Entertainment

Sandy Cash’s Musical Journey

November 14, 2012

Local folk singer extraordinaire Sandy Cash didn’t set out to become an ambassador for Israel through music. She originally fancied a career as a rabbi. But 25 years in the Middle East have transformed the talented singer-songwriter and, with the release of her fourth CD, “Voices from the Other Side,” Cash’s musical message of hope, […]

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“Houses from Within” Returns to Jerusalem With More Trains

October 30, 2012

The annual “Houses from Within” weekend is one of my favorite Jerusalem adventures. The event opens tens of normally private homes and institutions to the public. Dwellings owned by artists like successful sculptor Giora Segal, who renovated a small house in Motza (not technically in Jerusalem) built on top of a Second Temple period cave, […]

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Maya Isacowitz is NOT boring

October 22, 2012

Last week, I wrote a blog post on Israelity with the headline “Aviv Geffen is Boring” to describe Israel’s bad boy of rock gone Muzak. That was anything but the case for another concert I attended a few days later. Maya Isacowitz is on the opposite side of the career spectrum from Geffen – just getting started and so […]

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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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Shmulik and Mushkie go to Kathmandu

June 8, 2012

Shmulik and Mushkie are not the kind of protagonists you usually see on Israeli television. The newly married Chabad couple are all set to begin their shlichut (emissary period) in Brussels when a last minute change of plans lands them in Kathmandu, just days before Passover, with the seemingly impossible task of organizing a mass Seder for […]

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Indie Rock Discoveries at This Year’s Jacob’s Ladder

May 8, 2012

Jacob’s Ladder is my favorite weekend of the year. Located at the picturesque Kibbutz Nof Ginosar, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, the festival is billed as “a unique bluegrass, folk, country, blues, Irish and world music extravaganza.” It is in equal parts a chance to catch up with old friends in a laid […]

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You Got Chocolate in My Wine! No, You Got Wine in My Chocolate!

January 19, 2012

I’m a big fan of wine tastings. And an even bigger fan of chocolate. So when I had the opportunity to visit the new Tishbi tasting center, which combines both wine and gourmet imported French chocolate, my interest was piqued. Moreover, my palette was proud of yet another Israeli innovation, not so much hi-tech this […]

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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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Celebrity at the Wedding

October 5, 2011

The young man in the light purple shirt and the small knitted kippa looked awfully familiar. He was sitting in the row in front of us at the chuppa of the daughter of close friends. My wife Jody went up to him. “I recognize you, but I can’t place from where,” she said. He held […]

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White Night Shines in Tel Aviv

July 5, 2011

On Thursday last week, Tel Aviv celebrated its 9th annual “White Night,” a city-wide party to mark the UNESCO declaration of Tel Aviv as “the White City,” in honor of its many (white) Bauhaus-era buildings. My wife Jody and I had never been to White Night (“Layla Levan” in Hebrew) – the throngs of revelers […]

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