Israel's answer to the "Obama Girl" youtube video clip: "The Livni Boy"

And here’s another one in a slightly different vain--a real LOL campy take-off of the original Obama Girl, with all the sexy trappings (Israeli style) for some young Likud MK candidate

Tel Aviv Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Gay Pride Parade

Tel Aviv adorned it’s main boulevards this past week with rainbow colored flags as revelers of all persuasions streamed along the main route of the city’s 10th annual gay pride parade that converged at Gordon Beach, one of the city’s central beach fronts, for a free outdoor concert. As usual for this annual parade, gays and lesbians weren’t the only ones out celebrating. Tel Avivans of all ages and statuses were out embracing the event, the community, and the festivities. All of which made for a colorful love fest of freedom of expression in a city that enjoys celebrating its unbridled spirit, diversity and a good beach party.

It should be duly noted that in stark contrast, homosexuality is a crime under the Palestinian Authority, where Gay’s are persecuted and sent to jail. Similarly in Egypt gay men can be sentenced anywhere from 3 and up to 25 years for homosexuality. And in general, the status of gays and lesbians in the Arab and Muslim world is for the most part a dire one.

Some photos I snapped at the event:

Click on any photo for a larger view. The entire album can be viewed here

Some more photos from other people can be found on Flickr by clicking here and here -- don't miss the Israeli soldier girl with a rainbow flag in her shirt pocket

12-year-old Kfar Sava girl defeats 20 men (in chess tournament)

Ha'aretz reports this weekend on this cute story: click here for the full original article. Following is an excerpt and highlight from the story:

...
The most important official event of the tournament took place on Tuesday in a long row of chess games played by grandmasters from Israel, Ukraine, Poland and Germany. At the same time, dozens of Jews and Arabs participated in the Galilee competition, which offered $20,000 in total prize money.

But most of the spotlight was on a simultaneous exhibition match between a 12-year-old Israeli girl, Marsel Efroimski, and 20 chess players seated next to each other who waited anxiously for the young girl's fast-paced moves. Efroimski, the child of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, lives in Kfar Sava and is a seventh grade student. She says that since age eight, she has been playing chess. Her inspiration and her primary influences came from her father and grandfather.

"Chess is a game that requires a lot of thought," Efroimski said. "I know that it's not a game that draws crowds, but it's a very interesting game and in Ma'alot-Tarshiha, there were actually people who were interested and came to watch the games or participate."

The 20 courageous players did not stand much of a chance against the girl who in November was crowned the world youth chess champion in the under-12 girls category at the championships that were held in Turkey. The title earned her an invitation to receive the congratulations of President Shimon Peres.

Within an hour of beginning the chess matches at the community center in Ma'alot-Tarshiha, 20 victories were credited to Efroimski, who stood throughout the entire competition, as is customary, and merely sprinted from one chessboard to the next.

More Israeli TV Commercials

By Noam Rotem
Local cellular carrier Cellcom advertises it’s new on-the-second billing where you only pay for the exact amount of seconds you talked. Ad includes quintessentially Israeli scenes depicting of how when ones says: “just a second” they don’t literally mean a second. The tag being: in life, not always is a second really a second but at cellcom it really is


Back in Passover local cellular carrier Pelephone ran a seasonal ad for surprise prizes for all its customers for the holiday. Playing off of the Passover tradition where children search for the Afikoman towards the end of the Seder, which are then redeemed for prizes by the Seder host. The ad is accompanied by a Ladino rendition of one of the children songs from the Passover Seder.



In a more recent Pelephone summer campaign for free sms’s from abroad to Israel--provides reason enough for an EL AL flight to turn around with the tagline being: looking for an excuse to return abroad ...?


Finally the local McDonald’s franchise pokes fun at Israeli taxis driver’s English skills by having one call up to ask how do you say McDonald’s in English (it’s the same in Hebrew) in order to promote their freshly cut Arabic style salad now to be found at your local Israeli McDonald’s

Taglit-birthright Israel: Touching Videos and a $30 million donation

Touching video compilations from the Taglit-birthright Israel experience





In a related item from YNET

...
American billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Dr Miriam Adelson, donated on Sunday $30 million to the Taglit-Birthright Israel project, during an event sponsored by President Shimon Peres and held at his Jerusalem Residence.

"The gift by The Adelson Family Charitable Foundation (ADCF) will significantly contribute to fulfilling Taglit-birthright israel’s mission to provide every young Jew with the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time," Taglit said in a statement.
...
The first major gift of $5 million to Taglit-birthright israel by the Adelsons in December 2006 enabled those on waiting lists to participate in the winter trips to Israel. In total, ADCF has given $60 million to Taglit-birthright Israel in the last twelve months, the single largest calendar year gift to a Jewish continuity program in history.

Dr Miriam Adelson, a physician and native Israeli said, “A number of participants had told us that they had been on waiting lists for these trips, and only because of the increased trip capacity this summer, were able to participate in the program. I am so proud to share my beautiful country with so many young people and welcome ‘home’ our big, extended family.

"As we look forward to celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary next year, we are honored to help ensure that any young Jew who wants to visit the wonderful nation of Israel has this opportunity of a lifetime,” she said.
...

Profile of an Immigrant Family from Albania in Israel

Ha’aretz in its weekend magazine every week profiles one family living in Israel as part of an on going series that’s been going on for years and adds up to an amazing and fascinating mosaic of the Israeli landscape. This week the profile was of a family that immigrated from Albania in 1991
The full article on Ha’aretz website can be found here:
Family Affair / The Chilis
By Avner and Reli Avrahami Or Akiva

Chili: Means a lock of light hair on a dark head (in Albanian).

The cast: Agim (59), Anna (54), Daniella (29).

The home: Third floor (on the right), apartment building, 70 square meters, with a living room, three other rooms and a mall (Orot), visible from the window. They have been here since 1993 ("We were the first family"), paying the shekel equivalent of $67,000 ("All of it a mortgage"). They pay back NIS 1,430 a month and are pleased. "Our city is Or Akiva - we don't go to Hadera" (Agim).
...
the apartment is full of embroidered pictures (done by Anna), statuettes (from around the world), decorative objects and small red-and-black flags (Albanian). The large flatscreen TV is broadcasting Top Channel (an Albanian station), and resting in the narrow bureau is Skenderbeu, an Albanian brandy ("five star"), named for an Albanian hero who defeated the Turks in the 15th century. The tour begins.
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Livelihoods and occupations: Agim has worked for Amnir, a Hadera-based plant that recycles plastics and paper, for 14 years. He is a shift manager ("from shredding to granulation"). He works in weekly rotating shifts - a week in the morning, a week in the afternoon, a week at night ("I prefer night") - and travels back and forth in a privately owned 2002 Fiat Punto.

Anna: Retired. She worked for Hogla, a paper products plant (in Hadera), and took early retirement in January of this year due to back problems ("I had an operation"). Until then she was in charge of the toilet paper machine. As a pensioner, she receives 70 percent of her former salary and is pleased with the arrangement ("I was smart when I worked out the contract"). At the same time, she is sad at having had to conclude a career as a gifted bowler.
...
Daniella: Almost a B.A. in English language and literature, which she studied at Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers College ("I had two exams left"). She works a five-day week as a technical writer for Newstar, a firm that develops platforms for immediate messages on cellular phones in the high-tech area of Haifa. She travels to and from work by bus and receives traveling expenses. Her work consists of documenting (in English) every product made by the company and ascertaining that the texts are readable.

Agim's bio: Born in Tirana, Albania, in 1948. His father owned a printing press, which the government nationalized; it then made him work in it as a laborer ("We were considered capitalists"); his mother was a housewife. After graduating in economics from the University of Tirana (1969), he worked in a trucking company as director of wages and transports planner. In 1991, a year after the communist regime collapsed, he and Anna immigrated to Israel with the family. Six years earlier, Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albanian for 41 years and made the life of the population hell ("He was worse than Stalin"), died.

The Hoxha years: Fear ("The first lesson of education was to keep quiet") and hunger ("We received 600 grams of cheese a week"). Agim relates that two of his uncles were executed and an aunt was tortured so brutally that she became barren. The collapse of the regime was like a dream for him ("Until I actually boarded the plane, I didn't believe it would happen").

Anna's bio: Born 1953 to the Matityahu family in Vlore, a port city in southwestern Albania, the eldest of three children (she has a brother who is a violin maker in England and a sister who lives in the United States). Her family is originally from Greece. Her father and mother worked as accountants for collective farms. Her elementary school was on a kolkhoz for which her father worked (near Tirana), and she spent her high-school years at a teacher-training boarding school ("I did a lot of crying there"). After graduating (1971), she was sent to teach in a poor village in the north of the country. It was in this period that she met Agim.

The meeting: 1972, on a train to Tirana. She, a teacher, was on her way home from the village where she worked; he, an economist, was on the way home from the transportation cooperative, where he worked. They sat opposite each other, and not by chance. Anna knew a woman who was engaged to a friend of his. When they parted on the station platform, they knew their story was just beginning.

The wedding: 1977, at home ("There was no banquet hall). Before the party they went to the interior ministry with two witnesses ("Every neighborhood had an interior ministry"). Her mother made the wedding dress, his suit was made by a tailor whom Agim invited to his home. The party lasted two days: Saturday in the bride's home, Sunday in the groom's. They ate a lot of meat, drank "Tirana" ("a better beer than [the Israeli brew] Maccabi") and raki, a homemade arak (which is kept in their home in Israeli mineral-water bottles), and then went on honeymoon.

Honeymoon: Two weeks in the "Workers' House" of Vlore ("free").

Immigration to Israel: March 1991 ("We waited for the Gulf War to end"). Agim encountered the first pizza of his life at the airport in Rome ("We ate nonstop"), and they spent the entire sum that they received from the Jewish Agency on sweets. They arrived in the Galilee town of Carmiel at midnight and found the apartment they were housed in depressing, but a visit to the supermarket the next day raised their spirits ("We filled up a cart without knowing what we had taken"). Carmiel was filled with Albanians, and Daniella had no integration problems.
...
Dreams: Agim - "A trip to Europe"; "I have a dream that I don't want to reveal now," says Anna, looking at Daniella; "Mom - enough!" Daniella says.

Daniella's dream: "What Mom said."
...
Romance: Coffee among the archaeological ruins at Caesarea (Anna and Agim).

God: "There is no God," Agim states. Daniella agrees. Anna can't say that.

Quarrels: Plenty. Agim says there are fights of a minute and a half ("Daniella is the referee"). Their wish for her is that she finds someone who understands that "family is sacred."

Politics: "I am for peace and against occupation," Agim says. In the big picture, he thinks highly of Shimon Peres ("the best"). Anna agrees. Both of them are in favor of equality in the country (Agim: "Everyone should either do army or two years of national service"). Daniella did her military service in the Israel Air Force as a secretary ("I had a terrific time").

Israeli-born friends: They have none ("Only Nehemiah and Aada from Nir Zvi") and don't understand why.

Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Everyone - 10. Agim: "Believe me, it is not my country, but I'm happy."

Albania: "My country" (Agim); "I won't forget Albania, either" (Anna).

Granddaughter of former chief rabbi of Israel writes a best-seller about her tempestuous life

From this past weekend’s Ha’aretz Magazine. Click on following title for the full article:
Between cocaine and commandments
By Dalia Karpel
Granddaughter of former chief rabbi of Israel writes a best-seller about her tempestuous life including sex on the synagogue floor

So what if she's the granddaughter of the second Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the State of Israel? Maybe just for that reason she rushed to have sexual relations at the age of 15, on the floor of the synagogue in London, of all places, where her father served as the rabbi? Today, at the age of 50, Reva Mann is convinced that the reason for her journey of self-destruction was that she was lonely and miserable. Lonely and miserable enough to produce an autobiographical novel full of good and bad deeds - about doing it on your wedding night through a hole in a sheet, about the husband who runs to the rabbi with his wife's panties to receive the approval that she is indeed "kosher," and about why, in the name of God, he shouts "Gevalt!" even when he has it so good in bed.

On Sunday in the wee hours of the morning, Reva Mann flew to London from Israel on the occasion of the recent publication of her book: "The Rabbi's Daughter: Sex, Drugs and Orthodoxy" (Hodder & Stoughton). A few hours before the flight she spoke excitedly about the busy week awaiting her in London: interviews for the British editions of Time and Elle magazines, as well as The Evening Standard, Sky News, the BBC, etc.

This week the book landed on the shelves of the bookstores. "The entire edition was almost sold out after the interview I gave to the The Sunday Times (London) supplement at the end of July," said Mann excitedly. "People bought copies by phone. The publisher has started to print a second edition."

Mann, a divorced mother of three, is enjoying this PR campaign: She was photographed twice for the article in The Sunday Times supplement: once disguised as a righteous ultra-Orthodox woman, and once wearing a suggestive outfit, sitting with her legs apart on a chair, with a glass of wine in her hand. It seems that from now on there is no more need to explain anything, and the book will sell itself. First in Britain, and soon in France and the United States as well. Mann, a person who was cured of her drug addiction and has become addicted to shopping, will be happy to pack her bags.

Unconditional love
Mann does not mention in her book the name of her famous grandfather, Isser Yehuda Unterman, because she worries that it will cause harm to her children. Her grandfather came to Israel from Liverpool and served as the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv before being appointed the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel in 1964. He served in that senior position for 26 years, until his death in 1973.

Unterman is described in the book as having soft blue eyes, and wearing a silk robe during prayers in the synagogue. She says he loved her unconditionally - the opposite of her strict and restrained parents. Even when she did not demonstrate expert knowledge of religious texts, he was forgiving, and spoiled her. Every summer vacation, he visited her in her apartment in Rehavia, opposite the Heichal Shlomo synagogue in Jerusalem.

From the mid-1980s Mann has been living in a house in the German Colony, purchased for her by her late father Morris Unterman, rabbi of the West End Marble Arch Synagogue in London. He also left her an inheritance on which she is living. In recent years she has been writing a kind of personal column for two Jewish newspapers: The London Jewish News and the Boston Jewish Advocate. She dreams of a literary career and is now writing her second book, a comedy on the End of Days - "fiction for a change, and not a book about myself," she says.

"The Rabbi's Daughter" took shape in her mind two months after her mother committed suicide in an old-age home in Jerusalem, in the summer of 2004. Mann contracted breast cancer at the time. "I underwent chemotherapy, it was hard, and I only wanted to return to life, but I didn't have anything to return to. Even though I had my three darling children who live with me in Jerusalem, cancer provokes the question: 'Why do I deserve this?' My oncologist told me that there is no proven reasons for cancer, but that didn't convince me, and I had to deal with the question of why I had fallen ill. I started to write my life story in order to understand what had happened. Writing was a kind of healing. Before this book I didn't write anything, and the moment I got started, writing became a challenge. I decided that I can write.

"I came to my writing teacher, Judy Labensohn, with 20 pages. I had no hair on my head and I was very weak from the radiation. Labensohn lives five minutes from my house and getting to her was like climbing the Everest. She marked all the pages in red. She simply erased almost everything. I was shocked, but I was happy because I knew that I was the outstanding pupil who had found a teacher."

A few months later Mann completed the first version of the book. She sent the draft to an agent in England who decided to represent her, and says he came back to her in two weeks with a contract from a British publisher and from Dial Press in America. For half a year she went over the manuscript with a literary editor from New York and prepared it for printing.

The result - how shall we put it? - shakes you up. The scene when she loses her virginity in the synagogue reaches its climax with a cry of pain on the royal-blue carpet, under the ner tamid (eternal light). Mann stands naked in front of the Holy Ark and shouts "Hallelujah!" She hears steps, and before she gets back into her dress, the doorman of the synagogue is standing in front of her and reprimanding her: "You'd better go home now." The doorman, a righteous person, never revealed her secret.
...
For rest of article click here

Medal of Valor for Israeli Officer who Sacrificed His Life by Jumping on a Grenade

Israel radio reported that 142 soldiers who fought in the Second Lebanon War, last summer including an officer who sacrificed his life by jumping on a grenade to save his soldiers, were chosen by an IDF committee to receive medals of valor and citations of excellence for the courage they displayed during Israel's war against Hizbullah last summer.

Editorial Commentary
Compare this to the phenomenon one finds in the Arab/Moslem world where radical indoctrination causes people to kill themselves in order to take innocent lives rather than save lives (See article on this blog: Teaching Children Martyrdom).
It’s this stark contrast regarding the sanctity of life, from the horrors of 9-11, to suicide bombers blowing themselves up in Israeli cafes, and discotheques, to mosques in Iraq, which needs to be brought into focus by the media, politicians and people everywhere if one really want to address the core issues in the middle-east.

Three Stories of Personal Change

From the Ha'aretz Gallery Magazine section Three stories of personal change: a doctor who used to weigh 100 kilos and is now a triathlete; a computer programmer who began running at age 44 and now completes marathons; and a lawyer who gave up law for yoga.

EL AL Flies high-school students from Sderot to New York

El-Al is flying today 10 high-school students from Sderot, to New York City to pick up its new Boeing 777 named "Sderot", after the Negev town that has been rocketed on by Palestinian terrorist militia from Gaza for the past 6 years.

The students will spend 4 days in New York City. Their itinerary includes sightseeing, the latest Harry Potter movie and attending Tisha B'Av services at a local New York synagogue.