Israel’s Radiation App

Apple has banned an Israeli cell phone application its creator says screens for radiation.

Vacation In Israel, Come Home Cured

Patients consult with a doctor in the waiting room of Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv, which has become one of many Israeli hu

Sharon Udasin, Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Rachel and her partner had been contemplating artificial insemination for years, but they didn’t actually go ahead with the process until Rachel came to Jerusalem from New York for a one-year teaching fellowship. After some encouragement from another couple that had gone through the process, the decision was clear: they would create their child in Israel, at Hadassah Medical Center in Mount Scopus.

“I wanted a Jewish donor who lives and serves in Israel, and has his family living there, so that if my child ever wishes to search for the donor someday, my child will be led to Israel, which is religiously and ideologically important to my wife and me,” Rachel told The Jewish Week, asking that her real name be withheld for privacy. “Israel is renowned for its fertility treatment, and they don’t play around. They want and plan to get you pregnant as soon as possible, without dragging it out to make more money off of you like they do in the U.S.”

After five trials of regular intrauterine and intracervical insemination, and the assistance of the Gonal-F fertility drug, Rachel, now 14 weeks pregnant, finally conceived at one-fourth to one-fifth of the cost of a similar process in America.

Israel has seen a surge in medical tourism for various procedures in the past few years, yet thus far, experts say that the clientele remains largely concentrated among former Soviet countries and some African nations, where treatment facilities are still inadequate. But in recent years, Israel has begun to broaden its reach to couples like Rachel and her partner, slowly attracting customers from Western European countries and North America. While the medical care in Israel equals or even sometimes exceeds that of the United States and Western Europe, the cost of procedures remains significantly cheaper.

“Medical tourism in Israel has been around for about 17 years, but only in the last year or two has it become part of the Ministry of Tourism’s agenda, the Ministry of Finance’s agenda,” said Ira Nissel, CEO of International Medical Services (med-international.com), which has been guiding medical tourists through Israel for five years — reviewing pathologies and consulting multiple specialists. “We’re trying today to put Israel on the map. But in comparison to India and Costa Rica, the prices are a far cry from what you’d expect there.”

The quality of medical care in Israel, combined with an ideal vacationing environment, is drawing more patients to visit Israel for their procedures — most commonly for oncology, cardiac and in vitro fertilization procedures, according to Nurit Agiv, medical tourism executive at Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Residents of former Soviet countries, she noted, can easily visit Israel for these procedures because they no longer need a visa to travel there.

“A lot of the doctors had their fellowships here in the United States,” Nathalie Steiner, vice president of marketing at a new medical tourism initiative called Global Health Israel (globalhealthisrael.com), a subsidiary of her father Moshe Steiner’s larger medical equipment distributor, Israel Scientific Instruments, told The Jewish Week during a recent visit to New York. “And compared to India and Costa Rica, you can go out and eat at a lot of good restaurants — it’s a Western culture here.”

Steiner, who is limiting the focus of her fledgling company to IVF procedures for now, aims to target American insurance companies, self-insured private companies and uninsured Americans, who might enjoy the added benefit of a vacation in Israel. Nissel, who says his company has been bringing in patients for IVF treatment for years, estimates that between 85 and 90 percent of these tourists are from former Soviet countries, where IVF is often unavailable, as opposed to Israel, where women can undergo the procedure through age 42.

“You are not sick when you have IVF, so you can enjoy the country,” Steiner said, noting that IVF treatment in most Israeli hospitals will cost tourists approximately $4,000, about a third the cost in the U.S. And while in Israel, tourists can rely on companies like hers to arrange airport transportation and accommodations.

The lighter financial burden can be a huge attraction.

“It’s not the bargain rate of India, but it certainly has a top-notch medical system,” said Laura Carabello…   Continue reading…

Israel: Solar Light Unto The Nations?

CNBC’s Jason Gewirtz: Focus on Israel’s clean-tech innovations.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Sharon Udasin

Jason Gewirtz is the senior producer for a CNBC documentary called “Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future,” which began airing last week and focuses on Israeli innovation in the clean-tech industry. While Israel has become a hub for alternative energy research, the Jewish state has yet to put many of its ideas into practice and is still almost completely reliant on oil, Gewirtz says. Gewirtz and his crew also explore Canadian alternative energy usage at the Olympics, German entrepreneurship in solar energy and Chinese environmental research.

A: How did you originally envision this project, and why so much emphasis on Israel?

Q: I pitched this because Israel was hosting an alternative energy conference in Eilat in February. … I wanted to have the reporter stand on the Red Sea, where you can see Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and, of course, Israel. It’s sort of a shot across Saudi Arabia’s bow — here’s the world’s biggest oil producer, and just 15 miles away they’re having this alternative energy conference.

Evaluate Israel’s relationship to China, a country that is involved in alternative energy research but is also becoming a leading trade partner with Iran.

A lot of Israeli companies are also trying to do a lot of business with China because they’re able to mass-produce things. … Of course there are political problems with Israel and China. China is about to become Iran’s biggest trading partner and acquires about 14 percent of its oil from Iran. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be business with China.

What are some of the most impressive Israeli solar energy developments?

One is Yuval Susskind’s Aora Power at Kibbutz Samar in the Negev. We drove down there from Jerusalem, and from about 40 miles away you start to see this huge tower that is able to capture rays and energy beamed back up from thousands of mirrors pointed at it. This type of “community solar” will be useful for places in India and Africa, where there’s no grid connection and residents need hot water and power from within their own villages.

Another solar energy entrepreneur, Yosef Abramowitz, won many legal battles in order to hook up his company, Arava Power, to the national grid.

What about alternatives other than solar?

Continue reading…

Israel Versus iPad

Tech writers baffled by Israel’s ban on Apple’s iPad.

(Also posted on Jewlicious.com).

It’s now over 7.5 years since my unabashedly glorious days  as a marching band geek, but I have to share the most impressive shot from the Israeli army’s marching performance at this year’s  official Yom Ha’atzmaut military ceremony at Har Herzl:

How the hell did they do that? Somehow I can’t imagine the East Brunswick High School marching band successfully forming the head of Theodore Herzl. Then again, these guys aren’t trying to play instruments at the same time as they’re marching. But still, wow. And HAPPY 62nd BIRTHDAY, ISRAEL! Wish I could be there to celebrate with you.

“Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope…Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.”-Elie Wiesel, from his Wall Street Journal and New York Times full-page ads this week.

On this Yom Hazikaron, we remember the fallen soldiers who continually fight to maintain this fundamental right for the Jewish people. And I remember how on last year at just a few hours past this time, I was standing on the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with my parents (who were visiting Israel for the first time), when the siren went off across the entire State of Israel to remind everyone of this sobering fact and memorialize those who no longer can be there to share it with us.

Watch my lovely friend Liron Mark give a speech at Hebrew University’s Yom HaShoah ceremony (still need to add English subtitles). She’s leading a special project working with Israeli Holocaust survivors, to help them properly fill out forms required to get them additional funds. For more information on that, you can read an article she wrote here (again, Hebrew only currently): http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/092/408.html.

**We apologize for the shakiness of this video, especially since we had been doing so much better lately. This time, we unfortunately misplaced the tripod, so we had to rely on my hand. That being said, I think we did a pretty good job.**

(blog post written for Jewlicious.com).

He’s not quite Kim Kardashian, her sister Khloe, or even John Edwards – but he’s pretty damn sexy.

You know, those sagging man-boobs, that voluptuous beer gut (wait, Muslims can’t drink?) and that carpet of thickly matted chest hair – what more could a secretary desire on her first day of work?

“Do I turn off the light or do you?” the man says in a video, aired on Israeli television earlier this week. ”What is the procedure?”

Rafiq Husseini, a now former top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas slides completely naked slide into bed, calling an unseen woman to join him, in what was allegedly an effort to trade his political influence for sex  This morning, however, Abbas dismissed Husseini from office and has formed a special committee to investigate allegations of corruption in his administration, West Bank-based Ma’an News Agency reported earlier today.

Along with a full-fledged video crew, former Palestinian intelligence official Fahmi Shabaneh had planted hidden cameras in the apartment, after being tipped off by the woman in question. Through a stream of text messages and meetings, Husseini had allegedly informed the potential secretary that if she wanted to be hired, “she needed to meet him in the bedroom for a little manual labor first,” according to FOX News. Shouldn’t politicians be smart enough by now to understand that if they are stupid (and/or horny) enough to engage in a sex scandal, there’s always bound to be irrevocable evidence?

After the news became public in Israel  through reports by The Jerusalem Post and Channel 10’s Tzvi Yehezkeli, even the editor-in-chief of Ma’an News Agency, Nasser Laham, wrote an editorial urging Husseini to step down, calling Husseini’s indecency an “embarrassment” to the Palestinian people – though, Laham does go on to call for Shabaneh’s arrest and makes sure to highlight all of Israel’s own financial and sexual scandals. In fact, the Palestinian Authority actually has a warrant out for Shabaneh’s arrest for his so-called “collaboration with Israel,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

And just when we thought Israel might be in the clear for once, relatives of Husseini and top aides to Abbas are naturally calling the tapes an “Israeli conspiracy”  blaming the Israeli government, Mossad and Shin Bet for the incident.

I’m sorry, but if a Palestinian politician can’t keep his pants on, it’s absolutely absurd to blame the Israeli government. Did Israel instruct this man to peel off his clothes, slide sexily under the covers and beckon an innocent woman to his bedside? I don’t think so. Likewise, did a team of Republicans conspire to film John Edwards’ extramarital tryst? I don’t think so.

I hope that for once, the media will give Israel a break and not assign blame where blame is so obviously not due. Blame belongs in one place in this scenario, and that place is below Husseini’s forestial belt-line.

_ _

Warning, the video below is quite explicit and disturbing to the eyes, in more ways than one.

Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

Frozen Out Of Olympics

Last-minute Israeli ruling keeping figure skater Tamar Katz out of the Vancouver Olympics.

by Sharon Udasin

She could already see herself on the ice in Vancouver.

When New York-based, Israeli-raised ice skater Tamar Katz arrived in Israel last week for a 24-hour, whirlwind visit, Israeli Olympic Committee officials gave her the Olympic outfit and bag she would carry with her to British Columbia to represent Israel in the Winter Games.

But later that day, like a toe loop gone bad, those same officials yanked Katz’s Olympic dream away from her, ruling that she would not be going to Vancouver.

“It was the worst trip to Israel,” she told The Jewish Week Monday.

Katz, 20, who was born in Dallas and trains in upstate Monsey, moved with her family as a child to Metullah, the home of Israel’s only ice skating rink. She had qualified for the 2010 Olympics according to International Skating Union standards.

But Israeli Olympic officials required that she finish in the top 14 at the European Figure Skating Championships last month, where, weak from a virus, she placed 21st.

Katz unsuccessfully called each member individually to plead her case.
“Some of them were willing to listen to what I had to say, but the most important people I had to appeal to were not even willing to listen to anything I said. Some of them even hung up the phone on me,” Katz said.  Continue reading…