Israeli group Bat Kol to launch English website as ‘life-net’ for those struggling with acceptance.

Talya Lev, left, and Sarah Weil.

Three generations of the Wurtzel-Entel family were on board for the move of a lifetime.

Chana Wurtzel and her husband Yitzi, who live in Far Rockaway, Queens, were acting on years’ worth of dreams to finally make aliyah to Israel. They would be accompanied, of course, by their four children, ranging in age from 10 to 18 months. But Chana’s parents, Joan and Eliezer Entel, it turned out, were just as enthusiastic about the move as she and her husband were.

Then there was grandma — generation No. 4.

“I had no intention of ever going to Israel or living there or ever anything like it,” Mimi Glaser, 94, told The Jewish Week. In fact, Glaser, who also lives in Far Rockaway, had never even left the country.

But the weight of family ties ultimately wore Glaser down, and after a pilot trip to Israel last month — Glaser thought the country was “awesome” — the fourth generation had her plane ticket. Next month, the Wurtzel-Entel family will mark a rarity in the annals of aliyah when its four generations, from 18-month-old Yakirah to her 94-year-old great-grandmother will uproot their collective lives and start over in Israel.

Asked about her decision to reconsider the move, Glaser spoke of the pull of family. “I’ve become attached to my great-grandchildren,” she said. “Where they go, I want to go.”

“Four generations [making aliyah at one time] — this is something very rare,” said the Shai Melamed, the family’s emissary from the Jewish Agency, the group helping to facilitate its aliyah process. “But we see more and more young families with three to five kids making aliyah.” Many hail from the New York area’s large Orthodox population.

This summer, Melamed expects to see a dramatic increase in American olim from last year, which had already risen 20 percent from the year before. While he feels that the sluggish American economy is certainly playing a role in the increase, he says most of these families have had a long-term desire to come to Israel. But he warns families that their transition will by no means be easy.

“When we speak with families we try to get beyond the tears of joy in the movies,” Melamed said, referring to often emotional orientation films of others making aliyah shown by the Jewish Agency. “Sometimes we find families don’t know what to expect. Although it’s our interest to have people make aliyah, we think it’s our job to prepare them.”

Chana and Yitzi Wurtzel seem to be clear-eyed about the challenges of moving to Israel, and perhaps a bit anxious.

“We’re really starting our whole life all over again,” Chana, 33, said. “You have to get a new identity. You get there, and you’re like, ‘I’m still me even though I can’t speak the language and I’m not part of the culture.’ That’s what I’m most nervous about — lost of individuality and loss of capability.”  Continue reading…

Just moments after the Israeli navy boarded the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship in the Mediterranean en route to Gaza, an explosive battle of another kind was playing out on the Facebook and Twitter fronts.

The phrases “Gaza flotilla” and “#freedomflotilla” were among the three highest “trending topics” on Twitter on Monday morning, Eastern Standard Time. By Tuesday morning, “flotilla” still remained among the top 10.

“Your blood reached the shores of Gaza before your aid,” tweeted user Sarabughazal, at 2:23 a.m. on Monday, a message that was re-tweeted by other users throughout the day. It was a gory note from a pro-Palestinian activist, and indicative of the early traffic on the social networking site.

Another popular tweet was directed at the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, from early on, and also reappeared re-tweeted by many users: “@IDFSpokesperson nobody believes you. You know?”

Experts observed that early in the day, the tweets and Facebook streams were overwhelmingly one-sided, tilted toward the so-called peace activists attempting to penetrate Israel’s naval blockade. Only 12 hours into the social media uproar did the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit release its own evidence from the events, perhaps testing the limits of how social media can shape perceptions of world crises.

When terrorists struck Mumbai, YouTube eyewitnesses were there. When students protested elections in Iran, rebellious youth tweeted a live play-by-play from the streets. In both cases, the social networking sites seemed to be driving the story, out in front of traditional media.

But as cloudy versions of the “flotilla” story spread virally through Twitter and Facebook pages Monday morning, social media experts felt that site users were getting a less-than-accurate picture of what was going on, with little response at the time from the Israeli government.

“It’s not a discussion, it’s an outrageous attack on Israel, on what Israel did. Only a very small percentage of people are using facts,” said David Saranga, former media consul at the Consulate General for Israel in New York, who is now on a leave of absence from the Foreign Ministry to teach social media and diplomacy at IDC Herzliya. “All the rest are just condemning the fact that Israel attacked these ‘peace activists’ and the fact that Israel did it in the international water, not close to Gaza. They’re not basing what they’re saying on facts, but still it’s something that really shapes the discussion and the overall image of the events.”

Israelis, in his opinion, also tend to have a much stronger presence on Facebook than they do on Twitter — creating an automatic lag in information flow over that outlet. For Saranga, however, the blame for this alleged spread of misinformation didn’t lie solely with the Twitter users, but also within Israel.

“Right now, there is still no footage coming from Israel,” he said on midday Monday, before the IDF footage was released. “Almost 12 hours since the event started, there was no footage and pictures coming from the boats. And therefore it’s very hard to contradict because people want to see something.”

David Abitbol, Israeli Web connoisseur and founder of the blog Jewlicious.com (which this reporter contributes to), agreed, adding, “We didn’t get a rebuttal from Israel for hours. It was very, very late. They needed to speed things up a bit there. The diplomatic fallout was terrible. Ambassadors recalled, Greece suspending military exercises, demonstrations. All that happened before Israel released its videos. What took so long? That’s why the Twitter traffic was so one-sided.”

Israel, the observers agreed, was far behind its enemies’ voices in the online PR battle. And in Abitbol’s opinion, this time, traditional media drove the story. Instead of seeing tweets that relayed news and facts, Abitbol felt that the Twitter presence was largely “just one side’s militants yelling at the other side’s militants.”  Continue reading…

Spray-paint stencil artist Sarah Brega recently found inner peace at the unlikeliest of places — a series of Sderot bomb shelters she had decided to spruce up.

“It was really peaceful in Sderot — I picked two or three bomb shelters to decorate,” Brega said. “It was like my dream, to have this empty canvas and do whatever I want with it.”

Brega had joined six non-Jewish American peers and 12 Israelis — all predominantly graffiti artists — on a “Murality” mission called “Paint Israel: Make Art, Not War,” where they sought out artistic inspiration in spots like Sderot, Tel Aviv Herzliya, Jerusalem and Kiryat Gan.

This week, the Israeli-owned Eden Gallery here (437 Madison Ave.) is hosting near-simultaneous launch events at its New York and Tel Aviv locations, where it is featuring the work of these “Artists 4 Israel” in an exhibit entitled “Color: Correct.”

The pieces on display at New York’s Tuesday night event largely came from after the “Murality” trip, while Tel Aviv’s opening will include a makeshift project from the artists’ last day in Israel, comprised of objects they collected during the journey.

“We learned that the artists were doing this nonprofit work to support Israel, and since we’re an Israel-based gallery it seemed like a perfect fit,” said Guy Vardi, director of the gallery branch in New York.

Artists 4 Israel first came together during the Gaza war, under the leadership of artist Craig Dershowitz, who amassed a group of friends and acquaintances to make artistic signs at a 42nd Street pro-Israel rally.  Continue reading…