Tel Aviv Surfer Sunset (original photograph)

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A lovely, "end-of-the-surfing day" composition taken during the summer by Pria Bender, my budding daughter photographer. The apple sure don't fall far from the tree...

Hit Israeli tv show: 'Dos'i dating do's and don't's' in Jerusalem

Fellow blogger and Jerusalemite, Brian Blum, comes up with an excellent look at a new Israeli tv program detailing social interactions among the young, knitted kipa crowd; from the "just hanging out together," to the "tefillin date," set.

In his take on the series Srugim (knitted kipas/yarmulkes), he says: " Imagine Melrose Place…with yarmulkes."

Having been a part of that scene at several periods over the years, and judging by the clips I viewed on their site -- it looks like a winner:

"A new TV show that debuted earlier this month on the Israeli satellite company YES is the talk of the town across certain sectors of southern Jerusalem. "Srugim" (in English: "knitted kippas") is an extraordinarily accurate depiction of the religious singles scene in Jerusalem.

"Set in our own neighborhood (Katamon and the German Colony in particular), the show chronicles the trials and tribulations of trying to find one's place in the grueling "swamp" that represents the modern Orthodox world in Jerusalem.

"Though the show is about Israel singles, Anglos in the city will easily recognize their own lives, between coffee dates at local cafes, shul hopping and the ubiquitous plastic bags containing quiches, humus and drinks that singles carry around on Shabbat as they head to a group meal with other like minded young people.

"Srugim is peppered with location shots of local hangouts. And the dumpy apartments with their tiny kitchens will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who's ever been single in Jerusalem."

It must be a bit deja vu'ish living in the small neighborhood where it's filmed: Observant immigrants and many, many other Israeli singles that I know from the 'hood could very easily wander into a shot and be mistaken for the actors.

Worth a watch, even without the English since it's in Hebrew.

Great post, Brian.

Jerusalem: God's Own WiFi Hotspot

Just so you should know: where to get the best WiFi Internet signal when visiting Jerusalem:

http://www.jerusalemite.net/modules/article_files/get_attached_file.php?article=501&file=8

If only Mark Twain knew...

Jerusalem: come for the terror -- stay for the culture!

No, really. I mean it:

• Israelis may have the blues, but they don't play the blues, which is why they have to rely on Americans to do it for them. Get low down in the (Nile?) Delta with the Jerusalem Blues Project tonight at Mike's Place.

• But if the idea of Anglo-Israeli blues inspires some understandable trepidation, bring the kids to a screening of Madagascar at the Merkaz in the German Colony.

• On Friday, bid fond farewell to the Summer Nights at the Yellow Submarine with a free lineup of world music acts. Or check out Russian boppers Robert Anchipolovski and Leonid Decelman grooving high at D. Grey.

• Shaanan Street, lord and master of chartbusting hip-hop/funk outfit Hadag Nachash, has gone solo for some reason and will be performing live at Beit Avi Chai at 22:30 on Saturday night in support of his just-released album.

• There's something appealingly incongruous about Hebrew-language stage adaptations of popular American films - and if you need an example, look no further than the Jerusalem Theatre's winning production of Rain Man, also on Saturday night.

• Sunday marks the 39th anniversary of the moon landing. Commemorate that triumph of science with a visit to the Bloomfield Science Museum, currently running exhibits on kitchen science and book-making; or just raise a toast to Neil Armstrong while Boston-based Israeli indie rocker Michael Gottlieb plays a free set at HaTaklit.

• On Monday, swing by the Musrara art school to admire the works of its talented students at a special class gallery showing, and wind down the evening with cocktails and the smoky vocal stylings of young chanteuse Shelly Tzarafi at Birman.

• Admire the grace of some of Israel's hottest young dancers Tuesday at a performance by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company at the Israel Museum. Be aware, though: unlike the Calatrava Bridge opening ceremony, no modesty smocks and beanies here.

• And finally, on Wednesday, explore the last love of Anton Chekhov via a play at the reliably high-quality Khan Theater.

There's plenty more happening throughout the city, and as always, all you need to do is click over to the Events section to find it. Have a great weekend.

H-T: http://www.jerusalemite.net/blog/

And this is just a few of the, oh, 'bout a thousand reasons why I frikin' love the place. No, really. I'm not kidding.

2ND TRACTOR TERROR ATTACK IN J'LEM

Tractor at the site of the attack. (Alona Alalaluf/Ynet News)

A tractor driver rammed and flipped over a city bus and several cars in downtown Jerusalem close to 2 pm.

An Israeli civilian, Ya'akov Asael, 56, of the community of Sussiya in the Hebron Hills area, and Border policeman Officer Amal Ghanem shot and killed the attacker, according to Army Radio.

The terror attack took place at the intersection of King David and Keren Hayesod Street, and was a nearly exact copy of a similar attack on July 2.

The intersection is the nexus of three major avenues and the site of three hotels: the Inbal, the King Shlomo, and the nearby King David.

The body of the terrorist lies in the backhoe's cab; bullet holes pepper the window. (Haaretz)

Police say the 22-year-old terrorist managed to drive the backhoe 160 meters (0.09 miles) until he was shot and killed by the two passersby. The spokesman said that police "may change their operational methods in the wake of the attack."

Live footage taken shortly after the attack is here.

Yuval Diskin, who heads Israel's Shabak internal security service said that they had received reports of a planned attack against targets in the city, including the use of a tractor, one hour before the rampage.

Authorities have thrown a gag-order on local reporting of any identifying details of the attacker. The individual was reported to have been working with the tractor, a JCB backhoe at a nearby construction site at the Yemin Moshe cultural and convention center.

Debka.com reports that the driver was "Ghassen Abu Tir from Umm Tuba, a Palestinian village in southeast Jerusalem, who was employed at the building site. He was a relative of Muhammed Abu Tir, a Hamas lawmaker held in an Israeli jail."

Police say they were "familiar" with the assailant, and that he has a criminal record.

Latest reports say 29 people were wounded in the attack, including a mother and her nine-month-old infant, according to Israel Radio. A woman sustained a heart attack, and another individual is in danger of an amputated limb in the attack, according to the spokesperson. The remainder are reported to be suffering from shock.

View Larger Map

Diplomats and VIPS are commonly housed at the Inbal and King David hotels, which are both several dozen yards from the intersection.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is due to arrive in Jerusalem Tuesday evening for talks with Israel and Palestinian leaders, and was to be housed at the Inbal. It is unclear what effect the attack will have on his visit.

Liberty Bell park, which is heavily visited by the city's Jewish and Arab residents, and tourists is also across the street from the site of the attack, and Jerusalem's YMCA, a major landmark and cultural facility is nearby.

Police spokesmen say the terrorist copied a a similar attack three weeks ago near the entrance to Jerusalem, in which a Jerusalem Arab resident killed three motorists, and wounded 45.

A city Egged bus on the No. 13 line was rammed in both attacks.

No group has taken responsibility for the latest attack, and police believe the terrorist acted alone as in the previous attack.

The rampage joins a series of other terror attacks throughout the city over the past two months, aimed at it's Jewish residents.

This report will be updated as more details become available.

(Dave Bender)

Examining Kuntar Way Too Close For Comfort

Israel Channel 10 News: 'Kuntar in Lebanon; Samir Kuntar passes over to the Lebanese side [of the border].'

"A senior Israeli medic who took part in Samir Kuntar's capture after his 1979 terror attack in Nahariya, also took part in his medical and psychological profiling afterwards. The Birmingham, Alabama-born writer reveals shocking revelations about Kuntar's childhood, his treatment by the Israeli army, and his experiences guarding convicted terrorists:

"...please allow me to tell from first hand experience exactly who, "Their" brave hero really is. I met the brave 16.9 year old hate-filled, sexually abused, wild-eyed youth that murdered Dani Harran and his four year old toddler Einat that night April 22nd, 1979 on the beach in Nahariyah.

"I had gone to do my nightly volunteer shift with the Police as a member of the Civil Guard in the Meona Police station near Ma'alot.

During our shift it was a cool night and we could clearly hear the radio communications from Nahariyah. Around 11:30PM, myself and Shabbati Alon, the ex-commander of the Police in Meona who was now commander of the Civil Guard of Ma'alot, had gone to visit an Arab acquaintance to drink some strong Arabic coffee. Around 12:10AM we heard Eli Shachar Z"L answer the call for a robbery on Rechov Jabotinsky [Street] in Nahariyah. Suddenly there were frantic calls.

"Alon decided to go towards the scene to clarify what was going on as an experienced officer veteran of the 101 unit and an 18 year veteran of the Israeli police he felt that in those first moments his expertise as well as mine as a senior medic were needed, so we drove to the area. When we arrived on the scene, I witnessed first hand how Samir Kuntar viciously murdered Danny and then how he grabbed Einat by the arm and hair as he used the butt of his rifle to smash her little skull on the rocks.

"Once he had surrendered, sniveling after three of his comrades were killed, he was taken into custody along with his comrade Ahmed Al Abras. Al Abras would later be freed by Israel in the Jibril Agreement of May 1985.

"Standing near Kuntar I saw how from abject fear of retribution he defecated on himself, whimpered, cried and begged. We could have shot him but the officers said leave him alone, he surrendered. He was pitiful. Later, in order to hide his embarrassment, he claimed that since he had been shot he could not have murdered Danny or Einat. I never saw any wound on him.

"During my many years of IDF Reserves, I served as a EMT Master Sergeant of a Medical Unit that administrated medic care under Red Cross regulations, unarmed and dressed in Medical White coats. For me, my doctors and medics served honorably under the severest conditions of abuse and threats from our prisoners. We served according to the best tradition of the Hippocratic Oath and the motto of the medical corps, "To Save Life."

"In the routine pre-relief briefing while reviewing the cases of our prisoners who needed continual treatment, it was recorded in Kuntar's files that during the required pre-imprisonment psychological examination it was found that he had been a sexually abused and beaten child. He voluntarily admitted the information, without any force upon him, how his own father had sodomized him and how as a new young recruit he had repeatedly been sodomized by his friends in the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) camp of Rashadiyah, Lebanon, near Tyre before the terrorist attack in 1979. Furthermore, that as a young Lebanese Druse the Palestinians taunted him consistently as they questioned his loyalty to the cause.

"Later, while one of the doctors and I were administering treatment to Kuntar, he readily verified this information freely during treatment. His fair and conscientious medical care was in glaring contrast to how Israeli POWs are treated."

A must read: http://www.jerusalemdiaries.com/

My previous post on the transfer, with screen grabs from Israeli tv here.

'And I Saw Satan Laughing With Delight...'

Such a sad and bitter, bitter, day in Israel and the Jewish world. Such grief and agony for the families and friends of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. May they be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may God avenge the deaths of their sons.

Following are screenshots from TV coverage on Israel Channel 10 and 2. The backdrop is my wallpaper, a night shot I took of Tel Aviv. Click on the photos for full-sized images.


The tradeoff between Israel and Hizbullah begins.


Samir Kuntar arrives in Lebanon. (Read below to learn first-hand the monster that is Kuntar)

I have no words to express my feelings of revulsion and disgust at this travesty of elemental decent and humane behavior by a pack of turbaned creatures that give a wild animals a bad name.


Grieving friends and neighbor's outside of the Regev family apartment, near Haifa; cheering Lebanese welcome Kuntar as a "hero."


Hizbullah chieftan Hassan Nasrallah, Karnit Goldwasser, widow of Ehud.

Watching the coverage on Israel's Channel's 2 and 10, I felt transported to one scene during the war in the summer of 2006: I met and spoke with Eldad's father, Tzvi Regev, at their apartment in Kiryat Motzkin near Haifa. He was quiet, noble, but his grief was palpable. I ache for what he must be going through today.


Rolling out the red carpet for Kuntar in Beirut, as Hizbullah officials unload the soldier's coffins for transport to Israel. This moment was the first time in 24-months that any Israeli knew the status of their imprisonment.

There must be a proper closure for the families, resolution of the awful consequences of the war, as far as Hizbullah... and vengeance against them and their supporters; yes, accurate, timely and incisive vengeance for Israel against its enemies, in this debacle. There will be, I pray.

And soon, for all our sakes.


Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pay their last respects over the two coffins.


Tzvi Regev look on, as an IDF honor guard salutes the fallen soldiers after they are received in Israel.


Memorial candles lit in the entranceway to Tzvi Regev's apartment in Kiryat Motzkin, photos of Eldad and Ehud.


A Palestinian youth in Gaza hands out sweet pastries to passing vehicles, in celebration of Kuntar's release.


The coffins are loaded for transport to an IDF base after a forensics team and the families makes a positive identification of the remains.

Previous posts, 1st-person coverage of the 2006 War against Hizbullah including photos and video are here.

Flickr photos of the coverage are here.

Smadar Haran Kaieser is the mother of the four-year-old girl, Einat, that Kuntar brutally killed, and the wife of Danny, who Kantar also killed. She writes in the Washington Post:

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away.

Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe.

As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach.

There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

Google Earth: (virtually) 'Wiping Israel off the map'

From The Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs:

"Virtual Israel, as represented by Google Earth, is littered with orange dots, many of which claim to represent "Palestinian localities evacuated and destroyed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war." Thus, Israel is depicted as a state born out of colonial conquest rather than the return of a people from exile. Each dot links to the "Palestine Remembered" site, where further information advancing this narrative can be obtained.

"Many of the claims staked out in Google Earth present misinformation, and sites known to be ruins in 1946 are claimed to be villages destroyed in 1948. Arab villages which still exist today are listed as sites of destruction. The Google Earth initiative is not only creating a virtual Palestine, it is creating a falsification of history."

Read the rest.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is, no doubt, chortling.

While this isn't a new story (I blogged about almost two years ago), it's an important one, and this well-footnoted report certainly backs up my contentions from then:

"So much of of what passes for "successful" efforts to combat anti-Israel reportage, propaganda, etc always seems to overlook "viral," bottom-up, grassroots activism, with [pro-Israel] proponents preferring top-down "dreiing with the machers," and, all too often coming out looking overwrought, and counterproductive.

"Along with ubiquitous online tools like Wikipedia, Google Earth is a great example of how skewed coverage of Israel begins, from a nominally neutral source, that is then picked up by the ill-informed as "fact," and then spread at the speed of "enter."

As I wrote in a related (satiric) post back then:

This Just In: Israel Dismantles; World's Problems End (UPDATE: Video)

Related posts are here, and here.

Gilad Shalit: A Bronx Story

From Ynetnews:

Students at P.S. 22 in the Bronx, NY, take turns reading aloud a story written by IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas gunmen from an outpost facing the Gaza Strip. The event was part of an initiative by Israel's NY Consulate to mark the second anniversary of his captivity.

Click on the image above to read a personal letter from Aviva and Noam, the parents of captive IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Click here to learn more about the events surrounding his abduction, and that of IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border.
Click here for downloadable versions of the story,
"When The Shark and the Fish First Met"

Jerusalem: ghosts of the Jaffa Gate

Night at the Jaffa Gate entrance to Jerusalem's Old City. (Dave Bender)

More (mostly) Israel photos are here.