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

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