Israel Educates for Life

Having read so many recent stories of schoolchildren around the world being radicalized by Islamic extremists, here is a collection of contrasting education-related activities and news articles I’ve collected over the past few weeks concerning the Jewish State.

I will begin in the Israeli school system itself. Whereas 100 countries marked Feb 11 as Safer Internet Day, Israel’s Ministry of Education, on Feb 8, launched Annual National Week for Online Safety Education in Israel.  Throughout the entire state educational system, students engaged in classroom and online activities designed to increase awareness for Internet safety, reduce potential risks, and deal with any harmful online incidents. 

100,000 Israeli kids attend a Sci-Tech school – that’s 10 percent of all Israeli high school students (including Muslims, Christians and Druze).  The Sci-Tech network builds curricula based on the demand for professionals in various Israeli industries, and it currently has 18 industrial vocational schools.  This Bloomberg report shows how Israeli-Arabs (especially women) continue to flourish educationally, at Technion Institute of Technology – one of Israel’s top class higher education establishments.

Technion’s President Peretz Lavie has been describing the importance of Technology and Education.  Technion graduates have either founded or are managing two-thirds of the Israeli companies on NASDAQ.  And the trend is bound to continue with initiatives such as the brand new development lab that the Technion and Microsoft have built together. It has facilities that allow students to develop innovative technologies to rival anything a hi-tech company can design.  They might even eliminate cancer, thanks to a recent multi-million dollar donation for educational research into the disease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrS_0cYm7iE

Life-changing discoveries continue to be made at other Israeli establishments of higher education.  Researchers at Tel Aviv University have been receiving large numbers of small public donations (known as “crowdfunding”) to allow them to conduct DNA sequencing tests. These have identified the genetic mutations responsible for severe educational developmental delays in children.  Meanwhile, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot have embarked on a project with a group of Japanese scientists to discover how autistic spectrum disorder progresses in the brain.  Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are also studying the brain – this time those of blind people, in order to shed new light on how our brains can adapt to the rapid cultural and technological changes of the 21st Century.  This led to the discovery that reading Braille utilizes “visual” areas of the brain.  Finally, Ben-Gurion University hosted “Light and Blindness” - an exhibition of research-and-development activities in Israel designed to improve the quality of life for people with visual impairment.  It included a startup contest and the opening of a trail for the blind.

Two Israeli companies recently reported achievements with their medical “education” technologies. First, Israel’s Pluristem Therapeutics announced that its stem cells help to educate the body to build muscle after a hip replacement.  Then Israel’s Meditouch demonstrated its wearable movement biofeedback devices and dedicated rehabilitation software, which are used in hospitals, clinics and at home to motivate patients to exercise and improve movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkrumdWCeps

Israel’s medical education programs are making a difference across the globe.  According to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, eight joint UK-Israeli stem cell research projects have “the potential to change the lives of hundreds of millions of people.”  In West Africa, Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID has set-up a program entitled “Ebola Heroes” to provide psychosocial education and training to health workers, teachers, burial teams, policemen, social workers involved in treating Ebola cases. 

So before the Jewish State is delegitimized by billions of radicalized individuals, let’s use positive news like this to re-educate the world about Israel.  We are helped by the international education non-profit StandWithUs, which has launched its “Social Media Ambassadors” program. StandWithUs is educating university students in the use of multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.  In another initiative, Israel’s Technion (again) brought over 50 university and secondary students from Hong Kong to educate them about Israeli entrepreneurial success.

We also need to educate ourselves so that we champion those who safeguard the future of the Jewish State. We need to publicize the message of the non-Jewish student visitor who is “awed by pluralistic, diverse Israel” and who leaves determined to educate the world about the democratic Jewish State.  We need to fight alongside people like Irish Catholic Belinda “Don’t judge Israel before you’ve seen it” Hickey who counters uneducated bigotry in Ireland.

Finally, here is another piece of good news. You may have heard already about Israel’s educational bus stop libraries that are still expanding locally.  Well what do you know?  The concept has just been adopted in Istanbul.  And guess what? The Turkish media report proclaims that it was inspired by Israel!

We learn something new every day.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

When will they ever learn?

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/when-will-they-ever-learn

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/5141

I write this after hearing two BBC presenters express horror that a Moslem family strapped a suicide belt onto their 9-year-old daughter and attempted to educate her to blow herself up at a checkpoint.  Before you congratulate the BBC on learning the facts of life about Islamic terrorism, I have to point out that this was a report from Afghanistan.  The BBC unfortunately cannot make the educational leap in connecting this to the evil of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas constantly teaching their children to hate Israelis.

In contrast to the schooling of that Moslem girl, “education” in the Jewish State has completely the opposite purpose.  Take for instance the life-saving advances in medicine over the past few weeks.  After two years’ training Israeli surgeons at Israel’s Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva performed the first-ever successful transplant in Israel of a small intestine.  The donor was an 11-year-old Israeli girl whose other organs saved the lives of four children.  In medical research, neuroscientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have uncovered defects in the brain’s basic biochemical transport mechanism that can cause diseases such as Parkinson’s and Huntingdon’s. The discovery opens up exciting new areas to develop potential treatments.  Meanwhile, the Israeli Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee has allocated NIS 2.5 million for eighteen new biomedical research projects to be conducted at hospitals in northern Israel.

Here is some recent news of three innovative educating devices that Israelis have developed to address different medical problems.  To help patients learn to recover from the shoulder injury known as Rotator Cuff, Israel’s OrthoSpace has developed the InSpace Balloon, which is implanted in a minimally invasive procedure. To relax their youngest patients prior to surgery, staff at Schneider Children’s Medical Center push them into the operating room in toy pedal cars. But the third device literally opens up a whole new world for autistic children or anyone with severely impaired speaking or writing ability.  Ola Mundo (“Hello World ” in Spanish) is a simple but effective mobile app that transmits instant messages using symbols.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u0x-1xgLxA

Graduating from the field of medicine, here are some Israeli applications and devices with an educational theme that have been receiving a good deal of attention recently.  You will soon “know the score” when you use the new version of the Tonara iPad electronic sheet music application.  Learn the lessons of high-rise disasters by installing the Israeli-developed Skysaver escape harness.  And it’s a whole new ball game now that tennis players can train using Israel’s SmartCourt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1JUnYhRHog

Israel is working to ensure that every citizen gets the educational opportunities they require:

-          Kol Israel Haverim, is promoting the Israeli program that supports high school girls in science, technology, engineering and math.

-          Pupils from two Israeli schools received a boost when their scientific experiments were launched to the International Space Station where astronauts will perform them in zero gravity.

-          And the new Adelson School of Entrepreneurship at the IDC Herzliya is set to change the status quo by providing students with the knowledge and tools to realize their entrepreneurial ambitions. 

At Israel’s Technion, young people are empowered with the educational tools to make a real difference in the world.  They can change the lives of women in Nepal by building sustainable biomass reactors that generate clean energy from recycled waste. Or they can develop a fuel cell powered by Aluminum and water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBbPL_c0mks&feature=youtu.be

It is encouraging that many non-Israelis are learning about the positive side of the Jewish State.  They include

-          Five international art bloggers with millions of avid readers who visited the country’s museums and met its top artists as guests of the Kinetis nonprofit educational organization.

-          Overseas delegates attending the European Supercomputing Winter School in Tel Aviv.

-          Turkish medics who purchased a Renaissance surgical robotic system from Israel’s Mazor Robotics for a major hospital in Istanbul.

-          Arab media that publicizes the fact that Israel gives medical treatment to Palestinian Arabs.

-          Syrian refugees receiving clothing from Israeli student organization Human Warmth (Cham Enoshi).

-          Residents of PA village Wadi Nis who receive free weekly personal house calls from Dr. Yitz Glick, an orthodox Jew from Efrat in Judea.  Dr Glick also founded the Efrat Emergency Medical Center in 2000, which treats both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.

-          The United Nations, which is being advised by Israel’s Moti Cohen on how to build aquaponic farms that provide people with both fish and plants to eat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFsrhkNEV98

I return to Israel’s Technion for this final item in which 20 students have been training 20 Labrador guide dogs whilst they are studying for their degrees.  Students have the lifestyle that can train guide dogs to behave well in all situations.  But the real reason why the project is so successful is because the students love their dogs and the dogs love their students.

It’s a lesson we can all learn.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

Israel Boycotters are in a World of their Own

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/israel-boycotters-are-world-their-own

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/4573

Here is my third and final medical analysis of the pointlessness and futility of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) crazies who target Israeli goods and services.  (For those who wish to be reminded of parts one and two, they can be read here and here.)  Again, please remember that all my examples are taken from news items that were published only in the last 4.5 months.  If I included all the medical work that Israel was doing, this article would run to hundreds of thousands of words.

I proved previously that BDS-ers have no heart, brains or spine – otherwise why would they boycott the country that is developing treatments for those areas of the body.  Now I suggest that the whole BDS idea is not only wrong - it is nonsense.  There is no sense whatsoever in boycotting a country that is working on restoring the senses of millions of people. 

-         Have they not heard that Tel Aviv University Professor Karen Avraham has discovered the reason for genetic hearing loss?

-         Have they lost sight of the benefit of Israel Technion’s research into substituting damaged retinas with a new area of the eye that has been turned into photoreceptors? 

-         Did they not read that US President Obama’s step-grandmother underwent emergency eye treatment at an Israeli-run hospital in Equatorial Guinea?

Would-be boycotters:

-         Do not have the guts to admit that Israeli research into colon disease is the best in the world.  Israel’s BiolineRX’s BL-7040 oral treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) could bring relief to 1.4 million individuals in the US alone. 

-         Obviously cannot stomach the fact that scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered at the cellular level how the gut’s immune system maintains a healthy balance.

-         Will be really “down in the mouth” when they realise their doctors cannot use the video and endoscope system from Israel’s Peer Medical.

I wish the BDS crowd would grow up:

-         But how can they if they boycott the human growth hormone developed by Israel’s Prolor Biotech? 

It is the end of the line for childless BDS-ers who boycott Israel’s innovative fertility treatments.

-         Cytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection (IMSI) developed in 2004 by Benjamin Bartoov of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University is at the core of the recently opened IVF centers in New Delhi. 

-         A research team from Israel’s Technion has produced human eggs using cells from the amniotic sac that surrounds a baby in the womb.  Experts believe that donation of the amniotic sac will be more acceptable than egg donation from fertile women – but not to BDS-ers.

Life is just too complicated for BDS-ers:

-         And they should end it all, now that they know three Israelis invented the science of Biogerontology (the study of longevity and the aging process) and that Israel recently hosted the eighth European Congress of Biogerontology.

The despicable BDS-ers cannot have any wish to save life. 

-         They would have added to the deaths of those murdered in the Boston Marathon bombings through refusing Israel’s help train Boston medical staff for a mass-casualty event.

-         They have no pity for the Boston children who would have been permanently scarred but for the post-trauma help from the Israel Trauma Coalition.

-         They would rather say “Roger and Out” to reducing emergency response times with the innovative call centre system from Israel’s NowForce, now operating in Missouri or to any training with Magen David Adom – Israel’s emergency first response service.

-         They would happily switch off Israel’s EarlySense “under the mattress” patient vital signs monitoring system currently being distributed to hospitals across the United States.

-         They would tell you to hand back your Oxitone wrist-worn blood-oxygen monitor that warns of any sudden deterioration in an “at risk” patient’s condition.

-         No sweat to them that more Africans have to die from tropical diseases rather than allow Ben Gurion University students to carry out an extensive educational medical and sanitation program in Ethiopia.

The warped world that the BDS-ers inhabit has no desire:

-         To cure measles; the US National Institutes of Health wants Ben-Gurion University to discover why the measles virus persists

-         To recognise Downs Syndrome; Israel and Singapore established World Down Syndrome Day in 2006 and over 400 participants attended this year’s event at Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem in April.

-         To cure autism; Osnat Zomer-Penn received the L’Oréal-UNESCO “Women in Science” prize for determining its genetic basis.

-         To treat osteo-arthritis; Moebius’s injectable solution was demonstrated at US road shows in February.

Finally, ALEH - Israel’s largest network of facilities for children with severe cognitive and physical disabilities - has pioneered a virtual reality (VR) facility to allow their residents to go on occasional field trips in simulated environments.  BDS-ers, however, live permanently in a Virtual world.  I advise them all to undergo cognative therapy until they can recognise the real world in which Israeli medical innovations are indispensable.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

Blue Sky Thinking

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/blue-sky-thinking

Israel turns Problems into Opportunities

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/israel-turns-problems-opportunities

Making All the Right Moves

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/making-all-right-moves

An Extraordinary State

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/extraordinary-state