I missed the first episode, but this definitely looks like a television show worth checking out –

“Obsessed: Reality TV That Doesn’t Make You Hate Yourself”

Posted by Lindsay –  “On Monday night, A&E premiered a new TV show called Obsessed, on which people with anxiety disorders attempt to conquer their obsessions and compulsions with the help of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And if the first episode is any indication, it’s incredibly intense, and also, so far, pretty awesome! Though the show is similar to Intervention in tone and structure, there’s no doubt that the subjects of Obsessed are willing, fully active participants in their own (hopeful) recovery, so it feels less exploitative. Continue reading…

Even as Tel Aviv turns 100 this year, there are quite a few people born before the city and who have seen Tel Aviv grow into the metropolis it has become today. In fact, municipal records list 350 centenarians who live in Tel Aviv. While the couple Sharon Udasin interviewed for her article in the Jewish Week have not reached that milestone themselves, they do have many fond memories of the city. Continue reading…

For all the young women who grew up with Felicity Merriman, Molly Macintire and Kirsten Larson 

Rebecca Rubin, first JEWISH American Girl Doll

– On June 1, meet 1914 Lower East Sider “Rebecca Rubin” — the Jewish American Girl doll for the next generation of young women. Good stuff! This development is long overdue, but at least it’s happening. Molly, Felicity and Kirsten (disclaimer: those were the three I owned) were certainly fun dolls and had interesting historical-fictional stories, but they also all had Christmas trees and Easter bunnies.  

I bet lot’s of Jewish girls will be asking their parents for a Rebecca doll this Chanukah.

Staff writer Steve Rothaus from the Miami Herald posted my article on his blog.

Or see here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2009/05/jewishweekcom-pride-of-place-in-tel-aviv.html

Also read about my articles on Isrealli, the State of Israel’s official blog!!

First post appears here:

http://www.isrealli.org/pride-in-tel-aviv/

“On her recent trip to explore Israel (and particularly Tel Aviv), Sharon Udasin was able to do quite a bit of reporting on some of the city’s most fascinating features. In this article, published in this week’s New York Jewish Week, she takes in some of the latest developments in Tel Aviv’s LGBT scene. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a specific neighborhood that’s the nexus of the LGBT crowd–instead she finds that the gay scene exists comfortably everywhere in the city. Plus, the article is a great introduction to some of the institutions and people that make up Tel Aviv’s gay culture. Enjoy the read; we’ll bring you more such dispatches over the next few days.”

Here’s what two weeks of reporting in the Holy Land can produce. I had such an amazing experience there, and I certainly produced a lot in

Tel Aviv at 100

a short time. Next step, really learn Hebrew. Please see my five articles below, as well as my friend Yoav Sivan’s editorial about the non-religious nature of the city.

Growing Up With Tel Aviv

  

“Tel Aviv developed a lot; it became the big city of the state,” Natan said, looking back through his seven decades as a Tel Avivian. But there is a sense of longing for his and Mirtza’s young days together. “Life was much better then,” Natan says.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

The moment he laid eyes on Mirtza Antin 74 years ago, Natan Abramovitch was determined to win a date with her. Little did he know that they’d end up fighting through a War of Independence together, witness the growth of a Jewish state and one day celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary as Tel Aviv — their city — turns 100 years old.

It’s still their city, sure, but the urban center that Tel Aviv has become is hard to recognize for them now, and they prefer to think back to the carefree days when they were newly married, and both they and their country were young.

“He had horses, he had a car,” Mirtza, told The Jewish Week over coffee and cake in the Tel Aviv apartment that she and Natan have owned for the past 68 years. Her youthful eyes glimmering under vibrantly dyed red hair, she poked fun at the handsome young man who she said “followed her around” for four years until they were married. “He was born specially for me,” Mirtza said. Continue reading…

How Green Is My Landfill

  

The Hiriya landfill, above, dominates the landscape from the highway below. Left, part of the state-of-the-recycling effort at the site. Photos by Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Just southeast of Tel Aviv, a huge mountain peak looms over the highway below, harboring swarms of flies and wafting scents of decaying garbage down its sprouting hills. The manmade mound — called Hiriya — may contain a colossal pile of trash, but the landfill is quickly becoming Israel’s icon of environmentalism: a space to recycle waste, produce energy and cultivate greenery.

Hiriya, named for the former Arab village of al-Hiriya, served as Israel’s largest landfill from 1948 through 1999. During that time, flocks of birds posed a danger to aircraft at nearby Ben Gurion Airport, according to Danny Sternberg, former Hiriya engineer and current CEO of Ariel Sharon Park, which is located directly below the landfill. Ten years ago, the government closed the dump and converted it into Israel’s largest waste transfer station, and since 2001 the site has been home to several environmental innovations, including what is being billed as a revolutionary water-based recycling project. By 2011, Steinberg said, developers hope to open Hiriya to the public — not as an odorous garbage dump, but instead as 2,000 acres of sprawling green landscape filled with bike paths and wildlife, two and a half times the size of New York’s Central Park. 

“It’s really the entrance to Israel — everybody who flies in sees this space,” Sternberg said. And revamping Hiriya is just one major example of the Tel Aviv area’s newfound efforts to become a greener, more sustainable place; the city is becoming increasingly filled with yellow recycling bins and new, tree-lined bike lanes.

Hiriya is part of no municipality and remains completely under national jurisdiction. Locally, the site is managed by the Dan Region Association of Towns Sanitation and Solid Waste Disposal board, half of whose members are from Tel Aviv, according to its chairman and deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Doron Sapir.

Yet the space is crucial to southeast Tel Aviv and the surrounding area as “an environmental social project,” Sapir explained, because it will drastically improve the quality of life in the area, which is known to be among the poorest sections of Tel Aviv. Continue reading…

Pride OF PLACE

  

“The real breakthrough was not the fact that [the LGBT Pride Center, above] was even built, but the fact that it was financed by the government,” says the center’s chairman, Etai Pinkas, inset. Photos by Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In San Francisco, the Castro district teems with gay life — there are drag shows, gay-run boutiques and the signature of the gay rights movements — the rainbow flag — seems to be everywhere.

In the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, gay life has taken root, transforming that West Side area into a mecca for men with well-developed pectorals in tight T-shirts and jeans, and for the wider the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

But try to find a “gay neighborhood” in Tel Aviv, believed to be one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, and you’ll come up short. Likewise, there are very few exclusively gay social establishments or bars in Tel Aviv — a sign of how well woven into the fabric of the city Tel Aviv’s LGBT community has become. This is due in large part to the city’s overwhelmingly accepting culture, observers say.

“I don’t think people ever felt particularly threatened, so that’s why there was no need to group up” in a gay neighborhood, Etai Pinkas told The Jewish Week. Pinkas, chairman of the new city-funded LGBT Pride Center, is having lunch at the center’s café and reflecting on the city’s gay community, the victories it has won and the unfinished work that stands before it. “Generally, LGBTs in Tel Aviv are very well integrated.” Continue reading…

‘The Great Neck Of Tel Aviv’

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

You can play the national pastime — the American national pastime, that is — on a baseball diamond in Ra’anana, one of the few fields of dreams in all of the country.

In this affluent Tel Aviv suburb, you can get Gatorade there, too, and American candies can be had on the grocery store shelves. And you can join the Penn Club and reminisce about the old college days in Philadelphia.

“I would say Ra’anana is the Great Neck of Tel Aviv,” said American Joel Leyden, president of the Leyden Communications group, founder of Israel News Agency and a Ra’anana resident for the past 10 of his 22 years in Israel. “Ra’anana really stands out as the most cosmopolitan, most modern town in the country.”

And while the influence of American culture can be felt in much of Israel, it’s particularly strong in Ra’anana, the suburb to beat all other Israeli suburbs, to hear the locals tell it. Continue reading…

Bauhaus Is Our House

  

Photo Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin

Cream-colored stone apartment buildings line nearly every street in central Tel Aviv, each varying slightly in shape and size but adhering to a loosely defined style of openness and movement that is particular to Israel’s “White City.” (In 2003, the area was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.)

Tel Aviv urban development began with the “eclectic style” of the 1920s, largely through the plans of Scottish architect Patrick Geddes said Jeremie Hoffmann, 42, the director of  Tel Aviv’s municipal Conservation Department. In the 1930s, Tel Aviv saw an influx of bourgeoisie, as well as famed architects from the German Bauhaus School eager to construct the stone buildings. Continue reading…

Temple OF THE NOW

by Yoav Sivan

Few cities define themselves by what they are not, but Tel Aviv prides itself on being the city that is “not” Jerusalem. Indeed, the distance between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is precisely that between a living-in-the-moment present and a layers-of-history past that can sometimes be a burden to creativity.  

In contrast to Jerusalem where you inhale thousands of years of history in a single breath, Tel Aviv lives today intensely. And much of that life gets lived in cafés. First-time visitors are in awe at the number of cafés a city of 400,000 people can sustain. You won’t find a block without a café and free wireless Internet. Tel Aviv’s coffee shops have become Israel’s modern temples for secular thought, where students finish their homework, businessmen conduct their meetings, couples meet for dates, friends hang out and artists hash out new ideas. These are the places to seize the moment. Continue reading…

Well, I found a new apartment.

Yet it was quite a difficult — and unexpected — struggle to get there. An almost movie-worthy scenario!

I wonder if finding an apartment in Israel is any easier — probably not. I also wonder if I can write a single blog post without mentioning Israel — probably not.

But anyway, back to New York. Keep in mind, I’m going to have to change a lot of the names and places that appear in this story to protect both my own safety and the identity of the brokerage firm, who have dealt with the situation very professionally in the end. After fumbling around on CraigsList and contacting 489859458 real (and fake) brokers, I finally found an apartment I liked Wednesday, and luckily it was on the market through a big, reliable brokerage firm — we’ll call it “NY Broker Firm.”

For some reason, however, I was suspicious of the specific broker with whom I was dealing, partially because he failed to answer any of my calls, e-mails or text messages promptly, as most eager-to-rent brokers would. So naturally, being a reporter, as soon as I got home that evening, I Googled this guy — we’ll call him “Boris” for the time being. Immediately, I found out that Boris was arrested last year for a couple different things, related to business fraud. Clearly, I didn’t want this guy having my social security number or my parents’ identity (because obviously, with the copious amounts of money I make as a journalist, I require guarantors for any lease. Well maybe not for an apartment lease in Sierra Leone, no offense to Sierra Leone.

So basically, my immediate next thought was to contact his team partner — we’ll call him “Ed” — who was significantly higher up in the company’s hierarchy than Boris. When my father found out about this, he was enraged and told me I was inappropriately overreacting and putting a guy’s job on the line for no reason. I’m sorry dad, but I don’t agree. You’ve always taught me to be fastidious about protecting my identity — and yours — and I was just doing what you’ve always told me to do. It was certainly not in my best interest to give a fraud felon access to my finances.

Up until I warned them, Ed and the entire company were unaware of Boris’s criminal past — though I don’t understand why because it’s the first thing that comes up when you Google his name. But regardless, Ed was going on vacation, so he put me in touch with another boss, whom we’ll call François. Eager to help, François contacted me nearly immediately to arrange a meeting so that we could move forward with the apartment. Meanwhile, Boris finally got back to me and was also asking me to come into the office.

I got to NY Broker Firm’s office at about 12 last Thursday, and as I entered the waiting area I saw Boris sitting in the glass-paneled conference room on my left — he gestured toward me, and then asked me to come in and close the door behind me. Stupidly, I consented. As soon as the door was closed, Boris began confronting me in a very threatening manner, tell me that he had found out through Ed that I had told the bosses he had been arrested. In retrospect, I tend to doubt that Ed actually told Boris the information, and I’m assuming Boris was just lying through his teeth to fish for information out of me.

But I didn’t think of this at the time and therefore didn’t deny what I did, and Boris continued his angry rant, telling me that while he wasn’t fired, his job had almost been on the line. “How could I do this to him?” he went on, claiming that the person in the Google stories was not him by pulling out a (presumably fake) driver’s license that had a different first name, with “Boris” as his middle name. Meanwhile, to this day, I’m nearly 100 percent sure that he, as his character would suggest, was lying because the Boris from the newspapers had the same master’s degree and worked in the exact same fields and the exact same places to the “t” as this Boris.

But after getting out of that uncomfortable situation, I ended up sitting down with François to make my deposit I the apartment I had loved, and I thought that everything was OK. Apparently, though, after NY Broker Firm investigated Boris that same mid-day, they discovered that yes, he was that same fraudulent Boris from the newspaper articles — and they fired him, which I found out a few hours later back at work, when I searched the NY Broker Firm Web site agents out of curiosity. Immediately, I was frightened (/hyperventilating in the work hallway) because I realized that Boris had all of my contact information, the address of the apartment I was moving to, as well as possibly my father’s Social Security number. Clearly, I could not keep this apartment. But the money had already been paid.

Thankfully, Lior came to my rescue and helped me negotiate with NY Broker Firm because obviously I was just upset and confused about this whole mess and had no idea what I was supposed to do. What’s funny is that François claims that Lior was fighting with him, but clearly, François had never been involved in Israeli bargaining — in Israel that’s not yelling, it’s normal conversation. So thank you, thank you, thank you to Lior. In the end, it turns out that the big boss of NY Broker Firm called me to thank me for notifying them about Boris, and he apologized to me profusely for the lack of professionalism. And on Friday, François and his partner were able to find me another apartment! Cheaper, in fact!

Obviously, this time I’m not revealing the address, but hopefully I’ll be happy there. Better be worth all the time and energy that went into this hunt.

Friend Jay Feinberg, Save A Life

Jay Feinberg: His Gift of Life’s new Web application seeks an increase in the 2,000 transplants it has facilitated since 1991.

by Sharon Udasin

In these days of tracking Tweets and finding Facebook friends, one organization is using the social media craze to try to save lives, through the click of a mouse.

The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation is launching a new Web application this week (www.giftoflife.org)  to recruit new donors to their 130,000-member database, hoping for a rapid increase in the over 2,000 transplants already facilitated by the organization since 1991. And in the face of economic struggle — Gift of Life lost more than $2 million in the Bernard Madoff scandal — it is asking people to create accounts, to spread the word and most of all, to pay for their own $54 cheek swab tests. Continue reading…

Israel Posts Pope Status Updates

by Sharon Udasin

As Pope Benedict XVI paid his first official visit to the Jewish state, the Consulate General of Israel in New York launched a Facebook application geared particularly toward Christian audiences, which employs photographs and multiple-choice quiz questions to test users’ knowledge of Israel. Through “Holy Land Trivia: From Creation to Creativity,” the Consulate hopes to expose people to Israel’s historical gems, from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Bahai Gardens in Haifa and the Bauhaus architecture of Tel Aviv. At the end of the quizzes, users receive their tabulated scores and have the opportunity to share the application with their Facebook friends and view further information about the places. This project is just one of many efforts of the Consulate to bolster Israel’s public image through social networking and other online mechanisms.

“The Pope’s visit gives us the opportunity to expose people to Israel’s historic locations as well as the modern Israel and all its many important sites,” said David Saranga, consul for Media and Public Affairs.  “Many people hear about Israel and the Holy Land in an abstract sense and we want to help develop their connection to the real place.”

The application is available through the Consulate’s Facebook page at www.israelfm.org/facebook.

Strength In Numbers

Elana Silber, Sharsheret executive director, left, and the group’s founder, Rochelle Shoretz, herself battling breast cancer. “What young women need is the ability to connect with young women with the same experience,” Shoretz says.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

When Sarah tested positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene five years ago, her decision to have both her breasts removed was a simple one ‹ her mother had died of the disease at the devastatingly young age of 42 and her grandmother at 49.

 Luckily, Sarah discovered a network of young Jewish women who had tested positive for the same gene, had gone through the same prophylactic double mastectomy procedure and had made it through the grueling recovery period with young children at their sides.

Through a New Jersey-based national organization called Sharsheret, she and thousands of other women have found valuable genetic counseling and personal connections, as they go through the hardest moments of their lives. Continue reading…

Exactly a week ago today, I landed back in New York after my two-week reporting odyssey in (predominantly) Tel Aviv.  Now that I’ve had time to get over the initial Israel euphoria phase/acute post-Israel withdrawal syndrome, I figured I’d write a bit about my experience there. During my two weeks there, I was assigned by The Jewish Week to conduct interviews and research for our upcoming Tel Aviv at 100 section (appearing May 22), but while there, I really was able to do much, much more. In those 14 days I think I learned as much as one entire year in college — no offense Penn, you know I love you.

Tel Aviv-Yafo celebrates its centennial

Of the four times I’ve been in Israel, this was the first time that my purpose was work, rather than vacation. But I enjoyed this experience as much or maybe even more than my prior visits — this time, though I might have been staying with Lior’s family, I was navigating the country completely on my own. After two weeks there, I think I have the map of Tel Aviv memorized, as well as the Herzilyya-Tel Aviv Merkaz/HaShalom train schedules and many of the local bus routes. Despite my (embarrassingly) minimal Hebrew abilities, I was able to get around with absolutely no problem, as if I had been to the country 100 times before. I felt completely at home. And another part of home had come with me in a way — my parents decided to take their first vacation to Israel while I was there reporting, and I was able to see them briefly a few times.

While on this trip, I interviewed and met with so many brilliant, interesting people — just to name a few: my new good friend and fellow journalist Yoav Sivan; deputy mayor and head of Hiriya environmental development Doron Sapir; director of the municipal LGBT center Etai Pinkas; head of conservation and architect Jeremie Hofman; one of the  mayor’s gay advisors, Adir Steiner; Technion environmental professor Emily Silverman, the only gay Knesset member, Nitzan Horowitz; Filipino caregiver Jonny; and the Abramovitches, a nearly 100-year-old Tel Aviv couple who have been married for the past 70 years and also appear in Centennial photographs by Dani Eshet.

Among the most interesting places I visited was Hiriya, the garbage dump turned recycling center, which is now being redeveloped into a huge park of greenery and wildlife — out of the way and near no public transportation, but definitely, definitely worth a visit. The innovation going on there is unparalleled, and engineers have devised such advanced recycling techniques that now only 20% of Israel’s waste ends up in landfills. I think that more and more, the world is recognizing just how advanced Israel’s science and environmental innovations have become.

In addition to Hiriya, another thing I was thoroughly impressed by was the municipality’s direct contributions to the city’s huge LGBT community. I feel like in the United States, gay organizations only exist through private funding, and this type of step is very honorable on Tel Aviv’s part — though, of course, they may have other motivations in keeping this population happy, with the sheer number of LGBT Tel Avivians involved in politics alone. Crazy/amazing that such a liberal city could exist just 45 minutes from Jerusalem.

Speaking of Jerusalem, I did spend one day there, where NY media consul David Saranga and press officer Noam Greenberg worked really hard to get me into the official Yom HaZikaron-Yom Ha’Atzmaut ceremony at Har Herzl. That evening provided a great window into the importance of Israel’s military culture and really emphasized the sacrifices that all Israelis make in order to keep the country a Jewish homeland. The ceremonies, which also paid tribute to Tel Aviv’s 100 years, quickly jumped from somber to celebratory, eventually bursting with fireworks. My only problem with that evening — I forgot to bring a sweater because I didn’t realize that Jerusalem evenings are about 20 degrees cooler than those in Tel Aviv. Luckily, the woman sitting next to me covered me in a blanket. Sure, Israelis are known for rudeness and brusque behaviors, but they should also be known for hospitality.

Yom Ha’Atzmaut I spent with my amazing friend Liron Mark and her family in Haifa, where we also visited the Air Force base at Ramat Avid — the one day of the year that the base is open to the public. Missiles and aircraft were on display, and war planes swooped in formation above in a sort of sky show. One thing that really, really surprised me while I was at this base, however, was the fact that nearly half of the many visitors there were Arab. Not Druze, but 100% (Israeli) Arab — and so many of the parents took photos of their kids in front of the missiles, as if this was a theme park. I really regret that I didn’t go speak with some of them, and ask them why they had decided to come for a visit that day — Do these Arab families side with Israel and dislike nearby Hezbollah as much as their Jewish neighbors do? Or are they Palestinian supporters who want to explore their enemy’s military culture? Or are they neutral civilians, who simply wanted to take the kids somewhere new and exciting to play that day? I guess I will never know that answer to these questions.

I learned so much in Israel, yet so much remains unanswered. Could I ever live there? Do I want to live there? Could I learn to speak fluent Hebrew? For the moment, I am happy in New York and have a great job, but I constantly think of the possibility of one day spending more than just a couple weeks in my favorite place — in Israel. Well, who knows what will happen. And with that uncertainty, I need to be satisfied because really, I guess anything is possible.

If anyone has any connections to either Jewish book publishers/agents or publishers who would be interested in my young German converts topic (see post), please, please contact me as soon as possible. I really think that this topic is under-covered, and both Germany and the worldwide Jewish community could benefit from such a book.