We will shortly bid farewell to the old
Jewish Year 5773 and welcome in New Year 5774.
It is a good time to look both forwards and backwards at some of the
latest innovations and discoveries that are making an historic impact on our
lives.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem was
established many years ago,
but its new BioDesign
program is a revolutionary production line for medical innovation.
Student teams take clinical problems from Israeli and American hospitals,
evaluate the commercial potential and design a solution that can be marketed
almost immediately. In its first year,
BioDesign has generated:
-
The GuideIN Tube robotic device to
fix an air tube safely for enabling patients to breathe
-
The Sagiv device for inserting
intravenous tubes into small veins
-
A tool to take measurements for dentures,
replacing a 100-year-old
long-winded method
In the “olden” days, torn knee ligaments
and damaged cartilage were “end-of-story” events for sports men and women. Now, following recent European approval and
promising trials, two Israeli devices - Tavor’s
Knee-T-Nol tendon implant and CartiHeal’s
Agili-C regeneration implant – are literally rebuilding the lives of
injured athletes.
Israel’s Technion Institute is over 100
years old but its graduates are positively flowing with inventions. One of the latest is the surgical glue Seal-V
that will stop the unwanted flow of blood following operations. Seal-V
is fast bonding, safer than protein-based or synthetic-based alternatives and
has just received the European CE mark of approval. Technion students certainly got “stuck in” inventing a new way to
perform the traditional Jewish New Year activity of dipping apple in
honey. Using an ancient weapon – a
crossbow – suitably updated, they shot a piece of apple at a balloon filled
with honey, high above Israel Technion’s campus. Why? To show that the
Technion aims higher!
Chess is another old traditional activity
that Israelis have enhanced using
modern technology. Deep Junior, a program written by Israelis Amir Ban
and Shay Bushinsky, and running on a Dual 12 core Intel Xenon I5 2.7 GHz
computer, won the World Computer Chess Championship in Yokohama, Japan. Junior has now won six of
the last eleven tournaments.
The world’s ancient
coral reefs are also benefiting from Israeli technology. The Technion’s
Particle Image Velocimeter (PIV) laboratory measures the ocean flow to analyze
the health of the ecosystem that lives on these fragile colonies. And ancient
man may have invented fire, but when the flames get out of control, Israeli
technology is needed to put them out.
Following the Carmel forest fires last year, Israel’s Ministry of Public
Security used theoretical models and live feeds to develop the Matash Fire
Forecasting System - the first operational system of its kind in the
world. It has already helped to control
and extinguish forest fires in Israel.
Man has been
growing crops for many millennia, but only now have Israeli scientists
discovered how to turn previously inedible plants into new
food crops to feed an ever-hungry world. And isn’t it amazing that almost every week Israel is discovering
ancient
resources of natural gas close to its coastline. This energy supply has
just begun to add significant
new power to the Israel economy.
Simultaneously, as our peace negotiation
“partners” deny any Jewish connection to our country, Israelis are digging up
thousands of artifacts pertaining to ancient Jewish settlement in the Land of
Israel. At the City of David excavations in Jerusalem, archaeologists unearthed
a 2700-year-old
Hebrew inscription on a pottery fragment from the first Temple period.
It contains a name that matches the Biblical figure Zechariah son of
Benaiah. Meanwhile, in Ashdod harbor, a
wall from
the same period of history has been excavated that was built during the
time that the Assyrian king Sargon II was destroying the local Philistine
army. The prophet Isaiah (see chapter
20) warned Judah’s king Hezekiah to stay out of the fight – advice, which
Hezekiah heeded.
The Arabs expelled the ancient Jewish
communities of North Africa long ago, but those Jews that resettled in France
are now
immigrating to Israel in increasing numbers. A 10% increase in Aliya
since the beginning of 2013 is expected to swell to 2500 new immigrants by the
end of the year – almost double the rate for previous years. And a total of 331 North Americans landed at
Ben Gurion Airport on August 13, 2013 to start new
lives in the Jewish State. The
flight marked the 50th Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight since the group began
mass Aliya flights to Israel in August 2002.
Finally, Israelis are actually redefining
the term “old”. Whilst Israeli
humanitarian organization such as Tevel b'Tzedek are extending
life expectancy in countries such as Nepal, Israel itself has been
recognized by Bloomberg as having one of the best
healthcare services in the world.
The average life expectancy in the Jewish State is now 81 years. So the final item should not really be a
surprise. Yitzhak
Pundak fought in Israel’s War of Independence. He then commanded the
Nahal Brigade and the Armored Corps after the War. In 1971 Moshe Dayan
appointed him Governor of Gaza, but his 1954 promise of promotion was not
fulfilled. Now at one hundred years of age,
Yitzhak at last received the rank of Major General.
Israel - Where even the old are
young.
Michael Ordman writes a free weekly
newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to
michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
