Portfolio

Here’s a bunch of items I’ve published during the last couple of years or so. This list is updated from time to time with my best recent works.
I’d be glad to provide additional texts of mine upon request.

Climate Change in Croatia Threaten the Future of the Tourism Sector [H]
Haaretz, November 2009
.pdf version
Temprature rise, water stress and flood risk for historical sites pose a question mark on the future of one of the most important sectors in Croatia’s economy. But apart from scientists and environmentalists, it seems like no one in the country is concerned with the implications.

Turning over a new leaf [H]
Ynet, June 2009
Everyone want to save the world, and sometimes even print on both sides of the page. But when it comes to books, the green principles remain only “on the page”. More and more books are printed, and more and more trees are cut in ancient and sensitive forests. If this trend continues – The Giving Tree will turn into The Given Up Tree. Why recycled paper is not used, why it is used abroad and what are the alternatives?

The environmental party exposed [H]
HaSviva, July 2008
- Exclusive -
The buzz around the foundation has been going on for several months. In a first activists assembly “The Green Movement” introduced its political declaration of intent. An internet website presenting itself as the movement’s gives it a radical left character. “It’s not our website. We’ve contacted the Internet authorities”

Landslide [H]
Tzomet HaSharon, June 2006
.pdf version
The landslide phenomena of the cliffs along Hezliya beaches threatens the bathers, but also the archeological site of Apollonia. A number of rescue options have been brought up, all demand large sums of money but also cannot guarantee a permanent solution.

Ein Bokek: Another nature reserve closed for entrance fees [H]
ynet, March 2006
- Exclusive research -
The “Ein Bokek Project”, initiated by the Israeli Nature Reserves and National Parks Authority, aims at turning the already popular spring in the desert into a touristic site with mandatory entrance fees. This research reveals serious faults within the process: construction works without permission, ignoring public-hearing results and general contempt of the law.

Tales from the pond [H]
Tzomet HaSharon, February 2006
.pdf version
The municipality’s plans in Herzliya promise a wide-open public park, the largest of its kind in the region. However, the land on which it’s supposed to be founded, is a source for dispute. The private land owners demand to build a number of residential sky scrapers on part of it in exchange to their agreement. The municipality is persistent not to allow that offering financial compensation instead. As part of this struggle, the municipality conducts tours and happenings in order to show the beauty of the unique marshes that has been there for decades, but at the same time alienates itself from the fact that this endangered habitat would actually evaporate once the park will be there.

Static Electricity [H]
Haaretz, July 2009
Jordan also has its own nuclear programme, meant for reducing the dependence on imported oil. But the project raises criticism from within the country regarding the danger to man and the environment. And there are, as usual, those who hear the word “nuclear” next to the words “Middle Eastern country” and are covered with cold sweat.

A kingdom for a river [D]
Südwind, July 2008
.pdf version
Arid Kingdom [H]
ynet, October 2008
“Israel dehydrates,” warn formal sources and call us to think of every drop before the reservoirs dry out. Even in the Jordanian capital of Amman each drop counts: the water flow in the pipelines only once a week for 24 hours, and people have to manage with the amount stored in the tanks on the rooftop. The neighbors’ grass is yellower.
(co-written with Josef C. Ladenhauf)

Dispute between the Jewish Central Council and the Israeli Government [D]
Berliner Morgenpost and Berliner Morgenpost.de, January 2008
The Jewish community in Germany is considered to be one of the largest in Europe, mostly thanks to the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The Israeli governmental agency “Nativ” has been active in the Jewish communities in the Soviet Union for about 50 years, most of the time secretly, promoting “Aliyah”, immigration to Israel. Now it seeks to expand to Germany, and while gently trying not to put in stake the very unique relations with Germany, its best ally in Europe, it faces a fierce opposition from the German Jewish community.
(co-written with Katrin Schoelkopf)

Darfur refugees flee to “enemy state” Israel [D]
Die Welt and Welt Online, November 2007
.pdf version
Adam is an 18-year-old refugee who currently studies in a board-school in Haifa, Israel after a two-years-long escape journey from his small village in Darfur through Khartoum, Cairo and Jerusalem. He’s also the person responsible for the establishment of an association for all Darfur refugees in Israel. This exceptional but representing story also acts as the frame for a summary of the present status of Darfur refugees in Israel – a dilemma of itself in a country which has been established mostly by people who fled a genocide themselves, but at first couldn’t cope with the sudden phenomena, especially when the refugees came from a country which is considered as enemy state, resulting the long prison detentions of most of these refugees.

Report: Attack on Israeli embassy in Germany thwarted
ynet [H] and ynetnews [E], October 2007
- First publication in Israel -
According to the German weekly “Focus”, tapes of conversations between three terror suspects reveal plot to attack German pubs, discotheques, a US military base and the Israeli embassy.

A Long Way to Go [H]
Ha’ayin Hashvi’it [The Seventh Eye], Februray2009
The authorities in Jordan have a hard time translating the royal declarations  in regard of press freedom into practice, and things amount to journalists being arrested and even thrown to jail. “We are trying to be objective,” says the editor-in-chief of the state affiliated Jordan Times, “but it’s not always possible”

Modern Talking [H]
Masa Acher, January 2009
.pdf version
Something’s going on in Amman. It seems to be in an ongoing dialogue with the western culture, giving it contemporary local interpertations. In the recent years, for example, a new language can be heard on the streets: “Arabizi”, a fusion of Arabic and English.

Little kingdom of mine [H]
Ha’aretz and Ha’aretz Online, May 2008
The island realm of an ‘ordinary’ king [E]
Toronto Star and TheStar.com, May 2008
.pdf version
Monarch of 15 subjects [D]
Sueddeutsche.de, September 2008
On the tiny island of Tavolara an independent kingdom existed without interruption until NATO established a military outpost on its Eastern part. The few citizens earn their living from tourism. King Tonino brings the visitors with his boat hoping they would eat at his restaurant “Da Tonino”. But everything’s stays in the family: the competing restaurant is owned by his sister Madallena.

The Train of Commemoration confronts Germany with sensitive past [H]
ynet, November 2007
On its journey from Frankfurt to Auschwitz, dedicated to million children who were deported to extermination camps throughout Europe, the unique exhibition “Train of Commemoration” acts as a silent evidence of demolished communities. The citizen project aims not only at raising the awareness along the exhibition’s stops in numerous train stations, but also at collecting further documents and testimonies of the Nazi’s victims. The visit to the city of Mannheim was yet an example of the way the nowadays locals deal with the piece of dark history brought to them by the exhibition.

Wandering books [H]
Masa Acher, February 2007
Tens of thousands of books are waiting for people to grab them, for free, all around the globe. The ambitious project of “Bookcrossing”, initiated by an American computer programmer in 2001, aims at “turning the world into a library”. Books are left on public places to be taken by anyone who’s interested and willing to set them free again after reading. A code inside the book allows following their journey on the project website. In this article, two of the Israeli participants tell their own stories.

The stones of the wall will cry out [H]
Ha’Ir and Achbar Ha’Ir Online, August 2006
Yossef Lougasi lives in a small apartment in Jaffa with his wife and 385 different mosaic portraits of people of the Jewish and Israeli heritage and culture, all made by himself. Lougassi, born in 1948, has immigrated to Israel with his 12 family members from Morocco when he was 6 years old. His unique drawing skills were first discovered when he was asked to draw a picture for his parople officer after caught stealing for his family as a kid. The mosaics came later, inspired by ancient mosaics he saw. He started by using pieces of a broken kitchen plate, but the materials he still uses today are all leftovers from house renovations that he finds in the street. From his point of view, his art also acts as a protest against the state authorities which refused his enrollment to the army due to the fact he never completed elementary school. For this reason he couldn’t find a job later on. But despite his anger he sticks to his art. “Instead of complaining about our country, I decided to create the mosaic portraits of those who fired me from work,” he says.