An old joke waiting to be told:
How many Jews does it take to open the Ark and take out the Torah? Normally, the answer is one. Ok, I’ve seen in some synagouges two. How about three?
Background: The synagouge service on days were the Torah includes an honor called “peticha” which litterally means “opening”. The honor is bestowed on a member or guest to go an open the Ark where the Torah scrolls are kept. He then takes out one of the Torahs and hands it to the Chazan (cantor) who brings the Torah to the bimah where it is unwound and read.
Three beats one: I was visiting a synagogue in Chicago. This is a typical modern-orthodox American model. Here, the ceremony is as important as the actual prayers. Spotted as a guest, I was asked by the gabbai to go and take out the Torah and hand it to the chazan.
I walked up to the Ark and I saw two other men standing there as well. I turned back to the gabbai and asked what gives. He said each of the men would open one of the doors of the Ark and I would then take out the Torah.
Punchline: I said, “if you need three guys to open the Ark, how many men does it take to do Hagbah (lifting the Torah after the reading)?”
In case it wasn’t already clear, in Israel we are used to brass-tacks prayers. No time for ceremony. Just like the Israeli people. We are an open and warm people, and we don’t stand on ceremony.
Share your experiences What have you noticed different in your experiences in the Diaspora than what you are used to in Israel? Likewise, if you are from the Diaspora, what do you notice different when you visit the Holy Land?
This story may come as a shock to many of our readers. Those of you who are familiar with the deep-seeded resentment and anti-orthodox-Jewish behavior exhibited by some of Israel’s secular far-left will not be surprised.
Yediot Achronot reported last month that a teenage boy was almost expelled from his high school in Modiin (about 20 min from Tel Aviv) for putting on his tefilin (Jewish phylacteries) in an empty classroom.
Putting on Tefilin at the Kotel
A boy at the Secular High School “B” in Modiin was occupying an empty classroom in the mornings during a free period in order to put on his tefilin and pray. Other boys noticed his actions and asked if they could join. Within a short time, there was a group of boys who were going to this empty classroom every day to pray. One day the usually empty room was needed for administering a test and the librarian passed on the news to the principal.
The principal of this school, Nurit Zak, called this ‘ringleader’ boy to her office and reportedly threatened to expell him if “he continued this act of religious coercion and missionary practice.” She was also quoted has saying that just as parents at the school didn’t want their children being exposed to drugs, so too, they did not want any religious coercion.
This story is sadly true, and not from some far off place in Soviet Russia. This is right here in Israel, the home for the Jewish people.
Soldiers putting on tefilin
Imagine if the boy had been muslim and wanted to pray quietly in a room with other muslims. Would the principal would have acted similarly? Is there a double-standard of secular hatred for anything to “religious” in Judaism? Isn’t this what we want our children to do? Would secular parents in Modiin really prefer for their kids to get tatoos, fly off to India or Peru, eat pork, and all that comes with it, rather than to ’sneak’ a prayer during a free period at school? It defies logic.
Israel has worked hard to shed its old image of producing cheesy ethnic insider, one or no-joke movies.
Today’s Israeli movie scene has produced some very creative, critically acclaimed on an international level. There are many dozens of quality films that have been produced in Israel in the past decade.
Highlighted here are five of the top modern movies filmed here in Israel in recent years. All of these films are must-sees.
1. The Band’s Visit - 2007 ביקור התזמורת IMDB Listing
This movie won Best Picture in 2007 in Israel’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. Starring popular and acclaimed Israeli actor Sasson Gabai, (The Impossible Spy, Rambo III, Made in Israel).
Synopsis: An Egyptian Police Force band come to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, yet end up lost in the wrong town with a similar sounding name.
Film critic Roger Ebert gave this film four stars and sums it up well:
They are in the middle of the Israeli desert, having taken the wrong bus to the wrong destination. Another bus will not come until tomorrow. “The Band’s Visit” begins with this premise, which could supply the makings of a comedy, and turns into a quiet, sympathetic film about the loneliness that surrounds us. Oh, and there is some comedy, after all.
2. Beaufort (2007) - This Oscar nominated film for Best Foreign Picture is the story of a group of Israeli soldiers stationed at an outpost prior to the withdrawal of forces from Lebanon in 2000. This movie cuts into the pathos of Israelis and their understanding about war, life in the Middle East, and obligation to country. New York Times review aptly remarks that this is not so much a war movie as a study on human nature and inner feelings.
The men spend most of their time inside its heavily fortified walls, trundling down coffin-shaped corridors in spacesuitlike combat gear and bracing for the next round of attacks from an invisible enemy. Their lives are governed by tedium, claustrophobia and anxiety, and yet they clearly feel something like affection for the bleak, isolated place that has become their home.
Beaufort Part 1:
Beaufort Part 2:
Beaufort Part 3:
3. Ushpizin (2004) - IMDB Listing Starring Shuli Rand and Michal Bat Sheva Rand (who are married in real life).
“Ushpizin” is groundbreaking on more than one count. It is a rare collaboration between secular and ultra-Orthodox Israelis and one of the first movies filmed in the insular Jerusalem neighborhood Mea Shearim with ultra-Orthodox actors.
Shuli Rand won the Israeli Academy Award for Best Actor in this film. This film also has an excellent musical score, including the popular “Atah Kadosh” from Israeli Religious Rocker Adi Ran.
4. The Syrian Bride (2004) - Clara Khoury stars in this semi-political, semi-humanitarian, semi-comedic film of a young Druze woman (Arab, but not muslim) who lives in a Druze village in the outermost portion of the Golan Heights, on the Syrian border, who travels to Syria to marry a Soap Opera star there. This tragic comedy touches on the heart strings as she says goodbye for good to her family, since she will be leaving Israel for Syria, to live with her new husband, in a country that Israel is at war with. Syrian Bride was nominated for 7 Israeli Academy Awards.
5. Medurat Hashevet (Campfire) (2004) - Set in 1981 in the early days of Israeli settling (occupation) of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank). Directed by Joseph Cedar (Beaufort), drew fire from the right-wing settler movement as the film portrays them as opportunists looking for good real estate deals rather than being motivated by political and religious beliefs. The Israeli secular crowd loved this film.
Its broader political implications within Israel notwithstanding, “Campfire” offers an outsider an intimate portrait of family members living in uncomfortably close proximity and straining against one another during a difficult period of transition. Rachel, a tough, attractive woman whose husband died of cancer a year earlier, is tugged this way and that by conflicting desires. She longs for the security and companionship of the community. But because her first marriage was unhappy, she is unwilling to settle for another husband who won’t deliver the romantic fireworks the first one didn’t provide.
Winner of 7 Israeli Academy Awards, and nominated for another 8.
Honorable Mention: Etz Limon (Lemon Tree) (2008) - Directed by Eran Riklis (Syrian Bride). This year’s most popular film. Based on a true story, a Palestinian widow cultivates a lemon tree grove next to her house. Her new next door neighbor, Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Navon, threatens to have the tree grove uprooted because of security concerns. This is another tragic-comedy-tear jerker-veilied left-of-center-political film. The acting is very emotional, but the message is a bit over-the-top left wing borderline propaganda siding with the Palestinians.
This film was nominated for 7 awards at Israel’s Academy Awards, and won at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.
The crowds, the energy, the excitement. Those of us who are fortunate to live in Israel and live in or close enough to Jerusalem, know that this coming week of Sukkot is perhaps the best time of the year.
Just like in ancient times when the Temples stood, throngs of Israelis visit Jerusalem from all over the country, along with Jewish tourists from the Diaspora. The electricity in the air is truly amazing.
Sukkot is one of the three Festivals which include Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot that Jews are commanded to literally go up with their feet (”aliyat regel”) to Jerusalem. It is a positive commandment described in the Torah that all of Israel should rise up to Jerusalem and be seen by His Temple. Today, we are not commanded to go Jerusalem on these three festivals as the Temple no longer stands, however, it is customary, particularly for observant Jews, to visit Jerusalem at least once during the 7 day Festival (the 8th day, Simchat Torah/Shemini Hag Ha’atzeret, is actually a different holiday that G_d gave to the Jews as an extra show of His appreciation for the Chosen People.
In this photo, throngs of visitors to Jerusalem’s Old City push their way to the Western Wall on the day of the renewed ceremony “Birkat Kohanim”, where thousands of Kohanim bless the nation as was done in ancient times.
Blessing the four species at the Western Wall
A central part of the Festival of Sukkot is to take four species from the land, an Etrog, Hadas, Arava, and Lulav (Citron, Myrtle, Willow, and Palm Branch) and to make a blessing on them. The reason is not given in the Torah, however it is a positive commandment for all of Israel.
A Very Large Lulav and Etrog
Jews are commanded on Sukkot to live 7 days in a Sukkah, which reminds us of the Children of Israel who lived forty years in sukkot (temporary dwellings) ‘booths’ in the desert on their journey from Exodus of Egypt into conquering the Land of Israel.
Today, many strictly observant Jews still abide by this commandment and dwell in their sukkot for all seven days. Others prefer to sleep in their houses.
One of the truly amazing sites in Israel during the Sukkot holiday is to see so many sukkot attached to homes, apartments, businesses, schools, shopping malls, restaraunts, and every where else (even on the beach!). We wish all Israel a happy and enjoyable Sukkot Holiday!
Is it Awe or the Atonement that gets us nervous? Either way, this Thursday is the most special day of the year. It’s the day above all others when G_d is listening and expecting you to fess up. What better way to prepare for this day than with a visit to the holy sites in Jerusalem?
I visited the Kotel yesterday. The Western Wall is on the top five list of the Jewish people’s holiest places.
This wall was built over 2,000 years ago towards the end of the 2nd Temple era. It was one of the retaining walls that surrounded the Temple which sat atop what is today the Al-Aqsa Mosque (with the golden dome).
A well-known Jewish custom is to place notes to G_d in the cracks between the bricks. This man decided to go mobile and phone in his prayers
Western Wall - Jewish custom - notes to G_d are placed in the cracks.
Growing up back in the USA, I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing of Rebbe Nachman or the Nachman M’Uman graffiti. Breslov Hasidim were those guys who came around asking for donations and handed out booklets of Breslov teachings. In Israel, you can’t go far without running across at least one of the ubiquitous Nachman slogans.
(Tens of) Thousands of Breslevers and Rebbe Nachman lovers travel yearly to Ukraine to Uman, the burial place of this Tzaddik. The Breselov Hasidim believe that there’s some magic in saying three times “Na, Nach, Nachma, Nachman M’Uman” as a verbal amulet for good luck. They also make sure to spread the landscape with painted graffiti, bumper stickers, and posters with this saying.
I remember one day I was driving in Tel Aviv and saw a hillarious bumper sticker “Na, Nach, Nachma, Nachman Bialik”, who was the secular poet and author of the early to mid 1900’s, and is considered one of the founding “literary” founders of the State of Israel.
Here’s one of the often-seen Nachman M’Uman signs in South Tel Aviv, not too far from the beach.
