Israel Active

Israel’s President Herzog was greeted by Turkey’s President Edogan at the Presidential Palace in Turkey’s capital Ankara. The Israeli President received a warm welcome, despite arriving in the middle of a snowfall.

This article describes the vital work performed at the Polish border with Ukraine by NATAN, Mashav, Sheba medical center, Clalit Health Services, Schneider Children’s Medical Center, and Hadassah Medical Center. Just some of the many Israeli organizations saving refugees lives.

Many Israeli startups have employees unable to leave Ukraine. Israel’s Natural Intelligence, for example, offered its Ukrainian employees up to $3000 in emergency grants. Several members of Wix in Israel flew to Poland to meet some of Wix’s 1,000 Ukrainian workers, many now refugees.

Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are offering scholarships worth millions of shekels to Ukrainian academics whose studies and research have been disrupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Funds include tuition fees as well as living expenses in Israel.

Israel has launched the “Abraham Works” project that offers hi-tech training to students from the Arab states that signed the Abraham Accords, plus Egypt and Jordan. The plan was unveiled by Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister in a meeting with Morocco’s ambassador to Israel.

On International Women’s Day, Israel allowed a Druze student to return to Israel and be reunited with her mother. Nadine Beriq left Israel in 2008 to study dentistry in Damascus but was unable to return when Syria took away her passport and the border was shut in 2015.

Amal Al-Sana had a hard upbringing as the fifth daughter in an Israeli Bedouin family of girls. But she studied for a PhD and helped found the Ajeek Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment and Cooperation. Later she cofounded the Desert Embroidery Project in her Bedouin village.

More about Israel’s Unistream Association (see previously) - a three-year program bringing together Jewish and Arab youth from all over Israel to learn about business and hi-tech.  Arab Unistream graduate Lara Musalem describes her inclusive startup in in the mixed city of Nof HaGalil.

Professor Mona Khoury-Kassbari, Vice President of Diversity and Strategy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (see previously), led a discussion with 40 top officials and professionals in Chicago. She focused on innovative strategies that Israel implements to integrate minorities.

The Israeli Hazira program (see previously) is bringing innovation to mixed Jewish-Arab cities. Around a dozen “Innovation Teams” have now been established in Acre, Bat Yam, Ashdod, Sakhnin, Beit Shemesh, Netanya, Ashkelon, Umm al-Fahm, Lod, Eilat, and in the Negev.