Venture launched by Israeli high-tech companies will create 12,000 high-tech jobs for Israel’s Arabs

Cisco Systems Inc. CEO and Chairman John Chambers made the announcement at the Israeli Presidential Conference. The campaign will help create 12,000 high-tech jobs in Israel’s Arab sector over the next four years.

Arabs make up roughly one-fifth of Israel’s 8 million citizens. While they enjoy full citizenship rights, they are generally poorer and less educated.

“If we can move to 12,000 (new employees) within four years, it would be an indication of what’s possible.”

Cisco is the program’s main source of funds. Other participants include Google Inc., Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

“No government or policy could do it. You need the companies,” said Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Several new companies joined Maantech, including Israeli telecommunications giant Bezeq, Cadence Design Systems Inc. and OnTarget Communications, according to a statement from the Israeli president’s office.

06/24/12

Like the idea of cultures fusing together to create musical perfection? Then check out the Glocali Festival in Tel Aviv’s Barby Club

Photo: Barak Weiss

Re-posted from Midnighteast.com

If you like your hip hop with vodka, and move your feet to Arabic-Russian-Kurdish-Amharic-Hebrew rhythms dance your way to the Glocali Festival at the Barby Club on Thursday, May 24, 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Now in its 3rd edition, Café Gibraltar presents an exciting evening of multicultural music from in and around Israel.

About the Artists:

DAM
The first Palestinian Hip Hop crew and the first to rap in Arabic; Suheil Nafar, Tamer Nafar and Mahmoud Jreri have been working together in Lyd since 1990s.

Ilana Eliya
Vocalist and storyteller Ilana Eliya was born in Israel of Kurdish descent. Drawing on her heritage, she performs unknown Kurdish works, and also classical Arabic pieces originally performed by legendary Egyptian singer Oum Koulthum as well as a wide range of religious and secular songs from the Ladino, Andalusian, Moroccan and Spanish cultures.

Kriminal Project
A repertoire of songs of another time and place, Russian songs and songs from the early days in the land of Israel by Sasha Argov, are given new subversive renditions. Wild, wicked, over the top & damn good.

Different Shades of Africa – Abate Berihun and Omri Mor
Vocalist and saxophonist Abate Berihun is a powerful presence on the contemporary Israeli jazz scene, with a sound that pierces the soul. Abate and pianist Omri Mor will rock your world with Ethiopian, Andalusian, Afro-Cuban jazz fusion.

Where/When: Glocali Festival, May 24, 2012
The Barby Club, 52 Kibbutz Galuyot Street, Tel Aviv. 03-5188123. Tickets.barby.co.il

05/22/12

How to bring peace to the Middle East? Duh…How about a football (soccer) match?

Somewhere in the West Bank….the small Jewish community of Beit Arieh inaugurated its new soccer field on Sunday and it celebrated by inviting their Palestinian neighbors and residents of the neighboring village Al-Laban for a friendly football (or soccer for those in the U.S.) match in celebration of the new field.

The game was the latest in a series of cooperative activities that have taken place between the two communities over the last several years, The newspaper Maariv reported on Tuesday.

The Beit Arieh team beat Al-Laban 11-0, but one member of the losing side was quoted as saying, “What do the numbers matter? This is for fun, for sport and for friendship. We’ll win the next game.”

05/21/12

This is Manara Square in Ramallah, the West Bank.

Surprised me. Not the typical image I had in my mind.

photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90

05/20/12

Double rainbow over the Dead Sea, Israel.

Photo by explosivecuriosity.com

05/19/12

Israel-Arab swimmer to represent Israel in EU championship

Jowan Qupty, an Israeli Arab swimmer, will represent Israel in the EU swimming championship. Jowan Qupty holds the top place amongst Israelis in the 100m breaststroke.

Qupty was born and raised in his hometown of Jerusalem, where he swam with other future Israeli Olympians such as Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or. Qupty first fell in love with swimming at the Jerusalem YMCA, where his team was a mixture of Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

Qupty hopes that this meet will qualify him for a spot representing Israel in the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Best of luck Jowan!

Photo by Katie Currid

05/11/12

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Israeli phone center gives jobs to Arab Bedouin women

Arab women in Israel actually have more rights than in many other Arab countries. People don’t realize that in Israel both men and women have equal rights. Women can do anything that a man can do. Like drive, vote, work, go to college, dress how they want to…unlike in Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Iran, Iraq.

“One of the participants, Dalal abu Kaf, 21, said the job expanded her horizons and she hoped to fund her medical studies. As a young Bedouin woman, she said she is proud that to become a team manager in the company at her first job.

So many people have their opinions on Israel, but almost no one has actually been there. If people only knew that the Israel they see in the media, isn’t the real Israel. This is just another example, what other country would have government ministries and tax payer money subsidize work and employment for minorities? What Arab countries would do that for Jews?

To read the entire article from Alarabiya.net, click here

05/9/12

New Google study finds: Israeli-Arabs blog more than any other population in Israel.

A new study funded by Google Israel and carried out by academics at the School of Media Studies at the College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) in Rishon Lezion, the study entitled ‘Israel in the Digital Age 2012,’ questioned more than 1200 respondents ranging in age from 12 upwards and from all different sectors of the population.

The study found that Israeli-Arabs blog more than any other group in Israel. The study noted that Arabs in Israel are much more active in blogging compared to the Jewish population. Roughly one-third (28.3%) of Arab speakers who reported to writing a blog said they updated it daily, while only 12% of Jewish bloggers said the same. The study also found that 37% of the Arab population that reads blogs does so everyday, while only 24% of the Jewish population reading blogs does so with such frequency.

Dr. Yuval Dror, Head of the Digital Communication track of the School of Media Studies at COMAS, who led the study, said “The digital age is rapidly changing Israeli society, but in recent years the media and public discourse has lacked reliable, open and comprehensive data which can form the basis for the determining policy and decision marking in the public and private sectors alike.”

To find out more, click here

05/7/12

I guess this is becoming Israel video week…not on purpose…but I guess this stems from a few conversations I’ve been having with my friends back home. Having been here for a few months, people always ask me what living in Israel is like.

I can’t get over how different it is than I had previously imagined. I was thinking it was a war zone, where Arabs and Jews live confined within huge walls, but the reality is that it’s so dynamic and fun. Israel is so diverse with many different people and cultures mixed in together, from Arabs to Jews, Russians to Ethiopians, Sudanese to South East Asians. Everyone lives together, works together, shops together.

There’s no feeling of war-zone conflict like you see on TV. The things I read in the media are incidents when outsiders, people who live outside of Israel and West Bank, come into Israel to gain media headlines. The reality on the ground is vastly different. Everyone here is just minding their businesses, trying to work, feed their families, and live life to the best that they can.

05/3/12

Fundraiser event for Israel’s Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra

Ahinoam Nini/Photo: Ronen Ackerman

Ahinoam Nini will be the guest of honor at a festive evening celebrating the Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra on May 17, 2012 at the Holon Theatre.

The Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra is composed of talented young musicians, aged 16 – 26, from all over Israel. Celebrating a decade of music, the orchestra was founded in 2002, through the initiative of Dr. Meir Wiesel, Director of Youth and Music Israel.

The orchestra combines Middle Eastern and Western instruments and musical genres to create new forms and wonderful sounds, rooted in the Arab and Jewish musical traditions of the past and reaching out to the future, as contemporary Arab and Jewish composers have created works for the orchestra.

The orchestra has performed all over Israel and Europe, and in 2010 was awarded the prestigious Wuerth prize (Germany), in recognition of intercultural dialogue between Arabs and Jews.

The concert will be a benefit for the orchestra, to support its performances in the peripheries, and its unique role in fostering creative collaborations, dialogue, and co-existence. The evening is sponsored by the Municipality of Holon. Additional information about the orchestra can be found on the Youth and Music site.

Tickets and information: Youth and Music, 050-6449820; 03-5622701
Holon Theatre, 11 Kugel Blvd. Box office: 03-5023001-2-3

05/2/12

Less Talk, More Peace