Israel Opens Doors

The modern Jewish state was established after the world closed its doors to European Jewry.  Today, Israeli innovations are opening doors to millions across the planet who had previously thought that their window of opportunity was firmly shut.

Many sufferers from strokes, dementia, fibromyalgia and burns could be released from their “locked-in” existence now that Israel’s Assaf Harofeh Medical Center has opened the world’s largest high-pressure oxygen chamber.  It has a capacity for 150 patients per day and can also treat victims of diving accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning, radiation damage and bone infections.  Meanwhile, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, scientists have discovered that the visual cortexes of the blind from birth are similar to those of the fully sighted.  It has provided an open opportunity for the blind to be trained to “see” sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J9AGklNDUc

Open-minded Israeli doctors have known for some time that there is a genetic link between over eighty autoimmune diseases.  This has opened a new line of research leading to the discovery by scientists at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem that the rheumatoid arthritis medication Baricitinib is effective in the treatment of Alopecia Areata, whose symptoms are hair loss.  And research by Hebrew University of Jerusalem psychologist Professor Ariel Knafo has shown that children who mimic each other’s body language for mere minutes each day are more likely to open-up to others and share feelings of similarity and closeness.  The findings could open the way to new therapies for developing positive social behaviors in disruptive children.

Israel is open to sharing the credit for discoveries that can benefit humanity.  This has led to many joint research agreements between Israeli and international scientists, including recently with the UK’s Royal Society and also with France’s Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission.  Israel has also opened its doors to Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of India’s Maharashtra state who wants to replicate Israel’s agriculture technology in one of the most populous areas in the world.

Recent news is full of multinational companies wanting to open research and development centers in Israel.  German energy giant RWE AG is opening an Israeli innovation center in order to develop technology for a smart grid metering system that will keep track of how consumers use electricity.  Canadian handset maker Blackberry finally opened up in Israel by buying Israeli device security company WatchDox, whose 100 employees will form the core of Blackberry’s new Israeli R&D team.  And US video production giant Avid Technology’s purchase of Israel’s Orad Hi-Tec and its slick graphic technologies will result in the opening of Avid’s new Israeli R&D facility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyJ4TFMYAN4

Now that Israel has signed Europe’s “Open Skies” agreement, it has opened up the country to the likes of Europe’s biggest airline Ryanair, which is eager to open up new routes between Tel Aviv and Europe.  The airways are also buzzing with the news that a consortium of top Israeli companies and universities is studying 3D printing technologies that could open up a radical new way of designing and manufacturing aircraft components.

Israel has some beautiful geographic features, including its award-winning beaches, which are now open right through until October.  However, I admit that I was openly surprised to read that the usually anti-Israel UNESCO recently added Israel’s open cave system at Beit Guvrin to its list of World Heritage sites.  Unfortunately, not all openings in the ground are positive, as the recent earthquake in Nepal has proved.  But it again has highlighted the openhearted nature of Israel in sending rescuers and humanitarian aid to save human lives wherever and whenever it can.

In Israel, the door of opportunity is open to anyone who has the desire to succeed.  One such example is Ilit Geller, the female CEO of Israel’s TradAir, who operates in the traditionally “man’s world” of Foreign Exchange trading.  And please watch this video of young Aaron Shapso – a Circassian (Sunni Muslim) from the village of Kafr Kama.  Aaron is the captain of the youth soccer team Maccabi Haifa Nahalal, which is open to children of all religions and ethnic groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15BIKfcb1eo

Finally, Avraham Nagusie epitomizes Israel’s open-door policy. Nagusie was a shepherd in Ethiopia before immigrating to Israel in 1985. He then graduated with degrees in Social work and Law and a PhD in Education. Now at 57, he has opened the door to Israel's parliament by becoming a lawmaker in Israel’s 20th Knesset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fp6gaeUhE8 
  

Israel – it’s an open miracle. 

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 Cannot Lose

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/israel-cannot-lose

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/5227

Israelis know that the Jewish State cannot afford to lose a single war or conflict.  In fact prevention of any loss of innocent life is paramount to Israelis.  And a determined “refusal to give up” is almost a national character trait that can be seen in many other aspects of Israeli society.

Israel is one of the top countries working to prevent or reduce loss of life from cancer.  Researchers at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center have just made a major breakthrough by discovering how breast cancer develops resistance to anti-cancer drugs.  The finding should help develop new treatments.  And only Israelis can learn how a killer virus can prevent loss of life.  Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have identified how the HIV virus suppresses the T-cell immune response and can help fight the battle against deadly autoimmune diseases.

Israelis apply the “preventing loss of life” principle right across the world.  Anat from Israel’s il4syrians.org is called “Syria’s Israeli guardian angel”. Her 200 volunteers include former Israeli commandos, doctors, social workers, nurses, and Arabic-speaking trauma specialists who provide relief to thousands of Syrian refugees.  Israel has also not lost track of the hundreds of thousands who lost everything in Typhoon Haiyan.  Agricultural developers from Israel’s Tahal Group are providing technology assistance to help recovery operations in the Philippines province of Davao del Sur.  Americans and Europeans are also currently experiencing extreme weather conditions. Many will therefore appreciate Israel’s ClickSoftware which reduces the huge losses suffered in those countries by helping to schedule employees responsible for repairing damage from storms, fires, earthquakes, gas leaks and burst water mains.

Israeli hi-tech is already the world’s best hope of preventing massive loss of life through drought and global starvation.  At Tel Aviv’s recent WATEC water technology conference, the JNF showcased its innovations for preventing the loss of precious water resources to other drought-ravaged countries and demonstrated how to make non-arable land better suited for agriculture.  Next, take a look at AgriTask from Israel’s ScanTask - the new “Waze” of agriculture – that helps farmers make decisions on irrigating, planting, harvesting and the use of pesticides.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-qde5-jjY

Staying in the water, Israel’s Amiad is benefiting from new US Navy regulations designed to stop the loss of water pollutants from its ships.  All new vessels assembled at the Navy’s Virginia shipyards will be fitted with Amiad’s water filters, including the massive new USS John F Kennedy aircraft carrier.  And whilst we’re afloat, I must highlight that Israel’s Ben Gurion University and Canada’s Dalhousie University are to jointly build an Internationally recognized Ocean studies center in Eilat.  Among the many aims of the center is to avert the loss of endangered marine species.

Two Israeli organizations have recently promoted the Jewish value that no child should lose the opportunity for a decent education.  The first is the Haifa Center for Children with Learning Disabilities (Chi.L.D.) - a dynamic learning and therapeutic center providing children and families with vital educational, social and therapeutic services.  The second is the amazing Israel Center for Excellence through Education, which has developed the CIJE Excellence 2000 program now being exported to the US, Australia, Austria, India, Poland and Singapore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nce1w9RyzoQ

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem is helping to ensure the Jewish State does not lose connection with its lost tribes by sponsoring the immigration of another wave of members of India’s Bnei Menashe to Israel, reuniting them with their families and ancestral homeland.  And Israeli artist Irene Orleansky has partnered with the Abayudaya Jewish Community of Uganda to create "Shalom, Mirembe!" as part of a music collection from Israelites and Jews of Africa and Asia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQu0j_Yjzrs

Here are two recent examples where Israel strives not to lose the connection between its people and their heritage.  Firstly, the Yad Ezer La’Haver ("helping hand to a friend") association arranged for twelve Holocaust survivors to celebrate a joint bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah ceremony, as they lost the chance to mark their coming of age during their youth.  “At the age of thirteen I was in Auschwitz," said one of them. "There wasn't really anyone to talk to about celebrations."  Secondly, please watch this new 7-minute documentary featuring Jewish families who lived in Jerusalem’s Old City for generations, but lost their homes when the Arab Legion evicted them in 1948 after the State of Israel was declared. They returned 19 years later in 1967 after Israeli forces liberated the Old City during the Six Day War.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvKMVOfED1k

Finally, we return to the Israeli determination not to lose a single soul.  On a recent Shabbat morning, two religious students visited our local Netanya Laniado Hospital to distribute sweets and wish everyone a “speedy recovery.”  They sang to a 60-year-old woman who was close to death and by Monday she had revived, amazing the medical staff. “Thanks to them I am alive,” she said.

With Israel’s winning, life-giving team - you cannot lose!

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 is Weird and Wonderful

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/israel-weird-and-wonderful

http://blogs.jpost.com/print/5002

In this topsy-turvy world, it is common to find positive news about the Jewish State in most unusual circumstances.

Something weird happened at the United Nations General Assembly last week.  Someone spoke the truth.  Due to a faulty open microphone, an interpreter broadcast to everyone her inability to understand why there were 10 resolutions concerning Israel when there was so much else happening in the world.  And then guilty laughter broke out from the delegates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CflHEGP-GjM

What was really strange was that the nations were condemning Israel whilst ignoring the mass-murder of Syrian civilians by the Syrian government.  Meanwhile, on the other side of Syria’s border with Israel, Syria’s “enemy” was busy healing wounded from Syria’s civil war. A fact that even an official from the EU couldn’t ignore when he praised Israel’s treatment of “the other”.  The UN also didn’t seem to notice that on the other side of the world, Israeli doctors were among the first international relief teams to arrive in the Philippines following devastating typhoon Haiyan.  Within a short time they had set up a field hospital and were treating over 300 patients a day, including delivering premature babies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke04OKpPEqQ

The main story on the BBC World Service last week was that a world crisis is imminent because life-threatening bacteria has become resistant to all antibiotics.  So it was really weird that Tel Aviv University had just announced that some of its researchers have just succeeded in isolating a protein that kills these bacteria. The BBC of course failed to report this, or the strange coincidence that another group of researchers at the same Tel Aviv University have found a way to control an overactive immune response that can trigger allergies and autoimmune diseases. 

Israeli companies have developed some really weird and wonderful medical devices. One of the is the SAGIV, invented by Hebrew University students, that provides 100% accurate insertion of intravenous tubes into a person’s veins.  It is particularly applicable for the tiny veins of sick babies.  I hope you have heard about the EarDoc from Israel’s Kencap Medical solutions. It’s a non-invasive, non-surgical device that can improve the quality of life for sufferers of earache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdqrGaUF5EQ

Israelis have invented some weird new energy sources.  Israel’s Energy Industries makes electricity from garbage.  It is constructing a power plant in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, to convert the methane gas extracted from a giant landfill.  Back in Israel, Ben Gurion University scientists have developed a revolutionary new method for producing liquid fuel from hydrogen and carbon dioxide - two of the most common substances on earth. 

It will probably seem strange to many readers that the new Dean of Exact Sciences at Bar-Ilan University is a female convert to ultra-orthodox Judaism.  You may also like to watch this unusual performance of one of the traditional songs for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah by five talented students from Israel’s Technion. It will certainly raise a few eyebrows in China, where the Technion is building another Institute of Technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb_CbuhLi2Q&feature=youtu.be

Another Asian country where Israel is admired is South Korea.  At the first-ever Korea-Israel Creative Economy Forum, Ambassador Kim Il-soo predicted that the two countries would combine to form an economic powerhouse.  Even now, Samsung’s only foreign R&D center outside of Korea is located in Israel.  Israel’s innovative technology drives the advanced cameras on Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.  You can also make some weird gestures to control your Samsung Smart TV thanks to Israel’s PointGrab.  Its award winning gesture technology has also just been selected by TCL Corporation, the third largest television brand in the world.

I will end by returning to the BBC who broadcast a weird interview last week.  The topic of discussion was the disappearance of Christians, due to persecution, from their places of origin.  When the interviewee mentioned one of the problem countries to be Pakistan, the BBC presenter quickly added “and Israel”.  Strange, but the facts show that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is on the increase.

Isn’t it weird how wonderful the truth is?  (Pity we don’t hear more of it.)

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