Volunteers' Toolbox

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

Would you like to become a Friend of Chelm-on-the-Med?

JOIN THE 'LAUGHTER BRIGADE' - NOW!

Give people- Jews and Gentiles - reasons to LAUGH about Israel, instead of feeling SAD, ANGUISHED, DISHEARTENED, WORRIED, DISENCHANTED, UNCOMFORTABLE, ASHAMED OR ANGRY!

Help combat one-sided coverage of Israel.  Fight preconceptions of all kinds by letting others know about www.chelm-on-the-med.com

Volunteer Wendy Ackerman hands out business cards and fliers at
the 3rd Annual Humor Festival
in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota)

Join the Laughter Brigade!  Send us a picture of what YOU are doing
to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Chelm Project is a private pro bono endeavor.  It needs 'campaigners' and 'cheerleaders'.

IF YOU LIKE CHELM-ON-THE-MED© - SPREAD THE WORD.

How can you help?  Here are some ideas:

●  E-mail friends and relatives. Make it a short personal e-mail in your own words and ask them to share this with others. In fact, invite the worst Israel basher you know to subscribe; humor is disarming.  Chelm already has readers in 66 countries - including China, South America and Muslim countries.

Tell others that you read it and suggest they check it out. You may want to open with:  'You're not going to believe this, but...'  Copy-paste-in your favorite vignette (this is OK). Say this is one of the true stories about Israel on a zany online news outlet called Chelm-on-the-Med© Online - Incredible Snippets of Daily Life in Israel Culled from the Hebrew Press. Make sure you include the URL for the website (http://www.chelm-on-the-med.com). Don't forget to also mention the animated demo for television on youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoUmGgbD6uk)

NOTE: If you send the same message to a group of friends at the same time - respect their privacy by using 'bcc', not 'to' or 'cc' for message recipients.

● Talk it up on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, and in chat rooms and list serves you belong to.

● Write or call your local Jewish paper and tell the managing editor about Chelm-on-the-Med©. Recommend they run stories, and be sure to let them know that newspapers - commercial and non-commercial - have permission to publish stories for free.  Send the editor your favorite story as a sample.  Tell authors of odd news columns in the general press about Chelm-on-the-Med© Online as an odd news source, noting that Israel is rarely mentioned in their columns (if this is so).

● Recommend that your local Jewish radio station or radio program read or paraphrase these stories on the air - ad hoc or as a regular zany news from Israel 'corner'.

● Tell your synagogue or church newsletter that they can reprint these stories for free.

● Tell your synagogue or church educational director that these stories can be used to change kids' perceptions of Israel.

● Tell your rabbi or minister.  Vignettes are great enhancers for sermons.

● Tell the local shaliach (Israel emissary) about Chelm.

● Tell local Israel advocacy groups - particularly on campus, about this 'unconventional weapon'.  Humor is effective - even bonding, and hecklers and Israel bashers will find it's a 'hard act to follow'...

● Get local Jewish schools and youth organizations involved in spreading the word as a pro-Israel 'project'.  (Feel free to print up T-shirts with the winking flag on the front, and the URL and your favorite vignette on the back...)  Suggest schools and youth organizations use Chelm stories in their programming (ad hoc or as a regular 'corner') - in weekly activities, at summer camp and so forth - even stage them as a camp play.

● Post a postcard or half-page notice at the local JCC, the local Jewish or kosher deli, Israeli or Jewish gifts store with the title and URL.

● Post a notice on free online bulletin boards in your Jewish community...or the free classified of your local Jewish paper.

To download click on the hyperlink

WORD FILE:  CHELM Half Sheet A4 Notice.doc (52 KB)

WORD FILE:  CHELM3x5  Index Card Text.doc (45 KB)

● If you have a laser printer, print up two-sided fliers (it doesn't have to be color) and distribute them at Jewish and pro-Israel events.

To download click on the hyperlink

WORD FILE: CHELM Flyer #1 Bring on the Humor.doc (82 KB)

●  Set up a table or booth in suitable locations, and distribute fliers or business cards. There are ready-made texts and visuals you can use to enhance your table with banners.  If you can, set up a laptop and play the Chelm animated demo for television that can be downloaded on youtube.com.   If you really want to get fancy, wear do-it-yourself Chelm T-shirts with the Chelm logo and URL (You can buy ready-to-print iron-on shirt transfers from office supply or hobby stores.)

To download click on the hyperlink

WORD FILE:  CHELM Visuals and Texts for Table or Booth (1,364 KB)

JPG FILE:  About the Author Cartoon.jpg (471 KB)

JPG FILE:  Winking Flag Logo - JPG.jpg (223 KB)

JPG FILE:  Winking Flag Logo and Text Banner - JPG.jpg (269 KB)

PDF FILE:  Winking Flag Logo and Text Banner - High Resolution.pdf (1,726 KB)

WORD FILE:  CHELM T-shirt Designs (517 KB)

ARE YOU A PUBLISHER OR LITERARY AGENT?

About the Book Manuscript:

    CHELM-ON-THE-MED© - INCREDIBLE SNIPPETS OF DAILY LIFE IN ISRAELCULLED FROM THE HEBREW PRESS is a book-length anthology of Chelm-like vignettes covering the years 1987-2007.

    Like this website, the stories range in length from 130-250 words and retell in English man-bite-dog stories and back-page news items that appeared in the Hebrew press – primarily Yediot Aharonot, written in a highly-stylized, fast-paced humorous form that uses plays on words, puns and zany use of English idioms. About 30 percent is published material that appeared in the author’s ‘Gleanings’ column and other published copy, 70 percent is unpublished material.

    The MS is approximately 96,000 words, and is divided into ten chapters by topic – each, in essence, a ‘peepshow of the body politic’ in Israel’s familial, in-your-face society where arguing about politics and religion is a national pastime and almost every issue involves at least a pinch of politics or smidgen of religious controversy – from how one queues-up at falafel stands to when daylight saving time should kick in. Chapter names reflect this fact:

   ○ Hair-Raising (Unbelievable Stories);

   ○ Making-Headway (Economics and Science);

   ○ Saving Face (Politics and the Establishment);

   ○ Eye-Openers (Only-in-Israel);

   ○ This Neck of the Woods (Society);

   ○ Up-in-Arms (Security and Defense);

   ○ Treasure Chest (The Jewish People and Aliyah);

   ○ Heart & Soul (Religion);

   ○ Body Count (People);

   ○ Leg-Work (Places).

    The final draft of the manuscript was completed in December 2007 and is ready for review.

     Publishers and literary agents who would like to explore publication/representation, are invited to request the full MS and a detailed Book Proposal that discusses the book’s format, the genre, the market, a detailed marketing strategy and my credentials as a writer, and a full CV which outlines the author’s background in journalism, copywriting and a host of other ‘hats’.

Stories from Chelm

GETTING HIS GOAT

    Passing judgment in surely one of the strangest divorce arrangements on the legal books, a Rabbinical Court in Safed ruled that a divorcee's former spouse would receive one pregnant goat a year for the next 35 years. Why 35? The groom has agreed in their marriage contract that if the marriage failed he would give his wife 70 pregnant goats as compensation for "lost time" - a rather strange logic considering both had taken the plunge late in life, at age 35 - objectively speaking, without much to lose.
    Six years after the two tied the knot, the marriage was on the rocks and hubby wanted ‘out'. However, pregnant goats by then were running 1,500 NIS (about $380) a head, making it hard for the luckless husbandman to honor his word without totally losing his own hide. The rabbis sought a compromise, ruling that the groom could still have his get* if he would pay his estranged wife half the value of the goats ‘up front,' and the rest in 35 equal payments - "a goat per annum" - raising the question ‘who in the end really got whose goat'. 

*get = divorce papers

FOR THE BIRDS 

   Politicians will used all sorts of ploys as attention-getters from making wild statements to introducing weird bills that make headlines but never make the law books.  But surely one of the most original stunts in the history of politics belongs to Israel’s Ministry of Interior Meir Sheetrit for hypnotizing a rooster.

   While visiting Kiryat Motzkin’s tiny zoo – apparently the closest thing to an ‘attraction’ in the bland lackluster bedroom suburb north of Haifa – the Minister asked his hosts if they could tame a chicken. “Affirmative,” replied the operators, but clarified it would take a month of training.

   “A month?!” retorted Sheetrit seizing the moment and the bird.  The minister lifted the rooster, whispered something in its ear, then began making ‘abracadabra circular motions’ with his hands like one would bless the Friday night candles: The rooster slowly closed its eyes, leaving his hosts and his entire entourage for that matter wide-eyed but mesmerized as well. Sheetrit then placed the now frozen chicken on its back without so much as a squawk of protest, leaving it looking like an oversized zapped cockroach.  But before departing, Sheetrit broke the spell – not by snapping his fingers.  He gently pressed the rooster’s stomach like a ‘start’ button, and the bird sprang to life.  

IN THE DARK

Parents maintain close ties with their kids in uniform, but undoubtedly the strangest case of the mighty bond between parents and sons- and daughters-in-uniform belongs to an IDF conscript who was deathly afraid of the dark.  It also testified to the lengths the absence of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ military can go in Israel. 

            For over a month, whenever the young man drew guard duty, his mom secretly joined him patrolling the base perimeter – departing at dawn before ‘discovered’.  This went on until her son’s request for a transfer to another unit* where he would not have to draw guard duty was being processed by military authorities. 

Why “CHELM”???

The name Chelm-on-the-Med© was chosen because in so many ways, Israeli public and private life seem modeled after Chelm – an actual Jewish town in Poland that for generations served as the butt of Yiddish folk humor.  Nobody knows when or why Chelm got tagged with the role of being ‘a paradise filled with life-embracing fools’ but reading in the Hebrew papers about the IDF draftee who was afraid of the dark, whose ultimate Jewish mother snuck into boot camp to accompany him on nighttime guard duty, slipping out undetected at dawn; the senior Israeli minister who chose to enchant the press by hypnotizing a chicken, leaving the bird on its back looking like an oversized zapped cockroach; and a court ruling on a divorce settlement requiring the divorcee to pay his former spouse one pregnant goat a year for the next 35 years – raising serious questions over ‘who got whose goat’ – I knew if there truly was a Chelm, it was here at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean – in Israel.

Click here to read the full stories