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Jewish Journal

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October 23, 2013

In Israel’s local (re)elections, implications for the national scene

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The international press may have paid less attention this time around, but Israel held its second set of elections within one year yesterday – this time voting for mayors and city councils.

Israelis, for their part, seemed to share the rest of the world’s apathy for this ballot. While two-thirds of the country turned out to vote in January’s Knesset election, only 42 percent made it to their polling places yesterday.

In Tel Aviv, more people showed up at Rihanna’s concert last night (50,000) than voted for the mayoral runner-up, Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz (48,000).

But even with Rihanna’s numbers, Horowitz still would have lost. The story of Tuesday’s election was reelection. The mayors of the country’s four biggest cities (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Rishon Letzion) won another five-year term. For Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, it will be the fourth; by the end of this term, he will have governed the White City for two decades.

Incumbency even trumped concerns about corruption, as three mayors facing criminal charges won at the ballot box.

The Huldai-Horowitz race, along with a couple of others, held national implications.

Jerusalem: More than any other race, the capital city’s mayoral campaign captured Israel’s attention. Jerusalem has, during the past several years, had a growing Charedi Orthodox population and a shrinking secular and modern Orthodox sector – a trend combatted by first-term secular Mayor Nir Barkat. Barkat has increased the city’s job opportunities and cultural offerings, and oversaw the launch of the Jerusalem light rail system.

Barkat defeated a Charedi opponent in 2008, and faced a modern Orthodox challenger in this round, Moshe Leon – who actually lives in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim. Leon had the backing of a couple of powerful national politicians – former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Sephardic Orthodox Shas Party Chair Aryeh Deri – and he campaigned for the allegiance of Jerusalem’s Charedi voters.

Barkat’s reelection, 51 percent to 45, was a rejection of Charedi influence by the city’s voters. It was also one more setback for Liberman – whose corruption trial comes to a verdict soon – and Deri – whose spiritual leader, Ovadia Yosef, died earlier this month.

Beit Shemesh: But the Charedi community showed its strength in Beit Shemesh, a central Israeli city also featuring a tense divide between a growing Charedi sector and a shrinking secular/modern Orthodox community. The secular/modern Orthodox sector united in a fierce campaign behind candidate Eli Cohen to unseat the city’s Charedi mayor, Moshe Abutbul, but Abutbul won reelection with 52 percent of the vote.

Tel Aviv: Rather than revolving around Charedi influence, the race in Israel’s secular mecca focused in part on ongoing discontent in the city’s (and country’s) middle class – a tension that consumed Israel’s attention in 2011 with the social justice protests in Tel Aviv. Horowitz, a member of the left-wing Meretz Party, tried to reignite that energy with a campaign that chided Huldai for focusing on improving the lives of the rich, at the expense of Tel Aviv’s poor and middle-class citizens. Had he won, Horowitz also would have been Israel’s first openly gay mayor.

But the voters chose Huldai, 58 percent to 41, who touted a record of making Tel Aviv a global destination and a vibrant, youthful city – with active boulevards, café culture, a busy beach and a range of cultural events. Huldai also rode to victory (pun intended) on the city’s popular bike-sharing program and expanded bike lanes, which his administration initiated. Huldai’s street ads simply featured an illustration of the mayor riding a bicycle above the slogan “A good leader.”

In Israel’s local (re)elections, implications for the national scene Read More »

Leaving Israel is becoming a trend, so why do I choose to stay?

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After spending Friday nights in Tel-Aviv and calling each other “brother” or “sister,” comes the most recent Israeli trend: leaving Israel.

It is now THE Israeli thing to do: pack, fly, start anew abroad. This phenomenon is not new, but it has recently become impossible to ignore. It is catching like fire in a field of hay. Every day you encounter someone stating he/she is leaving, and everywhere you go abroad, you meet a small community of former Israelis that use every opportunity to explain why “here, life is so much better – no war, no noise, no heat, no hate.”

 

I am not going to call them “pathetic” or “traitors.” I don’t think they are. I think they got so tired of the problem-struck Israel, that they decided they can handle their fair share of anti-Semitism in return for a somewhat simpler life. Some people are not handling this recent trend very well. Our Finance Minister, for example, recently called the departing Israelis a series of unflattering names. He reminded them of the events of 60 years ago, and demanded to know why they still choose Berlin or Budapest over our homeland.

 

As a response, they presented him with a long list of troubles and distress in our homeland, which makes the danger of history repeating itself much less worrying. Here, we live under the constant threat of destruction courtesy of our neighbors, we are being targeted by BDS groups seeking to leave us as outcasts of the enlightened world, we are a target by the looking-for-some-action foreign media, it is almost impossible to live here with an average paycheck, it is ALWAYS hot, and this is only a short list.


Truth is, I understand why people leave, but I also know that the reason they’re boarding the plane so bravely, spitting in the eye of raging modern day anti-Semitism, is the acknowledgment of Israel as a sanctuary.They all know that if and when the day for history to repeat itself will come, they will have a place to run back to. If this trend will continue to grow, there may not be a place for them to run to, but fortunately, many of us have no intention of abandoning the fort. The urge to leave for “a better life” exists in us all. I know that living in the US or in Italy would be much more comfortable and easy, but I, like many others, don’t give in to “easy” so easily. We know we must grow roots here for our fellow Israelis, who could not do this themselves.

 

I see no other option for me other than a fully-Israeli life, so Instead of thinking of the life I could have in a place far away, I focus on the things that make me want to stay.  I think of the diverse, unique scenery: deserts, cities, snow, beaches, nightclubs and Kibuttzes – a local destination for every mood, in no more than a couple of hours’ drive away. I think of the warmth. Not the challenging humidity, but the warmth of the people. We may push in lines sometimes, or steal hotel shampoos, but when a fellow person is in need, you can count on the closest Israeli to provide assistance. Once you meet an Israeli you become his/her friend, before he/she even knows your last name or where you are from. It's the willingness to think of others, friends or strangers, before oneself, that sure puts a smile on my face.

 

I also think of the solidarity: in this small piece of land we are forced to share many experiences, such as serving in the army, taking a class field trip to former concentration camps and death camps in Poland, and knowing we, together, still write the history of this young country. This makes us united so tightly, that we always look out for each other, and never leave a “brother” or “sister” in need. I think of our great contribution to the world through original Israeli creation: life-changing inventions such as the ReWalk, award-winning films, inspiration for excellent American TV, Nobel Prizes, Olympic medals and more.

 

I think of Jerusalem: this magical city that brings all religions together. This “something” there that can take your breath away, from the vision of the Tower of David at night, through the smells of the Ben – Yehuda market, to the feeling of the Western Wall at my fingertips. I think of the optimism: how we always believe that “everything will be all right.” This sentence, combined with the strong belief that everything will, in fact, be all right, is the Israeli essence. No matter what, we stick with our home, with the country that our parents and grandparents built.

 

Put together, all those thoughts make me more confident than ever in my decision to stay here. While I find great enjoyment in touring the world, I know I only have one home, and this home must wait, intact, stronger and better, to my fellow Israelis' return.

Leaving Israel is becoming a trend, so why do I choose to stay? Read More »

Jonny Kaplan: Count your ‘Lazy Stars’

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It was a full-moon-illuminated night in September, and several hundred 30- and 40-somethings circulated through Fonogenic Studios, the Van Nuys recording facility co-owned by Rami Jaffee, a keyboardist who was a founding member of the Wallflowers and has played extensively with Foo Fighters. 

On stage, a tall, lean fellow, sans shoes and with long sandy-brown hair, blazed through one of his blues-marinated originals, “Annalee Meets the Scorpion,” with bassist Brad Smith (a founding member of Blind Melon) and Jaffee on piano. After Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett’s scorching set with his sideband, the Dead Peasants, attendees were on overdrive, rocking out to the barefoot guy in the headband, whose vocals soared like a murder of crows released above the crowd.

The singer on stage was Jonny Kaplan, and this private party’s raison d’etre was the release of “Sparkle and Shine” by Jonny Kaplan and the Lazy Stars, recorded at Fonogenic. The country-tinged rockers play again Oct. 29 at 10:30 p.m. at Piano Bar in Hollywood.

The band’s fourth album features Jaffee, along with actress-girlfriend Daryl Hannah, who sings on two tracks, and former Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen. Indeed, the list of contributors to the Lazy Stars’ newest album reads like an alternative super-group, including Jessy Greene (strings), who has performed with Wilco, Foo Fighters and Pink; keyboardist Adam MacDougall, who joined the Black Crowes in 2007; and others. 

“Luckily for me, these folks are my friends, and they like and respect my music,” Kaplan said.

While not a household name, Kaplan, who can handle guitar, harmonica and vocals, has a storied career anyone would envy. He’s jammed with Keith Richards, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, the Wallflowers and Kings of Leon.

“Jonny is my favorite kind of musician,” Krusen said. “He has a lot of experience playing in different situations, yet is a very humble and supportive person.” 

Since 1997’s “California Heart” album — which was named “Americana Album of the Month” by British music magazine MOJO — Kaplan has cultivated a following abroad. 

“That really got the ball rolling for me in Europe,” he said.

That’s when the fun started for Jaffee.

“Jonny began playing shows in Spain and Italy,” Jaffee told the Journal. “His following began to grow almost immediately over there. That’s why I became a Lazy Star. He asked me to play with him on a mini-tour in Spain, and it was the most fun I’d had in a long time.”

As with Jaffee, Kaplan’s Jewishness has always kept him company. Originally from Philadelphia, Kaplan explains he “grew up around all of these … Eastern European immigrants who all had numbers tattooed on their arms. I have heard all of the horror stories firsthand from my grandparents.

“My mother’s side of the family are all Holocaust survivors,” Kaplan said. “In fact, my mother was born in Auschwitz, and she [was hidden] from the Nazis as an infant, so I am lucky to be here at all.

“I am very proud of my people and my heritage,” the Marina del Rey resident said, “although I and my family are not very religious. I actually visited Auschwitz while on tour a few years ago. Seeing that place in living color, knowing my mother was born there, was a very heavy thing. There is an incredible feeling of sadness there that is hard to shake.”

For Kaplan, “Sparkle” represents an unprecedented maturity and ferocity. 

“There is a level of sophistication on this one that I haven’t reached before in terms of songwriting and diversity,” Kaplan said. 

“As with everything else, evolution and maturity comes from experience … life experience. I was involved in a very bad motorcycle accident a few years ago, which left me in pain and healing for four months. It was then that I started writing the songs for ‘Sparkle and Shine,’ ” he said.

Jaffee’s gold- and platinum-record signature Hammond organ sounds are showcased on such cuts as “Garage Cleaner,” on which Kaplan and Dan Wistrom provide slide guitars. Echoes of the Gram Parsons-led Byrds can be heard on “I’ll Be Around” and “The Child Is Gone.” The catchy title track combines the upbeat bar-band ethos of early Wilco albums and Bruce Springsteen, circa 1980’s “The River,” with ’80s pop-rock touches of Rick Springfield or Billy Squier. Kaplan closes with the acoustic-dominated “Pretty Little Nose.” 

Despite comparisons to alt-country rock pioneer Parsons, a big influence on Kaplan, it’s his own compositions with which he hopes to sparkle and shine — this time in the United States.

“I want a proper career — writing, recording and touring here at home,” he said. “ ‘Sparkle and Shine’ is now up for Grammy consideration for Best Americana Album. I would most certainly like to win!”

Jonny Kaplan: Count your ‘Lazy Stars’ Read More »

Lewis Black’s ‘Rant’ is due in Thousand Oaks

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It’s been a great year for Lewis Black. There was the budget sequestration, the government shutdown and the fierce debates once again over Obamacare. Politicians left and right have been acting like nitwits, and Congress has proved its incompetence over and over again.  

The amount of comedic material that can emerge from these circumstances is endless. For Black, now 65 and best known for his appearances on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the absurdity in politics, government and society is nothing more than sheer inspiration for his act. 

A stand-up comedian well-known for angry tirades against the government, religion and cultural crazes, Black is back with a new tour, “The Rant Is Due,” which he debuted in January. He will be making a stop at the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on Oct. 27, and his main targets this time are his contemporaries. 

In a phone interview, Black said, “My parents’ generation was a group of idiots. Now I’m watching my generation, and they are, too, especially the leaders. They are real idiots. I look at them and go, ‘Jesus, they are twice as dumb and should have known better. I look at John Boehner and think, ‘Wow! We were raised on the same planet,’ which is really astonishing. It’s just unbelievable.”

Black got his start as a playwright, and these days, he said, he performs on the road 150 days out of the year. He’s taped four “Comedy Central Presents” specials; appeared in movies, including “Man of the Year” with Robin Williams and “Accepted”; and is the centerpiece of “Back in Black,” a long-running “Daily Show” segment. He’s also written three best-selling books, won two Grammys and performed to sold-out houses at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. 

This latest tour has taken him across the United States, including to Ohio, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C. The fall leg, which he began in Sacramento, is already extending into February 2014. 

Black said he sees his generation as stuck in the past. “There is this mentality that has gone on in my entire lifetime. People don’t acknowledge that things have evolved. They want things to be exactly the way they used to be, and it’s going to stay the way it was whether people like it or not.”

He argues in his new show that while the United States is progressing in certain respects, his generation doesn’t want to transform with the times. “There’s been this slow change, while there is this whole [other generation] coming up who has already changed,” he said. “A door got opened, and this breeze came through, and these jackasses put coats on.”

Because he’s on the road a quarter of the year, his act is always a work in progress. “I’ll take one little fact, and I’ll work on it,” he said. “If a joke doesn’t work, I’ll try to make another joke. I’ll try three times, and it if doesn’t work, then I throw it out.”

Black is such a fluid writer that sometimes he pulls out jokes that wouldn’t fit into his previous special and reworks them into his new one. “I’m doing things now that weren’t in the last two specials. I spend a portion of the act on the legalization of pot. My generation needs a legacy [like pot legalization] because otherwise people are going to say, ‘What the hell were they about?’”

Although his jokes are oftentimes extremely current, he said they can also be evergreen, because “these people don’t die. If I talk about Sarah Palin, it’s because she hasn’t gone away.”

He finds his material appeals to anyone from “ages 12 to 95.” And he first started gaining younger audience members when he began playing colleges and theaters. The “Daily Show” gig probably helped, too.   

Black, who doesn’t shy away from religion in his stand-up, was raised in a Jewish home in Silver Spring, Md., a mere 20 minutes from Washington, D.C. He isn’t religious, but he does take pride in his heritage. “Today I describe myself as a ‘deli Jew,’ ” he said. “I have a certain amount of faith. I believe there is something out there. I just don’t take that kind of comfort praying in a group.” 

He said he had a bar mitzvah, celebrated the High Holy Days growing up, and went to Hebrew classes every Sunday. He even published a book, “Me of Little Faith,” which is about his relationship to Judaism and religion in general. “When I graduated from school, I was kind of done. I did try to hang in. I got a lot more of the ethical and cultural than I got the spiritual end.”

Along with perpetually writing and changing his stand-up act, Black is currently working on a new play, but he said he doesn’t “know how far it will go.” He will also be back on “The Daily Show” soon, he said, and people can catch his latest special, “Old Yeller,” on inDemand until early next month. 

Although Black appears irritated, frustrated and flustered on stage, he said he wants, above all, that his audiences have fun when they see him live: “I hope they have a good time, and I can help them get away from whatever stress and nonsense they’re dealing with.”

Lewis Black’s ‘Rant’ is due in Thousand Oaks Read More »

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra: A gift for all ‘Seasons’

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When the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) performs Vivaldi’s evergreen “The Four Seasons” at a benefit at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Oct. 30, the orchestra won’t be made up of its 100-plus players. Instead, the event, which is a fundraiser for the orchestra and its only Los Angeles appearance this year, will offer donors a rare opportunity to engage with some 15 members of the orchestra’s string section, as well as a harpsichordist.

The strings form the heart of any orchestra, producing its distinctive sound, and that’s especially true of the Israel Philharmonic. New York Times music critic Bernard Holland once commented on the IPO’s tonal beauty: “From top to bottom, the strings made sounds different from any orchestra I can think of. You hear it even as players tune their instruments.” 

The Los Angeles festivities will also include a cocktail party and dinner, along with introductory words about the program from conductor John Mauceri, and a reading of mood-setting poems before each season of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” by “Breaking Bad” actor John de Lancie. 

But underneath all the celebration lies a hard truth, an ongoing history that cannot be denied. 

“The Israel Philharmonic is a very specific institution,” said violinist Julian Rachlin by phone from Munich, where he is performing with his mentor, Lorin Maazel. Rachlin has toured extensively with the Israel Philharmonic as both soloist and conductor. “It is much more than just an orchestra. It is a symbol of a country that is surrounded mostly by enemies. It is the cultural ambassador of Israel.”

The great Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman created the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in 1935 out of historical necessity, along the way saving many German and Eastern European Jewish musicians and their families — and a good part of Jewish musical culture in the process.  

“One has to build a fist against anti-Semitism,” Huberman, who died in 1947, said. “A first-class orchestra will be this fist.”

Renamed the Israel Philharmonic  Orchestra in 1948, when Israel achieved statehood, the musicians gloved that fist with a reputation for delivering ravishing accounts of symphonies by Brahms, Mahler and Tchaikovsky, to name just three composers who became specialties of the orchestra under renowned conductors like Leonard Bernstein and Zubin Mehta and, more recently, guest conductors like Gustavo Dudamel.

Rachlin, now 38, has toured with the IPO since he was 15. He will conduct “The Four Seasons” at the benefit concert and perform the score’s demanding violin solos. 

“We know that Israel is always in a state of tension,” Rachlin said, “and that most of the money goes to the army, and rightly so, to defend and make sure that this country continues to exist. So there is very little state funding that goes to the orchestra.”

David A. Hirsch, president of the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (AFIPO) board of directors, said that 30 percent of the orchestra’s budget is financed from private sources, with 14 percent coming from the government. Earned income from recordings, TV appearances, DVDs and concert ticket sales make up the remaining 56 percent.

“When the IPO travels, it brings a message of peace,” Hirsch wrote in an e-mail. “The musicians of the orchestra are priceless cultural emissaries for Israel, yet the costs of touring are astronomical.”

AFIPO fundraisers “underwrite international touring, as well as music education programs, which the orchestra facilitates for thousands of Israel’s young people annually, including immigrants from Ethiopia and Russia and children from disadvantaged homes,” Hirsch added.

At Huberman’s request, the first benefit for what became the Israel Philharmonic was chaired by Albert Einstein in New York in the 1930s. Huberman also had little trouble persuading Arturo Toscanini, a fervent anti-Nazi, to lead the Palestine Symphony’s first concert in December 1936. 

“Since then, the orchestra has relied on similar annual benefit events to help meet their annual deficit,” Hirsch said. “It would be hard for the orchestra to manage without this American support.”

Ilya Konovalov, the IPO’s concertmaster, who will perform at the New York and Los Angeles benefit concerts, called Rachlin “a fantastic musician. It’s interesting to see how he changes every time he conducts.”

The Siberian-born violinist was just 20 and fresh out of the Vienna Academy of Music when he became the orchestra’s concertmaster. “It’s a great responsibility, but when you’re 20, you’re ready to take risks,” Konovalov, 36, said. “Maybe more than I am now,” he added.

Konovalov said younger musicians are keeping the orchestra vital. “It’s an exciting period in the Israel Philharmonic,” he said. “Almost every year, we see five or six new musicians. The orchestra is more flexible than it used to be. The younger musicians are more interested in trying new things, not always playing the same material in the Philharmonic’s style, which I think will make us sound even richer.”

Rachlin agreed. “Interestingly enough, there are also a lot of Israeli players,” he said. “There is a very nice mix of the older generation, which still carry on this great tradition and have experience of the sound of the Israel Philharmonic, and younger musicians learning from them.” 

Meanwhile, Konovalov said the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is happy to be back in its renovated home, the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv. “We started our season, and it looks good. There are many new conductors, and new faces in the orchestra and audience. Many changes look promising at the moment.”

But the violinist said the financial health of any orchestra is always a work in progress. “You never know,” Konovalov said. “Every benefit concert is important. Once you think one is less important than another, you are going down.”

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra: A gift for all ‘Seasons’ Read More »

A tale of love and loss and the Holocaust, in Yiddish

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When Naomi Jaye, who has been making short films in her native Canada for the past 10 years, told friends she was embarking on her first feature film, they cheered.

When she added that the project would be the first Canadian movie in Yiddish, which neither she nor her lead actors knew, the friends questioned her sanity.

Five years later, the result of her perseverance is “The Pin,” a story of love and loss during the Holocaust, of faithfulness to a promise and the question of whether a sense of humanity can survive in a world transformed into a slaughterhouse.

The movie’s first scene shows Jacob, somewhere between adolescence and manhood, emerging from a hole in a forest, glancing around warily, and then running as if escaping an unseen enemy.

In the second scene, set in a morgue, an elderly Shomer, who guards the body and soul of the dead until burial, reads psalms from a prayer book while occasionally glancing at a body resting on a gurney, covered by a white sheet.

In a long flashback, the Shomer recalls his youth. The year is 1941, Nazi armies have overrun his hometown somewhere in Eastern Europe and have killed his entire family.

He finds shelter in a barn that seems empty, but soon encounters a young Jewish girl, Leah, whose family has met the same fate and who has also gone into hiding.

After initial suspicion and confrontation, the two orphans move toward each other, emotionally and physically, fall in love, and eventually conduct their own impromptu wedding ceremony.

When Leah hears of an empty train that travels “across the border,” she and Jacob plan their escape and a happy life together. But fate and a quarrel interfere, and the young lovers are separated, neither knowing what happened to the other.

What about “the pin” of the title?

Jaye says the inspiration for the story and title came from her grandmother, who throughout her long life had an obsessive fear of being buried alive.

As she aged, she made her son, Jaye’s father, promise that when she died, he would prick her hand with a pin, to make absolutely certain that she was actually dead before placing her body in a coffin.

This story, Jaye said, “always fascinated me, because it required an act of true love that was also an act of violence.”

Decades later, when Jacob, now the aged Shomer, lifts the sheet and looks at the body beneath, he realizes that lying before him is his youthful love, Leah. He remembers her fear of being buried alive, his promise to her, and he starts looking for a pin.

It would be an unpardonable spoiler to reveal the end of the story, but, to Jaye, the tale, and the movie, represents the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

In an interview, she explained this assertion by noting that the chief protagonists, “caught in a terrible situation, are able to find beauty and love.”

Some viewers may find it difficult to accept this hopeful evaluation, or appreciate the extremely slow pace of the movie, marked by long, wordless pauses in semi-dark settings.

Jaye has a cogent explanation for using this technique. “The lives of people in hiding, as for soldiers in war, are marked by long periods of waiting,” between occasional bursts of extreme action, and, the director said, this was the mood she was trying to convey.

Her main problem in casting the movie was the lack of any young actors in Canada who knew Yiddish.

She solved the problem, quite effectively, by putting Grisha Pasternak, who plays Jacob, and Milda Gecaite, as Leah, through a six-month Yiddish course, and the results are quite satisfying.

Both actors arrived in Canada as children, Pasternak from Ukraine and Gecaite from Lithuania. Neither is Jewish, and both show considerable talent.

Veteran character actor David Fox, as the Shomer, has few lines but lets his expressive face do most of the talking.

“The Pin” will have a local benefit premiere on Oct. 24, 7 p.m. at the Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles. Jaye and the cast will be on hand for a Q-and-A and to share refreshments with the audience. Tickets, at $25 each for this evening, can be ordered at https://thepinfilm.eventbrite.com/?ref=elink. Unsold seats will be available at the box office.

Starting Oct. 25, “The Pin” will continue at the Royal Theatre at regular prices, and at the Sundance Sunset Cinema in West Hollywood. On Nov. 1, the film will start screening at Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, Town Center in Encino and South Coast Village 3 in Santa Ana.

A tale of love and loss and the Holocaust, in Yiddish Read More »

Rihanna didn’t actually say ‘All I see is Palestine’ at her Tel Aviv concert

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Both sides of the Israel-Palestine debate are going nuts over an alleged shout-out that Rihanna made to Palestine — and not Israel — “>staged a sexy photo shoot outside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi earlier this week. Meanwhile, all the Israelis who had been in attendance at the Tel Aviv concert started asking: Wait, why didn't I hear that? 

Here's how the rumor started.

The only news outlet that originally reported the lyric change “>was the first to speak up. “If every newspaper in the country sent ppl to the @rihanna concert & only Haaretz heard a pro-Palestinian comment, it probably didn't happen,” she Tweeted. Another warning sign could have been that “>Al Bawaba, “>Huffington Post and “>Muslim Women in History Tumblr account asked: “Time to forgive her?”

Oops. Here's proof that Rihanna didn't shout-out Palestine, beginning at the six-minute mark, via YouTube user