Quirky thoughts from an old man.
Quote is from Rachel Korazim a holocaust educator who spoke to our Israel Tour group in preparation for our visit to Yad Vashem. The newly rebuilt Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Her talk was brilliant and the memorial is a gut wrenching emotional experience.
Superlatives are claims to the highest, fastest, largest, oldest etc.
We have had a joke for many years about a Bronze Buddha. If you define the group sharply enough anything is the best at something. I am “Pasadena’s oldest man born in Coventry, England who had a factory in Mexico.
On our recent trip to Israel we noticed that most superlatives about spiritual things don’t work with the “est” suffix. You have to use “most”. For instance “most spiritual” is correct not “spiritualest”. “Jewishest” is wrong “most Jewish” is right.
By the way who is the worlds most spiritual man? Hint: see picture above.
We walked down to the Rose Parade on a cold but clear morning and watched most of the parade. One of the things we liked was a band from Mexico and several floats from Asia. This got my creative juices going and I had the idea that High School Students from Israel should have a marching band in the Rose Parade and the Jews of the San Gabriel Valley should make it happen.
A band on TV
The benefits to Israel are obvious; positive publicity, the promotion of tourism and normalcy. Working to make it happen would give the Jews of the San Gabriel Valley a sense of common purpose, a task to accomplish and another reason to visit Israel.
Drill Teams
The benefit to the Rose Parade would be a new international market and revenue stream.
There are many objections to be overcome. Security concerns, finding young people in Israel who want to join an American style marching band, financing and many more. But it could be done and the benefits would far outweigh the costs.
The Salvation Army Band
The next step would be to find some people on the Israel end who like the idea and get a sense of how it could be done. My estimate is that it would be a three to five year process and would cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
International Floats
One thought is that there are hundred of people associated with the Technion in Haifa who because of the connection to Cal Tech and JPL have lived in the Pasadena area. Since they would be familiar with US marching bands and the Rose Parade they might form the nucleus to get the idea started.
My favorite float in 2011
If you have any interest in this idea please circulate it to others and let’s form an exploratory committee. In a break from my usual role as solely the idea person I’d be interested in helping get this one started. Conversely if you think that it is a unusually unrealistic idea even for me let me know.
“How are you going to determine what the work is worth unless you begin thinking that a day’s work is worth a certain sum of money.”
The quote above was written by Elwood Mead the famous dam builder in 1927. He was consulting in Israel at the time and was arguing against the Socialist Zionists and the Kibbutz movement. He was so famous that after he supervised the construction of Hoover Dam, Lake Mead was named after him.
Mead turned out to be prescient about socialism. The kibbutz movement is coming to an end in Israel.
Here is a little known fact: Mead designed many of the water projects that made the Jezreel, Esdraelon and Jordan Valleys bloom.