Balloon Project in Tel Aviv

A few young Israelis get creative and take to the streets in Tel Aviv for a unique experiment! With dozens of balloons attached, they send a video camera into the sky to take aerial footage of Tel Aviv, then bring it back to earth. Watch this video to see the entire process!

Israel Breathes a Little Freer

Having already enacted a remarkably effective ban on smoking in public places, the Knesset has now moved to [ban smoking at security establishments] in Israel, including police stations and military bases.

Considering the number of young Israelis who start smoking during their mandatory military service, this latest move stands to make a big difference.

Israel’s MASHAV Helps Save the World

Thought Angelina and Oprah were the only ones saving the world?

Check out our latest video about MASHAV - Israel’s Centre for International Cooperation, which has trained more than 200,000 people from 140 countries in agriculture, public health and medical programs, community development, integrated rural regional development and other areas.

Way to go!

Same-Sex Couples Get More Adoption Rights

A decision yesterday (10 February 2008) by Attorney General Menahem Mazuz broadens the options for homosexual couples who want to adopt a child. According to Haaretz, they can now adopt a child who is not the offspring of either party and can also use the regular state channels to apply to adopt children. JPost gives a bit of background on the opinion.

If you haven’t been following our other posts on similar issues, you can find them here, here, and here. Just a friendly reminder of how forward thinking Israel is. To put this in a bit of a global perspective see this Wikipedia article.

Check out this audio clip from the Larry Flick show on Sirius OutQ Radio about Gay Adoption Rights in Israel. (Copyright: Sirius Satellite Radio www.siriusoutq.com)

Cell Phone “Jackets”

Looks like our cellphones are going to get all dressed up for the ball…

From the NYT:

February 7, 2008
Modu Unveils Flexible Phone With “Jacket” Range
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:02 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With a nod to the notion that mobile phones have become fashion accessories, Israel’s Modu says it can make $1 billion in revenue by selling “jackets” for its tiny new cell phone that give the device new functions as well as a new look.

Start-up Modu’s plan is to sell a range of casings along with its cell phone so that consumers can cheaply transform phones into anything from a messaging device, a music player or a gaming device, according to founder Dov Moran.

The phone morphing system goes on sale with three service providers in Russia, Italy and Israel in October, around the same time the company expects top fashion houses to have developed phone jackets for style conscious users.

By January next year the phone will also slot into consumer electronics devices it calls “modu mates” such as digital photograph frames, cameras, clocks or navigation systems to give such devices wireless connectivity.

Continue reading Cell Phone “Jackets”…

Blind Deaf Theatre in Israel

I saw this group when they were in NY not too long ago, and they were a true inspiration.

From the NYT:

February 4, 2008
Blind, Deaf Actors Take Centre Stage In Israel
By REUTERS

JAFFA, Israel (Reuters) - The theatre lights dim and the audience settles into their seats — usually a cue for the actors to deliver their opening lines. Instead, the Nalaga’at troupe start pummeling and stroking each other’s hands.

This is not a high-minded avant garde dance piece, but a group of deaf-blind actors, who are captivating audiences in Israel by blending touch, mime, sign language and music on stage in a cabaret-style show about dreams and disability.

Billed as the world’s first professional deaf-blind theatre company, only three of Nalaga’at’s actors can speak. One hears a little if you shout directly into her ear and a few still have some vision. But they all communicate primarily through touch.

To complicate matters, several of the actors are recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union and know only Russian sign language.

Rehearsals can be chaotic.

Continue reading Blind Deaf Theatre in Israel…

Cancer, What You May Want to Know

To know early
By Dudi Goldberg (translated from Yedioth Aharonoth, 18 December 2007)

Professor Hadassah Dagani has developed a revolutionary non-invasive method for early detection of beast cancer and prostate cancer.

The sad truth is that the most effective tool in the fight against cancer is early detection; thus the best treatment is—as banal as it sounds—prevention or, regrettably, early detection.

In a large number of cancer cases, no matter the type (excepting a few types of leukemia where the cure is almost certain), by the time metastatic tumors are discovered, the chances for a cure are not high. This is the background necessary to understand the importance of the discoveries by Professor Hadassah Dagani of the Department of Biological Regulation at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Professor Dagani and her research team developed a very precise yet non-invasive method to detect cancerous growths, even of a small size, using magnetic resonance. The revolutionary method, which has gained FDA approval, is already implemented in several major medical centers in the United States. Besides being very precise, this method reduces the pain associated with an invasive biopsy.

The method even permits assessing the success rates of different cancer treatments at halting tumor development.

Professor Dagani, how does your method work?
The method is based on injecting contrast (a substance that “colors” organs so they can be seen in an MRI) into the patient’s blood stream, and then we follow the contrast with an MRI machine. The rate and pattern of the contrast’s diffusion differs between tumor cells and normal tissue. This method also gives us specific information about microscopic blood vessels that begin to develop in the area of the tumor. This information can also help us forecast the rate of tumor development since the development of blood vessels, which feed the tumor nutrients and oxygen, is necessary for tumor development. Without these “supply lines,” tumor development will slow to a standstill.

How do the blood cells in a tumor differ from blood vessels in normal tissue?
In general, blood vessels in malignant tumors grow in a disorganized fashion and are “leakier” than normal cells; in other words, nutrients enter a tumor at a much higher rate than a normal tissue, so following its progression is clear. An area that the contrast enters much more quickly than other areas is where cancer cells are hiding. By the way, the blood cells of a cyst are leakier than a normal cell but not as leaky as cancer cells.

Continue reading Cancer, What You May Want to Know…

Israeli cowboys take on American wilderness

Yee-hah!

A group of six Israeli cowboys will soon depart on a unique journey across the United States aimed at marking Israel’s 60th anniversary and raising awareness to the historic date in the American media.

The six travelers will be riding on Israeli born-and-raised horses and carry Israeli flags with them. They plan to cross the country from north to south, possibly taking the Continental Divide National Trail, leading from the Canadian border to the Mexican one through the Rocky Mountains.

Continue reading about Israeli cowboys in America

One for the Little Guy

For all of us who have ever complained of poor service on buses, trains, etc. JPost finally has an answer. If only other agencies could be held liable for their follies (MTA?):

Bus passenger wins suit for years of service disruptions

A court has awarded a bus passenger NIS 17,800 in damages in a precedent-setting lawsuit against the Egged bus company, court documents released Tuesday showed.

The claimant, Yitzhak Carmeli of Kiryat Ye’arim, sued the national bus company in Jerusalem’s small claims court following a decade of repeated service disruptions on the Egged bus line between his home and the capital, and after hundreds of complaints to the bus company and the Transportation Ministry went unheeded.

Judge Avraham Tenenbaum ruled on Sunday that the passenger, who rode the line four times a day, was right in all his complaints and fined the bus company the maximum amount allowed by law in such a case, adding that the claimant actually deserved to be awarded an even higher compensation.

The judge wrote in his ruling that buses that leave late or change their routes inevitably end up hurting all the passengers and not just the claimant, adding that he encouraged other passengers to “stand up for their rights” and file complaints with the bus company if they encounter such unacceptable and inexcusable service disruptions.

“The time of the public is not to be forfeited, not even one minute of its time,” Tenenbaum wrote in the ruling, adding that sometimes harsh punishment needed to be meted out.

A secondary lawsuit against the state for negligence was rejected.

Gay Rights in Israel

Israel today is one of the world’s most progressive countries in terms of equality for sexual minorities. In recent years, Israel has produced more progressive legislation and court decisions in the areas of sexual orientation and gay and lesbian rights than many Western countries. Israel has an active gay community and it is by far the most tolerant Middle Eastern country towards homosexuals.

Politically, legally, and culturally, the gay and lesbian community has moved from life at the margins of Israeli society to visibility and growing acceptance. As is often the case with battles for social justice and equality, changes occur due to a combination of political, legal and social factors.

Significant dates and developments:

1988 - Knesset decriminalizes homosexuality
Historically, the Israeli criminal code proscribed homosexual intercourse between males and numerous other consensual sexual activities. In 1953 and later in 1972, however, the attorney generals of Israel issued instructions not to prosecute for the commission of offences under this section, instructions that were followed by the police. Several attempts to eliminate the section prohibiting homosexual intercourse altogether, or at least to reduce its punitive sanctions, failed under the strong pressure of the religious parties. It was finally eliminated in 1988.

1992 - Knesset prohibits sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace
In 1992 the Equal Employment Opportunity Act 1988 was revised to prohibit discrimination in employment relations on the basis of sexual orientation and marital status. Failure to comply with the Act incurs penal liability and the person discriminated against also has a right to seek civil remedies (which include punitive damages). This amendment is seen as a major step towards recognition of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as equal members of society.

Continue reading Gay Rights in Israel…