The Jewish Chronicle Blog

A good result

Aside from the match itself, which was a disappointment whether you were rooting for England or Israel, the England team's visit to Israel this weekend was a huge success. The English fans enjoyed themselves and the Israelis enjoyed hosting them, amazed by just how much beer they could pour down their throats. At a post-match breakfast hosted by the Olswang law firm, a relieved Tom Phillips, the British ambassador, told me that the only consular matters the embassy had had to deal with in terms of the visiting England fans were two cases of lost passports. For the space of a weekend, Israel became a "normal" country, where football, in the words of legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was a matter of more importance than life or death. And that is definitely a result.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Citizenship test

One player to watch out for when Israel play England on Saturday night is Toto Tamuz, Israel's young, Nigerian-born striker. There was a fear that Tamuz would not be able to play due to an argument over his legal status in Israel: although the Hebrew-speaking footballer has lived in the country since he was a young child, his complicated family life (his biological parents left the country and he went to live with a single, Israeli woman who never officially adopted him) led to the fact that he never received Israeli citizenship. A stand-off with the Interior Ministry ended last week when the footballer agreed to extend his temporary resident's status, making him eligible for Saturday's game.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Stanley flexes his muscles

BANK OF Israel governor Stanley Fischer, who made aliyah and joined Israel's central bank two years ago after a successful banking career in the United States, showed this week that he had mastered the tactics of hardball Israeli negotiating. After the Treasury had sent warning letters to Bank of Israel staff on Monday, saying that they had to repay salary benefits that the Treasury claimed had been illegally paid to them, Professor Fischer announced that he would hold an urgent press conference at 8pm, the prime time of Israel television news. Rumours quickly began circulating that the governor was about to announce his resignation and the main indexes on the Tel Aviv stock exchange fell. A worried Prime Minister Ehud Olmert instructed Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson to begin immediate negotiations with the Bank of Israel. Once Mr Hirschson made contact with the central bank, Professor Fischer cancelled the scheduled press conference, and the stock exchange recovered. A statement issued by the Bank of Israel said that the bank and Treasury had agreed to hold intensive negotiations so as to finalise a new wage agreement for Bank of Israel staff. Round one to Stanley.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Amos Oz the caveman

Leading Israeli author Amos Oz has a new book out in Hebrew: "Haruzei Hachayim v'Hamavet," which literally means "The Rhymes of Life and Death". Unlike his best-selling autobiography "A Tale of Love and Darkness", his new work is literary novel. "It's not a normal story," he said in an interview in today's Ha'aretz magazine, "it's an unusual story. It's a story about a story, it's a story about how a book is born, how it's written. This is a story about the act of writing. I don't know whether the readers will find it easy, hard, strange, attractive, repulsive to read a story on how books are written." Not having read the book myself, I can't say, but I was intrigued to read his remarks about Tel Aviv in the interview. While Oz spends his working week in the desert town of Arad, he has a weekend home in Tel Aviv. "I love its positivity, I love the way it is engrossed with itself, it's almost like a young girl who is obsessed with herself. I also love its sense of curiousity, because it's a city that's curious and open to the outside world… And Tel Aviv is so ugly that she's almost beautiful. And she's sexy." But whether you agree or disagree with his views about Tel Aviv, don't bother trying to email him. "I don't have an internet connection. I know that I'm caveman, but I don't have internet, I don't have an email, I'm not connected. I have the time, but I need it for other things."

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Not quite a world figure, yet

Conservative leader David Cameron had a successful two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the end of last week. In a very short space of time, he managed to meet all of Israel's top leaders and even take in a helicopter ride with Defence Minister Amir Peretz to Israel's northern border. No one seemed to begrudge him last summer's Conservative criticism of Israel's use of "disproportionate force" during the Lebanon war, or mind his defence of it in an interview on the front page of the Ha'aretz newspaper. At the same time, the visit also showed that he is not yet an internationally famous politician: throughout his trip, Israeli newsreaders kept pronouncing his name as "Cameroon," as in the African country.

This posting was written by Jeff Barak

Storm in a Teapack

Are we on the verge of yet another Israeli boycott? The organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest said last week that they might ban this year's Israel entry, "Push the button", because of  an inappropriate political message. The song, performed by the Teapacks, includes lyrics such as:

I don’t want to die; I want to see the flowers bloom

Don’t want to go kapoot-kaboom, and I don’t want to cry

I wanna have a lot of fun, just sitting in the sun.

But nevertheless he’s gonna push the button.

The song contest organizers are worried that the "He" in these lyrics refer to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Other lines in the song include:

There are some crazy leaders they hide and try to fool us

With demonic, technologic willingness to harm

They’re gonna push the button

Push the button, push the bu, push the bu, push the button.

Lead singer Kobi Oz denied the song was political telling the Ynet website: I know our song is not political. What caught the eye were the words 'crazy leaders' - they decided to interpret them as though they referred to Ahmadinejad. I'm convinced that others will refer to our leaders... Our way of dealing with terror is to laugh in its face. I think the Europeans should adopt this method as well."

Judge for yourselves by watching the song on YouTube.

This post was written by Jeff Barak