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Immersive Balloon Experience From Israel Comes to NYC Featuring Large-Scale Masterpieces
Inside “Balloon Story.” Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
A balloon art installation that was conceived in Israel and brought to life in New York City has attracted visitors of all ages to Manhattan after a successful but smaller run in Tel Aviv last year.
“Balloon Story” is an immersive experience set up across different exhibit rooms at the Park Avenue Armory, one of the largest venues in New York. The “balloon wonderland,” as described on its website, features larger-than-life and intricately detailed balloon monuments — quite literally, including recreations of the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty — as well as balloon installations in the shape of animals, various landscapes, astronauts, musical instruments, food, and more. Each piece is made using environmentally friendly latex balloons.
The exhibit is also interactive, complete with a ball pit that is part of a jungle-themed room, where visitors see more than a dozen wild animals made of balloons in every color and size. Sound effects and mechanics add to the experience — a lion opens its mouth and roars, a parrot flutters its wings, and a gorilla waves hello as visitors pass by it. Visitors then walk through a tunnel that is covered floor to ceiling in balloons that recreate an under the sea experience and afterwards head into a balloon maze that is themed around music, featuring balloon-made musical instruments.
One room is dedicated to outer-space and another is themed around winter, complete with balloon installations of penguins, icebergs, and a snowman. Another area provides different photo opportunities. “Balloon Story,” which ends Saturday, has had over 100,000 visitors so far of all ages. It also broke the world record for the biggest balloon installation ever made with close to 700,000 balloons, “Balloon Story” collaborator Dvorah Leah Schneerson-Jacobson told The Algemeiner.
World-renowned certified balloon artist Kobi Kalimian is the art director of “Balloon Story.” In 2023, he created the first “Balloon Story” exhibition at Tel Aviv’s Hanger 11 venue and it attracted over 200,000 visitors. After seeing the exhibit’s success in Israel, he wanted to bring it to New York and made it happen with help from Zev Eizik, CEO of Hanger 11, as well as Jacobson, a Brooklyn resident who is the owner of the New York-based balloon decorating company Balloon Van Gogh. Jacobson was approached about the collaboration while attending a balloon convention.
Together, they recruited roughly 100 balloon artists from around the world, including Brazil, Australia, Argentina, and Canada. The team included Jewish, religious female balloon artists from South Africa and a significant number of professionals came from Israel, some of whom worked on Balloon Story when it ran in Tel Aviv last year, Jacobson told The Algemeiner. Kalimian created the balloon designs and directed the team of balloon artists in constructing the masterpieces, which took about 10 days to complete in total. Eizik also brought to New York his entire production team that helped assemble Balloon Story in Tel Aviv. “The whole place was speaking Hebrew when you walked in while it was being built,” Jacobson said.
Welcoming visitors at the entrance of “Balloon Story” is the exhibit’s biggest and most intricate piece: a giant-sized, 20-foot bald eagle hanging overhead that was created using 9,000 balloons in the colors of the American flag. That one piece took an entire week to build “from morning to night,” Jacobson explained.
“Balloon Story” runs in New York City at the Park Avenue Armory until Aug. 24. Organizers will host on Aug. 25 a “Balloon Popping Party,” where ticketholders are invited to help deflate all of the balloons. The destroyed latex balloons will be repurposed into dog toys. “Balloon Story” is also running again in Tel Aviv, until Aug. 31. Jacobson said it’s too soon to tell what the future holds for “Balloon Story” and where — or if — it will go on the road again. “But the dream is to bring it all over the world,” she added.
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Provided
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian
Jacobson is a relative by marriage of The Algemeiner‘s chairman and publisher, Rabbi Simon Jacobson.
The post Immersive Balloon Experience From Israel Comes to NYC Featuring Large-Scale Masterpieces first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Top US General Makes Unannounced Middle East Trip as Iran Threat Looms
US Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks at a conference of African chiefs of defense in Gaborone, Botswana on June 25, 2024, the first time a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top U.S. military officer, has visited sub-Saharan Africa in 30 years, according to the Pentagon. Photo: REUTERS/Phil Stewart/File Photo
The top US general began an unannounced visit to the Middle East on Saturday to discuss ways to avoid any new escalation in tensions that could spiral into a broader conflict, as the region braces for a threatened Iranian attack against Israel.
Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began his trip in Jordan and said he will also travel to Egypt and Israel in the coming days to hear the perspectives of military leaders.
His visit comes as the United States is trying to clinch an elusive Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which Brown said would “help bring down the temperature,” if achieved.
“At the same time, as I talk to my counterparts, what are the things we can do to deter any type of broader escalation and ensure we’re taking all the appropriate steps to (avoid) … a broader conflict,” Brown told Reuters before landing in Jordan.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now in its 11th month. The conflict has leveled huge swathes of Gaza, triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement and sparked attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Red Sea shipping.
Meanwhile, US troops have been attacked by Iran-aligned militia in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. In recent weeks, the U.S. military has been bolstering its forces in the Middle East to guard against major new attacks by Iran or its allies, sending the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group into the region to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group.
The United States has also sent an Air Force F-22 Raptor squadron into the region and deployed a cruise missile submarine.
“We brought in additional capability to send a strong message to deter a broader conflict … but also to protect our forces should they be attacked,” Brown said, saying safeguarding American forces was “paramount.”
IRANIAN RESPONSE
Iran has vowed a severe response to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which took place as he visited Tehran late last month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.
Hezbollah has also threatened a response after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut last month.
Iran has not publicly indicated what would be the target of an eventual response to the Haniyeh assassination but U.S. officials say they are closely monitoring for any signs that Iran will make good on its threats.
“We stay postured, watching the (intelligence) and force movements,” Brown said. On Friday, Iran’s new Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told his French and British counterparts in telephone conversations that it was his country’s right to retaliate, according to the official IRNA news agency.
On April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in a strike on Tehran’s embassy in Syria, Iran unleashed a barrage of hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles towards Israel, damaging two air bases. Israel, the United States and other allies managed to destroy almost all of the weapons before they reached their targets.
Brown did not speculate about what Iran and its allies might do but said he hoped to discuss different scenarios with his Israeli counterpart.
“Particularly, as I engage with my Israeli counterpart, how they might respond, depending on the response that comes from Hezbollah or from Iran,” Brown said.
The current war in the Gaza Strip began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The post Top US General Makes Unannounced Middle East Trip as Iran Threat Looms first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Talks Resume in Cairo
Illustrative. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian meets with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Tehran, Iran July 6, 2022. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS.
Gaza ceasefire and hostage negotiators discussed new compromise proposals in Cairo on Saturday, seeking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas as the UN reported worsening humanitarian conditions, with malnutrition soaring and polio discovered in the Palestinian enclave.
A Hamas delegation arrived on Saturday to be nearer at hand to review any proposals that emerge in the main talks between Israel and the mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and the United States, two Egyptian security sources said.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was expected to attend.
A US official said negotiators from the United States met with Egypt then bilaterally with Egypt and Qatar on Saturday, and believed that representatives from Egypt and Qatar were meeting with Hamas.
Months of on-off talks have failed to produce a breakthrough to end Israel’s military campaign in Gaza or free the remaining hostages seized by Hamas in the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
The Egyptian sources said the new proposals include compromises on outstanding points such as how to secure key areas and the return of people to north Gaza.
However there was no sign of any breakthrough on key sticking points, including Israel’s insistence that it must retain control of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Hamas has accused Israel of going back on things it had previously agreed to in the talks, which Israel denies. The group says the United States is not mediating in good faith.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has locked horns with Israeli ceasefire negotiators over whether Israeli troops must remain all along the border between Gaza and Egypt, a person with knowledge of the talks said.
A Palestinian official familiar with mediation efforts said it was too soon to predict the outcome of talks.
“Hamas is there to discuss the outcome of the mediators’ talks with the Israeli officials and whether there is enough to suggest a change in the Netanyahu stance about reaching a deal,” the official said.
The post Gaza Talks Resume in Cairo first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Soldier Killed in Central Gaza, Bringing IDF Death Toll to 696
Sgt. First Class (res.) Evyatar Atuar was killed in action in Gaza City, Aug. 23, 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed and several others were wounded on Friday morning when Hamas terrorists detonated an explosive device in Gaza City.
The slain soldier was named as Sgt. First Class (res.) Evyatar Atuar, 24, of the 16th “Jerusalem” Infantry Brigade’s 6310th Battalion, from Rosh Haayin.
The brigade, part of the 252nd “Sinai” Division, was involved in expanding the IDF’s Netzarim Corridor, which separates Gaza’s north and south.
According to an initial probe, terrorists remote-detonated a bomb planted on a building’s outer wall after soldiers had entered to search it in the Zeitoun neighborhood.
At least four soldiers outside the structure were seriously wounded and three others were moderately hurt, the IDF said.
On Thursday, Sgt. Ori Ashkenazi Nechemya, 19, a member of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 46th Battalion, was killed battling Hamas terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip.
A preliminary probe found that he was killed by anti-tank missile fire in Rafah.
Earlier this week, Lt. Shahar Ben Nun, 21, from the Paratrooper Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed by an IAF missile that malfunctioned during a strike in southern Gaza.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27 now stands at 333, and at 696 on all fronts since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, according to official military data.
Additionally, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in May.
The post Soldier Killed in Central Gaza, Bringing IDF Death Toll to 696 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.