Love 90s boy bands? Also have an insatiable thirst for the world’s finest hummus and one of the hottest cities in Tel Aviv? Then former  boy band star Backstreet Boy Howie D (Howard Dwain Dorough)  has something perfect for you. Apparently, Howie D has always wanted to go to Israel, and is organizing a special fan trip to the Holy Land for this September!

According to the Backstreet Boy’s website “During our week in Israel we’ll visit a lot of great historical sites, do some shopping, club it up in Tel Aviv, taste some delicious wine in Golan Heights,  have a traditional Shabbat dinner and oh yeah  I’ll sing for you as we cruise the Sea of Galilee.”

“All of my fans know I love to travel and learn about new cultures – especially trying new cuisines! So I’m excited to visit Israel (for the first time) with them!” Howie, who is a Catholic, said in a statement to MTV. “This is going to be an amazing experience that I get to share with true fans. This is going to be an unforgettable trip!”

The 10-day itinerary sounds mighty exciting, and while you can definitely go to Israel without a boy band by your side, a private mini-concert aboard a party boat is mighty impressive. The whole trip is being conducted by Israel Theme Tours, but is limited to only 100 of his biggest fans.

Howie D says “I honestly can’t think of a better way of exploring the country then by having you all by my side.” For his sake, please don’t show him the meaning of being lonely.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6XE1XRiLeY

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Is this an airport or a “Battle of the Bands” competition? I have never seen so many people with musical instruments waiting to board the same flight. The plane I’m hopping on is leaving to Austin, Texas on the eve of the first day of the SXSW Music Conference, where seven Israeli bands have official showcases, joining the tens of thousands participating in the festival. It is amazing seeing so many music lovers roaming the streets, walking everywhere and nowhere in particular, everyone doing their best to look as different as they can.  You get a lot of characters in SXSW – yet all are united by their boundless musical curiosity.

As the sun set on our first day in SXSW, we walked into the Central Presbyterian Church, to see the Turkish/Greek/Israeli ensemble, My Sweet Canary. Their passionate renditions of classic Greek songs by Rosa Ashkenazi transfixed the audience, as their passion and emotion reached out to everyone in the crowd. After that, world music gave way to rock, as we headed to the musical double feature of “Acollective” and “I.U.D.M”. “Acollective” played first, going wild on stage with their catchy complex tunes and their intense grandstanding. They seemed joyfully possessed by the music they were creating. “I.U.D.M.”, who has been one of the most popular rock bands in Israel for the past two decades, came up next and united the audience who swayed together as one during their expressive ballads, the true emotion of the song carved on all of their singers’ faces. The crowd was equally united when jumping around during their upbeat energetic tracks.

The next big event will be later on Friday, as all the musicians will perform parts of their act in our Tel Aviv Beach Party. The aforementioned bands will be joined by Yael Kraus, J.Viewz and many others! To complete in bringing the Israel experience to Texas, everything from Yarden wines to Israeli food will be on hand. To see more of Israel at SXSW, check out this special Facebook page iMadeInIsrael.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-XXFcv_Pz0

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Oscar-nominated and Cannes Film Festival winning Israeli film ‘Footnote’ opens in select theatres in Manhattan today.

Internationally acclaimed director Joseph Cedar orchestrates ‘Footnote’, a tale of father and son and their world of academia in Israel. Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik, father and son as well as two prominent Hebrew University academics of the Talmudic Studies department, find themselves at a standstill when a horrible mistake has been made with the highly coveted national Israel prize.

Although their passions strike similar chords in arcane Jewish liturgy, the two characters’ personalities and role in academia could not be more different. Eliezer is stubborn and wary of the institution of academia, while Uriel is at the onset of his career, is well-received and adores the prestige. Meanwhile, Eliezer is notified that he is the winner of this invaluable honor of the Israel Prize when in fact, his son Uriel is the true recipient. A fateful decision befalls Uriel when he must choose whether to expose the truth about this blunder or support his father during this auspicious moment.

Kristin Hohenadel of The New York Times interviewed director Joseph Cedar earlier this week. Cedar remarked, “The tradition of fierce argument over words, the tension of generations, the tension between what is oral and what is written, these are all very basic things that drive the Talmud. That’s what this film is about.”

Born in New York City, Mr. Cedar moved to Israel at the age of 5, studying at both the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and New York University. Prior to ‘Footnote’, Cedar composed ‘Beaufort,’ another Oscar-foreign film nominee, about Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

During a special screening for Hebrew University faculty, Moshe Halbertal, professor of Jewish thought and philosophy, commented on the faculty’s sentiment after the screening.

Halbertal noted there was “a feeling that the film represented something deep about that world, that it brought to life serious issues and struggles, that having a life’s quest doesn’t isolate you from human vulnerabilities.”

New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott, who granted ‘Footnote’ the Critics’ Pick seal, praises ‘Footnote’:

“The genius of ‘Footnote’ is that it is about those important things too [other than vanity of intellectuals]. Deftly turning the law of inverse proportions on its head Mr. Cedar spins a committee-room squabble into something authentically grand: a piercing satire, a poignant family drama and an investigation of the competing claims of honesty, loyalty, ambition and love.”

In Scott’s Time’s review, he personifies the Shkolnik father son dynamic to “the primal divide” in the Jewish state. The Jewish State, built on love, is likened to their relationship to academia in that “the love of learning, the love of other people…survive[s] on contention, renewing and extending quarrels from one generation to the next.”

If you’d like to see this amazing film (and why wouldn’t you),  ‘Footnote’ opens today in select theatres in Manhattan (LA next week). Times for New York cinemas are listed below:

Angelika Film Center New York, 18 West Houston Street (12:00 2:25  4:45  7:10  9:35  12:00 am)

Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, 1886 Broadway (11:00 am 1:00 pm 3:15  5:25  7:40 9:55)

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To mark International Women’s Day, Israel’s Central Bureau for Satistics (CBS) released a report on the status of women in the Israeli workplace and society. Some of the most telling figures come from advances in providing world-class education to all Israelis. To that end, a woman’s ability to access higher education and achieve in the academic setting matches, if not exceeds, their male counterparts in Israel.

In secondary school (high school),over 65% of women graduate with a diploma, compared to 50% of men. When it comes to qualifying to attend university, women outpace men by about 8 percentage points, according to CBS. For schools with an Arab-Israeli majority, there is actually a higher discrepancy between women and men – 56% of Arab-Israeli women graduated with a diploma last year, compared to only 38% of men.

It’s when we look at higher education do the numbers really shine. Out of 298,098 Israelis pursuing higher learning last year, 167,908 were women, or 56.3%. Compared that to a few decades ago in 1970, where women only accounted for 43%. In fact, last year, women were a majority in all levels – undergrad, graduate schools, and PhD programs. Israeli women also attend law school in higher numbers than men. If you were to walk into any biology class at any level in Israel, you’d find women outnumber men by about 2:1, as two-thirds of students in biological sciences are women.

If education is the key to unlocking doors in the workplace, than these numbers truly do echo across all sectors in Israeli society. In 1990, only 39.7% of those working in academia were women. Now, that number is approaching equality, at with almost 48% of professors, university staff etc. being women.

The share of female managers in Israel has skyrocketed, doubling since 1990 when it was only 16%. Now, 34,3% of professional managers in Israel are women (Israel21c has a great article on this for IWD, Israel’s top 10 female executives). An equal number of high-tech workers are also women, meaning that the “Start Up Nation” is far from being an all boys club.

There’s still much work to be done, as no country on earth has achieved perfect gender equality.  Israel is a young country with a very young society, but with further investment in providing equal access to education, we’re one step closer to our vision of equality outlined in our Declaration of Independence.

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Following recent interviews and visits from President Obama and other esteemed politicians, Facebook continues its perpetual evolution by further delving into the political arena.  Increasingly, the social media site has connected both local and national political figures with their constituents, as well as providing specific issues a forum to garner interest.  With this in mind, Israeli President Shimon Peres has created an official bilingual Facebook page with the intent of connecting citizens of the world in a quest for peace.

“Launching a Facebook page for the president is an extremely important move to strengthening the ties between the president and the broad public throughout the globe,” stated the Director General of the President’s Residence Efrat Duvdevani, “and it will form a platform to promote President Peres’ vision of peace while offering positive exposure for the State of Israel.” Ynet News reports that Peres’ page will initiate an avenue of communication specifically between residents of countries that Israel has not held diplomatic relations with, thus enabling dialog that helps bring people, rather than just governments, closer.

To launch the page, President Peres visited Facebook headquarters earlier today and tour a number of tech companies, including Google, which has opened Research and Development Centers in Israel.  Additionally, Peres met with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and took part in an interview with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg which was streamed via the company’s own live video service Facebook Live, allowing viewers to pose questions to the Israeli leader.

So how did President Peres launch his facebook page? With a music video of course! In a collaboration that could only happen in Israel, President Peres teamed up with Noy Alooshe, the Israeli journalist and musician made famous for his Moammar Gadafi parody, “Zenga Zenga.” The resulting video, “Be My Friend For Peace” was put up on YouTube over the weekend and is already causing a sensation (see below).

In his first Facebook post, Israel’s president wrote: “I have dedicated most of my life to make peace between countries and governments. Today I invite people from all around the world, from Europe, U.S.A, India, Latin America, Asia, Africa and specifically Iran, Lybia, Syria, and Egypt to join me and promote peace between the people.” He added, “Facebook empowers us. So let’s dare to believe, start to change our world and create a better tomorrow.”

Peres has also announced plans to launch ‘Peres 360?, which will utilize Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and on YouTube to broadcast a ‘day in the life’ account of the Israeli leader. With all of these social media tools in hand, Peres hopes that by connecting the passion of people around the world, citizens will enable his dream of peace to become a reality.

Make sure to “Like” President Peres on Facebook, and more importantly, share his message of peace.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjQdB0C6ypo

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It’s hard to be modest when you’re this damn good looking. We can thank Traveler’s Digest (spotted via this slideshow on Huffington Post) for inflating our egos with their list of the Top 10 Cities With The World’s Best-Looking Men. Writing, “Tel Aviv has become a hot spot for trendsetters worldwide. Local cuties flaunt their fit bodies –-made all the better by their year-round tans– at any of the numerous beaches and cafés found on the 10-mile seaside strip.”

Tel Aviv came in at number 10, with New York City at the number 2 slot, and the almost unfairly ridiculously good looking Swedes in Stockholm at number 1. Traveler’s Digest didn’t disclose their methodology, only to say that the list was based on a woman’s perspective. As Tel Aviv is one of the hottest LGBT friendly cities in the world, you can bet Tel Aviv’s men would also be rated best looking if the judges were men.

The Traveler’s Digest article was in response to an earlier piece listing the most beautiful women in the world (Tel Aviv came in at number 7 on that list).

What do you think? Is your city on the list? Should it be? Sound off in the comments below!

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Chef Uri Navon came to Atlanta last month to serve 500 guests at the Atlanta Jewish Festival – and cooked up a storm with Martha Stewart on the way back. The dish he cooked up, which he calls “Hamshuka” is an innovative combination of Moroccan spices, typical Mediterranean flair, and of course, an Israeli twist.  What you end up with is a mouthwatering lamb and beef appetizer on top of Tahigurt. Of course, nothing is complete without a dollop of tahini. The result is everything you’d expect from Chef Navon. Next time you’re in Israel, his restaurant in Jerusalem, Machneyuda is a must visit.

You can make your very own “Hamshuka” by following the recipe below! And make sure to check out the step by step by viewing Chef Navon’s segment on Martha!

Ingredients

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Today, as news organizations around the world reported on the DOW hitting 13,000 points for the first time since the “Great Recession” began, there’s one stock index that has outperformed them all, withstanding every bubble and crisis over the last 10 years. The Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking showed that the Tel Aviv TA-25 yielded the highest returns for developed nation benchmark indexes over the past 10 years, with an average of around 7.6 percent on investment. In a region known for instability and chaos, Israel is not only the only politically stable democracy, its economy is a global leader to boot! Coming in second is an economic powerhouse you might have heard of – Hong Kong at a return of 6.7 percent.

Said a former hedge fund manager in an interview with Bloomberg,“Israel is an exciting place to invest… the country is surrounded by enemies, it’s always on the edge of extinction, but it expands and prospers.”

Bloomberg’s report made it to the desk of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it a “great achievement.”

So how are these returns calculated? Analysts divide total return by a numerical representation of the daily price volatility, or how likely it is to swing for big gains or dip for big losses. When adjusted for risk, Israel’s TA-25 index provided the best returns on investment.

Israel’s economy has been booming in recent years, and shows no signs of slowing down. The Ministry of Finance projects 2012 growth to be 3.2 percent, which is significantly higher than the 1.2 percent average grown that the economic powerhouses in the G-10 are projected to grow.

To read more, check out the full piece in Business Week here.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDfElTJ2i-U

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Today is the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, a historically minor Jewish holiday that has gained momentum and become an important day in Israeli history. While we all know that Rosh Hashana is the official new year for the Jewish calendar, today’s holiday of “Tu Bishvat” is celebrated as the “New Year of the Trees.” A symbolic day of revival and rejuvenation, it is often chosen as the inauguration date for Israel’s major institutions. For example, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, celebrates its birthday on Tu Bishvat. The cornerstone-laying of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem took place on Tu Bishvat in 1918, and the Technion in Haifa, which was recently announced to be partnering with Cornell to build New York City’s new high tech campus, was inaugurated on Tu Bishvat in 1925.

In a sense, the entire State of Israel, founded in 1948, embodies the spirit of Tu Bishvat. The sprawling forests in Israel are largely the result of afforestation efforts by organizations like the Jewish National Fund, which, thanks to planting over 240 million new trees, made Israel one of the only country in the world who entered the 21st century with a net increase in trees over the last century. While everyone knows the history of Jerusalem and its amazing history, perhaps it is Israel’s second largest city, Tel Aviv, that tells the story of “new Israel.”

Tel Aviv, famous today for its party scene and restaurants all situated next to gorgeous Mediterranean beaches, would have been unrecognizable a century ago. In the early 20th century, the area which is now Tel Aviv was nothing put sand dunes as far as the eye could see. When the population began to boom in the 1920s, Tel Aviv’s city council began to think about planning the new city to be able to expand by Patrick Geddes, a Scottish botanist. Today, Tel Aviv’s green imprint is evidenced every time you walk down its most famous streets, like Rothschild Boulevard, which features a “green belt.” This Saturday, February 10th, there will even be a special English-language tour of Tel Aviv’s “green” avenues.

Of course, like any good holiday, there needs to be delicious food! Think of it as a passover Seder, substituting matzoh and brisket with Israeli fruit and nuts. Check out this recipe below for an almond and orange braid (makes about 2 7″ braids), courtesy of Haaretz.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb finely almond flour, or finely ground almonds

4 1/2 oz. granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds (optional)

1 egg

2 egg yolks

4 tablespoons chopped candied orange peel (or grated zest of one orange)

2 sheets of puff pastry, 1.1 lb., thawed in the fridge over night.

1 tablespoon coarse sugar

Directions:

1. Put the almond flour, granulated sugar, fennel seeds, egg and one of the yolks in the food processor and run until it forms a dough.

2. Transfer into a bowl and knead the orange peel in.

3. Turn the oven to 375 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

4. Spoon the almond filling lengthwise down the center of the pastry. Cut slits 1 inch apart from the 2 sides of the pastry rectangle to within 1/2 inch of the almond filling. Starting at one end, fold the pastry strips over the almond mixture, alternating sides, to cover the almond filling.

5. Mix the second egg yolk with a tablespoon of water. Brush the pastry with the egg yolk mixture. Sprinkle with the coarse sugar. Place the pastry onto the baking sheet.

6. Bake for 25 to 30 minute, until the braid is puffed and the top is golden. Serve warm with ice cream on the side.

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