My Experience As Israel’s Minster Of Propaganda

I’ve been to Israel once. I was 17 and I spent a week with my friend Gideon and his family, who were there visiting Gideon’s grandparents. Gideon’s uncle managed a nightclub in Tel Aviv and one night he brought us out with a bunch of crazy Israeli girls he claimed were guaranteed to give us blowjobs. We arrived at the club where I immediately began taking advantage of the low drinking age.The next thing I remember I was puking, with Gideon’s grandparents hovering over me. With this being the highlight of my entire trip, you can imagine what the bad parts were like. So, when MASA, an organization run by the Jewish Agency for Israel hired me via Heeb, to create three videos designed to convince college grads to continue their career development in 5-12 month programs in Israel, I finally got my blowjob–albeit metaphorically (the kind I generally get).

I sat down with Heeb publisher Joshua Neuman to brainstorm and it finally it hit us: We don’t have to convince people that Israel is a great place for career development, all we have to do is convince people that where they are now is so bad that Israel would be better. With that in mind we came up with a series of concepts revolving around the misadventures of a post-college woman named "Rachel" in the recession-era American workforce.

We found our poster girl in Rebecca Addelman, who had recently told the story of her own special connection to the land of milk and honey at Heeb Storytelling in Los Angeles: About 5 years ago, she had spent some time in Israel, where her friend’s middle aged uncle, a native Israeli, had convinced her and his niece “to perform a mikvah,” which to him meant making the two girls rub each other with olive oil, in a cave, in the nude, while he took pictures.

With Rebecca cast as Rachel, it was time to put together our crew, a bitter bunch, many of whom themselves were prime candidates for 5-12 month internships in the Holy Land.

We were ready to go. A little less than a week before the shoot we decided that one of our ideas (involving a lab rat and medical tests being performed on Rachel) kinda sucked and so we came up with a replacement, which would feature Rachel topless, which Rebecca didn’t find out about until two days before the shoot. Rebecca was a good sport and agreed to do it, unaware that the uncensored version was the cornerstone of _Heeb_’s 2009 business plan.

The next video we shot at Beit T’Shuvah, a Jewish rehab center that would double as our nursing home. We were able to get this location thanks to the help of my Israeli ex-heroin addict friend Noah Jashinski who had spent time there as a patient. On the whole, the seniors that were there and the addicts looking on seemed to get along well. The only drama occurred when our sound guy accidentally used a dining room chair that belonged to one of the surlier addicts. Fortunately, Noah was able to broker a peace before it got too ugly.

When the final shoot was done and the commercials were edited we turned them in to MASA. Surprisingly, they had very few notes. There was, however, a debate as to whether it was okay for us to use the word “pussy” in one of the videos. I imagined them consulting with the comatose, rapidly deteriorating Ariel Sharon and asking him to “drool twice” to signify if the controversial word could indeed be included. In the end, “pussy” stayed.

At the end of the day, I hope these videos can be part of a conversation that Israel has a lot more to offer than a lower drinking age. Plus, America is kind of a shit hole right now, so what the hell.

What do you think?