In this week’s blog, I will illustrate how
the Hebrew word “beyachad” (together) typifies the Israeli approach to
innovating a better world.
Israel and the US continue to move closer
together economically. The Israel-US
Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation recently
approved $8.3 million in new funding for 11 projects where US and Israeli
companies are working
together. Next, the new Israeli
branch of US technology innovator Bell
Labs is promoting itself as a new avenue for Israeli PhD graduates to
pursue research careers in Israel. Then,
American Internet and media giant AOL announced that it is investing $5million
in a joint US-Israeli video research project at the Technion-Cornell
Institute. AOL already has an
Israeli R&D center. And finally, US
camera-maker Kodak
is looking to acquire Israeli tech startups to help rebuild the company as a
leader in digital printing.
Many countries realize that they need to
get together with Israel if they are to tackle water scarcity and wastewater
problems. The University of Chicago
has sought out Israel's Ben-Gurion University to help develop radical new
approaches that may one day rejuvenate the world's water-starved regions. Scotland’s BDS idiots must be “drowning their
sorrows” following the successful UK pilot project of the recycling technology
from Israel’s Applied CleanTech for wastewater - at Scottish
Water!
Israeli
biotechs are developing treatments that work together with the body’s immune
system in order to beat cancer. Israel’s cCAM
has just received US FDA approval to commence trials of its CM-24, which targets
a protein that blocks the immune system’s ability to destroy cancer cells. Israel’s Compugen
has several candidate drugs that target these proteins and has enlisted John
Hopkins University in the US to help assess them. And Israel’s Vaxil
Biotherapeutics has reported that its cancer vaccine, ImMucin (that
boosts the immune system to prevent cancer returning) triggers an immune
response in about 90 percent of all types of cancer.
Many Israeli innovations are successful due
to the way they use a combination of technologies. Take for example Israeli startup BrightWay
Vision, which has developed “BrightEye”
– a unique night-vision system that gives drivers a clear, panoramic view of
the road, five times beyond the range of headlights. The system sends out a pulse of light that is
reflected back to a synchronized camera
that only accepts images that the pulse generated.
The Israeli startup, SolView,
works with solar panel installers to check instantly whether a particular roof
could generate sufficient solar energy to justify installation. SolView takes data from Google Earth to power
its automated rooftop scanning technology.
Another Israeli startup HealthWatch Technologies connects
your heart instantly to your cardiologist by means of a washable T-shirt
with printed electrodes. It can
read a patient’s vital signs, which are then transmitted to the specialist –
speed being the key to preventing heart attacks.
Despite what you hear from Israel’s enemies,
Israeli society is increasingly “getting it together”. In a recent survey, 65 percent of Arab
citizens said they were either “quite” or “very” proud
to be Israeli in 2014, up from 50 percent the previous year. The majority had faith in the Supreme Court,
Israeli police and in the IDF. And we
can all be proud of the IDF’s performance in humanitarian medical rescue
missions – just watch this inspirational presentation by Brigadier General
Professor Yitshak Kreiss describing the leadership, medicine and the personal
dilemmas faced when putting back together
the lives of those injured in overseas disasters.
There is no denying the togetherness that
Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews share.
Unfortunately, these are troubled times for the Jews of Europe. 226 Ukrainian immigrants landed
in Israel including dozens of families of refugees from eastern
Ukraine. And as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to the
youngsters at Taglit-Birthright Israel’s 15th anniversary event, “In Israel,
every Jew can say, ‘I am a Jew, Je suis Juif,’ out loud and proudly, without
fear. Come to Israel… This
is your land.” Israelis Michael
(92) and Marion (90) Mittwoch know all about troubled times and are now
experiencing the good times. They have
just celebrated the birth of a new great-grandchild – their 100th! After
escaping Nazi Germany, the Mittwochs immigrated to Israel where they got
together to become the first couple to be married at Kibbutz Lavi. All children and grandchildren live in
Israel.
I will conclude with two apparently
inanimate examples of Israeli togetherness.
In the first, you can watch Tel Aviv and Jerusalem getting closer
together (at least in travel time) by selecting full screen view to see an
amazing video tour of the new road construction along the highway to Jerusalem,
together with the Biblical
locations along the way.
And lastly, when filmmaker Micha Shagrir
donated a 1667 Hebrew Bible to Haifa University, staff discovered that a Bible
written by the same person was already on the library's shelves. An Egyptian Armenian gave Shagrir his Bible
in gratitude for his film about the Armenian genocide and Shagrir’s gift reunited the
two holy books after 350 years.
Yes, in Israel, everything’s finally coming together.
Michael Ordman writes a free weekly
newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to
michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
