Dave Bender: Compelling Photography: aliyah

Showing posts with label aliyah. Show all posts

Monday, May 9

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.

Thursday, June 3

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)

Sunday, January 24

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.

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.

Sunday, August 2

MadLib Replies to My Readers on Israel

From Barry Rubin, but applicable to so many situations, especially many of my readers:

Dear Reader: Thank you for your note explaining why

___ Israel is to blame for not having destroyed Hizballah
___ Israel is to blame for not having destroyed Hamas
___ Israel should win total victory
___ Israel should invade the Gaza Strip and take it over
___ Israel is going to collapse because of the demographic gap
___ Israel is doing hasbara all wrong and you have the solution
___ Israel should make its main priority answering all the idiots who attack us rather than going about our business
___ Israel should make huge concessions to the Palestinians just in case they might like to make peace after getting them
___ Israel should make huge concessions to the Syrians just in case they might like to make peace after getting them
___ Israel should let Hamas stage terrorist attacks and not respond to show we are nice people, those of us who are still alive
___ All of the above

I very much appreciate your taking the time to write. Your interest in Israel is very much welcomed by people here. Given the clarity of your ideas, if you are Jewish, permit me to suggest you:

___ Make aliya and join the army
___ Make aliya and pay taxes
___ Make aliya and have a lot of children
___ Make aliya and find out it isn’t so simple to entertain you and gratify your wishes
___ All of the above

If the above does not apply to you, you aren't Jewish or you are not interested in all those alternatives, perhaps you might consider the need to:

___ Get another hobby
___ Focus on dictatorships in Iran and Arab states to see how they treat people
___ Think what it is like to live under an Islamist regime
___ Do some actual reading and research on the Middle East before mouthing off
___ All of the above

In future, please feel free to write to someone else. Otherwise I will be happy to send you my rates for corresponding with you. We accept checks, cash, and credit cards.
Sincerely yours, Barry Rubin

(For Barry Rubin's blog on Middle East issues, see http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com where you can also subscribe. or the work of the GLORIA Center including MERIA Journal and subscriptions, http://www.gloria-center.org)

Otherwise, drop me a line at my website, http://www.davebrianbender.com

Tuesday, April 14

Passover Ends: '...and the Traffic Coming Home? Fuggedaboudit!'

This holiday eve marks the seventh night of the week-long Passover festival. Gotta' love a site that sports a Moses looking like this:

Hopefully this is what Jews worldwide will have to look forward to, driving home tomorrow night. No, no - not to our present ones, outside of Israel:

The aforementioned Moses, having grown a few inches and wearing his Red Sea togs, can been seen, aka, "Where's Waldo," in the lower left-hand corner. The writing on the back of the truck says, "Moses Transports," and the road sign graphic shows a vehicle between two parted waves. Gotta' love Photoshop...

And Disney, for the Cliff's Notes:

And for those so inclined, (yeah, as in leaning during the Seder; haha, funny but pretty lame-o pun, huh?), Nefesh B'Nefesh has a great offer:

And yes - getting serious for a moment - I'm seriously considering taking them up on it, after residing here in the "Land of The Round Doorknobs," for over two years in what I refer to as an "etnachta..."

In "Why Would you Live Here?" Veteran American immigrant to Israel, Jewish commentator and author, Daniel Gordis, helps explain why:

"So there we are, sitting at the Shabbat lunch table, guests of friends we hadn’t seen in far too long. We were three couples, all of us immigrants, each with kids, ranging from 22 (with a boyfriend) to 4 (without a boyfriend). And another couple, parents of our hosts, visiting from the States, both of them well known and highly regarded academics. Sometime in the middle of lunch, the mother of the hostess, whose academic interest is “identity,” asks us all, without even a hint of irony or condescension, 'Can you please explain to me why you would choose to live here? What got you to leave what you had and come here?'"

Read the rest.

(Photo H-T: Muqata)

Friday, January 30

Jerusalem: 'Playing for Mime' (original photography)

Playing for Mime (Dave Bender) Click on the image for the full-size photos.

Friday morning at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open air market: Local street-theater artist, "The Purple Man," freezes, until passersby drop a coin or two into his guitar case. They he plays for another 15-seconds, until he again goes rigid.

Last I heard the cops ran him off for drawing too big a crowd and causing a public disturbance [sigh].

Friday morning at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open air market: a beggar with a headset microphone and tambourine wishes passersby a good, peaceful Sabbath. (Dave Bender)

Ha. Haha. Like Friday shopping at Mahane Yehuda isn't a public disturbance, anyway...

Friday at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open air market, a veteran hawker sells trinkets from a rolling cart. (Dave Bender)

A hero of the Revolution now shops for Shabbat. (Dave Bender)

Just imagine the things this elderly Russian immigrant has seen in his lifetime, including what he experienced in the service of the Soviet Red Army in order to merit those battle pins and medallions.

Shabbat Shalom, and have a great weekend.

Friday, February 16

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.