Foto Friday – Assaf Pinchuk images Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
It’s the morning of Erev Pessach, Passover eve, and the country is in its final involuntary shopping, cooking and cleaning spasm. This evening, a blessed quiet will fall over Israel and for a few moments, all will be clean, orderly and in place.
That sense of balance, of everything being as it should be — dare I say it, of seder — is present in these images by commercial photographer Assaf Pinchuk, who specializes in architectural and industrial subjects. In his work, Pinchuk gives us a glimpse of the Israel we aspire to be. Even the unruly building blocks and winding streets of an old Tel Aviv neighborhood fall into place…
A office building lobby becomes a composition of light, shadow, contrasting colors and structural elements…
The city’s famously dynamic night life is omnipresent in the saturated green of a rest room…
A Tel Aviv rooftop apartment glows against a darkening sky…
In daylight, through the windowshades, the harsh Mediterranean sun paints white walls with shadow…
As always, the best days end with sunset on the Tel Aviv beach.
Assaf Pinchuk studied photography at Hadassah College, Jerusalem, after which he interned and worked with Cologne-based photographer Hans-Georg Esch. Together with wife and business partner Miri, Pinchuk opened his own studio in 1998, with the goal of producing unique, dynamic, smart and inspiring images for a client list that includes some of Israel’s leading companies and institutions.
Jerusalem Light Rail’s growing pains
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life
While all appears to be running smoothly on the Jerusalem CityPass light rail line, there are rumblings that are coming from below the surface and about to explode.
The rail payment system is similar to many European cities, where passengers are expected to buy tickets or flash their magnetic card against a machine to debit a ride when they board. However, it’s a little confusing for some newtimers, and overzealous inspectors who roam the trains hoping to catch violators are evidently not being too sympathetic.
A Facebook page called “Jerusdalem Light Rail Abuse” has been launched. In their manifesto, the organizers write: “CityPass inspectors are writing fines for any infraction, even genuine mistakes caused by not knowing the system or language (tourists and new immigrants) and by malfunctioning Light Rail equipment.”
The page links to a bunch of horror stories about perplexed passengers going up to inspectors to ask for help and immediately being hit with a substantial fine (up to $50) for not having paid for their ride.
Likewise, the blog ‘Life in Israel’ details a particular case of family of five from outside Jerusalem who bought their tickets and couldn’t’ figure out how to use the machine to swipe the card. When they approached an inspector, they were immediately fined NIS 993 and forced off the train.
Something is clearly not on track for the Jerusalem Light Rail.
Elvis fans to head to Holy Land
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture, Religion, Travel
Two Elvis impersonators at the Elvis Inn at Neve Ilan - will they scare away the Elvis fans on the Holy Land Tour?
The brainchild of a Toronto/Nashville-based tour organization called Israel Theme Tours, the 10-day Elvis tour caters to the fans who love the King’s gospel music persona. For just under $4,000, they can join three US singers who accompanied Elvis on tour and in the studio in the late 1960s – Joe Moscheo and Terry Blackwood of the Elvis Imperials, and Bill Baize – as they visit the Christian sites of Israel – Nazareth, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, a cruise on the Sea of Galilee and the option of being baptized in the Jordan River.
According to Israel Theme Tours co-founder Joe Amaral, the tour is being limited to 100 people in order to enable access to the stars, who will be performing in a boat on the Kinneret, and will likely break into impromptu performances and hold evening jam and gab sessions throughout the tour.
But for some, the highlight of the tour might be a stop at the Elvis Inn, near Neve Ilan outside of Jerusalem, to experience the kitschy but heartfelt Israeli restaurant/ shrine to the King, complete with a larger-than-life statue in its parking lot. On Elvis’s birthday, they usually have an Elvis impersonator contest, so it would be nice to have the Israeli and the American Elvises get to meet face to face.
They can discuss whether Elvis was a Christian, or really Jewish, as the 1998 book Schmelvis: Searching for the King’s Jewish Roots, claims. It cites the facts that his maternal great grandmother, Nancy Burdine, was Jewish, he always wore a chai (the Hebrew word meaning “life”) pendant; he put a Star of David on his mother’s headstone; and his tremolo vocal style may have been influenced by his upstairs Memphis neighbor, Rabbi Alfred Fruchter, singing cantorial music when Presley was a teen.
They can even have a Jewish Elvis vs. Christian Elvis singdown. Can’t wait.
Foto Friday – The Innovators Way
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, health, Medical Breakthroughs, News, Picture of the Week, Profiles, Science, Technology, tv
The Innovators Way is a new photo exhibition showcasing 27 researchers whose innovations, developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, improve quality of life and human welfare worldwide in fields such as health, safety, environment and nutrition.
The exhibition celebrates the work of those researchers whose initiatives have led to commercial products on the market today.
These creative initiatives came about as the result of intensive and wide-ranging scientific research, followed by patent registration, commercialization and finally marketing by Israeli and international companies.
None of this would have been possible without Yissum – the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University. Yissum is solely responsible for the commercialization of innovations and technologies originating at the university. The company was among the first of its kind in the world when it was established in 1964, and is today ranked among the world’s 15 leading companies in this field.
To date, Yissum has registered more than 7,000 patents on more than 2,000 inventions, and has established 72 spin-off companies.
The scientists and innovations documented in the new exhibition include:
Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch (right) and Prof. Nachum Kedar established the foundations for the introduction of genes for extended fruit shelf-life into standard tomato cultivars, turned cherry tomatoes into a global commodity, and developed the cluster tomatoes. (The original research was conducted jointly with Prof. Yosef Mizrahi of Ben Gurion University and Dr. Ehud Kopeliovitch. The seeds are produced and manufactured by Vilmorin (France), Monsanto (USA), Syngenta (Switzerland) and Bayer (Germany).
Prof. Marta Weinstock-Rosin who developed Exelon, a medicine prescribed for people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. Exelon can slow the progression of the disease in a significant proportion of patients and improve cognitive function in some subjects. Exelon is manufactured by Novartis (Switzerland).
Professor of Chemistry David Avnir, developer of Sol-Gel Technology for the formation of new materials which combine the properties of glasses or ceramics with the properties of organic and biological compounds. Applications of Sol-Gel Technology have been developed in the fields of optics, catalysis, sensing, polymers, biochemistry and pharmacy. Many researchers at the Hebrew University have participated in the various developments. Sol-Gel Technologies, Inc. (Israel) was established to commercialize products based on these newly invented materials, and is active especially in the fields of dermatology and agriculture.
Prof. Alexander Vainstein, the Wolfson Family Professor of Floriculture, who developed the MemoGenetechnology which enables the creation of new traits in plants and the enhancement of agricultural crops through genetic modification. MemoGene is a groundbreaking process for targeted and site-specific plant genetic modification, using highly innovative novel tools for genomic modification. The technology, which was patented jointly by Yissum and Danziger Innovations (Israel), is applicable to all plants.
Prof. Shmuel Peleg has developed technologies upon which two Israeli startups were founded. One technology creates panoramic stereo images from photographs taken by an ordinary camera, which has been commercialized by HumanEyes Technologies (Israel). The second is a technique for video synopsis, which enables hours of video surveillance footage to be viewed in minutes, and which has been commercialized by BriefCam. [Full disclosure: I work for BriefCam and know Prof. Peleg personally. I also thought the photo really captured his spirit.]
The exhibition’s photographer, Nati Shohat, is the founder of Flash 90, a photographic agency that supplies images to newspapers, magazines and other customers in Israel and abroad. Shohat’s news photography and artistic and portrait work have been exhibited in many venues and in publications such as Stern Magazine, Paris Match, Le Monde, Time and others.
Hebrew University has about 1,000 senior faculty members and a student body of approximately 23,000. To date, it has conferred over 120,000 degress. The University has some100 research centers and more than 4,000 research projects. Faculty members and alumni have been awarded 8 Nobel Prizes, 1 Fields Medal, 269 Israel Prizes, 12 Wolf Prizes, 18 EMET Prizes and 41 Rothschild Prizes. Founders include Chaim Weizmann, Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Chaim Nachman Bialik.
Orange you glad I didn’t say Pelephone?
Orange has a nifty iPhone app that shows you exactly where they're ripping you off
Earlier in the week I wrote about my new iPhone 4S. I took a rather crafty approach in obtaining the phone. The local cell phone operators – Orange, Pelephone and Cellcom being the largest – are more than happy to give you a phone for “free” along with a plan with a minimum price of NIS 200 – NIS 250 (about $50-$65) a month. That fee, of course, includes a “hidden” charge where you pay for the phone over a period of 36 months; so the actual price of the phone comes to more than $1,000.
But that same phone is available from Apple in the U.S. for $700-$800, depending on how many gigabytes of memory you want. If you’ll be in the States or have a way to get a phone brought over from the old country, you can save several hundred dollars.
That was especially the case for me. I’m not a big phone talker. I needed a new phone (my ancient decidedly-not-smart Ericsson would unexpectedly just shut off, so I frequently missed calls) and I liked the idea of not having to carry a separate iPod and paper calendar.
My average talk and SMS bills have averaged about NIS 75 ($20) per month (true, now stop laughing already). All I needed was a cheap data package so, for example, I could use Waze to monitor traffic conditions or check email when I was away from a WiFi connection. That could result in a savings of at least NIS 100 – NIS 150 a month. Do the math and you’ll see that, in addition to getting the phone cheaper, I’d be doing pretty well over the three-year period.
With great optimism, I entered the Orange store in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood and asked for their minimum data plan. I was delighted to learn that I could get 250 MB/month for just NIS 24 ($6.50) above my regular plan. If it turned out I needed more data, a full gigabyte was just NIS 42 ($11). Sign me up, Scotty.
Imagine then my surprise when I received my first bill and the price for the data plan was not NIS 24 but NIS 38. What gives?
We called Orange. The polite customer service agent checked and assured us that there was no such thing as a NIS 24/month plan, that the NIS 38 was correct, and there was nothing we could do about it, short of going into Orange and confronting them in person. Nothing I like more than a round of verbal fisticuffs in Hebrew
Now, we had asked the salesperson at the Orange store for the deal in writing, but she refused. “It’s all in the computer.” This is a common tactic (friends at other cellular providers report the same thing). I don’t know if it’s even legal. Silly us for being trusting in the first place.
Now, without the great optimism of the first trip, we headed back to Orange. By some great luck, we got the very same salesperson. She appeared as startled as us by our bill. “Yes, it’s NIS 24/month,” she said. But the computer didn’t agree. Apparently, there had been a glitch and the first time around the computer was offering an old price that had already been discontinued. When she tried to fix our bill now, the NIS 24 option simply didn’t appear.
She seemed genuinely apologetic, but we were determined to get something out of the inconvenience (waiting for the Orange representative on the phone, driving back to the Orange store, waiting in line, etc – that had to be worth something). She offered us a refund for the first month. I demanded six.
“It’s impossible,” our salesperson said, not looking so apologetic anymore. “The computer won’t let me.” Sure, I thought to myself. Then the computer “suddenly” obliged and we settled at three.
The salesperson then suggested that we upgrade our plan. “You’ll save money,” she said, doing her best to coo us into compliance. We spent the next 20 minutes running calculations – cell phone plans are so convoluted they’re nearly impossible to decipher.
Let’s see: the new plan cost 38 agorot a minute for calls with 50 minutes free between Orange subscribers. We were paying a very high 89 agorot a minute but with 100 minutes free between family members and another 90 minutes free to other Orange users. One plan had the data package built in to the price; in the other it was extra.
And what’s to guarantee that, if we switched, once we got home we wouldn’t discover the same bait and switch?
Ah, but here’s where that new iPhone came in very handy. Before we started the conversation, I surreptitiously opened the voice recorder on the phone. The entire exchange was now preserved for posterity…or battle.
In the end we decided to stick with the plan we already had. And I have no idea if making a recording like this is even legal or admissible in court. But I don’t imagine it would ever come to that. After all, you can just switch to another carrier. I’m sure that would work out much better…right?
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