Jerusalem Zoo: Peeing and Humping

I went to the zoo a couple days ago with a few friends. It's a nice zoo, with all the animals you could hope for. Don't worry, this peeing primate was just about the first thing I saw too. He was sitting there, squatting by the moat, staring at his audience. I guess he didn't think much of us.




















Penguins in the Middle East? Yeah, we've got that.





That's a random lion tranq dart inside their cage area. They were just chillin'. I guess they already shot up? Junkie lions, who would have guessed?





And finally, a tiger mounts his lady. This was probably the best zoo experience EVER! Sex, drugs, exhibitionist urination - is this a zoo or San Francisco?

The zoo was actually really cool. It's called the "Biblical Zoo." What that means is that for each animal they put a passage from the Bible where such an animal is mentioned. Snakes, various types of rams, goats, and antelopes, insects and lizards and giraffes; everything.

I was loving the desert range they had. Giraffes, hippos, ostriches, rams, zebras - all living together. A massive hippo walked next to the alpha giraffe, an easy kill it looked like to me, and they just brushed by like any two New Yorkers not giving a fiddler's fart about the other. We've got a lot to learn from these beasts.

Here's one safe for the whole family. I don't want my grandma to think I'm a weirdo or something...

Who Needs A Translator?

My boss sent me these pictures. These are 100% real signs in the Lake Kinneret area, the Sea of Galilee, the Jesus place (and Israel's biggest freshwater source). My boss, Mikhael, is pretty dead on with his observation of whatever mindset could allow these signs to actually be paid for and displayed in public as legitimate warnings for a well traveled area. I mean, these signs just take the cake!

According to Mikhael, and I agree: "I think that Israelis are so PROUD of their English, that they won't dare ask anyone to proofread it. I've been taking pictures of signs and wrappers since I got here, too. From the Psak Zman "4-play" candy bar (to put you in that special mood) to Kenvelo's F.B.I t-shirts ("Inspect body girl" -- get it?!), to permanent storefront signs ("Burger's Bar"), they just will not ask a native speaker to give it a once-over before it goes to the printers, I guess."



No, these are not Photoshopped.



That almost sounds like an Orbitz commercial. Keeps the teeth cleaning!



Could someone please translate the Arabic for me? Post them in the comment section on this post...



That one is probably the worst. It is, in no way, even just a terrible translation! It's on a different planet. The others were on the right track, with a bit of an adjective and noun shotgun blast. That one...

Heaven forbid the paid employee would stop any one of the thousands of Americans living in Israel and ask casually if their translation is correct.

Thanks to Benji at What War Zone??? for the link!

Yom HaShoa - Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today in Israel is Yom HaShoa, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is a day to remember the six million Jews that died during World War Two, to keep their memory alive, and to energize our state towards the future. The remembrance of those who were struck down stands on its own as being a necessary memorial, but we also can combine this solemn day with a reminder of why Jews are sticking with the struggle to keep Israel a viable state. And moreover, this is a day that we can remind everyone how terrible war and despotism and blind hatred can be, how vile and destructive hate is, and strive together for peace and understanding. All of this peace and understand talk doesn't necessitate idealism, either: let's just not kill each other for what we believe in. That's all.

Well, that's what Israelis hope for on this day, at least. Not Hamas!

According to The Jerusalem Post, "Jewish leaders concocted the mass murder of handicapped Jews in order to keep from having to support them, and this murder is what the Jews term "the Holocaust," according to a documentary special that aired on April 18 on Hamas's Al Aqsa television station."

Also, "The film claimed Jewish leaders blamed the Nazis for their own massacre of Jews "so the Jews would seem persecuted and try to benefit from international sympathy.""

I dare anyone to try to tell me that Israel is the side that is not an honest member of the peace process. How do you deal with the Palestinian Hamas government? They control Gaza, and a recent poll showed that if elections were held today in the West Bank, Hamas would win a majority of government seats and positions there as well. The people that put on this film, this demonization of Jews and Israel, are the very people that are supported by a majority of the Palestinians - and they are our "partner in peace." This is a clear institutionalization of the impossibility on the part of the Palestinian government to even think of wanting peace with "the Zionist state."

Come on! Here's some of the video itself. Enjoy...



Check out my friend Benji's post on Yom HaZikaron, the memorial day for fallen soldiers of the IDF. There is a video showing how everything stops with a siren for a minute or so, everyone stands still, everyone stops their cars - nothing happens in Israel for this minute. Same thing happens on Yom HaShoa. Scroll down that linked page to see the video.

Jerusalem Post is Copying Me Again

It's funny that I just wrote that post today on absentee, or largely absentee homeowners in Israel. Jerusalem Post is covering the issue today, too. I think they stole my idea.

Jerusalem, as I said, is particularly afflicted with this problem. Essentially, rich American Jews buy a home in Jerusalem and leave it vacant for 11 months out of the year. They don't rent it out, they don't share it, and this has really driven up prices in the area.

Check out this article for the whole story. Here's an idea: Hook me up when I'm in the army. I'll only be there about two weekends out of a month! If you want to be a good fellow Jew, email "dannybrothers@gmail.com" and let me just put my stuff in the closet! I'm a good guy, ask my mom!

Old England in Netanya, Israel

Isn't that just beautiful? Most people don't seem to realize that Israel is on the Mediterranean, and being that the Mediterranean bears ethereal magnificence, Israel is graced with some of the most breathtaking beaches around. Yes, yes, the Caribbean and Thailand are great, but if you walk three minutes from an Israeli Mediterranean beach, well, you're walking on some Biblical site, in some Biblical town, by some Biblical characters and their homes.

What you're looking at in the picture is a view from a balcony overlooking some of the beaches in Netanya. Netanya is slightly north of Tel Aviv, obviously on the coast, and it's well known for having the Ikea store. That and the best coastline in Israel, at least according to me. Not only do kids surf there, but it's also a hot destination for riding horses on the sand. Considering its physical qualities, the foreigners have moved in en-masse.

Land values in Israel are on the rise, astronomically, in no small part due to the rise in foreign-owned property. Rich Americans, Canadians, Brits, and French are notorious for buying up apartments, old Turkish houses, and land in areas like Baka and Katamon in Jerusalem (the German Colony). These neighborhoods are literally the Little Americas of Israel. You can walk down the street in Katamon and hear Hebrew, but if you walk by a school in the morning, I can guarantee you you'll hear a mother or father talking to a kid or two in English. If you get on the number 18 bus on Emek Refaim and don't hear some English, you might want to make sure you didn't have a concussion and wandered somewhere else.

Those communities in Jerusalem are so Americanized, or owned by non-native Israelis, because they are gorgeous locations. Emek Refaim and the surrounding Baka/Katamon neighborhoods were expensive areas in the time of the Turks, and they haven't ceased to be the most desirous since. An example? When the German Templars (a Christian sect that owned this area) were evicted after WW2 by the British because of their support of Nazi Germany, where do you think the British officers lived? Yup, they squatted on the houses in Baka, Katamon, and on Emek Refaim. How nice are they? You can't buy a place for less than a million, and that's probably a junky attic.

I went to Netanya for the first weekend of Passover (Pesach). I have a good friend whose step-father is a Brit, and besides owning a nice apartment in, you guessed it, Katamon, they have a place in a community in Netanya actually not known as Little America, but rather as Little England. On the way to synagogue one morning, I ran into a random British guy, and he asked me where I was going to daven.

I told him "Young Israel," the synagogue that my host goes to. The guy looked at me, chuckled, and like a good Brit he came back with some biting wit. "Yeah, more like Old England." The synagogue is populated by a bunch of old guys. I guess it takes a lifetime of income to afford one of these places.

It seems strange to me that there are definitively American places, and as if there is any need to further subcategorize Western, non-native Israeli areas, there's also those definitively British and French spots as well. That's one aspect to the whole 'Israel as the center of Judaism,' where Jews from all over the world come here to live or play. You don't think of this country as being large and diverse enough to merit definitively foreign clusters, but humans are humans, and we tend to group ourselves as we find most comfortable.

That being said, most of that "foreign" business is American. In Jerusalem, in general, if you see an Indo-European text on a sign, it's probably in English. However, if you are walking on Rechov Nice (a street) in Netanya, those signs are going to be in French. At first I unwittingly laughed at the stupid Israelis, putting "cacher" instead of "kosher" on a restaurant ad. Use a spell check! But, remember the street name, Danny! It's not Nice as in "nice to meet you," but rather Nice, the French Riviera resort city. At least in Jerusalem they name the streets in Hebrew! Usually.

We had our Pessach seder at my friend's step-father's apartment, which is right on the beach, and has a view of the ocean. I've been here before, and I was anxiously awaiting going back to see that terrific seascape again. I was unaware, however, at how many people were going to be there. After I found out that about 16 bodies were going to be staying at the apartment, eight of which were girls under the age of seven, I got a little nervous. Then my friend, her brother, and her sister and I went over to their friend's apartment. This family happens to be doing Passover in Italy, if you get where I'm going with this. I've known all these people for a while now, but I guess I'm always a little taken aback when I see their places.



Let's just say I'm constantly plagued by the worst of the deadly sins.