Wow. Bar Mitzvah’s have gotten out of control in the US. 1987 was my Bar Mitzvah year. I went to dozens, some fancier than others, some quite modest but none featuring bowling and go-carts as mentioned in this NY Times article mentions.
The Bar Mitzvah circuit was an interesting one. I recall being annoyed with it at one point. You see, I was an expert breakdancer. I had the moves and was able to “out worm” anyone I knew. How low can you go? I went pretty damn low. I was the reigning limbo champion. Few could beat my pole ducking talents without cheating. This put a tremendous amount of pressure on me as a child. The thought of doing the limbo right now sends shivers down my arthritic spine.
In all seriousness though, my Bar Mitzvah was more about the ritual and was very low key. It seems like they are getting out of control these days. You can even buy a Bar Mitzvah speech online.” title=”http://writers.com/barmitzvah_toasts.htm\”>online.” target=”_blank”>writers.com/barmitzvah_toasts.htm”>online.
Then again, they have ALWAYS been out of control. Check out this hysterical video and take a look a the photos at Bar Mitvah Disco, possibly one of the greatest websites of all time.
A group of people in the settlement of Alei Zahav (Golden Leaf) in Judea were busted for growing Marijuana. Too good to be true. I noticed in the last election the there were many votes for Alei Yarok (Green Leaf) pro-marijuana party in many of the settlements.
This raid seems a bit too much for me to swallow.
From the Jerusalem Post story:
In an aptly named drug bust called “Operation Green Leaf,” some 50 Judea and Samaria policemen pounced on the settlement of Alei Zahav (Gold Leaves) Tuesday night and arrested nine residents for possessing illegal drugs.
After two months of undercover work, police raided 10 homes, netting about 600 grams of marijuana and several dozen Ecstasy pills. They also seized several hundred rounds of ammunition.
It took 50 policemen to arrest only nine people who had ONLY 600 grams of marijuana. That is not a lot of drugs. The ammunition isn’t a big deal considering anyone who lives in the territories or on the seam line can easily get a gun.
The article continues:
The raid followed police warnings that the number of drug abuse cases in the West Bank and the concurrent number of youthful offenders arrested are on the rise. Police say the offenders are a cross-section of settler society, including haredi men, national religious youth, outpost settlers, and secular professionals, among others.
“We consider this is a major problem,” said Dekel, who planned and supervised the bust. He noted that the raiders found illegal drugs in almost 15 percent of the houses in Alei Zahav. Judea and Samaria police have closed some 800 drug cases so far in 2003, 220 of them involving youth.
What is most perturbing to police, said spokesman Insp. Doron Ben-Amo, is that the age of drug offenders is steadily decreasing. “Drug use is becoming legitimized all over ? on the Internet, on TV, and even with the advent of the Green Leaf Party [which advocates the legalization of marijuana],” he said.
It’s time that the Israeli police and government wake up and take a hard look at their drug policy in general.
Majority of Israel’s weed, heroin and hash come from the Bedouin in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Busting some people for possession isn’t going to solve their “drug problems.” Drug policy is changing throughout the world with many countries liberalizing their policies. Israel shouldn’t be an exception.
Introducing Layla Beer
There is a new beer on the kosher market. It’s called Layla (night in Hebrew). It’s being produced by Abarbanel wines. I haven’t seen it here yet but nonetheless it’s nice to see another Israeli beer on the market. Say what you want about Goldstar but I actually like it. Maccabi beer is weak and leaves a metallic aftertaste, but many moons ago I had it straight from the tap at the brewery and it was delicious. I think that the best local beer in the region is Taybeh beer. I haven’t seen it lately. Considering it is produced in Ramallah I assume they were/are having distribution problems. When I was working as a bartender at a bar in Jerusalem we had it on tap. It was great, incredibly fresh tasting and every keg tasted a wee bit different. I see on their site that they now make a light and dark in addition to the golden. They are also brewing in Germany.
I went to the Brewhouse in Tel Aviv when it first opened and was incredibly disappointed. Taybeh kicked its ass. Then again, I went when they first opened. Probably deserves a return visit.
Nearly every commercial on Israeli television uses sex to sell their products and of course the products usually have nothing to do with sex. Laundry detergent and Prigat juice beverages for example.
But this week Elite hit an all time low.
They introduced a new version of their popular pesek tzman (time out) candy bar.
They called it Foreplay.
I searched but I couldn’t find a image online. I’ll have to buy one tomorrow and photograph it.
Rock & Oud
Every year the Confederation House of Jerusalem with the help of the Jerusalem Foundation and the municipality present an Oud Festival. An Oud is a tear shaped stringed instrument that looks like this.
The closing performance of the festival was called “Rock & Oud” The band consisted of Yair Dallal (world renowned Israeli oud player and violinist), Zohar Fresco (One of the most innovative ethnic percussionist around. Formerly of Bustan Avraham) and Israel’s most rocking musician Berry Sakhoraf.
To say that this show kicked ass would be an understatement.
They played incredible versions of Sakhoraf’s songs. Two songs which worked phenomenally were Lev Shalem and Ir Shel Kayitz from his Negiot album.
I have been a big fan of Sakhoraf’s since the day when a fellow soldier gave me the song Cama Yossi to listen to at a roadblock called Shema near Beersheva. My exposure to Israeli music didn’t really venture beyond the Ethnix tapes (they were an important Israeli band once!) that I bought when I came here for the first time as a teenager. I couldn’t stomach Shlomo Artzi’s nonsensical lyrics and his lack of basic songwriting skills. His popularity astounds me. I once saw him at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was flabbergasted by the amount of Israeli women who were literally throwing themselves at him. He was such a cheeseball.
Oh, and David Broza pissed me off once when we brought him to our campus in ‘94. That is a story for another day however. His guitar playing so gratuitous. I remember we advertised him as “The Bruce Springsteen of Israel.” That is so laughable now.
Anyhow, until hearing Sakhoraf for the first time I didn’t realize that Israelis could rock so hard. I guess Sakhoraf’s past experience in Europe in a moderately successful europop bad called Minimal Compact had a better effect on him than let’s say Gigi Gov’s army singing troupe had on him.
Anyway, Sakhoraf rocks. His guitar playing is incredibly innovative and the sound is inherently Israeli. His music is meant to be played loud. Rami and Rita fans be warned.
There is so much good music coming out of Israel these days. Below are some that deserve your attention.
Israel’s original punk and former cohort to Sakoraf - Rami Fortis - has been putting out top notch albums out for years.
Jerusalem hip-hop funksters Hadag Nachash have been getting more and more popular.
HaYedumim’s seventies metal sound consistently sounds fresh.
Rockfour’s psychadelic Byrd’s influenced rock has gotten mentions in Rolling Stone, Q Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Their last couple of albums have been released in English.
Lest we forget The Biluim. Truly orginal Israeli rock (albiet a wee bit bizarre) with a numerous amount of influences.
Last night on Galgalatz radio I heard on my favorite radio show HaKatza (The Edge) several tracks off of a new singer-songwriter compilation of Israelis who write in English. You can listen to clips here. The album is on the new Audio Collage imprint of NMC. The guy running hit used to be one of the co-owners of the Balance cd shop on Shatz street in Jerusalem. He started a label called Fact Records. The Audio Collage move was a good one for him and a good for NMC. Many of these artists deserve exposure. Here too the public is bogged down with substandard pop and drippy ballads.
One of my favorite Fact Record artists is Charlie Magira. Yes, Israeli rockabillys do indeed exist.
I can go on and on.
Rock over Jerusalem! Rock over Tel Aviv!
I was threatened.
My wife threatened me today. She said that if I don’t start blogging again we are going to have to discuss canceling the hosting fees.
Fair enough. I guess that is impetus enough to start writing again.
It’s unfortunate that I haven’t been into writing so much but the problem lies with our big move out to Modi’in. We decided to part with our old office chair. It was in my possession for over 15 years and I threw it into my lift when I made aliyah seven years ago. It wasn’t the best chair but we had a good relationship. It was falling apart so it had to go.
This was over four months ago. Since we haven’t had the opportunity to replace it yet, I have been standing while using my computer. This has done my back in. I went to look for a chair yesterday in Givat Shaul in Jerusalem but was disappointed with the selection. The search continues…
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