Over the past decade, the Tel Aviv Municipality has worked hard to market Tel-Aviv as a hardcore party town. It worked: just last year, Lonely Planet commended our party scene and named Tel Aviv the third best urban destination in the world. But delightful as it is to live in a city where sex with a stranger is as ubiquitous as its stray cats, the sinful nature of our little town has also caused young people a lot of strife. Statistics for 2012  show that in Tel Aviv, 71% of …

For the fourth year running, the Holon municipality invites audiences to explore the nostalgic and the fantastic – for free! Beginning September 1, five spaces across Holon will host exhibitions in the fields of architecture, photography, fashion and art.
Parallel Nippon
What is a city? What does it mean to “live” someplace? And what is the relationship between architecture and society? This travelling exhibition explores these questions through buildings designed by Japanese architects and erected both in and out of Japan. The exhibition explores the Japanese cultural shift from “bubble” economy to …

Award season is here again, and this time around it’s better than ever! “It has been an excellent year for Israeli cinema,” says Eitan Even, President of the Israel Academy of Film and Television. This year’s competition for the Ophir Awards – the Israeli Academy Awards – numbers 29 feature films and 35 documentary films. Finalists have been chosen for seventeen award categories, including Best Feature Film, Best Documentary Film, Best Director and more.
This year, a new category has been introduced to the Ophir Awards: “Best Fringe Film”. Eligible for …

How better to start your weekend than by showing support for musical education in Israel? This Thursday at 8PM, the National Youth Wind Orchestra will be giving a concert at the Tel Aviv Museum. The national youth wind orchestra is comprised of top students from Ministry of Education-supervised musical conservatories across the country.
The National Youth Wind Orchestra, which is backed by the Ministry of Education, is comprised of two age groups: a young orchestra for ages 12-16, and an advanced orchestra for ages 16-18. The concert this Thursday will be …

Escape to another culture this August at the third annual Czech Film Week at the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa Cinematheques. A rich selection of recent Czech films celebrates, critiques and explores life in the Czech Republic – and human experience in general. Eight films spin tales of family, passion, violence and even football. The festival is brought to the Cinematheque by the Czech Embassy and the Czech Centre Tel Aviv.
This year the festival will host director-producer Radim Procházka, who will be presenting two of his films to festival audiences. …

The quiet vastness of the Negev is the perfect backdrop for musical intimacy. The Intimidbar – “intimate desert” – Music Festival is a new musical initiative that aspires to take advantage of the desert’s immense solitude to bring musicians and audiences closer together. Next weekend, from August 16-17, Israeli and international musicians from different musical disciplines will gather at the edge of Makhtesh Ramon, as well as street performers, a locally-grown farmer’s market and an art fair. This event is brought to the Negev by the Merage Foundation, the Mitzpeh …

Pick your musical poison this September at the 15th annual Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, under the artistic direction of Elena Bashkirova. From traditional Russian music to Austria’s Schubert to France’s Debussy, Israeli and international musicians and ensembles are sure to transport you to different musical cultures and times.
For the repressed babushka in you, the festival’s Russian musical program might be just the thing. Traditional Russian composers include Tchaikovsky and Mikhail Glinka, widely hailed as the father of Russian classical music. The festival also features works by twentieth century composers …

Don’t let headlines fool you into thinking Jews are always attracted to claustrophobic locales with a high tendency for explosions – Bondi, one of Sydney’s best-known sun and surf spots, is known for its large Jewish population and, somewhat more notoriously, for fantastic waves and beach babes. Last Sunday in Sydney, Australia, dozens of artists and hundreds of guests gathered at Bondi beach for the second annual Shir Madness, the Sydney Jewish music festival.
The festival’s acts ranged from young local singers to world-renowned international performers in an immense range of …

Young designer Alon Livne, who started making waves in the Israeli fashion scene when he won Project Runway Israel in 2009, presented his clothing line last Wednesday at Tel Aviv Fashion week. Livne used soft fabrics to create both fluid and boxy silhouettes and his garments feature effortless gowns, minimalist tailoring and gentle geometry. Also at Fashion Week, Livne designed a corset/gown worn by Dana International for the IGY LGBT youth organization benefit. Here are some photos from the runway show.

Disco lights, loud music, models dancing down the runway –by international standards, the closing runway show of Tel Aviv Fashion Week  was positively vulgar. As a charity event for IGY, the LGBT teenage organization in Israel, the affair was heartwarming. Forty Israeli designers were asked to create looks for a celebrity model of their choice. Prominent members of the LGBT community such as Dana International and K- Long as well as actors, musicians and athletes paraded down the runway in drag and other thought-provoking, gender-challenging getups.
The variety of models chosen …