Official poster of Israel’s Holocaust Rememberance Day (Yom Hashoah) 2012

19 04 2012





“The Nicest New Venue in All of Israel”

6 04 2012

Photo by Amit Giron

The opening of the new Herta and Paul Amir Building has recently put the Tel Aviv Museum of Art  front and center as a must-see destination for art lovers from across the globe.

“Since we opened, the amount of tourists coming here is something that the museum never knew before,” says Shuli Kislev, acting director of the museum. “You can hear a lot of English here,” she adds with a laugh.

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is focused solely on Israeli art, and the new space allows for more exhibit possibilities than ever for the museum’s collections.

One New York visitor calls the Amir Building “the nicest new venue in all of Israel.”

Please enjoy the video

Thank you Israel21C for the story





Israel 2nd Most Educated Country

8 03 2012

Israel is the second most educated country in the world, according to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Known around the world for its technological innovations and brainpower, Israel placed second in terms of the number of  its academics. Canada, with a population of 34 million people, placed first in the survey.

The OECD ‘Education at a Glance’ report shows that 45 percent of the Israeli population has a post-secondary education. Canada boasts a 50% rating in the same category.

The report shows that the 10 most educated countries in the world are: Canada, Israel, Japan, US, New Zealand, South Korea, Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia and Finland.

Source





Israeli Game Night?

1 02 2012

Ephraim Hertzano invented Rummikub in the early 1930’s and hand-made the first sets with his family in the backyard of his home in Israel. He designed the game to combine elements of rummy, dominoes, mah-jongg, and chess. Hertzano’s family sold the first sets door-to-door and on a consignment basis at small local shops. The game soon took off, and the family began licensing it to other countries over the years. As a result, it became Israel’s #1 export game. Rummikub made it to American shores in 1964 thanks to the efforts of Pressman Toys. In 1977, it became the best-selling game in the U.S.

Today, Rummikub is licensed internationally by Lemada Light Industries, a company formed in Israel by Hertzano’s children. They have turned the game into a powerhouse phenomenon that is sold in 48 countries and has been translated into 24 languages. Through their efforts, it has become the third best selling game in the world. As a result of this popularity, Rummikub clubs have been formed all over the world, and a World Rummikub Championship has been held every year since 1991. The enduring popularity that Rummikub enjoys is proof that this game has an appeal that is truly universal.

Sources: skooldays.com and wikipadia.org





Did You Know?…

12 01 2012

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As a country, Israel is defined by its collective successes and what follows is but a small sampling of that:

• Ten Israelis have won the Nobel Prize so far.

• Israel is a leader in quality of life. In a comparison conducted by the UN regarding quality of life in 182 countries, Israel ranked 27th, only slightly lower than the UK.

• Israel’s healthcare system is one of the most advanced in the world.

• Israel is a leader in biotechnology development.

• Israeli medical developments are used in the best operating rooms across the world.

• Israeli cows produce the largest amount and highest quality of milk in the world.

• Israel is the only country that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees.

• Israel is one of the world’s top leaders in agricultural development and fruit cloning.

• A quarter of the population holds a degree – ranking third in the world.

• Israel produces more scientific papers and more patents per capita than any other country.

• Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant- absorbing nation, has more museums per capita and receives more media coverage than any other country in the world.

• Israel has sent emergency delegations around the world to assist foreign governments in times of major disaster including but not limited to Cambodia, Rwanda, Turkey, Argentina, Armenia, Russia, Kenya, New Orleans, Haiti, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand.

• The IDF was the first major medical team to set up camp immediately following the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

• The World Economic Forum has recognized Israel as one of the leading countries in the world in technological innovation.

• The cell phone, disk on key, instant messenger chat, voicemail technology and PillCam were all developed in Israel. The Pentium4 processor was designed and developed in Israel as well.

• Microsoft and Cisco built their largest R&D centers in Israel.

• Apple chose Israel as its first and only R&D center outside the US.

• Israel has the world’s highest percentage of engineers and scientists.

• Israel is a leader in genetics and preventive medicine.

• Israel sends hundreds of missions to developing countries worldwide.

• Israeli agricultural experts introduced drip-irrigation technology, saving water in arid regions.

• An Israeli company recently discovered a way to eradicate the use of pesticides for pest control by using edible oil instead.

• A simple, inexpensive Israeli solution for storing staples is helping Africans, South Americans and Asians survive food shortages.

• Except for the US and Canada, Israel has the most traded companies on Wall Street than any other country.

• Israel is a leader in coexistence programs that bring together Arabs and Jews.

• Israel has an incredible array of institutions that focus on charitable outreach and offering help to the needy.

• Israel is unique in terms of its size, location and diversity of climate and wildlife.

• Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo is involved in worldwide breeding efforts and to reintroduce animals to their natural habitats.

• Israel is the only place where biblical history really comes alive.

• While far from perfect, the Knesset is an anomaly in the Middle East. Its makeup of Arabs and Jews, Secular and Orthodox and men and women makes Israel a unique liberal democracy – in fact the only one in the Middle East.

• Israel’s military prowess and might is world renowned. It is a leading force in battlefield technology, counterterrorism, combat skills, intelligence gathering and air superiority. The Mossad is likely the world’s top intelligence agency, unsurpassed in its ability to gather information from around the globe.

For all these reasons and more, it is important to recognize and appreciate that with all its problems, Israel is a great country.

Thank you Jpost for the article.





Bus-Stop Books – Israel’s Newest Public Library

1 12 2011

No fines, no rules, no shushing

Imagine a library where there are no due dates and no librarians telling you to be quiet. Israeli artists have developed a new model for the urban library: a free bus-stop library for commuters and travelers of all ages.

Daniel Shoshan, an installation artist and lecturer at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, along with Technion graduate Amit Matalon, started this new public library concept figuring that people sometimes have long wait times for buses.

Their motto: You may take, you may return, you may add.

The duo built a series of bookshelves at bus stops throughout Israeli cities. The idea is that anyone may take a book from the shelf, read it at the station or take it on the bus and return it when done.

No due dates, no late fees, no rules.

Wait in line at the bus stop, shuffle through a few books, and take one with you on the commute? The idea could not only increase literacy rates in communities, but also serve as a new way of connecting people.

“Citizens in the city are now creating new ways of sharing,” says Shoshan. “In Kfar Saba, Hadar Yossef and Haifa, people started to exchange books among themselves without any rules in place. You can put your books on the shelf, and others will add or take from it. It’s just the citizens and neighborhood monitoring it by themselves.”

This could also be a creative marketing platform for unknown authors to spread their works. Israel already has professors giving scholarly lectures on trains. Maybe thanks to this new project, new authors will give public reading at bus stops.

Shoshan thinks such a project could work as a community-builder in disadvantaged areas as well. With little outlay in costs, what’s to lose?

For further reading please click here




Prompt Israeli Aid Follows Turkish Call for Assistance

27 10 2011

Israel delivered prefabricated homes to Turkey on Thursday. Copyright 2011 The New York Times Company

An Israeli plane carrying emergency housing led a flow of  international aid into the quake-stricken area of eastern Turkey on Thursday as the death toll rose to at least 523.

Israel quickly responded to Turkey’s call for international aid yesterday, sending seven prefab houses to the quake-stricken eastern province of Van.

Turkey asked for assistance from more than 30 countries that offered to help in the country’s efforts to relieve its easternmost province from the disaster that struck on Sunday.

Israel was the first country to respond to Turkey’s call, immediately sending a civilian Boeing 747 carrying seven prefab housing units.

Israel’s Defense Ministry said they would continue to send more aid.

Source: 1 , 2





Jigsaw Nation

12 10 2011

Puzzle balls are all the rage in Israel

Israelis are among the world’s top jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts. “Everyone does puzzles in Israel,” says Yossi Bar-on, the country’s unofficial puzzle guru, “There are some 200 puzzles per 100 people in Israel. That’s among the highest in the world per capita.”

Some 1.2 million puzzles are sold in Israel annually, according to Bar-on, CEO of  Puzzleland retail chain. By comparison, in the United States, where the population is 44 times that of Israel’s, some three million puzzles are sold yearly according to the Puzzle History website.

It is widely accepted that Englishman John Spilsbury invented the jigsaw puzzle in 1767 when he cut up a map of the world to teach geography to children. Spilsbury, an engraver and mapmaker, attached the map to a piece of wood and cut out each country.

The world’s largest commercial puzzle has a whopping 32,256 pieces. Made by Ravensburger, it features artist Keith Haring’s work. Eight of Israel’s top puzzle enthusiasts joined forces for four months on this puzzle, and the result is on display at a Tel Aviv mall.

“Israelis have a culture of doing puzzles,” says Bar-on. “Everyone – Jews, Arabs, secular, religious – does puzzles. It’s about connection, sitting together, making something together. This warmth and family bond is important to Israelis.”

For further reading please click here




Israeli Scientist Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

5 10 2011

In this image made from video provided by Israel Channel 10, on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman is seen during a television interview.

Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his controversial discovery of non-repeating patterns in atoms called quasicrystals.

He is the third Israeli to win the award in chemistry, and the 10th Israeli to win a prestigious Nobel Prize in the country’s 63-year history.

The Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, had discovered quasicrystals, that appeared to be like “fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms” and which never repeated themselves.

Shechtman, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1941, had to fight hard for his science. He received his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees from the Technion, and joined the faculty in 1975.

It was while he was on sabbatical at John Hopkins University and working with the National Bureau of Standards in 1982 that he discovered a startling anomaly in the atom patterns of a quasicrystal, a metallic alloy.

Until this discovery, scientists believed that atom patterns inside quasicrystals had to repeat themselves symmetrically. The atoms that Shechtman saw through his electron microscope, however, were packed in a pattern that could not be repeated.

Shechtman’s findings were considered extremely controversial at the time and he was ridiculed by the scientific community for two years. During the course of defending his scientific work, the professor was asked to leave his research group.

In an interview he later said: “If you’re a scientist and believe in your results: fight for them. Fight for the truth.”

“The configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Daniel Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science,” Nobel Committee for Chemistry announced. His discovery “fundamentally altered the way chemists look at solid matter.”

Earlier today Shechtman, who won the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1999, and the Israel Prize for physics in 1998, told the Associated Press that “it feels wonderful.”

For further reading please click here





One Family, Three World-Class Jazz Musicians

22 09 2011

Meet Yuval, Anat and Avishai, Tel Aviv siblings who are tearing up the global jazz music scene. Photo by Osnat Rom

How does one raise three children to become world-class jazz musicians? Bilha and David Cohen aren’t exactly sure how Yuval, Anat and Avishai who record and tour separately and together as “The 3 Cohens“, all ended up on the same page that is, stage.

“I don’t know how it worked, the siblings’ mother confesses in an interview from her Tel Aviv home. The following day, she was flying to the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy to see Anat, recently named Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association for the fifth straight year.

A former kindergarten music teacher, Bilha Cohen ferried her kids to lessons at the Jaffa Music Conservatory three times a week. But that was their choice. “We never pushed them,” she stresses. “Anat began playing a small organ when she was six, and took up the clarinet when she was 12.” Yuval claimed the saxophone at age nine. Avishai requested trumpet lessons when he was eight. “Can you imagine hearing different wind instruments playing in our house at the same time?” Bilha says. “It was crazy.”

It’s not so crazy anymore as the Cohens reap the satisfaction of having reared a trio with many albums under their belts and regular appearances in the United States, Europe, South America and Israel.

For further reading please click here








Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 309 other followers