Years ago, when peace with Egypt was new and relatively warmer, I was plenty angry with my paper for forcing me to file my copy from Cairo by telex rather than phone. I was sent there on a news assignment way back when among the broad lower strata of Egyptian society (as distinct from the razor-thin so-called intelligentsia) peace with Israel hadn’t yet been thoroughly delegitimized. Continue reading →

Happy days – the Israeli movie Waltz with Bashir is raking in the tributes. Having done us proud and won the Golden Globe, it’s now a prime Oscar contender. Already under its belt is the Israel Film Academy’s Ophir. It was singled out as the best animation feature by LA’s film critics and was an unexpected box office hit in its recent theatrical release in America. Continue reading →

The Six Day War’s second most popular hit (directly behind “Jerusalem of Gold”) was a song addressing Sharm e-Sheikh as a longed-for lover. The lyrics were inane, but the sentiment obviously struck a chord: “We have returned to you for a second time Sharm e-Sheikh; you were in our hearts always… Oh Sharm e-Sheikh, we’ve come back to you again!” Continue reading →

Nobody ever said it better than English Jacobean poet John Donne in his Meditation XVII: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,” therefore “any man’s death diminishes me.”

It’s all the more so when the departed man was as much of a unique and rare relic, alas, as was Tsafrir Ronen. Continue reading →

As an inveterate doll collector, I still vividly remember the cloying supposed look-alikes of Jackie Kennedy and dynasty-princess Caroline, spawned for quick profit during those long-gone Camelot halcyon days. For months I’ve been suspecting that neo-Camelot Barack Obama counterparts are already being sculpted and readied for production. Malia’s and Sasha’s crude likenesses will soon appear in vinyl or low-grade porcelain, I kept prophesying to anyone who reluctantly lent me a tired ear. Continue reading →