How do Israelis celebrate Valentine’s Day? Well in Tel Aviv this year, it’s with fast food and a novelty “adult” toy.

Burger King Israel has announced that this evening they will be selling special meals for grownups only. You and your special someone get a box with two Whoppers, two orders of fries, two beers, and a toy that is most certainly not based on a cartoon character.

If you’ll excuse the franchise-crossing reference, this makes for a very happy meal.

And yet, the possible toys are— get ready— an eye-mask, a feather tickler or a tingler head-massager. So you know, something you can get almost anywhere that you don’t even need to act embarrassed about at checkout. Kinky it is not, though the dark with neon design of the special box for the promotion is pretty neat.

No word yet on the sequel currently out in theaters, but the first Fifty Shades of Grey movie did well in the Holy Land in 2015. Apparently Israel is just as susceptible to milquetoast romantic white heterosexual sex pretending it’s BDSM as any other country. This isn’t an official tie-in, but it’s obviously inspired by the fake kink craze.

You have to be 18 to make the purchase, but that’s because of the alcohol— you don’t have to be 18 to buy a blindfold, for HaShem’s sake.

The offer is only available tonight, so if any readers are in Tel Aviv today (Rabin Square location), please, try this out for us and let us know how it goes.

Also, if you don’t have someone to share this magical Burger King experience with, that’s OK. Treat yourself; the extra burger, fries, and beer honestly sounds like the best part.

And if you’re not in Israel, you can watch the super edgy ad for the meal below.

Image via YouTube

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A culture of high quality consumption in a relaxed, social space—akin to the growing third wave coffee culture—is the idea fermented with the new beerah boutique (Hebrew for “craft beer”) culture in Israel.  These microbrew havens are reflecting a shift in the Israeli bar culture—from a pub serving a handful of beers like Goldstar and Tuborg with “chasers” of liquor—to a consumer culture interested in products made with high quality ingredients and individual attention.

For a water-strapped country whose first microbrewery opened in 2005 (Dancing Camel Brewery), Israel seems to be doing quite well for itself. Accordingly, the folks at Beer Market claim there to be almost 100 craft breweries operating in the country. (Do not forget Taybeh, a great brewery from Ramallah that has been crushing it for the past 8+ years.)

Fortunately, there are scores of unique Israeli craft beers available in bars throughout Israel, and as more Israelis develop a preference for these better, local beers, this list will only grow. Until more bars start to serve craft beer on tap, join your new Israeli friends at the bars below. L’chaim!

Beer Bazaar (Shuk HaCarmel, Tel Aviv)

Take a break at the shuk with a cold treat at Beer Bazaar. With eight craft draft options and a cooler of over 70 varieties ranging from more traditional wheat and IPAs to Belgians, smoked, blondes, and ciders, there’s plenty here to keep you happy. BB TLV is full of young adults, with a sprinkling of more senior patrons, drinking together as if it were a café or backyard barbeque.

Evenings at Beer Bazaar exude a comfortable and familiar feel, that of a neighborhood bar for hanging out with best friends.

1 Rambam, Tel Aviv. 36 Yishkon St., Tel Aviv.

Beer Bazaar (Shuk Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem)

BB Jerusalem is located in the narrow, covered portion of the shuk and pulses with a different, louder energy than its Tel Aviv counterpart. Despite the fact that most of the street’s shops close for the evening, there’s a surprising vigor in the shuk at night. The crowd here feels more diverse than the Tel Aviv branch; it’s full of American expats, Israelis, Arab Christians, and yeshiva students of all ages. Beer Bazaar Jerusalem offers craft beer lovers a break from the stiffness of much of Jerusalem, a mutuality of people from a host of backgrounds, and a really different (great!) way to experience Mahane Yehuda.

Going to Beer Bazaar during market hours will feel like you are at the market. If drinking a craft beer will help ease your tensions—yalla. If you are new to craft beer or can’t decide, you can get a flight of four 200 ml drafts for $12. ½ liter of craft beer is $7.65, and liters are $14.50. They also sell bottles.

3 Etz Chaim, Jerusalem.

Café Halutza (Jaffa)

In the corner of Jaffa’s Noga neighborhood sits Café Halutza, a delightful neighborhood restaurant with Israel’s best craft beer deal. While a ½ liter of Malka Beer is regularly $6.35 (good deal!), a second ½ liter is only $3.20! In addition to this draft, they also have bottles of Hahalutz, a small brewery from Beersheva.

Beyond the beer (sometimes there is another reason to go somewhere), this is a worker cooperative restaurant. All of the employees are educators in youth movements, schools, and other informal education programs. Profits from the restaurant support the Dror Yisrael Educator’s Kibbutzim and all tips are distributed to a different educational program each month. The food is “kosher,” very vegan-friendly, and quite good. This is a great café to grab a coffee, snack, or best-priced ½ liter drafts in the country.

Poriah 12, Jaffa.

Bogart Red (Givatayim) and Bogart RG (Ramat Gan)

Come to Bogarts for the craft beer—6 taps of Israeli craft beer (Jems) as well as bottles from Negev, Bazelet, and others—but stay to relax outside of the bustle of Tel Aviv. This suburb of Givatayim, a 5-minute bus trip from Azrieli or Arlozorov, is a rapidly yuppifying community. Sitting at Bogart, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any tourists, patrons over 40, or e-bikes on sidewalks (the bane of Tel Aviv life). Sitting outside at high-top tables, each group is noshing, rolling cigarettes, or both. The music transitions between smooth jazz, blues, and Mizrahi pop… a clear favorite, as there is often dancing and cheering from the staff, customers, and pedestrians when the local pop stars start crooning. The bar honors its roots as Israel’s first DVD rental shop—named after Casablanca’s Humphrey Bogart—by reusing old DVD racks, posters, and some original old design elements. In addition to a solid happy hour special 9 pm Sunday-Wednesday, they often host live music.

Katnelson St. 55, Givatayim. Sderot Yerushalayim 5, Ramat Gan.

Porter and Sons (Sarona, Tel Aviv)

Porter and Sons is without a doubt Israel’s premier location for craft beer on tap. With 50 different taps offering no fewer than 17 Israeli craft beers and ciders, this is the draft beer king of Israel. If you’re new to (craft) beer, navigating this Israeli beer heaven may seem daunting. Don’t be afraid— Israelis want to help you expand your drinking habit, and there’s a chalkboard map to help direct your beer choice based on taste preferences. Also, the staff at Porter and Sons is very proud of their selection and generally enjoys talking with customers about the different beers (in English and Hebrew), giving a tour of their keg room, and offering tastes.

This brasserie (not kosher) tries its best to be a traditional English pub, staying open until the last customer stumbles out and leaning heavily on hearty, yet upscale pub grub.

They also have an amazing unlimited draft beer happy hour.

14 Ha’Arbaa St., Tel Aviv.

Perla (Florentine, Tel Aviv)

Situated in the heart of the über-hip Florentine neighborhood of Tel Aviv is Perla, a 25+ bar that is without a doubt one of the most conventionally hip places to grab a craft beer in Israel. With a beer menu organized by drinking “mood”—Native Israeli, Brave, Easy-drinking, and Nostalgia—and complimented by an exhaustive list of liquors, you’re expected to take your drinking seriously. The 9 Israeli craft drafts and 15 European options are briefly described in the menus, encouraging people to choose a beer without asking too many questions (which would be difficult over the loud music). This is a quintessential Florentine neighborhood bar, where the prices are a little steep and the pulse is quick; partying goes until very late. Beers cost around $9 for a 14 oz glass (smaller than a US and Imperial pint). From 4-7:30 pm there is a buy-one-get-one happy hour, making weekday drinking a much more economic time to explore Israeli craft beer in Florentine.

Florentine 8, Tel Aviv.

Beer Market (Shuk Sarona, Tel Aviv)

Tel Aviv’s newest shuk, the Sarona Market, is a gourmet assault of the senses. This market has everything; it’s like Chelsea Market eloped with the Grand Central’s Great Northern Food Hall and birthed a darling haven for Silicon Valley expats.

At the far eastern entrance of this clash of culinary cultures sits Beer Market, a haven for craft beer lovers and exhausted market-goers alike. With six taps, 100 different bottles, and a very knowledgeable staff, this is one of the meccas for Israeli beer. If you’re interested in the history of homebrewing in Israel, the movers and shakers in the local boutique business, and anything else hopped in Israel, this is a great place to start. Beer is reasonably priced with a bottle selling for $5.80, a 400 ml glass for $6.85, and a 1.5 liter pitcher for $24.

Birateinu (Jerusalem)

Less than a block from the Mamilla Mall is this unassuming Israeli craft beer spot. With a constantly changing selection of 6 taps, most of which are rarely found outside of brewery taprooms, Birateinu prides itself in always offering something new and delicious from Israel. Draft beers are reasonably priced at $7 for ½ liter, $5.75 for a 1/3, and $4.50 for a highball glass. In addition to the taps, they have scores of Israeli bottles available in refrigerators and shelves to drink on the premises or to take home. They host special release parties for breweries, and this is a place to celebrate and learn about craft beer in Israel (like Beer-D in Jaffa or Buster’s in Beit Shemesh). If you fall in love with their creative beers, they have brewing workshops and plenty of supplies for homebrewing.

3 Yanai St., Jerusalem.

Glen Whisk(e)y Bar (Jerusalem)

Don’t be too surprised to know that Jerusalem’s biggest whiskey bar (over 100 whiskeys) is also one of its best beer bars. At the corner of history, you can enjoy an Israeli IPA, Amber, wheat, stout, and so much more from the tap or in a bottle. Though the bar is known for their whiskey, consumed mainly by recent male olim and tourists, it is known as a fun place for students, soldiers, and others to hang out. Easily accessible by most transportation in Jerusalem (it’s next to Mamilla), and open until late in the morning, as well as on Shabbat, this is always a good choice for drinks in Jerusalem, especially late night.

18 Shlomtzion HaMalka, Jerusalem.

Bardak (Jerusalem)

Pizza and beer is a winning combination anywhere in the world, but in Israel, the pizza is often disappointing. So, if you find yourself in Jerusalem and looking for great pizza and beverage match, go to Bardak. A delicious and creative menu of pies pairs well with their crowd-pleasing taps and nearly 20 bottles of Israeli boutique beer.  Offering a basic primer to craft beer, Bardak provides “slices” of tastes, providing a brief description for their taps: wheat, lager, amber, porter, strong ale, and IPA.  Though the pizza is expensive relative to other pie options in Israel, it’s well worth it. And the beer is very reasonably priced with liter-sized pitchers for $15. Nestled between the First Station, Mishkenot Sh’ananim, Rehavia, and Talbiya, Bardak is accessible to all of Jerusalem. It’s a late night hangout for youths, families, and tourists alike (who doesn’t like good pizza!?). Though most customers are Israelis (surprising for this area), this kosher dairy restaurant is very English friendly. Like most Israeli restaurants and bars, the place is quite deserted between 3 and 8 pm.

38 Keren HaYesod, Jerusalem.

Libira (Haifa)

In the city of coexistence, equality, and public buses on Shabbat, sits Libira, an exciting brewpub in the heart of the downtown port district. In this industrial warehouse-like space, soft lights illuminate the massive, dark canvases (~12 m²) of the beer labels.

Even though all of the draft beer is made in house, you could imagine it travelling thousands of miles from its muses. In homage to these traditional methods, Libira makes a Bavarian “Weiss,” German “Double Pils,” British “Bitter” ale, Irish “Smoked Stout” ale, and Belgian “Strong Golden” Ale. Despite their pedigree, these beers are approachable for beer drinkers of most any experience.  If buying a whole glass seems intimidating, you can get a flight of 150 ml tasters ($9.75 for 5 tastes). If you love the beer, you’re also welcome to purchase bottles at the great price of $17.15 for a six-pack.

The kitchen is a local favorite, offering classic and modern seafood dishes, upscale bar snacks, and a very popular burger that go well with the beer.

Sometimes Libira even runs out of a beer (the Bitter goes fast), which must say something about the quality of their brews.

Maayan Habira (Haifa)

You know there’s something special about a bar that opens at 10 am and closes before the 5pm happy hour, which is why I joined the Haifa sailors and longshoremen for a beer and bread at Ma’ayan Habira. This large bar, which caters primarily to the men who work(ed) in the port in the early morning, is a vestige of years past, serving complimentary bread and horseradish (shtetl nostalgia fit well here) with beer and black coffee. With the craft beer and demographic shifts in the neighborhood, there are increasingly younger crowds, but this is primarily a bar for an older generation who has been coming here since they opened in 1962.

This unofficial historical landmark is the only non-religious space to offer p’tcha, kishke, gefilte fish, and Friday cholent/goulash.  They count 4 Israeli craft taps amongst their 28 drafts, which is only dwarfed in bar space by their selection of 75 different whiskeys.

Food and drink aside, the eclectic décor of old brass instruments, collector beer steins, and a massive fresco of a medieval soldiers/monks drinking Israeli beer is worth the visit.

4 Natanzon St., Haifa.

Agnes Pub (Hod Hasharon and Tel Aviv)

A hip Tel Aviv spot in the Old North, this brasserie is modeled after the love child of a New York deli and Brooklyn gastropub. Alongside the eight Israeli taps ($8-$9 for a ½ liter), they offer greasy sandwiches that would make any heavy drinker happy, ranging from a vegan patty to a bevy of beefy burgers, a BLT, and a mustard-laden reuben.  And like any hip Tel Aviv restaurant these days, they have a house specialty cauliflower option (lightly fried, served with a basil aioli). Starting with the after-work crew and lasting late through the night, this restaurant bar in Tel Aviv and Hod Hasharon is helping to build a stronger culture of boutique beer drinkers in Israel. They occasionally host special brewery nights where they celebrate the release of new Israeli craft bottles and breweries. If you’re looking for a reuben and a beer, this is your place. And even if you don’t want the reuben—still worth it.

Ibn Gvirol 129, Tel Aviv. Bnei Brit 4, Hod Hasharon.

—Avery Robinson

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Shelly Oria’s debut short story collection, New York 1, Tel Aviv 0, is simultaneously delicate and shattering. The book derives its title from a story of the same name, in which an Israeli expat from in New York obsessively tallies the merits of the two cities that she has called home. “It’s an ongoing competition,” she says, “But I forget to keep track, so I have to keep counting all over again.”

Many stories in Oria’s collection are rooted in two cities on opposite sides of the globe, their central characters Israelis who have made their way to the United States. But New York 1, Tel Aviv 0 is more textured than a simple exploration of migration and cultural difference. Quietly and without ceremony, Oria’s narratives veer into worlds that are unidentifiable and bizarre. In ‘The Beginning of a Plan,’ a young woman flees Israel to America to escape criminal prosecution, and discovers that she can quite literally freeze time. In ‘Victor, Changed Man,’ a couple reunites and promptly separates against the backdrop of an anonymous city that has been overtaken by a dense, unyielding fog. Often, the book’s fantastical narratives border on the grotesque. Oria writes of a North American town that traffics in human organs and blood, of another dominated by a band of vengeful, violent women. “We hold our men by their balls,” the nameless protagonist says. “And we squeeze.”

Even in the stories situated in identifiable locations, there is something disarming about the characters, who speak and think in jarring declaratives. “I always look them in the eye throughout, so as not to miss my moment,” says the protagonist of ‘This Way I Don’t Have to Be,’ explaining her addiction to sleeping with married men. “In that moment, their lives turn to air.” But beneath the cryptic authority of statements like these lies confusion and chaos. The lives of Oria’s characters are steeped in loneliness, unrequited love, and confounding lust. They subsist in fluid, often queer, sexual relationships that prove agonizing. Booney, the central character of a story called ‘The Thing About Sophia,’ develops feelings for her female roommate, and is invited into her bed, but not into her heart. In the titular ‘New York 1, Tel Aviv 0,’ an Israeli immigrant moves in with a former IDF soldier and falls desperately for his girlfriend, a woman who cannot be tamed.

Oria author was born in Los Angeles, but raised in Israel, and she taught herself to write fiction in English when she was an adult. If she is at any disadvantage when it comes to proficiency in the language, it does not show. Her sentences are piercing, her tone cool and assured. She is admirably bold in her storytelling, weaving her short narratives with ribbons of the strange and the surreal.

Every now and then, however, Oria overreaches in her attempts at originality. ‘Fully Zipped,’ which chronicles a series of exchanges between a customer and a salesperson in the fitting room of a clothing store, relies more on concept than on characters, and fizzles away without leaving much of an impression. ‘Documentation’ explores the unravelling of a relationship through a catalogue of kisses—a narrative technique that feels gimmicky and stale.

Some of the most striking stories in New York 1, Tel Aviv 0 are, in fact, the ones rendered in simple linear narratives. ‘The Disneyland of Albany,’ the strongest story in the collection and the most overtly political, follows an Israeli artist named Avner, who leaves his young daughter Maya in Tel Aviv when he moves to New York to further his art career. During one of Maya’s visits to the States, Avner travels to Albany to meet a wealthy Jewish patron, who subtly attempts to bully Avner into infusing his work with Zionist symbolism. At one point, Maya becomes agitated when she learns that a community was displaced so Nelson Rockefeller could build Albany’s Empire State Plaza. “Did they use tanks?” she asks, a reference to the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes.

If the circumstances of Oria’s more ethereal narratives are unnerving and strange, so is this story of a little girl who carries the trauma of her country’s wars. In New York 1, Tel Aviv 0, devastating realities collide with haunting landscapes of the surreal, until it cannot be said where one ends and the other begins.

Related: New Short Story Collection Explores Tel Aviv’s Dark Side

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Pass me my smelling salts and pour me a seltzer: the Kardashians are buying an apartment in Tel Aviv.

According to The Times of Israel, “Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian are jointly purchasing property at 96 Hayarkon, one of the most exclusive addresses in all of Israel.” Property manager Oved Zangi spilled the beans on Thursday, when he revealed that the Kardashians will be arriving in Israel in about a month to sign off on the $30 million contract. The apartment—which has stunning views of the Mediterranean—is located in a recently redeveloped Bauhaus building, just a couple minutes walk from Frishman beach. The original structure was designed in 1935 by architect Pinchas Bijonski, and a super-swish modern tower was added in 2012. Feast your eyes on its gorgeous curved balconies (swoon!) right here.

Haaretz reports that Scott Disick, Kourtney Kardashian’s Jewish partner (and father to their three children), is the one who’ll be signing on the dotted line. But in the generous economy of Kardashian family, what’s my multi-million dollar vacation home is your multi-million dollar vacation home—so God-willing we can expect visits from Kim, Kanye, North, et al by Passover. Next year in a Tel Aviv penthouse!

http://youtu.be/GgnEmqed0XA

Related: Kim Kardashian’s Hanukkah Card
Kim Kardashian’s Kibbutz Kitchen

(Image: Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com)

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Yay! The internet Gods have bestowed upon us a pre-Christmas amuse-bouche gift: episode 3 of the bizarre-but-delightful anime web series, Israel, Like!

In case you missed it, the series was launched by the Israeli embassy in Tokyo back in November as part of a campaign to attract Japanese visitors to the Holy Land. It presents an oddly neutered, pareve version of Israel (no war or Palestinians, only Ashkenazi Jews, and abundant Dead Sea cosmetics), as explored by two sisters: the savvy but troubled Noriki, and the infantile, co-dependent Saki.

I know, I know, I’m not exactly selling it right now, am I? But though there’s plenty to critique, Israel, Like! is also oddly compelling. The portrayal of Israel as a land of exotic foods, good weather, and good-looking soldiers—minus the conflict—is wistfully utopian and idealistic, like a tourism reel from the 1950s. And there’s a strong current of dramatic tension pulling you through the stream of hasbara: Will Noriki reconcile with her husband? Will Saki ever learn to fend for herself? Will the two sisters make it through the trip without killing each other?

In episode 3, those questions are meaningfully teased out for the first time: Noriki ditches Saki for a couple of days of quiet marital brooding, and Saki flips out—only to be rescued by a Japanese-speaking, manga-loving, 20-something Western male stereotype called Itai. Jachnun is savored, the kotel is visited, and a lot of feelings are felt. Plus—there’s a surprise visitor from home and a kind of suspenseful ending.

(Click here for episode one, and here for episode two.)

(Image: YouTube)

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The good news: episode 2 of Israel, Like!, the web series created by the Israeli embassy in Tokyo to entice Japanese visitors to the Holy Land, is live. The bad news: there are no English subtitles, so we’re not really sure what happens. The fundamentals of the plot are clear—sisters Saki and Noriki visit the Dead Sea and Masada, have their photo taken with an Israeli soldier, go shopping in Tel Aviv, enjoy felafel and Israeli breakfasts—but the subtleties of the subplot about Noriki’s crumbling marriage are frustratingly beyond our understanding. She seems to spend a lot of time on her cell phone. Is she texting her estranged husband? Hooking up with hot Israeli guys on Tinder? We just don’t know.

Do you speak Japanese? Do a blog a mitzvah and leave a summary in the comments. Arigatō!

Update, 10:30pm: Closed captions have been activated!

Related: Watch the Israeli Government’s Anime Tourism Pitch

(Image: YouTube)

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Here’s something to lift the Monday morning blues, maybe even get you a little high: The New Yorker has just published a new short story by Israeli writer Etgar Keret. (And it’s translated by Nathan Englander, no less—a literary twofer!)

In ‘One Gram Short,’ a nameless, neurotic, curiously passive Keretian protagonist goes on a quest for some weed to impress Shikma, the waitress at his local cafe who is a “fan of recreational drugs.” (Because asking her to a movie would be “too in-your-face,” ‘course.) This quest leads him to the apartment of a lawyer with cancer, a dramatic court appearance, a violent confrontation, and an… interesting ending. Look, no more vague spoilers. You can read the story—and listen to Keret’s lovely lispy reading—right here.

(Image: Martina Kenji)

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“Saki, let’s go to Israel!”

Thus begins a new anime web series called Israel, Like!, launched by the Israeli embassy in Tokyo as part of a campaign to entice Japanese visitors to the Holy Land. In the debut episode—the first in a series of seven—sisters Saki and Noriki travel to Israel on the strength of its famed “chocolate bar” (i.e. Max Brenner), marvel at the clapping when their airplane lands (“many Israeli are cheerful people”), admire the “cool” airport (there’s never been a more enthusiastic response to Ben Gurion) and relaxed locals (“many guys are good looking!”), then get plastered on Israeli wine at a Tel Aviv bar in a evening of sisterly bonding.

Ruth Kahanoff, Israel’s ambassador to Japan, told Ynet that the series aims to “use anime to reach the Japanese audience, especially youth, and display the Israel beyond the conflict.” Embassy spokesman Ronen Medzini says the response has been “unprecedented,” and that the show is garnering “massive media attention all across Japan.”

The video is interspersed with cameos from “Shalom Chan,” the embassy’s Pikachu-esque mascot who delivers little factoids about Israeli life and culture. Subsequent episodes will take the sisters all over Israel, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to the Negev to a kibbutz. (I guess the West Bank and Hebron are off the list?)

Episode one is full of many strange and unexpected moments, but it’s also fun and super-watchable. A melodramatic cliffhanger relating to Noriki’s marriage—which comes out of nowhere but is totally compelling—has me hanging out for episode two. According to the embassy’s Facebook page (which has a solid following of about 7,000), it should be live soon, and promises a visit to the Dead Sea and a closer look at Noriko’s past. I’ll admit it: I can’t wait.

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As soon as you step off the street and into the theater for a performance of Odd Birdz, you’re welcomed into the whimsical universe of the Israeli theater company Tziporela: a man playing guitar greets you, another shakes your hand, a third asks if you’d like a glass of water. The actors are the exuberant hosts, the audience members their guests. The fourth wall feels permeable in an intimate, Israeli way.

How to describe Odd Birdz? It’s a live theater show consisting of a series of twenty sketches performed by a cast of eight, but also a world unto itself—a surreal, hilarious world where French janitors perform Shakespeare with Jamaican accents, a real-life Pac-Man takes the stage, and a couple on a first date tell the truth about their sexual proclivities and personal grooming habits. The actors met twelve years ago as students at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio, and last year the troupe was named one of 20 innovative start-ups by EISP, a non-profit Israeli incubator run by the 8200 Alumni Association (an intelligence unit in the Israeli army). Their performances, though carefully scripted, have a improvisational feel, combining drama, dance, mime, and music.

Language is never an issue, as most of the sketches are performed in English. But when Hebrew is incorporated—and it often is—translation becomes a comedic device. In one scene, two actors act as “translators” for two Israeli soap opera characters. As the couple spews melodramatic romantic clichés in Hebrew, the two translators interpret everything from their words and hand gestures to their cigarette puffs. When the dialogue escalates out of control, all one of the translators can say in the midst of the chaos is “lots of emotions”! The drama eventually engulfs the translators, who, it turns out, are having an affair themselves. A more melodramatic story line unfolds involving cheating partners and a pregnancy. At a certain point in this topsy-turvy scene, the actors start to feed lines to the translators. It’s a balagan, but controlled, well-executed one.

Basically, there are no rules in world of Odd Birdz. This self-proclaimed “start-up theater for the start-up nation” is unorthodox, irreverent, playful entertainment—with a serious, provocative side. One of the most absurd scenarios arises when a Jewish-American tourist entering Israel is scrutinized as a security threat (it quickly unravels into a camp disco dance set). There’s no shortage of sexual innuendo or make-out scenes throughout the performance.

Some of the sketches are physical comedies full of ingenuity and invention. In one skit, a couple silently expresses the ups and downs of their relationship by drawing on each other’s t-shirts with sharpies, sketching out a narrative of love and despair. It’s beautiful.

In another standout scene, a husband and wife seated in the audience argue over whether or not they should publicly identify themselves as Israeli. In a heavy accent somewhere between Russian and Israeli, the husband tells the audience that they’re from Oklahoma. His wife Devoraleh (“It means little bee in Hebrew!”) won’t stand for it. She storms down the aisle, enraged. Somewhere along the way she rants about a divorce, exalts herself as an “educator,” spots a former pupil in the audience (apparently she gets recognized everywhere—everywhere being Hamburg and New York) and berates her husband, again and again.

The act succeeds on many levels: it pokes fun at Israeli and Jewish stereotypes, and the habits of people in long-term relationships. But above all, you feel as though you’re in on the joke. This is a couple you know—just on speed and in technicolor.

Odd Birdz is theater that defies categorization. It’s chaotic, it’s warm, it’s exuberant—a cross between your family seder and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. But this humor has an edge. It forces you to reflect inwards, to think about your own flaws, prejudices, and vanities. Like all good jesters, the Tziporela troupe reminds us that we don’t have to be serious to be perceptive, that sometimes it’s harder to be light than to be heavy, that there’s wisdom wrapped up in satire. Go to be charmed, and to be challenged.

“Odd Birdz” will be showing through November 19 in New York City. Times and tickets here.

Iris Mansour has written for Reuters, The Guardian, and Time Out, among others. In 2011 she traveled from London to the U.S. in search of her American dreams and became prom queen. Now she’s a New Yorker. Follow her on Twitter @irisist.

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It was a smart move to ask beloved Israeli weirdo Etgar Keret to co-edit Tel Aviv Noir, Israel’s entrée into Akashic Books’ expansive series of noir-themed fiction anthologies. Keret—aided by compatriot Assaf Gavron—allows his fantastical leanings to push beyond the genre’s typical boundaries. As a result, only a few stories invoke the genre’s classic tropes: more often than not, the streets are not rain-slicked, the dames not long of leg, and the mysteries not so compelling. In fact, the more memorable characters in this collection would be markedly out of place on the streets occupied by Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled heroes.

The upshot of this thematic liberalism is an anthology of startlingly varying quality. The stories that stick to Chandleresque modes of storytelling are often weaker than those that attempt subversion, perhaps because it’s so difficult to improve on the masters—I found myself torn between wanting the stories to hit the genre notes and then, when they often did, wanting them to subvert the clichés.

In the clunky opener “Sleeping Mask,” Gadi Taub’s protagonist narrates the story in relentless exposition; on the same page, we read that his “sex was like a tornado,” and that “everything was up in the air. [They] were playing with fire.” Lacking are the whimsies of The Big Sleep, or Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Instead, we’re given stock characters and stock plot set in motion by a conspicuously authorial voice.

The other stories in ‘Encounters,’ Part I the anthology, fair slightly better. In Matan Hermoni’s “Women,” a failed novelist meets the ghost of an obscure Polish poet while attending the funeral of famed Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever, and they become roommates. “The Time-Slip Detective,” by Lavie Tidhar, is a particular highlight. Tidhar is a ghostly presence in the story itself: the protagonist, a journalist, is on assignment to interview Tidhar about his recent World Fantasy Award—which he won in 2012 for Osasma. The journalist finds himself magically transported to 1930s Mandate Palestine, where he is chased by a fictional detective from a series of Hebrew pulp novels. The disorienting and propulsive story allows for cliché—eyes are frequently twinkling and sparkling—but it feels earned in the context of smarter language: our journalist describes cars moving “like tiny beetles,” an unsettling image that calls to mind the surrealist shrinking of tilt-shift photography. A story of fused identities, disruptions in time, and literary parlor tricks, Tidhar’s piece is not the only one in the anthology to borrow heavily from Borges.

Part II, ‘Estrangements,’ falls flat, but contains a jewel in “Swirl,” by Norwegian journalist and critic Silje Bekeng. Her story finds the wife of a seldom-home foreign diplomat encountering the strange, spectral man who has been subtly misplacing objects in her apartment, whilst riots on the streets of Tel Aviv threaten to spill over into her world. Sandwiched between misfires from Gon Ben Ari and Julia Fermentto, “Swirl” shines.

If hints of noir seem absent from many of these stories, a pervasive sense of terror and violence certainly is not. In Taub’s story, one character warns another against hitchhiking, saying, “There are Arabs out there, trying to abduct soldiers.” The hero of Tidhar’s “Time Slip Detective” is comforted by the threat of terrorism when he returns to modern Israel. And in Alex Epstein’s eccentric and sadly too-short “Death in Pajamas,” the Grim Reaper visits a café while missiles erupt near Hadera, a double car bomb detonates in Jerusalem, and a pregnant Palestinian woman miscarries her twins because of a delay at a checkpoint. (It’s curious—and disappointing—that from a roster of international authors, including a Norwegian, a Colombian, and an Iranian, no Arab or Palestinian writers are represented.

Sensibly, Keret and Gavron save themselves for Part III, ‘Corpses,’ offering strong stories that finish a wildly uneven anthology on a high note, and illustrate the problems inherent in opening up the definitions of noir.

Keret’s “Allergies” is the story of a couple who can’t conceive, so they adopt a dog with a picky appetite and violent tendencies. The dog, as you would expect, threatens to derail their relationship. But smartly, Keret pivots from the obvious, and the story ends with a touching and absurdist twist. Though it’s dark, you’d be hard-pressed to identify a single detail that evokes the concept of ‘noir.’

Meanwhile, Gavron’s “Center” is noir subversion at its finest, featuring two renovators who pretend to be private detectives for a few days and wind up solving a gory murder mystery. Gavron brilliantly allows amateurs to take the reins in his story, perhaps signaling to the reader that he himself is an amateur in the genre. Instead of trying to best Chandler at his own perfected game, Gavron gives us lovable fools running amok in a noir universe. The result is a story that gleefully calls to mind the absurdist, hard-boiled logic of a Coen Brothers film.

Despite the unfortunate ratio of clunkers to winners, Tel Aviv Noir evokes the mood, sensitivities, and neuroses of Israeli life to good effect. As Keret asks in the introduction, “Tel Aviv is one of the happiest, friendliest, most liberal cities in the world. What could possibly be dark about our sunny city, a city nicknamed ‘The Bubble?'” Turns out, plenty—even if isn’t actually noir.

Zachary C. Solomon is a Brooklyn-based writer and fiction M.F.A. candidate at Brooklyn College. Follow him on Twitter at @z_solomon.

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