title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: During the colonial era, the population around the Meenakshi temple attracted a hub of Christian missionary activity headed by competing missions from Portugal and other parts of Europe. The British rulers first gave endowments to the temple and the British troops participated in temple festivities to gain socio-political acceptance. Lord Clive, for example, donated jewels looted by the East India Company from Sringapatam, but in 1820 they withdrew from their roles as temple patrons and participating in temple festivities. The missionaries ridiculed the temple artwork and criticized the temple practices while introducing themselves as "Roman Brahmins" and "Northern Sanniasis" [sic]. The missionary efforts were largely unsuccessful with people continuing to patronize the temple after baptizing. The missionaries wrote back that the Tamils were "baptizing, but not converting", for they baptize if "someone wants a wife who is Christian" or medical aid when they have a disease, material aid if they are poor.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: After the end of the Nayakas, start of the Madras presidency and withdrawal of the colonial British from support, the temple condition degraded. In 1959, Tamil Hindus began collecting donations and initiated restoration work in consultation with engineers, Hindu monasteries, historians and other scholars. The completed restoration was celebrated with a "Kumbhabhishekam" in 1995. The temple is sometimes spelled as Minaksi and the city as Madura in 17th to early 20th-century texts.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple has its traditional version of history that it calls "Shiva-lilas" (sports of Shiva), and sixty four of these episodes are painted as murals around the temple walls. These depict the many destructions of Madurai and the temple, then its rise from the ashes and ruins of the destruction every time.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: In November 1895, the Nadars of kamuthi petitioned to the Meenakshi Sundaraswara temple, which was under Ramnad M. Baskara Sethupathi's trusteeship of the Raj, for permission to hold a ritual feast. Their petition was accepted, but it should be performed without the entry of Nadars into the temple. An anti-Nadar coalition was created by Vellasami Thevar, the inherited ruler of a vast land under the Raja of Ramnad and the grandfather of the late Muthuramalinga Thevar. He prohibited the Nadars from asserting their freedom. He ordered the allegiance of the society of Maravar and insisted a distinction between all classes.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: A group of 15 Nadars belonging to the family of Erulappa Nadar entered the temple in Kamudi in May 1897, performing puja to the chief deity themselves. The Maravars and the Ramnad Zamindar M. Baskara Sethupathi objected it and lodged a complaint against fifteen members of the family of Erulappa Nadar arguing that they had polluted the temple and requested the payment of 2500 for purification rituals. The court decided on 20 July 1899 that neither the accused nor any member of their community had the right to enter any part of the temple. For the required ritual purification ceremonies at the temple, the defendants were ordered to pay the amount of five hundred rupees.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Nadars appealed to the High Court of Judicature in Madras, unhappy with the judgment of the subordinate judge of Madurai, with funds of 42,000 raised from members of the community. The judgment went against the Nadars, then they took their appeal to the London Privy Council. The Privy Council approved the decision of the Subordinate Judge of Madurai, citing the High Court's decision of 1908. The District Magistrate of Madurai suggested that the stay of the public force be extended to another term on the ground that the Privy Council 's decision on the Kamudi Temple Entry case could again cause trouble.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple is maintained and administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple complex is the center of the old city of Madurai. It consists of monuments inside a number of concentric enclosures, each layer fortified with high masonry walls. The outer walls have four towering gateways, allowing devotees and pilgrims to enter the complex from all four directions. After the city's destruction in the 14th century, the Tamil tradition states that the king Vishwantha Nayaka rebuilt the temple and the Madurai city around it in accordance with the principles laid down in the "Shilpa Shastras" (Sanskrit: "". The city plan is based on concentric squares with streets radiating out from the temple. Early Tamil texts mention that the temple was the center of the city and the streets happened to be radiating out like a lotus and its petals. The temple "prakarams" (outer precincts of a temple) and streets accommodate an elaborate festival calendar in which processions circumambulate the temple complex. The vehicles used in the processions are progressively more massive the further they travel from the centre.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple complex is spread over about . The courtyard is close to a square with each side of about 800 feet, but more accurately a rectangle with one side about 50 feet longer. The complex has numerous shrines and mandapas, of which the most important and largest are the two parallel shrines in the innermost courtyard, one for Meenakshi (B on the plan) and other for Sundareshvara (A). Additionally, the complex has a golden lotus sacred pool (L) for pilgrims to bathe in, a thousand-pillar hall choultry with extensive sculpture (Q), the kalyana mandapa or wedding hall, many small shrines for Hindu deities and for scholars from the "sangam" (academy) history, buildings which are religious schools and administrative offices, elephant sheds, equipment sheds such as those for holding the chariots used for periodic processions and some gardens. The temple is embedded inside a commercial hub and traditional markets.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: According to Holly Reynolds, a closer examination of the temple plan, as well as the old city, suggests that it is mandala, a cosmic diagram laid out based on principles of symmetry and loci.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple complex has had a living history, has been in use for almost all of its history except for about 60 years when it was closed and in ruins after its destruction in the 14th century. The temple has continued to evolve in the modern era. For example, before the colonial era, the temple complex itself was inside another layer of old city’s fortified walls. The British demolished this layer of fortification in the early 19th century. The surviving plan of the temple complex places it within the old city, one defined by a set of concentric squares around the temple.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The ancient temple complex was open. The courtyard walls were added over time in response to invasion and the plunder of the temple complex. According to the text "Thirupanimalai", the Vijayanagara commander Kumara Kampana after completing his conquest of Madurai, rebuilt the pre-existing structure and built defensive walls around the temple in the 14th century. Lakana Nayakar added the defensive walls around the first prakara (courtyard), as well as expanded and renovated the Mahamandapa and Meenakshi shrine about the middle of the 15th century.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: After the destruction of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in the late 16th century by a coalition of Islamic Deccan sultanates north of Karnataka, the Madurai region declared its sovereignty. Visvanatha Nayak then poured resources to heavily fortify the temple complex, set a new plan for the temple complex. The Nayaka ruler also gilded the vimana of the primary shrines with gold. Chettiappa Nayakkar rebuilt the Dvarapala mandapam in front of the Sannadhi gopuram, as well as the north colonnade of the Golden Lotus Tank, the second protective wall around the Meenakshi Devi's shrine.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The shrines of Meenakshi temple are embedded inside three walled enclosures and each of these have four gateways, the outer tower growing larger and reaching higher to the corresponding inner one. The temple has 14 gopurams, the tallest of which is southern tower, rises to over and was rebuilt in the late 16th century. The oldest "gopuram" is the eastern one (I on plan), built by Maravarman Sundara Pandyan during 1216-1238 Each "gopuram" is a multi-storeyed structure, covered with sculpture painted in bright hues. The outer "gopurams" are high pyramidal tower serving as a landmark sign for arriving pilgrims, while the inner "gopuram" are smaller and serve as the entrance gateways to various shrines.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple complex has 4 nine-storey gopurams (outer, raja), 1 seven-storey gopuram (Chittirai), 5 five-storey gopurams, 2 three-storey, and 2 one-storey gold-gilded sanctum towers. Of these five are gateways to the Sundareshvara shrine, three to the Meenakshi shrine. The towers are covered with stucco images, some of whom are deity figures and others are figures from Hindu mythology, saints or scholars. Each group or sets of panels in each storey present an episode from regional or pan-Hindu legend. The four tallest gopurams on the outer walls alone depict nearly 4,000 mythological stories.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Meenakshi temple has two separate shrines for the goddess Meenakshi (Parvati, Devi, Amman) and god Sundaresvara (Shiva, Deva, Cuvami), just like most Shaiva temples. Both open to the east. The Devi shrine is on the south side (B), while the Deva shrine is more centrally placed, to the north (A), thus placing the goddess as the "pradhana murti" or the "more important" right side within the complex, states Fuller.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The goddess shrine has the green stone image of Meenakshi, standing in bent-leg posture. Her raised hand holds a lotus, on which sits a green parrot. Her left hand hangs by her side. This image is set in a square "garbha griya" (central sanctum). A copy of this image has been made from metal and is kept in the temple complex. The metal version is used for a festive procession. A distinct feature of Meenakshi in terms of iconography is the presence of parrot in her right hand. The parrot is generally associated with the Vaishnava azhwar saint Andal. The Sundareswarar shrine has a stone linga in its square plan sanctum, and this anicon is shaded under a stone cobra hood. In the northeast corner is another stone image of his consort. None of these travel during a festive procession. Rather, Sundareswarar is represented in the form of anthropomorphic Somaskanda image. There is another metal symbolic image of Shiva called the Cokkar, which is merely a pair of embossed feet on a metal stool. This symbol is kept near Sundareswarar sanctum all day, then carried in a "palaki" daily to Meenakshi's chamber every evening so that the two can symbolically spend the night together. In the morning, the temple volunteers wake the divine couple and the symbolic Cokkar image is carried back to the Sundareswarar sanctum.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The shrine for Sundareswarar is the largest within the complex and its entrance is aligned with the eastern gopuram. The shrine for Meenakshi is smaller, though theologically more important. Both the Meenakshi and Sundareswarar shrines have gold plated "Vimanam" (tower over sanctum). The golden top can be seen from a great distance in the west through the apertures of two successive towers. The tall sculpture of Ganesh carved of single stone located outside the Sundareswarar shrine in the path from Meenashi shrine is called the "Mukuruny Vinayakar". A large measure of rice measuring 3 "kurini" (a measure) is shaped into a big ball of sacrifice and hence the Ganesh is called "Mukkurni Vinayagar" (three "kurinis").


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Kumara Kampana, states the "Thirupanimalai" text, donated jewels and made grants to cover the expenses for daily operations of the two shrines in the 14th century. The Tamil Hindus who had hidden the temple idols in Nanjil Nadu, brought them back and reconsecrated them ending the nearly five decades era when the temple had been closed under the Madurai Sultanate rule. The temple inscriptions suggest that the Vijayanagara rulers participated worship ceremonies in the temple and donated gold, through the 16th century. Lakana Nayakar built the "Paliarai" (bed chamber) in the mid 15th century for the icon goddess and god to symbolically spend their night together. The Nataraja shrine was also added in the 15th century by Arulalan Sevahadevan Vanathirayan, who also renovated the Thiruvalavaudaiyar shrine.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple has other shrines, such as for Murugan in the northwest corner of the second courtyard. It was built by Krishnappa Nayakar II. A tall, monolithic Ganesha sculpture with a large rice ball, locally called the Mukuruny Vinayakar, is carved on the way between the Meenakshi shrine and the Sundareshwarar shrine, reflecting the legend that gave him the elephant head.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Nayakas, who were the local governors for the Vijayanagara rulers, expanded the temple complex. In 1516, Saluvanarasana Nayaka added the sacred pool for pilgrims to take a dip, naming it Ezhukadal (seven seas, Saptasaharam). Chettiappa Nayakkar rebuilt the north colonnade of the Golden Lotus Tank, as well as Dvarapala mandapam in front of the Sannadhi gopuram.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The sacred temple tank is called "Porthamarai Kulam" ("Pond with the golden lotus"). It is also referred to as Adhi Theertham, Sivaganga and Uthama Theertham. The pool is by in size. The pool walls were painted with frescoes. Only a fraction of 17th- and 18th-century paintings of Nayak period survives and one such portion is found in the small portico on the western side of the tank. It depicts the marriage of Sundareswarar and Meenkashi attended by Vijayaranga Chokkanatha and Rani Mangammal. The painting is executed on a vivid red background, with delicate black linework and large areas of white, green and ochre. The celestial couple is seated inside an architectural frame with a flowering tree in the background.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The small six-pillared swing mandapam (Unjal) was built by Cheventhi Murthi Chetti during this period, and this remains in use currently for a Friday ritual and it also houses the model of the entire temple complex created in 1985.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple complex has many mandapas (pillared-halls) built by kings and wealthy patrons over the centuries. They are choultry, or a place for the pilgrims to rest. Some of these mandapas include:


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The mandapas also feature community gathering halls. The Kanaka Sabha and Ratna Sabha are in the first prahara, Rajata Sabha in Velliambalam, Deva Sabha in the 100-pillared mandapam and Chitra Sabha in the 1000-pillared mandapam.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Along with these, there are statues of King Thirumalai Naicker with his wives within the temple complex.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Meenakshi Temple is a theologically and culturally significant temple for Hindus. Professor Christopher Fuller signifies that through the wedding of Meenakshi and Sundaresvara the "supremely important rite of passage" for women, the cultural concept of "sumangali" or "auspicious married woman" who lives with her husband but is also independent, organizer of the social connections and who is central to Tamilian life. The marriage of the goddess and god is a symbolic paradigm for human marriage. This event is commemorated with an annual festive procession that falls sometime around April. The temple is also significant because it implies an affinal, protective relationship between Shaivism and Vaishnavism traditions of Hinduism, by making Shiva the husband of Meenakshi, and Vishnu her brother, a significant relationship in Dravidian kinship system. Meenakshi herself is a central part of the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, and represented as the dominant figure of the pair in this temple. The temple thus symbolically celebrates all three of its major traditions.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: According to the "Tiruvilaiyatal Puranam", of the list of 68 pilgrimage places in Shaivism, four are most important: Kashi (Varanasi), Chidambaram, Tirukkalatti and Madurai. The sacrality of Madurai is from this temple. The shrine of Sundareswarar is considered one of the Pancha Sabhai (five courts), where the Tamil Hindu tradition believes Shiva performed cosmic dance. The Tamil word "velli" means silver and "ambalam" means stage or altar. This massive Nataraja sculpture is enclosed in a huge silver altar and hence called "Velli Ambalam" (silver abode).


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple is a popular site for Hindu weddings, though it is not the exclusive site. The short main ceremony is completed in the temple, followed by receptions and other rituals elsewhere.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Meenakshi temple is not only a religious center, but is also an economic center. The goods and services for temple-related pilgrims and visitors is a significant part of the Madurai economy.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Tamil Nadu state emblem is based on the West Gopuram. Though, sometimes it is wrongly mentioned that the State emblem is based on Srivilliputhur temple Gopuram, the artist R Krishna Rao the one who designed the Emblem has stated that he designed it based on the Madurai Meenakshiamman West Gopuram


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Meenakshi Amman temple is an active house of Hindu worship. Priests perform the puja ceremonies on a daily basis and during festivals. Volunteers and temple staff also participate in daily rituals, such as symbolically moving an icon of Sundaresvara in a palanquin to Meenakshi's chamber every night so that they can be together, then waking the two and returning Sundaresvara to his shrine every morning. There are periodic "ratha" (chariot) processions where one of the metal copy icon of the goddess is taken out of the temple in an elaborate car shrine decorated with colorful clothes and flowers, with volunteers pulling the car through the streets of Madurai and circumambulating the temple complex on one of the concentric roads in the old city. This symbolizes her mythical conquests and her presence in the secular life of the people.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple has a six time pooja calendar everyday, each comprising four rituals namely "abhisheka" (sacred bath), "alangaram" (decoration), "neivethanam" (food offerings) and "deepa aradanai" (lamp ceremony) for both Meenakshi and Sundareswarar. The rituals and festivals are accompanied with music with "nadhaswaram" (pipe instrument) and "tavil" (percussion instrument), recitation of the Vedas.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Hindus generally circumambulate the shrines clockwise first before entering the shrine for a "darshana". Meenakshi is typically visited before Sundareswarar by the pilgrims, she considered the primary deity of the complex. Like most Shakti temples in Tamil Nadu, the Fridays during the Tamil months of "Aadi" (July–August) and "Thai" (January–February) are celebrated in the temple by thousands of devotees. "Avani Moola Utsavam" is a 10-day festival mainly devoted to Sundareswarar describes his various "Thiruvilayadal" meaning Shiva's sacred games.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The Meenakshi temple hosts a festival in each month of the Tamil calendar. Some festivals attract significant participation, with the Meenakshi wedding-related festival attracting over a million people over 12 days. It is called the "Meenakshi Thirukalyanam". The festival is celebrated in the Chithirai month, which typically falls about April. It marks the divine marriage of Meenakshi, and is the most attended festival. The wedding of the divine couple is regarded as a classic instance of south Indian marriage with matrilineal emphasis, an arrangement referred as "Madurai marriage". This contrasts with the "Chidambaram marriage", with patrilineal emphasis, reflected by Shiva's dominance, ritual and mythology at the Shiva temple of Chidhambaram. The festival includes a procession, where Meenakshi and Sundareshwara travel in a chariot pulled by volunteer devotees, and Vishnu gives away his sister in marriage to Shiva. Meenakshi, the bride, is the royal monarch. During the one-month period, there are a number of events including the "Ther Thiruvizhah" (chariot festival) and "Theppa Thiruvizhah" (float festival).


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Other festivals include the Vasantham festival is celebrated in Vaikasi month. The Unjal Festival in Aani, the Mulai-Kottu festival in Aadi, the Aavani Moolam Aavani, the Kolattam festivals of Ayppasi and Karthikai months, the Arudhra Dharsan festival of Margali month, the Thai month utsavam that co-celebrated with the Mariyamman temple in Madurai, the Masi utsavam and Vasamtham utsavam in Panguni.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: In the Tamil month of Purattasi, the temple celebrates the Navarathri festival, also known as Dasara or Dussehra elsewhere. During this autumn festival, the temple complex is lit up at night with garlands of lights and with colourful displays during the day. The mandapam halls display mythological scenes from Hindu texts using golu dolls. These displays are particularly popular with children, and families visit the displays in large numbers.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Over the centuries, the temple has been a centre of education of culture, literature, art, music and dance.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: The temple is famed location where Tamil tradition believes Sambandar helped establish Tamil Shiva bhakti.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Kumaraguruparar, a 17th-century Tamil poet, composed "Meenakshi Pillaitamil" in praise of presiding deity of this temple. King Tirumalai Nayak's patronage of the poet Kumaraguruparar has an important place in the history of "pillaitamil" (a genre of Tamil literature). Kumaraguruparar visited a lot of temples and when he visited this temple, he composed "Meenakshi pillaitamil" dedicated to the goddess Meenakshi.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: Shyama Shastri, one of the Trinity of Carnatic music, had composed a set of nine Telugu songs in praise of Meenakshi of Madurai, which are referred to as "Navaratnamalika"(Garland of nine gems). According to legend, when Sastri sang these songs in front of presiding deity, the goddess had responded visibly.


title: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

text: On the final day of Navratri celebrations of the year 2022, on 05-10-2022, 108 Veena concert by 108 lady artists was performed in this temple.


title: Before Sunset

text: Before Sunset is a 2004 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, from a story by Linklater and Kim Krizan. The sequel to "Before Sunrise" (1995) and the second installment in the "Before" trilogy, "Before Sunset" follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy) as they reunite nine years later in Paris.


title: Before Sunset

text: Linklater, Krizan, Hawke and Delpy began developing a larger budget sequel after the release of "Before Sunrise", but failed to secure funding. After a period of independent work, notably inspired by Hawke's divorce from Uma Thurman, the writers came together in 2003 and incorporated elements of their screenplays, as well as scenes written during development of "Before Sunrise", to create the film's screenplay. Principal photography took place entirely in Paris, and the film is considered to take place in real time. Delpy also contributed original music to the film's soundtrack.


title: Before Sunset

text: "Before Sunset" premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 2, 2004. It grossed $16 million against a $2–2.7 million budget and received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for Linklater's direction, the performances and chemistry of its leads, and its screenplay. It received numerous accolades, being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and appeared on many publications' lists of the best films of the year, some even calling it one of the best of the decade. It was followed by a third film, "Before Midnight", in 2013.


title: Before Sunset

text: Nine years after meeting Céline in Vienna, Jesse has written a bestselling novel, "This Time", based on their time together. During a book tour in Europe, he does a reading at Shakespeare and Company, where three journalists interview him: one is convinced the novel's characters meet again, another that they do not, and a third who wants them to but is doubtful that will occur. Céline also attends the reading.


title: Before Sunset

text: Required to leave for the airport in an hour, Jesse and Céline use the time to roam Paris. Their conversations soon become deeply personal, and they passionately discuss work, politics and lament their failure to meet again in Vienna or exchange contact details. Céline informs she did not return as her grandmother died, and Jesse claims that he did not return either; after Céline asks him why he did not, he confesses that he did return.


title: Before Sunset

text: They reveal how their lives have changed in the nine years apart: Jesse is married and has a son named Hank, while Céline has become an environmental activist and is in a relationship with a photojournalist. They each express dissatisfaction with their lives as they walk around Paris, and their old romantic feelings are slowly rekindled. Jesse says his novel was inspired by the hope of seeing Céline again, and she says that reading it caused painful memories.


title: Before Sunset

text: Céline and Jesse arrive at her apartment, even after continuous insistence that Jesse should not miss his flight. Jesse persuades her to play a waltz on her guitar, which she wrote about their encounter in Vienna. Jesse plays Nina Simone's "Just in Time" on her stereo, which Céline dances to as he watches, the pair acknowledging he will miss his flight.


title: Before Sunset

text: After the filming of "Before Sunrise", Linklater, Krizan, Hawke, and Delpy discussed making a sequel. Linklater considered a version to be filmed in four locations and with a much larger budget. When his proposal did not secure funding, he scaled back the concept of the movie. In a 2010 interview, Hawke said that the four had worked on several potential scripts over the years. As time passed and they did not secure funding, they adapted elements of the earlier scripts for "Before Sunrise" in their final draft of "Before Sunset."


title: Before Sunset

text: Hawke said, "It's not like anybody was begging us to make a second film. We obviously did it because we wanted to."


title: Before Sunset

text: The movie was filmed entirely on location in Paris. It opens inside the Shakespeare and Company bookstore on the Left Bank. Other locations include their walking through the Marais district of the 4th arrondissement, Le Pure Café in the 11th arrondissement, the Promenade Plantée park in the 12th arrondissement, on board a "bateau mouche" from Quai de la Tournelle to Quai Henri IV, the interior of a taxi, and finally "Céline's apartment." Described in the film as located at 10 rue des Petites-Écuries, it was filmed in Cour de l'Étoile d'Or off rue du Faubourg St-Antoine.


title: Before Sunset

text: The movie was filmed in 15 days, on a budget of about US$2–2.7 million. The film is noted for its use of the Steadicam for tracking shots and its use of long takes; the longest of the Steadicam takes lasts about 11 minutes. As the summer was one of the hottest on record, the cast and crew suffered along with the city residents, as temperatures exceeded 100 degrees F (38 °C) for most of the production.


title: Before Sunset

text: The film is notable for essentially taking place in real time, i.e. the time elapsed in the story is the run time of the film. In the fast-changing temperate Paris climate, this created challenges for the cinematographer Lee Daniel to match the color and intensity of the skies and ambient light from scene to scene. The scenes were mostly shot in sequence, as they were still developing the screenplay. Producer Anne Walker-McBay worked with less time and less money than she had on "Before Sunrise", but still brought the film in on time and on budget. The sequel was released nine years after "Before Sunrise", the same amount of time that has lapsed in the plot since the events of the first film.


title: Before Sunset

text: The film was released in the wake of Hawke's divorce from Uma Thurman. Some commentators drew parallels between Hawke's personal life and the character of Jesse in the film. Additional comment has noted that both Hawke and Delpy incorporated elements of their own lives into the screenplay. Delpy wrote two of the songs featured in the film, and a third by her was included in the closing credits and movie soundtrack.


title: Before Sunset

text: "Before Sunset" premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2004, and received a limited release in the United States on July 2, 2004.


title: Before Sunset

text: In its opening weekend, the film grossed $219,425 in 20 theaters in the United States, averaging $10,971 per theater. During its entire theatrical run, the film grossed $5.8 million in the United States and nearly $16 million worldwide.


title: Before Sunset

text: On Rotten Tomatoes "Before Sunset" holds an approval rating of 94% based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Filled with engaging dialogue, "Before Sunset" is a witty, poignant romance, with natural chemistry between Hawke and Delpy." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100 based on 39 reviews from mainstream publications, indicating "universal acclaim". The film appeared on 28 critics' top 10 lists of the best films of 2004, and took the 27th spot on Metacritic's list of The Best-Reviewed Movies of the Decade (2000–09).


title: Before Sunset

text: In comparing this film to its predecessor, American film critic Roger Ebert wrote, ""Before Sunrise" was a remarkable celebration of the fascination of good dialogue. But "Before Sunset" is better, perhaps because the characters are older and wiser, perhaps because they have more to lose (or win), and perhaps because Hawke and Delpy wrote the dialogue themselves." In her review for the "Los Angeles Times", Manohla Dargis lauded the film as a "deeper, truer work of art than the first," and praised director Linklater for making a film that "keeps faith with American cinema at its finest."


title: Before Sunset

text: Reviewing the acting, Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" observed, "Hawke and Delpy find nuance, art and eroticism in words, spoken and unspoken. The actors shine." Philip French of "The Observer" wrote,


title: Before Sunset

text: On the merits of the script, A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" noted, it was "sometimes maddening," but "also enthralling, precisely because of its casual disregard for the usual imperatives of screenwriting." He elaborated,


title: Before Sunset

text: In the United Kingdom, the film was ranked the 110th-greatest movie of all time by a 2008 "Empire" poll. In 2010, the critics at "The Guardian" placed "Before Sunrise/Before Sunset" at number 3 in their list of the best romantic films of all time, and called the ending of "Before Sunset" "one of the most tantalising and ingenious endings in all cinema."


title: Before Sunset

text: In a 2016 BBC poll of 177 critics worldwide, "Before Sunset" was voted the 73rd best film since 2000. In 2019, "The Guardian" ranked the film 50th in its 100 best films of the 21st century list.


title: Before Sunset

text: Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy all discussed the possibility of a sequel to "Before Sunset." Hawke said he wanted to develop the relationship between Jesse and Céline, and said, "I'll be shocked if we never make another one".


title: Before Sunset

text: In a video interview in November 2011, Hawke said that he, Delpy and Linklater "have been talking a lot in the last six months... all three of us have been having similar feelings that we're kind of ready to revisit those characters... there's nine years between the first two movies... if we made the film next summer, it would be nine years again, so we started thinking that would be a good thing to do. So we're going to try and write it this year." In June 2012, Hawke confirmed that the sequel to "Before Sunset" would be filmed in summer 2012. In September 2012, it was announced the sequel, titled "Before Midnight", had completed filming and would premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. The film was released in May to widespread acclaim, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Joseph Vincent Lo Truglio (; born December 2, 1970) is an American actor, comedian, writer and producer. Best known for his role as Charles Boyle on the Fox/NBC sitcom "Brooklyn Nine-Nine", he also was a cast member on the television series "The State" and "Reno 911!". His notable film roles include "Wet Hot American Summer", "I Love You Man", "Superbad", "Paul", "Role Models" and "Wanderlust".


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Joseph Lo Truglio was born in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens, New York, on December 2, 1970. He is of Italian and Irish descent. He grew up in Margate, Florida, and graduated from Coconut Creek High School. He met many of his future "The State" cast members at New York University, where he took part in the school's sketch comedy group.


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Lo Truglio wrote and acted in various skits for "The State", and animated segments for the show. After "The State" ended in 1995, he made a number of guest appearances throughout the late 1990s on shows such as "Viva Variety", "Upright Citizens Brigade", "Law & Order" and "Third Watch".


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: In 2001, Lo Truglio appeared in fellow "State" alumnus David Wain's comedy film "Wet Hot American Summer", where he played a camp counselor. He made cameo appearances on David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black's online "Stella shorts" series.


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: He appeared in the 2005 Comedy Central show "Stella" and had a cameo in Showalter's film "The Baxter". He made cameos on "Reno 911!", as well as in the 2007 movie, "". He has provided his voice for several video games including "The Warriors". In 2005, he provided the voice of Vincenzo 'Lucky' Cilli in "". In 2006 he had a supporting role in "Artie Lange's Beer League".


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Lo Truglio has appeared in several television commercials, including spots for Gateway Computer and Jack Link's Beef Jerky.


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: He portrayed "Francis the Driver" in the Judd Apatow hit comedy "Superbad" and had supporting roles in films such as "Pineapple Express", "Paul", "Role Models," "Wanderlust", and "I Love You, Man". In July 2008, Lo Truglio starred with Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis in the web series "The Line" on Crackle. He has appeared on the comedy podcasts "Comedy Bang Bang", "Never Not Funny", and "Superego".


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Lo Truglio appeared on the Starz comedy "Party Down" and also had a recurring role on the short-lived 2010 Fox sitcom "Sons of Tucson". In 2011, he co-starred in the short-lived NBC comedy series "Free Agents" starring Hank Azaria. Lo Truglio provided the voice of Freddy in the "American Dad!" episode "Stan's Best Friend." In 2013, Lo Truglio began co-starring opposite Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher on the Fox comedy series "Brooklyn Nine-Nine".


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Lo Truglio reprised his role as Neil in the eight-episode Netflix series "", the prequel to the 2001 film "Wet Hot American Summer". The series premiered on July 31, 2015.


title: Joe Lo Truglio

text: Lo Truglio married actress Beth Dover on April 19, 2014, having gotten engaged in 2013. They co-starred in the "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" episode "Fancy Brudgom" and in the third season of "Burning Love", as well as two episodes of the TV series "". They have a son named Eli.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Andrew John Fletcher (8 July 1961 – 26 May 2022), also known as Fletch, was an English keyboard player and founding member of the electronic band Depeche Mode. In 2020, he and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Fletcher was the eldest of four siblings born to Joy and John Fletcher. The family moved to Basildon from Nottingham when he was two years old, when his father, an engineer, was offered a job at a cigarette factory. He was active in the local Boys' Brigade from an early age, primarily to play football.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Fletcher was 15 in 1976 when punk arrived on the music scene. He said this was "obviously the perfect age to experience it … we were very lucky in life". He was then influenced by bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cure, Kraftwerk, early Human League, and early Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Fletcher and schoolmate Vince Clarke formed the short-lived band No Romance in China, in which Fletcher played bass guitar. In 1980, Fletcher, Martin Gore and Clarke, the trio now all on synthesisers, formed another group called Composition of Sound. Clarke served as chief songwriter and also provided lead vocals until singer Dave Gahan was recruited into the band later that year, after which they adopted the name Depeche Mode at Gahan's suggestion. Clarke left the group in late 1981, shortly after the release of their debut album "Speak & Spell".


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Their 1982 follow-up album, "A Broken Frame", was recorded as a trio, with Gore taking over primary songwriting duties. Musician and producer Alan Wilder joined the band in late 1982 and the group continued as a quartet.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: In 1989, while preparing "Violator", Fletcher experienced anxiety problems and depression; the band advised him to seek help in an institution. He attributed this to an obsessive-compulsive disorder from his father and the loss of his sister in her early twenties. In 1993, he had a relapse during the recording of "Songs of Faith and Devotion". One year later, he had to leave the "Exotic Tour/Summer Tour '94" for nervous exhaustion, and the band played without him in South America and the US; "I had a massive nervous breakdown on that tour ... The [tour] was 187 gigs and, unfortunately, I had to pull out of the last leg". Depeche Mode kept on functioning as a quartet until Wilder's departure in 1995. From then on, the core trio of Gahan, Gore, and Fletcher remained active, up to the release of their 2017 album "Spirit" and ensuing world tour.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Fletcher's role within Depeche Mode was often a topic of speculation. In early incarnations of the band, he played (electric and later synth) bass. As the band evolved after Vince Clarke's departure in 1981, Fletcher's role changed as each of the band members took to the areas that suited them and benefited the band collectively. In a key scene in D.A. Pennebaker's 1989 documentary film about the band, Fletcher clarified these roles: "Martin's the songwriter, Alan's the good musician, Dave's the vocalist, and I bum around." In his review of 2005's "Playing the Angel", long after Wilder's departure from the band, "Rolling Stone" writer Gavin Edwards riffed upon Fletcher's statement with the opening line: "Depeche Mode's unique division of labour has been long established, with each of the three remaining members having a distinct role: Martin Gore writes the songs, Dave Gahan sings them and Andy Fletcher shows up for photo shoots and cashes the checks." Fletcher was the only member of the band with no songwriting credits.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: With the band having not always employed a full-time manager, Fletcher handled many of the band's business, legal, and other non-musical interests over the years. In the press kit for "Songs of Faith and Devotion", he discussed being genuinely interested in many of the business aspects of the music industry that other performing musicians shy away from, and as such, he took over a lot of the business management aspects of the band. In later years, this included acting as the band's "spokesman", with Fletcher often being the one to announce Depeche Mode news (such as record album and tour details).


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: He was also said to be the member who was "the tiebreaker" and the one who "brings the band together". According to interviews, Fletcher built the compromise between Gahan and Gore that settled their serious dispute following 2001's "Exciter" album and tour over future songwriting duties within Depeche Mode.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: In the studio and during live shows, Fletcher contributed a variety of supporting synthesizer parts, including bass parts, strings, and drone sounds, and various samples. Fletcher was the only member of Depeche Mode who did not often sing. Although he can be seen singing in videos of Depeche's past live performances, usually Fletcher's vocals were either mixed very low or heard only through his own stage monitors. Fletcher sang on the interlude "Crucified" on "Violator". According to Alan Wilder, every band member participated in the choir on the song "Condemnation" from "Songs of Faith and Devotion" and Wilder confirms this on the press kit of the same album.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: In 2002, Fletcher launched his own record label, a Mute Records imprint called Toast Hawaii (named after the dish), and signed the band Client. He coordinated the recording of their eponymous 2003 debut and 2004's "City", while also producing "extended remixes" for their subsequent singles "Price of Love", "Rock and Roll Machine", "Here and Now", "In It for the Money", "Radio", and "Pornography" (featuring Carl Barât of the Libertines).


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Initially to support Client's live shows, Fletcher began touring as a DJ. Whenever he was on hiatus from Depeche Mode, Fletcher played occasional festivals and club gigs, and was known to include various exclusive Depeche remixes in his sets. In late 2015, Fletcher embarked on a small tour of European clubs.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Fletcher was married to Gráinne Fletcher (née Mullan) for approximately 30 years. The couple had two children.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: While Depeche Mode were touring with the band Blancmange in the early 1980s, Fletcher was renowned for his skill at chess. Neil Arthur of Blancmange has mentioned in interviews "never winning a game of chess with Andy Fletcher!" During the 1990s, Fletcher owned a restaurant called Gascogne located on Blenheim Terrace in St. John's Wood, London. He made a series of bad investments in the mid-1990s that led to a number of financial settlements involving Lloyd's of London and Daniel Miller.


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Of the widely covered 1993 Devotional Tour, Ken Scrudato of "BlackBook" said: "... Depeche were a band that went through periods of devastating strife, their by-now-legendary 1993 Devotional Tour ending with Gahan and Gore in the throes of what could only be described as epic substance abuse issues, Fletch on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and former member Alan Wilder quitting in disgust and exasperation." Fletcher himself commented in a 1997 interview with MTV that the Devotional Tour "nearly destroyed the band."


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Fletcher died on 26 May 2022, aged 60, after suffering an aortic dissection while at home. His fellow bandmates Gahan and Gore stated, "we are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member and bandmate Andy 'Fletch' Fletcher". Former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder stated that learning of Fletcher's death was "a real bolt from the blue".


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Lol Tolhurst of the Cure wrote, “I knew Andy and considered him a friend. We crossed many of the same pathways as younger men. My heart goes out to his family, bandmates, and DM fans. RIP Fletch.”


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Pet Shop Boys stated, "We’re saddened and shocked that Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode has died. Fletch was a warm, friendly and funny person who loved electronic music and could also give sensible advice about the music business."


title: Andy Fletcher (musician)

text: Other artists who expressed their sadness towards his death include OMD, Alison Moyet, Gary Numan and Erasure (the latter of whom was founded by former Depeche Mode bandmate Vince Clarke).


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Alessandra Corine Ambrósio (; born 11 April 1981) is a Brazilian-American model. She is known for her work with Victoria's Secret and was chosen as the first spokesmodel for the company's PINK line. Ambrosio was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2004 to 2017 and has modeled for fashion houses such as Christian Dior, Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Next.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio was ranked number five on "Forbes" list of the highest-paid models, estimated to have earned $6.6 million every year. She is often cited by the popular media as one of the world's sexiest women. As an "Angel", she was chosen as one of "People" annual "100 Most Beautiful People in the World" in May 2007. Ambrosio is considered one of the icons in the fashion industry.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Alessandra Corine Ambrósio was born on 11 April 1981 in Erechim, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, the daughter of Lucilda and Luiz Ambrósio. She has a younger sister named Aline. She is of Italian and Polish descent. Her paternal grandmother, Joana Eugênia Groch, was an immigrant from Poland, who arrived in Brazil as a child in 1929. She died in 2017, at age 93.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: She enrolled at a modeling class at the age of 12, and at the age of 14, she was one of 20 finalists for the 1995 Elite Model Look national competition for Brazil. Ambrosio was always insecure about her large ears, and at the age of 11, she had cosmetic surgery to have her ears pinned back, though two years later she suffered complications.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: When Ambrosio was 12 years old, she partook in modeling classes and then began modeling for Dilson Stein at age 15. Competing in Brazil's Elite Model Look competition started her modeling career in earnest. Her first notable modeling job was shooting the cover of Brazilian "Elle" magazine. Elite passed along some of her Polaroids to Guess which led her booking the Millennium GUESS? campaign.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio has since appeared in advertising campaigns for Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Dior, Escada, Fendi, Giorgio Armani, Guess, Emporio Armani, Moschino, Gap, Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, Revlon, and the Pirelli Calendar. She has walked the catwalks for designers such as Prada, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix, Bottega Veneta, Escada, Tommy Hilfiger, Christian Dior, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Balmain, Ralph Lauren, Halston, Vivienne Westwood, Giles Deacon, Kenzo, Emanuel Ungaro, Philipp Plein and Oscar de la Renta. She has appeared in numerous international magazine covers, including "Cosmopolitan", "Elle", "GQ", "Harper's Bazaar", "Marie Claire", "Ocean Drive", "Vogue", and was the only model to appear on the cover of "Glamour" in the United States in 2006.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In 2004, Ambrosio launched her line of swimwear called "Alessandra Ambrosio by Sais", a division of Rosa Chá. It sold 10,000 units in its first month on the market. Ambrosio was the face for the UK company Next and starred in their first television campaign in 12 years.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In 2006, Ambrosio appeared on "The Tyra Banks Show" and said that the ear surgery she had as a kid was a bad experience and has discouraged her from ever getting plastic surgery again.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: On the July 2009 cover of "Marie Claire", Ambrosio appeared in a spread with Sacha Baron Cohen to promote Baron Cohen's 2009 film "Brüno".


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio became the face of Brazilian sportswear brand Colcci costarring with Ashton Kutcher in a denim ad. She was ranked No. 5 on "Forbes" "The World's Top-Earning Models" list, with an estimated earnings of $5 million over 2010–2011.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In October 2011, Ambrosio became "Vogue"s blogger, commenting on her wardrobe by posting one photo of herself each day for a month.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: On 12 August 2012, she appeared in the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony representing the Brazilian fashion tradition on the handover segment to Rio de Janeiro City.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In spring 2014, Ambrosio launched her own fashion and lifestyle brand named "Ále by Alessandra" in a collaboration with American retailer Cherokee. The line features casual wear to formal attire and is aimed at females between 18 and 35 years old. The apparel line was first shown by Southern California-based retailer Planet Blue. For this brand, Ambrosio used her intellectual property company, Silver Sunrise LLC, which works with Cherokee as its global licensing agent.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio appeared in the February 2016 issue of "GQ" alongside Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio was chosen by NBC alongside fellow Brazilian model Adriana Lima as the channel's food and culture correspondents for the 2016 Summer Olympics.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: By 2006, Ambrosio was selected as the first spokesmodel for the Victoria's Secret "PINK" line. In 2005, she walked the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show runway wearing lingerie made entirely out of candy. In the 2008 edition of the Fashion Show, she walked the runway three months after giving birth to her first child, and opened the show the following year in 2009. The 2011 show saw her wearing the heaviest wings () ever made for the show while pregnant with her second child.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In 2012, Ambrosio was chosen to wear the "Fantasy Bra". The Floral Fantasy Bra, crafted by London Jewellers featured amethysts, rubies, sapphires and diamonds all set in rose and yellow gold and adorned with more than 5,200 precious stones. In 2014, she wore the Dream Fantasy Bra, alongside fellow model Adriana Lima. Both of the bras cost $2.5 million each.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: After the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2017, Alessandra posted on her Instagram that she will be retiring after "17 Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows".


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio has made several television appearances, notably a cameo as herself on HBO's "Entourage"; "The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn";


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"; A guest judge on "Project Runway Season 2: Team Lingerie" and twice on "The Tyra Banks Show". She also appeared on "America's Next Top Model" in the series' 20th cycle.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In 2006, she had a cameo in the box-office hit film "Casino Royale", appearing briefly as Tennis Girl #1. Ambrosio guest-starred on the "How I Met Your Mother" episode "The Yips" on 26 November 2007 with her fellow Victoria's Secret Angels Adriana Lima, Selita Ebanks, Marisa Miller, Miranda Kerr, and Heidi Klum. She also made a cameo appearance during the "New Girl" episode "Prince".


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio made her acting debut in the Brazilian telenovela "Verdades Secretas", which premiered on Rede Globo on 8 June 2015, playing the role of former top model Samia. She appeared as herself in the 2016 film, "".


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: Ambrosio became engaged to American businessman Jamie Mazur, founder of RE/DONE jeans, in 2008. They have two children: a daughter (b. 2008) and a son (b. 2012). Ambrosio announced on 27 March 2018 that she and Mazur had split.


title: Alessandra Ambrosio

text: In March 2019, Alessandra launched her beachwear brand, GAL Floripa, in partnership with her sister, Aline Ambrósio, and her childhood friend, Gisele Cória.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known that live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts, and the Gila woodpecker specialises in exploiting cacti.


title: Woodpecker

text: Members of this family are chiefly known for their characteristic behaviour. They mostly forage for insect prey on the trunks and branches of trees, and often communicate by drumming with their beaks, producing a reverberatory sound that can be heard at some distance. Some species vary their diet with fruits, birds' eggs, small animals, tree sap, human scraps, and carrion. They usually nest and roost in holes that they excavate in tree trunks, and their abandoned holes are of importance to other cavity-nesting birds. They sometimes come into conflict with humans when they make holes in buildings or feed on fruit crops, but perform a useful service by their removal of insect pests on trees.


title: Woodpecker

text: The Picidae are one of nine living families in the order Piciformes, the others being barbets (comprising three families), toucans, toucan-barbets, and honeyguides, which (along with woodpeckers) comprise the clade Pici, and the jacamars and puffbirds in the clade Galbuli. DNA sequencing has confirmed the sister relationships of these two groups. The family Picidae includes about 240 species arranged in 35 genera. Almost 20 species are threatened with extinction due to loss of habitat or habitat fragmentation, with one, the Bermuda flicker, being extinct and a further two possibly being so.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers include the tiny piculets, the smallest of which appears to be the bar-breasted piculet at in length and a weight of . Some of the largest woodpeckers can be more than in length. The largest surviving species is the great slaty woodpecker, which weighs on average and up to , and measures , but the extinct imperial woodpecker, at , and ivory-billed woodpecker, around and , were probably both larger.


title: Woodpecker

text: The plumage of woodpeckers varies from drab to conspicuous. The colours of many species are based on olive and brown and some are pied, suggesting a need for camouflage; others are boldly patterned in black, white, and red, and many have a crest or tufted feathers on their crowns. Woodpeckers tend to be sexually dimorphic, but differences between the sexes are generally small; exceptions to this are Williamson's sapsucker and the orange-backed woodpecker, which differ markedly. The plumage is moulted fully once a year apart from the wrynecks, which have an additional partial moult before breeding.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers, piculets, and wrynecks all possess characteristic zygodactyl feet, consisting of four toes, the first (hallux) and the fourth facing backward and the second and third facing forward. This foot arrangement is good for grasping the limbs and trunks of trees. Members of this family can walk vertically up tree trunks, which is beneficial for activities such as foraging for food or nest excavation. In addition to their strong claws and feet, woodpeckers have short, strong legs. This is typical of birds that regularly forage on trunks. Exceptions are the black-backed woodpecker and the American and Eurasian three-toed woodpeckers, which have only three toes on each foot. The tails of all woodpeckers, except the piculets and wrynecks, are stiffened, and when the bird perches on a vertical surface, the tail and feet work together to support it.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers have strong bills that they use for drilling and drumming on trees, and long, sticky tongues for extracting food (insects and larvae). Woodpecker bills are typically longer, sharper, and stronger than the bills of piculets and wrynecks, but their morphology is very similar. The bill's chisel-like tip is kept sharp by the pecking action in birds that regularly use it on wood. The beak consists of three layers; an outer sheath called rhamphotheca, made of scales formed from keratin proteins, an inner layer of bone which has a large cavity and mineralised collagen fibers, and a middle layer made of porous bone which connects the two other layers. Furthermore, the tongue bone (or hyoid bone) of the woodpecker is very long, and winds around the skull through a special cavity, thereby cushioning the brain. Combined, this anatomy helps the beak absorb mechanical stress. Species of woodpecker and flicker that use their bills in soil or for probing as opposed to regular hammering tend to have longer and more decurved bills. Due to their smaller bill size, many piculets and wrynecks forage in decaying wood more often than woodpeckers. Their long, sticky tongues, which possess bristles, aid these birds in grabbing and extracting insects from deep within a hole in a tree. The tongue was reported to be used to spear grubs, but more detailed studies published in 2004 have shown that the tongue instead wraps around the prey before being pulled out.


title: Woodpecker

text: Many of the foraging, breeding, and signaling behaviors of woodpeckers involve drumming and hammering using their bills. To prevent brain damage from the rapid and repeated powerful impacts, woodpeckers have a number of physical features that protect their brains. These include a relatively small and smooth brain, narrow subdural space, little cerebrospinal fluid surrounding it to prevent it from moving back and forth inside the skull during pecking, the orientation of the brain within the skull (which maximises the contact area between the brain and the skull) and the short duration of contact. The skull consists of strong but compressible, sponge-like bone, which is most concentrated in the forehead and the back of the skull. Another anatomical adaptation of woodpeckers is the enormously elongated hyoid bone which subdivides, passes on either side of the spinal column and wraps around the brain case, before ending in the right nostril cavity. It plays the role of safety-belt.


title: Woodpecker

text: Computer simulations have shown that 99.7% of the energy generated in pecking is stored in the form of strain energy, which is distributed throughout the bird's body, with only a small remaining fraction of the energy going into the brain. The pecking also causes the woodpecker's skull to heat up, which is part of the reason why they often peck in short bursts with brief breaks in between, giving the head some time to cool. During the millisecond before contact with wood, a thickened nictitating membrane closes, protecting the eye from flying debris. These membranes also prevent the retina from tearing. Their nostrils are also protected; they are often slit-like and have special feathers to cover them. Woodpeckers are capable of repeated pecking on a tree at high decelerations on the order of (1000 g).


title: Woodpecker

text: Some large woodpeckers such as "Dryocopus" have a fast, direct form of flight, but the majority of species have a typical undulating flight pattern consisting of a series of rapid flaps followed by a swooping glide. Many birds in the genus "Melanerpes" have distinctive, rowing wing-strokes while the piculets engage in short bursts of rapid direct flight.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers have a mostly cosmopolitan distribution, although they are absent from Australasia, Madagascar, and Antarctica. They are also absent from some of the world's oceanic islands, although many insular species are found on continental islands. The true woodpeckers, subfamily Picinae, are distributed across the entire range of the family. The Picumninae piculets have a pantropical distribution, with species in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Neotropics, with the greatest diversity being in South America. The second piculet subfamily, the Nesoctitinae, has a single member, the Antillean piculet, which is restricted to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The wrynecks (Jynginae) are found exclusively in the Old World, with the two species occurring in Europe, Asia, and Africa.


title: Woodpecker

text: Most woodpeckers are sedentary, but a few examples of migratory species are known, such as the rufous-bellied woodpecker, yellow-bellied sapsucker, and Eurasian wryneck, which breeds in Europe and west Asia and migrates to the Sahel in Africa in the winter. More northerly populations of Lewis's woodpecker, northern flicker, Williamson's sapsucker, red-breasted sapsucker, and red-naped sapsucker all move southwards in the fall in North America. Most woodpecker movements can be described as dispersive, such as when young birds seek territories after fledging, or eruptive, to escape harsh weather conditions. Several species are altitudinal migrants, for example the grey-capped pygmy woodpecker, which moves to lowlands from hills during winter. The woodpeckers that do migrate, do so during the day.


title: Woodpecker

text: Overall, woodpeckers are arboreal birds of wooded habitats. They reach their greatest diversity in tropical rainforests, but occur in almost all suitable habitats, including woodlands, savannahs, scrublands, and bamboo forests. Even grasslands and deserts have been colonised by various species. These habitats are more easily occupied where a small number of trees exist, or in the case of desert species like the Gila woodpecker, tall cacti are available for nesting. Some are specialists and are associated with coniferous or deciduous woodlands, or even, like the acorn woodpecker, with individual tree genera (oaks in this case). Other species are generalists and are able to adapt to forest clearance by exploiting secondary growth, plantations, orchards, and parks. In general, forest-dwelling species need rotting or dead wood on which to forage.


title: Woodpecker

text: Several species are adapted to spending a portion of their time feeding on the ground, and a very small minority have abandoned trees entirely and nest in holes in the ground. The ground woodpecker is one such species, inhabiting the rocky and grassy hills of South Africa, and the Andean flicker is another.


title: Woodpecker

text: The Swiss Ornithological Institute has set up a monitoring program to record breeding populations of woodland birds. This has shown that deadwood is an important habitat requirement for the black woodpecker, great spotted woodpecker, middle spotted woodpecker, lesser spotted woodpecker, European green woodpecker, and Eurasian three-toed woodpecker. Populations of all these species increased by varying amounts from 1990 to 2008. During this period, the amount of deadwood in the forest increased and the range of the white-backed woodpecker enlarged as it extended eastwards. With the exception of the green and middle-spotted woodpeckers, the increase in the amount of deadwood is likely to be the major factor explaining the population increase of these species.


title: Woodpecker

text: Most woodpeckers live solitary lives, but their behaviour ranges from highly antisocial species that are aggressive towards their own kind, to species that live in groups. Solitary species defend such feeding resources as a termite colony or fruit-laden tree, driving away other conspecifics and returning frequently until the resource is exhausted. Aggressive behaviours include bill pointing and jabbing, head shaking, wing flicking, chasing, drumming, and vocalisations. Ritual actions do not usually result in contact, and birds may "freeze" for a while before they resume their dispute. The coloured patches may be flouted, and in some instances, these antagonistic behaviours resemble courtship rituals.


title: Woodpecker

text: Group-living species tend to be communal group breeders. In addition to these species, a number of species may join mixed-species foraging flocks with other insectivorous birds, although they tend to stay at the edges of these groups. Joining these flocks allows woodpeckers to decrease their anti-predator vigilance and increase their feeding rate. Woodpeckers are diurnal, roosting at night inside holes and crevices. In many species the roost will become the nest-site during the breeding season, but in some species they have separate functions; the grey-and-buff woodpecker makes several shallow holes for roosting which are quite distinct from its nesting site. Most birds roost alone and will oust intruders from their chosen site, but the Magellanic woodpecker and acorn woodpecker are cooperative roosters.


title: Woodpecker

text: Drumming is a form of nonvocal communication used by most species of woodpeckers, and involves the bill being repeatedly struck on a hard surface with great rapidity. After a pause, the drum roll is repeated, with each species having a pattern that is unique in the number of beats in the roll, the length of the roll, the length of the gap between rolls, and the cadence. The drumming is mainly a territorial call, equivalent to the song of a passerine. Woodpeckers choose a surface that resonates, such as a hollow tree, and may use man-made structures such as gutters and downpipes. Drumming serves for the mutual recognition of conspecifics and plays a part in courtship rituals. Individual birds are thought to be able to distinguish the drumming of their mates and those of their neighbours. Drumming in woodpeckers is controlled by a set of nuclei in the forebrain that closely resemble the brain regions that underlie song learning and production in many songbirds.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers do not have such a wide range of songs and calls as do passerine birds, and the sounds they make tend to be simpler in structure. Calls produced include brief, high-pitched notes, trills, rattles, twittering, whistling, chattering, nasal churrs, screams, and wails. These calls are used by both sexes in communication and are related to the circumstances of the occasion; these include courtship, territorial disputes, and alarm calls. Each species has its own range of calls, which tend to be in the 1.0 to 2.5 kHz range for efficient transmission through forested environments. Mated couples may exchange muted, low-pitched calls, and nestlings often issue noisy begging calls from inside their nest cavity. The wrynecks have a more musical song, and in some areas, the song of the newly arrived Eurasian wryneck is considered to be the harbinger of spring. The piculets either have a song consisting of a long, descending trill, or a descending series of two to six (sometimes more) individual notes, and this song alerts ornithologists to the presence of the birds, as they are easily overlooked.


title: Woodpecker

text: Most woodpecker species feed on insects and other invertebrates living under bark and in wood, but overall, the family is characterized by its dietary flexibility, with many species being both highly omnivorous and opportunistic. The diet includes ants, termites, beetles and their larvae, caterpillars, spiders, other arthropods, bird eggs, nestlings, small rodents, lizards, fruit, nuts, and sap. Many insects and their grubs are taken from living and dead trees by excavation. The bird may hear sounds from inside the timber indicating where creating a hole would be productive. Crustaceans, molluscs, and carrion may be eaten by some species, including the great spotted woodpecker, and bird feeders are visited for suet and domestic scraps.


title: Woodpecker

text: Other means are also used to garner prey. Some species, such as the red-naped sapsucker, sally into the air to catch flying insects, and many species probe into crevices and under bark, or glean prey from leaves and twigs. The rufous woodpecker specialises in attacking the nests of arboreal ants, and the buff-spotted woodpecker feeds on and nests in termite mounds. Other species, such as the wrynecks and the Andean flicker, feed wholly or partly on the ground.


title: Woodpecker

text: Ecologically, woodpeckers help to keep trees healthy by keeping them from suffering mass infestations. The family is noted for its ability to acquire wood-boring grubs from the trunks and branches, whether the timber is alive or dead. Having hammered a hole into the wood, the prey is extracted by use of a long, barbed tongue. Woodpeckers consume beetles that burrow into trees, removing as many as 85% of emerald ash borer larvae from individual ash trees.


title: Woodpecker

text: The ability to excavate allows woodpeckers to obtain tree sap, an important source of food for some species. Most famously, the sapsuckers (genus "Sphyrapicus") feed in this fashion, but the technique is not restricted to these, and others such as the acorn woodpecker and white-headed woodpecker also feed on sap. The technique was once thought to be restricted to the New World, but Old World species, such as the Arabian woodpecker and great spotted woodpecker, also feed in this way.


title: Woodpecker

text: All members of the family Picidae nest in cavities, nearly always in the trunks and branches of trees, well away from the foliage. Where possible, an area of rotten wood surrounded by sound timber is used. Where trees are in short supply, the gilded flicker and ladder-backed woodpecker excavate holes in cactus, and the Andean flicker and ground woodpecker dig holes in earth banks. The campo flicker sometimes chooses termite mounds, the rufous woodpecker prefers to use ants' nests in trees and the bamboo woodpecker specialises in bamboos. Woodpeckers also excavate nest holes in residential and commercial structures and wooden utility poles.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers and piculets excavate their own nests, but wrynecks do not, and need to find pre-existing cavities. A typical nest has a round entrance hole that just fits the bird, leading to an enlarged vertical chamber below. No nesting material is used, apart from some wood chips produced during the excavation; other wood chips are liberally scattered on the ground, thus providing visual evidence of the site of the nest. Many species of woodpeckers excavate one hole per breeding season, sometimes after multiple attempts. It takes around a month to finish the job and abandoned holes are used by other birds and mammals that are cavity nesters unable to excavate their own holes.


title: Woodpecker

text: Cavities are in great demand for nesting by other cavity nesters, so woodpeckers face competition for the nesting sites they excavate from the moment the hole becomes usable. This may come from other species of woodpecker, or other cavity-nesting birds such as swallows and starlings. Woodpeckers may aggressively harass potential competitors, and also use other strategies to reduce the chance of being usurped from their nesting sites; for example, the red-crowned woodpecker digs its nest in the underside of a small branch, which reduces the chance that a larger species will take it over and expand it.


title: Woodpecker

text: Members of Picidae are typically monogamous, with a few species breeding cooperatively and some polygamy reported in a few others. Polyandry, where a female raises two broods with two separate males, has also been reported in the West Indian woodpecker. Another unusual social system is that of the acorn woodpecker, which is a polygynandrous cooperative breeder where groups of up to 12 individuals breed and help to raise the young. Young birds from previous years may stay behind to help raise the group's young, and studies have found reproductive success for the group goes up with group size, but individual success goes down. Birds may be forced to remain in groups due to a lack of habitat to which to disperse.


title: Woodpecker

text: A pair works together to help build the nest, incubate the eggs, and raise their altricial young. In most species, though, the male does most of the nest excavation and takes the night shift while incubating the eggs. A clutch usually consists of two to five round, white eggs. Since these birds are cavity nesters, their eggs do not need to be camouflaged and the white color helps the parents to see them in dim light. The eggs are incubated for about 11–14 days before they hatch. About 18–30 days are then needed before the chicks are fully fledged and ready to leave the nest. In most species, soon after this, the young are left to fend for themselves, exceptions being the various social species, and the Hispaniolan woodpecker, where adults continue to feed their young for several months. In general, cavity nesting is a successful strategy and a higher proportion of young is reared than is the case with birds that nest in the open. In Africa, several species of honeyguide are brood parasites of woodpeckers.


title: Woodpecker

text: The Picidae are just one of nine living families in the order Piciformes. Other members of this group, such as the jacamars, puffbirds, barbets, toucans, and honeyguides, have traditionally been thought to be closely related to the woodpecker family (true woodpeckers, piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers). The clade Pici (woodpeckers, barbets, toucans, and honeyguides) is well supported and shares a zygodactyl foot with the Galbuli (puffbirds and jacamars). More recently, several DNA sequence analyses have confirmed that Pici and Galbuli are sister groups.


title: Woodpecker

text: The name Picidae for the family was introduced by English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1820. The phylogeny has been updated according to new knowledge about convergence patterns and evolutionary history. Most notably, the relationship of the Picinae genera has been largely clarified, and the Antillean piculet was found to be a surviving offshoot of protowoodpeckers. Genetic analysis supports the monophyly of the Picidae, which seem to have originated in the Old World, but the geographic origins of the Picinae is unclear. The Picumninae are returned as paraphyletic. Morphological and behavioural characters, in addition to DNA evidence, highlights genus "Hemicircus" as the sister group of all remaining true woodpeckers, besides a sister-group relationship between the true woodpecker tribes Dendropicini and Malarpicini.


title: Woodpecker

text: The evolutionary history of this group is not well documented, but the known fossils allow some preliminary conclusions; the earliest known modern picids were piculet-like forms of the Late Oligocene, about 25 million years ago (Mya). By that time, however, the group was already present in the Americas and Europe, and they actually may have evolved much earlier, maybe as early as the Early Eocene (50 Mya). The modern subfamilies appear to be rather young by comparison; until the mid-Miocene (10–15 Mya), all picids seem to have been small or mid-sized birds similar to a mixture between a piculet and a wryneck. A feather enclosed in fossil amber from the Dominican Republic, dated to about 25 Mya, however, seems to indicate that the Nesoctitinae were already a distinct lineage by then.


title: Woodpecker

text: Stepwise adaptations for drilling, tapping, and climbing head first on vertical surfaces have been suggested. The last common ancestor of woodpeckers (Picidae) was incapable of climbing up tree trunks or excavating nest cavities by drilling with its beak. The first adaptations for drilling (including reinforced rhamphotheca, frontal overhang, and processus dorsalis pterygoidei) evolved in the ancestral lineage of piculets and true woodpeckers. Additional adaptations for drilling and tapping (enlarged condylus lateralis of the quadrate and fused lower mandible) have evolved in the ancestral lineage of true woodpeckers ("Hemicircus" excepting). The inner rectrix pairs became stiffened, and the pygostyle lamina was enlarged in the ancestral lineage of true woodpeckers ("Hemicircus" included), which facilitated climbing head first up tree limbs. Genus "Hemicircus" excepting, the tail feathers were further transformed for specialized support, the pygostyle disc became greatly enlarged, and the ectropodactyl toe arrangement evolved. These latter characters may have facilitated enormous increases in body size in some lineages.


title: Woodpecker

text: Prehistoric representatives of the extant Picidae genera are treated in the genus articles. An enigmatic form based on a coracoid, found in Pliocene deposits of New Providence in the Bahamas, has been described as "Bathoceleus hyphalus" and probably also is a woodpecker.


title: Woodpecker

text: The phylogeny of woodpeckers is still being refined and the positions of some genera continue to be unclear and conflicting findings arose from analyses as of 2016. For more detail, see list of woodpecker species.


title: Woodpecker

text: In general, humans consider woodpeckers in a favourable light; they are viewed as interesting birds and fascinating to watch as they drum or forage, but their activities are not universally appreciated. Many woodpecker species are known to excavate holes in buildings, fencing, and utility poles, creating health and/or safety issues for affected structures. Such activity is very difficult to discourage and can be costly to repair.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers also drum on various reverberatory structures on buildings such as gutters, downspouts, chimneys, vents, and aluminium sheeting. Drumming is a less-forceful type of pecking that serves to establish territory and attract mates. Houses with shingles or wooden boarding are also attractive as possible nesting or roosting sites, especially when close to large trees or woodland. Several exploratory holes may be made, especially at the junctions of vertical boards or at the corners of tongue-and-groove boarding. The birds may also drill holes in houses as they forage for insect larvae and pupae hidden behind the woodwork.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers sometimes cause problems when they raid fruit crops, but their foraging activities are mostly beneficial as they control forest insect pests such as the woodboring beetles that create galleries behind the bark and can kill trees. They also eat ants, which may be tending sap-sucking pests such as mealybugs, as is the case with the rufous woodpecker in coffee plantations in India. Woodpeckers can serve as indicator species, demonstrating the quality of the habitat. Their hole-making abilities make their presence in an area an important part of the ecosystem, because these cavities are used for breeding and roosting by many bird species that are unable to excavate their own holes, as well as being used by various mammals and invertebrates.


title: Woodpecker

text: The spongy bones of the woodpecker's skull and the flexibility of its beak, both of which provide protection for the brain when drumming, have provided inspiration to engineers; a black box needs to survive intact when a plane falls from the sky, and modelling the black box with regard to a woodpecker's anatomy has increased the resistance of this device to damage 60-fold. The design of protective helmets is another field being influenced by the study of woodpeckers.


title: Woodpecker

text: One of the accounts of the founding of Rome, preserved in the work known as "Origo Gentis Romanae", refers to a legend of a woodpecker bringing food to the boys Romulus and Remus during the time they were abandoned in the wild, thus enabling them to survive and play their part in history.


title: Woodpecker

text: In a global survey of the risk of extinction faced by the various bird families, woodpeckers were the only bird family to have significantly fewer species at risk than would be expected.


title: Woodpecker

text: Nevertheless, several woodpeckers are under threat as their habitats are destroyed. Being woodland birds, deforestation and clearance of land for agriculture and other purposes can reduce populations dramatically. Some species adapt to living in plantations and secondary growth, or to open countryside with forest remnants and scattered trees, but some do not. A few species have even flourished when they have adapted to man-made habitats. There are few conservation projects directed primarily at woodpeckers, but they benefit whenever their habitat is conserved. The red-cockaded woodpecker has been the focus of much conservation effort in the southeastern United States, with artificial cavities being constructed in the longleaf pines they favour as nesting sites.


title: Woodpecker

text: Two species of woodpeckers in the Americas, the ivory-billed woodpecker is critically endangered and the imperial woodpecker is classified as extinct in the wild, with some authorities believing them extinct, though possible but disputed ongoing sightings of ivory-billed woodpeckers have been made in the United States and a small population may survive in Cuba. A critically endangered species is the Okinawa woodpecker from Japan, with a single declining population of a few hundred birds. It is threatened by deforestation, golf course, dam, and helipad construction, road building, and agricultural development.


title: Woodpecker

text: Woodpeckers possess many sophisticated shock-absorption mechanisms that help protect itself from head injury. Micro-CT scans show that plate-like spongy bone are in the skull with an uneven distribution, highly accumulated in the forehead and occiput but not in other regions.  Along with the long hyoid bone “safety belt” the woodpecker has uneven beak lengths which drastically reduce strains when compared to equal length. Models have shown that pecking force is changed to strain energy and stored into the body at around 99% absorption while 1% is in the head. The head also has many factors that reduce strain to the brain and small portions of energy is dissipated into the form of heat, therefore the pecks are always intermittent.


title: Woodpecker

text: Tau protein accumulation has been studied as it is associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), this has been studied in sports where athletes suffer repeated concussions. Tau is important as it helps hold together and stabilize brain neurons. Woodpeckers' brains share similarities to humans with CTE showing most build-up in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These accumulations are not known yet if they are pathological or the result of behavioral changes. More research is being done on the subject and the woodpecker is a suitable animal model to study. The orientation of the brain within the skull increases the area of contact when pecking to reduce stress on the brain, and their small size helps, given the acceleration speeds.


title: Woodpecker

text: Straight-line trajectory was theorized to be the reason why woodpeckers do not injure themselves, since centripetal forces were the cause of concussion, but they do not always peck in straight lines, so they produce and resist centripetal forces. Laboratory tests show that the woodpeckers' cranial bone produces a significantly higher Young's modulus and ultimate strength scores compared to other birds its size. The cranial bone has a high bone mineral density with plate-like structures that are thick with high numbers of trabeculae that are spaced closely together which all may lead to lower deformation while pecking.


title: Woodpecker

text: The jaw apparatus was studied, looking into its cushioning effects. When comparing the same impact to the beak and to the forehead, the forehead experiences an impact force 1.72 times that of the beak, due to the contact time being 3.25 ms in the forehead and 4.9 ms in the beak. This is impulse momentum where impulse is the integral of force over time. The quadrate bone and joints play an important role in extending impact time, which decreases impact load to brain tissue.


title: Woodpecker

text: Bio-inspired honeycomb sandwich beams are inspired by the woodpecker's skull design; this beam's goal is to withstand continuous impacts without the need of replacement. The BHSB is composed of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), this is to mimic the high-strength beak. Next is a rubber layer core for the hyoid bone for absorbing and spreading impact, a second core layer of aluminum honeycomb that is porous and light like the woodpecker's spongey bone for impact cushioning. The final layer is the same as the first a CFRP to act as the skull bone. Bio-inspired honeycomb sandwich beams when compared to conventional beams reduced area damage by 50–80% and carried 40 to 5% of the level of stresses in the bottom layer while having an impact-resistance efficiency 1.65 to 16.22 times higher.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: The prime minister of Israel (, Hebrew acronym: ; , "Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma") is the head of government and chief executive of the State of Israel.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Israel is a republic with a president as head of state. However, the president's powers are largely ceremonial; the prime minister holds the executive power. The official residence of the prime minister, "Beit Aghion," is in Jerusalem. Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid, became the fourteenth prime minister (excluding caretakers) on 1 July 2022.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Following an election, the president nominates a member of the Knesset to become prime minister after asking party leaders whom they support for the position. The first candidate the president nominates has 28 days to put together a viable coalition. He then presents a government platform and must receive a vote of confidence from the Knesset to become prime minister. In practice, the prime minister is usually the leader of the largest party in the governing coalition. Between 1996 and 2001, the prime minister was directly elected, separately from the Knesset.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Unlike most prime ministers in parliamentary republics, the prime minister is both "de jure" and "de facto" chief executive. This is because the Basic Laws of Israel explicitly vest executive power in the government, of which the prime minister is the leader.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: The office of Prime Minister came into existence on 14 May 1948, the date of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, when the provisional government was created. David Ben-Gurion, leader of Mapai and head of the Jewish Agency, became Israel's first prime minister. The position became permanent on 8 March 1949, when the first government was formed. Ben-Gurion retained his role until late 1953, when he resigned to settle in the Kibbutz of Sde Boker. He was replaced by Moshe Sharett. However, Ben-Gurion returned in a little under two years to reclaim his position. He resigned for a second time in 1963, breaking away from Mapai to form Rafi. Levi Eshkol took over as head of Mapai and prime minister. He became the first prime minister to head the country under the banner of two parties when Mapai formed the Alignment with Ahdut HaAvoda in 1965. In 1968 he also became the only party leader to command an absolute majority in the Knesset, after Mapam and Rafi merged into the Alignment, giving it 63 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: On 26 February 1969, Eshkol became the first prime minister to die in office. He was temporarily replaced by Yigal Allon, whose stint lasted less than a month, as the party persuaded Golda Meir to return to political life and become prime minister in March 1969. Meir was Israel's first woman prime minister, and the third in the world (after Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Indira Gandhi).


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Meir resigned in 1974 after the Agranat Commission published its findings on the Yom Kippur War, even though it had absolved her of blame. Yitzhak Rabin took over, though he also resigned towards the end of the eighth Knesset's term following a series of scandals. Those included the suicide of Housing Minister Avraham Ofer after police began investigating allegations that he had used party funds illegally, and the affair involving Asher Yadlin (the governor-designate of the Bank of Israel), who was sentenced to five years in prison for having accepted bribes. Rabin's wife, Leah, was also found to have had an overseas bank account, which was illegal in Israel at the time.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Menachem Begin became the first right-wing prime minister when his Likud won the 1977 elections, and retained the post in the 1981 elections. He resigned in 1983 for health reasons, passing the reins of power to Yitzhak Shamir.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: After the 1984 elections had proved inconclusive with neither the Alignment nor Likud able to form a government, a national unity government was formed with a rotating prime ministership – Shimon Peres took the first two years, and was replaced by Shamir midway through the Knesset term. Although the 1988 elections produced another national unity government, Shamir was able to take the role alone. Peres made an abortive bid to form a left-wing government in 1990, but failed, leaving Shamir in power until 1992. Rabin became prime minister for the second time when he led Labour to victory in the 1992 elections. After his assassination on 4 November 1995, Peres took over as prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: During the thirteenth Knesset (1992–1996) it was decided to hold a separate ballot for prime minister modeled after American presidential elections. This system was instituted in part because the Israeli electoral system makes it all but impossible for one party to win a majority. While only two parties—Mapai/Labour and Likud—had ever led governments, the large number of parties or factions in a typical Knesset usually prevents one party from winning the 61 seats needed for a majority.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: In 1996, when the first such election took place, the outcome was a surprise win for Benjamin Netanyahu after election polls predicted that Peres was the winner. However, in the Knesset election held at the same time, Labour won more votes than any other party (27%). Thus Netanyahu, despite his theoretical position of power, needed the support of the religious parties to form a viable government.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Ultimately Netanyahu failed to hold the government together, and early elections for both prime minister and the Knesset were called in 1999. Although five candidates intended to run, the three representing minor parties (Benny Begin of Herut – The National Movement, Azmi Bishara of Balad and Yitzhak Mordechai of the Centre Party) dropped out before election day, and Ehud Barak beat Netanyahu in the election. However, the new system again appeared to have failed; although Barak's One Israel alliance (an alliance of Labour, Gesher and Meimad) won more votes than any other party in the Knesset election, they garnered only 26 seats, the lowest ever by a winning party or alliance. Barak needed to form a coalition with six smaller parties to form a government.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: In early 2001, Barak resigned following the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada. However, the government was not brought down, and only elections for prime minister were necessary. In the election itself, Ariel Sharon of Likud comfortably beat Barak, taking 62.4% of the vote. However, because Likud only had 21 seats in the Knesset, Sharon had to form a national unity government. Following Sharon's victory, it was decided to do away with separate elections for prime minister and return to the previous system.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: The 2003 elections were carried out in the same manner as prior to 1996. Likud won 38 seats, the highest by a party for over a decade, and as party leader Sharon was duly appointed Prime Minister. However, towards the end of his term and largely as a result of the deep divisions within Likud over Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, Sharon broke away from his party to form Kadima, managing to maintain his position as prime minister and also becoming the first prime minister not to be a member of either Labour or Likud (or their predecessors). However, he suffered a stroke in January 2006, in the midst of election season, leading Ehud Olmert to become acting prime minister in the weeks leading to the elections. He was voted by the cabinet to be interim prime minister just after the 2006 elections, when Sharon had reached 100 days of incapacitation. He thus became Israel's third interim prime minister, only days before forming his own new government as the official Prime Minister of Israel.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: In 2008, amid accusations of corruption and challenges from his own party, Olmert resigned. However his successor Tzipi Livni was unable to form a coalition government. In the election in the following year, while Kadima won the most seats, it was the Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu who was given the task of forming a government. He was able to do so, thus beginning his second term as Prime Minister of Israel.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: In the 2013 election, the Likud Yisrael Beiteinu alliance emerged as the largest faction. After forming a coalition, Netanyahu secured his third prime ministership. In 2015, Netanyahu managed to stay in power. Multiple disagreements with his coalition members led to the 2019–2022 Israeli political crisis.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: In 2021, Naftali Bennett became prime minister. He was succeeded in 2022 by his coalition partner, Yair Lapid.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: If the prime minister dies in office, the cabinet chooses an interim prime minister to run the government until a new government is placed in power. Yigal Allon served as interim prime minister following Levi Eshkol's death, as did Shimon Peres following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: According to Israeli law, if a prime minister is temporarily incapacitated rather than dies (as was the case following Ariel Sharon's stroke in early 2006), power is transferred to the acting prime minister, until the prime minister recovers (Ehud Olmert took over from Sharon), for up to 100 days. If the prime minister is declared permanently incapacitated, or that period expires, the president of Israel oversees the process of assembling a new governing coalition, and in the meantime the acting prime minister or other incumbent minister is appointed by the cabinet to serve as interim prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: In the case of Sharon, elections were already due to occur within 100 days of the beginning of his coma; thus, the post-election coalition-building process pre-empted the emergency provisions for the selection of a new prime minister. Nevertheless, Olmert was appointed interim prime minister on 16 April 2006, after the elections, just days before he formed a government on 4 May 2006, becoming the official prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Aside from the position of Acting Prime Minister, there are also vice prime ministers and deputy prime ministers.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: The interim prime minister (, "Rosh HaMemshala Ba-foal" lit. "prime minister de facto") is appointed by the government if the incumbent is dead or permanently incapacitated, or if his tenure was ended due to a criminal conviction.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Israeli law distinguishes the terms "acting prime minister" (מלא מקום ראש הממשלה), filling in for the incumbent prime minister, temporarily, and acting in the incumbent's office, while the incumbent is in office, and an "interim prime minister" in office. Only if the incumbent prime minister becomes "temporarily incapacitated" will the acting prime minister act in the incumbent's office and will be standing in for him for up to 100 consecutive days, while the incumbent is in office. Legally, the "100 consecutive days" limit, in the language of the law, only stipulates that the incumbent then is deemed to be "permanently incapacitated" and that the limited time for an acting prime minister to act in the incumbent's office is over.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: The 1968 law (prior to the 1992 and 2001 basic laws of government) did not impose a time limit on a "temporarily incapacitation" period of the incumbent prime minister, but rather pending the return of the incumbent to resume his duties, and separately addressed only the event of death of the incumbent for appointing an interim prime minister, while failing to address Permanent incapacitation or criminal conviction of the incumbent prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Israel

text: Separately, the law of 2001 stipulates that in any event where the incumbent prime minister becomes "permanently incapacitated" (either declared as such or "100 consecutive days" limit expired or else), or if the incumbent died or ceased being prime minister due to a criminal conviction, the government that is "deemed to have resigned", to become an interim government, continues to govern until a new government is placed in power, and in the absence of a prime minister in office, they then must vote on one of their incumbent ministers, who meets the requirements, (either the acting prime minister or else) to fully assume office as the "interim Prime minister."