Rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinovitch meets actor Michael Douglas at the Kotel, June 20, 2014

Jay Leno in Israel! Funny monologue at the Jerusalem Theater (Genesis Prize)

Last night, Jay Leno hosted the Genesis Prize ceremony in Jerusalem. Since my invitation got lost in the mail, and I have not seen any available video of Jay’s MC’ing, I looked to the internet to get more insight into Jay’s jokes. And there were apparently some real corkers!

Leno’s mostly political quips included references to ongoing media reports about the strenuous relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reminding the audience that May is Jewish American Heritage Month in the U.S., with Obama “calling it an opportunity to renew our ‘unbreakable bond with the nation of Israel.’ And he knows it’s unbreakable because he’s been trying to break it for the last five years.”

Leno also joked about U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s role in trying to broker peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in recent months, explaining he did some research ahead of his visit and that “According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, here in Israel the most popular boys name is Noam. Noam is the most popular boy’s name in the country. The least popular boys name? John Kerry.”

Leno familiarized himself with local indicted headline makers for his monologue, taking shots at former President of Israel Moshe Katsav, who is currently serving a seven years sentence for rape, indecent acts, sexual harassment and obstruction of justice, saying “Israel had some great leaders, David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin. People were really touched by them. Well, of course, not as many people as were touched by former President Katsav.”

A more recent aim was former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, sentenced earlier this month to six years in prison on two counts of bribery. “You guys are tough”, quipped Leno, “You sentenced your former Prime Minister to six years in prison — did you hear Olmert’s defense? Not the best strategy. He blamed the whole thing on the Jews.”

Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones in Israel for son's bar mitzvah

Tony Orlando Visits Families of Abductees

Popular American singer Tony Orlando calls on his fans to hang three yellow ribbons in solidarity with kidnapped youths.

Popular 1970s American pop singer Tony Orlando is currently in Israel, where he paid a visit to the families of the three teenagers who were kidnapped by terrorists last week.

According to The Associated Press (AP), Orlando has asked his fans to hang three yellow ribbons in solidarity with the youths, like in the line from his famous song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree”.
The hit song, which Orlando performed with the group Tony Orlando and Dawn, became an anthem when American prisoners of war returned from Vietnam, and again became popular with Americans with loved ones serving in Iraq.
"I want Israel to know that I intend to go back home and do everything I can to ask the people of America to tie those yellow ribbons, three yellow ribbons, to show support for the three young Israeli boys," Orlando said, speaking to reporters from outside the home of Naftali Frenkel.
"Our kids stray off on occasion, but we don’t expect them to be kidnapped. We don’t expect cruelty of mind. The only thing to hate is hate itself,” he added.
“Children should not be touched. To the captors: please bring those children home,” said Orlando.

Pamela Anderson honeymoons in Israel.. a little too much blond hair showing to be a real burka lady..

http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2014/01/pamela-anderson-honeymoons-in-israel.html

maybe Pamela Anderson is converting to join the Burqa ladies, but it is not very likely.. Anderson just remarried her ex-husband, Rick Salomon, and they immediately hopped on a plane to spend their honeymoon in Israel. In the above pictures, Anderson is visiting the Kotel..

Leonard Cohen - Yom Kippur War When war broke out on Yom Kippur in 1973, Leonard Cohen was touring on the Greek island of Hydra • He dropped everything, left his wife and son, and headed to Israel • "I will go and stop Egypt's bullet," he said.

Ariel Sharon with Leonard Cohen in middle of the Yom Kippur War. Sinai desert, October 1973

------------------------------------------

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn't.
Why don't you come on back to the war, that's right, get in it,
why don't you come on back to the war, it's just beginning.

-- from "There Is a War" by Leonard Cohen

When the Yom Kippur War began, Aharon (Yalo) Shavit, the commander of the Etzion Airbase in Sinai, telephoned his close friend, the singer Oshik Levi. "You have to come here and perform," Shavit told him. "This isn't anything like what we know. It's not like the Six-Day War at all. It's something completely different."

Levi did not hesitate. The next day he and his partner in the show, Mordechai Arnon, came to perform for the troops just before they entered the war.

At the same time, not far from the chaos in Israel, Leonard Cohen was in the midst of a performance tour on the island of Hydra in Greece. His wife Suzanne and his son Adam were with him. When Cohen heard on the news that the war had begun, he felt he had to drop everything and head for Israel from Athens to help in the national effort in any way he could. And so he did.

The original plan was to volunteer on a kibbutz even though he had no idea what a kibbutz was or what he would do there. The values that the IDF represented intrigued and attracted him, and he was determined to join the army and give of his talents. Cohen believed he would contribute significantly to the Israeli struggle. "I will go and stop Egypt's bullet," he said, with a measure of bravado, in one of his poems.

It was not the first time Cohen had tried to feel close to war. The war stories of his father, who had fought in World War I, influenced him deeply, and Cohen loved to look at his father's photo album, which was filled with photographs of him in his uniform, holding his gun.

On his return to the United States after performing for Israeli soldiers in the outposts of Sinai, Cohen would say in an interview, "War is wonderful. They'll never stamp it out. It's one of the few times people can act their best.... There are opportunities to feel things that you simply cannot feel in modern city life."

Driving to the Hatzor base in a Ford Falcon

The next morning, Levi started his day in Pinati, a well-known Tel Aviv cafe, gathering strength for his show with his friends. He says that when he raised his head, he could hardly believe that the object of his admiration, Leonard Cohen, was sitting near him and speaking to the actor Ori Levy. Once he got over his shock, Oshik Levi approached Cohen, introduced himself and began to chat with Cohen and Ori Levy. Cohen said he had flown to Israel out of "a sense of mission and a desire to take an active part in the war," as he described it.

While Cohen was considered a well-known singer in Israel at the time, he was not yet so famous that people identified him on the street. But Levi, a huge fan of Cohen's, certainly did. "Cohen heard that the situation in Israel was really not good, so he came to help the Jewish people in any way he could," he said.

Cohen wanted to volunteer on a kibbutz for as long as he was needed, as a kind of temporary kibbutznik. Levi says that to him, the thought of Cohen working as a volunteer seemed to him "a total waste." From his extensive experience performing for the troops in previous wars, Levi knew how important it was to raise the morale of soldiers about to go into battle, and the powerful significance of performing for wounded soldiers returning from the war, physically and emotionally scarred.

So Levi decided to persuade Cohen to join his group of artists, which included himself, Mordechai Arnon, Matti Caspi and, later on, Ilana Rovina. "I talked him out of the idea of volunteering on a kibbutz. I told him: 'Come with me and perform for the troops.' At first, Cohen didn't like the idea at all. He was afraid that his sad, depressing songs would have the opposite effect and only make the troops and the wounded soldiers feel worse. When Levi assured him that it would be all right, Cohen joined them that very day.

"I drove to the hotel with Pupik [Mordechai Arnon] and Matti [Caspi], and we headed toward the Hatzor base in a 1961 Ford Falcon I had," Levi recalls. He adds that Cohen had no idea where he was going, and he was afraid of the things he would see and even of the dangers on the way. He had never been so close to war, and Israel at that time was in a state of chaos -- there were many losses, and the reports upset him. Levi remembers: "All the way there, we tried to dispel each other's fears. None of us -- not we, and certainly not he -- knew what he might be getting into."

A musical escape from hell

The first performance was a kind of test run for the musicians. Matti Caspi went on stage to accompany Cohen on the guitar. This was a tough job for a person whom many considered a musical genius and who was used to writing complex melodies. Cohen's songs were based on three or four chords only.

The fact that there were no decent conditions to hold a show in -- certainly not the kind Cohen was used to -- did not bother him. He went up on stage with a classical guitar and no amplification but a single microphone that a soldier volunteered to hold for him.

While quite a few of the soldiers didn't know who Cohen was, others identified his songs and his voice, and were very touched that Cohen had come to Israel to be with them during those difficult times. For those who knew Cohen, his show was an extraordinary event. After all, it was not every day that they got to be present at a private, intimate performance just for them. It was a musical escape from hell. During one show, before Cohen sang "So Long, Marianne," he told the soldiers: This song should be listened to at home, with a drink in one hand and your other arm around a woman you love. I hope you'll have that soon.

In the meantime, two shows were set up for the group. During a break between them, Cohen sat in a corner, writing. When he stood up a bit later, he was holding a paper with a new song, "Lover, Lover, Lover," which quickly became one of his most popular songs. The song is a conversation between the speaker and his father, who says to him at the end of the song, "And may the spirit of this song,/May it rise up pure and free./May it be a shield for you,/A shield against the enemy." During one of his performance tours after the war, Cohen said, "This next song was written in the Sinai desert for the soldiers of both sides." Another interesting anecdote: One of the songs Cohen performs often in his shows is "Who By Fire," which is taken from the liturgical poem "Unetanneh Tokef," which is recited on both Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and on Yom Kippur.

The trip to the Hatzor base that Sunday was the opening shot of the group's improvised tour, which lasted three months and included many performances, sometimes as many as seven or eight in one day. The group ran from base to base and from hospital to hospital, and Cohen believed it was important to get involved and speak with the soldiers, from the highest-ranking commander to the newest recruit. He admired them simply because they fought.

The time he spent in Israel was hard for him. Besides the day-to-day fear of shelling from every direction, Cohen had a fear of performing for soldiers shortly before they went into the hell that was Suez. Levi and his friends remember some particularly tough moments, such as when they met the soldiers for whom they had performed a few days before in the hospital after they had been wounded. The sights were hard for everybody and particularly for Cohen, who was being exposed to war for the first time in his life.

Everyone who met Cohen and spoke with him during his stay in Israel describes him as modest and gentle man who wanted to connect to and feel the audience he sang for. "On some of the bases we went to, I tried to get him preferential treatment, a room to sleep in, decent food instead of army rations. But he wouldn't allow it," Levi says with a smile. "The three of us slept in sleeping bags in the canteen or anywhere else we could sleep. He never complained about anything, not even once."

At the time, Mordechai Arnon was very interested in astrology, a subject that was close to Cohen's heart. Another subject he loved was the principles of Greek philosophy, and he and Arnon would discuss philosophy far into the night.

Cohen found relief from the war and the terrible things he saw by writing in his notebook, which he took with him wherever he went. It was a kind of travel diary where he felt free to pour out his heart, writing about the times when the terrible things he saw overcame him and made him weep, about the beauty of the desert that captured his heart, the love between soldiers that moved him, and, of course, about the soldiers who had been killed and wounded.

Occasionally, they would arrive at an outpost or a trench in the dark, and they had no idea where they were or whom they would find there. One time, the group was asked to appear for several soldiers standing around a 175 mm artillery gun. In the midst of the ad-hoc show, the officers asked them to stop singing for a few moments so the soldiers could load the gun and return fire. Only afterward did they get permission to resume the show, at least until the next interruption.

"Committed to the survival of the Jewish people"

Even though those were dark days, the war still furnished fleeting moments of joy and excitement. Shmuel Zemach, the chairman of the Association of Impresarios and Stage Producers and an impresario himself, will never forget the show on the Golan Heights after the Golani Brigade recaptured Mount Hermon. One of the most important outposts in the north, Mount Hermon earned the nickname "the eyes of Israel," an expression coined by Benny Masas, a combat soldier of the Golani Brigade's 51st Battalion. The price of victory was steep: roughly 80 killed and dozens more wounded.

"Even the soldiers who came back from the battle shouted, 'We've captured the eyes of the country.' At that very moment, we were asked to bring the artists up on stage," Zemach recalls. "The excitement, energy and joy, mixed as they were with terrible sadness, created the most moving performance I ever saw in my life. It's a show I will never forget."

For Cohen, the end of his mission came the moment politics began to trickle into the war. Cohen had decided to come to Israel to give of himself for the good of everyone as long as diplomats weren't involved in the war. Once the tables turned and Israel had the upper hand, the Americans pressured Israel to agree to a cease-fire -- pressure that reached its peak during Henry Kissinger's visit to Moscow. The formula for a cease-fire was accepted in the Soviet Union, and the cease-fire agreement later became Resolution 338 of the U.N. Security Council.

Once the talks began, Cohen stopped the tour of ad hoc shows, left Israel and returned to his home in the U.S. About a year later, he was quoted as saying: "I've never disguised the fact that I'm Jewish, and in any crisis in Israel I would be there. I am committed to the survival of the Jewish people."

Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli: Israel Left a Very Powerful Impression on Me

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, the best-selling classical musician of all time, said, writing in the Daily Mail on Sunday, that of all the stops in a long career of world tours, Israel was one of his favorites, .

“Places in the world I have especially enjoyed include Israel, which left a very powerful impression on me,” he wrote in the Mail ahead of the release this week of his latest album, “Love In Portofino.”

Last year, he also confessed his love of Israel to the UK Telegraph. “A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform but it was one of the few places that I’ve visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there,” he said at the time.

Bocelli visited Israel in 2011 performing at Masada in collaboration with members of the Rishon Lezion Symphonic Orchestra and the opera choir. Prior to that he visited the Jewish state in 2008 as part of a celebration for President Shimon Peres’s birthday.

Bocelli write in the Daily Mail that touring takes up lots of his time. “Unfortunately, when I’m performing, the schedule usually takes me from the hotel to the concert hall and then to the airport. If I made more time when I’m abroad, it would mean spending less time at home with my family. And my family is the most important thing to me,” he said.

“My favorite concert is the one I do every year in the Teatro del Silenzio (Theatre of Silence), an open-air amphitheater situated in Lajatico, my home town. The theater hosts a concert by me once every July and lies silent the rest of the year. I perform here with special guests and it’s a wonderful occasion. Come to Tuscany for its beauty, but come next year and enjoy my music too,” he enthused.

Bocelli, who was born with glaucoma and lost his sight at the age of 12, has won fans across the globe and has sold over 80 million albums worldwide.

ELDER OF ZIYON: Jordanian band defies BDSers, tours Israel

From the Times of Oman:

This week, a Jordanian band went on a tour that included the Golan Heights, Nazareth, Haifa, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. But the popular music group which is rated as one of the top five in the region faced a concerted social media and online attack as having participated in a politically unacceptable act.

The attack focused on the fact that the band members received visas from the Israeli embassy in Amman. They are accused of normalising with the Israelis. Entry into Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Nazareth or Haifa is not possible without a visa.

The permits issues by the Palestinian Authority in coordination with and after the approval of the Israelis are valid only in West Bank cities like Bethlehem and Ramallah.

The band, Autostrad, identifies itself as "an Ammani world, reggae, funk band from Jordan". Fronted by lead singer Yazan Alrousan, Autostrad was formed in 2007 with guitarist Hamza Arnaout, keyboardist Wisam Qatawneh, bassist Avo Demerjian, saxophonist Bashar Abdelghani and drummer Burhan Ali.

The online and social media campaign was launched by a number of young Jordanians and Palestinians, including some who are citizens of Israel.

In an article published on a number of progressive sites, the writer says the band is welcome to Palestine only after it is liberated. A hashtag with "come after it is liberated" also went viral as attacks against the music group mushroomed.

Autostrad members reject the accusation of normalisation and insist that they are visiting their country upon invitation from credible Palestinian organisations and will sing to Palestinians and Syrians living under Israeli rule.

It's not like Autostrad loves Israel. Quite the contrary:

Arnaout was quoted on a website that getting a visa was the only option available.

"We are Jordanians and Palestinians and this is the only way we have to enter our homeland Palestine and no one can stop us from doing our work."

But this is a big loss for the "Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel" which defined this trip as breaking their rules for normalization.

Even the author of the piece, Daoud Kuttab, criticized PACBI:

After 65 years of Nakbeh and 46 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights, having a group of unelected individuals decide who is a patriot and who is a traitor does not serve the overall cause.

Ray Hanania made a similar point in Saudi Gazette, slamming the haters:

The extremists, who are a minority faction in our Arab community, step in and bully the mainstream Arabs into silence. Arabs are afraid to stand up to the extremists who often direct their hate and anger against Arabs even more than they do against Israel. So the mainstream Arabs remain silent. It’s better to not say anything, the moderates mistakenly conclude, than to stand up to the fanatics.

My Week in Israel with Dr. Oz By: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu shows Dr. Oz and Rabbi Shmuley the challenges Israel faces from its neighbors in the Middle East. Everything over the past week was memorable and magical as Dr. Mehmet Oz, America’s foremost daytime TV host and the world’s most famous doctor, toured Israel. From dancing the horah outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, to dancing Friday night at the Western Wall with Israeli soldiers and thousands of worshippers, to meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu for ninety minutes of substantive conversation about Israel, Turkey, and the United States, Dr. Oz and his family showed the Jewish state extravagant love and admiration. Mehmet is a remarkable man and seeing him up close reinforced the high regard in which I have always held him, ever since we started working together for Oprah at her radio network. First there was his attention to his children, all four of whom accompanied him, along with his son-in-law. Mehmet would go nowhere without them and pulled them in to hear every last explanation about Israel’s ancient and modern history. Then there is his dedication to his wife Lisa, a remarkable and brilliant woman in her own right, and vastly knowledgeable of the Bible. Lisa was correcting me constantly on Biblical quotations (I purposely got them wrong so she could feel superior). Mehmet is a man who honors his wife at every opportunity. Of course, there were the legions of fans – Jews and Arabs in every part of Israel – that pleaded for a picture and he turned noone down. But more than anything else there was his attachment to the Jewish people on display at every moment. Mehmet is a Muslim, perhaps the world’s most famous Muslim who is not a head of state. He is a righteous and proud Ambassador of his faith and feels an innate kinship and brotherhood with the Jewish people. He praised Israel constantly, from lauding its treatment of its minority citizens at our joint lecture at Rambam hospital in Haifa, to noting Israel’s phenomenal medical breakthroughs at several news conferences, to highlighting his amazement at Israel’s capacity to turn deserts into thriving cities. In Hebron, at the tomb of the patriarchs, we prayed together publicly for peace and understanding between the children of Abraham. At the tomb of Maimonides we noted the role reversal. Maimonides, a Jew, was the world’s most famous physician, and he served the Muslim ruler Saladin. Now, a Muslim doctor – the world’s most famous – was visiting his Jewish brothers in the Holy land 900 years later. Joined with Natan Sharasnky at the Jerusalem Press Club for a public discussion, the three of us debated whether there was an obligation to hate evil. Mehmet maintained that hatred harmed he who harbored it, even for the best of reasons. On this Sharasnky and I disagreed. Natan spoke of the evil he encountered in the KGB. I spoke of Hamas’ genocidal covenant and Hezbollah’s commitment to annihilating Israel. Terrorists deserved our contempt. Only by truly hating evil are we prepared to fight it. In the end we compromised in agreeing that hating evil should not be obsessive and internal but rather externally directed at neutralizing those who slaughter God’s innocent children, whoever they may be. As I walked Dr. Oz and his family through the old city of Jerusalem on Friday night, we passed through Zion gate, still riddled with bullet holes from the heavy fighting of 1967 that liberated the city. At Shabbat dinner at the home of Simon and Chana Falic, my friend Ron Dermer, Israel’s newly appointed Ambassador to the United States, explained to Mehmet that even after Israel conquered the Temple Mount in the Six Day War it left control of Judaism’s holiest site to the Muslim waqf and that such an action had no precedent in all human history. Ron said that there could no greater illustration of Israel’s desire to respect its Muslim citizens and seek peace. At the Christian holy sites, like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, and Muslim Holy Sites like the Dome of the Rock and the vast Muslim crowds that filled mosques for Ramadan, Dr. Oz saw first hand how Israel is a country of thriving religious liberty. But the highlight of the visit was the conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu where Ambassador Dermer joined Mehmet and me as we heard the Israeli leader deeply engage Mehmet about Israel’s search for peace and the challenges it faces with the destabilization of Syria and Egypt on the one hand, and the changes in its relationship with Turkey, on the other. The Jewish state needs more visitors like Dr. Oz, with vast global followings, to highlight the justice of Israel’s cause. These trips should never be about propaganda but rather presenting the facts as they are. Israel’s best case is made by Israel itself. I told Mehmet and Lisa, with whom I deepened an already special friendship, that I had no interest in presenting Israel as a perfect country that never made mistakes. Rather, Israel is a just country, committed to righteous action, that struggles to do the right thing amid existential threats from every side. It is a small nation that is home to a people who have vastly contributed to the positive development of human civilization yet have been victimized throughout history and now simply wish a secure place among the nations. One need not agree with Israel on every detail on policy but is self-evident when visiting that its large heart is in the right place. It was providential that our visit to the Holy Land ended on Sunday, August 4th, mega-philanthropist Sheldon Adelsons eightieth birthday. We flew to Turkey where Dr. Oz, the country’s biggest celebrity, was to hold a press conference. As we left we called Sheldon and his wife Dr. Miriam Adelson, whose addiction clinic we visited in Tel Aviv, to thank them for making the trip possible. Because that’s how it works. People who love Israel are infectious and produce other people who love Israel.

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/america-rabbi-shmuley-boteach/my-week-in-israel-with-dr-oz/2013/08/05/0/ | The Jewish Press

Dr. Oz Travels to Israel

The symmetry of our religions dwarfs our differences. Using values as our compass, we can transcend the obstacles we encounter on the road to living in peace. I am traveling to Israel to explore that great land and these ideas.

America's most famous doctor to visit Israel Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of Emmy-winning "The Dr. Oz Show," will visit Israel for first time on July 28 • "My being of Turkish descent, I have always appreciated the ties and deep friendship shared between the Turkish people and the Israeli people," he says. Boaz Bismuth

<< 1 2 >>

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the most famous doctor in the United States, will come with his family to Israel on July 28, his first visit to the country. Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, is likely to garner considerable fanfare because his television show, "The Dr. Oz Show," is broadcast in 118 languages, including in Israel on the Health Channel.

The show recently won, for the third consecutive year, the Emmy award for best show. His books have also sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into 40 languages, including Hebrew.

"I'm very happy to be coming to Israel," Dr. Oz told Israel Hayom. "My being of Turkish descent, I have always appreciated the ties and deep friendship shared between the Turkish people and the Israeli people, and me being an American I have always appreciated the deep friendship between Israel and the American people," he said.

Dr. Oz is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit.

The renowned doctor is convinced that the warm and deep bond between Israel and Turkey will persevere. In the interview that will be published in full this weekend, Oz speaks of his father, also a doctor, who still lives in Turkey, about his father's mentor who was Jewish, and about his friend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and how his appearance on TV helps his viewers improve their health no less than the heart surgeries he still performs.

He also tells Israel Hayom what he would want to do if he were not a doctor.

Dr. Oz will arrive in Israel accompanied by "the most famous rabbi in America," Shmuley Boteach, who has written 29 books, among them "Kosher Sex."

The two were first acquainted on Oprah Winfrey's radio show.

"It has been years since I've wanted to bring a giant figure such as Dr. Oz to Israel," Boteach told Israel Hayom on Wednesday.

Dr. Oz, along with Elie Wiesel and Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, were recently honored at This World: The Jewish Values Network’s inaugural Champion of Jewish Values International Awards Gala. The Adelsons are behind the initiative to bring the famous doctor on his first visit to Israel.

From Chicago to Jerusalem: The Jesse White Tumbling Team

JEWISH PRESS: Sharon Stone – The Evil of Beauty Trust us, Sharon - if there was a way we could have made peace in the last 65 years, we would have done it. By: Paula Stern

Sharon Stone at a panel of the 5th President's Conference, 2013.
Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90 

Wow…where did that title come from?

Okay, let’s go with it.

President’s Conference – Tomorrow 2013 – Jerusalem…

Amazing speakers, amazing accommodations – at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center – 5,000 people, 2,900 flew in (or were paid to come in), 450 journalists – wow, what a gathering. I’m honored to have been asked. I feel a bit of a fraud. I’m not a journalist. I mean, I am, a bit – but mostly, I’m a blogger and mostly I’m a writer, and mostly, I’m just an Israeli.

I listen through ears that have heard explosions. I see through eyes that have witnessed the aftermath of terrorist attacks. Speaker after speaker has the nerve to come here and tell us we are strong and therefore we can make sacrifices for peace. Really, I want to ask them – will it be your son, your daughter that is sacrificed? Will you pay to rebuild the homes destroyed by rockets?

I have longed for peace in a way that Sharon Stone and so many of the speakers on the podium cannot imagine. It was never her son on the border; it wasn’t her awake in the middle of the night checking the news to see what exploded and correlating that to where her loved ones were.

Welli Dai, CEO of Marvell, talked of the similarities between being a Chinese mother and a Jewish mother.  Robert LoCascio, Founder and CEO of LivePerson spoke of the differences between an Italian mother and a Jewish mother. Sharon Stone speaks of being a mother to three children she has adopted and the irony that God places before us is amazing because it was at that time that Chaim sent me a text message asking me if I was here. Chaim was in the same room, a reminder from God that you can love a child not born to you and a message that for all that I did not like Sharon Stone’s preaching, it wasn’t fair to call her less of a mother because the children of whom she spoke were not born to her naturally.

So as with too many of the others, Sharon Stone came to tell us that peace rests in our hands. That we have to push and take risks.I find myself more annoyed by her than by most of the speakers. I’m not sure why. Personally, I found her references to “comfort zones” demeaning and condescending. First, because she assumed we live in a comfort zone and second because, having incorrectly decided that is where Israelis live, she urged us to get out of our comfort zone.

In her misguided view of Israel, she thinks peace is something that we can make alone. Peace is something that needs a partner – to put it in terms that Sharon Stone may understand – like dancing, perhaps even like sex. If you want to do it right…well, never mind, you get the idea (if only Sharon Stone would).

Sharon Stone felt it important to tell us that she views herself, at 55, as “hot and sexy.” I’m glad for her but what that has to do with Israel, I’m not sure. More importantly, what does a career creating fiction have to do with our lives here? Why does she feel capable of coming here and telling us what we have to risk?

I enjoyed hearing about her life and her work. I like the fact that she is an advocate for peace and women’s rights. I guess what bothered me is her assumption that we here in Israel are any less pro-Israel or any less informed.

Trust us, Sharon – if there was a way we could have made peace in the last 65 years, we would have done it. We’ve tried withdrawing from land – we did that in 1956, we did that for the Egyptians and the Jordanians. We pulled out of Gaza and gave back a piece of Lebanon that the UN even thought we could keep. Trust us, Sharon – the lack of peace is something we feel every day but your concept that we move out of the comfort zone is insulting.

We aren’t in the comfort zone – those who ran from six missiles a few days ago feel no comfort when they go to sleep. Those of us who have had sons and daughters serve feel little comfort for the entire time they are in uniform.

There is a part of me that wants to be a bit nasty – I did a bit of google and found that Sharon Stone is involved with a 27-year old man. She’s free to live her life as she wishes but as I approach my 30th wedding anniversary with the same man I have known and loved since I was 18 years old, I find the analogy grows more evident.

Sharon Stone has every right to live as she wishes. It is her life – as it is ours. She should live and be well, as the saying goes, and not come here to tell us how to make peace (or how to build a lasting marriage). She has no experience with either – what peace has she built? What marriage has she maintained – what relationship, for that matter?

This is the danger of the President’s Conference – speakers come here believing they have the right, by virtue of their fame, to preach. There are few more capable of speaking of the Muslim world than Ayaan Hirsi Li; there are few more capable of speaking on the economy than Stanley Fischer. Though I disagree with Tony Blair, at least he has had direct experience in the world of politics. Dr. Ruth came to talk of interpersonal relationships but other than showing her love of Israel, she did not attempt to tell us how to live our lives in the political arena – though she did encourage us to hold hands more often (and do some other things that I won’t mention here).

Sharon Stone came here to show us she is beautiful – and she is. To show us she is vibrant, alive and still very capable of flirting. She had half the men in love with her and a fair amount hoping that her dress would slip just a bit higher (and lower).

But the evil of beauty is that it can be abused. Sharon Stone is a very intelligent woman. Perhaps she is qualified to speak on human relations; perhaps she can speak on motherhood. But on building a nation, providing for its people, negotiating a long-term, real peace agreement with neighbors that still, to this day, would rather destroy us than sit at the table with us? Sorry…no.

Visit A Soldier’s Mother.

Babs arrived in Israel last night, and was spotted at the Western Wall looking positively thrilled.

Ray Charles: Soul of the Holy Land - Trailer

Trailer for Ray Charles: Soul of the Holy Land. Concert documentary of Ray Charles' 1973 tour of the Holy Land. 
For more information visit www.xenonpictures.com

TABLET: The Rock Star’s Guide to Eating, Praying, and Loving in the High Security State of Israel Why Justin Bieber, Elton John, Madonna, and, yes, Alicia Keys, love to play Tel Aviv—and why Israel loves them back

It was the summer of 2011, and some of Israel’s best-trained security personnel were having a rough time: The perimeter had been breached, and before they knew it, hordes of hostiles were moving quickly, closing in on the target. All seemed lost, but men trained in close-quarter combat in Gaza and Ramallah and southern Lebanon are never without contingency plans. They didn’t disappoint: Before anyone could tell what was going on, an engine roared and a white scooter appeared from somewhere just by the waterline.

It was time to get Justin Bieber away from the paparazzi.

Before the photographers and the shrieking fans could give chase, the scooter whisked away the boy wonder into traffic and toward an undisclosed location. It was an Entebbe-like operation, rich with detail, the kind that makes Israel among the best places in the world for rock stars to visit.

Think of international artists performing in the Jewish state, and a parade of controversies comes to mind, such as the time Roger Waters used his visit as a platform totalk politics, the time Macy Gray came back from her visit and Tweeted that she regretted the whole thing, or the time Elvis Costello canceled his concert to express his solidarity with the Palestinians. And Israel’s concert promoters, a very small clique, hold the same stature as the country’s top diplomats, more accustomed to discussing politics than sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

What they’ve given the country in return is simple but priceless: Bieber, Elton John, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and a host of other luminaries who’ve performed in Tel Aviv recently, leading a renaissance in celebrity visits to Israel unseen since the heady and hopeful days of the 1993 Oslo Accords. For these entertainers, accustomed to the vagaries of touring, Israel is not a sensitive topic to discuss sotto voce, but a haven, a country seemingly engineered to provide itinerant performers with their very particular needs.

***

Rock stars, of course, never admit to having favorite cities to play in; every town is the greatest place on earth on the night of their concert. But any analysis of the exhausting business of international touring reveals a short but rigid list of demands that make the experience of waking up every morning in a different place possible for those who perform for a living. And security is on top of that list.

This is Israel’s greatest advantage. Elsewhere, the men entrusted with keeping feral fans and fearless paparazzi at arm’s length are hastily trained guards, maybe police. In Israel, they are veterans of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite units. And the service they provide is distinctly different.

“You don’t understand anything about security,” Rani tells me, “or about celebrities.” He doesn’t want his real name used—his business, after all, the business of shielding the rich and the famous, is all about discretion—but he’s in his late 20s and he’s tough and he’s jovial and so he can’t resist a few good-natured jabs. It’s early morning in one of Tel Aviv’s finest hotels, and a VIP—Rani won’t say just who but hints heavily that it’s Israeli President Shimon Peres—is on the premises. Rani isn’t part of the celebrity’s entourage, but of the “outer circle of security,” as he calls it: the hotel guards entrusted with keeping the perimeter free of intruders. And from his perch on the edge of the outer circle, there’s much he’d like to say about what makes Tel Aviv such an ideal town for anyone who, for whatever reason, has to take security seriously.

“All the hotels here, they have their back to the sea,” he said, adjusting his silvery Bolle shades. “That means only one entrance. They come in, they go out, same door. Your job is to stand and guard it.” I say that it doesn’t sound like a particularly difficult job and that you probably don’t need to be a veteran of Golani or the Paratroopers or any of the IDF’s other elite battalions to pull it off. Rani scoffs and tells me all about Bieber and the scooter and Madonna’s dinner, which was swamped by sweaty well-wishers who shouted at their idol, and other stories designed in part to impress me with his proximity to celebrity and in part to prove that orchestrating the steps of very big stars in a very small country is no mean feat. “Tachles,” Rani says, using a Hebrew word meaning, roughly, bottom line, “the thing these people care most about is their security. Everywhere they go, people try to grab them, touch them, kiss them. They need to be protected, and it’s what we in Israel do best.”

To Tair Kesler, an Israeli video blogger and sometime celebrity handler, all this talk of security is beside the point. The reason artists love coming to Israel, she says—an enthusiasm she says she’s witnessed numerous times, with artists ranging from Lady Gaga to the New York band Interpol—isn’t that Israeli professionals  know how to protect celebrities from pestering fans, but that Israeli citizens know better than to pester celebrities in the first place.

“I know this sounds very general,” she said, “but they really like our character. They look at us and see something much more sachbaky,” slang for friendly and unassuming. “It’s good here because people just talk to them.” In a nation like Israel, Kesler said, heavily burdened with existential concerns, a famous face is nice to see, but no reason to lose one’s cool. “Here no one is screaming like they do abroad. It’s much calmer here. We see these celebrities as people. We’re less excited than other places; other places care a lot about celebrities, but here we have bigger things to worry about.” This nonchalance, Kesler said, is a major curiosity for stars accustomed to chauffeured limousines and exquisitely catered dinners. Visitors are driven around in jeeps and taken to a succession of decidedly unglamorous spots.

Alice Walker calls on Alicia Keys to boycott "evil" Israel

Novelist Alice Walker recently called on Alicia Keys to cancel her planned July performance in Tel Aviv. In an open letter, Walker alleged that Israel was the world's "biggest terrorist" and that suicide bombings were "last-ditch resistance," even as the acts of terror have resulted in the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians, including children. "It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists. A cultural boycott of Israel…is the only option left to artists who cannot bear the unconscionable harm Israel inflicts every day on the people of Palestine, whose major ‘crime’ is that they exist in their own land, land that Israel wants to control as its own. This is actually a wonderful opportunity for you to learn about something sorrowful, and amazing: that our government (Obama in particular) supports a system that is cruel, unjust, and unbelievably evil…Please, if you can manage it, go to visit the children in Gaza, and sing to them of our mutual love of all children, and of their right not to be harmed simply because they exist," Walker wrote.

Barbra Streisand to play two more gigs in IsraelSinger/actress to perform twice in Tel Aviv, as well as at an event marking Peres’s 90th birthday

Barbra Streisand will perform in Israel on June 15 and 16, as well as at the opening ceremony of Shimon Peres’s annual Presidential Conference, the legendary Jewish-American singer and actress announced Saturday.

Earlier this week, Streisand announced that she would perform in Israel on June 18 at the opening ceremony of Shimon Peres’s annual Presidential Conference, which will also honor his 90th birthday. On Saturday, it was announced that she had added two more gigs to her Israeli tour — at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium.

Streisand, 70, has visited multiple times and is known as a supporter of Israel, but her June appearances will mark her first official performances in the Jewish state.

Her visit will occur during a rare European tour organized by concert promoter Live Nation, a company that has a working relationship with Israeli promoter Shuki Weiss.

Israeli fans and various promoters have attempted several times to organize a performance by Streisand at a large venue, without success.

“I tried to bring her to Israel, alone and with other producers, and it was always difficult… [They wanted] very large sums of money,” a veteran concert promoter told Mako. “It seems that this time, according to the circumstances, it fell on Shuki Weiss [to do it].”

Weiss has been responsible for bringing many international acts to Israel, including upcoming visits by Depeche Mode and Alicia Keys.

Streisand is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with 140 million records sold worldwide since she began her career in the early 1960s, and has also had a distinguished acting career in movies, television and on the stage. In 2012 she issued her 33rd studio recording, “Release Me,” and embarked on a successful world tour, only her fifth major tour since 1966.

The Israeli Presidential Conference, which runs June 18-20, attracts some 4,500 attendees and features 200 leaders in their fields, including former heads of state, academics, scientists, journalists and artists.

-------

On May 13th, a marquee gathering began in Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s sixtieth anniversary. Over three days, political leaders and writers including Henry Kissinger, Bernard Henri-Levi, Amos Oz, and President George W. Bush made speeches, and symposia on weighty topics, ranging from the scientific foundation of creation to the nature of Jewish identity, were held. Also this month, in New York and Los Angeles, live concerts featuring Matisyahu, David Broza, and Paul Shaffer marked the occasion. In Times Square, videos featuring stars such as Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller, and Dakota Fanning wishing Israel a happy birthday are appearing on two giant screens twice every hour. And on June 1, New York’s annual Salute to Israel parade will offer birthday wishes, as will yet another concert—this one on the Mall in Washington, D.C., hosted by Mandy Patinkin and featuring Regina Spektor.

But while the cable news channels are broadcasting the speeches of international dignitaries in Israel, and PBS stations will have some specialty programming—New York’s WNET will show Visions of Israel, an aerial tour of the country—the big networks are pretty much avoiding the occasion. Typical of the cable coverage: CNBC packaged a series of reports on the Jewish State under the banner “Israel at 60: Business Under Fire”; CNN International, for its part, ran Israel at 60, which showcased the country’s technological achievements, its ethnic mix, and its struggle “for acceptance and peace with its neighbors.”

All this is well and good, but certainly a far cry from the thirtieth-anniversary celebration that ABC broadcast—in prime time—on Monday, May 8, 1978, and simulcast in Israel. The two-hour extravaganza, The Stars Salute Israel at 30, featured icons of the day: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Carol Burnett, Sammy Davis Jr., Kirk Douglas, Gene Kelly, Billie Jean King, Barry Manilow, Paul Newman, Bernadette Peters, and more. Sally Struthers of All in the Family cheerfully sang “Happy Birthday Israel” with a group of children. Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz on ABC’s number one sitcom, Happy Days, was paired with Henry Fonda in an unlikely skit: a sabra (Winkler) encountering an Old West cowboy (Fonda) in the desert.

Yet this was mere prelude to the big finish: Barbra Streisand. With a big head of era-appropriate permed hair, she first sang three standards (“Tomorrow,” “People,” and “Happy Days Are Here Again”), then conducted a conversation via satellite with Israel’s former prime minister, Golda Meir, who appeared on a gigantic video screen, holding a clunky telephone receiver, gracefully answering Streisand’s fawning questions. (“How did you manage all these years to have so much energy? Did you take vitamins?”) After the chat came the pièce de résistance: Streisand singing “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem. Introducing the song, whose title means “the hope,” Streisand said, “Let us light candles on both sides of the world in the hope that people everywhere will be inspired to work for peace and love and the betterment of all men.” Attendees in Los Angeles’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion held aloft light sticks as their counterparts in Israel raised candles. No fewer than 18.7 million American households tuned in. Now Streisand’s performance is enjoying a second life: More than 366,000 people have watched it on YouTube since it was posted in 2006.

Streisand had been scheduled to sing at the festivities in Israel this year, but in late April she backed out, citing “personal obligations.” If she had made it to Israel this time around, it’s unlikely that as many people would have seen her appearance as back in a time when network TV really meant something—when shows in the top twenty attracted at least fifteen million viewers. (These days a show can reach the number twenty spot with just eleven million viewers.)

Two months before the thirtieth anniversary, Israel had suffered its deadliest terrorist attack. Palestinian terrorists who came by boat from Lebanon killed thirty-five Israeli civilians. Israel responded by invading Lebanon, a weeklong incursion that ended when the United Nations Security Council mandated Israel’s withdrawal and the posting of UN troops.

But this was also, as Streisand said, a historical moment of hope: six months earlier Sadat had traveled to Jerusalem, raising the possibility of lasting peace. And two years prior, Israel had succeeded in rescuing all but three of 105 hostages from a hijacked Air France plane in Entebbe, Uganda—a daring raid that became the subject of two made-for-TV movies, one of which appeared on ABC. The chief and founder of ABC, Leonard Goldenson, was an outspoken advocate of Israel (according to one account, when he showed up unannounced at Golda Meir’s doorstep in the 1960s, she thanked him for his devotion to the nation and invited him in), so it’s no surprise he greenlighted the thirtieth-anniversary spectacular. ABC also had a proclivity for quirky programming, like Battle of the Network Stars, the biannual special in which you could see, say, Scott Baio and Billy Crystal competing in an obstacle course race, with Howard Cosell announcing.

One of the writers of The Stars Salute Israel at 30 was Buz Kohan, who wrote or cowrote dozens of TV award shows and celebrations, as well as a variety program marking Israel’s twenty-fifth anniversary five years earlier, The Stars Salute Israel—25. That program—filmed at the Western Wall, with Alan King hosting—aired on ABC on a Thursday, at 11 p.m. in some markets and 11:30 p.m. in most. It featured performances by Rudolf Nureyev, Isaac Stern and, in one of her final appearances, Josephine Baker. (Because of its late night airtime, its Nielsen ratings aren’t available today.)

Five years later, Israel’s embassy turned to Charles Fishman, a jazz producer who had formerly served as the national director of Young Judaea, for help in planning the thirtieth-anniversary celebration. Fishman had brought Stan Getz to Israel in 1977, a trip filmed for the 1978 documentary Stan Getz: A Musical Odyssey. “How do you break away from the late night television?” Fishman remembers asking himself. “I sat back and said, ‘What would be the hippest thing to do? What would be the biggest star-power thing to do?’”

No other Jewish American performer of the time was as big as Streisand. This was little more than a year after the release of A Star Is Born, which had garnered her an Oscar for the song “Evergreen.” Fishman enlisted producer James Lipton, now famous for Inside the Actors Studio, and director Marty Pasetta, another award-show veteran, and set to work getting Streisand. She was interested, but had her own conditions: She wanted to sing accompanied by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. So that’s exactly what she got. And with the strength of Streisand’s name, Fishman and company sold the show to ABC.

In the days before the show aired, Kohan and Mehta went to Streisand’s home to help her prepare. “She wanted to sing ‘Hatikvah,’ only she didn’t know” the song, Kohan recalls. Kohan picked up the phone, called his wife, Rhea, and asked her to sing the song to Streisand. “I hope she’s not intimidated,” Rhea quipped before launching into it.

Streisand’s preparation worked. For the organizers, the result was transcendent. “She was remarkable,” says Kohan. “Everybody was impressed with the last twenty minutes of the show.”

Even with all of this year’s celebrations, including the celebrity testimonials in Times Square, it’s hard to believe that Israel’s birthday was once celebrated with a TV program watched by more than eighteen million Americans. “To this day,” Fishman says, “it’s the only time that a foreign nation has been honored on network TV on prime time.”

Alicia Keys: Israel Will Inspire

Girl on Fire, Alicia Keys, must not bow to pressure by racist
anti-Israel groups who want her to cancel her Tel Aviv 2013 summer
concert.

Girls on Fire don't back down!

This video was produce by www.creativezionistcoalition.org. Want to support Israel? Wear a Jewish star pendant on Israel Independence Day. Click here to find out how you can be a Jewish star: www.beajewishstar.com.

Lyrics by Orit Arfa and Lara Berman; Video/vocals: Orit Arfa 

LYRICS:
She a miracle, besieged by liars
A dream now reality, love is her highway
She's living in a world that won't inquire
Filled with catastrophe, but she knows she can lead the way

Oh, she got the good on her side
But they keep bringing her down
Oh, haters scream so loud 
But she's not backing down

Israel will inspire
Israel will inspire
She'll fly even higher
Israel will inspire

Fair and just, you can't defame
So bright, will you hear her cries
As terror tries to have its way
They can try but they'll never destroy her name
Israel's the light the world
No matter what the terrorists say

Oh, she got the good on her side
But they keep bringing her down
Oh, haters scream so loud 
But she's not backing down

Israel will inspire
Israel will inspire
She'll fly even higher
Israel will inspire

Everybody hides, as she fights on
If they could see the truth that's in her eyes
Watch her as she stands up for her rights
Nobody knows that she's a shiny pearl
And it's a lonely world
But she gonna tell the truth, baby, truth, baby

Israel will inspire
Israel will inspire
She'll fly even higher
Israel will inspire