Israel Active

Israel-based startup Travaxy offers tourism services for people with disabilities or special needs. Online you can book flights, hotels, wheelchairs, crutches, and other mobility aids that will wait for you at your destination, which currently includes Tel Aviv, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona and London.

I reported previously on the Israel Free Loan Association, now called Ogen (Hebrew for Anchor). It has provided over $300 million in interest-free loans to some 60,000 low- and middle-income families and small businesses. It will soon provide low-interest loans to even more Israelis.

When Israel played Kenya in the 2019 Women's Lacrosse U19 World Championships, they saw that the Kenyans were wearing sneakers instead of lacrosse cleats (shoes with special studs).  The next day, the Israelis presented each Kenyan with her own pair of cleats.

Israel's navy has been leading a major training exercise involving 11 countries in preparation for an expected earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Greece, France and the US were in the main participants based at Haifa port, supported by Germany, Italy, Canada, Chile, Cyprus and others.

Israel’s giant IT company NICE systems has just won a $137 million order from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to help it improve the safety of air transportation in over 770 sites. NICE’s tools will enable faster incident response and greater visibility into incident data.

72 members of the US Congress (over 15% of the entire House of Representatives) came to Israel on concurrent Republican and Democrat trips to get a firsthand view of the challenges Israel faces and to express unconditional, bipartisan support for the Jewish state.

Israel is to host 27 graduate students from 24 US institutions as part of the Limnology and Oceanography Research Exchange (LOREX) program. Students will study at the University of Haifa’s marine sciences school and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat.

Britain’s new ambassador to Israel, Neil Wigan, presented his credentials to President Reuven Rivlin. He revealed that he first met his wife Yael in Israel on a previous posting in 2002. Also, his grandfather was the commander of British forces that liberated Bergen-Belsen.

Nazareth- based NGT (Next Generation Technology) serves as an incubator for 19 innovative life science and medical technology companies. It also has a social agenda – to bring Arab and Jewish entrepreneurs together to work in the same environment and achieve startup success.

900 volunteers in Israeli NGO Road to Recovery take Palestinian Arabs (around 150 every day) to get lifesaving treatments in Israeli hospitals. The NGO recently won the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. It also arranges beach days and has saved Israeli lives.