One of my goals is to write about the enjoyable side of living in Israel - if you want to know the bad things that happen daily, just read Haaretz Daily.
Most of the "news" stories one reads in the world press originate with Haaretz simply because it's English edition is often the first lead the myriad of foreign press reporters here get about a story.
It is a quality paper. Unlike most global newspapers, Haaretz has a good record of reporting the facts in news stories and saving editorializing for the opinion and analysis articles. It's another of the paradoxes of Israel that this paper, considered must reading daily for the business and political elite, is vilified by the right-wing as being a mouthpiece of the left!
So what happened this week?
Simchat Torah
Sukkot wound down. Tuesday was Simchat Torah, the last day of the holiday. It is a joyous day for the religious marking s the completion of the annual cycle of readings a portion from the Torah . On Simchat Torah, the last Torah portion is read followed immediately by the first chapter of Genesis, serving as a reminder that the Torah is a never ending circle.
Since all Jewish festivals begin at sundown the day before, on Monday afternoon all commercial activity ended early the same as every Erev Shabbat (Fridays). All that afternoon as I sat at my computer, the radio played music of the holiday.
So even the secular who do not go to synagogue are treated to portions of Genesis set to music with a very contemporary beat, performed by leading popular performers. It's just one of the little pleasures of living here much like Christmas carols are to the Christian world.
Entertainment
One of the great pleasures of living in Israel is not only the variety of entertainment but also how easy it is to enjoy it. By this I mean the convenience and relatively low cost compared to the Washington DC area.
For instance this week we enjoyed three night in a row of music.
Wednesday it was our local Raanana Symphonette, a short 10 minute walk to a small but exceptionally modern new performance center. The program was Saint-Saens, Paganini and Tchaikovsky under the baton of a guest conductor - Salvador Brotons from Spain. The cost? About $14 each.
Thursday it was the Cedar Lake contemporary Ballet at the Tel Aviv Opera House. This is about a 30 minute drive from the house. Again the costs are so much less than we used to pay in Washington for a ballet at this level - about $50 each and worth every penny. It's never ceases to amaze me how human being can coordinate their body and movements to produce these incredible images.
Friday it was back to the Shablul jazz club for Danny Gottfried and trio.
Quoting from a profile on MySpace "If you say "Jazz" in Israel, Dan is "The Man"! A brilliant pianist who has performed with world's jazz legends like Sammy Davis Jr. Benny Golson, Frank Foster,Randy Brecker, Clark Terry,Red Rodney,Steve Grossman,Niels Henning Pedersen,Billy Hart, Sam Rivers,Ronnie Cuber, Kevin Mahogany,Sheila Jordan,Mark Murphy, Johnny Frigo, Von Freeman and the list goes on...founding member of the famous Red Sea Jazz Festival and it's artistic director for 22 years"
At Shablul we sat within ten feet of this great pianist, in a club that was sold-out, with less than a 100 jazz lovers, for a cover charge of about $22! And no requirement to buy any drinks or food though most do have at least a beer. In Washington the parking almost cost that!
Politics
Though not strictly qualifying as "good news" I was happy to learn this morning that Tzipni Livni, our foreign minister had decided to go to new electionsrather than give in to the blackmail of the Shas ultra-orthodox party.
As the price for giving her the neccessary parlimentary support to become Prime Minister, they demanded a huge increase in family allowances for their constituents. In addition they wanted a pledge that Livni would not include the status of Jerusalem in ongoing negotiations toward settlement with the Palestinians.
It was a wise decision. Giving in to the Shas extortion would have added just one more layer of disenchancement to an electorate that is already totally fed up with politics. The public has had it's fill of corrupt and the raiding of the public coffers by cynical "power-at-any-cost" politicians.
Hopefully her refusal to capitulate at any cost will be remembered by the same electorate when the ballots are cast. Certainly it is a fresh wind in Israeli politics.
Obama/McCain
As would be expected there is a lot of interest here in the election that less than two weeks away. However it would be difficult to say who Israel's favor.
Many like Obama but are scared of him = "too good to be true" is an oft heard comment. "Not enough experience" is another. This latter was my main objection at one time. However after reading David Kimche's book (see my previous post), I can't see how experience helped as far as Israel was concerned.
McCain is thought by a large segment to be "better for Israel" not that I am sure what that means. However no one sems to understand why he chose Palin. Certainly I think he lost a lot of the Jewish vote with that choice.
We watch a lot of European TV news stations here in Israel - BBC, Sky News (UK), France 24 (in English) as well as Germany, Russia, Italy and Spain.
There is no doubt that the idea that an Black American may actually be president of the United States has caught everyone's imagination. If nothing else it will have a profound affect on perception of the USA in the Third World. Click here for excellent op-ed on this from the International Herald Tribune
That's it for now.
Have a good week.
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