Nir Zeid collected the Facebook cover photos of twenty Israeli Knesset Members, and he has a theory about them: “Right-wing MKs put themselves, the flag and ‘holy stones’ in the cover photos; left-wingers show pictures of actual people” (Not completely accurate: 8 out of the 10 left-wing MKs included themselves in their cover photos, as did 9 out of 10 right-wing MKs; Shaul Mofaz of Kadima, a right-winger by political alliance, has people in his cover photo, which shows the “holy stones” of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; After we pointed to this, Zeid responded: “Maybe it’s more accurate to say that left-wingers show themselves as a part of a group, rather than take center stage, like right-wingers. Left-wingers show a concrete Israel made up of real people, Right wingers show a more symbolic one: the Wailing Wall, the flag, and [Foreign Minister] Liberman shows what appears to be a local prison. Mofaz’s picture does showcase people, but it seems to be about something else: two soldiers next to the wailing wall says ‘I’m about defense'”..)

• this post in Hebrew

“MKs, and their media consultants, know how important it is to have a social media ‘brand’, and what they choose to show says a lot about them”, Zeid told Room 404. “But when you compare those brands, what’s interesting is what they give away unintentionally. Right-wingers have an increasing need to showcase power, nationality, unity and official state symbols; left-wingers need to showcase diversity and a grassroots social and economic alternative. The right dresses up in the symbolic; the left in the practical”.

Zeid’s commentators have interesting observations, too. Neer Ilin says, “The right used cool colors; the left used warm ones.” Yishai Faran finds the right uses blue-and-white, colors of the Israeli flag, while the left favors “communist red”. Harel Tzadok finds the pictures don’t show a difference between right and left, but coalition and opposition: “if the politician is in opposition, he uses the ‘vote for me’ tactic and tries to show how he’s a man of the people. If he’s in office, he goes for the ‘you voted right’ tactic and tries to amp up his political persona.” Amit Amely writes, “The funniest is Moshe Ya’alon, with a picture of himself looking at himself”. Yo Dawg.

– Ido Kenan

Israeli Soccer Player Ori Cohen recently showed off a new tattoo on his Facebook profile.

Cohen apparently meant the tattoo to read “one step ahead”. In Hebrew it’s “צעד אחד לפני כולם”, literally “one step ahead of everyone”. The tattooist got it almost right: “One step befor everyone”.

Naturally I’d blame the lame translation on Google Translate, but it actually got it right. So it’s either a different translation service, the tattooist or Cohen himself who botched it.

Some commenters alerted Cohen to the spelling mistake. As you’d expect from a vain soccer player who just realized he made quite a permanent mistake, Cohen is in total denial. As in “ma bro a person who gets a tattoo for life checks 70 thousand times beforehand hahaha everything’s fine” (translated by me from just as bad Hebrew) and “hehehe if you noticeeee to all the smarts here notice the words that are connected and cut the bullshit spelling mistakes shmelling mistakes cut the bullshittttt” (I assure you, it makes as much (non)sense in the Hebrew original as it does in my English translation.)

Cohen’s brother, Amos Cohen, reassured him: “bro I checked the dictionary I also thought there’s a mistake but it’s OK you can do it like that too”

The Cohens seem to strongly object to proper grammar, spelling and punctuation; perhaps the mistranslated, misspelled tattoo is intentionally so.

[Update] Minutes after I posted this, Cohen removed the photo from Facebook. Thank FSM, I kept a screenshot:

Julia Burulyova, a photographer from Russia, went on a one week trip to Israel with a friend. When they two arrived at Ben Gurion Airport for the flight back home, airport security took special interest in Burulyova’s photography equipment, specifically in her Nikon D3S camera and Nikon 14-24 lens.

Burulyova’s Israeli friend, Victor Vertsner, who posted the story in Facebook (Hebrew), said the security check stretched to almost a whole hour.

Apparently, that wasn’t enough. “During the security check I was told they had to re-check the camera, and that I won’t be able to take it on board with me,” Burulyova wrote in Facebook (Russian). “They said they’d send it on another flight, if everything is alright, meaning, if it’s not an explosive device or something of that sort. They refused to provide me with a receipt for the lens and the camera. All I got was a lost luggage note, meaning that if they sent me a soapbox instead of a camera, I won’t even be able to prove it.”

“The equipment is very expensive, and Julia, a very sought after photographer, obviously had work commissioned when she returned to Russia,” wrote Vertsner. “She told security that, but they very sternly said that if she wants to get back home on time, she better not argue. And so, another good will ambassador crying at our airport.”

Before the camera arrived – not at her doorstep but at the Moscow airport, Burulyova received an unpleasant surprise: “On the Flash card (which I was able to extract) I found a photographic report from the secret room for suspicious object check. Ben Gurion security officers had fun and took some photos – that’s the ‘gravity’ or their war on terror.” Alongside random photos, presumably taken to see if the camera is indeed operational and not a camera-shaped bomb, there were photos of the security people posing to the camera. One of the photos showed a security person waving his ass at the camera.

Israel Airports Authority’s reposnse: “On June 27, photographer Julia Burulyova passed through Ben Gurion airport on her way back to Russia. During the security check, she was asked to leave some of the photography equipment for a prolonged check, as to not delay her before the flight. Said equipment was sent to her about a day after the flight. Today the IAA was contacted by a friend of the photographer, claiming that the camera had been used inappropriately. IAA will apologize to Ms Julia Burulyova. The issue is under review, and IAA will take all necessary measures against those involved.”

• Originally published in Hebrew in ynet. Thanks, Rina S.G, for translating Burulyova’s Facebook note from Russian.