Of presidents and compasses

Bridges 2 Israel In This Issue Shimon Peres says The story of the mechogah (lead compass) Lake kineret corner The office of the President (2007) Visit Our Sponsor Mount Herzel Jerusalem the mount of rememberance Quick Links    Previous Israel Rambles letters  Quick Links  previous Israel Rambles Mount Herzel - the graves of the nation's great peaple Our Sponsors Our Synagogue You are invited to join services at our Synagogue any time  see details Cantor - Boaz Pnini Israel Ramble letters  May 1 2012  Greetings, Best regards to you. I like your responses and I would love if you forward my Rambles to anyone you wishes.   We have just had a week of national and personal remembrance and celebration in Israel. It is also a time to think about what kind of future we would like to create for ourselves, our people and our world. It is comunal as well as individual time and I hope this Israel Ramble letter reflects that.   Best wishes,  Boaz Pnini  Bridges 2 Israel Shimon Peres says Shimon Peres  Israel's president The things I find the most moving and inspiring in Israel are not translated into English. If the information does not have the mark of politics on it then it is seldom entering the world consciousness, it stayed at home.   I was moved by the interview with Israel president last week for Independence day. It was very reassuring. He just spoke like a person. At 89 he is still a visionary and looking to the future.   The interview was in Hebrew, but you can see him strolling through the beautiful garden of the Presidential House in Jerusalem, chatting with the interviewers.  Interviewers: "Take us to a place (in the garden) that you like. " Peres: "First of all the concept; Usually in the world there is a palace with gold and silver and it is also neat and tidy. We do not have a palace, this is our palace...."  Then they asked him: Such a large estate, (the Presidential Home) don't you feel lonely? (His wife dies last year)    Peres: Aren't you alone everywhere?! You are also alone everywhere, why is it important what you have around you?! A person is alone as well as not alone" and then they go into a philosophical discussion about it.   At the age of 89 Peres wakes up every morning at 4:00am, "because then I have the most wonderful 2 hours" do his 10 minutes routine exercise by himself "I am a big boy", and read for 2 hours. "The one mistake we should all avoid" says Peres, is.. resting.    The interviewer: If there is a person who has experienced stress in his years it is you, and look at you.. (How well you are looking) ???... How does it fit together?  Peres (laughing): "Because I have decided to conquer the greatest enemy in life, my self, to control myself in stead of controlling the other. I am a disciplined person. I decide to stop smoking.. I will stop smoking."   Interviewer: How do you contain the stress? How do you discharge it?  Peres: "I give it commands, very simple. I am a conquering force (Laughing). 'Who is a mighty person? The one who conquer his bad inclination'. This is the only conquering my mind can agree with, and every person can do it."  All of this pre-interview interview went on in the beautiful garden of the president house. Then the "real interview" started.  Peres: "Israel is a story of a reality that went beyond the dream" ... "I am peaceful not because of what I am leaving to the next generations but I am peaceful because we have such next generations"... "We do not want to be a nation dominating others; we do not want to be a nation dependant on hating the other".   At the end or the interview Peres was asked what is his message for the people of Israel? Peres: "I say if there was a time for despair it was 64 years ago. Then, we really had nothing.... if we did not despair then, why shall we now?!"  Boaz Pnini  Bridges 2 Israel The story of the mechogah (lead compass) This photo took many days and hours to make I was working in the dark for many hours not knowing what the outcome will be. I had to do this one exposure at a time. Taking the projector down with each exposure. It was my new discovery, photography. I had this idea of gradation and how it will finally look, getting there was another story. The Kibbutz had this rudimentary dark room inside a ramshackle tiny house, that was were it all happened. There was a time in my teenage years when I was taken by photography, this came after few years of experimenting with drawing, sculpting and other art forms.  I knew very little about photography, but I thought if I can make the negative's background completely dark, except of the mechogah (lead compass) of course, then the multi exposure will affect the photographic paper only where the mechogah  is. It was so inspiring. I used a pen called rapido-graph working on the piece of negative film the size of a large stamp, the 35 mm kind. I had to make an impromptu light table out of an old window to shine light from under the negative to make sure no light can go through the blackened negative. I put so much ink on that poor negative that the ink start cracking from the hit of the light bulb. I had to seal the cracks with more ink then. Making the background dark without touching the mechogah image was a surgery like operation.   Then I made a pattern of lines on an identical paper that will serve as a measuring for each one of the exposures. After 2 or 3 hours the electricity went out in the dark room, I had to go out in the middle of the whole operation. Finally the electricity came back. After hours of exposures of the same photo in different angels and distances, the big moment came when you put the photographic paper into the solution, you can imagine the catharsis of that moment when the snail like shape of the mechogahs appeared. What a moment.   Today you can probably click a button on a computer somewhere and get a similar result in no time at all, but I doubt you will get the same exhilaration. The discovery is in the process.   At least on adult was not very pleased with my photography experimentations, it was not the linear and "right" way to do it, I had very little knowledge in photography, I was not supposed to do these kind of things.  I went through different artistic periods. I had the idea that if I can feel it I can produce it, and I made few amazingly sophisticated surrealistic drawings, I wish I knew where they are today. I remember being on a bus driving back from Jerusalem and I was in a semi dreamy state. A whole drawing came to my mind, with patterns, colors, gradations. It took a month to produce it in reality, I knew what I saw in my mind and eventually I got there. I gifted it to a friend.  This ­was one of many artistic adventures of my early years. One of the points I was trying to make for myself was that talent is not that important if you get in touch with something. As far as I could tell I was very short on talent. And the fact is I was never able to produce any art even close to what I did, I am a proven art moron.  Boaz Pnini  Bridges 2 Israel At age 14 I was drawn to drawing. This is a copy of a copy of the original A year after being released from the army I was still into photography This is also a copy of a copy of the original Lake kineret corner  T There was some rain in Israel today. The kineret is steady at 165 or 166 centimeters above the red line. A level we have not seen for years.  Please feel free to forward  Israel Ramble letters to your friends and family and anyone who may be interested. You may use the FORWARD link below. Thanks, Boaz Pnini, Bridges 2 Israel LLC

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