Arts & Entertainment
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Israeli Women’s Flag Football Team: Volume 3
Israeli Musicians Rock in English: Volume 7
The "White City": Volume 5
American Football Alive in Israel: Volume 8
The
Boombamela Spring Festival: Volume 9
Jacobs Ladder, Blues & Folk Festival: Volume 10 Cinematrix High Tech Cinema: Volume 10 Modiin Concert of Jewish Soul Music: Volume 11 Ethiopian Immigrants Celebrate the SIGD: Volume 12 Baseball in Israel: Volume 13 Mayumana Rhythm Troupe: Volume 14 Historical
Photojournalist Reminisces: Volume 18 Multi-Cultural
Theatre Festival in Acco: Volume 20 Struggle for
Russian Jewry on Show: Volume 20 Advocating For Israel Through Music: Volume 23 Tel Aviv Artist Sigalit Landau at MOMA: Volume 22 Israel’s
Theater Troupe of Blind and Deaf Actors: Volume 21 Software Predicts New Music Idols |
With
only one complete season under their belts, participants in the Women’s
American Football in Israel League proved skilled enough to earn
an invitation to the International Flag Football Championships held in
the Dominican
Republic. Many of the players, ranging in age from 14 – 60 and hailing
from diverse backgrounds, had little or no experience but proved fast learners
and have every intention of making a repeat appearance on the international
stage. The league is an offshoot of the highly successful men’s league,
and features six teams and boundless enthusiasm. Running time: 3.05
minutes
Follow the birth of "Nova" an upcoming Israeli rock band, as they set their
sites on conquering the world. This young ambitious group is producing
quality music and winning an audience of loyal fans on the local scene.
With a newly signed contract with a major international record company,
they are set for the stars. Running
time: 5.00 minutes
Tel Aviv is Israel’s cultural center and home to a majority of the country’s citizens. It also hosts the largest collection of buildings built in the Bauhaus, or International, architectural style, created in Germany in the 1920s. European architects, fleeing the Nazis, arrived in Tel Aviv and found a growing city in search of a look. They put their Old World training to use in Israel’s new city. The United Nations declared Tel Aviv a “World Heritage Site,” an honor many in the city hope will spur the refurbishment of many of the Bauhaus buildings. The Bauhaus style is known for its clean lines, angular structures and open floor plans, all of which gave Tel Aviv its nickname, The White City. Running
time: 2.21 minutes
Super Bowl fever hits Israel… Yes, football mania has indeed reached the Holy Land. Kraft stadium, dedicated by the owner of the New England Patriots, offers a first class stadium which launched the Israeli American football league. 
Every community in Israel seems to have their own unique festival... from
Moroccan to Yemenite to Ethiopian Jews. Even the English speaking community in Israel has theirs. It's a music
event in the spirit of Woodstock called Jacob's Ladder and it combines good old rock from the 60's
and 70's, country and folk, with fun and family. Traditionally, Jacob's Ladder was one of the country's more
intimate cultural gatherings. However, the secret is out, and in recent years attendance has been growing
enormously. Running time: 4:48 minutes. 
Cinema lovers can now smell a good movie when they see one. At the
Cinematrix in Haifa, the audience experiences "sensurround" in the
fullest sense, including aroma, sound, moving seats ("smart chairs"),
air, water, smoke, 3-D glasses and the feeling of traveling through
space at astonishing speeds, almost touching the planets as they fly
out of the screen. The technology allows each viewer to actually
influence the action by remote control and revolutionize the way one
watches movies. Cinematrix is Israel's contribution to the world of Cinema.
Running time: 3:10 minutes, infocomm-smart theater
Woodstock lives on … at the farming village of Moshav Modiin, outside Tel Aviv, where Rock and Roll is fused with Orthodox Judaism. The community members, many of whom are top rate musicians and artists, follow the teachings of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach also known as "the Singing Rabbi". Once a year, the Moshav holds a Carlebach Festival, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors and embodies a special blend of spirituality, natural living, and song.
running time: 3:52 minutes...web search: Modiin Concert (English Newspaper )
For centuries the SIGD Festival, observed by prayer and fasting, symbolized Ethiopian Jewry's longing for Jerusalem. Here in Israel, the annual event expresses the immigrant community's successful return and absorption into their new environment. Most Jews in Ethiopia were subsistence farmers and were dramatically airlifted to Israel from their war torn country in 1991 in what has come to be known as " Operation Solomon ". According to recent figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Ethiopian newcomers are making real inroads into Israeli society. Each year some two to three thousand ex Ethiopian youngsters register for university, and the number of academics in their community is rising fast.
running time: 4:18 minutes... google search - Ethiopian Jewish Culture-Sigd
For many Israelis the all American sport of baseball means "oh that game with the bat and ball"… Well things are about to change…. because there is a new initiative underway to bring professional baseball to Israel. That’s right, real professional baseball, with major league players brought in from the United States. The man behind the initiative is American entrepreneur Larry Barras, and the commissioner of the new league is former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel
Kurtzer. 
Veteran musician David Broza and members of the Mayumana Rhythm Troupe have been mutual fans for years. They've performed together for brief periods in the past. Now they've joined forces in a full-length, high-powered musical spectacle called "Bechuntos". The show is playing to packed houses.
When traveling through Israel today it’s hard to believe that the country is only 60 years old. But if you want to see how it all started, a major photography exhibit in Jerusalem offers a rare glimpse of the historic rebirth of the Nation. The display features the work of photo -journalist David Harris, who documented Israel's epic struggle, against all the odds, to establish its independence. His images capture the Zionist dream of shaping a new country while absorbing refugees from a multitude of different cultures.
The Acco Festival of Alternative Theatre is one of Israel's leading cultural events. Besides providing artists and creators with a platform for presenting new and original forms of expression, the Festival promotes dialogue between Jews and Arabs and other ethnic groups. The ancient walled port town provides a magnificent backdrop for the multi-cultural event, literally drawing the audience into the magic of theatre and mixing the old with the very new.
It's been called the spark that set in motion the collapse of the Soviet Union, and prompted that country’s historic transformation to a free society. An exhibition on the epic history of Russian Jewry's struggle for freedom is on display in Tel Aviv’s Beth Hatefutsot (Museum of the Jewish Diaspora). Called "Jews of Struggle," the show marks the 40th anniversary of the movement which changed the history of Israel and the rest of the world, bringing freedom and new beginnings to millions. We interview Natan Sharansky, who gives us his insights into this historic exodus that brought almost one million Russian Jews to Israel, including many elderly Holocaust survivors.
Israeli new immigrant Jeremy Hulsh stunned colleagues in 2005, when
he left a glamorous, high profile career in the United States,
working for the world's biggest music producers, to return to
Israel. He started his own record label , Oleh, and is causing a
shakeup of the Israeli music scene.
It did not take long for local music stars to realize the
advantages of teaming up with this newcomer. Artists represented
by Oleh, are writing about Israel, bringing different vibes and
tastes to the music world.
They
sing in both Hebrew and English to increase their audiences.
Jeremy says
that he is doing what he loves best, promoting Israeli artists
internationally and at the same time, Israel. 
The career of young Israeli artist Sigalit Landau continues to
flourish locally as well as internationally. After living in art
capitals all over the world, she returned to Israel to continue her
work. She is a
graduate of Israel's elite art school, The Bezalel Academy of Art
and Design.
She recently opened a major show at Moma... the Museum of Modern
Art in New York. Landau is the first Israeli contemporary artist to
show at Moma. Her video and multimedia presentations deal with
issues of her own identity, as a Jew, an Israeli and a
woman...taking conceptual art to its limits. 
Na laga'at or Do Touch is an Israeli theatrical company, a one of a
kind in the world.
While it is dazzling audiences and winning praise internationally,
its entire troupe is unable to see the lights or hear the music that
accompanies each production. Their plays come from their own
experiences and imagination. They have also started a café and
restaurant with blind and deaf servers.
They tell us that the theater has given them the tools to communicate
with the outer world from a place of total stillness and darkness 
Record companies worldwide were devastated by the introduction of on-line music sharing, and have not yet recovered to pre-internet earning levels. However, it appears that they now do have a way to profit from music on the web.. This is thanks to a computer program developed at Tel Aviv University which accurately predicts who is going to be the next big pop idol. Running time: 3:46 minutes
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