Israeli vaccine may work against swine flu too
Filed under: Business, General, health, Medical Breakthroughs, Technology
With doctors and nurses around the world now declaring that there’s no way many of them will take the new swine flu vaccine being rushed out this fall because of safety fears, it’s not surprising that interest in Israeli company BiondVax Phamaceuticals is growing fast.
The company is developing a universal flu vaccine that is designed to protect you from every type of flu – whether it’s chicken flu, Hong Kong flu, regular flu, or cat in the hat flu. One shot can last three to five years.
Now the company has announced indications of possible success in a trial on rats against the current H1N1/A flu (swine flu). The company reported that antibodies specific to swine flu were found in blood samples from lab rats injected with the universal flu vaccine.
On rumors of this news alone, the company’s share price on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange rose 18 percent, prompting the exchange to suspend trading.
ISRAEL21c reporter Harvey Stein featured the company in June this year, when fears about the pandemic nature of swine flu were just coming to the fore. You can watch his great video above.
Don’t get too excited though. You won’t be able to sign up for a universal flu vaccine when flu season breaks out in the next few months. There’s still more development ahead.
Other Israelity reports on Swine flu:
It’s flu, but not as we know it
School daze returns to Israel
You can feel it in the air. The relatively cooler temperatures and breezy evenings combined with actual sightings of clouds in the sky can only mean one thing – the kids are going back to school!
All those days of trying to figure out how to occupy the children without TV, computers or spending a fortune, are thankfully coming to an end, as the official Israeli school year begins on Tuesday, September 1st.
But that doesn’t mean parents are scot free yet. First, unless you’re amazingly well prepared and took care of it during the summer, it means running around this week and fighting crowds to buy the long lists of required books, and the ever-increasing collection of accessories that our students need to do their jobs.
Although some communities and schools have started adopting in part the American ‘recycling’ of schoolbooks to be handed down to the next year’s students, most parents need to go out and buy books fresh and brand new each year. And if you think that younger siblings may be able to use them in future years, the problem is that the Education Ministry regularly changed the curriculum, making those books quickly obsolete. Our shelves are filled with school books that nobody will ever use again.
However, there is one area we parents save money in. I remember growing up and eveyone arriving for the first day of school in brand new clothes – especially the girls. The first day outfit was a big deal, and it shaped how you were perceived for the rest of the year.
Thankfully, most schools in Israel now have their own school shirts or outfits that are required apparrel, so we don’t have to rush off to the newly opened Gap in Jerusalem for the latest trendy clothing. And students attending those schools that don’t require uniforms are just as happy to wear their torn jeans and t-shirts on the first day.
The important thing is, regardless of how they’re dressed, that tomorrow morning, sometime before 8:00 am, our children will be on their way to be handed off to our esteemed educational system where they will be intoxicated with the thoughts, concepts and philosophies that have shaped minds for generations. And if that doesn’t quite work out, at least there will be no kids in the house
Nostalgia Sunday – Petit Beurre
Marcel Proust, perhaps the leading light in the nostalgia biz, famously dipped a Madeleine cookie into a cup of tea and was instantly transported into a remembrance of things past. (You can read about this in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past). Israelis, too, have a cookie (or biscuit as the Brits call it), with Proustian or Pavlovian qualities but somehow, the Osem Petit Beurre lacks the class of say, a Madeleine or even the original LU Petit Beurre.
Here’s the blurb on LU: “Delicious French biscuits are baked in the heart of Normandy, an area famed for it’s dairy produce and gastronomy. Petit Beurre are a simple but classic French biscuit, a superior tea biscuit that both adults and children enjoy.” It’s a popular cookie throughout our region, which is why I’ve included a picture of the Turkish make too. Israeli children can use it to create flags on Israel Independence Day.
On the other hand, here’s what A Nice Cup of Tea and A Sit Down, the authoritative website reviewing all things teatime-related: “Back in the 19th century the little chap must have thought Petit Beurres were cutting edge biscuit heaven. Nowadays they are ranked somewhat below balsa wood, charcoal briquettes and airline food in the league table of appetising things to eat.” I cannot but agree. Bluntly put, the Osem Petit Beurre is the crystal meth of cookies: cheap, easy to score and higly addictive.
I may be a tad resentful because I hold it, along with potfuls of hot Wissotsky tea, as responsible for a Freshman 10, nah, make it 20 kilo weight gain in the late 70s that came with living on kibbutz and dorm life in Jerusalem. Every afternoon, a carton of the stuff was put out, along with poisonous red-colored jam with the taste and texture of hair gel. And every afternoon, we consumed handfulls of Petit Beurre – which, I would like to point out, is neither small nor buttery – either slathered with mystery jam and margarine, or dunked in tea.
Dunking the Petit Beurre is, in itself, an art that requires expert timing; dip it a moment too long and it would break in half, leaving you with tan-colored mush at the bottom of your teacup. The ideal was to dip and raise, so you could watch the cookie expand to twice its original size. Phallic, yes, but that pretty much suited the general topic of conversation of the time.
Petit Beurre expansive qualities could also be put to good use in creating a poor man’s version of tiramissu, perfect for those communal living quarters that lacked an oven. Here’s how it was done: line a baking tin all the way around with Petit Beurre, create a mixture of Elite powdered coffee, sugar and 9% white cheese purloined from the dining room and pour over the cookie crust. The culinarily ambitious might dust the top with a bit of chocolate milk powder. After that, chill until the cookies soaked in all the liquid and did their magic expanding act. Cut, serve and eat with friends, preferably while bemoaning cruel fate, men, etc.
Petit Beurre is so entrenched in the Israeli psyche that you can’t go on a hike or to reserve duty without a package. Always ready to mess with success, Osem has created a whole line of the things: chocolate, snack-sized, whole wheat… what sacrilege! We want our Petit Beurre the old fashioned way: unhealthy, cardboardy and absorbent. Hmmm… I feel like a cup of tea right now…
Save Smadar
The entrance to the theater
Community organizers in Jerusalem are gathering signatures and shekels to counter the possibility of this particular sale, given the theater’s mythological place in the city’s cultural history. More than that, it’s simply a favorite theater for locals, given its arthouse cinema atmosphere, cafe and quaint location on leafy Lloyd George Street. The Smadar is the only theater in Jerusalem where you can bring in your beer from the bar, along with a carton of popcorn. The seats are purple, the screen is big enough, and given the village-like character of Jerusalem, you always know someone else in the theater.
The Art Deco style building was first used by British soldiers during the Mandate period, and was opened to the public in 1935 as ‘the Orient’. It was purchased by four former soldiers after Israel’s War of Independence, and then sold out to one of the four, Aryeh Chichik, who ran it as a family business for many years.
Jerusalem poet Yehuda Amichai mentions the Smadar as a symbol in his poem, ‘Tichye Reviit,’ and more than that, it has become a symbol of pluralism in Jerusalem, as it was the first theater to stay open on Shabbat, and offers a Sabbath alternative to secular Jerusalemites.
It is Jerusalem’s Cinema Paradiso, and would be sorely missed by many, if sold. There’s no doubt that Chichik’s daughters, who have been battling in court over the property, will make millions from a sale, given the real estate values in the neighborhood. But the rest of us will lose yet another piece of local history and a very special cinema experience.
Getting ready for visits from Madonna and Leonard
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Music, Pop Culture
September is going to be a five star month in Israel for appearances by visiting pop performers. Within a few week period, we’ll be treated to shows by Madonna, Leonard Cohen, Faith No More, Julio Iglesias, MGMT, and Dinosaur Jr. This follows a couple of great shows last week by Calexico, The Kaiser Chiefs and even an entertaining jaunt by Lady Gaga.
Clearly, Israel is on the map for touring artists, and music lovers here are ready to welcome them with open arms, despite the hefty prices. Entrance to stadium shows like Madonna and Cohen generally begin at NIS 450 and soar all the way to the thousands for VIP seating. However, that hasn’t dissuaded local audiences from buying tickets. Cohen’s September 24 show at Ramat Gan Stadium sold 47,000 tickets in only 16 hours, and Madonna added a second date on September 2 to her 45,000-plus sold out September 1 show at Hayarkon Park. Even veteran Iglesias added a second show on September 9 at Tel Aviv’s Nokia Center after his September 8 show sold out.
I decided to talk to some of the promotors and managers involved in the flurry of activity to find out if anything changed to suddenly make Israel a desireable place to perform after years of fallowness.
According to Leonard Cohen’s manager Robert Kory, there’s a word of mouth circuit in the industry based on artists’ touring experiences, that can influence another artist’s willingness to perform in Israel.
“There’s definitely communication among managers and artists’ agents. When an artist plays somewhere and has a successful show and enthusiastic audience, other people hear about it,” Kory said.
To read more about the local promotors and their attempts to bring artists like The Killers, Green Day and Coldplay to Israel, see the full story here.
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