Grapevine: More than day at the Beach

Cirque de Soleil has reserved 120 rooms for 21 days at Tel Avis's Grand Beach Hotel.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Tel Aviv skyline 370 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Tel Aviv skyline 370
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
■ ONE OF the happiest people in Israel’s hotel industry is Dudi Ashkenazi, general manager of the Grand Beach Hotel in Tel Aviv. Every hotel gets group reservations and sometimes very large group reservations, but seldom for more than a week. But in the case of the Grand Beach, the reservation is from Cirque de Soleil, which has reserved 120 rooms for 21 days. According to Ashkenazi, the hotel has taken on an additional 15 employees to ensure that the troupe will receive the best service in the fastest possible time. The Canadian troupe which is a creative, dramatic and audacious mix of street theater and stage art, opens at the Nokia Arena on August 8.
■ SPEAKING OF the hotel industry, Noaz Bar-Nir, director general of the Tourism Ministry, is looking into the possibility of enhancing incentives for charter flight companies to fly to Eilat. As it is, Eilat hoteliers are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of 17 weekly charter flights from Europe this winter. The crisis in the European economy resulted in a 16 percent drop in the number of nights foreign tourists spent in Eilat hotels during the first half of 2012. Hoteliers are hoping that with incentives that will make Eilat a desirable destination, there will be a dramatic recovery in occupancy rates.
■ EDUCATION IS supposed to be a top priority in Israel, but it’s more a matter of lip service than of providing funding for educational needs. The situation will, of course, be worse in the aftermath of government cutbacks. The EduAction Forum, largely sponsored by Mifal Hapayis, which contributes so much to schools, community centers and other facilities, was organized before the latest cutbacks in government expenditure were introduced, so speakers may have to change a lot of what they originally intended to say.
The forum is held annually, shortly before the start of the new school year. This year it will be held on August 22 at Mediatheque in Holon. A marathon event devoted to a myriad of educational issues, EduAction is believed to be the largest educational conference in Israel, with well over a dozen speakers. These include President Shimon Peres; Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin; Head of the Union of Local Authorities Shlomo Buhbut, Mifal Hapayis Chairman Uzi Dayan; Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar; Hebrew University President Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson; Jezreel Valley College President. Prof. Aliza Shenhar; Teachers Association Chairman Ran Erez; and Major General Orna Barbivai. One of the highlights will be a mock trial with the Israeli public vs the situation in education.
The judge will be retired Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner, and lawyers Ram Caspi for the prosecution and Eli Zohar for the defense.
Buhbut has said that the government’s new economic policy will weigh heavily on local councils because they will not have sufficient funding to support basic municipal services.
The Tel Aviv municipality is concerned that the cutbacks in government funding will impose yet another delay in building the infrastructure for a light rail system in the Dan region. The project has already been held up for 10 years, and it was hoped that Transport Minister Israel Katz would be able to push it through and thereby ensure that people in Tel Aviv and its environs would have a light rail option by 2017.
■ HAIFA IS also concerned about standards of education. On August 22, the same date as the conference in Holon, it will launch what it calls its First Educational Debate, at the Haifa Auditorium. It’s going to be a difficult day for Ran Erez, who is speaking at both events. But curiously, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar is not listed as a speaker for the Haifa debate, which looks more like an excuse for a Labor Party convention. Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav is a Labor man as are the majority of other participants, most notably Labor Party head Shelly Yechimovich.
■ THE KONRAD Adenauer Foundation, together with the Interreligious Coordinating Council of Christians and Jews, the International Council of Christians and Jews and the Jerusalem Center for Jewish Christian Relations, is having a symposium on September 6 on “Changes in Jewish Christian Relations in the West and What They Mean for Jewish Christian Relations in the Holy Land.” Speakers will include Dr. Michael Mertes, resident representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to Israel and Jerusalem; Dr. Ron Kronish, director of ICCI; Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, head of the Petah Tikva Hesder Yeshiva; and Rev.
Canon Hosam Naoum, dean of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem.
The moderator of the event, which will take place at the Konrad Adenauer Center in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, will be ICCI President Dr. Debbie Weissman. There will also be clips from the award-winning documentary I Am Joseph Your Brother. The symposium will be held in Hebrew with simultaneous translation in English.