The world press, including papers in your own hometown, report on Israel at some length these days, but they provide only one dimension of the story. There are other aspects of Israel that seldom get reported. We seek, here, to add those missing dimensions.
*Obligatory palm trees. The municipality of Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of Haifa, has decreed that for every apartment in a newly built dwelling house, the builder must plant a palm tree on the plot. The contractors are up in arms.
*Say it with flowers from Israel. About 30 percent of all the flowers imported by Europe last year came from Israel, putting this country in first place. Kenya was second. Value of the billions of flowers came to about $200 million. The most popular blooms were roses, with carnations in second place.
*Even-handed reporting. Agence France-Presse, the leading French news agency, advertised that it was looking for an experienced and dynamic reporter to be based in Jerusalem and to write on Palestinian affairs. Applicants should be native English speakers with an excellent command of Arabic. Nothing was said about knowledge of Hebrew.
*Was the dog ashamed? Tel Aviv played host to a special animal show to publicize the problems of the country’s pets in the streets, in laboratories and in industry. Animal-welfare groups that sponsored the event offered a prize for a dog that looked most like its master. We looked high and low but could not find a picture of the winners.
*Fathers take birth leave. Israel has extended for an additional three years a regulation that permits fathers to share extended maternity leave from their places of employment, alternatively with new mothers.
*Most respected professions. A survey of Israeli public opinion indicated that physicians are the most highly respected persons in public life. They received 29.8 percent of the votes cast. In second place, with 24.4 percent were university academicians. Following that, in descending order of popularity and much farther down the list, were engineers, high-tech personnel and accountants. In last place, with only 3 percent, were politicians and members of the Knesset.
*Still time to reconsider. On its humor page, Yediot Achronot ran a headline: Sharon rejects a proposal from Peres for a joint celebration of their combined 150th birthday.
*The shoemaker goes barefooted. Fire broke out in a Tel Aviv store not long ago, destroyed the contents and flared to upper stories where two home cooking gas canisters exploded loudly, leading to neighborhood fears of a terrorist attack. The store specialized in fire-fighting equipment.
*Eye for an eye. In June an Arab suicide bomber killed 22 Israeli teenagers at a Tel Aviv nightclub. The family of one of the Jewish girls killed offered her body parts for transplant as needed. The cornea of her eye restored sight to an 11-year-old Arab girl from a Galilee village.
*Why the kids are so smart. The school year in Israel, taking into consideration summer vacation and holiday closures, is one of the longest in the world, second only to Japan. In the primary schools there are 216 class days per year, compared with 175 in the United States and a world average of 190.
*A fruitful survey. The favorite fruit of Israelis, gathering a 26 percent vote in a national survey, is watermelon. Following in order are apples, 23 percent; grapes, 22 percent; peaches, 21 percent; bananas, 11 percent; and so on down through oranges, strawberries, pears, cherries and apricots.
*Have name, need street. For some years a street in downtown Haifa bore the name of the Hatam Sofer, a distinguished Jewish scholar. But when a noisy pub and a discotheque opened on the street, religious elements in the city felt this was not in the spirit of the revered scholar, and so the name of the street was changed. Now they are looking for another street in Haifa worthy enough to bear the name of Hatam Sofer.
*The bar has many tenders. A few months ago, 1,933 new lawyers were accepted as members of the bar in Israel, joining more than 25,000 lawyers already practicing here. That gives Israel a world record of one lawyer for every 250 of population. But cheer up. The several law schools in the country report a total present enrollment of 11,000 students. In the meantime, 2,018 lawyers are recorded as unemployed.