Israel

Jacob’s Ladder Review: The Evolution of the Abrams Brothers

May 24, 2011

When Yehudit and Menachem Vinegrad booked the Abrams Brothers to appear as the main act at this year’s Jacob’s Ladder festival, they probably thought they were treating the audience at Israel’s (and one of the world’s) pre-eminent folk shows to the Brothers’ down home bluegrass and country stylings. Instead, they got Coldplay…with a fiddle. This [...]

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At My Most Zionist

May 11, 2011

In our daughter’s 12th grade class on Monday, on the cusp between Memorial and Independence Days, her teacher asked something along the lines of “what was the most Zionist, nationalist moment, for you personally.” Merav was unsure how to answer. Many of her friends referred to their families’ aliyah. “But I was just a baby then,” [...]

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The Pause that Refreshes?

March 23, 2011

Purim in Jerusalem…and all the restaurants are booked solid. That didn’t stop our party of 11 from joining the merrymaking mosaic of Israeli society out to celebrate the defeat of the evil Haman some 2,000 years ago. My wife Jody had the foresight to reserve a table at the uber-popular Caffit café far in advance. [...]

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“Leisure Sundays” Stress Me Out

March 15, 2011

In recent weeks, Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom’s has renewed a campaign to turn Sunday into an official day off in Israel, as with other parts of the world. The Anglo community has embraced the idea. As for me, I’m dead set against it. How could anyone be against Sundays, you might ask? Isn’t that [...]

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Trek of the Month: Park Rabin

March 9, 2011

This month’s recommendation for a great hike in Israel is the lovely Park Rabin area, just outside of Beit Shemesh. It was also Aviv’s tiyul #11 of his 12 pre-bar mitzvah hikes in Israel – you can read his blog about it here. The Park Rabin tiyul kicks off along the western segment of the [...]

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The Top Ten Music Festivals in Israel

February 17, 2011

Israel is too often perceived through an exclusively political, religious or historical lens. An equally compelling current for locals is music. The country is chock-a-block full of music festivals. Whether your preference runs to jazz, rock, classical, choral, rap or klezmer; whether you enjoy the desert, the mountains or the heart of the city, you’ll [...]

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Secular Rabbis to the Rescue?

February 10, 2011

The Jerusalem Post reported this weekend about a rabbinic ordination ceremony of a very different kind. I was there at the event too, which took place in December. What made it all so unique was that the new rabbis were all entirely secular. And they don’t believe in God, at least not in the traditional [...]

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Religious Mustard and Other Hebrew Acronyms

January 26, 2011

In the U.S. and most western countries, Jews tend to identify their religious affiliation through one of the major Jewish movements, be it Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Jewish Renewal, and even Secular Humanistic Judaism. Not so in Israel, where one’s religious standing is far more nuanced. In a country that loves army-influenced acronyms, a whole [...]

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War Over the Airwaves in Eilat

December 16, 2010

In 1947, the U.N. partition plan designated the sleepy port of Eilat as the southernmost tip of the new Jewish state. It wasn’t until the final days of the War of Independence, however, when Israel took control of the town in an operation that surprised the small platoon of Jordanian troops stationed in mud huts [...]

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Fake Crab, Great Deal

December 7, 2010

A new Jerusalem-based group-buying site, appropriately called GroopBuy, is taking the Anglo community by storm. The site, which launched Nov. 1, is the brainchild of a 27-year-old new immigrant, David Shadpour, who says he created the business to help his fellow olim negotiate better deals. He might also have had his eye on Groupon, the [...]

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