Reviews

Alt and Indie Discoveries at Jacob’s Ladder

May 6, 2013

Jacob’s Ladder is having a musical identity crisis. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Now in its 37th year, Jacob’s Ladder is best known as Israel’s preeminent folk, country, bluegrass and Irish music festival. Held twice a year at Kibbutz Ginosar north ofTiberius, the spring version just concluded this past weekend. And while there was ample evidence of […]

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Musty Smell, Fine Food

April 14, 2013

I’m not sure if the oddly wafting odor of mold, or was that mildew, emanating from the walls of Racha, a funky restaurant in the center of Jerusalem specializing in Georgian food (the country, not the U.S. state), was intended to be part of the experience. Perhaps the smell was meant to evoke memories of […]

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Israeli Spotting at the Super Bowl

February 4, 2013

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday and, as always, the commercials were often as unforgettable as some of the bolder plays on the field. For Israelis, the spot to watch was GoDaddy’s promotion of its web hosting service featuring Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli. The video is all over the Internet and has racked up a stunning […]

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Christmas Carols and Coexistence in Jerusalem

December 26, 2012

I can’t remember the last time I heard Christmas Carols sung live – not in the 18 years that I’ve lived in Israel and before that probably only on TV and radio for years. But this Christmas Eve, we attended the YMCA’s annual Christmas Carols Concert. The official reason: our 14-year-old son, Aviv, was performing […]

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On Journalists Who Write Fiction

December 24, 2012

A who’s who of Anglo Jerusalem journalists and other well-wishers came out on a blustery winter night last week to cheer on one of their own. Ilene Prusher, a former international foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and more recently working locally at The Jerusalem Report, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, has just published her […]

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New Israeli-Made Documentary Takes Us to the “Fringes” of Jewish life

December 19, 2012

The most remarkable thing about Paula Weiman-Kelman’s new documentary, “Fringes,” is how unremarkable it is. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Rather, the Jerusalem-based filmmaker’s latest movie, which opened to a sold-out theater at the Jerusalem Cinemateque’s Jewish Film Festival last week, presents the lives of three communities on the “fringes” of Jewish […]

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Israeli Wine Tasting Festival Grows Up

August 2, 2012

The first year we visited the annual Israeli Wine Tasting Festival held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2006, there were a modest number of wineries all lined up on the single gently sloping outdoor passageway from the museum entrance until the main buildings. Six years later, the festival has grown – and grown […]

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Srugim Co-Creator Tells All in Jerusalem Lecture

May 3, 2012

For its three season run, I was hooked on the Israeli TV drama Srugim. The program told the tale of four religious (and one formerly religious) young Israelis living in Jerusalem’s singles-centric Old Katamon neighborhood, affectionately known as the “swamp.” The show won praise from both religious and secular society – the latter were captivated […]

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Art in Umm el-Fahem

October 26, 2011

We visited one of Israel’s most unusual museums last week. The Umm el-Fahem Art Gallery, in the Israeli Arab town of the same name, is a small gem, way off the usual museum track, and absolutely worth the visit if you’re traveling between Tel Aviv and the Sea of Galilee…and even if you’re not. The […]

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Time Running Out for “The Clock”

October 19, 2011

It’s hard to know exactly how to describe “The Clock,” Christian Marclay’s award winning art installation, which is currently on display, if that’s even the right word, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Tour de Force? Spellbinding? Unbelievable? They all come to mind. The piece, at its most simplistic, consists of thousands of short film […]

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