Israel: A Global Hub for Technological Innovation

Over the past two decades, social media posts and email chains have circulated touting Israeli ingenuity—highlighting companies like Waze, Mobileye, and the Israeli engineers behind the iPhone and Intel chips. While these headlines tell part of the story, they only scratch the surface of Israel’s impact on the global tech industry. The truth is, Israel has become one of the world’s most dynamic and influential technology hubs—home to innovations that are transforming nearly every area of modern life.

Those of us who care deeply about Israel—and understand how much this tiny nation contributes to humanity—should take enormous pride in the creativity, problem-solving, and game-changing advances coming out of the Jewish state.

From Start-Up Nation to Tech Powerhouse

Israel’s evolution into a high-tech powerhouse didn’t happen by chance. It’s the result of a uniquely fertile environment: a startup culture that rewards risk-taking, world-class academic institutions, robust government investment in R&D, and a defense industry that often births technologies later adapted for civilian use. In this innovation ecosystem, success is often built on earlier failures—and that’s not only accepted but encouraged.

Let’s take a closer look at just a few of the groundbreaking companies putting Israeli innovation on the map:

Mobileye: The Brains Behind Autonomous Driving

Based in Jerusalem, Mobileye is a global leader in autonomous vehicle technology. Their computer vision and AI-based driver assistance systems are found in millions of cars on the road today. The company has partnered with auto giants like BMW, Ford, and General Motors to help prevent collisions and make driving safer. When Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 for $15 billion, it signaled just how essential this Israeli technology had become to the future of mobility. What started as an ambitious research project is now shaping the future of transportation worldwide.

Waze: Your Road Companion

Anyone who’s ever avoided a traffic jam or a speed trap thanks to a real-time alert knows the power of Waze. Developed in Israel and acquired by Google in 2013 for over $1 billion, Waze revolutionized navigation with its community-powered updates and intuitive routing. Integrated with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Waze has become a household name—showing how user collaboration and smart design can change the way we drive.

Governor Rick Snyder's Flip Flop on Refugees is Shameful

I first learned about the Holocaust as a middle school student at Hillel Day School in metro Detroit, but it wasn't until high school that I became aware that the United States could have done more to help European Jews looking for safe haven. As a high school student studying the Holocaust I remember being shocked that the U.S. State Department clung to its strict application of the 1924 Immigration Law during the Holocaust, which made it very difficult for Jewish refugees of Nazi Europe to obtain entry visas.

Later, as a college student I devoted an entire semester to researching the restrictive immigration policies maintained by U.S. consuls, which delayed and rejected granting visas to the Jewish refugees fleeing persecution for national security reasons. By the time the U.S. realized it needed to take in these refugees, it was too late.

That was a harsh lesson that our nation learned in the middle of the last century. However, it's now more than seventy years since that time and our country seems to have forgotten our responsibility to refugees who are fleeing persecution.

Just over a month ago, Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder, who I think has served our state well, said he was working with the federal government to figure out the best process for Michigan to accept refugees from Syria. Of course, he made the caveat that these refugees would have to be carefully screened to assure they were not security threats and that makes complete sense. I am very disappointed, however, that today Governor Snyder, like several other governors, has done a complete 180 on Michigan's policy toward these Syrian refugees.

Efforts to bring Syrian refugees to Michigan have now been delayed following Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris. Governor Snyder has continued to say that Michigan is a welcoming state is proud of its rich history of immigration, but as of now he is unwilling to welcome in the hopeless refugees from the Middle East.

While this might sound like the most cogent policy in order to ensure the security of Michigan, I'm not convinced it's the right policy. In fact, it's the same excuse the U.S. government used in the 1940s when our country could have provided a safe refuge to the thousands of Jewish men, women and children fleeing Hitler's Europe. It certainly isn't the right moral choice and I would think that Governor Snyder would know better. We cannot allow Islamic State's threat of terrorism to prevent us from doing the right thing, which is participating in potential Syrian refugee resettlement efforts and serving as a safe haven for Syrian refugees. Governor Synder: Michigan's better than that!

Reaction to Israel's Aid to Nepal Following Earthquake

There are times when you realize that people are just going to be critical of you no matter what you do. It's at those times that you just have to shrug and rhetorically ask, "What can you do?"

Israel finds itself in that position often. As the only true democracy in the Middle East with neighboring countries committing human rights abuses on a daily basis, Israel is considered by the United Nations to be the worst violator of human rights -- not Iran, North Korea or Syria. At the end of last month, The U.N. Human Rights Council completed its final session in Geneva and adopted four resolutions condemning Israel, which is four times more than any of the other 192 UN member states. Amazing!

Yesterday, I had to laugh when I read a tweet by Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. Roth was commenting on the news that Israel rushed a medical team to help the victims of the horrific earthquake in Nepal. The fact that Israel was quick to send humanitarian aid and medical support to a catastrophe is nothing new. Israel is often one of the first nations to respond whenever there is a need for major disaster relief. Here is the tweet from Roth of HRW::

Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade! https://t.co/PUISAcGwqY
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) April 26, 2015

Jon Stewart and Other Activist Jews in the Egyptian Uprising

As we Americans celebrated our nation's 237th year of independence and freedom yesterday on the 4th of July, we also kept a close eye on the precarious situation in Egypt. As the final hours of Mohammed Morsi's presidency wound down, we continued to monitor the volatile situation there, constantly thinking of how the tense events in Egypt would affect Israel, its close neighbor to the North.

Although many were concerned that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty would be broken under Morsi's regime, that didn't happen. However, now that the military is in charge of the country the peace treaty seems at risk and there could be a lapse in the protection of the Sinai from terror cells.

Unfortunately, I think we'll have to wait a while longer to get a good sense of how the Egyptian uprising and protests will affect Israel and her relations with neighboring Egypt. One interesting story that I've been following during the continued unrest in Egypt has been the role of Jewish people in the situation.

Israel's Gaza Situation Becomes Cyber War

Social media changes the zeitgeist in ways we couldn't have imagined. As we saw with the recent presidential election, opinions and attacks now travel at the speed of light. And so it should be no surprise that the ongoing Middle East conflict in Gaza between the Palestinians and Israelis has escalated into a Cyber war.

While the conflict may seem like history repeating itself, social media is actually changing the way the public sees the violence. As several news agencies have reported,Israel is now using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube to its advantage in its war with Hamas in Gaza. In the past Israel has had to rely upon mainstream news agencies to report on the back-and-forth actions in Gaza, but now the Israeli military and government can take its message straight to the people using its social networks.

As the LA Times reported today:

While Israel launched its surprise attack Wednesday on Gaza, it declared it to the world on Twitter, arguing its case for the new campaign against Hamas in less than 140 characters.

Minute by minute, the Israel Defense Forces fed followers information and arguments on the strike. At their computers, Internet users could click through aerial photos, check updates on the offensive and watch a YouTube video of the strike killing the Hamas military chief.

At one point, the Israeli military traded Twitter barbs with Hamas. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” the @IDFSpokesperson account tweeted Wednesday.

The Hamas military wing tweeted back, “Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are (You Opened Hell Gates on Yourselves).”

Alan Dershowitz Sees Potential in "Curb" Episode

When I blogged about Larry David's brilliant "Palestinian Chicken" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I focused on the role that the yarmulke played in that episode and didn't really get into the meatier (get it?) issue that chicken can potentially play in Israeli-Palestinian relations. I figured someone would find value in that comical episode and try to use it to bring the two sides in the Mid-East crisis together for dialogue. I was just surprised when I heard it was Alan Dershowitz.

Speaking with Prof. Alan Dershowitz in my office at the
University of Michigan Hillel Foundation in 2005.

In an interview with the Columbia Current, Dershowitz explained his role in making sure Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu saw the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode:

"I recently sent a copy of ‘Palestinian Chicken,’ that Larry David gave me, to Prime Minister Netanyahu -- with the suggestion that he invite Abbas over to watch it together,” he said, referring to the episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” centered around the heated competition between a kosher deli and a Palestinian chicken joint in Los Angeles. “And maybe if they both get a good laugh, they can begin a negotiating process … So it may be that Larry David will not only win Emmys, but he may even qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize, if his episode could bring together Netanyahu and Abbas, and bring Abbas to the negotiating table."

Was it a coincidence that Larry David named the Palestinian Chicken restaurant
Al-Abbas or was it a wink at Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority?

Wow! I really think it would be fun to watch Abbas and Netanyahu viewing that episode of Curb together. The only thing that would top that would be if Larry David, Jeff Garlin and Bob Einstein were there in the room too. What would they all be eating during the viewing? Obviously, (kosher) Palestinian chicken!

Branding Israel Through Technology

This is my recent "Jews in the Digital Age" column for the Detroit Jewish News:

Sally Whittle is a blogger in Lancashire, England. Her blog “Who’s the Mummy?” is one of approximately 4 million “mommy blogs” on the Web. Like many other young mothers she journals about her life as a mother and provides advice for other mothers around the world. With over 30,000 visitors a month, Whittle is used to receiving comments on her blog but she was surprised when she was offered a free trip to Israel with a handful of other popular mommy bloggers.

The group of mommy bloggers visited Israel this past July as part of VibeIsrael, a program of the apolitical non-profit Kinetis. The social startup seeks to generate domestic and global awareness of Israel as the capital of creative energy. Its founder and executive director Joanna Landau was recently in Metro Detroit to share her vision of how to brand Israel for the 21st century and how to market that brand as widely as possible.

Landau, a lawyer and start-up entrepreneur made aliyah with her family when she was five-years-old. Raised in a well-to-do philanthropic and Zionist home, she actively sought out a way to transition from her for-profit work into a non-profit passion. Her interest was piqued in 2004 when Israel’s Foreign Ministry launched the Brand Israel Project, which aimed to improve the country’s image abroad by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians. Landau incorporated Kinetis in November 2009 seeding it with some of her own money and got to work on her re-branding Israel project.

While in Metro Detroit, Landau was eager to learn how the state’s “Pure Michigan” campaign was working to improve its image. She quickly noticed the similarities between Metro Detroit’s desire to retain talent by keeping its young people local after college and Israel’s desire to have its children choose to remain in Israel following army service. “Brazil is known for ‘fun’ and Paris is about ‘romance’ and America is connected to ‘freedom.’ When people around the world hear ‘Israel,’ they automatically think about politics and the conflict with the Palestinians,” Landau explains. Israel is all about ‘Creative Energy.’ This is what differentiates Israel as a country and Israelis as a nation. It represents the essence of Israel’s offering and encompasses the nation’s relative advantages in the fields of art and culture, technology and science, lifestyle, heritage and the environment.

Landau argues there is a misguided belief among Israelis that if they can only convince the rest of the world of the legitimacy of its political policies, then the tide will turn and there will be increased travel, investment and love of the Jewish State. “People are not interested in Israel beyond the conflict because we haven’t given them a reason to be interested. Whenever Israel gets a chance to say something, all we ever talk about is this conflict.”

When asked if Landau’s Kinetis is a new type of Israeli hasbara (public relations) organization, she laughs. “Hasbara is what you do when you feel you need to explain yourself? Only when you have done something wrong or if you’re unclear," Landau clarifies. "In Israel we have been so consumed by crisis-management and self-defense that we have been unable to think of a long-term strategy."

Landau wants a paradigm shift that will change the conversation. She believes that Creative Energy is in the DNA of Israelis. She wants to highlight her country’s high global appeal through a hi-tech, arts and culture, lifestyle, and extreme sports. “The Jewish religion is a very creative religion. Curiosity is encouraged and conventions are challenged,” she says. . "What we want to do is celebrate the things that Israel has to offer that are interesting on a global level," she says. "Branding is about giving people something to relate to and connect to on an emotional level."

It is Israel’s imperative to tell her own story and under Landau’s direction Kinetis has taken full advantage of modern technology to control the message. Its Facebook page features a video of Warren Buffet praising Israel as a place in the Middle East that might not have much oil, but it has an abundance in brains, energy, integrity and imagination. At the top of the Facebook page, there is a message that anyone can submit “an inspiring image or video that encapsulates "Creative Energy" about Israel and it will be posted on the page.

In addition to the cutting edge and attractive Facebook page, Kinetis boasts an impressive website available in both Hebrew and English that outlines its many programs all with the goal of place branding Israel in the most positive ways. Drawing upon the success of the book “Start-Up Nation” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Kinetis offers an academic program for Israeli students and international students from around the globe. These students in the Start-Up Nation Awareness Program (SNAP) will investigate the sources of Israel's creative and entrepreneurial spirit across numerous spheres. Ultimately, their connection to Israel will help develop Israel as a model to be taught in leading universities worldwide.

The VibeIsrael program provides an all-expenses-paid personalized experience of Israel like the one set up for the mommy bloggers. These groups of opinion leaders include bird watchers, digital photographers, women entrepreneurs, extreme sports enthusiasts, archeologists, members of the fashion industry, technologists, and gourmet chefs. Participants are offered a glimpse into real Israeli life by connecting them with their Israeli counterparts. Rather than spend a week touring all of the typical tourist locations, VibeIsrael participants travel the country with locals who show them places relevant to their interests. These thought leaders then return home where they publish a critical mass of posts, blogs and articles in the printed media and on the Internet which convey an authentic, unadulterated “buzz” about what Israel truly offers.

Israel is a thriving nation made up of citizens who are proud of its accomplishments and offerings. Landau is working to highlight Israel’s best assets to the rest of the world. Through place branding and exploiting new media, every day she is raising the awareness of Israel as the creative energy capital of the world. With the help of technology and drawing on the clout of those with loud voices in the digital age, Kinetis is quickly positioning Israel as a center of excellence in the fields of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

After returning from her visit to Israel with VibeIsrael, Whittle blogged “What I saw in Israel was an irrepressible sense of possibility. And going forward that means I will always approach any political story about Israel with that memory in mind – the memory of the people we met, the experiences we had, and the fun we shared.”

Time Not on Israel's Side

As I prepare for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, like most rabbis I feel like time is not on my side. For Israel, however, as the Jewish nation engages in the latest round of a potential peace treaty with the Palestinians, Time is certainly not on her side -- Time Magazine that is.

This week's issue of Time Magazine has the bold headline proclaiming "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace." I've only read the online version of the article thus far (the online version is an abridged version of the cover story appearing in the September 13, 2010 issue). Overall, it seems that the article itself is fair to some extent, but let's face it -- most Americans are only going to see the cover. They'll see the cover telling them that Israel doesn't care about peace when they're at the grocery store, pharmacy, library, bookstore, and airport. Most people won't pick up the magazine to even read the thesis of the article.

Rabbi Daniel Gordis attacked Time Magazine's choice of cover art in his Commentary Magazine editorial. Gordis writes that "The Web version of the story hardly even qualifies as journalism. It's nothing more than a few sentences strung together, interspersed with links to a series of photographs. The printed version, at least, has a thesis, and it's not a bad one. Its claim is that Israelis don't discuss the peace process much (true), that they have low expectations (true), and that they don’t care (also true). And why do Israelis not care?"

The problem with the article as Gordis explains is that Time Magazine's answer for why Israelis have despaired of peace is because they are more interested in money. Now, if that's not a classic anti-semitic argument, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, those who read the article in Time will simply figure that Israelis don't care about peace because they're more concerned with their hi-tech companies, 401K's, and real estate investments. They won't know that the current peace negotiations were the Israeli prime minister's idea and that the president of the Palestinian Authority had to be dragged to the bargaining table. They won't read the thoughtful responses to the Time Magazine cover story by Danny Gordis or Bret Stevens in the Wall Street Journal. They won't remember Israel's successful peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Instead, they'll see photos throughout the cover story of Israelis on a Tel Aviv beach smoking a hookah and silly quotes from real estate agents about how Israelis continue to buy homes despite the missiles falling.

I guess if Time's going to resort to age old anti-Semitism against Israel, then the only way to "beat back Time" is to go satirical. I'll leave that job to "The Onion," which gets the best jab against Time Magazine with its fake news story about Time creating a new magazine for adult readers. Here's the video:




TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

Tweeting the Flotilla Attack

Cross-posted at Jewish Techs

Peter Beinart's essay "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" in The New York Review of Books argues that most of the mainstream American Jewish organizations have abandoned liberalism on the issues of the Middle East and are responsible for a generation of young Jews who hold no connection to Israel. He writes, "not only does the organized American Jewish community mostly avoid public criticism of the Israeli government, it tries to prevent others from leveling such criticism as well. In recent years, American Jewish organizations have waged a campaign to discredit the world’s most respected international human rights groups."

Beinhart's essay has of course drawn much criticism and debate within the American Jewish world, both from the right and the left.

Perhaps the best way to see the divide in the American Jewish community over Israel is to look at the dissemination of information and the debate on the Web today following the IDF raid of the Mavi Marmara and other ships in a flotilla traveling to Gaza.

Here's what happened today: American Jews woke up this morning -- a vacation day from work and school in commemoration of Memorial Day in the U.S. -- to learn that Israeli commandos raided a Gaza aid flotilla, killing nine and injuring dozens of others. Since American Jews didn't head to work this morning, there was no water cooler at which to debate the issues. Did the Israelis act in self-defense? Who struck first? Was the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid workers or political demonstrators? Did the men on the flotilla have guns and knives or was it a peaceful transport to Gaza? Were the IDF soldiers stabbed and beaten when they boarded the ship? Did the crew of the Gaza flotilla try to lynch the Israeli soldiers?

So, with no water cooler by which to stand, no office coffee to share, and no bus on which to commute, American Jews took the debate to Twitter. On the social media site users tweeted their latest discoveries from their choice online news networks. With links from Fox news, the Jerusalem Post, the New York Times, etc., Twitter users included hashtags featuring the newly popular term "flotilla" -- from the Spanish, meaning a small fleet of ships -- and voiced their opinion on the controversial event. Some pro-Israel tweets included the hashtag #freedomflotilla with the word "not" included parenthetically.

Some users of the microblogging service complained that Twitter apparently censored the #flotilla hashtag in discussions about the convoy deaths. Charles Arthur at the Guardian explained that Twitter didn't censor the #flotilla hashtag. Rather, as #flotilla began trending, users started using the #freedomflotilla hashtag in its place. Also, as Mike Butcher at Techcrunch points out: "This surely was a case of anti-spam filtering [as] there had already been a "flotilla" story in the past week - the anniversary of Dunkirk (for non-Britons: a dramatic rescue during the second world war of British and French troops from the Dunkirk beaches by small craft). And Gaza is frequently topical. So Twitter's anti-spam algorithms - that is, the machines - likely decided that this was a spam attack trying to piggyback on old hashtags, and pushed the "#flotilla" hashtag out of the trending topics.

In addition to Twitter, YouTube also figured as a prominent player in today's Flotilla debates. Tweets sent readers to the YouTube site to view videos from both sides of the attack -- there was footage taken by the Israel Defense Forces of the  Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers as well as video footage from Al Jazeera of  Israeli troops storming the Gaza flotilla after the white flag was raised.

On this lazy Memorial Day Monday morning in the U.S., Americans had no where else to go other than the Web with their views on the situation in the Middle East. Perhaps this virtual debate over the flotilla attack is the best litmus test for Beinhart's assertion of how American Jews connect (or don't) with Israel.