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Editorial cartoon: The hardened bunker
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Orit Arfa
Gypsy 05
Inside the waiting area of Gypsy05’s solar-powered plant in downtown L.A., walls are decorated with brightly colored dresses and T-shirts alongside decorative hamsas, fashion magazine clippings, a “blessing of the business” in Hebrew, a picture of the Rebbe and certificates of recognition from American Solar Energy Solutions.
Israeli inventiveness gets local spotlight
When Noam Bardin demonstrated how Waze — a Twitter-infused GPS — got him from LAX to the Luxe Hotel on Sunset in 26 minutes during rush hour, several attendees at the third annual Israel Conference immediately took out their phones to download his app. “The closing of the 405 [in mid-July] is the best moment to look at this app and understand what it can do for you every day,” Waze CEO Bardin said.
Eat pray love, Israel style
Admit it, ladies. When you read Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir, “Eat Pray Love,” there were moments when you wanted to trade places with Gilbert as she gorged herself on Italian yummies, mined her soul in an Indian ashram and fell in love with a strapping Brazilian in Bali. But if you have a Zionist bent like me, you probably would rather spend your money in the Holy Land. Fortunately, the Jewish state can provide an “Eat Pray Love” experience without the Jewish guilt. Israelis are consumed by wanderlust, importing the best of what they find in the tastiest, most spiritual and most romantic places in the world.
Art house bucks multiplex trend in Herzliya
It’s not easy to find the Cinematheque Herzliya. The name is written in simple block Hebrew letters over the awning of an indoor strip mall located on Sokolov Street, the main artery in this central coast town. The obscurity is a sharp contrast from the American-style multiplexes located at the major malls near the entrance to the city, like Cinema City, Israel’s largest, or the Rav Chen. A strip mall isn’t a place where one expects to find a cultural venue. There’s an old-fashioned barbershop, a dry-cleaning store, a mom-and-pop-style household goods store and a nondescript clothing boutique. The Cinematheque was built on the grounds of the building’s old movie theater, once a local hangout until multiplexes decimated Israel’s early theaters. But the location couldn’t be more fitting for the cozy art house: It was founded on the belief that good films aren’t always about bombast, glamour and big names. Rather, they’re down-to-earth, independent and hard to find.
You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Need Pickup Advice
Neil Strauss has a Jewish name: Tuvia, from the word tov, meaning good. It was given to him by a college buddy, Dustin, who became a religious Jewish mouthpiece in “The Game,” Strauss’ best-selling book about his exploits as a pickup-artist-in-training and bible to sexually frustrated men all over the world.
Mining salt's potential
The Dead Sea has some competition — in Encino. Salt Chalet, the first wellness center of its kind on the West Coast, has brought the healing properties of the Dead Sea within reach of Southern California residents in the form of rooms coated and infused with Dead Sea salt.
Israeli ‘Poison’ Wraps Up Fashion Show
When the Israeli electro-rock-pop band Terry Poison strutted onto the stage at the Hollywood Playhouse as the headliner act of the after-party for Israel’s debut at LA Fashion week on Oct. 14, most audience members — largely Israeli ex-pats — got up to dance, though some stayed behind to scratch their heads. The band wore metallic spandex bodysuits and wild makeup and played synth-based instruments to songs with English lyrics that sometimes sounded like an esoteric robotic language. It was a performance that could easily have been taken for an avant-garde art installation.
The Making of ‘The Chosen Dish’ - a JewishJournal.com Webseries
Britney’s Three-Year Old Fan: Not Jewish, Sadly
Thinking Outside the Matzah Ball Box
When the Israelites rushed out of Egypt, Pharaoh’s men on their heels, they hurriedly bundled their belongings, food included, to carry as much as they could on their backs and donkeys. Seeking to nourish themselves throughout their desert journey to the Promised Land, they rolled together unleavened bread crumbs, eggs and oil to create a round, nutritious finger food. They heated these in water jugs, along with chicken bone scraps, to preserve them and give them flavor. And that’s how matzah ball soup was born.
The Making of ‘The Chosen Dish’
Prior to becoming a food writer and restaurant reviewer for The Jerusalem Post, I always thought of kosher food as limited and bland. But Israel demands competitive kosher cuisine — hotels generally adhere to kashrut laws; corporate lunch meetings must often accommodate observant clientele alongside secular counterparts who’d prefer a Tel Aviv bistro serving sautéed shrimp. This is true even though, at the same time, at the heart of Israeli culture are Jews who, no matter how much they like to think of themselves as the new Hebrews, still fondly recall their grandmother’s traditional kosher Jewish specialties.
Israel’s Melting Pot Is on The Stove, in the Oven
As the melting pot of the Jewish people, Israel has produced a melting pot of Jewish and world cuisines. Through historical narratives, vibrant illustrations of local eateries and practical recipes, Janna Gur’s recent “The Book of New Israeli Food” (Schocken, 2008) captures the story of Israeli food coming into its own as the fusion of Ashkenazi and Sephardi, the exile and Zion, the old and the new.
Songwriter Solomon Finds Depth, Soul in Jewish Roots
Songwriter Sheppard Solomon won’t be watching the eighth season of “American Idol” now in full swing, even though the singing contest has gotten him a lot of work.
Circumcision—the Ed Hardy way [VIDEO]
Saaks is the exclusive T-shirt mohel (circumciser) for the fashion lines of French designer Christian Audigier. He specializes in Ed Hardy, the line incorporating designs of American tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy.
Britney repents for Rosh Hashanah [VIDEO]
The Land of Hollywood—Eretz Hollywood
TV ‘terrorist’ plays Jewish hero on stage
I remember Gush Katif
Extra Extra: How to get a SAG voucher
Go ahead, gogle me
If someone's life is not worth at least one page of Google search results, does that mean he hasn't accomplished or written anything of enough import to be broadcast online?
Dating dramas
I don't allow myself to become vulnerable. I don't honestly share my likes and dislikes, my strengths and insecurities. I worry too much about what the guy wants to hear rather than what I truly want to say.
The industry, Israel and idealism with Danny Sussman
"To be a good talent representative that's part of the entertainment community and a productive citizen, you need to feel part of something larger than yourself," he said. He speaks in whips, charging the room like a bulldozer, imparting us with his wisdom, interspersing the F-word here and there for dramatic effect.
The Industry, Israel and Idealism with Danny Sussman
Israeli and Palestinian shed their armor in ‘Desert Sunrise’
The play opens in the south Hebron hills in the West Bank with Tsahi, an off-duty Israel Defense Forces soldier, pointing his gun at Ismail, a Palestinian shepherd. Having just broken up with his settler girlfriend, Tsahi is lost and seeking a way back to the main road. Ismail, waiting for his girlfriend, is the only one who can help Tsahi find his way.
VIDEO: Extra Extra—Orit travels to Beirut
VIDEO: Orit’s Adventures in Hollywood: Extra, extra—view all about it
You don’t mess with the Orit
Sex and the column
We passed the time examining everyone's shoes and chatting witha 50-year-old mother of five kids who'd brought her 18-year-old daughter to see the movie
10 dating tips for men
Invest in her interests, but sincerely. There is nothing more attractive than a man who gets to know the heart of a woman by investigating what is important to her
Sabra love
I've been considering giving up on Israeli men, at least the purebred Israeli men, the sabras. What's painful is that I say this as someone who has made my home in Jerusalem, and I am hesitant to make harsh generalizations about Israeli bachelors, especially as Israel celebrates its 60th.
Leave Israel alone!
Inspired by Chris Crocker’s infamous and passionate YouTube appeal for people to leave Britney alone in the wake of her failed performance at the MTV 2007 Music Video Awards, Orit from Israel has created a passionate appeal to the world community to LEAVE ISRAEL ALONE!
‘The Comfort Girls’ satisfy in three part harmony
The desert air was balmy and hot. The almost-full moon hung over palm trees and the fireflies glittered amid a spotlight's beam. More than 1,000 people sat on the blanketed stone bleachers of the outdoor amphitheater at Mineral Beach for the Passover Dead Sea Music Festival, waiting patiently for the Israeli trio, HaBanot Nechama (translated as "Comfort Girls"), to hit the stage.
Debra Winger explores Jewish/Arab day schools
Students at the Hand in Hand Max Rayne Bilingual School in Jerusalem didn't know they were meeting a celebrity. They weren't born when the films "Officer and a Gentleman" and "Terms of Endearment" garnered Debra Winger her Oscar nominations.
No food will be wasted if Joseph Gitler has his way
Rescuing excess food from Israeli corporate cafeterias on a daily basis is just one of the projects Joseph Gitler conceived about five and a half years ago when, as a new immigrant to Israel, he decided he must do something about the disturbing reports of poverty in Israel.
I WANT 2 TXT U UP
Sometimes I wonder if the SMS was created not to ease communication between people but to protect the egos of single men and women. By asking people out by text, they don't actually have to hear a blatant "no." And if the other side accepts the offer, SMS courtships already set low standards of communication.
A letter to my secular friend in Tel Aviv
Let me tell you why you should feel for these yeshiva students: Because while you don't identify with them, they identified with you. I'm sure they might have reserved their own, passionate critique of your secular Tel Aviv lifestyle, but they sat in that yeshiva not merely because it gave them joy and a spiritual high, but because they wanted you to be safe.
Coming soon—a Jewish liberal arts college
"The idea of the Jewish liberal arts college began with the question: What would Jews or non-Jews interested in the Jewish perspective need to study in order to think about the biggest questions from a perspective that's relevant to Jews," Yoram Hazony said in an interview in his office.
They’re saving me from ‘spinsterhood’
And the man who uses the pick-up line "let me rescue you from your early 30s neuroticism" is definitely the wrong man.
Los Angeles area interfaith clergy visit Rome, Israel
Late last month, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 delegates of a weeklong interfaith mission from greater Los Angeles gathered in a circle at Yad Vashem's Valley of Communities, a monument carved out of bedrock to honor Jewish communities obliterated in the Holocaust. The cold morning foreshadowed the upcoming Jerusalem snowstorm, and the leaders representing Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim denominations warmed one another with words of conciliation and prayer, countering the chilly air and the chilling images of Jewish genocide they had seen a few moments earlier at the Yad Vashem museum.
I am not a fixer-upper!
Do I have a sign on my forehead that says, "Fix me up"?
Birthright Britney—come to Israel! (new video from Orit in Israel)
Culinary and cultural riches await visitors to the Galilee
A walking tour within non-Jewish towns and villages -- with or without guides -- can be an eye-opening, informative, tasty and heart-warming experience. On a recent tour in the Galilee focusing on different religions in the Western Galilee, I meandered through Muslim, Christian and Druze towns, as well as Baha'i landmarks, only to discover cultural richness, friendliness -- and some surprises.
Women: Put down your swords!
The mantra had jump-started the two-day workshop for women titled "Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women," which I attended not long ago at a conference room in a hotel near LAX. The program was created by a woman named Allison Armstrong, a self-professed expert on men, and it promised to foster better communication, understanding and respect between the sexes.
Where to party in Haifa, ‘the city that works’
Combining fact and fiction confuses peace event
I was not entirely comforted. I recalled a conservative propaganda movie about Islam warning people of taqiyya, the Muslim "mitzvah" of deception, in which militant Muslims put on a peaceful disguise for Westerners.
Israelis develop a taste for goats’ and sheep’s milk cheeses
As Israel becomes sophisticated gastronomically, consumers are favoring goat's and sheep's milk cheeses over cow's milk varieties. Unlike their bovine counterparts, most goats and sheep are free to roam and graze, antibiotics aren't usually a part of their diet, the cheese and milk contain less lactose and the taste is unmistakably distinct.
History and trends blend in Jerusalem as deluxe mixed-use center opens in historic area
With style, fanfare and fireworks, the $400 million Mamilla Alrov commercial and residential quarter opened its Jerusalem stone doors to the public on May 28. The only completed portion is a small section of the outdoor mall, but among its anticipated 138 stores are Israeli fashion chains and boutique shops, as well as high-end retail outfits like Tommy Hilfiger, MAC, Bebe, H. Stern and Ralph Lauren. To use a Los Angeles analogy, it may be fair to say that the Holy City has just welcomed its equivalent of The Grove.
Rita, Israel’s reigning diva, plays intimate evening in L.A.
Only Rita could have pulled it off. Her famous "One" concert was the first time any Israeli recording artist has attempted such an extravagant, multimedia performance. With its crew of 50 tumbling dancers, grandiose costumes, pyrotechnics and video art, the $5 million production looked like it came right off the Las Vegas Strip.
Rockets raining on Sderot take physical and mental toll on city
It's a smooth car ride to Sderot. There's very little traffic on this Sunday between Jerusalem and the battered city. Sunflower fields line the road and then the vast prairies of the Negev; it's difficult to fathom that only a few kilometers away rockets are raining.
High-tech company offers portable solutions for Israel’s shelter shortage
On May 20, Operation LifeShield, a nonprofit organization founded to provide emergency relief from missile attacks in Israel, unveiled in Jerusalem its transportable bomb shelters, dubbed "LifeShields," for use in public areas such as parks, school, playgrounds, hospitals and busy intersections. Each shelter is made of 12-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete, is large enough to accommodate 30 people and is built to withstand direct hits from both Qassam and Katyusha rockets.
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Who is that masked Jewish man? It’s Hero Man!
David Filmore is a mild-mannered filmmaker. A Shabbat-observant Jew from Australia who moved to West Hollywood 10 years ago, he spends his days focused on his production company, Plutonian Films. REMOVE
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