Dedicated to my beloved friend, the late Shalom Zamirin, one of the pillars of the local press in Haifa. Since
With his departure, nine cabins of wisdom and wit were taken from the world.
The supportive column based on nostalgia
Although my ears are not particularly fond of unknown visitors, or of various kinds of advice (Eitzes Gebers
In the language of the Ashkenazi elders (one says do and the other says don’t, despite this, I could not ignore the cry of the masses rising from one end of the volume to the other, from the line to the edge of the sea to the top of Carmel and forming into a clear and coherent statement: stop already with your criticism and ceaseless complaints.
Can I write something congratulatory? Or at least not visit Haifa Municipality once?
Since the wiser than me have said “the voice of a multitude is the voice of a voice” I close the poisonous and poisonous inkwell, put it in a drawer, for future use, and dip my quills in sugar water. Therefore, I will not write about roads this time
Disturbed (have you driven on Verdia Street recently?) not about officials who are supposed to serve us and prefer to mock us and not even about Kafkaesque phenomena that are common in our city.
Instead, I will ask my dear readers who was the Mashharim band? And the new dawns? And who is wise and knows what the original name of the song that marched in the hymn parades (I won’t tell you what year, just hint that it was a long time ago) and was called in our country “Odedani Norit”?
Yes, they used to translate the names of bands and songs: that’s how the Beatles became beetles (and before that
“The Butcher Beetles”) The Rolling Stones did it and won the name of the Rolling Stones, Rare Bird is a rare bird, and there were also the lions, and the turtles and many more.
Only bands like Procol Harum got to stay with their original name, because who the hell knows how to translate it?
There were also some bands that somehow managed to escape the ridiculous offense category, the Carpenters band
for example. Evidently, even the translators felt that it would be a deviation from the limits of good taste, to call “the carpenters” for a band that sings melodic and pleasant songs.
But the great prize, the golden cup, is swept by one translation, the most miraculous of which I have not yet come across.
The very fact that it is fixed in my memory even though decades have passed proves the power of the translation that it is difficult to decide whether it is more delusional or more genius: “Resurrection of the righteous believers” Anyone who knows is invited to send a response that will be published in the blink of an eye. If you don’t find the right answer, I’ll post it next week.
One Haifai with an eternal cigarette
Since we went for a walk in the realms of nostalgia (don’t worry, we’ll immediately return to the rosy reality of the present) I’ll ask another question, intended mainly for the elderly readers who love nostalgia who haven’t gone crazy yet: in which place in our city, and in which years, was there a man with an eternal cigarette in the corner of his mouth selling a cheap and advertising toy “jump up, jump down” And he would add an excited call to every man who passed by: “Bring a cigarette, be a human being” Send comments and we will wallow together in the warm waters of nostalgia.
Additional articles in Haifa – Haifa News:
We managed to cheer for Haifa in the first half of the tour
And there you have it, we managed about half a tour without missing a face, without complaining and we even managed to give Haifa a favor
By calling it “Volume” already in the first paragraph…
Giving bench
In my early years in Tel Aviv, I was puzzled by the strange practice of decorating the stone fences with shoes
The buildings, which separate the private yard from the public space. (Suddenly it dawns on me that this doesn’t exist in Haifa, or at least it’s rare enough, so that I don’t encounter it (On every fence from the city center north, to the Yarkon, shoes were placed: some old and tattered and some in perfectly reasonable condition. And the most common model on those fences was a sandal A woman in beige color (today such a color would be called some fancy name like dreamy mocha, or Tuscan twilight, but it is beige) with a low heel, and an opening in the front, through which the toe can peek out to examine the world.
Why exactly this shoe gained such an impressive presence on the Tel Aviv fences, no one knows. In retrospect, it turned out to me that there was such a generation, for whom shoes were a precious thing that could not be thrown in the garbage like they were tangerine peels, and therefore expired or worn-out shoes were put on display so that anyone who wanted them could take them.
Later, the custom developed and to the collection of shoes on the fences were added clothes, books, etc. objects and accessories that are unpleasant to throw straight into the trash. When the fence was already small enough to contain the abundance, the phenomenon spilled over to the street benches on which all those goods were placed.
That was the case, until not many years ago, one girl stood up and founded the “Giving Bench” project, on which old objects are placed that can still bring benefit to others. That way, those in need can pick up an item they need without degrading themselves to the point of scavenging in garbage containers. Over time, the “giving bench” signs attached to the benches disappeared, but this blessed custom is still alive and well and helping people
many.
The present reader is probably frowning in bewilderment and asking how this fascinating story about benches and shoes is related to Haifa?
So this way: the relevant decision makers in Haifa should hurry to adopt this idea. First, help
For those who need it, it is a welcome thing, secondly, marking 2-3 benches in each neighborhood with a “Giving Bench” sign is not an expensive business, and if, God forbid, the municipality finds it difficult to meet such an extravagant expenditure for fear of collapsing the municipal budget, your faithful servant is ready to take care of crowd funding for this project with the assurance that every contributor will get a bench named after him.
Closing sentence:
M. My friend as a brother to me, one of the greatest lovers this city has ever had, explains that in complete contrast to what is customary in our country,
The Haifaites are reluctant to leave their city, or even the door of their house on Shabbat. They do not like to travel far to visit relatives or friends. My mother, summarizes M., says that “He who is so eager to see me, should take the trouble to come visit me. I don’t leave the house on Shabbat.”
