Grapevine: Clear a path

A campaign to remove land mines; Therese Zrihen-Dvir's 'The Stairway to Heaven'; and Castro jeans.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Landmine warning billboard (photo credit: Mine-Free Israel)
Landmine warning billboard
(photo credit: Mine-Free Israel)
■ SIGNS WARNING people to beware of land mines were to be seen all over Sderot Rothschild and Yarkon Park last Friday – and no, it wasn’t a fun promotion. It was a sincere demand that the government remove some million land mines that are spread all over Israel, but most particularly in the Golan Heights and various parts of Galilee.
The campaign with the participation of MK Yoel Hasson, Erez de Drezner of Big Brother fame, and Avi Balili the soloist with Tractor’s Revenge was at the initiative of Daniel Yuval, who was celebrating his 12th birthday. Daniel lost a leg in a land mine explosion in February 2010 when he and his siblings were playing in the snow on the Golan Heights. Instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for himself, Daniel wants to make sure that other children do not suffer as he has and has actively lobbied Knesset members to force the government to get rid of the danger to life and limb.
■ NOT EVERYONE can absorb dry facts, and sometimes the best way to get an important story to the public is to weave it into a work of fiction. That’s what Therese Zrihen-Dvir has done in her novel The Stairway to Heaven, which details the terrorist attack on Beit Lid Junction in January 1995. Termed the Beit Lid Massacre, the attack claimed the lives 22 soldiers. Sixty-nine others were wounded.
It was pure chance that inspired Zrihen-Dvir to write the book. She had been with her family on a visit to the north and was driving home, when her son-in-law unexpectedly swerved and asked whether she’d seen the memorial at Beit Lid. She hadn’t known that there was one. He decided that she should see it. “All of a sudden an almost perpendicular giant staircase with twenty two soldiers, each mounting a stair, could be seen emerging on the horizon. It was monumental and so real looking that that it was hard to believe my own eyes,” she writes in the introduction to the book that was launched last Sunday at Gefen Publishing House in Jerusalem.
■ THE ISRAEL Marketing Association has named brothers Leon and Moshe Edri as the marketing personalities of 2010 in recognition of their ability to influence the leisure habits of a large segment of the Israeli public by creating Cinema City in Rishon Lezion, which is now the largest cinema complex in the country. The brothers previously created Cinema City in Ramat Hasharon. Curiously, even though Jerusalem has the largest population in the country, there are no plans afoot for a Cinema City in the capital.
■ CHOREOGRAPHER, DANCER and television personality Claude Dadia, who is a member of the adjudicating panel of Dancing with the Stars has been recruited by former Labor MK Yoram Marciano in his campaign to become mayor of Lod. If Marciano attains his goal, chances are high that he will give Dadia the city’s cultural portfolio.
■ HOW MANY pairs of jeans will Castro have to sell to make a profit on its current advertising campaign in which its presenters Gal Gadot and Jonathan Wagman are promoting the Dark Side of the Blue? The campaign budget is NIS 2 million. It would be reasonably safe to say that at least half of Israel’s population wears jeans at one time or another, but Castro is just one of many company’s selling jeans. Go figure.
■ POPULAR SPORTSCASTER Eli Ildis will add NIS 120,000 to the family kitty as the new presenter for ml men for 2011. He will be promoting the company’s collection alongside film star and model Noa Tishby, who is on a regular commute between Hollywood and Tel Aviv. Ildis is married to Channel 10 newscaster Miki Haimovich, who announced last December that she will quit her job when her contract expires in July. Channel 10 is in a constant state of financial turbulence, and Haimovich is among the high salaried members of staff. Uncertainty about the future was not the reason she cited for leaving. She was simply exhausted from having to focus on news all the time. Ever since the announcement, Haimovich too has been a target for fashion companies who want to feature her as their presenter. That’s a very flattering thing for a 48-year-old woman. At 33, Tishby is likewise not exactly a spring chicken for a model. Super model Galit Gutman 38, continues to be in high demand, and has just been signed up for another two years as the presenter for Crazy Line. And one last word on fashion. Or Grossman and Oz Zahavi have been signed up as presenters by Renuar and will receive NIS 60,000 each.