I'm born in March 1945, war baby who grew up as a tinkerer, spoiled by my war widowed mother ז"ל and spoon-fed engineering by my Meccano loving engineer uncle who flew into Napoli for the Holiday with a full suitcase of it for me every time. We built together huge structures and Rube Goldberg inspired machines. Naturally getting caught in first grade reading a book got my teacher upset and me strange nicknames.
An aunt was a chemist and she taught me fun experiments; another aunt made artisanal chocolate.
My mother rented out rooms to foreign students and I learned French, English and Spanish as a child, motivated by Ian Fleming's books.
When I was 10 my mother ז"ל switched me to a Montessorian school where I thrived, and I took a mail course in electronics, which came in weekly chapters shipped with the necessary parts. At 12 I had finished the course and went door to door with my toolbox looking for repair jobs, so I and another boy my age set up a home lab to produce RF conversion modules that were in high demand to retrofit older VHF-only TV sets and enable UHF reception.
Then at 14 I discovered photography and bought Rollei and enlarger, freelancing for the local newspaper and hichhiking to events all over Europe; I also did a considerable amount of art photography, but moving around and losing my house to fire has dispersed or destroyed my archives and media. The Italian Navy grew in the suburbs many hectares of hemp to make ropes with, and the kids around me filled garbage bags with the discarded leaves which we processed at home, binding and concentrating the THC (not yet so named) to butter.
At 17 I bought a 16mm Bolex film camera, but the cost of materials prevented my production of anything significant, until at 19 I moved to Toronto and was hired as a news reporter in a privately produced Sunday morning variety hour on CHCH-TV.
In 1969 I returned to Italy and shot industrial documentaries in Rome. In 1972 I caught a pickpocket in the Napoli subway while he was stealing a young tourist's wallet, and chatted her into the night as my effendi guest. It was love at first night, and we decided to hitchhike on the Eastern shore of the Adriatic and work in the ill-fated Munchen Olympic Games. The tragedy happened and we resumed our tour of Europe in an ancient VW Minibus, selling candles and horseshoe nail jewelry.
Susie went back to the US to begin college, and I stayed behind until one magic sunset on acid, in May 1973,
I walked, for the very first time with my own legs into the movie-lit Great Synagogue of Rome and met the ChaBa"D envoy, who recommended that I visit 770 Eastern Parkway when in NYC. I ran to the post office to call S. and got through after waiting two hours; the first thing she told me was that two hours before she had intuited that I would call her and waited by the phone. The day I landed I proposed to her and two days later we had a huge party on her mother's garden with two ounces of the best Kabuli hash in the wedding cake. You should have seen all the altekakkers dancing the Polka.
A musician friend in Rome recommended that we honeymoon in Woodstock, NY where a dozen Hell's Angels. welcomed us with rice. After a few months in Manhattan we met Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and were seriously impressed.
We moved to Tallahassee, FL where she pursued her degree at FSU while I ran a snow cone truck and on weekends we ran the Piscean Connection Bluegrass Catering Service, where we applied our Olympics' experience and made nice money.
In April 1974 our first daughter Miriam was born and in June we discovered in the "Jewish Catalogue" that Rabbi Carlebach had a congregation in S. Francisco, the House of Love and Prayer; we sold our equipment and most possessions and the next day drove West. We moved into the House (the 9th Ave. one) and opened a clothing shop in a mall. In 1976 we had a full religious wedding and decided to make Aliyah with the whole congregation.
We flew to Italy and bought a VW van to drive to Israel overland. In Ankara someone from the Israeli embassy came to us in a parking lot and told us that Syria was impassable. He handed us 300 USD and a schedule of the ferries from Piraeus to Haifa.
Once in Israel we moved to Mevo Modiin and are still here; there are at least 400 pages to write the rest of the story, but in brief: After being pauperized by divorce I am now a digital 3D artist and plan to open soon a studio in Rome to produce intelligent avatars for cine-TV and gaming.
Thanks in advance for your kind attention and blessings of Health, Longevity and Prosperity,
Eliahu Gal-Or +972586272388
MALTA, Media Art Lab Tel Aviv
An aunt was a chemist and she taught me fun experiments; another aunt made artisanal chocolate.
My mother rented out rooms to foreign students and I learned French, English and Spanish as a child, motivated by Ian Fleming's books.
When I was 10 my mother ז"ל switched me to a Montessorian school where I thrived, and I took a mail course in electronics, which came in weekly chapters shipped with the necessary parts. At 12 I had finished the course and went door to door with my toolbox looking for repair jobs, so I and another boy my age set up a home lab to produce RF conversion modules that were in high demand to retrofit older VHF-only TV sets and enable UHF reception.
Then at 14 I discovered photography and bought Rollei and enlarger, freelancing for the local newspaper and hichhiking to events all over Europe; I also did a considerable amount of art photography, but moving around and losing my house to fire has dispersed or destroyed my archives and media. The Italian Navy grew in the suburbs many hectares of hemp to make ropes with, and the kids around me filled garbage bags with the discarded leaves which we processed at home, binding and concentrating the THC (not yet so named) to butter.
At 17 I bought a 16mm Bolex film camera, but the cost of materials prevented my production of anything significant, until at 19 I moved to Toronto and was hired as a news reporter in a privately produced Sunday morning variety hour on CHCH-TV.
In 1969 I returned to Italy and shot industrial documentaries in Rome. In 1972 I caught a pickpocket in the Napoli subway while he was stealing a young tourist's wallet, and chatted her into the night as my effendi guest. It was love at first night, and we decided to hitchhike on the Eastern shore of the Adriatic and work in the ill-fated Munchen Olympic Games. The tragedy happened and we resumed our tour of Europe in an ancient VW Minibus, selling candles and horseshoe nail jewelry.
Susie went back to the US to begin college, and I stayed behind until one magic sunset on acid, in May 1973,
I walked, for the very first time with my own legs into the movie-lit Great Synagogue of Rome and met the ChaBa"D envoy, who recommended that I visit 770 Eastern Parkway when in NYC. I ran to the post office to call S. and got through after waiting two hours; the first thing she told me was that two hours before she had intuited that I would call her and waited by the phone. The day I landed I proposed to her and two days later we had a huge party on her mother's garden with two ounces of the best Kabuli hash in the wedding cake. You should have seen all the altekakkers dancing the Polka.
A musician friend in Rome recommended that we honeymoon in Woodstock, NY where a dozen Hell's Angels. welcomed us with rice. After a few months in Manhattan we met Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and were seriously impressed.
We moved to Tallahassee, FL where she pursued her degree at FSU while I ran a snow cone truck and on weekends we ran the Piscean Connection Bluegrass Catering Service, where we applied our Olympics' experience and made nice money.
In April 1974 our first daughter Miriam was born and in June we discovered in the "Jewish Catalogue" that Rabbi Carlebach had a congregation in S. Francisco, the House of Love and Prayer; we sold our equipment and most possessions and the next day drove West. We moved into the House (the 9th Ave. one) and opened a clothing shop in a mall. In 1976 we had a full religious wedding and decided to make Aliyah with the whole congregation.
We flew to Italy and bought a VW van to drive to Israel overland. In Ankara someone from the Israeli embassy came to us in a parking lot and told us that Syria was impassable. He handed us 300 USD and a schedule of the ferries from Piraeus to Haifa.
Once in Israel we moved to Mevo Modiin and are still here; there are at least 400 pages to write the rest of the story, but in brief: After being pauperized by divorce I am now a digital 3D artist and plan to open soon a studio in Rome to produce intelligent avatars for cine-TV and gaming.
Thanks in advance for your kind attention and blessings of Health, Longevity and Prosperity,
Eliahu Gal-Or +972586272388
MALTA, Media Art Lab Tel Aviv
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