The Holy Crap! Scandal
Fresh off the press former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is corrupt… This can’t really be news. I mean I’ve known he was corrupt ever since he tried to hide his bald head with that ridiculous comb over. I said, “You can’t hide your comb over and you can’t hide the truth.” And here we are several years later suddenly (please read with a very sarcastic tone) breaking the news that the man is involved in a series of building scandals during his term as mayor of Jerusalem. Come on!!
First off, it is practically a national law to bribe municipality workers. I would do it if I had money to do it with. But that’s why young couples and students’ demands end up getting ignored by the city. Sure we want affordable housing, but we simply can’t afford to pay off the municipality workers who can make that happen. In fact, current Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat once gave a speech to a crowd of new immigrants expressing his shock when a young entrepreneur had his business shut down because he had not known to bribe the municipality workers. Bribing and power trips are old news.
What is shocking is to read about the other former mayor’s role in the scandal, Uri Lupolianski. I guess it still surprises me to see a super religious Jew fall so far from his holy teachings. Worse, Lupolianski 
allegedly laundered the money through million dollar donations to Yad Sarah, a charity for disabled and elderly people, which he founded in 1976. Is this a modern-religious man’s version of Robin Hood or did he end up pocketing the money and having hair treatments and spa time with Olmert? Time will only tell, since these men are obviously too corrupt to tell the truth.
But for those of us that live in Jerusalem and deal with the daily and disruptive construction (destruction), I think we knew awhile ago that something shady was going down. Or maybe it was just little-cynical-me. It just seemed like the expensive high-rises went up too fast but the pot holes on the streets never seemed to get fixed. In fact, the Holy Land Scandal is predicted to be just the first in a list of scandals. According to investigators the Mamilla mall, YMCA, Cinema City Project and Gilo Uptown project may all be linked to dirty hands.
While I may not be an official city investigator (who may also be accepting bribes by the above
mentioned people), I have my own predictions about Jerusalem scandals. Mainly I believe that Project Light Rail is as dirty as they come- and it’s not from all the digging…The project was also initiated during Olmert’s term and continued on in Lupolianski’s reign. Mayor Barkat even stated that the train was ‘built in sin’. The project never seems to end. For years they have ripped the city streets a part causing painful traffic so that they can build a train that goes from one suburb to another. The rails are not convenient for the average traveler and probably won’t make traveling easier or faster. But will make it more expensive. Between Egged’s monopoly on bus transportation and the evil train, most of us end up walking or paying for a cab (that gets stuck in traffic). You can try the bike route, but since the city never made special bike lines then your simple ride into the city is more like a death march. I’ve done it plenty of times and every time I get off the bike I want to kiss the ground.
So when you read the news about the dirty evil sinful stupid light rail train scandal just know that The Big Felafel broke the story first! As for the other news, there’s nothing new about it.
I heart NIS 5 Ice Coffee- But here’s why
It’s almost summer, but if you’re like me then you’ve been drinking ice coffee (also known as ice cafe or froozen coffee) all year round. However, with the heat about to go up a couple of notches, the ice coffee craze will also make waves of its own.
If you get addicted or simply can’t afford the amounts of delicious goodness you are consuming then let me help you out. If you’re an avid reader of the blog (which clearly every person that reads our blog is) then you’ve heard this spiel before, but now there’s more!
Marzipan, a bakery known for its gooey rugelach has been selling ice coffee for NIS 5 for the past three years. Every summer I worry that they will raise their prices, but I am happy to say that’s never the case. In fact these are some of the smartest Israeli business people I have ever known. Without any advertising and just word of mouth, they have managed to expand their shuk operation to a bigger store and open up a shop just off of Emek Refaim. And now the smartness (is that a word, ironic) continues with the expansion of their ice coffee treat.
Instead of just one ice coffee machine, they’ve now taken over the adjacent stall and opened up a row of machines featuring different flavors from banana (not a fan) to lemon-nana to sweet vanilla. You can even combine the flavors and each cup is filled to the very top. 
This is about as close to a slurpee that we will ever get to! I’ll have to stop writing this now since the mere thought demands that I go out and purchase yet another treaty-treat of ice coffee!
Marzipan I thank you for your continued support in my ice coffee addiction. You’ve allowed me to continue purchasing my favorite drink at a consistent low price and, forced other vendors to lower their ice coffee prices as well. But have no fear my loyalty is to you. I promise I will always drink your ice coffee and sometimes vanilla and a few times lemon-nana and continue to spread the word about your smart business ethics and amazing deal. I only ask that you have the same low price at your Emek Refaim shop where you would no doubt win over the hearts of people forced to pay NIS 18 at the coffee shops throughout the area.
The next sip is on me!
HaHaפuch Comedy Show- Just the Beginning!!
Well, the HaHaפuch Comedy troupe had our first show and we are already looking forward to the next one in March. The show, a mix of improv, sketches, videos, musical guest and immigrant innovation spotlight interview, finally got to share with the world, or at least the people in the audience how funny we find Israel to be. From our sketches on the new creation of Hummus in a Bag and the Stacy Spin-off Show (via Srugim) to a Q&A with the Rabbanout and our satirical news segment, we have only just begun our humor attack on
Israeli life.
Check out some of our videos from the show and let us know if you have any ideas for Israeli sketches. We want to hear from you about daily life experiences from job interviews to bureaucratic fights, to delicious food and bad dates. We 
plan to perform once a month at The Merkaz Hamagshimim Theater still at the same location in the German Colony. Every month will be a whole new show of improv, sketches, musical guest and more.
Become a Fan of our Facebook page
Israel is Funny: The HaHaפuch Comedy Show Feb.11
Do you ever stand in line for the post office or bank or ministry of interior or just the bus and feel so stressed out that no one around you seems to know where the line begins and ends? And you want to scream, but instead you just elbow everyone because you’ve learned that’s how you get around in this country, or at least in these so-called lines? Then you get to the end of the line and rather than feeling relieved you feel overcome with emotion and want to cry or scream? Then later when you tell your friend the story, you are both laughing about it, because it is so ridiculous and your friend can tell you the same story?
Well, if you follow any of that, and agree, then you need to come to the HaHaפuch Comedy show on Thursday February 11th. The comedy show is a variety of improv, sketches and videos that aims at making fun of life here in Israel. We will also have a special musical guest, a cappella group Kolture Shock and even a special segment called Spotlight on Immigrant Innovation, which will feature a new immigrant 
who is doing something great here in Israel. For our first show we are featuring immigrant Jonathan Miller co-owner of Asif Winery in Arad. Did I mention he only made Aliyah in 2006? Awesome! Miller will do a free wine tasting before the show and will sell his delicious award-winning wine. The show starts at 8pm but doors open at 7:30pm and that is when the wine tasting will take place so I strongly suggest you come and get it! There will also be cheap beer to add to the fun.
We plan to perform once a month at our current venue at the Merkaz Hamgshimim Theater in the German Colony. Check out the cool flier they made for us! And to learn more check out our Facebook page. Oh, and here is a clip for all you Srugim lovers, Stacy wants you to come to our show too!
Remember, Israel is funny. And if you don’t think so then you haven’t seen our show.
Watch Season 2 of Srugim ONLINE (Israel only)
Thanks to @avihein on Twitter for being the first to alert everyone that you can now watch “Yifat gets married”, the first episode of the second season of Srugim online. You can read what we’ve written about Srugim here and here. If you need to catch up and do a marathon of the first season – you can watch it free online [Israel only].
For the uninitiated, Srugim is an Israeli drama series (in Hebrew) about young religious singles and couples in Jerusalem. Srugim’s portrayal of life in Jerusalem is fairly accurate and it really touches on a lot of issues that come up for the 20’s and 30’s crowd in the holy city. The show really hits home – I literally ran into them filming a few times just walking around my neighborhood. It’s also really fun to try and figure out where each shot is filmed and to spot someone I know casually walking by in the backdrop.
As Molly wrote up, we were lucky to see the first 2 episodes at the Jerusalem Cinemateque with “Amir” (Amos Tamam), Laizy Shapira (director) and Chava Divon (co-director) from Srugim. Now I’m spoiled and want to watch the rest of the season with the whole cast! If you’re reading this, Srugim cast, you’re invited over to watch on my laptop (I don’t watch TV) as I hunt down each episode online! I’ll even make some popcorn. Yalla!
Other peeps talking about Season 2:
- Swamped with Singles – Jerusalem Post
- Weaving Together a New Season of Srugim – Jerusalem.com
- Laizy Shapira, one of the brave ones – Habitza.com
“Srugim” the show, I ask you: “איפה (Where’s) Ha-Anglo?”
'Amir' with the felafel ladies!
The ever popular TV show “Srugim” is about to start its second season January 10, 2010. But cool people like me and my co-blogger and skinny friend Rebecca have already seen the first two episodes. How did we accomplish such a feat? Well it was simple really, during Hannukah the Jerusalem Cinameteque held the preimere for the new episodes along with a panel of the show’s producers, writers and one of the actors.
I have to admit that for Jerusalem this was pretty cool. Rebecca and I had front row seats which we thought would be great to view the subtitles extra large, but unfortunately Hebrew Ulpan was hardcore that night with no subtitles and lots of Israeli slang. While the seats didn’t help our Hebrew lesson, they were great because we ended up right in front of one of the actors of the show, Amos Tamam, who plays Amir. In some ways it was weird, you know, was I supposed to laugh extra hard in the funny scenes because he was behind me? Should I have sighed when it was sad? It felt like I was on the TV show, not him!
Anyway, I won’t give away anything so no spoiler alerts, but I will say this: For a show that does a pretty good job depicting Jerusalem’s young religious and semi-religious and non-religious crowd, where’s the token Anglo!! If you remember back to the first episode there was Stacy the ‘American immigrant-reform-lesbian’ that lived next door and was handy for some morning tefilin, but since that appearance we have yet to bump into any Anglos on the street, in classes, or date anyone — which is just hard to believe.
Come on Laizy! That’s the writer and director’s name; I’m not just calling him lazy! Where’s the Anglo? Either bring Stacy back for more episodes, which I am sure Shira Katz, my improv buddy would love or get an Anglo supporting character in the cast. You must know there’s a lot of us watching and basically there’s a lot of us in Jerusalem. So as you start to write the third season please keep us in mind. And, if you can’t think of a plot or two, let me give you some starters- just know that if you use my ideas I want the credit or at least a pat on the back!
Plots:
- Stacy has a (insert Jewish holiday here) party and invites the building. Here the characters meet and become buddies. They share a Shabbat or two, hang out on Emek Refaim and drink like an Anglo whose under age!
- The Anglo turned immigrant turned student who meets Hodaya at school.
- Nati dates an Anglo girl. That’s simple fun and goes a long way.
- Nati dates Molly. Hey it could happen!
- Yifat has to design something for The Big Felafel. Molly and Rebecca make a star appearance later to have reoccurring roles on the show. Get it! We play ourselves, it’s pure genius! The blog will truly come to life.
- Nati wants some underage booty and ends up at one of those bars with the ‘Shana Alef kids’ we’ve all come to hate.
- While the gang hangs out at a café on Emek Refaim a Birthright group invades their space. But one of the members leaves a lasting impression on someone in the group. (it’s not porn, just romance)
- Amir teaches an Anglo Hebrew for extra money and ends up setting up the Anglo with either Nati or Reut (depending on if it’s a boy or girl).
- Reut meets an Anglo boy at synagogue over Kiddish- hott!
- Hodaya becomes friends with an Anglo at her bar who is also debating her level of religiosity.
Laizy, I got more if and when you want it! Just write us!
To join the Bring Back Stacy Facebook Group click here
Photo credit (thanks): Rebecca for the first photo and Dana Lavi Dekel for the bottom 2 photos
To watch the show’s first season for free online
Ode to Merkaz Hamagshimim
A few months ago I heard that Merkaz Hamagshimim was sold and moving to another location. All because of scumbag Madoff who lost $90 million of Hadassah’s money. I started reminiscing with others about what a wonderful “soft landing pad” The Merkaz was and how chaval (a shame) that it won’t be there in the same format for the next olim or would-be olim who come to Israel. The Merkaz was a combination of absorption center and community center located in the German Colony of Jeusalem. A place where you could live for a year on the cheap after making aliyah or while figuring out what to do in Israel and seeing if you want to move here for good.
If it hadn’t been for Merkaz Hamagshimim, I don’t know that I’d still be in Israel. It was while living in The Merkaz that I got to go to ulpan, work at an internship-turned-job, do Jewish learning, meet my would-be husband, meet co-blogger Molly and other friends, and the list goes on. In order to get a real sense of coming to Israel through a newcomers eye, I dug into group emails I had sent and found hilarious observations from my first year in Israel in 2004-05 while living at The Merkaz. Enjoy!
Arrival
I’ve arrived!!!!!!! Merkaz Hamagshimim is unbelievable. I love my room but am still slightly nauseous from the ride from the airport. Replace ride with crazy israeli driver. i think he thought it was six flags great adventure and that we were on a roller coaster. he was the only one that went weee. oy.
Walking to town
We timed the walk to town today, and with our new carefully planned route it takes about 20 minutes to the Conservative Yeshiva and 30 minutes to town. I know the time, not because I have a watch, which I don’t, but because I’ve been carryng around my clock. Every time I want to check the time I pull out a clock from my bag. Maybe I should tie it around my neck. Or get a watch. We’ll see.
My Room
My room is really cute, airy, breezy, and right across from a camp (I hope) where Abba’s “dancing queen” has been playing since 9AM. Sometimes they listened to it in hebrew for variety and sang along. To say the least, its been in my head all day. My room also has a stove top and a fridge. the stove top was SOOOO nasty, so i bought some cleaning spray, only to find out later it was really to polish wooden furniture. yeah for hebrew and the english i failed to pay attention to. way to go. but actually it cleaned the grime nicely and also turned it into wood, which was an added bonus.
Only two computers at The Merkaz
Thank you for your emails, i read them over and over (you know who you are who have been emailing) because i miss you and because i love staring at this computer screen, i have been at it for (gasp) the past 2 hours almost. i am hogging the computer at the merkaz (there’s more than 1) because i am far too tired to be social So last night after scrubbing my stove for 3 hours (or so it felt) i tried to fall asleep to the beautiful sounds of cats meowing. oh jerusalem, you will never cease to live up to your reputation of being infestd with stray cats, even for me.
The no-shake internship
This morning I met with the people that I will be interning for. It took me less than 20 minutes to walk there, which is great. The walk to work is so nice, with lots of flowers, and cute stores, and fruit stands, and i’m sure i won’t be able to resist the little bakery with fresh, warm, baked goods (my biggest weakness) so i’m really looking forward to it. The guys that I’m working for are really laid back and seem very nice. They are religious so there was no handshake (in case that was on your mind, now you know)
Awkward Change
Speaking of hands, I am sooo awkward, well in general, but more specifically at the supermarket, I extend my hand for the change but they always place it on the plastic counter. next time i will remember. woooops.
Supermarket Shopping
I went to the supermarket and pretty much bought everything in sight. How could I resist those sesame pretzels, and ‘vaflim’, and nutella, and cucumbers that I thought were zucchini. Woops.
Hebrew and Japanese
Ya caught me- i got nothin on japanese, but my hebrew is improving drastically. I love the people in my ulpan- i went to lunch with them and spoke hebrew for an hour. it was ‘fantasti’ .
Israel. week 25? Maybe. whos going to check.. honestly
What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been here for a while and am still very unsure of the future.
Discovering sabich
one more thing- food item called sabeech— amazing! ‘madheem’ wowsers. i hate eggplant but not sabeech eggplant, so fried and delicious and the pita and the hardboiled egg and wow. come visit and i’ll show you the best place.
Going on tiyulim
so i’m going on a Merkaz tiyul this weekend with hiking and biking and raking and caking and poking and soaking (?)
The Lingo
Rak Rega. (insert hand motion here which makes me want to curse out Israelis every chance I get)
Returning after a trip to the States
here i am. back in israel. as an israeli. more agressive? don’t think so. better hebrew? yes. better than an israeli? ehhh…
Making Aliyah
so i’ve gone and i’ve done it. the big A word. not the curse word, the other one. aliya. or aliyah. depending on how much you like silent letters.
Beautiful Sufganiyot
We may not have Dunkin Donuts here in Israel, so Chanukah time and Roladin bakery’s sufganiyot (Israeli version of donuts) are the closest we can get. Most sufganiyot could be confused with a roll – a big round piece of cakey bread, with a dot of filling which could fall off if you’re not careful. However, I think there are a few bakeries that really put in the extra effort (read: filling)
- Cafe Ne’eman – King George St. I recommend the white chocolate
- Marzipan Bakery – Mahane Yehuda Market & Rahel Imenu St., Jerusalem
- Roladin – Mamilla Mall [featured below]
Is it wrong to frame this picture and hang it over my couch? I think it’s beautiful. I recommend the chocolate chocolate flavor. Pure heaven. I think I’m gonna have to keep going back until I’ve tried every flavor.
Flavors include macchiato, halva, pistachio, vodka melon, banana, with all sorts of goodies sprinkled and added on top. For more sufganiya goodness, read Haaretz’s writeup.
“Safe Sex in the Holy City”
It’s World AIDS Day once again and we still don’t have a cure. That said we must continue to stay safe and informed about the disease. Here in Jerusalem it seems we’re more worried about terrorist attacks, getting jay-walking tickets or a spontaneous protest headed up by those crazy Haredis (see what happens when you don’t have TV, you have to make your own Entertainment at the expense of others). But the truth is, AIDS is a deadly disease in Israel just like the rest of the world. And even if it doesn’t make headlines like the Swine Flu, it’s still affecting your life and your loved ones.
Staying safe and informed is the best way to battle the disease until we find a cure and the Jerusalem Open House is the best way to do that. The organization has a weekly clinic open on Sundays which provides a free and completely anonymous rapid HIV testing service, as well as counseling, information and education about HIV/ AIDS. The clinic has also packed up their bags and visited other sites to give these free and anonymous tests. This World AIDS Day they will be at The Hebrew University’s Mt. Scopus campus giving those tests to students and staff alike.
As well as the free testing, the organization will be celebrating “Safe Sex in the Holy City” Thursday, Dec. 3rd at the Talpiot club ‘Campus’ where your NIS 40 entrance fee will support the clinic. The night’s festivities will begin at 11:30pm and rock on until the wee hours of early morning. Best of all there will be a drag show to keep us entertain while staying safe.
And so to get you in the party mood, I remind you of the World AIDS Day post I wrote about last year.
For more info about the organization check out their website or contact Shira at shira@joh.org.il.
Chanukah Time! Flash Mob in Jerusalem
In case you’ve been following my tweets you may have noticed that I’m obsessed with Improv Everywhere and the whole idea of going into places and doing random things to surprise strangers and cause a scene. Every time I’m in the central bus station or supermarket in Jerusalem, I just want to break into song and dance or freeze in place like they did in Grand Central Station in New York City or Tel Aviv’s version.
I finally got my chance to partake in a flash mob last Friday at Jerusalem’s popular hangout spot, the midrachov/Ben Yehuda St. Nefesh B’nefesh organized the mission, taught us the dance, and now, released the official video. Enjoy and Happy Chanukah!!
And if you still want more, here’s the Making of the Flash Mob Video.
Here are some of my other favorite Improv Everywhere videos:
The Big Felafel 