Good News Israel

Compliments of Anglo Saxon Ra’anana Real Estate

Quote for the Week

“If we don´t help these children, who will?”

Rabbi Menachem Schneerson (spiritual Leader of the Chabad Movement in a terse one sentence note to his emissaries, four years after the Chernobyl disaster. It says it all. [See item below])

* ‘Resilient and dynamic’; ‘[the] framework is coherent’; ‘unaffected by the global crisis and already improving’; [the] model is….performing well’; ‘already robust institutions are being strengthened’. We have a question, two in fact: Who’s doing the talking and what are they talking about? Just by coincidence we know the answers to both. Anthony Thomas – never heard of him? Neither had we – who is the VP of Moody’s Investment Services, probably the foremost credit rating company in the world, is who and the Israeli economy is what. So there we have it, folks. A scintillating summary of our economic well being without a figure in sight.

* No wonder then that a survey conducted by the Gallup Institute [Can they be wrong? Of course not! They’re Gallup after all] ranked Israel seventh out of 124 states, based on the happiness level of residents according to the global wellbeing survey, published over the weekend. In response to the question ‘Are you thriving, satisfied, struggling or suffering? 63% of respondents in Israel said they were thriving and only 2% said they were suffering. The “happiness” list was headed by Denmark, with 72% of its residents expressing satisfaction – What have Danes got to worry about? Nothing! – New Zealand tied with us in place #7 but the Jewish State was ahead of Holland and Ireland with 62% a piece, as well as the United States with 59% thrivers and the UK that could only muster 54% who said they were happy.

* Sugar diabetes is not GN especially when it’s Type 1 that attacks juveniles and stays with them for life, requiring regular injections of insulin to control the soaring sugar levels. GN is that D Medical Industries Ltd. has developed a device comprising an automatic, hidden, auto-retractable needle in an infusion set used for subcutaneous administration of the medication providing the user with enhanced safety, confidence, and psychological well-being. The kit which is being mass produced in China has already been given the go- ahead for marketing in Japan and is about to be accepted in Canada which has the sixth highest incidence of Type 1 diabetes in the world. Israel at the forefront of the alleviation of suffering, now that’s GN.

* It’s not everyday that an Israeli is appointed to a UN organization and if we’re talking the UNHRC, the United Nations Human Rights Council then we were advised not to hold our breath but surprise, surprise this august body selected professor emeritus, Frances Raday from the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law to serve in its working group on discrimination against women in law and in practice. From what we understand, sadly, the professor is going to have her work cut out. But we have heard that she is up to the challenge and more.

* Now this item is GN for a number of reasons but we wouldn’t recommend it as a topic for social chit-chat. Why not we hear you ask? Well, read it and then decide. Some NIS 80 million will be invested in a new sewage treatment facility to be constructed in the Negev that will serve the Ramat Negev Regional Council and the IDF’s new training compound at Hanegev Junction set to house thousands of soldiers. And the really GN is that in the first stage, 300 thousand cubic meters of water will be purified and will be used for irrigation of olive plantations and other crops in the area. All part of making the desert as productive as possible.

* While the rest of the country has been sitting back and relaxing Shai Agassi and his Better Place have been speeding ahead with making the electric car a viable reality: they’ve signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China’s Southern Power Grid Company Limited with revenue last year of $57 billion and providing power to an area of a million square kilometers which is home to some 250 million people, sort of gives new meaning to the term the economies of scale; they have begun installing car-charge stations on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu [pronounce that if you can]; Tokyo’s infrastructure is up and running as is Denmark’s and Israel’s.

* That’s not all; the Company has reportedly closed its visitor’s center and is converting it into a sales showroom that will offer its first electric car – the Renault Fluence ZE – to Israeli customers sometime in August. The test track built for the visitors center will remain so that customers can try out the electric vehicle [which we’ve already done – amazing, all you can hear at 70 kph is the clock ticking-]. Details about prices and usage contracts will come available next month but Agassi has pledged that the cost for purchase, use, maintenance and power source will be lower than the current cost of a similar gasoline fuelled car with only 10% purchase tax on electric vehicles compared with 90% on regular cars.

* Pesach and Easter have passed over until next year and we bid them a reluctant farewell. While our Orthodox Christian friends were experiencing the spiritual upliftment of the Holy Fire Ceremony which starts in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, crowded with ten thousand worshippers, and is then carried by runners – and airplanes – to devout keepers of the faith throughout the Orthodox Christian world, one and a half million Israelis took to the roads and the sites of interest. One of the photographs in the local press –and there were many –brought a line from Wordsworth to mind: ‘When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.’ The photograph, in full color, showed a vast field of yellow buttercups certainly as breathtaking as the poet’s daffodils. What a magnificent country we live in!

* If you can tar a road with bitumen that has a new additive, which is based on a mineral deposit found only at Nahal Zinn in the Negev and nowhere else in the world, and that doubles the lifespan of the surface and makes the driving experience quieter and is more environmentally friendly because it cuts emissions of pollutants by 30% and with the added bonus that there is a substantial reduction in costs then you are like the clever folk at Dimona Silica Industries Ltd who have done just that and won a $6m contract to pave a road in China as a result, the first of many we would think.

* 25 years ago, arguably the greatest peace time man made disaster occurred in the Ukraine when a nuclear power station leaked huge amounts of radioactive material resulting in thousands of casualties and effects that are still being felt today. In response to a call [see Quote for the Week above] from the Rebbe, the Chabad Movement led by Rabbi Swerdlove started to bring the ‘Chernobyl Children’ to Israel where they are given sound nutrition, the best of medical and psychological care and everything else that children need. And the change in them is remarkable. The latest group numbering 25, significantly, arrived today – Thursday – bringing the total number of threatened youngsters so far to nearly three thousand. Thanks to the total dedication of the good Rabbi and his team. GN indeed.