The Marcos Kirsch Experience®

I have finally downloaded, cleaned up, and sorted over 400 photos from my recent trip to Israel. As you can imagine it was an absolute blast (the trip, not sorting the photos out). Keep on reading to see the album and for more…

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Booyakasha! Marcos got unexpectedly upgraded to business class on his 11.5 hour long flight from Ben Gurion to JFK. Thank you Israir. Why? I don’t know, and I’m not complaining, but feel free to state your ideas in the comments.

I’m back in Austin now… went straight from the airport to work, then to a volleyball match with the legendary Masacotes de Tepezcueloyo (we lost). I still have plenty to do and sorting through 500+ photos is part of it. Too tired to deal with any of that now. Stay tuned.

This one’s bothered me for years and it came up again yesterday while chilling at the beach:

In Hebrew, turkey (the animal) is hodu/הודו. However, Hodu/הודו is also the name for India (the country), while in English Turkey refers to a different country known in Hebrew as Turkia/טורקיה. To make matters worse, the animal does not come from either country: it is native to North America (and was called huexolotl in nahuatl). It wasn’t even introduced in the area until the 16th century!

Chew on that for a minute.

Went out to a big club in Tel Aviv on Monday. Absolutely packed, huge line, hard to go in. Everything else at the port was also full. On a Monday.

Got back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem last night at 3 AM. Coffee shops and bars everywhere were open. People walking the streets. Stores open. On a Thursday morning, at 3 AM.

Walking around town today at about 4 PM. There’s people everywhere. Restaurants packed. People walking the street. Malls full.

Does anyone ever work in this city? Or are they just sitting around in coffee shops at all hours?

I’m in Jerusalem right now. The first part of my trip is almost over (the part with the group).
On Monday morning we are officially done after we drop everyone off at the airport. What I’ll be doing the next week is not yet totally decided but I have many ideas. I should have better access to the Internet then and I will try to upload some photos.

It’s now time to dust off my old yet considerable skills as a madrich as I’ll be leading a Birthright trip to Israel, organized by Israel Outdoors.

The trip is 10 days long and hits all major landmarks after which I’ll stay in order to visit friends and family. It will be the longest vacation I’ve taken since I started working, and it will be weird being away for so long.

I won’t be taking my laptop, but I will try to post something now and then if I have a chance from a borrowed computer or from a tiny multi-touch on-screen keyboard with no tactile feedback.

If you are in Israel and want to meet up, do let me know. If you want me to eat a shawarma in your name, please deposit NIS 15 in my PayPal or bank account and I will gladly do so.

Just for kicks, here’s an old photo of Bielas, Nedvedovich and myself building a Mifkad Esh (fire sign) to celebrate a previous Yom Ha’atzmaut back in Monterrey. I’m the one with the pony tail.

On Purim’s eve (Thursday night) the Ugly Nun resurfaced at the big party down at the Hillel building thrown this year. The surprisingly excellent Israeli reggae band Hatikva 6 played live. A fun night. Chag sameach! (album)

Blue really brings out Moi’s eyes, and covers the rest of his face! Nice.

Shelly, Hatikva 6’s ultra-hot keyboard player.
Shelly: if you ever Google “Hatikva 6 Austin”, drop me a line!

Sister Jared, an old friend from the convent.

Hatikva 6

This week I had the luck of going to not one, but two concerts by Israeli musicians. Keep reading for photos and videos.

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My brother Jacobo was wondering about Latin American members of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament). We knew of only one. So we looked it up. Being such a young country with a high level of immigration, a high percentage of the population was born in the Diaspora, so it’s only natural that it reflects in the government.

As far as we could tell, there have been only three:

1. Eliezer Ronnen (Mexico, 8th Knesset)
2. Benny Temkin (Mexico, 13th Knesset)
3. Yehuda Gilad (Brazil, 15th Knesset)

Let’s put things into perspective:

Argentina is the Latin American country with the largest Jewish population (about five times as much as Mexico) yet no Argentinians have been in the Knesset.

The United States has the largest Jewish population in the Diaspora (twelve times as many as Mexico!) yet only three members of the Knesset were born there (although former Primer Minister Golda Meir grew up in the U.S.).

Another interesting fact is that Benny Temkin was not only born in Mexico, but more specifically in Monterrey (my hometown). This is noteworthy (and a source of pride) because Monterrey has one of the smallest Jewish communities in the world (under 500). I’ve met Benny several times. He and his wife would take us out to lunch a few times while I lived in Israel (and he was in the Knesset and ruling coalition) and at parties back home.

I finally saw the controversial movie Paradise Now. I even wrote a lengthy (unfinished) post about it. However, due to the highly explosive (pun intended? I can’t help myself!) topic, the review needs to be very carefully written and that’s a lot of work. So I won’t finish it. I’ll summarize it though:

It’s a good movie. It’s very well done. It’s well acted. It’s entertaining and it’s educational. It is also very careful about what it shows and what it leaves out. This is not a documentary, so it’s unfair to expect a balanced viewpoint. In reality, this movie is by design anything but balanced (and that’s completely valid): It shows the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as seen from the eyes of two young guys from Nablus that get recruited to carry out a suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv. As such, the movie depicts an important part of the whole picture. But only a part.

What worries me (as seen through the ancient all encompasing prism) about this is that a lot of viewers don’t really know enough about the topic and will draw conclusions based on this incomplete picture. Even more worrisome is that many of the viewers that tend to watch this type of films, international artsy non-Hollywood foreign films, love to feel wise and knowledgeable even when they aren’t; so they are extra quick to form their own, strong, final, knowledgeable-sounding conclusions. And they’ll be happy to spread them, you know, in order to feel wise and knowledgeable.

As a side note, the tagline used in the poster is “From the most unexpected place, comes a bold call for peace.“. It makes no sense to me how it relates to the movie. Can someone explain that?

What do you think?

The Festival of Lights is here and I’m going to use this blog to wish you Chag Sameach and to make two observations regarding this holiday as I see it since I moved to the U.S.:

1. Most non-jews think this is the biggest, most important thing in the year for jews. This is obviously because it falls toughly at the same time as Christmas, so it’s gotta be very important. This perception is magnified because due to political correctness, no one ever says “Merry Christmas” anymore: G-d forbid you’re not Christian and are terribly offended by this terrible, terribe mistake (note to readers: no one in the staff of The MKX® will get offended if you wish him Merry Christmas). Instead, you see “Happy Holidays” written in cards and billboards, and the artwork that goes with it is often a Christmas tree and a Hanukkia. How inclusive. In reality, Hanukkah is a very modern (only about 2000 years old!) holiday. So there is no mention of it in the Bible, work is allowed and you don’t even go to synagogue for it.

2. In Hanukka, you light a Hanukkia. Not a Menorah. a Hanukkia. For the mathematically impaired, a Menorah has 7 arms (one for each day of the week) and was used in the Temple. Below is what is thought to be a very accurate depiction of the Menorah from the Arc of Titus (showing Romans with their loot after destroying the Second Temple). This Emblem of the State of Israel is based on this image. A Hanukkia, on the other hand, has 9 arms (one for each day that Hanukkah lasts plus one for the Shamash). Everyone in the U.S., Jewish or not, uses the wrong name and for some reason it bothers me.

is not the same as

3. Last, and I think I’ve mentioned it before, everyone spells Hanukkah differently. Here I chose to use Wikipedia’s spelling but you can go ahead and see the list they have for alterantive spellings. It’s insane. In Mexico, everyone spells it Janucá. Way easier.

So, in order to remain politically correct, completely inclusive and avoid offending anyone:

Happy Holidays! 

I was sent a link to this interesting History Channel report about the Israeli airstrike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

At the time, the operation was internationally condemned. Today, most of the world is quietly thankful for Israel’s actions, as it is known that the reactor was indeed being built for the sole purpose of creating an Iraqi nuclear bomb. It is impossible to know how history would have been different had Israel not destroyed this reactor, but it’s very clear that it would have indeed been very different

This piece of history seems more relevant today than ever, given North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear ambitions; and the recent operation Israel carried out over Syria (of which many details are still unknown):

• Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, heralded what he called Gaza’s second liberation, after Israel’s 2005 evacuation of the coastal strip.
• Fatah officials said seven of their fighters were shot dead in the street outside Preventive Security building. A witness, Jihad Abu Ayad, said the men were being killed before their wives and children.
  “They are executing them one by one,” Abu Ayad said. “They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting.”
• The rival factions have been engaged in bloody battles since Sunday, resulting in the deaths of at least 70 people. By noon Thursday, at least eight people had been killed. Al-Jazeera TV reported early Thursday afternoon that the death toll had climbed to at least 16.

Meet Farfour Mouse, who from the looks of it is Mickey’s evil twin brother. His topics are way more exciting than anything ever touched by Pipo, Juan Pestañas or El Duende Bubulín (played by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León. It’s now been taken off the air but I’m sure it will come out for DVD soon. If not, who’s going to educate all those children?

[Update 5/10/2007] John Stewart on the subject.