The Economist on Israel

Economist journalist Gideon Lichfield has prepared an interesting series of reports to coincide with Israel's forthcoming 60th birthday. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but it is first rate journalism and well worth reading.

The link is here

Pesach (Part One)

I doubt there's a phrase in Hebrew guaranteed to depress me more than Kasher Le Pesach - Kosher for Passover.

If, like me, you had random bits of the Bible shoved into your head at irregular intervals in childhood, you probably know the story already - the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt to the promised land, the parting of the Red Sea, and so on and so forth. If you don't know the story, the Book of Exodus is most instructive in this respect.

Anyway, He-Who-Expects-To-Be-Obeyed punished the Egyptians for their intransigence towards the chosen people with a series of plagues, the last being that passover of the Angel of Death and the slaughter of all the first born of the perfidious Egyptians. Appreciating that this would probably make the Jews extremely unpopular, he advised the Chosen Ones to (and I summarise somewhat) gird their loins and prepare to flee when given the word. To make their impromptu exit all the more convincing, he instructed them to keep their bread unleavened, or unfermented.

This release from bondage is commemorated by the feast of Pesach, Passover in English. Much of which passes over me, as you can imagine. Except the pesky Kosher for Passover bit.

Because the Jews of Egypt were forbidden from taking leavened bread with them on their departure, the modern day commemoration forbids the possession of anything either already leavened - Bread, Pasta, or even Cake, dammit! - or capable of causing fermentation, like yeast. Round about now, observant Jews begin the systematic and comprehensive housecleaning to eliminate all traces of the contraband in advance of the holiday.

Now, what's this got to do with me?

Simple. Until this year, state legislation made it illegal to sell leavened products, known in Hebrew as Chametz, or even to display them for sale during the 7 days of the Holiday, Chol HaMoed.

Seven days: no bread, no crisps, no pita and no pasta. This is serious business indeed. And that's not even considering the absence of Beer and Spirits. Effectively, the State of Israel expects me to starve for a week.

Of course, there are ways around it. One can stock up in advance, something which my aggressively secular family in law are happy to do every year. "Just for you, our dear non-Jewish guest," they claim, some less convincingly than others (no names, but they know who they are...)

Or look for the shops and restaurants, mainly in Tel Aviv, that ignore the legislation and serve away, anyway.

It's a complicated business, more so because the State do seek out and prosecute transgressors.

But then, out of the blue, this happened last week.

It's a complicated, nuanced ruling, but essentially, what the judge seems to be suggesting is that the legislation was more symbolic - and so, merely concerned with the display of Chametz - than substantive - which would prohibit the possession and sale of same, as the law has been interpreted since time immemorial.

I dunno, It all seems a little too complicated. But it does mean that I might, just might, be able to get a decent meal during Pesach (My mother in law's no holds barred, eat until the last man is standing barbecues excluded, obviously - and more about those another time).

OK, the working week is about to begin. Interesting things happening this week. More on that later.

Reading, Writing (but, thank God, no Arithmetic!)

The Arab Israeli (I hope I got it right) author and columnist, Sayed Kashua was shortlisted this morning for the ultra-prestigious IMPAC Book Prize - more on the shortlist here and here.

Kashua writes a weekly column for ISraeli newspaper Ha'aretz, which is in turn caustic, sarcastic, satirical and often very self-deprecating. I discovered it a year or so before I moved here, and it quickly became required reading. I can honestly say that I learnt more about the country from it than from any other single source.

His books are very good, too - Let It Be Morning - the one nominated for the prize - is a surreal Kafkaesque narrative about an Arab Israeli journalist falling between the two societies - Jewish and Arab - and not fitting into either. His first book, Dancing Arabs incorporates a father whose fervent hope is that his son will become the first Arab to build an Atom Bomb. I recommend both - so long as you possess a sense of humour and an open mind...

Also on the shortlist is Yasmina Khadra's The Attack. Written by an Algerian military officer writing under a female pseudonym to evade censorship, it's about a professionally successful and socially connected Israeli Arab whose life is turned upside down when he discovers that his wife participated in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. A gripping read, I was even more impressed when I found out that the author had never actually visited Israel, but was able to write about Tel Aviv and the country very convincingly.

Congratulations and good luck to them both.

and the other shoe drops...

Not sure if you remember MK (Member of Knesset) Shlomo Benizri - I blogged about him and his antediluvian ways here - but it seems that he's been a very naughty boy

This bit tickled me particularly:

"Rabbi Reuven Elbaz, his political and spiritual patron, was convicted of mediating in bribery and conspiracy to commit a crime. "

I've often wondered about this spiritual patron business, and its overlap with the sordid world of partisan politics. What do they do? Pray for votes? Seek divine inspiration for the direction of the party? Coerce the faithful into casting their votes for a preferred candidate, under threat of eternal damnation?

And how does one get a spiritual guide, anyway - advertise for one in the classified columns? I can see the advert now: "Up and coming politician seeks compatible spiritual mentor to add gravitas. Prior experience in *mediation* necessary. Bushy beard to stroke and look thoughtful with essential. Good working conditions, Sabbath observant premises. Reform Rabbis need not apply."

Maybe I'm a little unfair - and Lord knows, all religions attempt to interfere with affairs of State nowadays - but I do firmly believe in the principle of separation between Church/Mosque/Synagogue and State.

Anyway, Mr Benizri intends to appeal. Who knows, the situation may yet change...

Run, Rabbit, Run

The foolishness started last year.

We visited Ein Gedi and Masada, wife, sister in law, son and I, and we decided like good tourists to immerse ourselves in the Yam HaMelach, the Dead Sea.

Except that I had left my swimming trunks at home.

So I pop into the gift shop to buy a hideously overpriced pair, and start chatting to the shopkeeper, who mistakes me for an elite east African long distance runner (these things happen...)

Anyway, once the mistake was cleared up, she asked me if I run. I said that I did, not adding that it was usually for the bus and not much else.

"So you must come to do the half marathon next year," she enthuses.

So I did.

The race was on a hottish day last month. It was hard work, but fun in an odd kind of way, and I actually enjoyed it enough to sign up the next day for the Jerusalem Half Marathon, which took place two days ago.

BIG MISTAKE.

I've never really paid much attention to the city - for one thing, I'm usually driven about when I'm there, and for another, the white Jerusalem Stone that the whole city is clad in, thanks to some insane colonial (for this story and others about the misbegotten British Mandate, you must read Tom Segev's excellent 'One Jerusalem, Complete') tends to blind one in the bright summer sunshine.

So I didn't think very much about the route of the race until I mentioned it to my wife's brother-in-law last weekend.

He sprays me with his breakfast. "You do know that Jerusalem is...how do you say it in English? Hilly?"

No, I didn't.

Mrs Goy studied at the University there, and knows the city quite well, so that evening I ask her for her opinion about the route. She asks me to read it out from the map.

"Well, we start at Givat Ram Stadium, pass the Knesset and the Supreme Court, round Kiryat Moshe..."

Her opinion, essentially, was that I was fucked. And I hadn't even reached the 5k point yet.

In the event, the run was a bastard. A five star, all expenses paid bastard. Jerusalem is extremely hilly (why I didn't know this, only G-d alone knows), and the creeps who designed the course clearly went out of their way to incorporate every possible hill in the course. I hated most of it.

Some bits were beautiful. The view from the Jerusalem Forest was breathtaking, and the Alexander Calder mobile beneath Yad Vashem was engaging enough to distract me from my pain and suffering for a little while.

Just a little while.

Anyway, somehow, I finished. And I felt pretty pleased with myself. Not that I'll be doing it again.

As I've mentioned before, I'm pretty indifferent to the city. I suppose it is a bit engaging 'to walk in the footsteps of biblical history' (copyright every half arsed hack steeped in cliché) for a little while, but after a bit I begin to long for the cosmopolitan squalor and decadence of Tel Aviv.

Many Jerusalemites that I know have left the city, reluctantly, over the last few years. The combination of the dominance of Ultra-Orthodox intolerance, general political unpleasantness and the sky-rocketing costs of real estate - caused, allegedly, by wealthy foreigners who buy up the stock at outrageous prices and don't even bother to live in the homes for more than three or four weeks in a year - have sent them elsewhere. Apparently, when University is not in session, parts of the city are, literally, deserted at night.

Work is going to take me there quite a bit in May, I think. maybe I'll explore more then.

In the meantime, I'll just soak my aching feet in hot water and enjoy the evening.

Night, all.

Ad Lo Yada

It's Purim this weekend.

As far as I can tell, the primary significance of the holiday here is an excuse to dress up - children as well as adults - and have a merry ol' time whilst eating the deliciously addictive Oznei Haman (Sorry, no Hebrew script today).

There are other highlights of the holiday, of course, such as:

Adults confiscating the nice chocolates that their children have received from their playmates, and scoffing them all themselves after said child has cried himself to sleep. (I write from experience, and a raging toothache).

Teenage girls wearing miniskirts, part of their Purim 'costume' that they would otherwise never be allowed to leave the house in, on grounds of common decency and good taste.

Middle aged men, old enough to know better, ogling aforementioned teenage girls without any modicum of shame or discretion. (This writer, obviously, not included. But I spotted at least two...

The traditional Purim parade - Ad Lo Yada (again, sorry for the absence of Hebrew script - the better half is out, and I can't figure it out for myself, being the technological incompetent that I am).

Hypertensive parents trying to devise ever more imaginative and outlandish costumes for their children in conjunction with said parade above - we, being the slack things that we are, wrapped a bedsheet around the small noisy one, pulled a branch from a tree and stuck it in his hands and called him a wizard. He did have his revenge though, beating me about the head with the branch all afternoon.

Orthodox Jews engaging in a good old fashioned piss-up (every year, there are stories in the press of tired and emotional Yeshiva boys rolling in the gutters of Jerusalem, pissed as newts. Personally, I am not sure why they need an excuse for having one or two or a dozen, but there you go. To each his own, etc...)


PErsonally, I like Jewish holidays. Always an excuse to eat and drink too much. That said, I've never been able to get my head around the sheer multitude of them. Channukah, Purim, Lag B'Omer, Pesach, Rosh Ha Shana, Shavuot, Succot, Tu B'Shvat...and it goes on and on and on.

The Jewish writer Shalom Auslander has one explanation:

'When I was a child, my parents and teachers told me about a man who was very strong. They told me that it was important to keep this man happy. When we didn’t obey what He had commanded the man didn’t like us at all. He hated us. Some days He hated us so much that he killed us; other days he let other people kill us. We call these days “holidays”.'



He's a very funny man, if one who skates a little too often on thin ice - check out his website here.

Ok, I've got a bit of work to do, and I need to prepare for something very foolish that I am going to do at the end of the week. More on that later.

TTFN

Only in Israel...

I stopped smoking a a couple of years ago - not because I particularly wanted to, but it seemed the sensible thing for me to do at the time, and because the (much) better half had kicked a decade and a half habit and it really wasn't going to do to continue smoking around her...

Even so, I have a sneaky admiration for those hardy souls who have ignored public approbation and still light up - so long as they don't start suing tobacco companies later on. There is such a thing as free choice, after all...

Tel Aviv is becoming more militantly anti-smoking nowadays, which is fair enough, I guess - no point in being subjected to another persons smoke unless you actually indicate that you don't mind. That said, the no smoke evangelists have started to get on my nerves a little, doing everything but tarring and feathering recalcitrant smokers. The phrase 'get a life' comes to mind, for some reason, along with 'common courtesy' - as in, if you ask someone politely to put out his or her fag, most times they comply. There's no need to make a song and dance about it.

Then I came across this

If you don't like Joe Jackson, scroll down to the penultimate paragraph.

Mind you, I can easily believe it. I went for a run yesterday morning. As usual, there were a few early birds out on their power walks.

And a young woman, swinging her arms and pumping her legs and grimacing with the strain...with a fag in her mouth and another behind one ear.

You've got to admire her intransigence.

See ya!

oh, if you happen to have spare (free) tickets for Mr Jackson at the Zappa, or would like to pay me to write a review, you know my address ;-) hahahahaha