Tel Aviv Goes Dark

Last month, we brought you news that Tel Aviv was planning to take part in Earth Hour, a one-hour blackout to call attention to the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Tel Aviv event took place last night (27 March) with President Shimon Peres in attendance. It was also the first of all the worldwide events, scheduled for Saturday 29 March. Organizers moved up the Tel Aviv events because Thursday night is the end of the Israeli workweek and to avoid any conflicts with the Jewish Sabbath. For more on the events, see Ynet, Haaretz, and the Age. The pictures are pretty cool, too.

Darfur Refugees Find Sanctuary in the Jewish State

An update on the Darfur refugees who have found sanctuary in the Jewish State…

From Seth Freedman of the Guardian:

An unlikely refuge

Hundreds of Muslims who have fled Darfur are rebuilding their lives in Israel

“Even though we’re Muslim, the Islamic world has done nothing to protect us”, said Yassin, a refugee whose tortured flight from Darfur finally brought him to Israel three years ago. He was one of the first Darfurians to make it into Israel across the border from Egypt, and has dedicated his life to helping hundreds of his fellow countrymen who have made the same perilous journey.

Yassin, a genial 30-year-old former architect, is now director of Bnei Darfur [Sons of Darfur], an organisation which assists Sudanese refugees to integrate into Israeli society, and which last week was finally granted non-profit status by the Israeli government. Sitting in his office in downtown Tel Aviv, Yassin painted a harrowing picture of the way in which Darfurian refugees are mistreated by the uncaring and unsympathetic authorities in Egypt, which is the first port of call of many fleeing the violence in Sudan.

Darfuri children are scared to set foot outside in Egypt for fear of attack, Yassin said, citing the slaying of dozens of refugees after a protest outside the UNHCR headquarters in 2005. “It’s not that Egypt doesn’t look after refugees in general,” he said, “after all, they treat the Somalians very well. However, when it comes to us, they are different. It’s racism [that motivates the Egyptian mistreatment].”

Continue reading Darfur Refugees Find Sanctuary in the Jewish State…

Raising a Stein

In previous posts we’ve covered the world of Israeli wine (see our selections here), now gaining worldwide acclaim and attention. But now we turn to much more mundane pursuits—beer.
We were intrigued by this article on Israel21c describing a nascent Israeli beer industry. The article makes it clear most of these microbreweries are really “micro,” so don’t start clearing out the fridge just yet. But don’t be surprised when these beers do hit the shelves; they’re sure to be a hit.

Did You Know?

“Land of milk and start-ups”

Here’s how one of the smallest countries in the world manages to have the second most companies listed on NASDAQ, the most engineers per capita of any country, and be a global power house in technology and innovation.

From the ECONOMIST:

Land of milk and start-ups

March 19th 2008 | TEL AVIV
From The Economist print edition

Silicon Wadi v Silicon Valley

IF HIGHWAY 101 south of San Francisco, Silicon Valley’s main artery, were mysteriously to connect to one of the roads around Tel Aviv, many drivers would not even notice. The office blocks with large, tinted windows, housing technology start-ups, are hard to tell apart. Indeed, many people would argue that the world’s second most important technology cluster, called Silicon Wadi (“canyon” or “gorge” in Hebrew), is essentially a clone of the first.

When it comes to entrepreneurial infrastructure, the similarities between the Valley and the Wadi are certainly striking. In both places corporate hierarchies are despised, risk-taking is rewarded and failure tolerated. Israel also boasts several elite universities, such as Technion in Haifa, and research centres run by big technology firms such as Cisco and Intel. Entrepreneurs have their pick of providers if they need legal or other services. And, as in California, there are plenty of well-funded venture-capital (VC) firms providing cash.

Yet there are many differences, too, starting with venture capital. In 2007 VC firms invested $1.76 billion in Israel. Although this was the highest figure since the dotcom bubble burst in 2001, and was up 8.5% on 2006, it is still less than a fifth of the $10 billion or so invested in Silicon Valley. (The figure for Europe was $7.2 billion, down 5% from 2006.) Local funds do more than half of the deals, but almost all the money comes from abroad, mostly from America. And most of it is invested not in software or trendy web-based services, but in start-ups developing specialised chips or advanced telecoms equipment.

Continue reading “Land of milk and start-ups”…

“Israeli archaeologists find Second Temple coin”

An interesting historical discovery…

From YNET:

Israeli archaeologists find Second Temple coin
Coin dating back to days of biblical Second Temple found in 2,000-year-old drainage ditch in Jerusalem
Associated Press

Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem say they’ve found an ancient coin that played a role in Jewish ritual at the biblical Second Temple. The silver coin is a shekel denomination. In the Bible, Jews are commanded to contribute half a shekel each for maintaining the Temple in Jerusalem.

The archaeologists say the coin they found near the Old City of Jerusalem is the type the ancient Jews used to pay the tax.

The Second Temple was built in the sixth century BC and was standing in the time of Jesus.

The coin was found in a 2,000-year-old drainage ditch. The archaeologists say the coin must have been dropped there by accident - just as sometimes a coin drops out of someone’s pocket today and gets flushed down a sewer.

EBAY Purchases Israeli Security

It’s hard to imagine any company attracting more attempted credit card fraud than eBay. Which is why eBay is spending $169 million to acquire Tel Aviv-based Fraud Sciences, developers of software that catches fraudulent transactions with a claimed accuracy rate of 99.9%.

From esecurityplanet.com

“An Entrepreneurial Path to Peace”

From BusinessWeek:

An Entrepreneurial Path to Peace
By providing small businesses with incubators, Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer hopes to give Israelis and Arabs economic opportunities that will lead to peace
by Stacy Perman

About five years ago, Stef Wertheimer came across Gamila Hiar, a Druze woman with no formal education who had learned the ancient art of making soap from wild herbs and olive oil as a child. At the time, Hiar was supplementing her family’s income, producing about 500 soap bars a week, from a corner in a room underneath her house in Pqi’in, a village in the Galilee region of northern Israel.

When Wertheimer met Hiar, her soaps had a devoted local following and were referred to as “the magic soaps of Gamila” for their restorative properties. Wertheimer was impressed. “We found that she was an entrepreneur,” says Wertheimer. “She just needed more space to dry her soaps. I asked her if she wanted to come to one of my industrial parks.”

Developing Exports
Hiar, now 68, ended up at Tefen Industrial Park, a bold philanthropic enterprise located about eight miles from the Lebanese border. Wertheimer (BusinessWeek.com, 3/14/08), the founder of Iscar Metalworking, established Tefen in 1985 in order to encourage entrepreneurship in one of Israel’s most undeveloped and low-income regions, with a population split largely between Arabs and Jews. According to Wertheimer, 81, “there are no unemployed, only people who are unlucky to find a job.”

Continue reading “An Entrepreneurial Path to Peace”…

If Our Cup is Full, Then Let it Overflow

Here some news to flex our envirofinanceexportaqua muscles…

From HAARETZ:

Hi-tech Israeli water companies shoot for world market

After decades of developing water technologies aiming to “make the desert bloom”, Israel has shifted focus to selling its products abroad with a goal of doubling exports in the sector to e2 billion by 2010.

From ultra-violet light technology to purify water to a recycling system using millions of small, plastic rings to breed bacteria and break down organic waste, Israeli innovations are finding buyers abroad. If a United Nations goal of improving sanitation by 2015 is to be achieved, the global market would be worth about e10 billion a year.

Daniel Wild, senior analyst at Zurich-based Sustainable Asset Management (SAM), an independent asset management group managing 8.5 billion Swiss francs (e8.3 billion) in assets, said Israeli technology is leading in two main segments — irrigation and desalination — because it was one of the first countries to develop efficient technologies.

“When it comes to water scarcity, Israel had to have a closer look very early,” Wild said.

About two-thirds of Israel is desert, spurring it to become one of the world’s leaders in water recycling. Seventy-five percent of waste water in Israel is re-used, mostly for agriculture, said Oded Distell, director of international investments at the Industry and Trade Ministry.

Soon after Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared in the 1950s that the future of the Jewish state depended on “making the desert bloom”, engineer Simcha Blass teamed up with a kibbutz farming collective in the Negev desert to form Netafim, a company that introduced to the world a water-sparing process known as drip irrigation.

Continue reading If Our Cup is Full, Then Let it Overflow…

Israel’s Technology Creates an Investment Goliath

Donald Snyder
Fox Business

Israel, with fewer than 7 million people, has become a Goliath in the world of technology and medicine.

It is third only to America and Canada in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq, ahead of economic powerhouses like Germany, England and China.

Israel’s economy is robust, despite a government rife with scandal and an impasse with the Palestinians over the fate of the West Bank and Gaza.

Bruce Aust, executive vice president of Nasdaq , said there are 75 Israeli companies worth a total of $60 billion listed on the Nasdaq ” Israel has very few natural resources, so Israelis have to be very entrepreneurial and innovative to create jobs for its citizens,” Aust said. He indicated that he has heard of numerous cases where three or four people have a great idea that eventually becomes a successful company on the Nasdaq .

Continue reading Israel’s Technology Creates an Investment Goliath…