Reality – Herzl

A small ad for the Herzl Museum from the Jerusalem Post website:

The New Herzl Museum - Yes We Can

This, of course, refers to Herzl’s most famous quote: “If you will it, it is no legend”.

Reality – Stairway to Heaven

Shot in Ein Kerem.

The name of this street literally means “Stairway to Heaven” in Hebrew and i hope that it’s intentional. OK, i lied about the “to” part, it’s actually just “Heaven Stairway”, but you don’t really have to be so picky, right?

Reality – Original Israeli

“Original Israeli Music Line. Leonid Ptashka, Marina Maximilian Blumin.”

Ptashka was born in Baku and Blumin in Dnipropetrovsk.

I love this country so much.

Reality – Jerusalem Bus Stop

… To further my point about fighting antisemitism by improving Israeli bus services.

An Israeli has hard time understanding this mumbo-jumbo, let alone a tourist. This bus stop is placed in the center of the city, a place bustling with foreigners, and at least one of these bus lines is relevant for tourists. Would you know which one, if you wouldn’t know Hebrew?

Reality – Oh Your God

Tourist sign at Banias

This is a sign for tourists that explains about the Banias archaeological site in the Golan Heights. Take a closer look here:

GOD corrected to gOD

Notice that someone vandalized this sign and corrected “GOD PAN” to “gOD PAN”. My guess is that it was a person who found it offensive that a Greek god is called a “God” with a capital letter and he wanted to tell that it’s just a meaningless pagan lesser god. The text is in all-caps, so capital and small letters are not supposed to be different, but they did matter to that vandal in some way.

By a coincidence—or maybe not?—this is similar to the name of the band dEUS, whose recently released new album “Vantage Point” is surprisingly good.

Reality – June 06

These stickers have become quite common lately on walls and cars:

עד מתי יוני 06?! ג. שליט

“Till when June 2006?! G. Shalit”. It refers to a graffiti which is common in public toilets in Israel as well as at military bases. It expresses the frustration of a draft soldier that wants to get demobilized, although the date in such graffiti is usually the date he started his service. Shalit’s draft date is July 2005 and indeed, his friends were demobilized a few days ago. June 2006 is the date Hammas kidnapped him.

Reality – Start-Up

Roladin - Start-Up

Roladin bakery and cafeteria were building a branch on Habarzel street where i work. So they put up a teaser – “Roladin Start-Up”. Like, it’s a street full of start-ups. When they finally opened, it turned out to be more than a gimmick:

Roladin - Feminism

They have a business lunch for guys and a business lunch for girls! A brilliant idea.

Fuck feminism.

Reality – Forbiding

Swimming Forbiding

Well, at least it’s not forboding.

Reality – Tel-Aviv – Vegas

I’m liberal, but Tel-Aviv is bad enough without becoming a cheap Vegas knock-off.

Reality – Christ

“Christ will come and show everyone”

This graffiti is scribbled on the Tel Aviv end of bus line 480 – Tel Aviv-Jerusalem. It is there for a few years already and now i finally took a picture of it. It is one of my favorite pieces of street art, ever.