Israeli Mom

Looks like Israel is about to join the list of places where American photographer Spencer Tunick has taken one of his mass nude photographs. You can see his previous work here.

Screenshot of Tunick's Website

Personally, I find his pictures somewhat disturbing. In my world, masses of naked bodies, especially when lying down like in this picture, are automatically associated with pictures of the holocaust. That said, some of his art is more optimistic than that, when using specific layouts for the bodies (people?).

Whatever you think about Tunick’s work, looks like he’s about to do at least two shoots here in Israel: one in Tel  Aviv harbor and the other in the Dead Sea (good luck to him getting hundreds of people to get there for the shootout). According to this article, the Ministry of Tourism has approved both shoots, and Tel Aviv welcomes it even.

Judging from the comments, some people are offended. They mention the “holiness” of the country as their main objection, which makes me in favor of the initiative Anything to make this country a bit more secular and less holy is fine by me.

That said, makes me wonder about the locations… Imagine if he wanted to do this in Jerusalem… He could have brought together religious Muslims and Jews for a one of a kind furious demonstration against him! World peace (or Jerusalem Peace) through nude pictures!

What do you think about a mass nude shoot in Israel? Any suggestions for locations?

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It’s almost ten months now since we went vegan for ethical/moral reasons.

Our choice has nothing to do with the concept of “animal rights” and everything to do with “animal welfare”. We refuse to cooperate with the appalling ways in which farm animals are raised and butchered, simply so the big agricultural corporates can increase their profits. If it’s something we wouldn’t have done to our cats and dogs, then it shouldn’t be done to other animals either.

Dairy products can be even worse than actual meat when it comes to the amount of suffering involved in production. Just look at the latest report about Willet Factory (if you can stomach it – and if you can’t, how can you stomach the produce?).

With that in mind, I sometimes wonder about why nobody produces human milk dairy products. After all, it’s bound to be better suited to our systems, health-wise and there’s a better chance of ethical production, as the women can actually have a say about this. Also, there would be no need for tail docking, de-horning and the rest of these evil practices. Not to mention, no males will have to be castrated with no anesthesia – I hope.

Well, maybe it is happening.

Chef Daniel Angerer has Mommy milk cheese offered in his restaurant!

I think it’s an awesome idea. Not for its culinary value, which apparently was the motivator in this case, but because it may just make more people consider the source of milk and what it means.

So, how about you? Would you consider human milk dairy products? Do you find it appealing, disgusting, or just weird?

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Having posted my 100 Places to Visit in Israel page, I decided to follow it up with occasional “spotlight” posts, sharing some information about each place, personal impressions and pictures from our visits. I’ll start with one of the places we visited fairly recently: Ein Avdat in the Negev desert.

What Is Ein Avdat?

Ein in Hebrew means spring, so Ein Avdat is “Avdat Spring”. It can also be spelled as “En Avdat” or “Ein Ovdat”.  The main attraction is a relatively short trail through a natural canyon created by the flowing water. Water in this dry area is precious, and Ein Avdat is like a small oasis with trees and shrubs. Ein Avdat is a carefully maintained small National Park (national parks in Israel are usually pretty small).

Location and Times

Ein Avdat is located in the middle of the Negev desert – the southern part of Israel. It’s right off road no. 40 which connects Be’er Sheva with Eilat. It takes approximately two and a half hours to reach from either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. It can be a stop on the way to Eilat, or part of a few days of touring the Negev desert and its many attractions.

It can get very hot here during the summer, so if you can, visit during fall, winter or spring and avoid hot days. If you’re here during the summer, be at the gates as soon as the park is open, so that you finish the hike before it gets too hot. Make sure everyone is wearing a hat and drinking lots of water.

The park opens daily at 8AM and closes at 4-5 PM (depending on the time of year). There is an entry fee and the park is regulated by park keepers. You can’t go into the water. In fact, you’re asked to avoid as much as touching the water, as they are reserved for the animals.

You’re not allowed to eat inside the park so no need to carry much other than lots of drinking water and your camera.

See the park’s official web page for detailed hours, current prices and phone numbers.

How to Tour Ein Avdat

There are two ways in which you can experience this little park. The first is to walk the circular trail which takes you to the main pool and waterfall and then returns towards your point of entry. It’s a fairly easy hike and quite short (under a mile for the entire walk), but take the time to take in the view. Once back in your car, you can drive to the upper parking lot and enjoy the view from that side of the canyon.

Alternatively, you can walk past the waterfall, reach the upper pools and there climb up and out of the canyon. The climb is regulated with steps carved into the rock and metal ladders. It’s not very difficult and kids can manage it fairly easily. The only problem is that this is a one-way path, mostly for safety reasons. Once you reach the top, you arrive at the upper parking lot and you need a car to get back to the entry point. You can’t walk it back above – or rather you can, but it’s a very long hike on the high-traffic road in the desert sun, so not recommended at all. You have to either have one of your group members do the circular path and bring the car over to the upper parking lot, or use two cars.

Ein Avdat Highlights

• A beautiful deep canyon.
• The clear water stream along your path.
• The big waterfall – a unique feature in the desert.
• Ibyx watching along the canyon (look for them on the other side of the canyon, as they shy away from people.
• The view from the upper viewpoint, as you finish your climb.

Personal Experience

We’ve visited this park in February 2010 and had a great time. I did the circular path and got the car to the upper parking lot and the rest of the family climbed up. We all had a great time and the climb was very enjoyable and not too difficult for the kids (aged 6 and 8).

We were lucky to get the post-floods views and the streams were full of water. Everything was very clean and the park people were friendly yet very clear about their “no food on park grounds” policies.

Special Notes

Do not confuse the Ein Avdat National Park with Avdat National Park. They’re fairly close by but still separate. Avdat National Park is an Unesco National Heritage Site that focuses on the remains of an ancient Nabatean city.

Ein Avdat Pictures

You can view more pictures of this place in the En Avdat album on my Facebook fan page. You don’t have to be my Facebook friend to see them – everything on the fan page is public. Do become a fan to get all of my Facebook public updates!

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A short month has passed, but a month all the same and I like wrapping up my monthly blogging here. This is a good place for me to do my summation and hopefully entice some of my readers here to hop over to one of my niche blogs and check out my posts there.

Cat Blogs

Ok, I just realized I never got around to posting on CatsGoShopping.com At least I did manage to stick to my resolution and posted pictures of cats throughout the month on the CatPicsBlog.com.

There were also three posts on TheCatSite.com’s Blog: A tribute to a cat lover who sacrificed her life for rescuing a feline, a piece about understanding cat behavior and a useful piece about how to choose a username for our cat forums. I’ve also linked all of my cat blogs to the Facebook fan page of TheCatSite.com so become a fan there for constant purry updates.

For Bloggers

I managed to write ten new posts on my blogging/web publishing blog!

Managing Content on Multiple Blogs

Five Ways I Make Money from My Blogs and Sites

The Thesis Theme – First Impressions

Google PageRank Soon Gone?

Eight Reasons Why You Need to Start Buzzing

I’m Not Posting Today

Would You Have (Semi) Nekkid People on Your Blog?

Web News & Views #7

Are You a Blogger or Webmaster?

My Fast and Dirty Fix for Coming Up with a Good Post Topic

This and That

Rather than include all of the other posts in my blogs (some written by me, others by a hired writer), I decided to bring forward just a few favorite ones. I have added a feed box in one of the sidebars on this blog, so you can check out the post titles as they show up there.

My favorites for this month would be -

UGG Boots For Kids

Tips for Taking a Break from the Computer

Slug Bread and Beheaded Thistles – Organic Pest Control Humor

Amazing Ferro Fluids

Most Dangerous Job Ever??

Thank you in advance for visiting these pages, and this blog right here. Your comments and feedback are always hugely appreciated!

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It’s the Jewish holiday of Purim today.

If you’re not familiar with Purim, here’s the full description in Wikipedia.

Purim and Me

Purim is the holiday of fun for the kids. Kids dress up, give and get packets of sweets. There are also mini-carnivals in most cities where all the kids come dressed up in their costumes and there’s some sort of a parade.

I’ve heard that religious people tend to get drunk on the holiday, or something along those lines. Fortunately, I live in a totally secular milieu, or at least secular enough not to have to deal with drunkards

At this point, you can scroll down to today’s Purim pictures or hang on with me for a short trip down memory lane.

Early childhood makeup memories. Purim was the time when it was perfectly ok to grab Mommy’s makeup kit and play with it. I can still smell that blush stick I used to smear all over my face trying to paint various patterns.

Sixth grade. I wake up early in the morning, lying in bed and thinking about how much I’m going to enjoy going to school in my fancy costume. My hand goes through my hair, leisurely, and I feel a strange little bump, and then another. I recall lying there peaceful, trying to figure out what the weird bumps in my hair were. Then I feel them on my face too. Measles – no Purim parties for me that year.

On my first year of hi-school. I dress up as a pregnant woman, walking down our street with a huge pillow under one of Mom’s maternity dresses. A few days later, Mom tells me the two old ladies living on the end of our street forgot about the holiday and were spreading some gossip about how I got pregnant at such a young age. We had a good laugh at it too.

Aged 24, in the IDF, in one of the (then) tallest buildings in Tel Aviv. I’m standing in the office, looking through the window, when this huge blast shakes the glass. It’s one in a chain of suicide bomber attacks, but this one is right on Purim, killing 13 people in a busy shopping center including several kids in their costumes.

And after this journey into one Israeli Mom’s psyche… back to real Purim today and some fun pictures!

Ron the black knight:

Dan aka Ben 10:

Dan in school with his teacher (aka the Queen of Clouds)

Kids at the school this morning -

I’m not sure who this grownup woman is, but I’m pretty sure we don’t really have a jet fighter pilot among our school staff:

Last, but not least, the “Mishlo’ah Manot” which we made for school. It’s one tradition we do still keep in schools, where kids bring a packet of cakes and sweets each. The teachers then run a draw and each kid gets someone else’s packet. Here’s what we made yesterday -

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Or for the cleaning guy? I used to call it “the cleaner” in English and an American friend told me it sounds like a mafia hit man (or hit person?) Ok, enough of the political correctness stuff and on to the question at hand.

My cleaning lady is here right now. Before she arrived, I spent about an hour tidying up the house, getting the laundry out of the way, putting clothes back in their place and washing the dishes.

IsraeliDad hates when I do that. He says he can’t see the point in cleaning when we’re paying another person to do just that. My excuse is that everybody else does it. It’s the standard in the home-cleaning market. I think. And between me and you, you can’t have another person walk into your home when it’s in a total mess.

So, this morning, I tweeted about this and looks like my hunch was right – women think you have to “prepare” the house for the cleaning person while men just “don’t get it”, as someone said. Someone mentioned it may be “a Jewish thing”.

So, how about you? do you clean up for the cleaning person? Is this really a man/woman thing or a national trait?

Oh and could you please leave your comment here - rather than on Buzz, facebook, Twitter… did I leave someplace out? I have this feeling lately like comments are getting scattered all over the place!

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I went for a stroll yesterday, then went right back home, grabbed my camera and went out again. It’s incredibly green outside. Just lush green, speckled with flowers. The air smells of flowers and greenery.

The only problem is that this warm weather is in February. Even in Israel it’s supposed to be winter still, and some days it feels like Summer is here already, and not just Spring.

Sharing some pictures with you today – I wish I could add the soundtrack of the birds and the bees. More pictures from this set are available here. All were taken within 500 yards from my home.

I love this tree, half grapefruit and half oranges:

I have more spring pictures and shared them on my fan page on this album. You don’t have to be my friend on Facebook to view, so just click here for more pictures.

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We need your help – whether you’re an Israeli or a supporter of Israel. Actually, even if you’re neither. If you just care about animal welfare, it’s all I am looking for today.

The Problem: Israel About to Spend Half a Billion Shekels on Inhumane Cages

Israel is one of the last countries in the western world where agricultural industry is allowed to keep chickens in tiny cages. Egg laying chickens are crammed into cages so small they can never stretch their wings and hardly even turn around.

They are subjected to horrific conditions which include -

1. Being extremely crowded – 6-9 hens crowded into a small cage where their natural needs are denied.
2. Spending their entire life on a wire mesh which often hurts their feet and legs.
3. Cutting off their live-tissue beaks, twice during their short lifespan. This is done to prevent them from killing each other due to stress-induced violence.
4. Forced molting (preventing food and light for weeks to force their bodies into laying more eggs).
5. High occurrence of broken bones (forced to lay excessive amounts of eggs without moving, their bones are weakened). Obviously, no veterinary treatment.
6. Incomprehensible amounts of stress due to overcrowding, stacked up in tiny cages in smelly dark sheds.
7. Don’t even get me started on industrialized slaughter houses. If you can stomach the graphic description read all about it here.
8. Oh, and when breeding them, fluffy cute yellow male chicks aren’t killed instantly like in other places – they are just thrown into huge garbage bags, crushed to get as many chicks in, and then left to slowly suffocate to death the dumpster.

So, Why This Post about Hens? What’s Up?

The egg industry is a fairly cruel operation worldwide, but things are slowly improving. Battery cages have been outlawed in most of the Western world. That’s most of Europe, and California too.

Such changes are often difficult to achieve as the strong rich agricultural lobbies push hard towards maximizing profits at the expense of animal welfare. It’s the same in Israel, where we do have an extremely powerful agricultural lobby.

Yet, we may be on the verge of a change that could possibly effect the living conditions of millions of hens.

The Ministry of Agriculture has announced a reform in the egg industry. They are about to move the coops out of current kibbutzim and moshavim and centralize them into one area. Originally, the Ministry’s committee also recommended enhancing the space allocated to each hen, but guess what? The Agricultural lobby managed to reverse this decision.

The result?

The State of Israel is about to waste over half a billion shekels on building more crowded inhumane cages!

Yes, you read it right. That’s half a billion shekels of government funds.

Going into perpetuating misery and suffering of Israel’s millions of laying hens.

Israel is the only country in the world that invests half a billion shekels of public funds in building coops that have been banned for use in 29 countries around the world. Switching to open coops with no cages would place Israel on a par with the most economically, legal and ethically progressive countries in the world.

So, What Can I Do?

There is a lot you can do! Unfortunately, the campaign is mostly in Hebrew, but there is a petition going on here -

http://www.anonymous.org.il/petitions/batterycoops/index.php

You could fill it up in English too. The first four fields are the only ones that are mandatory. They are (in the order in which they appear): First Name, Last Name, Email, City. Make sure you uncheck the first checkbox otherwise you will receive their newsletter (in Hebrew). To make it easier on you, I used Google translator and created this image of the translated form:

Or, if you don’t want to sign the petition, could you please please please take a moment to email one or more of these people?

Ministry of Agriculture – The Minister is Shalom Simchon and you can write to him at shalomsi@moag.gov.il and CC his office at pniot@moag.gov.il

You can also write to the Knesset member of your choice (this includes Bibi Netanyahu). Full list of emails/fax numbers are in their profiles here:

http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mkindex_current_eng.asp

If you’re on Twitter, send the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs a tweet about this:

http://twitter.com/IsraelMFA

And of course, whoever else you think may help. If you’re not Israeli, maybe try and affect more pressure through your own government or through the Israeli embassy in your locality.

Also, please link to this post, or directly to the eggs campaign website at http://eggs.anonymous.org.il/. Email your friends about it. Tweet about it. Post it to your Facebook stream. Let’s get the word out and fast, before it’s too later and half a billion shekels goes into increasing the suffering of hens.

Yes. I know. They’re “just” chickens. We have more serious issues to deal with. There are people suffering in Gaza. In Sderot. Whatever. The list goes on. But here you actually have a chance to make a difference. To help millions of innocent animals and alleviate insufferable torture. Please. It’s only a couple of minutes of your time and it’ll help you enjoy your next omelette more.

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The Problem: Israeli Service Providers are Rude – or Are They?

A while ago, I was part of a Twitter conversation which evolved (or devolved) into the usual ranting about the horrible service you get in Israel. The consensus seemed to be that in order to get things “done” in Israel you have to be rude. You need to raise your voice and make “balagan” – the Hebrew word for a mini-riot.

Now, while there is an active network of Twitter in Hebrew, I choose to participate in the English version of Twitter only (for reasons not related to this post). That means the Israelis I follow and get followed by are almost always people who were not born here. They are often Olim (immigrants to Israel) and sometimes even former-Olim (as in, they have returned to their country of origin). They are wonderful people who dearly love Israel, yet most of them seem to share a tendency towards clashing with “they system” here.

I’ve often wondered why do these people, especially the Americans, but not only them, get so angry whenever they get to deal with banks, telephone companies, social security, any governmental agency or just the lady at the supermarket. They often complain that “Israelis are rude” yet often it is them who end up shouting and being overly aggressive. I’ve also seen the other party looking curiously and angrily at the American leaving mumbling “crazy American”, as they try to get back to their day of work.

Obviously, we have a problem here.

The Cultural Gap

About a week ago, my dear friend and new Olah, Aviva, has posted on this very topic on her blog -

Israelis – Sociological Study on a Curious Species

Her post includes a summary of a lecture by Mr. Maurice Singer about the sociological differences between Israeli society and your typical “Western Society”. He describes the Western society as -

a monochrome society rules govern the people. If there is a regulation how something is supposed to be done, it has to be done that way, no matter what, and it will be done that way, no matter what. Plus, you can bet that there is always a regulation, how things are to be done.

While Israeli society is a

polychrome society … [where] people govern the rules. In these societies you have regulations. But just like plans, time tables or working hours they are more or less seen as rough ideas how things in general could work out. There is however, always room for change, bending or adjustment, just as the situation might demand it. This leaves plenty of room for debates, creative solutions and brilliant ideas. You can make the system work for you with enough imagination, patience, persistency and the right kind of networks.

This not a value judgement. It’s not to say that one way is superior to the other. It does mean you could have trouble when switching from society to another. My advice to new Olim would be to change their perspective and learn how to make the system work for them. Trust me, it’s much easier than you think and no, you do NOT have to be rude or nasty.

If I may add another observation of my own:

In Israel there is a greater sense of comradeship and equality. The person giving you service is anything but your servant. They can be your neighbor, cousin, someone you know from the army (and more often than not, they are!) It’s that last element that Mr. Singer mentioned there – the networking. The person in front of you is either your friend, or he’s about to be.

So now, let me give you some tips on how to get along in Israel without blowing up at members of our curious species.

How to get a service provider (hereby known as SP) to do what you need them to do without having a nervous breakdown.

1. SP’s in Israel don’t smile or say “Good Morning” in a cheerful voice – do not take that personally. They may, or they may not smile, depending on their personality or their mood. A fake smile or being too polite would actually be considered… well, fake!
2. Get to know the SP. Your goal is to form an alliance. Create eye contact and call them by their first name (check their name badge or ask). Make conversation and be friendly. Make them smile a real smile. It’s not as complicated as it may sound – and doesn’t take more than a minute.
3. Don’t fight with them about the rules. They didn’t make the rules and you’re not supposed to blame them for them. Remember – they are fellow Israelis, your equals, not the servants of the devil.
4. Create a sense of empathy. Share your problems and be nice about it. Make them aware of the situation upfront – don’t just bring it up in the last minute when you’ve already shouted and made yourself an enemy. Don’t expect extra empathy just because you’re “Oleh Hadash”. We’ve all been there (or our grandparents were), so no “discounts” solely on that basis.
5. Respect their policies but encourage creativity. It’s ok to imply that they can probably make an exception (as they often can). Try to work on a solution together.
6. Get the SP’s name and phone extension for future interaction (assuming you managed to follow me so far and you two are friends). Use it – call them and keep working on your relationship. My Mom is a champ at this – she’s got “friends” everywhere and the nice thing is she met them while interacting with them there. She’s got “friends” in the IRS, her local municipality, the phone company and her local cab station.
7. Can’t bend the rules? Change them. There are ways to do that, and no, they do not include fighting with the SP or his or her superiors. I can do a separate post about this as well, just remember it is doable.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Let me know what you think. If you live in Israel, do you agree or disagree with my assessments? What were your experiences like so far?

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I always try to nap for a while after the kids get back from school, with varying degrees of success.

I’ve developed some tactics for getting my nap time. Basically, you have to make sure the kids are well fed, saturated and have something to do. That’s their computer game/TV time too.  We don’t actually have TV reception of any kind, so TV means a DVD and you have to make sure they have a long enough movie in there. Tip: get everything ready for your nap and only then press the play button.

Another thing I do is make sure the kids are very much aware of me going to be asleep. I keep repeating the “Mommy is going to have a nap now” message over and over again. Sometimes it even works.

One other thing I do is remind them under which circumstances they’re allowed to wake me up. The point of the message being, “don’t wake me up unless…” I usually come up with some funny unlikely stuff too, that the kids often take quite seriously.

So, today, on my way to bed -

Me: Dan, remember not to wake me up unless a fire breaks out or if there’s an earthquake.

Dan: Don’t worry Mom. I’ll wake you up if there’s a fire, but I can handle the earthquake myself.

Me: ???

Dan: We had an earthquake drill at school today.

At which point, he demonstrated the various positions of taking cover outside and inside and informed me that he’s been appointed as “safety assistant”.

They could not have made a better choice. Those of you who follow my tweets may have this heard this story before, but I think it’s worth repeating in the blog.

Some background for non-Israelis: Once in a while the Homefront Command conducts periodic checks for the air raid siren in your area. They always happen at 11 AM and that’s how you know they’re not for real.  It doesn’t happen often, though.

A couple of weeks ago, they were testing the sirens in our town. The school teachers knew about it and told the kids in the morning, but my Dan somehow didn’t get the news. So, come 11 o’clock, he is outside in the school yard with most of the other kids in the classroom and the sirens begin to wail.

He told me later that he was scared, but mostly for his brother and for us, his parents. He was particularly worried we’d get hit by “an atom bomb” (yeah, even the kids get the news about Iran). He never lost it though – he ran for the school bomb shelter, couldn’t open the door, so he lay down on the ground, face down, and covered his head with his hand. Keep in mind the kid has just turned six two months ago.

When the sirens stopped, he ran to the school’s secretary to report the event. She was very kind, encouraged him and gave him a medal (well, a smilie sticker on his sweater but she called it a medal).

I didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh when I heard his story. Was and still is very proud of him though!

I’d love to hear from other parents about this. I know different areas have their own catastrophes – earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes –  how do you teach your kids to be prepared?

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