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Jun 8 2012

Could Eilat be an online shopping capital of the middle east?

I was in Eilat a few weeks ago, Israel’s most southern corner and at the top of the Red Sea.

Having a teeny little airport which I think only offers flights from Tel Aviv, or drive or get a bus from the rest of country via a 300km road from Jerusalem, it is quite remote, with only Beer Sheva and a few other places in between.

Being far away and with not much employment outside of tourism, Eilat is a bit like the Isle of Wight of Israel.

I thought of an interesting idea, Israel maybe a hi-tech development nation, but its very lacking in online retailing.   As an IT person, its not so easy to go online and buy something and have it in a couple of days like you would have in the UK or US, ok part of this is due to fact this is a small country, but it is a bit inconvenient to purchase a urgently needed specialised computer part, or even a DVD easily online in Israel.

In the UK, if you buy something from Amazon.co.uk, if bought from Amazon’s own stock and not one of their third party sellers, usually your stuff gets shipped from the Channel Islands (to my non-UK friends that’s Jersey or Guernsey, part of the UK but close to France) due to the fact that goods there are VAT free, Play.com, CDwow and even Tesco’s online retailing do this too.

I am not sure how Amazon’s US operations are, but think some of the states offer no sales tax.   One of my friends from Switzerland buys his DVDs from Amazon.de much cheaper than the Swiss high street.

Eilat is also a bit unique as the retail outlets, mostly clothing are all VAT-free to encourage tourism and provide jobs there.

Something else I have noticed, and not seen this mentioned anywhere online, is that the post Office in Israel is very cheap.  I think the British Royal Mail have put the prices up by a record 25%, I estimate sending mail (packages of less than 2 kilos) is about a third of the cost of it is domestically and overseas than it is of the UK.

I salvaged the parts of a broken laptop and it cost 28 Shekels (less than £5) to mail the LCD screen (box weighed about 1.3 Kilos) I sold on eBay a couple of weeks ago from Jerusalem to Italy.

Tourist shops selling shells from the Red Sea

Israel could do well and provide jobs to people in Eilat, by making it a central distribution hub to ship items locally and worldwide on the internet, and give people super value for money shopping.

Someone needs to put together a online shop template that works in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Russian and maybe more languages, so the business owner can set up and sell his stuff with minimal technical know-how and maintenance of the site apart from his stock.

Today’s online retailing in the western world means a lot of dropshipping is done, as the person selling the goods and providing customer service doesn’t have to be the same place as where the stuff is dispatched from.  I have bought a few things of small value from UK, Germany, US and China, needed for my job in Israel online, and only need to pay import duty on one item which was 100 Euros (£80)

Israel needs to continue to grow to support its expanding population (5-10 children is common) so by building economy at the bottom corner of the country makes a lot of sense, especially as David Ben Gurion was a firm believer in building in the desert.

 

Apr 28 2012

Holocaust remembrance day

At work, we were asked to stop for a few minutes when the siren goes off to remember the six million who perished in the holocaust, so me and some colleagues walked about 200 yards into the centre of town.

Just 10 minutes from my office is Zion Square, a junction between Ben Yehuda Street and Jaffa Street, which more recently is now completely car free, just an electric rail system passes through.

People just stop what they are doing, when the siren goes off.

In other parts of the country, people stopped their cars in the middle of the highway and stood on the road with doors open.

The noise is a chilling drone, probably coming from two directions, aimed mainly at alerting the public if a threat of war necessitates people needing to get into a bunker.   Its an awful noise, but serves as a reminder of the worse tragedy in history.

 

 

 

Apr 26 2012

Jaffa/Tel Aviv – 4. Independence day and a concrete stable

Whats this building?

Looks like something dull like a tax office or something, but actually this unassuming building in Tel Aviv is where Israel was declared a nation 64 years ago today!   I was here in February when it was cold and windy though.

 

Apart from closely looking at these plaques on the walls, you probably wouldn’t know.

The bible gives a prophecy about plans for the founding of the 1948 modern day state of Israel, about ~1,878 years after the Jewish people were spread to all corners of the world.

Isaiah 66: 8 Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this?
Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment?
Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.
9 Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD.
“Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God.
10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her;
rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her.

Its odd than this concrete looking place with tiny windows was a meeting place for the government of a fledgling nation, but then again our Lord Jesus was born in stable,  so from utilitarian places, great things can be developed.  I didn’t see what this building’s current purpose is now or if you can visit.

1. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Whales and hovering trees

4. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Independence day and a concrete stable

5. Jaffa/Tel Aviv – Yitzhak Rabin

 

Apr 24 2012

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

One characteristic of the narrow streets in old Jaffa you don’t have in Jerusalem is these pretty blue plaques on the walls here.

They are quite different from the ceramic tiles often sold by the Armenian Christians who live in Jerusalem Old city quarter.

Is Jaffa mentioned in the bible?  Actually I tried to search and couldn’t find any reference to Jaffa or Yafo at all.

Actually, later I found it is, but it was called Joppa.

This statue of a Whale is a tribute to the biblical story of Jonah who got eaten by a big fish which is thought to be here on the Mediterranean.  It seems the ship was heading to Tarsius, where Paul was from in Asia Minor, what we now call modern day Turkey.

Later after having dinner at an Arab restaurant with my friend, I bid him goodbye and made my way back to my hostel.  I had some troubling things that caught up with me, and the dark and narrow passageways with few people around seemed like a good place to pray – oddly, from a distance I saw this strange looking tree that appeared to be hovering above the ground

Looking closer its a piece of art with the container the tree sits in being held in place by some steel wires adjusted very tightly so it doesn’t move at all.   I saw this strange sight as an answer to prayer that the Lord can make things happen through hard to fathom methods.  I can’t imagine to feel what it would be like to be swallowed by a big fish, heck, I can’t even swim.   I think like Jonah we can be tested especially we go against God’s specific orders.   I have seen how fierce the Mediterranean gets from being at Tel Aviv and Akko before.

In fact, this very week, I have just read more about the Talpiyot tomb near my house, a well decorated grave thought to be from the time of the bible could bear the name of Jonah: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/20/ancient-bone-box-called-oldest-christian-artifact/

1. Jaffa – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa – Tel Aviv & Jaffa graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

Apr 23 2012

Easter at the Garden Tomb 2012

This is me and my friend Jimmy, hes an older gent in his 70s from Florida who works in the Bridges for Peace food bank.

We got up very early to get to an Easter service at the Garden Tomb, there must be 1,000-1,500 people there, and the worship band was made of people mostly from my church but a few others as well.

Getting their early meant we got a seat close to the front, hence doesn’t look that packed….

Its a real privilege to be spending this special day in a place most likely to be thought where the world’s shortest required grave ever.

Not seen this before, but Jimmy pointed out to me a kiosk with an Arab gent that does very nice Arabic coffee for a bargain price of 5 Shekels (85p – half what you pay in usual places in town)   So this was a nice way to get prepared for the rest of the day as I ride 4 miles back across town to my flat.

The folks coming out of the alley way where the garden is didn’t seem to notice this place, I think he deserves more business.   I think he mostly sells coffee, orange juice and cigarettes to people getting on the Arab buses which are heading to Ramallah, Nabulus or the other Palestinian cities.

I wrote on easter here in Jerusalem when I went last year also.



Apr 22 2012

Using Google Streetmap view in your blog, possible security concerns to be aware of

As Google recently release Streetmap view in Israel and Ukraine recently, I’m betting that lots of bloggers interested in the middle east will want to make use of this in their writings.

I wrote a few days ago, with some screen shots of my browser, I have noticed a few things that you might want to be aware of:

Firstly, if you make screen shots of your computer’s browser, be sure to obliterate any occurrences of your name or email address you see, this is quite important when using Google’s services which are all tied to a Gmail address.

Where I have written an “X” – don’t use this URL as a link to your site at the top of your browser, it won’t work, it will just take a click directly to the regular maps.google.com address.

Instead click on the little chain icon here as shown by arrow, this will give you a usable URL your visitors can click on to get to a certain angle of street you want to look at.

Now this bit is important:

If lets says, you enter your home or workplace address, then jump to a different place, the URL you plan to make public will show the original place I did a search for.   Zoom on this pic and look at the underlined bits I have highlighted in orange.

Hence, be careful!  you might give private details of where you live or work to the whole world!

Instead, clear any search inquiry, and just zoom straight in on the place you want to take a shot off, copy and paste the URL you plan to make public on your blog or social media, and look carefully at the (very long) URL to make sure there is nothing personal that indicate a previous search you did.

Here is an example of this done without care:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=downing+street,+london,+uk&hl=en&ll=51.506967,-0.124023&spn=0.007519,0.01929&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=39.099308,79.013672&hq=downing+street,&hnear=London,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.506967,-0.124023&panoid=cgfjh0ts_Mc38hIdERRcoQ&cbp=12,329.67,,0,2.6

This web address actually is close to Embankment in London, but I actually changed the location of the place I was searching from 10 Downing Street to another location, but the search terms are still embedded in the URL.

I tend to paste this into a different web browser, in this case Internet Explorer 9 which I don’t use very often, clearly shows where I searched for.

So there you have it, just be careful if you want to show Streetmap view snapshots of places, and have fun!

Apr 20 2012

Google Street Map View comes to Israel!

Last year I heard Google wanted to map out by street parts of Israel, this was quite a surprise considering how careful you have to be with security, and I found out that one of my friends he was passed by a Google camera car that drove passed him when they did the pics in November 2011, at last, and now this week the footage goes live!

You can just drive around by finding a street or place to explore by going to maps.google.com and zooming in and dragging the little orange man over the map, after a few seconds it makes a block of the streets blue, let get over your mouse to wander around the streets by clicking on the arrows.

Warning: using Street Map view on Jerusalem if you have physically been here before may make you pine to come back again!

Click any of the screenshots I have done to open a new tab in your browser to enable to take a wander around the streets…

Mount of Olives look east towards the old city

Here is the outside of the Jaffa Gate on Jerusalem’s old city.  Oddly, I don’t see any vendors selling orange juice or cakes outside here.

How about Tel Aviv?

Here’s the beach! this bit has obviously been done on one of those special trikes Google has.   No sign of the Zohan it seems 🙂

Here is the Gilad Shalit protest tent, which has now gone – Gilad was released from a prison in Gaza after 5 years late last year, a different political group have a tent here instead now.

Note the “wall of ‘blur” which obfuscates the gate to government facilities.

Lets go over to Haifa:

ok, here is the Bahai gardens.

Really, only Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa feature on there with a few small extras, a kibbutz in Afula, Ben Gurion University campus in Beer Sheva and the Mini Israel museum near Beit Shemesh.   Im guessing these organisations were asked to be early adopters in being customers of Google’s expansion of services here.

I would like to see how this could affect tourism here and how bloggers interested in Middle East  goings on may use this.

As far as suggestions, maybe the increasingly popular paths used for walks by pilgrims seeing the routes Jesus took between Nazareth and Capernaum would be nice, some of the Kinneret (The Galilee – I am sure the Arab boat owners could do a great deal with Google!) and the Dead Sea and Eilat / Red Sea too.

The user interface on Streetmap is still a little awkward at time with my normal laptop touchpad, I think this would work better on a tablet computer by dragging or tapping on directions to go places.

Apr 18 2012

Jaffa – 1: coastal Arab city of Oranges

Whats the first thing you think of when you think of the word Jaffa?

Oranges of course!   Citrus fruit are often see on trees growing on streets all around Israel and leaning over peoples garden walls.  I found a piece of metal which came off a broken electrical fitting to see I can grab myself one.

Walking up a bit north towards Tel Aviv, there is an interesting petrol station by the sea front:

The loos and a small fast food place is inside some citrus fruit shaped buildings as you can see.

Wonder if you can buy these things as a simple cheap beach hut, where you could furnish the insides with a hammock and camping stove?  could be an interesting idea.

Its funny this city is so famous for the orange variety.  Jaffa or more often known as Yaffo, is an Arab town just south of Tel Aviv, although doesn’t feel that big.

After doing some work projects in Karmiel, I spent a weekend here to see my friend who is a Messianic Jew from south America who has just made aliyah (immigrated)   I am thinking this is quite a good place to base yourself to work in Tel Aviv.

Well I took the two oranges I picked and a lime back to the Youth hostel to see if I could make something out of them, I planned to take the lime back home to put on some fish at some point.   This youth hostel in the older part of the city has some perfect views here.

Actually these didn’t taste that good, when juiced, even heavily mixed with water and shoveling generous amounts of sugar, they were too sharp.   Was a fun experiment though as they didn’t cost anything.  Oddly I can’t find any references to any kinds of citrus fruit in the bible.

1. Jaffa – coastal city of oranges

2. Jaffa – Tel Aviv & Jaffa graffiti and wall art

3. Jaffa – Whales and hovering trees

 

Apr 10 2012

Passover and Easter, crackerbread or chocolate?

This week, I got to go to several Pesach (Passover) meals which happens to be about the same time as Easter.

Many people think Easter has been distorted from its original story of Jesus’s death and resurrection into a nonsensical pagan feast of eggs and rabbits, but actually the original Passover feat as a lot more in common with Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice.

The way the set of items are used in a Jewish Passover tradition is quite long, so I will just touch on a few of them;

The lamb shank bone is an interesting one, Jesus is often represented a lamb who was slain.

The matzah bread, which is really a large cracker wheat, has a pattern of holes and patterns, pierced and striped, the same injuries Jesus took on the cross.

Also, the matzah bread is often served covered with a linen cloth, something that also could be considered part of Jesus’s burial as his body was cleaned and wrapped carefully.

This passage from the Tannak says it best:-

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message  and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.  For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Don’t get me wrong, I like easter eggs, but only as I like chocolate in general, and the shiny packaging, and would be happy if this type of packaged confectionery was sold year round, this morning  I decided to shove some chocolate spread on this bit of matzvah 🙂

This is a special event is well worth experiencing.

Mar 2 2012

Snow in Jerusalem

For the last week or two there was rumoured to be snow here in Jerusalem,

I have been pretty cynical about this, although there is snow seen maybe on average snow here once ever 4 years maybe.   There are some  postcards you can get from tourist shops with the Kotel and the Old City covered in a blanket of white.

Its interesting that two days ago it was a leap year, I was joking this could be a perfect time to have snow, it ended up happening today after I got a text message from work in the morning telling me not to come in today.


This snow didn’t stay in a thick white layer outside my flat (I live 6kms from the centre of town)  but it was a nice surprise to see.

Some of my friends who live close to town seem to have thicker snow in the parks from their Facebook pictures.

There was a lot of rain in the last week also, which has been a blessing, but some water has come through my flat ceiling in the last couple of the days, so I have moved the refrigerator away a bit, and had about 30 minutes of power cut which seem to affect my whole neighbourhood yesterday.

While I was very quickly getting some pictures on the balcony, one of my housemates pointed out the fate of one of local pigeons here that’s died on our garden furniture.   I immediately thought of the homeless people who sleeps on the streets in Jaffa Street.   This kind of weather must be very tough for some people here.  Although there is a few people working in our food bank today I hope all different organisations around Israel are able to help those who will inevitably be hit hard by the temperature this week.

I am looking forward to March getting warm again.