CHELM-ON-THE-MED©, OCTOBER 2011 COLUMN 1

UNCALLED-FOR BLOW

The IDF Quartermaster has some special orders when it comes to replacing lost or broken inventory – including 150 new shofars (ram's horns) requisition just in time for the Jewish New Year.

A bristling Israeli shofar-maker who submitted a bid in the public tender but lost, blasted the Ministry of Defense's decision to buy the consignment from the lowest bidders: China and Morocco.

The artisan sounded off saying he could understand the Jewish state buying top-of-the-line aircraft abroad, but the difference between shofars made in Israel (70 NIS*) and ram's horns made in Morocco (40 NIS*) – a 4,500 NIS ($1,285.71) saving – was unwarranted, adding: "If the IDF would say it didn't have the money, I would even have given them the shofars for free."**

* $11.40 and $20, respectively.

** For a quickie course in Shofar-Making 101 go here.

DIRECTIONAL HAZARDS

Dagania Alef – the first Israeli collective – will be the first kibbutz to give street names to the confusing maze of roadways and sidewalks that crisscross every kibbutz, that double as electric cart and bicycle paths.  Homes and public buildings will also get street numbers.

The same move is afoot elsewhere – in almost every kibbutz and moshav village where 'til now, at most there were signs with arrows pointing the way to public buildings, but giving directions to one's home via these landmarks has been akin to a game of "I Spy" that totally collapses at sundown.

Street signs and house numbers are a sign of the times: not only imperative for emergency responders, but also a surrender to the spread of GPS technology in almost every motor vehicle – devices that can't operate on input like "go 500 meters passed the silo" or "after you see the basketball court, we're the first farm on the left."

ALWAYS IN STEP

Now every lady can emulate the legacy of the Philippines' First Lady Imelda Marcos – purported to have owned 2,700 pairs* of shoes. 

For her final project at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Sharon Golan concocted environmentally-friendly “mix ‘n match shoes”: Four molded plastic parts (heel, sole, instep, ankle)) are cobbled together with special silicon bands to form a complete one-size-fits-all shoe. By ordering only 16 different elements, a woman can create 256 different pairs of shoes.

Golan is now looking for a shoe manufacturer to market her line online.

* Prior to being exiled with her dictator husband in 1987, Imelda also owned 508 floor-length gowns, 888 handbags and 71 pairs of sunglasses.

ALL THUMBS

Israeli legislators discovered, much to their horror, that nothing in the law books prohibits motorists from sending e-mails while driving a car. While the law says “one must have two hands on the wheel” it doesn’t say anything about resting a personal hand-held device (smartphone or minicomputer) on the steering wheel and keying in a message with one’s thumbs while tooling along the highway at 110 kilometers per hour (68 mph). The lacuna leaves a loophole through which multitaskers can dodge any attempt to slap them with a fine for reckless driving.

The minister of transportation stepped in with a ministerial directive until the Knesset can pass an amendment.

NOBODY HERE BUT US CHICKENS…

Quiet as a tomb?

Not in Yahud* – where Zaki Vajima, chair of the Yahud’s religious council decided to set up a private “hobby farm” in the town’s cemetery. Vajima protested that his chicken coop filled with 20 cackling hens didn’t break Jewish law but agreed to move his chickens someone else under pressure, after jarred visitors called the press.

* a bedroom community, north of Ben-Gurion Airport

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
Archeologists at the City of David archeological site found a tiny gold bell in the sediment of a drainage ditch for rainwater that ran along the main drag to the Temple Mount in the 1^st Century.  A small loop at the top suggests the rare find was sewed to the garment of a rich Jerusalemite as an embellishment. 

Could they have been the duds of one of the high priests? 

The following passage in the book of Exodus describing the high priest Aaron's robe suggests such conjecture is not entirely off-the-wall: "All of blue... it shall have a binding of woven work... And upon the skirts of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the skirts thereof; and bells of gold between them round about."

CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC!

Everyone's heard of "beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks" but how about turning an armored personnel carrier into a gigantic percussion instrument? 

Thirty-six year-old Dror Gomel, a kibbutznik from Beit Kama – a special ed music therapist in civilian life says he can "play on anything" and set out to prove it. Not about to give up his drumsticks even after being called up for active service in the reserves, Gomel dumfounded his buddies in an Israeli infantry reserves unit by turning an IDF NAGMASH (APC, in English) into a gigantic makeshift drum, composing an improvisation on the spot which the musical combat soldier dubbed the "No More War Concerto*"

* To hear more of the work, go here and here.

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