Reviews

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

Poster advertising Laizy’s appearance in Jerusalem 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 […]

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Art in Umm el-Fahem

October 26, 2011

Ammar Younis has an exhibit at the Umm el-Fahem Art Gallery 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 […]

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Time Running Out for “The Clock”

October 19, 2011

“The Clock” at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem closes this weekend 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 […]

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Darkness at the Edge of Town

September 7, 2011

As the darkness settled over us, I felt an unanticipated sense of panic. I had been expecting to be unsettled, startled, certainly disoriented; I didn’t realize it would bring up so many deep and hidden emotions. To set the stage: my wife Jody and I were dining in the Black Out Restaurant at the Nalaga’at […]

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