Author: admin

A different kind of activism

by adminin Israel, Writing

21-300x1991A different kind of activism

The Jerusalem Post, September 11, 2009

It’s Friday afternoon in the West Bank village Bil’in. A crowd of protestors—Israeli, Palestinian, and international—is gathered at the barbed-wire separation fence. Facing the IDF on the other side, they chant in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and Spanish. Their voices are punctuated by the occasional pop of a tear gas canister launching into the air. Rapidly clicking camera shutters serve as quiet percussion.

But not all of these photographers are with the press. Some of them are with Activestills—a group that, like other photoactivists, attempts to bring provocative images to the attention of the Israeli mainstream.

Now a collective of ten photographers, Activestills began in 2005 with a few individuals who noticed each other documenting the same politically-charged events. “We all wanted to do something to promote the issues we believe in,” Keren Manor, one of the founders, recalls.

Continue reading “A different kind of activism”

Prague from on high

by adminin Writing

dsc02968

Prague from on high

The Jerusalem Post, September 11, 2009

Viewed from Old Town’s cobblestone streets, Prague is Europe rendered as a confectionary wonder. Pastel-hued buildings, with baroque curves and curlicues that resemble icing, lick at the spire-filled sky. Even the sharp lines of Gothic structures seem the stuff of children’s birthday cakes—reminding the viewer less of history and more of fairytales with pink-frocked princesses locked in dark towers.

To scrape away the marzipan (and the tourist crowds) cross Vltava River and head on high to Letna Park (Letenske sady), a sprawling neighborhood park that’s rarely mentioned in guidebooks. Here you’ll get breathtaking views of the city, glimpses of the locals, a summer beer garden, and a dash of Communist history to boot.

Continue reading “Prague from on high”

The Missing Mizrahim

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

 notthenemyshabi1

 The Missing Mizrahim: review of Rachel Shabi’s Not the Enemy: Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands, and Q & A with the author

Zeek, August 31, 2009

Some critics have faulted Rachel Shabi’s Not the Enemy: Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands as one-sided. Shabi neglects the animosity that existed between Jews and Muslims long before 1948, the critics say. She exaggerates how good things were for the Jews of the Orient, they moan.

But it seems that Shabi’s detractors might have missed the point.

The pivot that Shabi’s work revolves around is, perhaps, easy to miss. It is simple, a delicate foundation for hundreds of pages. Fortunately, Shabi has taken care to illuminate it in an old-fashioned thesis sentence. She writes: “This book is focused on the stifled, small-voice analysis seeking to break this stalemate formula.”

Continue reading “The Missing Mizrahim”

Not buying it

by adminin Writing

dsc04523

 Not buying it

The Jerusalem Post, August 21, 2009

The crowd is small and subdued Friday morning at Tel Aviv’s Hangar 11. Drifts of Israeli Arabs and Israelis walk through an air-conditioned shuk, passing stalls lined with pickles, olives, baklawa, cosmetics, clothes, arts and crafts. One vendor—a tall, lanky man with black hair—sprays puffs of perfume in the air. “Bosem, bosem,” he says.

A makeshift stage is tucked behind the stalls. Below a green and orange sign that reads Koolanu 09 in both Arabic and Hebrew, an Israeli woman grasps a microphone, and sways as she sings a one-sentence song. “We are one, we are one,” she repeats in English.

Continue reading “Not buying it”

After the ‘non-revolution’

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

 

dsc03616After the ‘non-revolution’

The Jerusalem Post, August 21, 2009

I’ve tucked away my guidebook and happily stumbled upon an unmarked bar on a low-key street in Budapest. The scene is relaxed—simple blue jeans on casually crossed legs, uncomplicated drinks like beer and wine on plain wooden tables. The bright lighting, high ceilings, and a cluster of birds painted above the bar give the impression of openness.

“Where am I?” I ask a man at a neighboring table.

“Siraly,” he says.

I jot the name down and he looks on.

“No,” he says. He takes the pen and paper from my hands. “Like this,” he says, drawing a firm accent line over the r. “Siraly. It means seagull.” He offers my notebook and pen back to me.

I write “seagull” and then my neighbor’s unsolicited take on the scene. “It’s traditional alternative. But post-socialist,” he says.

Continue reading “After the ‘non-revolution’”

The Balkan two-step

by adminin Israel, Writing

dsc01877

 The Balkan two-step

The Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2009

Another shot of ouzo? Why not?

I wince as I down the alcohol. I get back out on the floor and study the footsteps of the ring of dancers. I nod my head and mutter to myself—right, left, right, return—and when I think I’ve got the sequence, I break into the semi-circle. I clasp hands with one of the instructors, Mika Yehezkeli, and the friend I’ve brought along, Josh Krug.

As my hips clumsily bump Krug’s and Yehezkeli’s hips and my boot-clad feet threaten to tangle with their legs, it’s clear to me that I don’t have the sequence at all.

“You remind me of Borat,” Krug shouts over the blaring music, which I vaguely recognize as something gypsy. The music speeds up and the circle picks up pace, too.

Continue reading “The Balkan two-step”

An Interview with Adina Hoffman

by adminin Writing

adinahoffman

 An Interview with Adina Hoffman

Bookslut, August 2009

In the opening pages of My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness author Adina Hoffman journeys from her home in Jerusalem to the north of Israel. The landscape there is dismal—blocks of rundown apartment buildings show signs of life but remain eerily quiet. If it serves as any indication of the story to follow, it seems the reader, too, is headed into dark territory.

But the scenery shifts when she arrives at the house of Taha Muhammad Ali, the Palestinian poet at the center of her book. Grey gives way to a riotous orchard—tightly planted citrus, olive, and pomegranate trees laced with roses, oleander, daisies, and chattering birds. We are, writes Hoffman, “now in the proximity of serious imagination.”

Continue reading “An Interview with Adina Hoffman”

Big trouble in little China

by adminin Migrant workers, Writing

dsc04320

 Big trouble in little China

The Jerusalem Post, July 31, 2009

As the sky darkens over the sagging cement buildings of South Tel Aviv, Chinese workers gather on the sidewalk outside of Kav LaOved. Inside, the translators that volunteer their time to Kav LaOved every Monday night prepare. “It’s like a party out there,” one comments about the waiting crowd.

But no one is celebrating. Chinese workers comprise one of the smallest groups of foreign workers in Israel—numbering roughly 20,000 of the estimated 300,000 migrant workers in the country—but they pay the largest amount of money to enter Israel. An Indian worker who obtains work in Israel typically scrambles together 10,000 US dollars in loans to pay the fee; the going rate for a Chinese worker to secure employment and a visa is now a whopping 31,000 US dollars. Though this “entry fee”—paid to employment agencies who arrange for jobs and visas—is illegal, foreign workers pay it overseas, far from the prying eyes of the Israeli government.

Continue reading “Big trouble in little China”

Israel is at war again

by adminin Politics, Writing

9

 Israel is at war again

Zeek at Jewcy.com, July 20, 2009

Israel is at war again. This time, the frontline is deep within the country’s borders—South Tel Aviv.

Home to African refugees, foreign workers, and economically disadvantaged Israelis, South Tel Aviv was once a picture of pluralism and coexistence. Indian, Nepali, Chinese, and Filipino workers gathered in tight clusters, chattering in their mother tongues. Refugees from Darfur, Sudan, and Eritrea lined South Tel Aviv’s parks, their children sharing brightly colored swings and slides with Hebrew-speaking Filipino kids, many of whom were born and raised in Israel.

And then came Operation Oz.

On July 1, hundreds of refugees and foreign workers were detained in a massive South Tel Aviv raid that marked the beginning of Operation Oz. Waves of arrests continued in the following days. Legal foreign workers and asylum seekers were not immune—they were rounded up and warned to keep out of Tel Aviv. The next time they were caught, the police cautioned them, they would be imprisoned—with their papers in hand.

Continue reading “Israel is at war again”

Clothes like days

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

michalbassad1

 Clothes like days

The Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2009

“It’s a kind of a dance,” says Michal Bassad. The designer is perched on a table next to her sewing machine. Her studio, which also serves as her store, has only a few racks of clothing, reflective of her artistic approach to fashion.

Though the space is minimal, it’s energetic—loud music streams though an old radio, and the teal walls serve as an impromptu chalkboard. “Anger is energy” is scrawled in white beside the makeshift dressing room of little more than a corner partitioned by paper patterns hanging from a steel rack. Her clothes are as dynamic as the environment they are created in.

“My clothes are very organic in that manner, they are not planned, they are intuitive,” Bassad says. This approach explains why no two pieces are identical.

“Each is one. It’s like days,” says Michal, “no day is the same, no day repeats itself.” While each piece is distinct, they are all reflective of Bassad’s unique vision— part punk rock, part recycled, entirely fanciful.

Continue reading “Clothes like days”