Today we’d like to share a travel piece which appeared in the Daily Telegraph. Very well written and insightful.

A tale of Tel Aviv

Daily Telegraph - 10.6.07

The actor and theatre director Steven Berkoff has the best day of his life in Israel’s vibrant and ambitious second city.

It starts at the airport. You are already different. “Where are you travelling?” “Tel Aviv,” I say. “Tel Aviv?” he responds. “Line up on the left side…” At least you skim through, avoiding the long queues going to “normal” destinations.
I have a business-class ticket as I’m performing for two nights at the renowned Cameri Theatre, Tel Aviv, so I can go to the lounge… I wish I hadn’t… It’s small and stuffy. Israel is famous for its food. The El Al lounge disgraces it.

I flee the few scraps of salad and try to get back to the comfort and smell of a real café, but they are calling the flight so I amble towards the gate. Everything is going smoothly when a young, very affable woman stops me. The security. She’s as alert as a Geiger counter.

“Why are you going to Israel? Do you speak any Hebrew? Where did you learn Hebrew? Who do you know there?”

“Everybody,” I respond, as I feel I do, my productions having been seen across the country since 1978. She smiles and lets me continue on my way.

On the plane, there is an unusual number of those rather heavy orthodox Jews, most familiar to Gentiles from Fiddler on the Roof.

***Video of performance at Pride 2005: made by Lovenikka***

I met Dror Cohen 3 years ago a few months before the Athens 2004 Paralympics. He came to Athens to literally test the waters before the actual sailing competition. I was truly impressed by his determination and love for sports and life, which by the way, has played a pretty unfair game to him. Against all difficulties, the Israeli team came first in the competition and made us all who had worked with them really proud.

But getting the gold was apparently not the end of the road for him but a step to achieving new and higher goals. I admit I was not surprised to read that he is getting ready to take part in the Paris- Dakar race, one of the toughest ones in the world. No matter what the outcome he is definitely a winner from any angle you want to look at it.

From Israel21c:
Disabled Israeli athlete takes on Paris-Dakar rally
By Hannah Meyers June 03, 2007

It’s been a long, winding road that has taken 39-year-old Israeli extreme athlete Dror Cohen from combat planes to a wheelchair to the 2008 Paris-Dakar Rally, the world’s toughest off-road race.

By his own admission, Cohen has been a daredevil since he was a boy. “Whenever we had trips, I never went on the track, I always went off-road,” he told ISRAEL21c.

As he grew up, Cohen continued to seek out physical challenges, becoming an army combat pilot (F-16s and Skyhawks) and flight instructor. But then tragedy struck: an army car accident in 1992 left Cohen, then 24, paralyzed from the waist down. It seemed that his active days were over, and he would be relegated to a life of immobility.

At first, Cohen went into a dismal depression over his condition. Slowly, however, he began to exercise again, participating in the basic sporting activities that were available for the disabled. And then, while abroad, Cohen had the opportunity to try out skis and water-skis adapted for the disabled, and was thrilled to return to the adrenaline-producing sports that he loved.

“I need adrenaline; if I don’t have it sucked into my blood, I lose interest very quickly,” he explained.

But when he returned home to Israel, he found that extreme sports facilities for the disabled were not available.

***Get the rest at Israel21c***

Nanoo, Nanoo. Israel’s space geeks are about to unveil new nano satellites which will revolutionize humanities space age. Think about it, as a start, small lightweight satellites will lower the barrier of space entry for developing countries, and anything nano is cool these days.

From YNET:

Israel to become international lab for space equipment
Israeli space scientists developing tiny satellites are about to enter field worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year

Aryeh Egozi

A group of Israeli scientists is about to turn Israel into an international “laboratory” for equipment slated to be sent to space. This market is evaluated at some hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The global space industry is following with interest the tiny satellite project of a group of young Israeli space scientists.

More on our interwebs efforts to promote our sexy backside…

Video courtesy of ABC.com