Photo: American Friends of Tel Aviv University.

Prospecting — the search for valuable reserves such as gold, diamond and natural gas — isn’t just a matter of luck. It’s about knowing where to look. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have modernized the hit-or-miss search with cutting-edge technology that scans the earth for signs of lucrative resources that could lurk beneath our feet.

Combining a number of surveying techniques for the first time, Prof. Lev Eppelbaum of TAU’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences at the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences and Dr. Youri Katz of TAU’s Department of Zoology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences have carried out a more accurate and in-depth land survey of Israel and the surrounding Mediterranean area than ever before. Their findings pinpoint the most likely places to find reservoirs of natural gas and oil.

Fifteen years in the making, their technique, which recently appeared in the journal Positioning, can be applied to any region in the world to more accurately identify possible riches below — before the costs of drilling or mining are incurred.

From buyers to producers

To create detailed structural-tectonic maps of Israel and the surrounding areas, Prof. Eppelbaum and Dr. Katz carried out an integrated survey using a variety of geophysical tools, including advanced analysis of magnetic, gravity, and temperature fields; utilization of seismic, magnetotelluric, and satellite imaging; and numerous well sections and outcropping studies. All of these results were integrated with plate tectonics reconstructions.

Perhaps the most valuable results of their study, the researchers say, are a series of prospective maps which identify specific areas where geological-geophysical teams are most likely to be successful in the search for natural gas and oil. Such information is not only of critical economic importance to Israel, but will also diversify oil and gas options for consumers worldwide.

Just off the shore of Haifa, a northern city along Israel’s coastline, there is believed to be a five hundred billion cubic meter area of gas reserve, Prof. Eppelbaum says. The survey indicates that a few tens of kilometers away, there may be another reserve that would significantly increase the current estimated amount of gas, he notes.

His predictions for additional oil reserves in deep water zones increase the estimated total of gas reserves by 200-300%. “Israel could have a future as a gas country — one that can produce oil and gas and sell it to the rest of the world,” Prof. Eppelbaum predicts.

A well-rounded approach

Prof. Eppelbaum says that the research was inspired by Prof. Zvi Ben-Avraham of the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, who was the first to apply the theory of plate tectonics to Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean. His findings provide a deeper understanding of the geophysical conditions in the region.

Warning that many researchers specialize too narrowly in a specific field or method, Prof. Eppelbaum stresses that the interdisciplinary approach of the Tel Aviv University team had a direct impact on the success of the study. An integrated approach puts critical information firmly in the grasp of today’s scientists — and those “prospecting” for a brighter tomorrow.

January 5, 2012

For the third time in the last 12 months, a pro-Israel poster campaign will be launched in area BART stations and on AC Transit buses to counter anti-Israel ads. Sponsored by StandWithUs, the posters will go up Monday, Jan. 16, and will be posted for four weeks.

The ads feature a Palestinian and Israeli boy arm-in-arm, with the lines “Israel Needs a Partner for Peace” and “Urge Palestinian Leaders to Accept Israel as Their Neighbor.” The billboards also direct viewers to http://www.SayYestoPeace.org.

Source: http://www.sayyestopeace.org/

The posters are timed to appear immediately after an anti-Israel campaign ends, in many of the same locations.

StandWithUs will place 12 ads: nine at BART platforms, including the Civic Center, Embarcadero and Balboa Park stations in San Francisco, as well as downtown Berkeley, Oakland 12th Street, and MacArthur stops in the East Bay. The posters will also appear in three AC transit buses.

In the last few years StandWithUs has posted counter-ads in several U.S. metropolitan transit hubs, including Chicago and New York City.

Kraft Foods and SodaStream Enter Strategic Co-Branding Deal

Crystal Light™ and Country Time™ to be first Kraft Foods brands licensed to SodaStream

SodaStream System. Source: www.sodastream.com

NORTHFIELD, Ill and AIRPORT CITY, Israel – Kraft Foods, Inc. (NYSE: KFT) and SodaStream International, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SODA) today announced a strategic partnership for the manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sale of Kraft Foods branded flavors for use with the SodaStream soda making system. This will be the first time that Kraft Foods flavors will be available specifically for use in a carbonated beverage. The initial Kraft Foods brands to participate will be several varieties of Crystal Light, a leading women’s diet beverage, and Country Time, the number-one lemonade brand. One of the new carbonated choices will include an “All-Natural” lemonade.

Read more here.

December 29, 2011

The Rev. Thomas B. Curran, O.S.F.S., began his tenure as the 14th president of Rockhurst University June 1, 2006. Source: Rockhurst University.

Excerpt:

I was left wondering how Israel, this 63-year-old nation, can boast such growth in its economy and show such inventiveness while experiencing two major wars, several skirmishes and two intifadas. Then I discovered the Hebrew word davka. It means “despite.” Despite centuries of persecution, a holocaust, criticism from all over the world and continuous upheaval, the nation of Israel has not only survived, it has prospered and has bred inventiveness. Maybe davka should be expanded in its meaning to include a positive word — hope.

Fr. Thomas Curran, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales and president of Rockhurst University, a Jesuit school in Kansas City, Mo

In June 2011, Orli Gil, Consul General of Israel to the Midwest, extended an invitation to 11 college presidents of U.S. Midwestern universities to spend a week in Israel. Gil, who is based in Chicago, described the Oct. 22-29 trip as an unparalleled opportunity for the university officials to meet high-level Israeli politicians and leaders of Israeli universities. The itinerary included opportunities to learn of some of the newest Israeli innovations in science, technology, research and development in medicine, alternative energy, agriculture and the environment. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored and underwrote the costs of the trip, except for each person’s airfare to New York City.

Fr. Thomas Curran accepted the invitation. Upon his return, Curran spoke with NCR about the trip.

Read full interview here. 

Herta and Paul Amir building at night. Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Photo: Israel Ministry of Tourism.

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is home to a comprehensive collection of Israeli artworks representing all major trends and artists.

The museum’s new Herta and Paul Amir Building opened to the public in November 2011 after a series of special events, including concerts, an architecture symposium and a gala ceremony led by Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Herta and Paul Amir Gallery. Photo: Israel Ministry of Tourism.

Designed by Preston Scott Cohen, the 195,000-square-foot concrete-and-glass building combines Mendelsohn and Bauhaus architecture styles, and doubles the size of Israel’s largest contemporary art museum. The museum is centered around a spiraling 87-foot-high atrium known as the “Lightfall” and features five levels with rectangular galleries using natural light.

A selection of some 250 works by Israeli artists dating from 1906 to the present will be on view at the Amir Building, creating the country’s largest permanent installation of Israeli art. The Amir Building is also currently hosting an array of art, photography and design exhibitions, including:

• Utopias of Expressionism and Cure by Expression: A pair of exhibitions featuring a selection of print and photographic works from the museum’s German Expressionism collection
• Library by Chanan DeLange and Circle by Yaakov Kaufman: Exhibitions focusing on Israeli design
• Five Moments: Trajectories in the Architecture of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art: Organized by guest curators Jascha Grobman and Ariel Blonder. This display explores the historical context of the design of the major structures of the museum ranging from the original Dizengoff House (1932) to the new Herta and Paul Amir Building

“The opening of the Herta and Paul Amir Building was a monumental event that has further established Tel Aviv as one of the world’s leading art and travel destinations,” said Haim Gutin, Israel Commissioner of Tourim, North and South America, “and exemplifies the city’s commitment to the arts and its prominence as Israel’s capital of culture.”

The museum will also host a site-specific exhibition entitled Shevirat Ha-Kelim: The Breaking of the Vessels, featuring new works by Anselm Kiefer, including large-scale paintings, sculptures, woodcuts and installations based on the themes of Jewish history and mysticism.

Visit the museum’s website here.

Source: Israel Ministry of Tourism.

December 30, 2011

Jerusalem (CNN) — Is Twitter aiding and abetting terrorism?

The director of an Israeli legal outfit says yes, and is threatening to sue the micro-blogging site if it doesn’t change its policies.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, sent a letter to Twitter on Thursday asserting that the company is violating U.S. law by allowing groups such as Hezbollah and al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab to use its popular online network.

“It has come to our attention that Twitter Inc. provides social media and associated services to such foreign terrorist organizations,” Darshan-Leitner wrote.

“Please be advised that (doing so) is illegal and will expose Twitter Inc. and its officers to both criminal prosecution and civil liability to American citizens and others victimized” by Hezbollah, al-Shabaab and other foreign terrorist entities.

Read complete article here.

How Israel’s Defense Industry Can Help Save America

By Arthur Herman. Mr. Herman, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Built the Arsenal of Democracy that Won World War II, which will be published by Random House in April.

December 2011

Excerpts:

• The Israeli way of doing defense business is changing the shape of the military-industrial complex. Smaller, nimbler, and entrepreneurial, Israel’s defense industry offers a salutary contrast to the Pentagon’s way of doing things. With the spending and budget crisis in the United States already putting immense pressure on the Pentagon, with all-but-certain declines in the percentage of the U.S. economy that will be devoted to defense in the coming decade, a second “revolution in military affairs” is going to be necessary. We are going to have to get more for less—much less. Israel points the way.
• Kibbutz Sasa sits one mile from Israel’s Lebanese border. Founded in 1949, it is the site of the tomb of the second-century rabbi Levi ben Sisi. It hosts groves of fruit trees and a dairy farm and has 210 members. Kibbutz Sasa is also the home of the main factory of Plasan, a company that started out making hard plastic containers like garbage cans in 1985. For four years now, American soldiers have driven more safely in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to Kibbutz Sasa and Plasan’s CEO, Dani Ziv.

Plasan specializes in a very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle. “Their work is exceptional,” says a senior Israeli defense industry executive about Plasan. “To convince the U.S. military that you are a reliable outfit is no mean feat. They did it all alone, without any help from a former ambassador or defense ministry director general.”

Plasan-armored mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) have been serving in Afghanistan since August 2009, and contractor Oshkosh Company has another 8,800 on order. In 2009 Plasan even opened a factory in Bennington, Vermont, to do the work for its American contract. But while the 350 or so workers there are American, the technology is decidedly Israeli.

Read complete article here.

Hockey Heats Up in Tiny Village With Israel’s Only Big Rink

Players Travel Hours for Chance to Hit the Ice; a Second-Hand Zamboni

By Joel Millman

December 19, 2011

METULA, Israel—The finger of territory where the farmland here juts between Lebanon and Syria’s Golan Heights is as close as this Mediterranean spot comes to Arctic climes. And, thanks to millions of dollars from Jews in Canada, this is home, too, to Israel’s only regulation hockey rink.

Photo: http://www.israhockey.co.il

That makes Metula a hot destination for many of the million-plus Russian immigrants to Israel, especially hockey players. Teams now draw a crew of international hockey fanatics to Metula’s ice on weekends. With yarmulkes tucked under helmets, and the occasional payot, or side curls, swinging free, religious skaters shoot and check fiercely, yet seldom keep score as their shots sail into nets.

“Pass, pass!” says Mike Mazeika, a Canadian who came here to teach the game to Israelis. “Take him to the corner, to the corner!,” says his rival at rink-side, Andrei Shtefuzza, once a professional player in the Soviet Union, now coaching Rishon Le’tsyon’s Ice Devils, Israel’s toughest club team.

“It’s a problem, but there’s no real rink to play on in central Israel,” says Coach Shtefuzza, who most nights teaches a contact-free game on inline skating “rinks” in Tel Aviv’s suburbs.

He has 250 protégés now, many of whom skate on ice only once or twice a year, and then only after traveling three or more hours to Metula. The tiny village of less than 2,000 residents doubles in size during big hockey tournaments, when players from across Israel fill Metula’s hotels and guest houses.

Apple-growing Metula beat out the neighboring town of Kiryat Shemona, originally the intended recipients of Canada’s philanthropy, because residents couldn’t stop arguing over where to locate the gift.

That was in 1995. Since then, Canadians have made a goal of supporting Israeli hockey—donating equipment, uniforms and even a second-hand Zamboni ice tractor to keep Metula’s skating surfaces smooth. Air Canada donated cargo space to bring the machine here.

A second hockey rink is under construction in Eilat, in Israel’s far south. In Netanya, on the Mediterranean, a Winnipeg-born podiatrist named Leonard Silverberg is about to break ground on a $5 million skating center, which he financed along with an Israeli partner. Dr. Silverberg, 68 years old, operated skating rinks in Southern California. He sees Israeli hockey as a can’t-lose proposition.

“In California, we ran 5,000 kids a week,” he says. “With a million-plus Russians in central Israel, we’ll have no trouble matching that.”

Until then, the hockey monopoly belongs to Metula, pilgrimages to which begin on Thursdays. That’s when devout Jews, mainly from Jerusalem, arrive. Forbidden under rabbinical law from driving on Sabbath, religious hockey fans must be off the road, or rink, by sunset Friday evening.

Danny Spodek, a dentist, juggles a waiting list of nearly 700 Orthodox and non-Orthodox hockey fanatics hoping to join his league’s Thursday night pick-up games. The Canadian immigrant offers slots for two teams of 15 skaters each, plus two goalies.

To pay for ice rental Dr. Spodek charges 100 shekels, or $30, apiece from 20 or so regulars who commit to driving to Metula each week. Casual players pay slightly more.

“It’s our North American style, which is more fun than the Russian way: brutal,” laughs architect Daniel Kleinman, 34, another Canadian émigré. “We skate for an hour and half,” says Mr. Kleinman, a father of five. “I’m home, usually, by 2:30 a.m.”

Yoav Marer commutes from Yeshiva Ohr Somayach, an ultra-Orthodox rabbinical school. A hockey prodigy while growing up outside Toronto, in 2007 Mr. Marer, 29, felt the call to study scripture in Jerusalem.

Hockey lends balance to his hectic schedule, which these days includes awaiting the birth of his second child. Mr. Marer says he skates a fine line between enjoying exercise while shunning overt competition.

“The Talmud warns against competitive fervor,” he says. One good thing about Thursday night hockey: it guarantees a quorum of ten observant men—known in Hebrew as a minyan—for evening prayers, the rabbinical candidate adds.

Russian émigrés come to Metula on Fridays, skaters from burly teams like Rishon Le’tsyon’s Ice Devils, Haifa’s Hawks and the Bat Yam Jet Turtles.

“I love playing on real ice, I love the contact,” says Bar Kaminski. The Rishon player, now preparing to enter military service, enjoyed a recent face-off in Metula, clanking on pads and skates in a locker room buzzing with Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian and other languages from the former Soviet Union.

Levav Weinberg, an apple grower, anchors Metula’s team, Macabi. “I split my life,” says the 30-year-old grandson of Polish Holocaust survivors. “In summer, picking my apples. And during the winter, play hockey.”

“Macabi” honors the Jewish guerrillas who rebelled against foreign hegemony in ancient times—an event commemorated each winter with Hanukkah. Yet while Metula still has its share of border conflicts—it sat in the crossfire between Israeli and Hezbollah forces during fighting in 2006—this winter, Mr. Weinberg has been passing pucks to promote peace.

He’s recruited Arab youths from two nearby villages to join Israel’s national junior team, drawing players from the town of Al Ghajar, half of which sits in Israel, the other in Lebanon. Others come from Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the occupied Golan Heights.

Druze are Arabic-speakers, too, part of a tribe divided between Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Neither Islamic nor Christian, their members in Israel are loyal to the Jewish government, although adults in Majdal Shams continue to hold Syrian passports and send their children to university in Damascus.

Some Druze parents see hockey as a way to expose their kids to opportunities in Israel.

“Anyone can play soccer,” says Anan Radah, a Druze community leader. “If you want kids to be special, give them a special sport. Hockey, with the gear and the ice, gives them more to experience.”

This month, Mr. Weinberg is training a team of junior stars to represent Israel in a tournament in Quebec in February. His 2011 squad won their division with an all-Jewish team, but in 2012 he’s planning to bring both Arab and Jewish players.

Mayas Sabag is already contemplating the glory of international competition. “Now whenever I score a goal, of course I feel pride,” says the 12-year-old Druze villager. “But then I immediately think: how do I show it? Raise my arms in the air, or hold up my stick?”