It's delightful, it's delicious, it's dlevy!

Most polls confirm the centrist persona of the Israeli majority. Asked whether they support a two-state solution, upwards of 70 percent of Israelis respond affirmatively. Asked whether a two-state solution would bring peace, upwards of 80 percent say no. In other words: Israelis want to be doves, but reality forces them to be hawks…

What most depresses me is that this insight - by now commonplace in Israeli discourse - comes as a revelation to many American Jews. The two most important Jewish communities in the world aren’t communicating.

Yossi Klein Halevi, Pesach Jews Vs. Purim Jews: The Agony of our Dilemma

Today, one can hear a rising Israeli political voice that questions the power of the Orthodox rabbinate, that doubts the wisdom of Orthodox control over personal status issues such as marriage and divorce, and that is willing to challenge the preference given to one form of Jewish practice over other denominations. But what is especially significant is that this voice is not necessarily driven by a desire for the state to be more secular, but rather by a demand that it be more inclusively and equitably Jewish.

Tal Becker on a change in the Israeli discourse around religion / state issues.

Put on Your Sunday Clothes

Company,

Hello, Dolly! - Original Tel Aviv cast

Another reason I love the internet:

I have a friend who’s an academic currently working on a book that has something to do with musicals and Jews. He and I first met via the Cast Recordings listserv a dozen plus years ago, reconnected once via OK Cupid and then again and more permanently through Facebook. This week he sent me a message asking if I had the Israeli cast recording of Hello, Dolly! to confirm a point he was making about the translation — he was pretty sure the translator rendered “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” as “Put On Your Shabbat Clothes,” but he wanted to be sure.

I didn’t have the recording — in fact, I wasn’t even sure one existed. So I asked the internet, and before the week was complete, I had a copy of the album to share with my friend. (And as you can hear in the audio link above, he was correct.)

Thanks, Internet!

I didn’t intend to liveblog this entire album, but then we get to the Ska version of “Hooverville” and how can I not?

OMG OMG OMG THERE’S AN EVEN WORSE ISRAELI VERSION OF ANNIE FROM 2012… AND THERE’S A MEGAMIX!!!

And it appears to interpolate other songs, including “There’s No Business Like Showbusiness” and something that I don’t recognize but whose lyrics translate to something like “they work without a break.”

I’ll give you this, Israel. As a nation, you have an impeccable ability to render any song even worse thanks to totally inappropriate orchestrations.

One of the best things about foreign-language recordings of Grease is hearing how they handle the nonsense syllables in “We Go Together.” Here’s a version in Hebrew.

showersofgrace:

inlaterdays:

moroshka:

The escalator in the Tel Aviv Municipality Building

this is epic.

O M G

(via benfoldsone)

I hate Maya Angelou.
Okay, hate is probably a strong word, but I lost faith in her sometime back in my youth when I saw this performance on Sesame Street. I appreciate the message that we should take pride in who we are, but how dare the former Marguerite Anne Johnson sing a song about how proud she is that her name is Maya and she’s not going to change it. She already changed it! If this was a Sesame Street lesson in irony, then fine, but instead it came across to me as a lesson in hypocrisy. Names are important. There’s nothing wrong with changing one’s name, and in fact, that can be an incredibly important and powerful way of affirming identity. Marguerite-cum-Maya should understand that better than most. I’d argue the Torah understands that even better.

Fuck Yeah Torah Portion on parshat Lech L’cha.

A friend-of-a-friend performs “Cabaret” in Hebrew.

~~Lyrics (translation by Ehud Manor):~~

Oops, didn’t read/listen carefully enough. These lyrics are by Yuval Ben-Ami, the singer, adapted from the Hebrew lyrics by Ehud Manor translated from the English lyrics by Fred Ebb. He’s written new lyrics to encourage people to come to the “March of The Million” protests this Saturday night across Israel.

(And that, my friends, is why one should read carefully when posting things in languages that aren’t one’s first.)

?למה לשבת בבית לבד
.צאו מהמלונה
גנבו לנו ת’מדינה
.בואו להפגנה

?מי זה סורג שם
!מספיק כבר לקרוא
!זה זמן לשאת קינה
גנבו לנו ת’מדינה
.בואו להפגנה

,אל הקריאות
…הסיסמאות
,אנחנו פיל ענק עם חדק
.עם שלם דורש כאן צדק

.אף אחד כאן כבר אינו מתעלם
.קלטנו ת’תמונה
.גנבו לנו ת’מדינה
.בואו להפגנה

,הייתה לי חברה, קראו לה מזי
,גרנו בדירה שם בשבזי
,ולמרות שהיתה טלית של תכלת
.הנושים דפקו כל יום בדלת

.ביום בו מתה נתנו השכנים הסברים
.היא היתה עוד קורבן של חוק ההסדרים
,וכשבארון היא כמו מלכה הונחה
.לא ראיתי גוויה יותר מעוכה

על מזי עוד חושב לי עד היום
.ונזכר שוב איך פנתה אליי פתאום

?למה לשבת בבית לבד
.צאו מהמלונה
גנבו לנו ת’מדינה
.בואו להפגנה

?מי זה סורג שם
!מספיק כבר לקרוא
!זה זמן לשאת קינה
.גנבו לנו ת’מדינה
.בואו להפגנה

,כי אני, כן אני
,אני החלטתי עוד בשבזי
.לא רוצה לגמור כמו מזי

,כי המרחק מתקצר כל הזמן
.מי שנולד הונה
,גנבו לנו ת’מדינה
,גמרו לנו ת’מדינה
,השקרנים בכל פינה
!בואו להפגנה

It's delightful, it's delicious, it's dlevy!

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