Sunday 14th September 2025
Blog Page 2264

Yes, we should celebrate Israeli culture

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When a six-year old does a project on a country, they tend to go for
the clichés; with France, it’s the frogs’ legs, with Spain it’s the
bullfights, with Italy it’s the tight-fitting clothes. So what would it
be for Israel?

 

Many might say “conflict”. Often, the only things we
hear about this country are part of a polarised and acrimonious debate.
A lot of people do not see a side of Israel that is incredibly vibrant,
exciting and dynamic. What we are trying to show with the Israeli
Cultural Festival this year is that there exists a country beyond the
politics.

When speaking recently with an Arab-Israeli about the idea of having a
festival to celebrate Israeli culture, his first response was “but how
can you show Israel’s culture? It’s far too diverse”. But that’s
precisely the point. The aim of this festival is not to persuade anyone
to take any particular point of view regarding the politics of the
region, but rather to broaden peoples’ knowledge and understanding. We
do not deny that controversies exist, or want to ignore or belittle
those affected by them. However, there is no need for anyone to only
have a singular and negative image of this country. Israel’s culture is
hugely mixed, intertwining elements of Arab, European, Russian,
Ethiopian and many other roots. Sitting between three continents, it
has often been described as a bridge between Eastern and Western
cultures.

Muslim, Christian and Druze Arabs make up over 20% of Israel’s
population, and we are equally keen to celebrate their input into
Israeli culture. Clearly, shisha pipes or humous and falafel are not
specifically Jewish – they are things which Israelis of any background
enjoy in common both with each other, and with their neighbours in the
Middle-East.

The focus of this festival is not Israel’s creation, but rather the
contribution that Israelis have made to the world regardless of race,
ethnicity or religion. Our academic events focus on three particular
areas: business, the environment and medical breakthroughs. The
developments made by Israel in these spheres will have a beneficial
impact in the world long after the present conflict has passed.

Our lecture on entrepreneurship in Israel showed how it is a vital
incubator for smaller technology companies which have driven the
world’s economy in the 21st century. Much of modern-day Israel has been
built on what was once desert. Israeli scientists are world leaders in
agricultural technologies, particularly in areas deprived of water. In
recent years they have been instrumental in providing such technology,
for free, to developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The talk on
Israel’s contribution to the environment will seek to illustrate this
and the steps which Israel has taken towards developing methods of
sustaining scarce water resources.

Israeli hospitals treat equally all patients who come through their
doors, including Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and
are so highly regarded that they have become the subject of “medical
tourism”. Innovations made by doctors Israel’s world-leading research
centres have had an impact on saving lives worldwide. The Israeli
medical organisation “Save a Child’s Heart” is holding a stand at the
fair. It provides urgently-needed paediatric heart surgery and
follow-up care for children from third world and developing countries.
Their aim is to help all children, regardless of nationality or
financial circumstance, receive the best care that modern medicine has
to offer.

There exist many bilateral organisations and projects which bring
together Israelis and Palestinians; one such organisation which we are
showcasing at the fair is the “Face to Face” venture, which displays
enormous photographs of Palestinians and Israelis from similar cultural
backgrounds, side by side. The impact that this type of initiative can
have on “re-humanising” each nation in the eyes of the other is
incalculable.

We, from the Oxford Israeli Cultural Society do not want to be drawn
into the typical dogmatic and rancorous type of argument which provides
so little by way of reconciliation. Instead we would like this to be an
opportunity to open our hands to the Palestinian Society, and indeed
any other student group who wish to be involved. There is so much that
we share in terms of culture – instead of focusing on disagreements it
would be far more productive to look at what we have in common. In the
future we would be keen to celebrate all of the cultures that exist
throughout the region with a joint Israeli and Arab literary festival.
It is through co-operation and joint initiatives like these that we can
build understanding, and perhaps one day achieve peace.

 

Links:

IFest Oxford

Cherwell vs OxStu: Issue 3

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Aldate was somewhat underwhelmed by both news sections this week.

 

Stu 

 

The OxStu’s front page story on the changing status of JCRs might have been vaguely interesting, had it been written in February 2007.  The story seems to be based almost entirely on an NUS document published over a year ago .  The only ‘news’ – that Queen’s JCR is to address the issue next week – comes halfway down on page 2. Hardly groundbreaking stuff.

John Hood’s address leak is quite an entertaining story, but what’s that banner running across the top: ‘security’? And similarly, ‘health’ and ‘press’ elsewhere. Bizarre. Page 3 makes it look like the meningitis girl has actually died.

 

‘well

Cherwell’s splash is ok, but if you’re going to put something on the front page the copy needs to be tighter and bolder.

 

The ongoing Chinese/Tibetan saga going on at Anne’s is a great story, just don’t mess it up with bad subbing: to spell someone’s name differently in two consecutive paragraphs is just sloppy.

Both papers’ centrespreads were pretty uninspiring: it’s not the ideas that are the problem but the bloody design.  Don’t use a black and white/out of focus photographs on what should be your showpiece pages.  But grainy fashion photos are definitely an improvement on cake.

The Fit College offerings may be improving but Evelyn’s feeling a bit dull in comparison with the Librarian’s fully illustrated gossipfest.

Note the very same Tom Stoppard photograph on the Stu’s p27 that Krishna Omkar supplied to Cherwell in issue 1. Aldate has realised that it’s the rough times that tell you who your friends really are. And then there are those who stab you in the back.

Kuchler: centred back page headlines are quite nausea-inducing. Aldate would be most indebted if you ditched them.

 

Verdict for both camps this week: could do better.

Bridge forced to clean up

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Popular student nightclub The Bridge has been forced to change its door entry policies and has been forbidden from using glass bottles and glasses following a review of the club’s licence by Oxford City Council’s Licensing sub-committee.

 

The club will now be unable to admit customers in the hour before closing time. It will also have to serve drinks in polycarbonate containers as opposed to glass. 

Polish students in Oxford

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Oxford University welcomed Committee members from Polish Societies across the country this weekend for the ‘Leading Our Future’ event, a Congress organised by students at the universities of Oxford and St Andrews.

 

Professor Zbigniew Pelczynski, former tutor at Pembroke, hosted some 60 students on the three-day event, which featured discussion panels, group workshops and leadership training.

 

Guest speakers included Oxford graduate and current Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radek Sikorski, and Professor Leszek Kolakowski, Senior Research Fellow at All Souls.

Music harms environment

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Preliminary research conducted at Oxford University indicates that the UK music industry produces up to one million tonnes of CO2 annually.

 

The University’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI) believes the main contributors to be live concerts, the mass production and sale of music products and UK artists going on tour throughout the globe.

 

The ECI and Julie’s Bicycle, the organisation that commissioned the research, urge the UK music industry to think and act more greenly which they believe will inspire other companies as well.

DJ Yoda’s ‘Magic Cinema Show’, Carling Academy, Tuesday 29th April

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I entered the Zodiac Room at the Carling Academy to be greeted by a surreal scene. DJ Yoda and his uniquely developed decks were situated at the left of an empty stage. Projected onto the back wall was the ‘Magic Cinema Show’. The crowd were exposed to clips of images including Cartoons, Soaps, Films and Documentaries.  From the Simpsons and Sesame Street, to Physco and Star Wars: Yoda covered it all. These were then mixed with samples of famous Hip Hop, Jungle, Drum n Bass, 80s Pop and Reggae tracks.   

DJ Yoda is DJ and a VJ. He has helped create the special technology, the ‘Pioneer SMV-1000’, to scratch DVDs especially for the ‘Magic Cinema Show’ tour. He controls the array of images from the turntables he is mixing the music on. The range of influences on the visuals and music were diverse, but it is clear that Yoda has a soft spot for anything from the 80s. He juxtaposes light hearted children’s TV with old school, heavy Hip Hop beats. These tendencies were epitomised in the clip he showed of a kids’ TV programme called ‘Yo Gabba Gabba’ which features the old school rapper Biz Markie giving beat box lessons. Not the kind of thing you expect to be watching at a gig. The obscure samples Yoda used revealed to the audience what Duncan Beiny himself likes. It was an intimate show.

There was something very bizarre about the ‘Magic Cinema Show’. Maybe it was that the crowd didn’t really know whether to dance or watch. Despite mixing extremely danceable samples everyone tended to opt for the latter; captivated by the curious mix of visual clips. It was when prominent characters came onto the screen that a cheer would emanate from the audience.

Just like your average film, the show lasted 90 minutes. But this film did not have a beginning, middle and end. There was no apparent coherence to the order of musical and visual events. However, this was what made the show what it was. An extraordinary mix made it strangely brilliant.

College blamed for disease outbreak

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Pembroke’s JCR President has accused the college of risking students’ lives by failing to maintain clean accommodation after a disease outbreak.

He also alleged that the college deceived students by covering up an outbreak of the potentially fatal Legionnaire’s disease.

JCR President Chris Bennetts said the JCR consistently raised concerns about the poor state of the showers and ventilation system in the Macmillan building where the outbreak occurred, but the College had taken no action.

Bennetts said, “The JCR has consistently raised general concerns about the poor state of the showers and ventilation in the building; poor ventilation particularly contributes to the spread of the bacteria.”

He also criticised the decision by college authorities not to inform students of the discovery of Legionnaire’s until Monday morning, despite knowing of the extent of the problem three days earlier.

Bacteria associated with Legionnaire’s disease was found in the water tanks supplying the showers of the Macmillan building last Friday, following routine checks. The college closed off the showers over the weekend before shutting down the whole water supply on Monday while the problem was fixed.

JCR President Chris Bennetts said the college had told students that there was a problem with the water supply on Friday and closed the showers, but only revealed the truth on Monday. “They had been informed on Friday that an unspecified problem had been identified with their water supply; showers were out of use for the weekend with students using neighbouring blocks instead. Tap water was said to be unaffected.”

However, college authorities have defended their actions, saying the decision to withhold the true nature of the problem from students was done so as to prevent panic, and because the bacteria posed a minimal health threat.

They also denied that the presence of Legionnaire’s had any connection with the state of the building.
Bennetts criticised this decision by the college to withhold the true reason for the shower closures and their failure to provide students with information about the disease. “It concerns me that the college did not inform the students what the nature of the problem was until a few days had elapsed – in sealing off the showers they had isolated the problem but students should have been informed about the precise problem in order that they could be vigilant for any symptoms.”

However, Darren Bowyer, the Home Bursar, rejected the accusation of any link between the standard of the Macmillan block and the discovery of Legionnaire’s, saying facilities such as water tanks were vulnerable to the disease. “The standard of the décor and cleanliness of the bathroom units are completely unrelated to the discovery of Legionnaires. Showers where you have a static tank are always a likely area of threat.”

Bowyer also defended the decision to withhold the discovery from students, saying the risk of infection was minimal and that releasing the information would have created unnecessary alarm.

“The risk to a healthy person with a healthy immune system is very small, therefore we thought the risk of causing unneeded panic was greater than any threat to student safety. We thought the best option was to deal the disease first.”

Louise Randall, OUSU Vice President for Welfare and Equal Opportunities, said it was the obligation of colleges to ensure student accommodation was safe. “It is the responsibility of every college to ensure the highest hygiene standards in student accommodation, and we hope that this incident will lead to greater measures being taken to protect student health.”

Randall said that students at Pembroke should be given high standards of accommodation to reflect the fact that they have some of the highest rents of any colleges in the University. “The rent of students at Pembroke is among the highest in Oxford, and the least that any student at any college should be able to expect are clean, functioning facilities which do not put them at risk.”

Legionnaire’s disease is caused by a bacteria that thrives in aquatic and warm environments, infection occurs after inhaling water droplets that originated from a water source contaminated with Legionella.
If treated quickly then mortality rate is less than five per cent, but delay in giving the appropriate antibiotics leads to a higher death rate.

Finalists evicted without warning

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Five students have been left without permanent accommodation following eviction from their house in Cowley.

The students, all third years at New College, returned home last Friday to find that their door had been broken down and that their locks had been changed.

A note had been left on the door telling the students to contact Allen Harris Estate Agents.

Claire Chambers, one of the students, spoke of her distress at finding she could not get into her house.

She said, “We came back from the library at about 11.30pm and found our door broken down: there was wood everywhere.”

She described the confusion saying, “We didn’t know what was going on, we had to stay with friends for the night as there was nowhere else for us to go.”

The students called the police, but as it was a civil matter there was nothing they could do. They had to wait until the morning, when they were able to contact the estate agents.

However Chambers dismissed the response from Allen and Harris as unhelpful. She said, “When we spoke to an estate agent, he just laughed and told us that we had to move out by five.

“We knew that we had rights, but as we didn’t know the law, we didn’t know what we could actually do. We had to call our parents to come down to Oxford and help us.”

The students rented their house from a landlord, but their only means of contact was through a letting agency, which was apparently unaware that there were tenants occupying the accommodation.

The students were told that if they did not move all their possessions out of the house then they would not be able to access their belongings.

The students all have examinations this term, and one of them, Tegan Gill, spoke of the disruption the eviction had caused.

Gill said, “It has been such a stressful week and has disrupted our revision. It also means that we have nowhere to stay over the summer.

“It is our last year here and we really wanted to enjoy it. Our parents have all had to take time off work and this has causes a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”

Whilst the students are able to appeal against their unfair eviction, any court case would likely take place in the middle of their finals.

Jonathon Bruce, PR manager for Allen Harris described the situation as the “fault of the landlord” for failing to inform the students that he was unable to pay his mortgage.

He said that the landlord had not informed anyone that there were tenants occupying the property and that Allen Harris had been acting purely on the orders of Halifax, with whom the landlord had had his mortgage.

He described the situation as “unfortunate” but added that Allen and Harris had become involved “only at the end of the process”.

He continued, “The issue now is to find the students somewhere else to stay, Allen and Harris have no lettings in the area but are doing whatever possible to help.”

The students agreed that the situation was not the fault of Allen and Harris.

 

She identified the landlord as the main culprit, stating that he should have informed the letting agency of his financial difficulties.

Louise Randall, OUSU VP for welfare, expressed her concern about the situation.

She said, “Most worrying is what little regard the landlord has given to the well being of his tenants in this situation.

“The landlord will have had a significant amount of notice about the possible consequences of not keeping up on mortgage repayments, and should have felt a duty of care to have informed the tenants in due time.”

Chambers said, “College [New] have been really helpful. Luckily they had rooms available so we are staying there.”

Randall added, “I am pleased that New College have acted so swiftly in order to find accommodation for the students and I hope the welfare systems in place in the College will help ease the stress on the students by this.

A spokesperson for Halifax stated, “It is important to note that repossession is a very last resort."

“The unfortunate issue is that the people living in the property are not our customers. They are the clients of our customer. As such, their contract is with the landlord, not ourselves. The repossession should not have come as any surprise to either the tenant or the occupier. It is an unfortunate circumstance.”

JCR President told to plump up

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Hertford’s JCR President has been told to pile on the pounds after the JCR passed a “banterous” motion on Sunday calling for him to “return to his former glory.”

JCR Treasurer Tim Boothman proposed the motion concerning the President Jon Colclough’s weight at the first meeting of term, noting Colclough’s “rapid” and “irresponsible” loss of significant body mass over the holidays. The motion warns of the President being “dangerously close to being presentable and/or ‘attractive’, an unprecedented occurrence.”

The JCR meeting minutes from 27 April reveal the motion stipulating Colclough’s principal electoral appeal as being “his humourous appearance (like Oliver Hardy),” and that his weight loss had hurt his charisma, which is described as being “directly proportional to his body mass.”

It goes on to say, “a JCR President, as the primary representative of College, must be required to be both charismatic and entertaining.” 

The proposed resolution called for the President to gain back any weight that Colclough had lost, and also “for all future presidents to be banned from weight loss post-election.” Emily Watson, member of Teddy Hall and also girlfriend of the newly slimmed Hertford JCR President seconded the motion. It passed unanimously.

Tim Boothman said in an email that this motion was “a joke, strictly between mates,” and one following Hertford’s “long tradition of passing motions of no consequence for no reason other than boredom and immaturity.” He also lauded Cherwell’s “unparalleled” grasp of rudimentary humour in highlighting the motion.

JCR Sports Rep Ben Brash said offering more attention to such “funny” joke motions is “frankly swelling [Tim Boothman’s] already large [forehead].”

Colclough said of his thinner physique, “It’s always nice having people appreciate my new six-pack.
“I imagine I’ll be hitting the social highs of ‘Fit College’ before too long.”

In response to Boothman’s motion, Colclough said, “Tim Boothman’s…forehead is bigger than both my previous and my current belly diameter.” He did not comment on whether he will follow through with the motion and how he will do so.

Colclough advises future dieters to “try to keep within your daily allowance of burgers and kebabs.
“If you’re really lucky, you can look like me within a few weeks.”

His girlfriend could not be reached for comment.