Jerusalem's ever-evolving market!

Jerusalem's ever-evolving market [video] | culture

When people in Jerusalem say they're going to the suk, they can only mean that they're on their way to the Mahane Yehuda open-air market.

Harvey Stein wended his way through Jerusalem's 100-year-old colorful and intoxicating market for ISRAEL21c and found one-of-a-kind boutiques proffering clothes and accessories alongside juice bars, pungent spices, candy and halva, exotic cheeses, fish, meat, poultry and Judaica.

Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.

Israelis enjoy a summer festival held weekly through the summer months at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

There's also the 'etrog man', selling juice as well as creams, sprays, lotions and potions made from the sweet-scented etrog, or citron.

At the end of the 19th century the first merchants sold their wares in the area on an empty lot and in the 1920s, the British cleaned up the market, building the first permanent stalls and roofing.

The neighborhood around the market is filled with history, and still contains many old buildings and pilgrimage sites.

Jerusalem's Light Rail train, scheduled to begin operation in spring 2011, will stop right outside the Jaffa Street entrance to the market.

In addition to the clothing, artists cooperatives and trendy café chains have joined the traditional fresh fruits and vegetables so that today, the shopping experience in Jerusalem's suk has evolved into a leisure outing.

State of Israel Bonds in honoring Igal and Iris Hami, Gil Travel

Consul General Kutner joins State of Israel Bonds in honoring Igal and Iris Hami, Gil Travel

Last week, Consul General Daniel Kutner and Dr. Shirley Kutner joined the State of Israel Bonds in honoring Igal and Iris Hami of Gil Travel, who were recognized for extraordinary achievements in promoting the State of Israel. Their generous support for worthy causes, particularly helping handicapped young people, is well known and well respected.

The event was attended by family, as well as an impressive list of local personalities from the world of business, the Jewish community (including many Israeli veteran residents in the city) and others. Senator Bob Casey made a surprise appearance to offer his warm congratulations and voice his strong support for Israel.

In congratulating Iris, Igal and their family, CG Kutner expressed deep apreciation for their work on behalf of Israel and their heartfelt support for those in need, adding that they embody in themselves all that is to be admired in the Israeli sense of solidarity and readiness to help those who need it most.

Congratulations also to the State of Israel Bonds for honoring such a worthy couple and organizing a very successful event.

Christian pilgrims to be in Jerusalem for Succot

Throngs of Christian pilgrims to be in Jerusalem for Succot

Throngs of Christian pilgrims to be in Jerusalem for Succot

By RON FRIEDMAN
09/21/2010 03:57

International Christian Embassy festivities will add $15-20 million to tourism coffers.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims will visit Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles celebration later this week.

According to the Tourism Ministry, roughly 7,000 Christian from 100 countries will participate in the event, which is sponsored by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

The thousands of pilgrims, who will stay in Israel for more than a week, are expected to contribute tens of thousands of overnight stays in hotels around the country and the overall income to the Israeli economy is estimated at between $15 million and $20m.

“Christian tourism to Israel, in all its streams, represents the main target audience on which the Tourism Ministry focuses its marketing efforts in order to increase incoming tourism,” said Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov. “In the framework of the new branding of Israel as the Holy Land with Jerusalem at its center, the ministry operates in all spheres in order to turn these pilgrims into ambassadors for tourism to Israel in their home countries.”

The ministry will operate an information booth at the Jerusalem International Convention Center, distribute information and flyers to pilgrims about the country’s tourist attractions and provide assistance as required.

On Thursday, Meseznikov will host a festive reception at the convention center for the heads of the Christian communities and will present a gift to Brazilian evangelical minister Renê Terra Nova, who with 1,000 participants leads the largest group of pilgrims coming to the event.

This week the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem marks its 30th anniversary.

The week of festivities will be Israel’s largest annual tourist event and the largest solidarity mission to Israel.

“The Christian Embassy has established a remarkable record of standing in support of Israel and a united Jerusalem over the past three decades, whether through our many humanitarian projects across the land, our advocacy efforts worldwide, or our annual festival gathering in Jerusalem. This event has drawn well over 150,000 Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem during the past 30 years, with a cumulative financial impact in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Rev. Malcolm Hedding, ICEJ’s executive director. “We look forward to celebrating our 30th anniversary with our Israeli friends and guests.”

Yossi Weiss, chairman of the Israeli Tour Guide Association, said that Christian pilgrims make up an essential part in the demand for Israel’s tourism product.

“Their support for Israel is not only political or faithbased.

They support us with their money, too. According to the figures we have, they make up a higher percentage than Jewish tourists and their patronage represents a significant contribution to the sector,” he said.

According to Weiss, many of the pilgrims stay at high-end hotels and nearly all of them hire licensed Israeli guides.

“The evangelical Christians in particular tend to come to Israel for relatively long stays of seven or eight nights and also tend to spend all their money in the Israeli shops.

The pilgrims tend to spread their touring all around the country and like to see all the places mentioned in the Old Testament. You won’t see them relaxing on the beach in Tel Aviv or Eilat.”

Ami Etgar, director-general of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, said that pilgrimage was the second largest draw for tourism to Israel, following only vacation and travel as the main motivation for visiting the country.

Etgar said that the peak seasons for pilgrim tourism to Israel were in the fall and in the spring, in time for Easter celebrations.

While Meseznikov said that the ministry would be focusing on bringing in additional Christian tourists, it is also looking to develop tourism from the Far East. On Monday, Tourism Ministry director-general Noaz Bar-Nir signed a tourism cooperation agreement with his counterpart, Mr. Dao Suaming, director-general of the Shanghai Tourism Ministry. In the agreement, the two sides declared the importance of tourism as a means of promoting ties and agreed to work together to advance tourism between Israel and Shanghai, in addition to the exchange of information, advertising and the encouragement of investments and joint initiatives.

“The Chinese tourism market holds enormous potential for Israel and, despite annual growth, we have not yet begun to realize this potential.

The tourism industry in China in general, and in Shanghai and Beijing in particular, displays great interest in and is happy to cooperate with Israel. Simplifying the bureaucratic procedures and increasing airline traffic will facilitate a significant increase in incoming tourism from China,” Bar-Nir said.

In 2009, 10,000 Chinese tourists visited Israel and more than 7,000 have visited so far this year.

Music, movies, karaoke and the beach

Music, movies, karaoke and the beach

Eilat aims to make new international student festival an annual event.

Eilat usually stops to catch its breath during the first week of September, taking a short break between the intensity of the summer vacation and the rush of the High Holy Days.

This year, however, there is no break in sight, as 6,000 students from across Israel and Europe are expected to converge on the city for FunJoya 2010 – the first international student festival of its type in Israel.

In an effort to produce a festival that will make a mark on the student vacation calendar and start a new annual tradition, organizers have planned three days packed with activities, including concerts, parties and conferences.

The festival, which will take place from September 2-4, with an investment of NIS 4 million, will include two nights and three days full of pool parties, movie screenings, karaoke parties, stand-up performances and live shows by artists like Mashina, Eddy Watta, Tislam and a variety of deejays from around the world.

The students will also participate in workshops and debates on various political, diplomatic and advocacy issues.

“Our intention is to produce an international festival that will enter the global consciousness.

We want students around the world to know that, just as there is an annual Beer Festival in Germany, there is FunJoya in Israel,” said Guy Beser, director-general of Peles, the Israeli Student Union’s economic division and the festival’s director.

“Our main goal is to promote tourism to Israel. We aim to do this by providing a mixture of pure fun alongside serious debate,” said Beser.

According to Beser, the festival was aggressively marketed both in Israel and abroad, through student union bodies and in cooperation with the festival’s major sponsors.

“We worked with organizations like the World Union of Jewish Students and Taglit-Birthright, as well as companies like Issta and El Al,” said Beser. “We also partnered with the Israel Hotel Association and the Ministry of Tourism.”

According to Beser, thousands of hotel rooms in six participating hotels in Eilat have been reserved for the festival, which is expected to generate millions of shekels in revenue for the resort city.

In addition to the festival experience, the organizers have set some other goals. These include branding Israel as an attractive tourism destination for students; improving Israel’s image among this target group and facilitating multi-cultural encounters for students from Israel and European countries.

Beser said that for those who were interested, the festival would also offer serious conferences dealing with issues like the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, regional co-existence and worldwide Israel advocacy.

Beser said that so far, most of the foreign students who had signed up to the festival were Jewish, but they would be happy to have people from all religions attend.

When asked if they had experienced any difficulties marketing the festival on university campuses abroad, Beser responded that nothing had come up and suggested that since the event was focused on fun and not on politics, it was well received.

“I guess people have an easier time swallowing things that have to do with Israel when they are orientated towards non-divisive issues,” he said.

Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov was enthusiastic about the festival.

“The student festival is of great importance to the city of Eilat and to the State of Israel, both in terms of promoting student tourism to the resort city, which will in turn contribute to the local economy, and in the encounter these tourists will enjoy with Israel and its touring, cultural and entertainment options.

“We will work to ensure the festival is an annual event and to bring new sectors to Israel in general and Eilat in particular and expose them to an attractive and quality vacation in Israel,” he said.

Festival package prices differ depending on the point of origin, but Beser said that an all-inclusive package, including flights, food, hotels, and entrance to all the events, would cost someone arriving from Amsterdam ¤600.

For Israelis the price ranges from NIS 450-NIS 900 depending on the hotel and the number of people per room.

Music, movies, karaoke and the beach

Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Voted Best By Readers of Travel + Leisure Magazine

According to the prestigious New York-based Travel+Leisure Magazine, Jerusalem is ranked as the best city in Africa and the Middle East – and Tel Aviv is ranked number three.

In an annual readers poll published last week, the capital was ranked number one in the category Best Cities in Africa and the Middle East (after ranking third in 2009), while Tel Aviv moved up from seventh place in 2009 to take third place (after Cape Town).

Readers ranked the cities on characteristics such as sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people, shopping and value.

Jerusalem attracts over two million tourists a year, with about 80% of all tourists visiting the holy city. The city also contains within it the most visited sites in Israel, including the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Via Dolorosa, Yad Vashem and the Mount of Olives. Tel Aviv is the second most visited city in Israel, with about 60% of all tourists visiting the “White City”, so-called for its unique collection of International (Bauhaus) buildings which received UNESCO World Heritage designation in 2003, and enjoying the entertainment and leisure options of the “city that never sleeps”.

An interesting article on Seville Spain for Jewish Travellers

clink on the link to view article:
http://chutzpah.epubxpress.com

Vote for the Dead Sea in the Finals of the New 7 Wonders of Nature Competition!

Vote for the Dead Sea in the Finals of the New 7 Wonders of Nature Competition!

The Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth and one of Israel’s most popular tourist sites, is one of the 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature, an international online competition to grade the seven natural wonders of the world
(http://www.new7wonders.com)to/ To reach the final shortlist, this unique tourism site had to beat off about 440 sites from 220 countries (more than the number of countries competing in the Olympics).


The lowest place on earth will compete through 2011 for the hearts and votes of over a billion people from around the world, against 27 other sites including, among others, the River Amazon, the Galapagos Islands, the Grand Canyon and the Maldives.


It is hoped that the candidacy of the Dead Sea in the competition will promote tourism to the region and raise public awareness around the world of the problems facing the sea, which has lost about one meter in height every year for the past 30 years.


Over the next 2 years, the Tourism Ministry will lead the campaign for the Dead Sea to be selected as one of the winners in the contest, via its 14 representative offices around the world, its websites in 11 languages and focused marketing activities that emphasize the unique attributes of the Dead Sea.



Voting can take place directly at the competition website:

http://www.new7wonders.com/


At over 400 meters below sea level and with luxury hotels in the Ein Bokek area, the Dead Sea is known as the lowest and largest natural health spa in the world. This natural phenomenon offers tourists and health-seekers black Dead Sea mud and thermo-mineral hot springs which ease muscular tensions, improve blood circulation and alleviate rheumatic pain; desert-dry, pollution and pollen-free air that is rich in oxygen, bromine and magnesium and offers relief to those suffering from asthma, lung and heart diseases and year-round sunshine, whose harmful UVB rays are filtered through the extra layers of atmosphere offering relief to those suffering from skin diseases – as well as tourists looking to get a safer tan.



Tourist attractions in the area, among others, include the Roman fortress at Masada, the Ein Gedi and Einot Tzukim nature reserves and Qumran, home to the Essenes sect and the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.