Operation “Protective Edge” (Tzuk Eitan) – Column IlI a mixed bag of piquant “BACKPAGE NEWS FROM THE FRONT” GLEANED FROM THE HEBREW MEDIA. Keep your Spirits Up and Your Head Down!
A CHELM-ON-THE-MED
Permission by Daniella Ashkenazy
WHO WANTS TO KILL ME?!
Last weekend’s papers were filled with articles by anguished columnists with small kids who find themselves wordless when the little ones ask them ‘who is shooting rockets at me and why.’
Coming to the rescue without beating around the bush, animator Amitai Angur created Tili* – a talking Iron Dome missile who in a charming video clip on YouTube explains the conflict in 1 minute 41 seconds flat and instantly calms the anxieties of little tykes…whom rumor has it have, give or take a little, the attention span of a goldfish.*
Click on the hyperlink, there are English subtitles. (Harfana Online)
* til is Hebrew for missile
** The average American attention span in 2013 was about 8 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000. The average attention of a goldfish is 9 seconds.”
A CHELM-ON-THE-MED
CHEMICAL WARFARE
Familiar with the old Yiddish proverb that ‘you can’t have your tuchis* in two places at one time’? Maybe it is just as well that so many rock concerts by international vocalists such as Neil Young and the Backstreet Boys scheduled to be held in open-air amphitheatres have been cancelled due to the war.
With thousands and thousands of soldiers sitting on the border with Gaza in a day and age when ‘environmental concerns’ have become a hot topic, the Ministry of Defense has rented-out nearly all the porta potties in the whole blooming country including some whopping 18-seaters that run 1,750 ($514) a day** (plus a 10 to 20 percent surcharge for placing them in a war zone). (Yediot)
* Yiddish for your butt
** There’s a deep discount waiting if the IDF is in for the long haul. The rental fee drops to 2,650 NIS for an entire month, if chemical toilets don’t have to be schlepped around from place-to-place.
UNBREAKABLE BOND
Detractors like to frame Israel as a ’militarized society’ when in fact it has a ‘civilianized military’… Need proof?
Before Second-Lieutenant Dor Nissan went into battle, his mom 54-year old Shira Nissan drove from Beersheva to the staging area where her son’s unit had deployed on the edge of Gaza to give him a hug…and went about helping Dor tuck in his shirttails in full view of the men under his command.
“I haven’t seen him in two week. I had to come to hug him and to kiss him, to feel him in the flesh,” she explained.
Was the IDF combat officer embarrassed? Not at all.
“It was really terrific to meet mom, to hug her and receive a hug back before we ‘go in.’ She brought with her ‘the smell of home’.” he replied frankly. (Yediot)
BEASTLY CONDUCT
Who has more humanity – Hamas leaders who order Gazans to serve as a ‘human shield’ for their troops and fired mortars at an Israeli field hospital set up to treat Palestinians, or the elephants at the Ramat Gan safari who when sirens go off, huddle to create a protective wall of flesh to shield their young waiting for the thuds of rockets to end. (Ramat Gan Safari)
OVER THE TOP
Fed-up with taking cover when sirens go off, a small group of some 70 young adults from Sderot set up folding chairs and even an old stuffed couch on a vantage point overlooking Gaza on the edge of town – and sat down to spend their nights ‘watching the fireworks’ now that the shoe is on the other foot.
The foreign media have had a field day with this in-your-face audience eating watermelon and cracking pumpkin seeds, cheering every time the sky lights up over Gaza as an Israeli guided missile homes in on its target. An appalled British reporter Diana Magnay labeled the townies ‘scum’ in a tweet, but after nine years on the receiving end of 10,000 Qassam rockets* and mortars that robbed them of a normal childhood, killing nine residents of the small town – including three preschoolers, the group is in no mood to apologize for their behavior.
No doubt they cheered even louder when they got wind that CNN had exiled Magnay to Moscow… (Yediot Aharonot – Kan Darom, Yisrael HaYom)
* View the video, for a taste of what growing up in Sderot was like.
TIT-FOR-TAT A LA HAMAS
During the 9 AM to 3 PM Egyptian-sponsored ‘humanitarian cease fire’ on Thursday July 17th, the IDF broke into Jihad and Hamas broadcasts to urge Gaza residents to stock up on food and medicine. Perhaps in response to this breach, Hamas decided to enhance the shopping experience of Israelis, too – urging Ashkelon shoppers to hurry up and finish their shopping, a high sign they delivered with a salvo of Grad rockets towards the city at high noon.
Men can have some pretty berserk ideas of what constitutes ‘quality time’: Ashkelonian Arik Ochiyun decided to relax by taking his son fishing (!) during the shaky cease-fire, but the crestfallen father was forced to cut short the father-son outing because the kid kept nervously scanning the sky, instead of mindlessly minding his fishing rod like his dad. (Israel HaYom)
DON’T BLINK!
Kvish 6 – the north-south toll road – has become a hairy obstacle course for any driver traversing the fairly empty highway at night traveling south. If motorists are lucky (two weren’t) they manage to slam on the brakes in time when a 120-ton tank carrier creeping along at 40-50 kilometers per hour with eeny weeny taillights suddenly looms into their field of vision on the pitch dark highway as they barrel-along at 110 kilometers-per-hour.
Turns out that there are strings of huge blinking orange lights mounted on the front and the back of the cab…but for vehicles approaching from the rear, the lights are concealed (!) once a battle tank is loaded on the back.* (Yediot – Mamon)
* Authorities have ordered strings of bright lights be jerry-rigged on the tail end of the tanks, hung up like Christmas ornaments.
WHAT WAS HE THINKING?
A 23 year-old chemical biology student at BGU named Ma’or, discovered he he’s the ‘poster boy’ for Hamas propaganda, without anyone asking his consent.
An article in a Hamas political organ boasts his picture – highlighting the Armored Corps reservist’s unkempt shock of blond curls and two-tone goatee set off by a set of earrings running up the contours of his outer ear.* Hamas placed him side-by-side with the face of ‘one of Hamas’ finest’ sporting a spiffy over-starched uniform and wearing a stern don’t-mess-with-me expression. Hamas jeered and boasted that from the looks of it, engaging such a scruffy-looking army would be a pushover.
“They haven’t a clue what they’re talking about,” retorted Ma’or. So, why, for God’s sake, has he taken the Hamas article with him, folded up in his wallet?
Does he hope to meet ‘the other poster boy’? (Yediot)
* Only conscripts are required to maintain military haircuts, remove piercing rings and the like to follow military dress codes, not reservists.
SPACED-OUT
Alexander Gerst, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency at the international space station sent a tweet with a picture of the sky over Israel and Gaza at night saying he was saddened to see that the fighting was so fierce one could see the explosions from outer space. Gerst went on to say that borders were indistinguishable from outer space.
The dovish daily Ha’aretz whose logo is ‘the paper of thinking people’ is apparently equally unfamiliar with the nighttime sky over the Middle East where the contours of tiny Israel are lit up like a giant Chanukah candle due to state-of-the-art halogen lighting along highways and city streets – what Gerst described as “unusual streaks of light and ‘orange fireballs’.” Without blinking not to mention thinking, Ha’Aretz not only published the piece as genuine; its headline was “The saddest picture from space: Explosions in Gaza”! (Yediot, Ha’aretz)
TUNNEL VISION
Israeli forces continue to uncovered* more and more terror tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel, prompting Israel HaYom’s editorial cartoonist Shlomo Cohen to dub the warren of passages that underlies Gaza ‘the Gaza Underground’ with lines running the length of the Gaza Strip and all ‘stops’ on the Israeli side of the border…
According to a one-liner circulating around Israel “once the war ends, Israel should hire the Gaza tunnel-diggers to finally make the vision of a Tel-Aviv subway system (i.e. which has been ‘just around the corner’ since the 1960s**) a reality.
On a more sober side, among the posters spontaneously designed by Israelis graphic artists to promote Israel’s messages to the world is a graphic poster of a little girl’s room by Ruth Elbaz – bed and dress decked out in pink and white décor…with a hole to a tunnel which has opened up in the floor, with the chilling message written on the wall: MONSTERS DO EXIST. (Israel HaYom, Yediot)
* sometimes discovered only when terrorists popped out of exits in the middle of the night. not only with assault rifles in hand, but also plastic handcuffs and syringes filled with sedatives.
** See the Chelm column from June 2013, Column 1.
Courtesy of Ruth Elbaz
RUBE GOLDBERG TO THE RESCUE
Even the papers abroad have given massive coverage to way Israelis of all walks of life spontaneously embraced three bereaved families of ‘‘lone soldier’ whose sons fell in Gaza.*
The outpouring of empathy and small gestures of kindness take all sorts of forms. An innovative moshavnik named Tzvika Biton from the Western Negev jerry-rigged a makeshift shower (complete with shampoo and towels) by mounting on a wagon a black plastic tank used to supply drinking water to poultry runs and hitching the contraption to his jeep, with a makeshift collapsible plastic burlap stall in tow, and set out to shower the troops with affection – 2,000 of them in the course of week. (Channel 10 TV)
* For those who may have missed this story, twenty-thousand people from all over the country came to the funeral of Sergeant Sean Carmeli z”l from Texas in Haifa and 30,000 attended the funeral of Sergeant Max Steinberg z”l from California in Jerusalem – mourners for soldiers whom they didn’t know at all, while 7,000 Ashkelonians braved rockets to do the same as an act of gratitude for Sergeant Jordan Bensemhoun z”l from Lyon France and his family, a third ‘lone soldier.
NO SIEGE MENTALITY
It’s good to know who your fine weather friends are.
And who declined to join the move to sever Israel’s air link to the world by cancelling air traffic in and out of Israel, a step initiated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Washington* citing ‘security concerns’ – the only Hamas victory so far in this war?
British Airlines, Royal Jordanian Airlines, and Egypt’s Air Sinai.
***
Oops! Less than a week later, Royal Jordanian and Air Sinai cancelled all their flights to Israel until further notice. Well, there are the unflappable Brits who are stalwart enough to sit on a nail without complaining as Chelm discovered*, not just stand firm during the blitz.
In response to the American move, the social media in Israel were awash in barbed comments and spoofs, including a tongue-in-cheek communiqué that “while the FAA banned flights to and from Ben-Gurion Airport, the Israeli Air Force announced that its flights to Gaza were continuing on schedule.” (Yediot, Israeli HaYom)
* The move (suspiciously timed to coincide with John Kerry’s arrival to pressure for a premature cease-fire, although the Administration claims ‘they had nothing to do with it’) worked like the Domino Theory – leading most European carriers to join suit. The ban was cancelled two days later, but the damage had been done.
** See January 2012 Column II in the archives
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
Turkish Airlines followed the United State’s example and stopped flying to Israel, literally turning around on a dime. One passenger, Yaniv Hadad, told a reporter that his plane was preparing to land in Israel when the Turkish pilot did an abrupt ‘about face’ and flew back to Turkey, leaving the passengers terrified they were being hijacked.
With thousand Israeli vacationers unprotected in Istanbul and Anatolia airports and hotels, looking like sitting ducks for a mega terrorist attack waiting to happen, the Israeli cabinet ordered an immediate airlift to whisk them out of harms way (via Cyprus and Greece) – at Israeli government expense.
`Was it hard? No, this was a walk in the park compared to bringing 14,310 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the short space of 36 hours back in May 1991, said retired El-Al pilot Colonel (res.) Eliezer (‘Cheetah’) Cohen (Channel 2 TV, Yisrael HaYom)
STAND WITH US
All kinds of support pour in, one from the small Congregation of Zion in Stockton, California that expressed their solidarity with Israel by symbolically standing up and vacating the pews in their sanctuary to seek shelter, as a siren piped in from Israel over the Internet went off. The video clip of the simple but touching demonstration was posted on the Internet. (Channel 2 Reshet TV)
WOUNDED BY FRIENDLY FIRE
Motorists on a main drag in the city of Ramat Gan who pulled over to the side and took cover as best they could when warning sirens sounded were astounded to find when they returned to their cars ten minutes later* that they’d been ticketed for parking in a red-and-white No Parking Zone.
The Ramat Gan municipality refused to squash the tickets. They only agreed to convert the tickets into warning citations. If the motorists repeated the offence they would have to pay the first parking fine, as well… (HaKol Kalul, Channel 10 TV)
* Homeland Command directives are to wait 10 minutes after seeking cover, to avoid being hit by falling debris from intercepted rockets and Iron Dome missiles falling to earth.
HOLD YOUR FLOWER POWER
Hazak bYachad (Strong Together) a public-spirited ad hoc organization of Israeli bodies across the political spectrum purchased 13,000 flowers from a flower supplier in the badly-pounded Eshkol region facing Gaza to bolster their business, and sent the bouquets to the wives of career personnel and reservists…perhaps because “flowers in the cannon mouth and girls in the turret” envisioned in an optimistic post-Six-Day War army entertainment troupe song would be exceedingly premature. (Yisrael HaYom)
NEVER MIND THE TIMES
On the media front: The London Times refused to publish a full-page paid ad penned by Nobel Prize laureate Eli Wiesel that dared to criticize Hamas, revealed the New York Observer.
The reason?
The ad – titled “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn” – was “too strong and too forcefully made and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers,” said the paper which previously marked Holocaust Day in January 2013 with an editorial cartoon of Israel’s prime minister “cementing peace” with a wall build with Palestinian bodies as bricks and Palestinian blood as mortar. (Ynet)
ISRAELITY COMES TO LIFE
Forget the pro-Israel placards and the mass demonstrations; judging by the atmosphere in Paris and other European capitals and the hostility of the media, few are listening.
Jewish students and Israelis in Vienna, Austria and Amsterdam’s Leidse Square have organized a hopefully-more-effective way of hammering home to the world what Israelis experienced daily: A sirens sounds and dozens of people strolling across a major public square somewhere in Europe hit the pavement and huddle there for 15 seconds as the siren blares, while a banner is unfurled saying “Imagine you have 15 seconds to save your life.”
Others are invited to stage similar flash mob demonstrations in their own cities – next time around (or tomorrow for that matter, if the 72-hour cease-fire doesn’t last*).
* As this column goes to press on the afternoon of Thursday August 7, Hamas has yet to extend the cease-fire, so a word to the wise come 8:00 AM Friday morning: Keep an open ear it may not be a motorcycle accelerating that you hear.
SUMMER SCHOOL
Half the summer vacation went down the tubes due to the war? Help is on the way: Nestia Froussman, a 16 year-old from Beersheva has established a Facebook petition calling on the Minister of Education to extend the summer vacation to make up for lost time. (Yisrael HaYom)
SINS OF COMMISSION
If you think you’ve seen everything, in a truly marvelous line of logic, Navi Pallay, the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, charged that Israel is guilty of war crimes against civilians of Gaza because it refuses to share its Iron Dome ballistic missile defense shield with the “governing authority” of Gaza (Hamas) shooting rockets at Israel*…a truly original interpretation of “all is fair in love and war.” (Channel 2 TV)
QUICKIE IN A WAR ZONE
A pet parakeet spooked by sirens and falling and intercepted rockets in Ashkelon, flew the coop. But, far from taking wing for calmer climes like any sane bird would do, the budgie who goes by the name Quickie, flew straight from the frying pan into the fire, landing on the shoulder of a surprised IDF reservist in the midst of the battle. When the unit pulled back for some R&R, Quickie ‘hitched a ride’ with them, where the patriotic parakeet was photographed roosting on the top of the floppy fatigue hat of one of the tank crew.
The bird was reunited with its owner – Inbal Barbibi after she recognized Quickie on the back page of Yediot Aharonot.*
* Locating the unit, she took the budgie back home, although the bird could have feasted forever on the mountains of half-eaten munchies laying about, goodies sent as a sign of support from the home front.
HIT THE ROAD
Aware that an avalanche of socks and skivvies already threatened to bury Israeli soldiers alive, Kal Auto Ltd. sought a new way to support the troops.
Exploiting the drop in demand for its rental cars due to the war, the chain dedicated 100 cars from its fleet to ferry soldiers home for free on short 24-hour leaves, just like a taxi special. Calling for ‘volunteer drivers’ to step forward, CEO Shmulik Klein asking rhetorically: “When a soldier lives in Ma’alot-Tarshecha [in the Galilee] how much time remains at home if he travels by public transportation?” (Yediot)
ANOTHER HALF-FULL CUP
Shai Saban who runs a computer store and fix-it lab in Kiryat Malachi hasn’t lost his sense of humor. The head of the Kiryat Malachi Merchants’ Association told Yediot’s regional paper for residents of the south that sales in the town were down 50 to 80 percent but quickly added, philosophically: “On the other hand, it’s solved the parking problem in town.”
* And speaking of computers, where were Israelis surfing during the month-long war? Vacation spots witnessed a 63-67 percent drop, parallel to a 92 percent increase in searches for cemeteries and 55 percent rise in searches for flags. The popular price comparison website Zap reported a 400 percent increase for information on hearing aids. (Yediot)
RECIPE FOR…
It’s hardly surprising that a cargo of food – ‘humanitarian aid’ from Turkey to Gaza that arrived at Ashdod Port was carefully examined by customs officials. Discovered among the sacks of flour was an industrial-strength mixer and hundreds of solid metal balls, customs revealed.
Officials weighed whether to release the ball bearings – that looked suspiciously similar to the ones that lace Palestinian rockets. The manifest said the metal balls were designated for…chocolate-making!
Well, it turns out this such balls are used in the mixing process, but then again – in Gaza commercial fertilizer and household ammonia aren’t used solely to grow cherry tomatoes and clean the john.* (rotter.net, Yisrael HaYom)
* Key ingredients in bomb-making.
FIXED!
After Hamas launched 3,360 rockets at Israel’s civilian population using their own women and children as human shields and dug 32 tunnels designed to kill or kidnap Jews and their children in their sleep, in an op-ed titled “How to Fix It” in Foreign Policy, former President Jimmy Carter called on the United States to take Hamas off the terrorist organization list and recognize it as “a legitimate political actor.” Israel can be consoled with the fact that the 89 year-old former president only castigated Israel and charged it purposely targeted civilians, and he didn’t call for putting Israel on the terrorist list.
And the sitting president?
The best Obama could muster speaking to the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit was to labeled the above war crimes “a particular military strategy” which Barak Obama branded as acting “extraordinarily irresponsibly” as if Hamas was a bunch of rowdy teenagers guilty of smashing beer bottles on a street corner while breaking curfew. (Ynet)
* + another 119 that fell in the Gaza Strip
THE ONE-STATE SOLUTION
Meet the Gaza mindset. Ah, the advantages of youth!
A 77 year-old Gazan resident from Jebalia – Ibrahim Muhammed Da’ud, interviewed in a random street survey on Sunday July 13th remarked: “If I was younger, I would put on an explosive belt and go blow myself up in Tel Aviv,” adding “We don’t need homes, we need a state.” (Ours, apparently.)
Another elderly Gazan – age 76 – found a creative alternative suitable to his age and abilities. An Israeli officer stretched out his hand to help the injured man get up…only to find he was hiding a handful of grenades under his tush. The officer and his soldiers jumped back. The old man got up and prepared to throw one of the grenades at them, and joined the list of Palestinian fatalities in the war. (Ynet, Yediot)
JACUZZI ANYONE?
A new scheme for the optimistic patriot: Help business in the south by buying a coupon for a vacation at a romantic and tranquil zimmer in the south which can be redeemed once quiet is definitely restored. (Yisrael HaYom)
THE COLOR ORANGE
Tomorrow morning, Friday 15 August 2014, Israel should mark the 9th year of the expulsion of the settlers of Gush Katif, but the country has been too busy running to take shelter from Gaza mortars and rockets (many fired from the very place where the Gush Katif settlements stood) to take notice…unless someone noticed the bright orange code box* the last four weeks that says who should expect to be socked by incoming rockets within 15 seconds to two minutes…and recalled the hazard-warning coded ‘team colors’ worn by opponents of the unilateral Disengagement back in 2004-5.
Perhaps it’s time for the parties who called skeptics of Palestinian intentions “people of little faith” and those who supported the Disengagement fueled by a bottomless optimism” to apologize…at least to the former residents of Katif?
A CHELM-ON-THE-MED
Left: Television screens, Summer 2014
Right: Protesting the wisdom of the Disengagement Plan, Summer 2005
* Numerical geographic codes appear in a little box in the upper right-hand corner of the television screen in bright orange after each salvo from Gaza – alerting inhabitants in areas of Israel where the rockets will fall…while allowing commentators to continue to talk their heads off ‘on-the-fly’ as rockets sail by.
A SMALL ACT OF KINDNESS BY WHOM?
Compassion can be found in strange places.
In the middle of the war, an unidentified thief broke into the home of the bereaved parents of Gal Meizles z”l who fell in the helicopter disaster near the Lebanese border in February 1997.* First the burglar turned the drawers in the dresser in the master bedroom upside down, but when the thief entered Gal’s room, his eyes fell on the plaque and their son’s rifle mounted on a stand with an inscription from his unit. The intruder left the apartment empty-handed, but not before leaving a hand-written note: “I didn’t mean to, Really, I didn’t mean to.”**
Gal’s father Arieh Meizles asked the police not to pursue the matter. (Ynet)
* In the mid-air collision of two IDF helicopters. Gal was one of the 73 causalities.
** In Hebrew: “Lo hitkavanti, b’emet lo hitkavanti
IT ROCKS!
Who said when the cannon roar, the muses are silent?
When Hamas released a song on YouTube with lyrics in broken Hebrew rhyme about how they would hunt down Israelis who ‘hid behind walls and mamadim’* and would crush them “like cockroaches,” with a chorus that exhorts “t’kof t’aseh biguim”** (attack, make terrorist attacks), in-your-face Israelis turned the genocidal ditty into a farce – posting parodies on the Internet, including one which responded to the original voice track that promised to “rock Israelis with appalling blows” and “exterminate all the Zionists” with footage of Israelis of all walks of life – in cafes, on the beach, on the street – rocking to the catchy tune*** symbolically thumb their noses at Palestinians. Another response took the music and changed the lyrics to say it would “teach terrorists that you don’t threat us”- inserted footage of the IDF response to Palestinian rockets and Hamasniks coming out of tunnels, with a chorus that repeats “You don’t mess with Israel…You guys look pathetic.”)
BTW: The New York Times that told Honest Reporting that there were no good photos of Hamas terrorists in action so they were ‘forced’ to air only footage of Palestinian non-combatants? Now they have no excuse. (Tzinur Lilah Channel 10)
* ‘safe rooms’
** because Arabic has no ‘p’ the word for a terrorist attacks – piguim – came out bigu’im in the mouths of the Balestinian vocalists.
*** There is even a classical improvisation for piano…
HEART OF DARKNESS
No, Robin Williams wasn’t Jewish, but the degree of dismay and sorrow felt around the world at his tragic suicide was reflected in the fact that two pages of Yediot were devoted to 8 eulogies…in the middle of a war.
Against the backdrop of people in Germany marching down the streets chanting “Gas the Jews,” one eulogizer recalled how when Williams appeared on a German talk show, the host asked him – ‘How is it Germans are tagged as lacking a sense of humor, and we Germans haven’t produced one decent comic?”
Without so much as batting an eyelash, Robin Williams skewered the host with the piercing reply – “Perhaps because you killed them all.” (Yediot)
WHO’S THE ENEMY, YOU SAY?
Gaza has an Unknown Soldier monument – not just Great Britain and France, Portugal and the United States, to mention a few. But, Allah be praised, the Palestinians have given the theme “unknown but to God” a new twist in light of the shortage of visual documentation on Hamas combatants hiding in underground passages – literally an ‘army of unknown soldiers’ ignored by the international press.
During the first 72-hour cease-fire, also faceless Gazan non-combatants gathered in Gaza City’s Unknown Soldier Square to demonstrate their undying support for Hamas, cheering when the organization’s spokesperson Moshir al-Masri declared that the battle would be renewed, despite the consequences – an event that also somehow ‘escaped’ the radar of the international press. (Israel HaYom)
Yisrael HaYom Friday August 8, 2014, pg 11
Right: Young participant in Hams Demonstration (AP)
Left: Hamas demonstrators in Gaza, yesterday (Reuters)
DORMS FOR SDEROT FROM WHAT???
It makes you wonder, what was he thinking?!
Minister of Finance Yair Lapid announced the government will establish a 150-unit ‘student village’ in Sderot made out – you’re not going to believe this – recycled shipping containers!
Now, for a start, can you imagine the acoustic every times there is a Red Alert???
Nice idea if this was Switzerland, but since it’s Sderot we’re talking about, besides a pair of ear muffs, it might be wise to at least integrate into the floor plan of the studio flats the Home Front Command’s metal clothes closet that can be instantly* turned into a standing-room-only ‘safe zone’ in times like these, a contraption discussed in a 2012 Report from Grad Alley by this writer. (Yisrael HaYom)
* Hopefully in 15 seconds flat.
HUMOR THEM
Remember the UN’s complaint discussed in Column V that Israel had not given Gazans an Iron Dome system? Well now they have one!
See the video “Operation Gaza Dome” (Yisrael HaYom)
WHO SAYS ‘NOT EVERY DAY IS PURIM’?!
Among the businesses in the south looking to pick up some extra business from patriotic Israelis who want to patronize their establishments as a sign of solidarity is a boutique beer and ale brewer from moshav Dekel in the Western Negev named Yitzak Levi who apparently is either so smashed he “can’t differentiate between Haman and Mordechai”* or he hasn’t read a newspaper in over a year.
The brand name of his boutique beverage of choice?
I kid you not: ISIS Beer!** (Israel HaYom)
* In reference to Purim, the Talmud states that one is to drink to the point of not knowing the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.”
** For readers who also don’t read the papers, ISIS is English for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria…al-Dawlah al-Islāmīyah fī al-Irāq wa-al-Shām, also known by the Arabic acronym DAISH although Levi swears Isis is also the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess.
About the Author – Daniella Ashkenazy
I am a seasoned bilingual Israeli freelance journalist, born in Washington DC, raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, and living in Israel since 1968.
For over two decades I’ve published commentary, columns and features, serious and light, in Israel’s leading print media and newspapers and periodicals abroad. That includes the second-oldest Hebrew paper Davar, the Hebrew economic daily Telegraph, the Hebrew news weekly Haolam Hazeh – all defunct due to no fault of my own. My copy has also appeared in English in a host of Israel-oriented media including the Jerusalem Post, El-Al magazine and the Washington Jewish Week, and international periodicals such as The World & I and ID magazine.
The content of CHELM-ON-THE-MED© was gleaned from what we journalists call ‘soft news’ published in the Hebrew press. In fact, it’s not really new: A similar column ran for eight years in the late 1980s – early 1990s under the title “Gleanings” in the news monthly Israel Scene.
Today, in addition to CHELM-ON-THE-MED©, I write major features for the Jerusalem Post weekend magazine METRO that surfers can read for free online. For some samples of my other published work, past and present, access the links below.
For other writing – serious and frivolous just ‘google’ me.
A CHELM-ON-THE-MED
