Ha’aretz has an article about (Israeli) celebrity bloggers.
One day last summer, while whizzing along a highway in the Galilee panhandle and listening to a Miri Mesika anthology, a blogger by the online name of Michlula got the fright of her life: A massive wild boar burst onto the road. On her blog at TheMarker Cafe (tinyurl.com/yozy6v), she actually describes the next few moments in a positive light.”The guy beside me in the car started screaming, but I simply switched into slow motion mode – stopping completely at this speed would have been impossible and would have ended with a crushed boar and probably also a news item that ‘an unfortunate accident took place near Kiryat Shmona,'” says Michlula, “so I slowed down a bit, swerved to the left into the opposite lane, while shifting down a gear, stepped hard on the gas and sped passed the beast. That was it. He was behind me. My heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest.”
This story would not have been so intriguing, and could have been just one more blog post among the tens of thousands published in Israeli cyberspace, had it not been for the fact that Michlula is the online name of actress and children’s television star Michal Yanai.
I’m not from Israel so I didn’t recognize the names. Even so, I really don’t know a lot of celebrity bloggers. There’s a screenwriter; someone who’s immortalized in a Day by Day cartoon; an actor who starred in an adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer novel and the guy who wrote the screenplay. (Yes, I know, I left out the HuffPo, but I never read it.)
But strangely, the article neglects to mention Israel’s newest, biggest celebrity blogger: Shimon Peres, president of Israel, whose blog just debuted in Ha’aretz. I’m not a fan of Peres politically and I don’t fully agree with his argument, still the last sentence is a very nice sentiment.
That is the secret of Judaism today – to be simultaneously as ancient as the tongue of the Ten Commandments and as modern as the Internet.
Oh and Peres is, indeed, a celebrity blogger, look at the guest list to his 80th birthday.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
