המשנה לנגיד הבנק המרכזי של קנדה, ד”ר נדין בודו-טרכטנברג חלקה שבחים רבים למדינת ישראל, על שהצליחה להשיג את יעדי האינפלציה הרצויים החל משנות התשעים. דבריה של ד”ר בודו-טרכטנברג נאמרו במסגרת הרצאה לפני מספר ימים בכנס של הבנק המרכזי הקנדי, שעסק במדיניות המונטרית והכלים של המדיניות השונים להשגת המטרות שלה.
חלק מרכזי בהרצאתה של המשנה לנגיד עסק בהתפתחויות העיקריות ובאתגרים השונים, בהשגת יעדי האינפלציה בישראל בשנים האחרונות. לדבריה המשק הישראלי חווה בשנים האחרונות צמיחה כלכלית יציבה, עלייה בשכר, התחזקות המטבע המקומי (השקל) מול הדולר האמריקני ושאר המטבעות הבולטים, וכן שמירה על רמת אינפלציה נמוכה שלא רק שהיא מתחת ליעד שנקבע, אלא אף מצויה בתחום השלילי מזה כשלוש שנים.
ישראל חוותה עשור של היפר-אינפלציה בשנות השבעים וכן בתחילת שנות השמונים. ולאחר מכן עשור של מדיניות דיסאינפלציה שהתמקדה בחתירה לקצב של אינפלציה ההולך ופוחת. מאז שנת 2003 יעד האינפלציה של ישראל הוא בתחום שבין אחוז לשלושה אחוזים. למרות שרמת האינפלציה בהסתכלות אחורה על השנה האחרונה חרגה לפעמים מהטווח הזה, הסטייה נרשמה בעיקר בתקופות קצרות כתוצאה מתנודות בשערי החליפין. לפני כשלוש שנים חל שינוי משמעותי כאשר מאז נמצאת האינפלציה באופן עקבי, מתחת ליעד. עם זאת יש לציין, כי הציפיות לאינפלציה לטווחים הבינוניים הארוכים ממשיכות להיות מעוגנות היטב בתוך רצועת היעד, ובכך משקפות את אמון השוק במדיניות המונטרית של בנק ישראל.
חשיבות השמירה על יציבות המחירים בישראל קיבלה מישנה תוקף עם חקיקת חוק בנק ישראל החדש (בשנת 2010), שקבע כי תפקידו הראשון במעלה והחשוב ביותר של המוסד הוא לשמור על יציבות המחירים בשוק, ובמקביל לתמוך בצמיחה כלכלית וביציבות הפיננסית של המשק הישראלי. החוק החדש מאפשר להנהלת הבנק פרק זמן של שנה להחזיר את האינפלציה לרמת היעד, מה שנראה בזמן שהוא חוקק על ידי הכנסת – פרק זמן סביר. כך שיתאפשר לבנק המרכזי להכיל זעזועים זמניים, וכן גם אירועים חד-פעמיים שצפויים להסיט את האינפלציה מהיעד לזמן קצר.
לדברי המשנה לנגיד הבנק המרכזי של קנדה בשנים האחרונות בזמן שרבות מהמדינות ששותפות בסחר עם ישראל עמדו בפני משבר פיננסי חמור, וכלכלתן דישדשה, הכלכלה של מדינת ישראל צמחה בהתמדה, וכעת היא קרובה לשיעורה הפוטנציאלי, תוך שהיא נתמכת בעלייה מתמשכת בשיעור ההשתתפות בכוח העבודה, במיוחד של הנשים הישראליות, צמיחה בשיעור התעסוקה בכלל ענפי המשק, וכן בעלייה בשכר הריאלי והנומינלי, שאיפשרו התרחבות של הצריכה הפרטית. כמובן שהנתונים שמציגים תמונה זו לא התקבלו באופן רציף, ומלבד נתוני שוק העבודה שהיו חזקים באופן קבוע, חזינו בתנודתיות רבה של הנתונים, כולל אף תיקונים משמעותיים בנתוני החשבונות הלאומיים-הרבעוניים.
למרות העודף המובהק בחשבון השוטף, המשק הישראלי התמודד עם ביצועי החסר של מגזר היצוא. ההאטה ביצוא נבעה בין היתר מההאטה הכללית בסחר העולמי. יש לציין כי השקל הישראלי המשיך להתחזק, מעבר למה שהוערך בתחילה, דבר המשקף את ההתאמה הנורמלית לביצועים הטובים יחסית של המשק הישראלי.
ד”ר בודו-טרכטנברג מוסיפה עוד כי בישראל רמת האבטלה נמצאת ברמה הנמוכה ביותר מאז הקמת המדינה, ובמקביל השכר עולה בזמן שהאינפלציה נשארת ברמה נמוכה. בישראל גברה המודעות למחירים הגבוהים וגברה התחרות בתחום הקמעונאי, בעיקר עם התגברות השימוש באינטרנט. כיוון שרמת המחירים במדינה גבוהה היא מותירה מקום רב יותר להפחתת מחירים, שמקורה בתחרות המוגברת.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, left, with U.S. President Donald Trump in New York. (photo from Israel’s Government Press Office via Ashernet)
A great deal of diplomacy depends on intangibles like whether the parties involved like or dislike each other. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made little effort to hide his frustration with Barack Obama, the former U.S. president. The feeling was blatantly mutual, as even the most obtuse reader of body language could interpret from photographs of the two men together. Netanyahu and the current resident of the White House … this is whole new meeting of minds.
There are similarities and differences of style and substance between Bibi and Donald Trump. One thing worth noting is that each has their core of stalwart domestic supporters and another, possibly even more virulent, bloc of detesters.
Seeing the two leaders together in New York this week, present for the annual United Nations General Assembly, was a reminder of how big a role mutual affection or irritation between two leaders can affect international relations.
The Israeli prime minister engaged in a Trump-like tweetstorm Monday morning, including this one: “Under your leadership, @realDonaldTrump, the alliance between the United States and Israel has never been stronger.”
This may not be true – the relationship has always been extremely tight – but it is certainly true that the alliance between the two countries’ leaders is strong.
It’s always wise for Israeli leaders to seek good relations with the American president, but this particular relationship is double-edged. A recent poll indicated that 21% of American Jews view Trump favourably, while 77% view him unfavourably. This puts Netanyahu in a difficult position of his own choosing – hitching his wagon to a politician who is deeply distrusted by the largest population of Diaspora Jews.
There is also something odd about Netanyahu’s interpretation of the Israel-U.S. relationship. Just a couple of years ago, at the depths of the Netanyahu-Obama snit, commentators wondered if the bilateral relationship had ever been lower. (Calmer heads insisted that, despite the childishness at the top, on every issue of bilateral substance, everything remained tickety-boo.) Now, just 10 months into a new administration, the Israeli leader alleges that the alliance has never been better. Was a change in the White House all it took for things to go from bad to super-awesome? If so, upon what kind of a foundation does this relationship rest? And, what are the metrics?
The reality is that, for reasons pragmatic and ideological, the Israeli-American bond is strong and indivisible. What Netanyahu did in New York this week is simply the flip side of the coin he tossed when Obama was in office. Then, he betrayed diplomatic processes to accept an invitation from U.S. congressional leaders. Now he’s got a man he likes in the White House and he’s throwing bouquets at him. In both instances, he is crudely poking around in the internal politics of the United States, a strategy that has (in ordinary times) about a 50-50 chance of blowing up in a foreign leader’s face. And these are not ordinary times. Trump is a divisive and potentially dangerous figure who is supported by the worst elements in American society, including racists and antisemites. By wrapping himself in Trump’s flag, Netanyahu is playing a risky game.
Even so, coming just hours after the Emmy awards, the Donald and Bibi show had its fleeting moments of humour, if unintentional. To wit, Trump lent his inimitable erudition to the promise of Mideast peace.
“Most people would say there’s no chance whatsoever. I actually think with the capability of Bibi and frankly the other side, I really think we have a chance,” Trump said. “I think Israel would like to see it and I think the Palestinians would like to see it. And I can tell you that the Trump administration would like to see it.”
Apparently we’d all like to see it. Yet every administration since Truman has tried, to one extent or another, to facilitate peace between the Israelis and their neighbours. The best and brightest among the presidents have proved incapable of the task. Is it possible that this one will counterintuitively succeed? The definition of insanity is said to be doing the same thing again and again and anticipating a different outcome. President after president has taken a similar approach to this problem and failed. No one can accuse Trump of doing things the conventional way. And, he’s put his best man on the job – son-in-law Jared Kushner – whose qualifications appear to be, well, mostly matrimonial.
Trump, the self-proclaimed great deal-maker, has repeatedly failed to find any common ground with a House and Senate led by his own party and has so far been able to achieve none of his signature initiatives. A modest achievement like solving the Israeli-Arab conflict would be something worth bragging about. As Trump and Netanyahu plot that little rabbit trick, we will watch with interest or, if you’re a praying person, maybe do that.
Left to right: Bernard Bressler, Bill Barrable, Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jonathan Miodowski, Dina Wachtel, the Hon. Bruce Ralston and Rick Glumac. (photo from Rick Hansen Institute)
On Aug. 25 in Vancouver, the Rick Hansen Institute (RHI) announced a new partnership with the Hebrew University’s Alexander Grass Centre for Bioengineering. The first of its kind in the world, this partnership will fast-track the development of products designed to improve the lives of people who have been devastated by spinal cord injuries (SCI).
Bioengineering uses scientific concepts and methods to find practical, cost-effective solutions to problems in the life sciences. Researchers investigate ways to regenerate damaged tissue, grow new organs or mimic the systems and processes of the human body with synthetic tools. In the case of individuals with SCI, this means combating the paralysis caused by a serious injury.
According to the RHI, in British Columbia alone, there are 12,000 people living with an SCI. “The economic burden is an estimated $372 million a year for new traumatic spinal cord injuries: this figure includes direct healthcare (59%) as well as indirect morbidity and mortality related (41%) costs,” says the RHI. “Secondary complications such as pressure ulcers, neuropathic pain, urinary tract infections and pneumonia cost an estimated $70 million in direct costs to B.C.’s healthcare system annually.”
The Grass Centre’s Biodesign program teaches researchers, business and bioengineering graduates how to make medical innovations commercially available. Recent innovations at the centre include a device that inserts chest tubes. The device prevents lung collapse in under a minute and saves lives in the battlefield and the emergency room. The centre also has developed pressure-sensing socks that can tell when patients with diabetes are in pain, prevent foot ulcers and communicate health data to smartphones. More than 130 million people suffer from diabetes-related pain worldwide.
Bill Barrable, chief executive officer of the RHI, described Rick Hansen’s long association and warm relationship with Israel. Hansen traveled there on his Man in Motion tour many years ago and he also received an honorary degree from the Hebrew University. Barrable accompanied Hansen on that latter visit.
Barrable spoke of the new partnership as being designed to “grow the next generation of medical research entrepreneurs.” These entrepreneurs will create intellectual property that can be sold commercially within one year, a goal he described as “extraordinary.” In addition to the profound impact it will have on patients, Barrable sees the project as a way to strengthen innovation in British Columbia.
Prof. Yaakov Nahmias is the director of the Grass Centre. After co-founding the Biodesign program at HU with Hadassah Medical Centre and Stanford University, four new medical devices were launched under his leadership – in the program’s first year. Referencing Israel’s reputation as a “start-up nation,” Nahmias touched on the 2009 book Start-up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, which explores how it is that a small, embattled country like Israel has more tech start-ups than any other. Speaking of the student body at the Grass Centre, Nahmias described a population that is mature, self-sufficient and has a rich life experience. Having completed school and their mandatory military service, Israeli grads also have traveled the world and worked while pursuing their undergraduate studies. He described a group that did not want to continue their research work as academics, but as entrepreneurs. The Biodesign program enabled them to do this. Its multi-disciplinary, team-based approach to medical innovation is also unique, according to Nahmias, “because it leverages the diversity we see in Israel.” The program is host to groups led by Palestinians from East Jerusalem and ultra-Orthodox rabbis alike, he said. The program’s success, he added, was owed to the creativity and talent of this diverse group.
In concert with the fiery, boundary-pushing Israelis, Nahmias said Canadian researchers would bring “people with vision, people who would set the course and know how to treat patients and solve problems in everyday life. But we also want to have agitators, people who would rock the bridge and say, ‘that’s not good enough!’ These are the people we have in Israel. And this is why this partnership is unique.”
B.C. Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology Bruce Ralston spoke highly of Israel’s capacity for innovation. Looking forward to seeing stronger ties develop between the technology sectors of Israel and British Columbia, Ralston said he sees this partnership as a way to “restore and bolster our commitment to research in a way that attracts top-flight talent back to B.C.”
Also joining in the announcement, which was made at the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, at Vancouver General Hospital was the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould. In her capacity as federal justice minister, she applauded the new initiative, describing SCI patient care as “a human rights issue.”
Also in attendance was Bernard Bressler, director of the board of Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Foundation. Bressler praised the partners for going beyond academic research to make life-altering technologies. “The partnership creates an environment where creative ideas, difficult problems and entrepreneurial mentorship can interact in a structured way,” he said.
Speaking after the event, John Chernesky, RHI’s consumer engagement lead, commented, “What excites me most is the prospect of new devices that allow people with paralysis to complete ordinary tasks, even something as simple as using an arm to manipulate their environment. Spinal cord injuries can affect every part of a person’s body. The implications [of a program like this] are tremendous.”
Dina Wachtel, executive director of Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, Western Region, said the program created “a living bridge upon which a scientist from Canada will spend time in Israel with the start-up nation and, once they trigger the process, as a team, and have the beginning of a device, they can bring it back to B.C. for further development.”
Shula Klingeris an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com.
In a wide-ranging lecture addressing Israel’s place in a rapidly changing Middle East, Prof. Asher Susser claimed that, without a continued focus on cutting-edge technology and modernization, Israel will not survive in the long run.
Susser, who is a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, spoke at the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel in Vancouver on Aug. 9. The event was presented by the Kollel, Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University, Congregation Schara Tzedeck and Vancouver Hebrew Academy.
The professor believes that the key to Israel’s survival is its universities, which he described as the “powerhouses of Israel’s future.”
“Without that basic education, we will not have the wherewithal to withstand the absurdity of the neighbourhood,” he said.
In opening the evening, Kollel director Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu noted the “tough neighbourhood” in which Israel lived.
Stephen J. Adler, executive director of the Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University’s Ontario and Western Canadian division, said that TAU is not only the largest educational institution in Israel, with more than 33,000 students, but that it also houses the largest research centre in the country. He highlighted the university’s affiliations with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and also with the Sackler School of Medicine in New York. Adler said TAU alumni have created, among other things, technological innovations like the Iron Dome and the navigation app Waze. Adler invited members of the Vancouver Jewish community to come visit the TAU campus, then introduced Susser, “one of our treasures.”
Susser has taught at TAU for more than 35 years and was director of the Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern and African Studies for 12 years. In addition to various visiting professorships in the United States over the years, he teaches an online course on the Middle East that has been taken by more than 85,000 students in more than 160 countries, including attendees of the Vancouver event. He is the author of several books, including Israel, Jordan and Palestine: The Two-State Imperative, On Both Banks of the Jordan: A Political Biography of Wasfi al-Tall and The Rise of Hamas in Palestine and the Crisis of Secularism in the Arab World.
Susser discussed the root causes of some of Israel’s past successes – including its ability to modernize and the Arabs’ failure to do so – and remaining challenges. One of those challenges, he noted, is the conflicting narrative regarding the establishment of the state of Israel.
“These narratives are not just slightly different between Israel and the Palestinians, but they are completely contradictory and have virtually nothing in common,” he said. “I would say that this is one of the major reasons why Israel and the Palestinians have such great difficulty coming to terms with each other and the difficulties remain.
“Our narrative,” he continued, “is a heroic story of the self-defence of the Jewish people,” which represents “literally rising from the ashes of Auschwitz to sovereignty and independence from 1945 to 1948, in three very short years.” This was viewed, he said, as “a miraculous redemption and justice for the Jewish people” but is viewed by Palestinians as “the epitome of injustice.”
Susser also noted that the establishment of Israel, wherein “the few against the many” prevailed, is, ultimately, “a monument to Arab failure.” He said, “For the Arabs, when they look at us every day for the last 70 years, it is to look at the monument [of] their failure to modernize successfully.”
He pointed to the Six Day War as a turning point that “proved that Arabism is an empty vessel.” And he listed three reasons why Arab states have failed to advance: a lack of political freedom, a lack of first world education systems and a lack of economic equality and inclusion of women in the workforce.
These weaknesses in Arab civil society, he said, have led to “a human disaster” that has “prevented Arab countries from advancing,” and is worsened by the sectarian divisions that exist in Arab countries. The one exception, he said, is Jordan, which is a stable state in large part due to the fact that its Jordanian and Palestinian citizens are Sunni Muslims.
“Israel’s major challenges now come not from the strength of the Arab states but the weakness of the Arab states,” said Susser. Unlike the period between 1948 and 1967, when Israel was threatened by Arab states like Egypt, Israel is now threatened by non-Arab states like Iran and non-state actors like Hezbollah, Hamas and ISIS. The problem, according to Susser, is that, “You can’t destroy Hamas or Hezbollah in six days.”
“Fighting the non-state actors is a much more difficult prospect,” he said. “These non-state actors are less of a threat to Israel but ending the conflict with them is a lot more difficult.”
The threat from Iran – which he considers to be one of the three principal non-Arab Middle Eastern powers (along with Turkey and Israel) – is “not necessarily that the Iranians will drop a bomb on Israel,” he said. The main problem is “the constraints that a nuclear Iran will pose to Israeli conventional use of military force.”
“If Israel is attacked by Hamas from Gaza or by Hezbollah from Lebanon, or by both of them together, and Israel wishes to retaliate by conventional means against these two Iranian proxies with a nuclear umbrella provided by Iran, will Israel have the freedom of operation to do it?” he asked.
One other challenge Israel faces, said Susser, is demography. He noted there are six million Israeli Jews and an equivalent number of Arabs residing in the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, including the West Bank and the Palestinian citizens of Israel. “Can Israel remain a Jewish democracy with these demographic realities?” he wondered.
Susser concluded on a somewhat optimistic note. The conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis, he said, has allowed Israel to forge alliances with Sunni Arab nations like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, all of which, he said, “have common cause with Israel to block Iranian regional hegemonic design.” In addition, he noted, “We have cooperation with Jordan against ISIS and its allies, so the idea that Israel is against everyone in the Middle East is not the reality.”
David J. Litvakis a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com.
Left to right, Lilia Apelbaum, Olga Livshin and Tanya Kogan, during their reunion in Vancouver. (photo by Tanya Kogan)
For two weeks this August, my apartment was unusually crowded. Friends from Haifa and Los Angeles were staying with me. We talked almost nonstop the entire time they were here. While they have already left for their respective homes, the memory of their presence still lingers in my house, in the photographs and in my fond recollections.
In 1973, the three of us, three Jewish girls, high school graduates from different Moscow schools, lived in the Soviet Union. We met for the first time when we enrolled in the Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics. For five student years, we were inseparable. We studied in the same groups and partied with the same friends but, after graduation in 1978, we parted ways. This year, 39 years later, the three of us met for the first time since then, at my place in Vancouver.
Many things have changed in our lives, of course, but, despite the grown-up children, deteriorating health and multiple wrinkles, all three of us have stayed basically the same: the same personalities, the same interpersonal dynamics, the same feeling of closeness as friends. And our relationship with our Jewishness also has stayed basically the same.
At the time of our youth, all observance of Jewish traditions in the Soviet Union was suppressed. Not banned, per se, but not encouraged. There was one synagogue in Moscow and, I have to admit, I never visited it. My parents tried to blend in with mainstream society, so they never visited it either. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays, and I didn’t even know about most of them. Only my grandfather went to synagogue on most Saturdays and some Jewish holidays. He tried to instil some sense of Jewish identity in our household (as he lived with us) but, unsupported by my parents, he was unsuccessful. I was never interested in anything Jewish when I was young.
The situation was a bit different with my two friends. Tanya Kogan (née Schneiderman) lived in a similar household to mine. Her parents’ one ardent desire was to blend in. Being “the same,” not sticking out, was safer in Communist Russia but, after her high school graduation, Tanya broke away from the “blend-in” mold.
“I wanted to know who I was,” she told me. She immersed herself not only in her academic studies at the institute but also in Jewish customs and traditions, to the extent they existed in Moscow of that time.
“I tried to learn Yiddish from my grandmother, even though she was ashamed to speak it. I went to synagogue for some Jewish holidays and, every year, for Simchat Torah. It’s such a fun holiday. Lots of students from our institute were there. Not many colleges and universities in Russia accepted Jewish students, but ours did, and there were many of us. We danced in the streets together,” she remembered. “I bought matzos every year and fasted on Yom Kippur.”
My other visiting friend, Lilia Apelbaum, was also part of the group of students that danced in the streets outside the Moscow synagogue on Simchat Torah. Her father came from a family where tradition was paramount.
“We bought matzos every year when I was a schoolgirl,” Lilia said. “We would travel on the Moscow Metro with the big packs of matzos wrapped in brown paper, to a seder in some relative’s home, and I would think: ‘I’m special. I’m better than all the people around me. I know something they don’t.’ I felt very proud.”
In 1996, Lilia, her parents and her young son immigrated to Israel. She still lives there, in Haifa.
“My father went to synagogue often when we lived in Moscow, but he stopped going after we immigrated,” said Lilia. “In Moscow, he needed it to prop his Jewish identity but, after we settled in Israel, he said he didn’t need it anymore. He felt Jewish and happy without the support of religion.”
Lilia herself doesn’t follow any Jewish tradition, doesn’t keep kosher and doesn’t attend synagogue, but she is still, as in her childhood, intensely proud to be a Jew and an Israeli. “I love Israel,” she said. “It’s a wonderful country, very humane.”
She told me a story about her neighbour and friend. “She is very sick. Once, we walked outside together, and she fell. Her legs wouldn’t support her and I couldn’t help her – she is a big woman, much bigger than myself. I panicked; didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, a couple cars passing along the street stopped. Totally unknown men climbed out of those cars, lifted her, helped her to a bench, and then drove away. Where else would a car stop just to help a strange woman on the sidewalk? Only in Israel.”
She talked about the urban improvements being undertaken in Haifa, about Israeli healthcare and technology, about her fellow Israelis, and her eyes shined with love for her country.
Tanya also left Russia. In 1996, she and her family immigrated to America and settled in Los Angeles. “I almost never go to a synagogue here,” she said. “But I do keep kosher. Mostly. In my own way. During Passover, we don’t eat bread. I make so many interesting dishes with matzos, my family always anticipates the holiday. They don’t want bread – they remember that torte and this pie for years after and always ask if I would make them again. It’s a game we play. It’s easy and fun to be a Jew in America.”
Like my friends, I left Russia, too, at about the same time. In 1994, I came to Vancouver. Unlike my friends, though, I didn’t get in touch with my Jewish roots right away. It took me some time to become a part of the Vancouver Jewish community. At first, I was busy with my computer programmer job, raising children as a single mother, and generally integrating into the Canadian society. But life has a wicked sense of humour. It pushed me toward my Jewishness in a roundabout way.
In 2002, I got very sick. My illness altered my worldview and induced me to change my priorities. In 2003, I started writing fiction. A few years later, I quit my computer job to dedicate myself fully to my writing career. At that time, I tried to find a writing gig. I took a course on a mentored job search, and one of the assignments was to find a mentor.
I scoured the internet for some Vancouver writing professional to approach, to ask to be my mentor, and came up with the name Katharine Hamer. At that time, she was the editor of the Jewish Independent, a newspaper I had never heard about before. I sent her an email and, to my amazement, she replied. She said she didn’t have time to mentor me, but she offered to add my name to the list of her newspaper contributors. I grabbed the opportunity.
My first article for the Jewish Independent was published 10 years ago, in July 2007. I write about Jewish artists and writers, teachers and musicians. I love my subjects, every one of them, but I have never written about myself before. This is the first time and my 301st article for the paper.
Three friends from Moscow, three Jewish women from around the world, spent a wonderful week together during their reunion in Vancouver. We are planning to meet again soon. We are not going to wait another 39 years.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
The black dial phone in the Jerusalem residence of former prime minister Levi Eshkol. (photo by Sharon Altshul)
Around Rosh Hashanah, some of us do this back-and-forth dance, reflecting on things past while looking ahead. As I live in Israel, I am going “to dance” to what I believe is the most pervasive part of our daily existence – our (some would say obsessive) phone use.
In the days prior to Israel’s becoming a “start-up nation,” telephone service was in pretty sad shape. For many years, most Israelis did not have phones in their homes. So, in the evening, you would wash up, dress up and go outside to use a public telephone. To make your call, you would load your pockets with asimonim, round, grooved, metal tokens. If you were calling someone outside your area code, you would hope that the weight of all the necessary asimonim would not tear your pockets.
Talking on payphones was fraught with problems. For starters, how would the person at the other end know you wanted to chat? Answer: the call had to be carefully arranged in advance, with both sides knowing the time, location and telephone numbers of the public telephones that were to be used.
It was an event requiring lots of patience. You had to stand in line with your neighbours, who also wanted to use the phone. You had to ignore the pressure from those behind you, telling you to hurry up and let someone else have a turn. Loud “discussions” occasionally broke out. People claimed they had a dahuf (urgent) call to make or receive. (In Israel, the term dahuf is thrown around a lot.) Thus, the beginning of the Israeli telecommunication era is essentially a study in how people function in groups.
Moreover, Israeli payphones seemed to have a mind of their own. You would be talking when, suddenly, in one big gulp, the telephone cruelly swallowed all your tokens. No amount of whacking the sides of the phone box or banging the receiver in its cradle would return the tokens. You were simply finished for the night. Talking on a payphone was such a tricky business, people would resort to sending postcards, as it was an easier way to relay a message.
By and large, Israeli households did not have telephones until the 1960s – as late as 1964, 55,800 Israeli homes were waiting for phones. If someone had acquired a telephone before the sixties, the person was either suspected of, or envied for, his or her protectzia, the fact that s/he “knew” somebody.
After a long wait – possibly for years – the phone company gave a household a black stationary phone with a short cord. Meaning that, to talk, you had to stay in one place. If you were lucky, nobody’s line would cross yours. If it did, you were stuck listening to their private affairs. People didn’t hang up right away because they didn’t know how long it would take to reconnect with friends. And, while on the subject of talking on the phone, to counter the high cost of doing so, employers with chatty employees or families with talkative children (or adult family members) went to the extreme of putting a lock on their dial phone.
After the implementation of the black telephones, changes came faster. Although the colour choice remained limited, Israelis could choose something other than a phone. They could also order a long phone cord or a press-button phone. Likewise, people could have phones in more than one room. Some advances have gone smoother than others. For example, fax installation and transmission continues to gravely challenge Bezek (the Israeli telephone company, established in 1984) and Bezek users.
In the international sphere, things also changed, albeit unevenly. In the late 1950s, Israel got hooked up to five continents. To place or receive an overseas call, you had to go to the central post office. You sat in a special glassed-in wooden booth while a special operator made the connection.
After a period of time, there were telecartim, or insertable phone cards for public phones. These cards became quite popular and many Israelis became phone card collectors and traders. I remember attending a telecart exhibit in Tel Aviv.
What feels like light years later, Israelis started equipping themselves with cellphones and, not long after that, with ear sets. Suddenly, it seemed that many people were experiencing severe mental health problems. In public, flaying arms and shouting at invisible people became rampant. I remember the first time I spotted a person exhibiting this behaviour. Only when he drew near did I see a thin black wire around his jaw and ear. I sighed, “another cellphone casualty.”
Israelis are apparently now making up for lost time by being glued to their mobile phones. They converse everywhere (on dates, in toilets, on trains and buses) about everything.
Some of the usage issues are (pretty close to being) unique to Israel. If you were under the impression that kashrut (kosher) is a food-related concept, think again. In Israel, as well as in a few Western countries, there are kosher cellphones. While they are not edible, they have been a boon to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. According to Cellular Israel, “a kosher phone is any phone that is approved and certified by vaad harabonim” (the rabbinic committee for matters of communications).
A kosher phone can only make and receive voice calls. Text messaging and emails will not work on a kosher phone. Moreover, for health, security, public services, water and electricity personnel, there is even a kosher phone designed to avoid breaking the laws of Shabbat. Technically, this mobile device may be dialed without connecting. There is even a kosher de-smarted (meaning that it has no web-browsing capability) smartphone.
Not all the changes appear to be positive. While more studies need to be done, Israeli researchers are beginning to think there is a real downside to cellphone use – it might even interfere with the biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply.”
As reported in Reproductive BioMedicine Online, there appears to be an association between higher rates of abnormal semen concentration and talking on cellphones for an hour or more a day, and talking on the devices as they are being charged. Among men who reported holding their phones within 50 centimetres of their groin, a higher rate of abnormal sperm concentration was found. Semen concentration was abnormal among 47% of those who stored their phone in their pants pockets, while it was abnormal in only 11% of the general male population. In brief, Israeli men might need to curb their cellphone use.
There might be another advantage to having an alternative to cellphones. Several years ago, when there was a wave of terrorism, having old-fashioned payphones around turned out to be beneficial. When an attack occurred, Jerusalemites whipped out their cellphones “to report in” with their families. With so many people simultaneously calling, the system crashed. It was the city’s remaining public phones that allowed people to reassure worried loved ones.
Admittedly, many of the above changes likewise happened elsewhere in the Western world; the telecommunication revolution has been a global revolution, after all. But, for many in Israel, each change or step of the way was met with a kind of curiosity or wonder that may have been singular to Israel. Today, that innocence has disappeared. For better or for worse, I’m not sure.
Deborah Rubin Fieldsis an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
Biofeed’s Nimrod Israely, top centre, with mango growers in Karnataka, India. (photo from Biofeed via Israel21c)
Shortly before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in early July, Indian diplomats in Israel heard about a revolutionary no-spray, environmentally friendly solution against the Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) made by Biofeed, a 10-employee ag-tech company. They invited Biofeed to be one of six innovative Israeli companies meeting with Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The company’s founder and chief executive officer, Nimrod Israely, who has a PhD in fruit-fly ecology, told the two leaders that Biofeed’s product can protect Indian farmers against fruit flies like the Iron Dome system protects the people of Israel against missiles. The Oriental fruit fly has been decimating 300 fruit species in India and in 65 other countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas and is considered to be the most destructive, invasive and widespread of all fruit flies.
Biofeed’s lures, hung on trees, contain an organic customized mix of food, feeding stimulants and control or therapeutic agents delivered by a patented gravity-controlled fluid release platform. Attracted by the odour, the fly takes a sip and soon dies – without any chemicals reaching the fruit, air or soil.
The launch of Biofeed’s first-in-class attractant for female Oriental fruit flies results from 15 years of development of the core platform and more than a year of development and testing in Israel and Karnataka, India. Mango farmers on four Indian orchards saw an overall decrease of fruit-fly infestation from 95% to less than five percent.
“We were hoping to bring a solution that will replace spraying and increase productivity by 50%,” Israely told Israel21c. “I am excited by the results, demonstrating the future potential for some farmers to bring about 900 times more marketable produce to market.”
One farmer in the Biofeed pilot explained that previously he had used a trap that attracted only male fruit flies, with limited success. “If you cut 25 fruits, we were getting only one good fruit; 24 were infected,” he said.
K. Srinivas Gowda, president of the 70,000-farmer Karnataka Mango Growers Association, wrote in a letter presented to Modi and Netanyahu that he “would like to have this [Biofeed] technology implemented to all the mango farmers through the government of India. This technology can be used to develop pest-free zones in the mango-growing belts in India.”
The pilot project started after Biofeed won a Grand Challenges Israel grant last year from the Israel Innovation Authority and the Foreign Ministry’s international development agency, Mashav.
“We don’t have the Oriental fruit fly in Israel. However, until now there was no solution for this problem. So, we took the challenge and chose to focus on India,” Israely said. The company worked with Kempmann Bioorganics in Bangalore to carry out the trial.
Biofeed’s products are used in many Israeli fruit orchards against the Mediterranean fruit fly and other common pests, including the olive fruit fly and the peach fruit fly (Bactrocera zonata).
“Bactrocera zonata is the number two pest in India. There are three main pests in India, so now we’ve given, within two years, a solution for the two most devastating fruit flies in India and in other parts of the world,” said Israely.
“We are the only company in the world with a solution for those two pests and both solutions are harmless to the environment,” he added. “We estimate the annual market potential of these two pest segments to be well over $1 billion.”
The Biofeed platform is effective with as few as 10 units per hectare and for a period of nearly a year before the dispenser needs replacing.
Biofeed, founded in 2005, also has a formula targeting mosquitoes that bear viruses such as Zika.
“Evolution has given insects an elaborate sense of smell, which they utilize to find mates, food, egg-laying sites and more,” Israely told Israel21c last year. “The company has developed a liquid formula that ‘knows’ how to tie different kinds of smells to other materials, as the need arises. The result is a special ‘decoy’ that draws the target insect through smell. The decoy is slow-released from a device over the course of a year. The insect is drawn to the decoy, feeds off it and dies shortly after.”
Headquartered in Kfar Truman, Biofeed sees the future of agriculture in developing countries such as India and China.
“We want to bring something that is extremely easy to use: you don’t need tractors, you don’t need to remember to spray once a week, you don’t need to put yourself in danger with sprays, there’s no safety equipment. This is something that can make a dramatic change in agriculture and human health,” said Israely.
Israel21cis a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.
Rosh Hashanah is a time to take stock of the previous year and prepare yourself spiritually for the year ahead. But for those of us with busy families, it can be hard to squeeze time for reflection into the round of Yom Tov preparations. It seems that, once you have children, the holiday focus goes from attending shul to tending to your children and, as rewarding as parenting can be, it leaves little time for focusing on spiritual growth. Yet, one of our most important jobs as parents is to teach our children the concepts of teshuvah (repentance), tefilah (prayer) and tzedakah (charity/justice). How are you supposed to teach these values to your children when you may not have time to connect to them yourself?
Child education expert Moshe Beller has found that the answer lies within the very task at hand – by watching your children.
As director of Beit Metzudot School at Seeach Sod, an Israeli organization for kids and adults with special needs, Beller must often answer tough questions about how to teach children these important values. His answer – emunah (faith/belief) – in them, yourself and, ultimately, in Hashem.
“Here at Seeach Sod, we work with children of all ages and abilities. When we approach educating a child, we look at every detail, from the diagnosis, available therapies and interventions, family circumstances and more. Then we calculate it all to find a solution that best serves the individual child. Though I cannot tell you one therapy that works for every situation, I can say that, at the core of every treatment, is believing that your child can succeed – there is no greater intervention than that!”
Sounds good, but how can we tap into that elusive ideal? If you haven’t guessed it already, it’s our children who can teach us that as well.
Children have a profound ability to trust their parents to lead them. Even if they don’t always follow what you say, they trust you with their life essentials. They trust you will keep them safe, fed, clothed, etc. This level of emunah is one we should allow ourselves to tap into when it comes to grappling with G-d. Mirror what your child displays regularly – let go of the worries that hold you back and know that everything is being taken care of for your benefit.
As for teshuvah, an essential element of teshuvah is believing you can start anew, that you can learn from your mistakes without your ego holding you back. Children display this to us with their ability to live in the moment. They don’t condemn their past actions or the past actions of others like adults do. They’re excited to learn and grow without fear of admitting they don’t know it all.
With respect to tefilah, a key to heartful prayer is awe. A sense of G-d’s greatness and the miracles that surround us each day opens possibilities to so much more. Children have the ability to be wowed by things we take for granted. As adults, we become jaded and forget that the simple pleasures surrounding us are in fact miraculous. Learn from your children and find wonder in the simple creations.
Finally, tzedakah. Have you ever seen how a child lights up when you tell them you need their help? At the core of generosity is the understanding that, no matter what your financial situation is, we all have something we can offer to another. Children take much pride in being able to help, whether or not being of genuine assistance is within their capabilities. We, too, can take the same joy in giving tzedakah and doing acts of chesed (loving-kindness).
This year, instead of seeing your children as a distraction from the path to spiritual preparation for the High Holidays, look to them to guide you towards a year of growth.
Unripe (top) and ripe (bottom) tomatoes. Regular tomatoes (far left) start out green (far left top) and turn red when ripe (far left bottom). In contrast, genetically engineered tomatoes assume different shades of red-violet, depending on whether they produce betalains (the column second from left), pigments called anthocyanins (second from right) or betalains together with anthocyanins (far right). (photo from wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il)
Colour in the plant kingdom is not merely a joy to the eye. Coloured pigments attract pollinating insects, they protect plants against disease, and they confer health benefits and are used in the food and drug industries. A new study conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, has opened the way to numerous potential uses of betalains, the highly nutritious red-violet and yellow pigments known for their antioxidant properties and commonly used as food dyes.
Betalains are made by cactus fruit, flowers such as bougainvillea and certain edible plants – most notably, beets. They are relatively rare in nature, compared to the two other major groups of plant pigments and, until recently, their synthesis in plants was poorly understood. Prof. Asaph Aharoni of Weizmann’s plant and environmental sciences department and Dr. Guy Polturak, then a research student, along with other team members, used two betalain-producing plants – red beet (Beta vulgaris) and four o’clock flowers (Mirabilis jalapa) – in their analysis. Using next-generation RNA sequencing and other advanced technologies, the researchers identified a previously unknown gene involved in betalain synthesis and revealed which biochemical reactions plants use to convert the amino acid tyrosine into betalains.
To test their findings they genetically engineered yeast to produce betalains. They then tackled the ultimate challenge: reproducing betalain synthesis in edible plants that do not normally make these pigments.
The success announced itself in living colour. The researchers produced potatoes, tomatoes and eggplants with red-violet flesh and skin. They also managed to control the exact location of betalain production by, for example, causing the pigment to be made only in the fruit of the tomato plant but not in the leaves or stem.
Using the same approach, the scientists caused white petunias to produce pale violet flowers, and tobacco plants to flower in hues varying from yellow to orange pink. They were able to achieve a desired hue by causing the relevant genes to be expressed in different combinations during the course of betalain synthesis. These findings may be used to create ornamental plants with colours that can be altered on demand.
But a change in colour was not the only outcome. Healthy antioxidant activity was 60% higher in betalain-producing tomatoes than in average ones. “Our findings may in the future be used to fortify a wide variety of crops with betalains in order to increase their nutritional value,” said Aharoni.
An additional benefit is that the researchers discovered that betalains protect plants against grey mold, Botrytis cinerea, which annually causes losses of agricultural crops worth billions of dollars. The study showed that resistance to grey mold rose by a whopping 90% in plants engineered to make betalains.
The scientists produced versions of betalain that do not exist in nature. “Some of these new pigments may potentially prove more stable than the naturally occurring betalains,” said Polturak. “This can be of major significance in the food industry, which makes extensive use of betalains as natural food dyes, for example, in strawberry yogurts.”
Furthermore, the findings of the study may be used by the drug industry. When plants start manufacturing betalains, the first step is conversion of tyrosine into an intermediate product, the chemical called L-dopa. Not only is this chemical itself used as a drug, it also serves as a starting material in the manufacture of additional drugs, particularly opiates such as morphine. Plants and microbes engineered to convert tyrosine into L-dopa may, therefore, serve as a source of this valuable material.
The research team included Noam Grossman, Dr. Yonghui Dong, Margarita Pliner and Dr. Ilana Rogachev of Weizmann’s plant and environmental sciences department, and Dr. Maggie Levy, Dr. David Vela-Corcia and Adi Nudel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Aharoni’s research is supported by the John and Vera Schwartz Centre for Metabolomics, which he heads; the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust; the Adelis Foundation; the Lerner Family Plant Science Research Fund; the Monroe and Marjorie Burk Fund for Alternative Energy Studies; the Sheri and David E. Stone Fund for Microbiota Research; Dana and Yossie Hollander, Israel; the AMN Fund for the Promotion of Science, Culture and Arts in Israel; and the Tom and Sondra Rykoff Family Foundation. Aharoni is the recipient of the André Deloro Prize, and the incumbent of the Peter J. Cohn Professorial Chair.
For more on the research being conducted at the Weizmann Institute, visit wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il.
בעידן טראמפ: האופציה הקנדית תופסת תאוצה אצל ישראלים ואמריקנים כאחד. (צילום: Cynthia Ramsay)
בעידן הנשיא האמריקני השערורייתי ביותר בתולדות המדינה, דונלד טראמפ, האופציה לעבור לקנדה תופסת תאוצה אצל אמריקנים וגם אצל ישראלים. כך מסתבר.
עיתונאית הארץ, נעמי דרום, שגרה עם משפחתה בקיימברידג’ מסצ’וסטס בשנתיים האחרונות, כותבת על האופציה הקנדית. הטור שלה שכותרתו “מתי קנדה נהיתה מגניבה בהרבה מאמריקה?” פורסם לאחרונה. דרום כותבת בכותרת המשנה כי “כמו הרבה ישראלים ולא מעט אמריקאים, גם אנחנו רואים בקנדה חוף מבטחים שאליו נוכל להיסחף כשהאפשרויות האחרות יאזלו. אבל איך קרה שאמריקה התחילה נושאת עיניים לחברה הצפונית אחרי שנים של זלזול?”
דרום אומרת כי עבור ישראלים רבים שגרים ביבשת, קנדה נמצאת שם כאופציה, פוטנציאל רומנטי בלתי ממומש. נראה שהכל שם הרבה יותר קל ושפוי: זכויות סוציאליות שזכאים אליהן כבר לאחר חודשים מועטים, ויזה קלת יחסית להשגה, קהילה יהודית נחמדה ועוזרת (היא מתכוונת לקהילה בטורונטו), הקנדים מדברים אנגלית, לא אוהבים רובים ולא אוחזים בטירוף באולטרה קפיטליזם של הדוד סם.
דרום מציינת כי מאז שטראמפ נבחר כמועמד המפלגה הרפובליקנית קנדה זוהרת כיהלום צפוני. מושב הסובלנות וביטוח הבריאות האוניברסלי, המקום שבו אוהבים מהגרים, מקבלים אותם, מאמצים פליטים סורים ומצטלמים איתם. עד הבחירות האחרונות משל בקנדה סטיב הרפר, פוליטיקאי שמרן, לא פופולרי ושנוי במחלוקת, בעוד ארצות הברית התגאתה בנשיא ליברלי, רהוט ורחום. אבל מאז התהפכו היוצרות וקנדה מתהדרת בטרודו הליברל, הפמיניסט והסובלני. האמריקנים לעומת זאת, נלכדו במערכת בחירות מכוערת
שהסתיימה בבחירתו של האיש שעוד לא פגש ניאו-נאצי שהוא לא מחבב. לאימתם גילו האמריקנים שהם פתאם פחות שווים מהשכנה המנומנמת שבה התרגלו לזלזל.
בתקופת הפריימריז לבחירות בארה”ב כותבת דרום, עיתונאי קנדי נסע לסקר את אספת הבחירות של ברני סנדרס, שהוא ותומכיו נחשבו לשמאלנים קיצוניים בין השאר בשל תמיכתם בביטוח הבריאות הציבורי. “אנחנו בסך הכל רוצים מה שיש לכם”, אמרו תומכי סנדרס לעיתונאי הקנדי, “מה כל כך קיצוני בזה?”.
אם פרסום התוצאות לבחירות בארה”ב יותר ויותר אנשים הכניסו לגוגל את המשפט “איך מהגרים לקנדה”, יותר מאשר אי פעם מאז נוסד מנוע החיפוש. בחדש שעבר פורסם כי מספר שיא של מהגרים בעיקר מהאיטי, התייאשו מארצות הברית ועברו את הגבול לקנדה.
הניו יורקר פרסם כתבה לפני מספר חודשים תחת הכותרת “הייינו יכולים להיות קנדה”. הכותב אדם גופניק, שגדל בשתי המדינות כתב בין היתר כי אמריקה תייחל, תרצה להיות קנדה, תקנא בקנדה, תכה על חטא ועוד על המהפכה האמריקנית, ערש הדמוקרטיה המודרנית?
דרום מסבירה כי גם היא ומשפחתה שקלו בשלבים מסויימים לוותר על סיבוכי הוויזה האמריקאיים ולהגר צפונה. היתרונות ידועים. אך מה אנו יודעים על קנדה? מה יש לנו בקנדה שלא גדלנו עליה, לא ראינו בטלוויזיה סדרות שלה, לא צרכנו סרטים קנדיים. מה אנו יודעים על הפוליטיקה שם? בעוד שאמריקה זורמת בעורקינו, קנדה היא טריטוריה זרה ומושלגת.
על הביקור בטורונטו היא אומרת: האנשים מנומסים אבל לא באופן מוגזם. טורונטו נראית נחמדה והחברים שלנו שגרים בה מרוצים מהחיים בה.
בין תגובות הקוראים של הרשימה: “קנדה נעימה מארה”ב, שלווה מארה”ב, אינה מושחתת כמו ארה”ב ויקרה ממנה. זו מדינה ענקית ומגוונת וכן יותר אירופאית, פחות רודפת בצע, מסודרת יותר. מס הכנסה גבוה יותר אך ביטוח הבריאות זול בהרבה. בקנדה האווירה רגועה יותר, פחות חומרנית. ארה”ב היא מדינה לעשירים ועם טראמפ הפער בין עשירים לעניים ילך ויגדל”.