This is a cartoon by Biderman, one of Israel’s pre-eminent political cartoonists. It’s a commentary on the toll the global economic meltdown has taken on Israeli tycoons. Pictured are Lev Leviev (playing sax) and two other industrialists who went belly up recently. Behind the panhandlers is the phrase Klezmer in Hebrew, denoting traditional eastern European Jewish musicians who traveled from town to town eekeing out a meager living.
Leviev’s real estate subsidiary, Africa Israel, is on the verge of insolvency and the settlement builder and diamond tycoon could lose control. It remains to be seen whether this economic implosion will hinder his firm’s major investment in propping up the settler enterprise.
H/t to Sol Salbe.
richard,
kleyzemer is famous musical instruments shop in dizengof center, israel’s oldest inner city shopping mall…surprised you didn’t know this
occassionally, in front of the mall are pan handlers (although you don’t have much of those in israel).
matt linquist – dakota boy (non jew) in israel
Thanks for that info. My time in Israel has mostly been spent in Jerusalem. That is something I would correct were I living in Israel now (the last times I actually lived in Israel were when I was an undergrad & grad student).
The point is that, many of the musician panhandlers are recent Russian immigrants. The irony is that instead of being inside, in the fancy musical instrument chain store, they are outside, eking out a living on the street.
michael — does the cartoon have a kind of racist view of russians?
D’you think? I’d guess that anyone with a sense of humor would not take offense – but then again I’m not a Russian Israeli.