Frozen Out Of Olympics

Last-minute Israeli ruling keeping figure skater Tamar Katz out of the Vancouver Olympics.

by Sharon Udasin

She could already see herself on the ice in Vancouver.

When New York-based, Israeli-raised ice skater Tamar Katz arrived in Israel last week for a 24-hour, whirlwind visit, Israeli Olympic Committee officials gave her the Olympic outfit and bag she would carry with her to British Columbia to represent Israel in the Winter Games.

But later that day, like a toe loop gone bad, those same officials yanked Katz’s Olympic dream away from her, ruling that she would not be going to Vancouver.

“It was the worst trip to Israel,” she told The Jewish Week Monday.

Katz, 20, who was born in Dallas and trains in upstate Monsey, moved with her family as a child to Metullah, the home of Israel’s only ice skating rink. She had qualified for the 2010 Olympics according to International Skating Union standards.

But Israeli Olympic officials required that she finish in the top 14 at the European Figure Skating Championships last month, where, weak from a virus, she placed 21st.

Katz unsuccessfully called each member individually to plead her case.
“Some of them were willing to listen to what I had to say, but the most important people I had to appeal to were not even willing to listen to anything I said. Some of them even hung up the phone on me,” Katz said.  Continue reading…

(blog post also written for Jewlicious.com).

For David Saranga, Twitter and Facebook remain the best weapons in an ongoing battle to maintain a positive image of Israel and make the Jewish State easily accessible and approachable to everyone.

Saranga, the former consul for Media and Public Affairs at the Consulate General of Israel in New York, brought this mission to full speed just over a year ago, when he held live Twitter debates on behalf of the Israeli government during the Gaza war, opened Israel’s YouTube channel and revamped Isrealli.org, the State of Israel’s official blog. His latest task, now serving as a faculty member of the Asper Institute at IDC-Herzliya’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications, is to launch this year’s 10th Annual Herzliya Conference on social networks for the first time and reach out to a broader, ideally younger audience.

“If we want to approach young people as well we have to bring it to the language that they use,” Saranga said.

In the past decade, the Herzliya Conference has become an increasingly vital stage for Israel’s leaders to gather and discuss government policies and national security issues.  This year’s conference begins tomorrow (Jan. 31) and ends on Feb. 3, hosting a wide range of leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Foreign Minister and MK Tzipi Livni, Deputy Foreign Minister and MK Daniel Ayalon and World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder. One of the newest speakers to confirm attendance is Dr. Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, who will join Tuesday evening’s panel: “Prospects of Peace: The Israeli-Palestinian Track.”

In addition to streaming the various panels in real-time throughout the week, Saranga and his team will also be editing and uploading shorter, more user-friendly versions of each panel, which will remain available online after the fact. Conference enthusiasts can meanwhile receive play-by-play updates about the various speakers, panels and issues addressed via Twitter and Facebook.

“People can see the essence of the conference,” added Saranga, who said he’ll be working with a team of 10 people, predominantly students, to accomplish this mission. He has also been working closely with Dr. Noam Lemelstrich-Latar, director of the Asper Institute and dean of the Sammy Ofer School of Communications.

Saranga’s hope is that viewers and readers all over the world will repost and “ReTweet” conference updates to their friends, giving Israel a bigger voice all over the world, and a continued chance to make a positive impact.

“One of the goals of the project is to enlist organizations and private bodies in Israel and abroad, for whom Israel is both relevant and important,” Saranga said. “This is one of the first projects ever undertaken, whose purpose is to enhance the message emerging from the Herzliya Conference, by allowing organizers to tap into the potential of the social network.”

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For live updates, follow @HerzliyaConf and @DavidSaranga on Twitter, or become a fan of the Herzliya Conference on Facebook. To see the preliminary PDF version of the conference program, click here to download. Further details about the new media launch are available here.

Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. E-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com, or follow her on Twitter.

Funding In-Marriage Out Of His Own Pocket

“You have to try to find Jewish love,” Momo Lifshitz, inset, told his Oranim trip participants, pictured here near the Syrian border. LEFT CREDIT: Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Tel Aviv — Tucked into the rocky thickets of Mount Carmel in northern Israel, 43 American 20-somethings gathered in a hotel conference room to play a simple game — using their bodies as place markers, they lined up across the room according to how important they found dating Jews, and Jews alone.

At first, only four people stood on the “date Jews” side of the room. But when the question changed to marriage, four soon grew to 15. And when marriage changed to raising children Jewish, a good 15 more shuffled over.

“If I were going to raise my kids with a religion, I would want it to be Judaism,” said Matt Lakind, 29, from Hoboken, N.J., who had joined the trip with his girlfriend, Erica Roth. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t want them to have any religion, that’s all.”

A week later, after touring Israel from top to bottom, east to west and back again, his opinion changed. “Now coming here I can see there’s actually a whole ethnic culture to Judaism that has been harder to find in the past,” he said. “Now I understand why when people ask where I’m from, I will tell them: ‘I’m Jewish.’”

Lakind and Roth were participating in an inaugural free 10-day trip to Israel, sponsored by Oranim Educational Initiatives, and funded personally by the owner of the organization, Shlomo “Momo” Lifshitz. Though their trip followed an itinerary quite similar to that of the better-known Taglit-Birthright Israel, this 10-day journey was under the auspices of Oranim alone.  Continue reading…

Green Day For AJC

A Tesla electric sports car parked outside of San Francisco’s JCC, site of an environmental conference. Right, AJC “green” mission participants at Solazyme, a biofuel company in Silicon Valley.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

San Francisco — In its effort to elevate the issue of energy independence, the venerable American Jewish Committee has pushed for policy change in Washington, “greened” its own New York headquarters and even offered cash incentives for its employees to buy hybrid cars.

Now, the group is trying to tap the power of a new generation of young leaders, for whom green issues are central to the expression of their Jewish identity. Earlier this month in this hub of West Coast environmentalism, the AJC’s young leadership umbrella (ACCESS) held its first conference on environmental issues, dubbed “J-REC, the Jewish Response to the Energy Challenge.” The daylong event at the Jewish Community Center here drew more than 200 people, many of them environmental experts from the Jewish community.

As the conference was taking place, simultaneous live Web casts took place in Jerusalem, Kibbutz Ketura in Israel’s Arava Desert, Chicago, Denver and New York drawing another 200 people. Conference organizers set for themselves a lofty — and likely difficult — goal: to unify the Jewish community in combating the global energy crisis.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen in one room a Jewish farmer, Jewish venture capitalists, and everyone coalescing around this one major issue,” said political analyst Ari Wallach, a speaker on one of the conference panels. He organized the “Great Schlep” campaign for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election.

When budding clean-tech lawyer Jonathan Axelrad moved from New York to San Francisco last year, he immediately began work on the AJC conference and mission, believing that clean energy and U.S. energy independence were issues young people would be charged up about. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone.

In a stroke of luck, recent Stanford University graduate Lyuba Wolf happened to walk into Axelrad’s office in search of a pro-bono attorney for her student greening organization, Energy Crossroads. Instantly, Axelrad realized he had met his environmental other-half.

“That’s when the mission became a movement,” Axelrad told The Jewish Week. “We went back to AJC ACCESS and said that we want to organize a unified movement in the Jewish community to respond to what we’re calling the ‘energy challenge,’ which is transforming an oil- and fossil fuel-based economy to clean and secure energy sources.” In the end, the mission attracted 20 AJC young leaders to San Francisco for the conference, post-conference round tables and site visits to clean-tech business in the Bay Area.  Continue reading…

French Jews Still Anxious, Despite Calm

Falafel shop owner feels at home in Paris, but not all Jews agree. Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Paris — Nestled among Parisian gefilte fish proprietors, pickled herring vendors and boulangeries stocked with chocolate rugelach, an Israeli restaurateur yanks otherwise oblivious customers into his teeming falafel palace while Chabad boys sell palm fronds for Sukkot across the cobblestone Rue des Rosiers.

In the Marais, the traditional Jewish quarter of the French capital, neon leaflets advertise Hebrew classes and nearly every shop window has a stamp of approval from the Beth Din of Paris.

“We are in our home here,” says Yomi, the owner of the popular falafel shop, L’as du Fallafel (The Ace of Falafel), who refused to give his last name.

But step outside the close-knit quarters of the Marais district, and France’s Jews will tell you they hardly feel at home and that a low-grade but chronic anxiety gnaws at them because of their Jewish identity. And because of a persistent fear that tensions in the Middle East could escalate at a moment’s notice, leaving them vulnerable.

The war in Gaza ended 10 months ago, Hamas rocket fire into the southern Israeli town of Sderot is almost nonexistent and Iran, Israel’s existential enemy, is torn apart by internal political dissent. In other words, things are relatively quiet in Israel and the status quo is more than tolerable, say many Israelis. Yet in interviews with dozens of French Jews from Paris to Lille to Nice over the course of 10 days earlier this month, a picture emerges of a French Jewish population walking on eggshells.

Despite the 1,800 miles that separate Paris from Tel Aviv, Jews in France say they face ongoing repercussions from the ongoing Middle Eastern tensions. And it’s not only from the country’s large Arab population but perhaps even more so from native French citizens and political leaders. France, with a population of more than 62 million, boasts the largest Jewish population in Europe, as well as a growing Arab population — more than 600,000 Jews and an estimated 4 to 7 million Arabs, according to Time magazine.

“Even at university you can’t even show that you’re Jewish,” said Leah Soussan, 20, at a kosher sushi restaurant in the Marais, where she was catching up with five girlfriends home for Sukkot and Simchat Torah.

Soussan, who said she’d never dare wear a Star of David in public, decided to attend university in Israel at the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, rather than stay in France. Perhaps the least traditionally dressed among her friends — she wore tight jeans while her friends all sported long skirts — Soussan actually attended a Catholic high school, where she said she tried to convert her Catholic friends into respecting her Jewish faith.

“Here there is no respect at all if they know you are Jewish,” said her friend Jessica Antunes, also 20.  Continue reading…

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Also take a look at this clip of Philippe Karsenty’s speech for American Friends of the Likud, 10/22/09:

Well, I still love Israel — no surprise there. Apologies for the lack of blog post the entire time I was in my favorite country, especially since I was so fastidious about writing while I was in France. But Israel is my home — well, for now my second home, but hopefully my primary home one day — so I just felt like relaxing and totally unwinding during my six days there. Six days which definitely were not long enough. I got to spend time with so many wonderful people as always and definitely was not even able to see every person whom I had intended to spend time with. But Israel is Israel and it waits for me, so I will surely be back very very soon. Ben Gurion Airport staff must really be tired of me by now!

This time, I saw some things that I hadn’t expected to see — thanks to David Abitbol (@jewlicious), I was able to spend essentially an entire day touring Eastern Jerusalem, where the air smells like the most amazing spices in the world. We saw the Church of the Sepulchre and the many spots where Jesus did x, y and z, and we also walked around a lot in the Muslim quarter shuk — taking in the spices, as I said, and the knaffe. My stomach even behaved and I didn’t get sick at all after the knaffe, which is this indescribable amalgamation of sugar, cheese, honey and flour, served best in a dingy hole-in-the-wall Arab cafe that has flies swarming around the sweat-drenched tables. I also walked as close to the Dome of the Rock as possible for a non-Muslim during that hour of the day, and we chatted with the Islamic federation guy who was guarding that territory. He was surprisingly friendly and didn’t seem to mind that we were Jews, but I definitely would not dare try to cross that line. No games with these guys.

As the sunset, we all (our group now had grown to include some new friends, the Weil sisters, their uncle and Talya) made our way up to the roof of the Austrian Hospice, where you have the opportunity to see one of the most beautiful — albeit hidden — views of Jerusaelm. Such a nice and welcoming group of people, and such a nice way to spend an evening. After checking out the Green Tea Style brand soap in the Mamila Hotel bathrooms, we parted with the rest of the group and joined my amazing friend Cori Chascione (@coric) for some sushi and unforgettable conversation. Cori is 100 percent sure that I’m going to end up making aliyah, so we’ll see if I prove her right or wrong. Cori is doing some awesome work in Israel now, working as a leader for the Nativ group of American 18-ish-year-olds who are here to spend the year in Israel. In fact, we ran into a group of them on Ben Yehuda Street, where they shouted to Cori and waved their Burger King crowns at her. Now that’s love. Well, actually, that Ferrero-Rocher gelato we had at Aldo — despite the need for multiple LactAid pills, that’s love.

And then of course, there’s Liat Levy, who with her boyfriend Dotan were such generous hosts to me in Jerusalem. I’m so glad that we became such close friends, and I regret that we didn’t hang out more when she was actually living in New York. But hey, she, like Cori, is another firm believer in Sharon’s future as an Israeli citizen, so we’ll see if that happens. Liat has an amazing new apartment in Beit HaKerem, near the  science campus of Hebrew University, where she just started this past Sunday. In addition to just chilling out and watching Gossip Girl — yes, I do believe that Gossip Girl is reputable, intelligent television, seriously! — we just spent lot’s of time catching up and hanging out with her friends. Oh yeah, and there was one trip to the Jerusalem Malcha Mall (my first time there), where I have to say we looked totally out of place without floor-length skirts. On the way out though, we saw a couple of guys that were perhaps even more out of place — two 7-foot African Americans who must be basketball players in Israel (I’m saying this because of their basketball attire and mannerisms, not because I’m saying that all 7-foot African Americans in Israel are basketball players).

Another proponent of a Sharon-move to Israel is Liron Mark, who has become one of my best friends ever since we met on Taglit now nearly two and a half years ago. I’m really happy I got to spend some time with her and with the entire Mark family in Haifa as usual, even if it was for far too short of a time. In retrospect, I should’ve stayed in Israel longer a couple days longer. Next time, I certainly will. I miss the entire Mark family already — they are my Israeli family after all. In addition to having an amazing dinner with them, Liron and her mom took me to a lecture and screening of the Woody Allen/Larry David movie “Whatever Works” on Friday morning. Though I was seeing it for the second time, it was still funny, and even funnier was that the three of us were probably the only ones under 80 in the room.

I also had the chance to see my friend David Saranga (@davidsaranga) in his homeland, and he brought me with him to IDC Herzliya’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications, where he delivered a lecture to first-year students about using Web 2.0 in Israeli public diplomacy. I might pretty much know his stuff by heart, but this time, it was in Hebrew — so I needed to make friends with some of the students sitting next to me to understand completely. But I have to say, the students were really, really receptive to his lecture, and I think he should continue on the professorial track, even if it’s not full-time. That same day, I also made my way to Kfar Saba to visit Momo Lifshitz and Todd Edelman at Oranim (@oranim), to hear some more details on their latest ventures — many of which I hope to write about soon. My favorite part of their office — the humongous fish tank and killer catfish inside, as well as the mural collage behind Momo’s desk.

And I leave Tel Aviv for last because despite what Mr. Jewlicious says (he calls in “Hell Aviv” for some reason, grrr!!), Tel Aviv is my absolute favorite city in all of Israel, perhaps in all of the world. When I do move there (wow I said “when” and not “if”), that’s where I will live. One of my best choices in Tel Aviv this time was invading the Haaretz offices, where I got to hang out with both my J-School buddy Raphael Ahren (@cologneboy) and Cnaan Liphshiz (@hebrish), who together essentially man the paper’s entire English edition, Anglo File. It was great getting to see them and then getting to explore lot’s of old Yafo and Florentine — an amazing South Tel Aviv neighborhood with a really friendly trio of dogs who tend to roam the streets at night. I also fit in my beach day, of course, because Tel Aviv wouldn’t be Tel Aviv without its beautiful beaches. : ) Beautiful beaches complete with nice warm water, dead eel caracsses on the pebbly sand and awkward Arab teenagers staring down at you from the tayelet. Haha, that’s Israel for you.

The trip to the airport was not without its own hilarities, as the driver proceeded to sing me American oldie love songs in broken English. What a perfectly Israeli way to end my trip there, even though I really wish it didn’t have to end. Well, as I typed in my Facebook photo album, that just means I’ll have to be back very soon. Don’t worry, you know I’ll find a way.

Momo Returns

by Sharon Udasin

After splitting from Birthright Israel two months ago, he’s back.

Shlomo Lifshitz — more commonly known as “Momo” — is president and founder of Oranim Educational Initiatives, formerly the largest Birthright Israel trip provider. Personally greeting each one of his nearly 50,000 travelers at Ben Gurion Airport, Lifshitz was a visible presence on each trip, where he eagerly promoted personal messages like “make Jewish babies” — messages that clashed with the more low-key approach of the program that is committed to offering free 10-day trips for young diaspora Jews.

Now, as the winter trip season approaches, Momo is launching his own remake of the famously free trips, going after the same population that Birthright targets — and even courting some of the same funders. This is the first time in Birthright’s 10-year history that a provider has broken away and launched its own free trip.

He’ll formally introduce Oranim’s revamped agenda during a live Webcast on Sunday.
Though Oranim’s free trips will largely resemble those provided by Birthright, Lifshitz has decided to make a few key changes. He’s opening up registration to Jews up to the age of 30 (Birthright’s age limit is 26), with priority given to those over 23 and a focus on networking young professionals within similar careers.  Continue reading…

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Tweeting For Shalit

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In the next 24 hours, pro-Israel Tweeters are expected to come out in thousands for the Tweet4Shalit campaign, showing their support for kidnapped Israeli Defense Force Cpl. Gilad Shalit, in honor of his upcoming 23rd birthday.

 Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in the summer of 2006, will spend his birthday with the terrorist group for the fourth year, and supporters across the world continue to advocate for his release. Standing in solidarity with Shalit, Twitter users will add the hashtag “#GiladShalit” to their 140-character messages on Aug. 26, in an effort organized by the Jewish Internet Defense Force, an activist group that cracks down on anti-Semitic online content.

“Thousands of supporters are signing onto Twitter to tweet the hashtag ‘#GiladShalit’ with the goal of making Gilad a top 10 Twitter ‘Trending Topic’ and thus, we hope to raise awareness of Gilad Shalit’s situation,” said David Appletree, the founder of the group, which calls itself the JIDF. “We want the world to act and we want Gilad Shalit to be free.”

The event will span Aug. 26 in its entirety, no matter what time zone, and he encourages users to keep tweeting the hashtag all day. Appletree is confident that the campaign will reach an audience far wider than the Jewish community, including many Christians, Hindus and others who continually support the JIDF’s efforts, he said.

“Over the past year, the JIDF has built up a reach of over 100,000 savvy Internet users, so we anticipate that our supporters will create a strong foundation for this campaign, as they do for others,” Appletree added.

As the event kicks off hour by hour around the world, experts are excited to see how events will unfold and are hopeful about the turnout.

“It’s a great initiative the whole the community can easily support and organization as far apart as New York, London, Melbourne and Jerusalem are working together,” said Andre Oboler, new media scholar and founder of the Zionism On The Web site. “This is a viral campaign waiting to happen. … It’s going to be huge!”

“That said,” he continued, “I’m off to Tweet that we spoke about it and see who replies.”   Read original version…

Crafting Israel’s Image

David Saranga: Branding’s a beach.

by Sharon Udasin

With the appointment of a new Israeli tourism minister, a debate is taking shape about how best to market the Jewish state. Stas Misezhnikov, of the Israel Beiteinu party, wants to revamp the previous administration’s strategy of promoting Israel as primarily “sunshine, beach and beautiful girls” and instead focus more on “history, religion and culture.” Here in New York, however, the man most responsible for changing Israel’s image is David Saranga, who is completing his four-year tenure next month as consul for media and public affairs at the Israeli Consulate. As his term winds down, Saranga, a Foreign Ministry diplomat, sits down with The Jewish Week to discuss Israel’s branding progress.

Q: Misezhnikov says that Israel should concentrate on acquainting visitors with culture rather than beaches. Some of your rebranding tactics have involved Tel Aviv beaches and beautiful Israeli models. How do you react to Misezhnikov’s ideas? Continue reading…
A:One doesn’t contradict the other. Our branding efforts of making people understand what Israel is all about are not only for tourist purposes.

Central Park On The Mediterranean

photo by: Shahar Azran

by Sharon Udasin

Several thousand people crowded into Central Park’s Naumburg Band Shell Sunday to celebrate Tel Aviv’s 100th birthday on a makeshift beach, dancing to Israeli reggae music and enjoying the four hours of sunshine that managed to brighten an otherwise rainy day. 

While DJ Hadar Marks hosted performances by Israeli groups Hatikvah Six and FLOW, children shoveled sand with their parents as bikini-clad women played volleyball with shirtless young men.

“Today we gave to the city that has it all the one thing it doesn’t have — an authentic, sweaty afternoon on Frishman Beach,” said Eytan Schwartz, spokesman for the Tel Aviv-Jaffa centennial celebrations and also winner of a 2004 Israeli reality show.” Continue reading...