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Tel Aviv to Mark Centennial By Shlepping Sand to NYC
How to make blooming place a desert
Tel Aviv is turning 100 this year, and to celebrate that birthday the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Centennial Administration will plant what its press release calls an “authentic Mediterranean beachfront” in New York’s Central Park. So how do you turn a blooming place into a desert? By trucking in 30 tons of (local) sand to cover a 15-meter square. And what makes that a Tel Aviv beach and not, say, the nearby Jersey Shore? “If you’re lying in the sun, no matter where it is, the sand’s the same sand,” David Saranga, an official with the Israeli consulate in New York, told Tablet. “What gives it a different flavor is the atmosphere around it.” So there’ll be Israeli-style beach volleyball, Israeli-style reggae—and IDF troops musical groups performing on a nearby stage, he says. The beach, which cost $200,000, will last for seven hours on June 21.
CORRECTION: Turns out Saranga said “groups” would be performing. Not “troops.” We regret the auditory error.
Central Park’s Tel Aviv ‘Beach Party’ [Jerusalem Post]
Ben-Gurion
Sounding Off
Note to some of my fellow progressives: If we can’t argue about Israel without using anti-Semitic tropes, then the debate is lost before it even begins
Cheap Eats
An entrepreneur opened a Jewish-themed restaurant in Lviv, Ukraine. Chopped liver is on the menu, but not its price—diners get to haggle over it.
Grace Notes
Orthodox klezmer and bluegrass virtuoso Andy Statman and evangelical country star Ricky Skaggs cross genres and faiths to form a mighty duo
Goodbye to All That
For generations, the Jews of Caracas had idyllic weather, prosperity, and vibrant communal organizations. Things have changed under Hugo Chávez.
