I started a diet a couple months ago, and I decided that one of the mainstays of my diet deserves a Yom HaAzmaut blog: The Jaffa brand grapefruit. Every day at 10 am and 4 pm I’m supposed to have a snack of fruit. The only problem is that I don’t particularly like eating fruit. Basically, since the start of this diet, I’ve been working with two options: kiwis (also delicious) and the wonderful “Sunrise” red grapefruit of Jaffa fame. Yum Yum.

There are really two separate points to be made here: one is discussing the history of the Jaffa orange (and grapefruit) and the second is the cultural significance of eating at 10 and 4.

First, Jaffa: according to the Jaffa website,

“is the best-known Israeli brand name in the world. Studies recently conducted in Europe show, that despite having a relatively small market share in the vast West European market, the level of awareness of the average European consumer linking the brand name Jaffa with high quality and tasty citrus fruit is very high. Some of the latest researches commissioned by the CMBI in different West European markets, show that in some countries, the amount of consumer awareness to the brand name Jaffa reaches 95%. In Scandinavia, for instance, the amount of consumer awareness to Jaffa reached 93%. In Italy it is 83%. In France, the awareness of the most common variety in the country, the red Sunrise grapefruit, reaches 84%, more than any other fruit. 73% of the consumers said they would be willing to pay an extra 10 to 20 percent more for a Jaffa fruit, because of its quality advantage.”

You can look on the website for more interesting information as well as the history of the Jaffa brand in Israel. The oranges have been cultivated here at least since the 7th century and were widely known and praised by the time Napoleon came to Israel. Moses Montefiori bought hte first Jewish orchard in 1855 and Baron de Rothschild promoted orange orchards starting in 1890 with Petach Tikva. The website also has some wonderful old pictures of orange growers.
The Sunrise grapefruit is described as follows:

“The taste of the red grapefruit, commercially known as “Sunrise”, is sweet, with a tinge that is lightly sour and tangy. Its peel and flesh are red and its content is juicy. Fast replacing the traditional white grapefruit.”

Sadly, it is only available in stores from November to May, so I will soon be forced to find an alternative.

The second point I wanted to make is about eating at 10 and 4, or as we say here, Aruchat Eser and Aruchat Arba. I first heard these expressions in camp, where we were given snacks at these times. However, they apparently have a history, mostly linked to snack times in Israeli schools. For Aruchat Eser, children (and sometimes adults) have snack time, and either bring food with them from home or receive it at the institution. Aruchat Arba, apparently, is more linked to the time when Israelis used to get home from school and work and have themselves a little snack. Today, since the working day lasts longer, it has become rarer but is apparently still common with younger children.
There is a wikipedia page (in Hebrew) devoted to Aruchat Eser, but for Aruchat Arba you will only find it listed under Tea Time. I find it cute that if you click on the English equivalent of Aruchat Eser, it takes you to an entry on “Elevenses” which I suppose is the British counterpart.

So there you go. A few proud Israeli traditions for you on this fine Independence weekend.

Today I had the pleasure of attending the finals of the Chidon Hatanach, the international Bible Quiz which is held annually in Jerusalem on Yom HaAtzmaut. I had never been to one before, but this year I had a special reason to go: Of the four finalists from the United States, two of them were from my old high school in Detroit. You should understand that the school is small, with only about 60 kids in the whole high school, so this is an even more impressive feat than it sounds. Both had been chanichim of mine in Bnei Akiva before I made aliya, and it was very exciting to go and cheer them on. They both made the second round, and one finished 3rd overall, in the highest place by a non-Israelis. (An Israeli wins every year.)

Beside this personal connection, it was just a pleasure to see the competition. Questions were asked by various notable people from around the country via pre-recorded video, and there were a number of dignitaries who attended, including our Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Most spoke of the importance of the Tanach to our history and connection with the land of Israel. One told the story of how when Ben Gurion testified before the Peel Commission and claimed that the Jews should be given a homeland in Israel, he was asked to produce a deed to show ownership. Ben Gurion promptly held up his worn copy of Tanach that he always carried with him, and said “this is our deed of ownership.”

Congratulations to all the participants. The final results:

Winner: צורית ברנסון

1st Runner Up: אלעד פיניש

2nd Runner Up: Dovi Nadel (from Akiva Hebrew Day School, Southfield, MI)

3rd Runner Up: Rivka Witty (from Ulpanat Orot, Toronto, Canada)

4th Runner Up: Rachel Asas (from Mexico)

5-8 place: Leora Bach (Israel), Elisheva Freedman (Canada), and Elizabeth Goldmeier (also from Akiva in Southfield, MI)

UPDATE: Here is a link to the Yediot Acharonot article covering the event, in Hebrew, which mentions Dovi by name.

When I visited Israel in 1997, I had a mission: I needed to find Jerusalem flags for an upcoming dinner for my branch of Bnei Akiva. I searched high and low to no avail. (Back then Jerusalem flags were much harder to find.) One day, walking down Helene Hamalcha in Jerusalem, I stumbled upon a small flag factory, Kalman Berman Degalim. To my great joy, they had high quality Jerusalem flags, in addition to Israeli flags in sizes from tiny to huge and the flags of many other countries from around the world. In addition to the flags I bought for the dinner, I also purchased two massive flags which I hung in my bedroom, taking up one entire wall. They hung in my room, coming down only for the occasional demonstration of festivity, until I made aliya in 2005.

The Berman flag factory has since moved to Givat Shaul. The Jerusalem Post has an interesting article about it, which you can read here. Good to know that my flags were high quality, made-in-Israel products.

On March 12, 2008 Tzipi Livni addressed the Massachusetts Legislature.
She received a standing ovation.
Click here to see what she said.
http://www.jcrcboston.org/focus/support/video-tzipi-livni.html

In the jovial mood of Israel reaching its independence day marking 60 years of life we must also take into account other anniverseries this year. It was 65 years ago this week that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began. From April 19th through May 16th 1943 the Jewish insurgency along with Polish fighters repelled the Nazis with whatever crude weapon they could make or steal. It was a reaction to the rising awarness that their brethren were being shipped off to the Treblinka death camp and not an allegedly easier work camp. When the news reached back to Warsaw Jews inside the Ghetto decided to fight. Ghetto fighters were mostly armed with pistols and revolvers (if at all), with just a few rifles and automatic firearms available. They had little ammunition, and relied heavily on improvised explosive devices and incendiary bottles. Their sheer determination and spirit amidst such horrid conditions is a testament to their strength and our potential. In 1948 many nations thought that Israel would evaporate yet we survived. In 1967 many thought we were done for yet we survived. Since the Ghettoization of the Jews in Poland, begining in 1940, we still carried a will to live and be free. Even though most of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters perished, their struggle will be a permanent ficture in the Jewish Subconcious. I have just returned from Poland and I think every Jew owes it to these fighters to commemorate their bravery. Shine a light oh so bright and just a reminder that May 1 is Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom HaShoah).

The photo below is a remnant of the Warsaw Ghetto wall.

http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/741/picturespoland072jx2.jpg

This post was crossposted on the 60Bloggers for Israel blog, a project of Jewlicious.

And so it was that a month from yesterday a fight with my mother had broken out. My mother had insisted that I do something around the house, and I had requested for a break - for the opportunity to take a little time for myself. Interests clashed, truths were in conflict, and everyone went away dissatisfied. We yelled, we threatened, we criticized and we sulked. We even stayed away from each other for some time - I the son fulfilling her request yet demanding an apology; she the mother content that I had honored her wish but angry at my choice of words. And yet there was not a minute in which our love for one another faltered — even at the hottest moments of the fight, I would risk my life without a moments’ hesitation for her safety, as she would for me. That is love.

Accordingly, some Biblical scholars note that the Hebrew word for love — Ahava — did not have the romantic connotations that cling to the modern use of the term. Ahava — as in, v’Ahavta et YHVH Eloekha — was a word for loyalty, for obligation, for the feeling that one feels towards one’s father and mother and not towards one’s, ehm, “lover.” 

Defining love as a feeling of obligation has a deep wisdom in it, one that recognizes the truths about life; which of us has not been angry at, disgusted by, or felt frustrated during an interaction with someone we truly loved? Only those deepest relationships with the strongest sense of obligation survive — and thereby enable us to live to our fullest potential; healthy families who know how to have healthy fights produce healthy individuals, ones who know that it is okay sometimes to fall, okay to stumble, okay to hurt and be hurt and make up and start again.

My fear is that our consumer-driven society has forgotten this wisdom, has been so very consumed by the notion of the romantic crush, self-gratifying cloud-nine love that we’ve forgotten that love means sticking by during the bad as much as the good, accepting the sting along with the honey. As such, our families are becoming ever-more fractured as children grow up in divorced family structures; our communities seek purity in action above all, seeking loyalty to the rest of People as long as everything is on our own terms; and our politics are mired by the yearning for the Knight in Shining Armor who will “change” instead of those who have experienced the Public’s highs and lows. This focus on the immediate and the pure leads to shallow relationships, shallow communities and shallow politics.
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Our friend Dotan Harpak at the Union for Reform Judaism is organizing a young adults track at the upcoming 2008 ARZA National Assembly in Baltimore. Here’s some info:

The ARZA National Assembly, which takes place every two years, is an opportunity for Reform Jews who are passionate about Israel, and the ARZA professional and lay leadership, to meet and discuss the future of Reform Zionism in North America. This year, the ARZA National Assembly will take place at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland from May 11^th through the 14^th. The Young Adults Track will start on Motzei Shabbat, May 10^th, before the National Assembly opens, and will continue till Monday, the 12^th in the afternoon.

The Young Adults Track is a an opportunity for those of you who are passionately involved with Reform Zionist programming on your campus, in your community, or at your URJ Camp to help create the future leadership of ARZA, and to discuss the issues that are at the essence of Reform Zionism today with your peers and the ARZA leadership. If you are a young passionate Zionist, and you want to hear and be heard about the future of Reform Zionism in America today – the Young Adults Track at the ARZA National Assembly is for you!

And here is the link for more.

Like writing about Jewish things? There are opportunities out there to get paid! Here is one stellar one:

MyJewishLearning.com is proud to announce the creation of its Editorial Fellowship program. The inaugural two-year fellowship will begin in September 2008, concluding in August 2010.

The fellowship is open to recent college graduates interested in writing, editing, Jewish life, and new media.

MyJewishLearning.com, a transdenominational source of Jewish information, is currently undergoing a major site redesign, ramping up technological capacities and integrating new features, including video and an Ask-the-Expert function.

The Editorial Fellow will work closely with the site’s senior editors to shape MyJewishLearning.com’s editorial vision, solicit material from freelance writers, write and edit articles, and contribute daily to our popular blog Mixed Multitudes.

More info here.

Recently, Israel and Palestinian archaeologists have hammered out an agreement about how archaeological artifacts and sites could be handled in the even of a peace treaty. The resulting agreement makes it clear just how difficult and wrenching it would be for a peace treaty to ever come to fruition.

Two California archaeologists spent years cataloguing all the significant archaeological sites in Israel as well as the various artifacts that have been uncovered. They noted which artifacts had been removed by Israel from the West Bank. They then invited three Israeli and three Palestinian archaeologists to negotiate over the future of these sites and artifacts. Americans served as mediators during the process.

The results, according to jpost:

Under the proposed agreement, as well as under international law, Israel would have to make the major concessions, including return of large number of sites and artifacts located in, or taken from, the territory of a future Palestinian state.

These may include such sites as Qumran, where the scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls may have lived and worked; Samaria, capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel; and Mount Ibal, where Joshua built an altar to God.

Other provisions of the agreement include:

• Full protection of all sites and free access for scholars and the public, regardless of ethnicity or religion.

• More than tripling the area of Jerusalem under special protection as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which now includes the Temple Mount, Western Wall and the walls of the Old City. The extended area would roughly equal Jerusalem’s boundaries during the 10th-century Crusades.

• Prohibiting the destruction of archaeological sites because of their religious or cultural affiliations.

• Support for establishment of archaeological museums, laboratories and storehouses to assure proper handling of returned artifacts.

And according to Israeli Army Radio, also tacit agreements that certain artifacts could be “borrowed” for extended periods of time.  

Oh man. Giving up the Dead Sea Scrolls? Access to historical sites in the West Bank? I don’t know what to think. This is going to take a lot of faith in our peace partners, faith which I currently don’t have.

I would just like to call everyone’s attention to the blog 60 Bloggers. Daily between now and Yom HaAtzmaut, they will publish an article by a new author each day, discussing Israel’s 60th birthday. Go there are read the first two posts, discussing Hungarian Zionists and 60 Reasons to Love Israel.