Shahar Golan was interviewed by Nathan Jeffay from The Jewish Daily Forward newspaper for an article about the upcoming visit of Barack Obama to Israel. Unbeknownst to him, Shahar presented the token opposing viewpoint to the general tone of the article which went as far as labelling him ‘an Israeli leftist’. The article featured the Obama graphics Shahar translated to Hebrew.
July 11, 2008 - Haaretz - Israeli Newspaper
Shahar Golan was interviewed by Raphael Ahren from Haaretz newspaper for an article about the 2008 US presidential election and the Obama poster he created in support of the Illinois senator.
September 5, 2007 - Reshet Alef - Israeli Radio
Shahar Golan was invited by Israel’s Channel A radio to be a guest on the program Writing for the Drawer hosted by Rona Gershon for an hour-long one-on-one chat following the recent publishing of his poetry book Almost Finished. You can listen to the recorded interview here:
I was interviewed for an article that was published today in the English edition of Haaretz newspaper, in regards to the 2008 US presidential election. Here are the relevant last two paragraphs:
As the U.S. presidential race reaches Israel, Hebrew-language campaigners try to choose words wisely
By Raphael Ahren
[...]
Some political items are created by people who can’t even vote in the United States. Obama supporter Shahar Golan, of Rehovot, crafted a poster with the Hebrew translation of the slogan “Change we can believe in.” After a smear campaign tried denouncing the Illinois senator as a Muslim, Golan felt he had to publicly declare his support for “Baruch Obama,” as he calls him. “As a born and bred Israeli, my interest in the U.S. elections is mainly because American presidents tend to influence the entire world,” the 31-year-old photographer and graphic designer said.” And since I cannot vote myself I create graphics that hopefully might call attention to a candidate worth voting for.” Currently, Golan is working on a new poster featuring a Hebrew version of Obama’s “Yes we can” slogan.
Golan knows that translations can be tricky. On his blog, he elaborated on his choice of words. “Translating ‘Change we can believe in’ proved to be somewhat of a challenge,” he muses, “as the Hebrew word for ‘we can’ (nuchal) is the exact one for ‘crook’ (nochel).” Not wanting to repeat past mistakes, he added that “even a hint of such subliminal connections can be bad.”
The Israeli media is reporting an incident that happened yesterday, in which a man stabbed another man to death in an argument over a parking space. All the major media outlets mentioned the parking space in their headlines, in an attempt to give the frivolous killing a reason.
Is there an amount of money that makes the killing justifiable or understandable in the public’s eye? Do carcasses tease each other six feet under, saying thing like ‘Hey, at least I was killed for a couple thousand bucks’?
On this 6th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11th, I just wanted to make a quick note to Israeli news editors:
This might be the most documented event in history, yet every time there is some news item related to the event - like the recorded emergency phone calls being released to the public or any one of those post-9/11 stories – it seems that news editors always use the footage of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.
With millions of photos and hundreds of videos depicting the first hours of this human tragedy, why is it so important to use that specific point in time, probably the most painful one to watch? Is it intellectual atrophy that forces Israeli news-editors to use the actual impact as a metaphor for the extent of the event? Are these the same people that started calling everything a ‘tsunami’ after the 2004 event – basically comparing every annoying new trend to the catastrophe that caused over 200,000 human casualties?
I leave you with these unanswered questions and one relevant song, Jacob’s Ladder (Not In My Name) by Chumbawamba, one of my favorite bands, from which I took the quote for this post’s subject.
Shahar Golan was invited by Israel’s Channel A radio to be a guest on the program Writing for the Drawer hosted by Rona Gershon for an hour-long one-on-one chat following the recent publishing of his poetry book Almost Finished. You can listen to the recorded interview here: 
On this 6th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11th, I just wanted to make a quick note to Israeli news editors:
