Newsweek asks: Who Exports the Most TV to the U.S.?
Posted on June 30, 2008 • By Rebecca Markowitz
Category: Art and Culture | Tags: Tags: CBS, HBO, Hollywood, In Treatment, Israel, Newsweek, The Ex List, TV | View Comments
Your choices (think very carefully…)
A. Italy
B. Sweden
C. Israel
D. India
You may not have guessd it, but Newsweek confirms that the winner is Israel! I’m not sure the last time I saw a Swedish-based show, so it may not have been a very tough competition. Regardless, Israel is starting to appear in Hollywood headlines by contributing shows such as "B’tipul (In Treatment)" and "The Ex List". Apparently "too dark" for Americans, these shows are being adapted to American tastes and then produced. Read more»
Joke: Why it’s better for Jews to read the Arab papers
Posted on June 24, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Jokes | Tags: Tags: Israel, Jokes, newspaper | View Comments
Here’s a joke that’s been going around the web for a while, but I thought I’d share:
A Jewish man was sitting in Starbucks reading an Arab newspaper. A friend of his, who happened to come in the same store, noticed this strange phenomenon.
Very upset, he approached him and said: “Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?”
Moshe replied, “I used to read the Jewish newspapers, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty.
So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world.
The news is so much better!”
israelplug now featured on alltop.com, and the Israeli hockey jersey
Posted on June 17, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Social media | Tags: Tags: alltop.com, guy kawasaki, israelplug, twitter | View Comments
Today as on every day, I conducted my usual social media time wasting activities before getting down to work. One of my daily activities is to check what’s going on in the twitterverse (i.e. the world of twitter). Many of you have probably heard of twitter, but have no clue what it is. Fear not, you are not alone. Twitter is a place where people “microblog,” which means that you can post there, but your posts cannot be longer than 140 characters. You can follow people, and then you see what they’re saying, and people can follow you. Sounds like a waste of time? It can be, depending on how you use it, but I think this story will show you how it can be useful.
Here’s a short video that hopefully can give you a better idea of what twitter is all about:
Anyways, included in the 125 people that I follow on twitter is Guy Kawasaki, who writes the excellent How to Change the World blog, and founded and manages Alltop.com, a very useful site that collects content from around the web on various topics. (He also does tons of other stuff including venture capital, authoring books, etc.)
ANYWAY, I logged in to twitter and saw that Guy had just created a new Alltop page for Israel. I wrote to him on twitter and asked him if he could add israelplug…and he did! So now we are featured on the Israel Alltop page. Assuming that a lot of people visit the Alltop site, that means good traffic and links for israelplug. Hurray!
On another topic, but an important one for hockey fans, Guy also mentioned that he played hockey with an Israeli, and even has an Israeli hockey jersey! Well, who ever heard of an Israeli hockey jersey, so I asked him to see a picture of it. Here it is:
And now, since every thing must have a lesson or a purpose, here are some action items for you readers:
- Check out http://israel.alltop.com.
- Come meet me on twitter: http://twitter.com/miriamschwab.
Stephen Colbert congratulates Israel on new national bird and kosher giraffes
Posted on June 15, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Environment | Tags: Tags: duchifat, hoopoe, stephen colbert, the colbert report | View Comments
As many of you may have heard, Israel recently selected a new national bird: the Hoopoe, or “Duchifat” in Hebrew. I have no idea what the logic was behind this choice, since the Hoopoe is specified as unclean in the Bible and therefore not kosher, but bird fans say the Hoopoe is a kind, monogamous creature that takes good care of its kids. Sounds like a lot of Jewish mothers I know.
Despite its kind nature, the Hoopoe apparently has some disgusting habits, and Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report had a lot to say about it. He suggested that Israel adopt the Hoopoe’s defense tactics on the Golan Heights: squirting fecal matter at intruders. He also congratulated the Jews on a new addition to the kosher menu: giraffe. Yum yum.
Iran bets on dinosaurs, Buffet bets on Israeli brains
Posted on June 10, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Financial | Tags: | View Comments
Thomas Friedman posed a question to his readers earlier this week in The New York Times:
What do America’s premier investor, Warren Buffett, and Iran’s toxic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have in common? Answer: They’ve both made a bet about Israel’s future.
Yet again, Ahmadinejad announced that Israel would be wiped off the map. Friedman says that ironically, he heard this declaration while exiting Iscar’s headquarters in northern Israel – Iscar being Warren Buffett’s first and largest international investment.
The deal to buy 80% of Iscar closed a few days before Hezbollah started bombing northern Israel in July 2006, putting the company at serious risk. Friedman asked Iscar’s chairman, Eitan Wertheimer, what Buffett’s reaction was to the rockets landing in the vicinity of his new investment.
Buffett just brushed it off with a wave, recalled Wertheimer: “He said, ‘I’m not interested in the next quarter. I’m interested in the next 20 years.’ ”
Why is Buffett betting on Israel? Friedman lists some impressive details about Israel’s economy, including the fact that tiny Israel attracts the third-highest amount of venture capital after the US, coming in after China and before India. On the other hand, Friedman says that Iran has invented nothing of importance since the Islamic Revolution.
So who should you bet on? Friedman says he’d long Iran, and short Israel, since Iran’s might depends solely on dwindling sources of fossil fuels, while Israel’s strength is entirely dependent on a sustainable, endlessly renewable resource: its people’s brains.
So who do you bet on?
“I’m with Buffett,” Friedman ends off, “I’ll bet on the people who bet on their people – not the people who bet on dead dinosaurs.”
[Via Israel Newsletter]
Israel’s national anthem circa 2008
Posted on June 1, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Videos | Tags: Tags: Broadway, Francky Perez, hatikva, israel's national anthem | View Comments
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I actually tear up every time I’m at a ceremony or event where Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, is played. You’d think I’d get over it already, but the ideas in the song are just so…profound, and you get the feeling that when everybody’s singing it, they really mean it.
“We still haven’t lost our hope, the hope of 2000 years…to be a free nation in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
(sniff)
Anyways, apparently I’m not the only one who gets emotional. Treppenwitz says he does too, and he has posted a video of a new version of Hatikva created by a French singer called Francky Perez, a wedding singer (one of my favorite movies), and a backup band called Broadway. It combines soul, rap, and more to create a truly moving and exciting version of our decades old anthem.
So bring out the tissues (or just laugh and point at me), and click play:
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