“What Am I, A Goat?” Gal Gadot Hits Viewers With Some “Fire” Hebrew Slang

(Photo By: Vanity Fair)

By: NoCamels Team - October 14, 2020

Israel’s favorite actress and celebrity Gal Gadot schooled viewers on some recognizable – and some questionable – Hebrew slang this week in a new video that had her break into fits of laughter trying to explain some of the terms in English.

How does one really explain “Ma ani, ez?” (“what am I, a goat?”) or “shtuyot be mitz” (“nonsense in juice”) to non-Hebrew speakers? But Gadot nails the expressions, of course, complete with the relevant body language, hand movements, and facial expressions.

Read More: NoCamels

In living color: Israel’s Phytolon uses fermented yeast to make natural food dye

(Photo By: iStock by Getty Images)

By: Shoshanna Solomon - October 13, 2020

Israeli startup Phytolon has developed natural food coloring that combines plant genes with a fermentation process of the common yeast used to bake bread.

“We produce natural food colors from plants, but without using plants and agriculture,” said Halim Jubran, co-founder and CEO of the Yokneam, Israel-based startup. “Our technology allows yeast, which has no color, to produce colors like that of the beetroot, cactus, bougainvillea.”

Phytolon licensed the technology developed in the lab of Prof. Asaph Aharoni and Guy Polturak of Weizmann Institute of Science. In the process, the gene that determines the color of a certain plant is extracted and put into yeast which is then fermented. “We generate a strain of baker yeast that has the gene and is able to produce color,” Jubran said in a phone interview.

Read More: Times of Israel

Christianity deeply rooted in Judaism, new Bible translation claims

(Photo By: FLICKR)

By: Sarah Chemla - October 15, 2020

A new translation of the Bible, called the Hebrew Heritage Bible Newer Testament by Dr. Brad H. Young – a Hebrew University-trained scholar who taught biblical literature for over thirty years at Oral Roberts University in the United States – is highlighting the Jewish roots of Christianity.  

“Rather than employing the standard translation technique of simply selecting the most appropriate English word for the Greek," noted Young, "I asked the question, ‘What is the Hebrew thought and wording underpinning the Greek text?’” 

Using this method, his text reconstructs the Hebrew sources, language and mindset behind the early church and its foundational documents.  

“Readers will now hear what first century listeners in ancient Israel would have heard because the translation brings to light the Jewish cultural, linguistic and spiritual setting of Jesus as a Jew,” Young said.  

Read More: The Jerusalem Post

In ‘Historic’ First, Abu Dhabi-Bound Etihad Airways Commercial Flight Crosses Israeli Airspace

(Photo By: Ministry of Presidential Affairs/WAM/Handout via Reuters)

By: Algemeiner Staff - October 14, 2020

An Etihad Airways flight from Milan to Abu Dhabi crossed Israeli airspace on Wednesday, a first-of-its-kind occurrence made possible by recent diplomatic developments in the region, including the Israel-UAE normalization accord and the aviation agreement signed by the Jewish state and Jordan last week.

“Captain, we are thrilled and honored to welcome you to overfly Israel,” an Israeli air traffic controller told the pilot of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. ‘This is a historic moment we have all been waiting for. We hope it will inspire the whole region and mark the beginning of a new era, inshallah.’

The pilot replied, “Inshallah, thank you, the honor is ours.”

Read More: Algemeiner

HBO Max scores Global Rights To Israeli TV Series ‘Valley of Tears’

(Photo By: Wikimedia Commons)

By: NoCamels Team - October 14, 2020

HBO has inked a deal for the global rights to the highly anticipated Israeli TV series Valley of Tears, based on the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It is said to have the biggest budget of any Israeli series to date.

In Hebrew, the show is called “Sh’at Ha’neilah,” or “The hour of the Neilah” after the special Yom Kippur prayer by the same name that signals the end of the holiday.

HBO bought the rights to the series through the London-based company WestEnd Films, one of the show’s producers and co-financers, according to Deadline.

Read More: NoCamels

Helping grains thrive in increasingly salty soil

Photo By: Courtesy

By: Abigail Klein Leichman - October 13, 2020

Too dry, too hot, too cold, too salty – the devasting results of extreme weather and overuse of natural resources threaten crop production worldwide.

The problems are vast, so Israeli ag-tech company SaliCrop zeroed in on the salinity issue. Its non-genetically modified seed treatment allows crops such as wheat, corn and rice to grow well in high-salinity soil or soil irrigated with brackish water.

From North Carolina’s coastal plain to the isles of West Bengal, India, salt from flooding or rising seawater plagues approximately 20 percent of the world’s irrigated agricultural fields at a loss of $12 billion annually.

Read More: Israel21c

In first, Israel cyclist wins Italian Grand Tour stage

(Photo By: Bettini Photos)

By: Naama Barak - October 11, 2020

The Israel Start-Up Nation cycling team  earned a first-of-its-kind victory on Saturday when Alex Dowsett finished first on Stage 8 of the Giro d’Italia, a 124-mile-long ride from Giovinazzo to Vieste in southeastern Italy.

The British rider completed the stage in just over four hours and 50 minutes, overtaking five other breakaway riders who vied for the top spot. His fellow ISN team member, the Austrian Matthias Brändle, came in at fifth place.

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli Entrepreneur Responds to Pandemic With Music, Magic, and Activism

(Photo By: CyMagic)

By: Viva Sarah Press, NoCamels - October 8, 2020

Mordechai Braunstein doesn’t just talk social entrepreneurship; he devises, collaborates and creates solutions to some of today’s important issues.

His name may not ring a bell just yet but two of his many projects-on-the-go have already gained him international recognition in their respective fields: accessible music and women’s rights. 

Moments before COVID-19 shut down the arts world, Braunstein was set to embark on a tour of European cities with his CyMagic interactive music installation. It’s a music project like no other that shows audiences what sounds look like in a physical form and lets them feel the vibrations.

“It’s a new level of connection,” he tells NoCamels. “It’s a new musical experience.”

CyMagic is based on the science of cymatics, a field of study dedicated to the effects of sound on matter. Braunstein created a way to translate live music into a tactile music experience – that can be physically touched and felt. 

Read More: NoCamels

Netanyahu: Israel to airlift 2,000 Ethiopian Jews

(Photo By: GPO/Amos Ben-Gershom)

By: i24News - October 9, 2020

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed on Friday, apprising him of Jerusalem's plans of airlifting 2,000 Ethiopian Jews to the Jewish state.

“I updated Prime Minister Abiy that I intend to immediately bring some 2,000 people from Addis Ababa and Gondar, as part of our commitment to continuing the Aliyah of Jews to Israel,” Netanyahu tweeted.

Netanyahu said Abiy replied that the move was to go ahead and that it “symbolizes the special relationship between the peoples.”

Read More: i24News

Israeli study finds ancient hominins used fire to make tools

(Photo By: Weizmann Institute of Science)

By: Hannah Brown - October 5, 2020

In an article that appeared Monday in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot detail how they employed cutting-edge technologies to take a fresh look at a collection of ancient stone tools. Their results suggest that the early humans who made them may have had a good understanding of the effects of heating the stone before flaking it into blades and may even have used a variety of temperatures to create different types of tools.

Qesem Cave, a site in central Israel, was excavated by Prof. Avi Gopher and colleagues at Tel Aviv University, and the findings from the cave have been dated to between 420,000 and 200,000 years ago – the Lower Paleolithic period – and it is assigned to the unique Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex.

Read More: The Jerusalem Post

Jordan opens its airspace to Israeli flights under new treaty

(Photo By: Karim Sahib/AFP)

By: i24News - October 8, 2020

Israel and Jordan signed a new aviation agreement Thursday, which will allow Israeli jets to fly over the neighboring kingdom, Israeli media report.

Jordanian flights, in their turn, will be able to fly through the Israeli airspace as well under a treaty between Israel's Civil Aviation Authority and its counterpart in Jordan.

The agreement, which is reportedly coming into effect Friday, is set to cut the travel time for passengers in the region heading for the Gulf states, Asia, Europe and North America.

Read More: i24News

Airport security wait times could be reduced by a third, thanks to a new technology developed in Israel.

(Photo By: Courtesy)

By: Brian Blum - October 7, 2020

What are the biggest Covid-19 concerns associated with flying? Being on the plane might be not as risky as originally thought, according to a study of passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt.

The bigger worry may be maintaining social distance in the security-check line prior to boarding. Artificial intelligence-based software from Israeli startup SeeTrue  is not Covid-19-specific, but it can speed up the process by 30 percent or more.

The software alerts screening staff to any suspicious object in passengers’ carry-on luggage. That means less bags opened on a hunch or spot check, less misidentification of dangerous materials (was that a gun or a flashlight?) and, as a result, fewer stops and starts on the conveyer belt.

Read More: Israel21c

Jews, Christians to take part in virtual pilgrimage, prayer to Jerusalem

(Photo By: Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)

By: Jerusalem Post Staff - October 6, 2020

Thousands of people from across the world will embark together on a virtual pilgrimage to Jerusalem on Saturday, as part of a first ever grassroots initiative launched by the Genesis 123 Foundation.

Called the Global Prayer for Israel and Virtual Pilgrimage, the initiative will see countless people from around the world, some of whom from countries without diplomatic ties to the Jewish state, will be able to gather together in an online event to pray for Israel and even share written prayers that will be placed in the cracks of the Western Wall.

Read More: The Jerusalem Post

6,500-year-old 'furnace' discovered in Beersheba

(Photo By: Anat Rasyuk/Israel Antiquities Authority)

By: Hannah Brown - October 4, 2020

Beersheba may have been the true birthplace of Start Up Nation, since according to a new study by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority, the capital of the Negev could have been the home of the world’s first furnace 6,500 years ago.

The results of the study have just been published in the prestigious Journal of Archaeological Science.

It details how a 6,500-year-old workshop for smelting copper ore once operated in the Neveh Noy neighborhood of Beersheba.

Read More: The Jerusalem Post

12 Israeli-Founded Companies Named to Forbes’ Cloud 100 List

(Photo By: Deposit Photos)

By: Simona Shemer - October 1, 2020

Twelve Israeli-founded companies were named among 100 startups to The Cloud 100, an annual ranking of the world’s top private cloud companies by American business magazine Forbes.

The list, in its fifth year, “recognizes standouts in tech’s hottest category, from small startups to private-equity-backed giants, from Silicon Valley to Australia and Hong Kong,” the magazine said.

The companies on the list have been “selected for their growth, sales, valuation, and culture, as well as reputation score derived in consultation with 43 CEO judges and executives from their public-cloud-company peers,” Forbes added.

Read More: NoCamels

Navigating Mahane Yehuda shuk made easier with new street signs

(Photo By: Jerusalem Municipality City Improvement Wing/Department of Road Safety)

By: Tzvi Joffre - October 1, 2020

The Mahane Yehuda market will now be easier to navigate as new street signs were placed throughout the Jerusalem market.

Up until now, there were no signs with the name of the streets in the market, making it difficult to navigate the market.

Tali Friedman, chairman of the Mahane Yehuda union, informed Mayor Moshe Lion about the difficulty visitors had finding shops and Lion directed the City Improvement wing of the municipality to find a solution.

Read More: The Jerusalem Post

Note in murdered boy’s shoe lets Auschwitz Museum match with father’s briefcase

(Photo By: Courtesy of the family and Auschwitz Museum)

By: Jenni Frazer - October 2, 2020

After some extraordinary detective work by the Auschwitz Museum, a briefcase at the memorial has been linked to a child’s shoe which was identified in July as belonging to a little boy called Amos Steinberg. The briefcase, according to the museum, almost certainly belonged to the boy’s father — and he survived the Holocaust.

Amos Steinberg was born in Prague on June 26, 1938. On August 10, 1942, Amos, his father Ludwig (who also went by Ludvik), and his mother Ida were first imprisoned in Theresienstadt, and then deported from Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz.

Documents show that mother and son arrived at the concentration camp on October 4, 1944, and were almost certainly murdered in a gas chamber on the same day.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israeli, UAE health-tech firms launch homecare product

(Photo By: SURE Universal)

By: Israel21c Staff

SURE Universal of Ramat Gan, Israel, has partnered with the United Arab Emirates’ Hamad Bin Khalifa (HBK) Department of Projects to launch a white-label smart IoT healthcare solution, HBKiCare, for the UAE and Middle East regional markets.

This is the first joint product launch in the UAE between an Israeli technology company and an Emirati company after the normalization of relations between the two countries announced on August 13.

HBKiCare is a universal remote healthcare Internet of Things (IoT) platform and home care kit enabling continuous monitoring of ECG, temperature, pulse, blood oxygen and blood pressure.

Read More: Israel21c

Lebanon and Israel confirm talks this month over disputed maritime border

(Photo By: Albatross)

By: Jacob Magid, TOI Staff and Agencies

Lebanon’s parliament speaker confirmed Thursday that an agreement has been reached on a framework for rare, indirect talks between Lebanon and Israel over a longstanding disputed maritime border between the two countries.

Thursday’s declaration by Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri is the first confirmation by Lebanon that the negotiations will take place. Israel announced the talks on Saturday, saying Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz will lead the Israeli delegation. announced the talks on Saturday, saying Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz will lead the Israeli delegation.

Read More: Times of Israel

65 Israeli wines win medals in Decanter World Wine Awards

(Photo By: Nic Crilly-Hargrave)

By: Abigail Klein Leichman - September 30, 2020

Six Israeli wineries won gold medals in the 2020 Decanter World Wine Awards.

Considered the “Oscars” of wine awards, Decanter’s competition has become the world’s largest wine contest over the past 17 years.

“Over 28 consecutive days in August, 116 of the world’s top wine experts, including 37 Masters of Wine and nine Master Sommeliers, blind tasted 16,518 wines under strict Covid safety guidelines, resulting in 50 Best in Show, 178 Platinum, 537 Gold, 5,234 Silver and 7,508 Bronze medals,” Decanter reports.

Read More: Israel21c