop-lockers downtown, and whatever else strikes my fancy...

'Picturing Israel' in orange

Another in a series of stunning images from Israel:

"Yarkon park, sunsetting on a boys dream"

Israel At 59: Megadeath, Hip-Hop Hatikva, 'Human Beat-Box' & Dudu Fisher

There. That got your attention.

Click the flag.

Also from Ynet News, other artists do Hatikva:

• Teapacks

• Zehava Ben

• Rivka Zohar

• Daniel Zamir

And, of course, while we're talkin' odd musical covers in the national anthem, why not try out Megadeath guitarist Marty Friedman, from a recent gig in Tel Aviv:

Happy 59th.

Israeli rockers getting 'by with a little help from...' Oleh! Records

Friday afternoon is a time when many Israelis are winding down, preparing for the Sabbath or taking a break at the end of a hectic workweek before heading out for a night on the town. But at Tel Aviv's Levontin 7 club, situated in a seedy, rundown neighborhood in the south part of the city, hundreds of young, hip looking Tel Aviv musicians have gathered to hear a presentation from Jeremy Hulsh, a shy and earnest Chicago native who speaks little more than a stumbling Hebrew.

But they have patience even when Hulsh switches to English. Because the purpose for this unlikely gathering is the launch of Oleh! Records, an ambitious new initiative which hopes to transform the way Israel is seen by Americans, while at the same time propelling some of Israel's most talented young musicians into the international limelight.

'New Historian' glum over national survival prospects vis a vis Iran

Text: "Mahmoud Ahmedinejad showing the West
what both a peace sign and middle finger look like
when they're being developed separately."

"Glum?!" Did I write "glum" up there? Shyeah - professional discretion my *** - make that a notch short of suicide...

Benny Morris is considered the most influential and prolific member of the New Historians, a controversial group of scholars who have challenged much of the received wisdom of the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Warning: Benny has penned a serious downer of a read ahead. But read it anyway.

One bright morning, in five or ten years' time, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Ahmedinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go ahead. The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa, and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel's half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases. Some of the Shihabs will be nuclear-tipped, perhaps even with multiple warheads. Others will be dupes, packed merely with biological or chemical agents, or old newspapers, to draw off or confuse Israel's anti-missile batteries and Home Guard units.

With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 8,000 square miles), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel. A million or more Israelis, in the greater Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem areas, will die immediately. Millions will be seriously irradiated. Israel has about seven million inhabitants. No Iranian will see or touch an Israeli. It will be quite impersonal.

Hmm... Maybe this will cheer up ole, Benny...

Earlier posts about Israel and Iran here, here, here, here, here, and the linkdump is here.