Much overseas expansion has occurred in the past five years, and even more recently than that for the Middle East and Asia, according to statistics compiled by the National Law Journal, a trade publication.
Education
Information Booklet for Immigrant Students
Housing
Military Service
The National Insurance Institute
Guide to Services for the Disabled
Transportation Services in Israel
First Steps
Financial Assistance-Absorption Basket
A Guide to Ulpan Study
Employment Guidance Centers
Guarding Your Health
The Life Cycle
Pensioners
Registration in a Health Fund
Where to Turn
Information on Conversion
This is amazing, even if you could ask for more. In fact, you can: at the end of the booklets, there are forms to request more information. The booklets themselves are in at least two languages, sometimes even more (four or five, even. Any polyglots in the area?)
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A driver plowed a BMW into a group of soldiers at a busy intersection near Jerusalem's Old City late Monday, injuring 13 of them before he was shot to death, Israeli police and the rescue service said.
Jerusalem police commander Ilan Franco said a soldier in the group killed the driver.
The driver was not immediately identified, but Franco said he was a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem who apparently acted alone. Israel TV said the car was registered to a resident of Jabel Mukaber, an Arab village inside the city limits.
It was the third incident in Jerusalem in which vehicles apparently have been used as weapons in recent months. In July, two Palestinians living in Jerusalem carried out separate attacks using heavy construction machinery that killed three people and injured several others. Both attackers were fatally shot by police and soldiers.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak released a statement demanding a speedup of procedures to allow the destruction of homes of Palestinian attackers ''to contribute to deterring potential terrorists.'' Several years ago, an Israeli Supreme Court justice ruled that destroying houses does not deter attackers and the practice was halted.
Ambulances and police units raced to the scene Monday night after the crash about 11 p.m. and quickly carried away the injured.
Police said two of the 13 injured were in serious condition while the others suffered light wounds. Doctors at the hospitals said all were conscious and were being treated.
Israel Radio said the soldiers, from the Artillery Corps, were on a tour of Jerusalem ahead of the Jewish New Year holiday next week.
An Israel Radio reporter described a large group of Jews, most of them ultra-Orthodox, chasing an Arab into the nearby Old City after the incident.
Police said the car rammed into the soldiers waiting at the intersection. Witnesses said the car ended up on the sidewalk near the intersection, which lies along the line between the Jewish and Arab sections of Jerusalem.
Since Israel captured the Arab section of the city in 1967, there are no barriers between the two sides.
Palestinians demand the Arab portion as the capital of the independent state they want to create.
Israel united the city under its rule weeks after the 1967 war, but in recent years some officials have shown a willingness to cede Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians. However, sharing the city and its holy sites remains one of the toughest issues in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
This sucks. This is the third type of incident I read about this summer. I don't think destroying houses will help. I wish there were a good solution that would make people happy. Even that is not quite right. There's always going to be that minority....
It's not as though I'm not aware that these kinds of things happen. In fact, it's probably going to be one of my parents' biggest worries: the old terrorist attack argument. I am worried about the psychological toll this will have on me. It's not exactly something you "get used to" in the normal sense of the phrase, I think. I don't know what to do about it.
Image Courtesy of Wikipedia. 
Hanoch back in the day...(Photo Credit to Ynet)
Photo credit to: www.allmarketing.co.il
Miles of Aisles for a Gallon of Milk? Not Here HARMAR TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Like cars and homes, grocery stores are beginning to shrink.
After years of building bigger stores — many larger than a football field and carrying 60,000 items — retailers are experimenting with radically smaller grocery stores that emphasize prepared meals, fresh produce and grab-and-go drinks.
The idea is to lure time-starved shoppers who want to pick up a few items or a fast meal without wandering long grocery aisles or paying restaurant prices.
Safeway has opened a smaller-format store in Southern California, and Jewel-Osco is building one in Chicago. Wal-Mart plans to open four “Marketside” stores in the Phoenix area this fall, and Whole Foods Market is considering opening smaller stores.
And here in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh, the grocery chain Giant Eagle opened a Giant Eagle Express last year that is about one-sixth the size of its regular stores. It has gas pumps, wireless Internet and flat-screen televisions in a small cafe, a drive-through pharmacy and an expansive delicatessen that offers sushi, rotisserie chickens and ready-to-heat dinners.
“It’s perfect,” said Dusty McDonald, a 29-year-old bank teller who was buying breakfast sandwiches recently for her co-workers at the Giant Eagle Express. “It’s on my way to work. It only takes me 10 minutes to get in and out.”
The opening of smaller stores upends a long-running trend in the grocery business: building ever-larger stores in the belief that consumers want choice above all. While the largest traditional grocery stores tend to be about 85,000 square feet, some cavernous warehouse-style stores and supercenters are two or three times that size.
Statistics compiled by the Food Marketing Institute show that the average size of a grocery store dipped slightly in 2007 — to a median of 47,500 square feet — after 20 years of steady growth.
The biggest push in such stores is coming from the British retailer Tesco, which made a splashy entry into the United States last fall, opening a 10,000-square-foot Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Las Vegas.
Since then, Tesco has opened 72 stores in Nevada, Arizona and Southern California.
Gary Smith, founder of Encore Associates, which advises the food and consumer goods industry, said the smaller stores opened by other chains were “a loud message to Tesco that they are not going to be able to walk in and grab market share.”
Mr. Smith added: “It’s also a way for them to do some testing for if and when Tesco comes to their market. They are better able to counter it.”
Besides Tesco, grocery retailers face competition on multiple fronts. Chains ranging from Target to CVS to dollar stores are selling more groceries, and some small convenience stores — long the domain of warmed-over hot dogs and microwave burritos — are offering higher-quality food.
The big grocery chains are not thinking about closing their larger stores, which have been a success. But they hope to capture new business with the smaller stores, appealing to consumers on days when they do not have time for a long shopping trip.
“The average person goes shopping for 22 minutes,” said Phil Lempert, who edits Supermarketguru.com, a Web site that tracks retail trends. “You can’t see 30,000 or 40,000 products. We are moving into an era when people want less assortment.”
Jim Hertel, managing partner at the firm Willard Bishop, which advises supermarkets, added, “If you’ve got 50 feet of ketchup and what you want is Hunt’s 64-ounce and you can’t find it, people get overwhelmed.”
Of course, small grocery stores have been around forever, and some old-time neighborhood markets still exist. Meanwhile, a handful of specialty retailers have proved that shoppers will flock to smaller stores if they are offered a novel experience.
Trader Joe’s, for one, has thrived by offering a limited selection of high-quality, relatively inexpensive products in quirky stores that are 15,000 square feet or less. Aldi and Save-A-Lot are drawing customers in droves by selling a limited assortment of aggressively discounted products.
What distinguishes the new stores is that they are being built by more traditional retailers, and they emphasize fresh, prepared foods for busy consumers.
Kevin Srigley, a senior vice president at Giant Eagle, whose stores are spread across western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland, said the express store seeks to provide customers with a “smart stop to save you time on the things you need most,” in addition to offering fresh foods.
He said the idea for the express store came from Tesco stores in Europe — his company has a longstanding relationship with the British retailer — and from research that detailed the varying needs of consumers.
Mr. Srigley said he was pleased with many aspects of the company’s first Giant Eagle Express store, in Harmar Township, like customer reaction to the prepared foods and baked goods. But since the store was meant as a laboratory, he said, Giant Eagle may tweak the concept before opening more of them.
Will customers come to the smaller stores? Analysts said that Tesco’s initial sales fell short of expectations and the company stopped opening new ones for several months this year to assess customer feedback and make adjustments.
Still, a Tesco spokesman, Brendan Wonnacott, said that the company was pleased with the stores’ results and that the number of customers and sales were increasing.
“This is a format we are excited about, that our customers are excited about,” he said.
The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Laguna Hills, Calif., offers row after row of bagged produce and its own line of prepared meals that are either chilled or frozen. Customers shopping there recently said they liked the store, though several said they wished that Tesco carried more British specialties.
“They have the best frozen food I’ve ever tasted,” said Nathan Cromeenes, 35, who lives nearby and longed for English shortbread.
He said he liked not having to choose among 50 varieties of spaghetti sauce. “They just have one, and it’s really good.”
Dana Gurr, a 49-year-old saleswoman in Laguna Hills, was less enthusiastic. She said the store was sterile and the vegetables went bad quickly. “It’s not that fresh, but it is easy,” she said.
The reviews were similarly mixed, though mostly positive, at the Giant Eagle Express outside Pittsburgh.
Peter and Kim Maguire stopped by the store for some last-minute items en route to a camping trip. They ended up buying chips, strawberries, blueberries and hummus.
“We pop in here for little things we forget,” said Ms. Maguire, 39. Her husband, 38, added that the store has “great lunches,” including sushi and burritos.
RoseAnn Zanoli, 68, said the express store was “good when you need them.” While she found some eggs, she said she came up empty when looking for a card for her 50th wedding anniversary. “They don’t carry everything that you need,” she said.
If current negotiations bear fruit, the show will be broadcast on an as-yet unnamed national TV network in Israel, probably with Hebrew subtitles, as contestants will mainly speak English. It also will be available worldwide via Internet.
Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.The reason?
....about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare.As a result, the US is ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants surviving to age one. The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US could match top-ranked Sweden, about 20,000 more American babies a year would live to their first birthday.
And I am not trying to bash, but it is interesting to note that
[i]n fact, citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.
The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.
In fact, the report shows that 15% of American children - 10.7 million - live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.
It also reveals 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.
And while in much of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia, levels of enrol[l]ment of three and four-year-olds in pre-school are running at about 75%, in the US it is little more than 50%.
That last one, I don't think, is valid. That may indicate another problem altogether. Besides, who says these three or four-year-olds actually learn well, or at all?
The article continues....
The report not only highlights the differences between the US and other countries, it also picks up on the huge discrepancies between states, the country's 436 congressional districts and between ethnic groups.
"The Measure of America reveals huge gaps among some groups in our country to access opportunity and reach their potential," said the report's co-author, Sarah Burd-Sharps. "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.
"For example, the state human development index shows that people in last-ranked Mississippi are living 30 years behind those in first-ranked Connecticut."
Inequality remains stark. The richest fifth of Americans earn on average $168,170 a year, almost 15 times the average of the lowest fifth, who make do with $11,352.
The US is far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare. The country has no federally mandated maternity leave.
The US also ranks first among the 30 rich countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of the number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.
It has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners.
2. ha'Kayitz Shel Avia (הקיץ של אביה // Avia's Summer)
"Aliyah for Dummies"
What comes before the flights? What comes before the shippers, the pilot trip and the applications and forms? NBN Director of Pre-Aliyah, Doreet Freedman describes the very first steps when Aliyah is all but a sapling of an idea in our minds.
איפה הלשון הקדושMaster’s Degree ProgramsMaster’s degree programs are designed to provide the student with in-depth knowledge and research capabilities in a particular field. Most of these programs usually extend over a period of two years.
Admission Requirements: The requirements for admission to master’s degree programs at Israeli universities are similar to those at Western universities. Generally, a “B” average is required; however, some departments require a higher average in the student’s major field, while others may conditionally accept students with lower grades. In some cases, special tests (e.g., GRE, GMAT) and/or personal interviews are required. An adequate knowledge of Hebrew for class participation is necessary. An ulpan may be taken prior to the opening of the academic year.
Many departments offer two trends. One requires students to write a master’s thesis and allows them to pursue doctoral studies in the department, while the other does not require a thesis and is designed for students who do not intend to pursue a doctorate in the department.
Undergraduate studies in Israel are highly specialized; therefore, most students who earn their bachelor’s degree abroad are required to take supplementary courses prior to or in conjunction with their regular graduate studies.
Well, at least one guy has something to say that relates to my idea. In an interview with MOOMA, famous poet Yehonatan Geffen said,
אנחנו עושים אהבה עם זקנה סקסית בת אלפיים בשם העברית. השפה היא הסיבה שאני נשאר
כאן, לא המדינה ולא ראש הממשלה, אומר יהונתן גפן
For those who can’t read this, Geffen said he stayed in Israel because of the language, not the state, and not the prime minister. It makes sense for him, as a writer.
It makes sense for me as a writer, too. I am in no way comparing my writing with Geffen's, but I feel his connection to the language. He values his words. In the introduction to his book אשה יקרה (the book translates it as "Lovely Lady"; I have only begun reading, so I am not sure how accurate that is), Geffen thanks his eraser!Source: MOOMA /Channel Two News
Article: גשם כבד נפל מזמן
Date: 17/05/2008 23:48
Type “why make aliyah” into Google. The first link you will come upon (at this “publication”) is “Jacob Richman’s Aliyah Page,” an interesting resource for people considering aliyah. Unfortunately, the “Why Aliyah?” page contains predictable responses for people “moving on up”: fulfilling what they see as the most important commandment given to them by G-d, living a Jewish life, investing in Israel’s future, etc. I do not mean to offend the people who offered these reasons; for them, these were the “pull factors” that brought them across the Atlantic.
But I, like S.Y. Agnon wrote in “In the Heart of the Seas,” am not ready to run in front of the bride and groom to the wedding canopy. I would like to consider other reasons for moving to Israel. Sure, the fact that it will be easier for me to keep kosher or to take vacations on Jewish holidays is attractive, but that alone will not get me there. Another factor is much stronger for me, one that actually did not originate in thoughts about aliyah.
My “connection” (loosely-phrased) to Israel (not “the land” of Israel, but just Israel, a point on a map) began with Hebrew lessons I had taken at a Jewish day school from kindergarten (or first grade; my memory fails me) to eighth grade. I was a little sad to see my lessons end in June 2002, and I even thought about attending a Jewish high school for the Hebrew. I ended up going to a public high school with vague ideas of working on Hebrew in my “spare time.” School work, extracurriculars, and even a meager social life pushed those plans aside.
My love for Hebrew lay dormant at the end of eighth grade until it was finally woken up my freshman year of college. When I was finally given the opportunity to live away from home, I decided to spend some of my time as I wanted — trying to re-teach myself the Hebrew I had forgotten. Access to high-speed internet gave me the chance to listen to Galgalatz (the main Israeli radio station) and to watch videos in Hebrew on YouTube. I don’t remember the details, but somehow I connected the huge impression that was made on me in day school on the day Yitzhak Rabin (then prime minister of Israel) was assassinated, Aviv Geffen’s song, Livkot Lecha (’To Cry for You’; more on this in a later entry), and my general interest (could it be called love then?) in Hebrew.
That led me to discover all of Aviv Geffen’s wonderful music and pushed me to fix up my broken Hebrew. Five years of not taking Hebrew left me with random vocabulary and the ability to read texts without vowels (assuming I knew the words, or at least the root) — not exactly the best tools to enjoy what I thought was excellent writing. I persisted with my focused study of Aviv Geffen’s lyrics, ordering his 1997 collection “Yareah Male” (Full Moon; this contained “Livkot Lecha”), looking up words, and watching YouTube videos online. I didn’t know it then, but not just my love for Aviv Geffen, but also my love for Hebrew, began to grow.
All that YouTubing (as well as some other factors I cannot recall right now) led to the discovery of other great (or at least educational) music. I made YouTube playlists with numerous artists and bands: Arik Einstein, Aviv Geffen, Ehud Banai, Eric Berman, David Broza, Mook E, Sarit Hadad, Ivri Lider, ha’Dag Nahash, Idan Raichel, Boaz Sharabi, Subliminal, Ofra Haza, and much more. I soon put a seemingly unrelated interest in computer customization/Mac Envy to use, downloading a Yahoo Widget that allowed me to stream 22 Israeli radio stations on my computer. By the end of my first year in college, I had listened to enough songs to get me caught up with Israeli culture, both before and after 2002.
This was still not enough to get me to take Hebrew, though; it wasn’t necessary for me to take in college, and I thought I could use my time more effectively. Fate (or something; bear with this common literary transition) would have it differently. We had to attend concentration advising sessions Freshman Year, and I managed to miss my Government advising session. I had to pick something else to explore. Scanning the concentrations online, I found one that I was relatively interested in: [for privacy purposes, let's call it Middle Eastern Studies (MES), which is essentially what it is]. As I talked to professors, advisers, and would-be-MES concentrators, I considered taking Hebrew my sophomore year. Summer would make me more sure of my choice.
Not having gotten a summer internship, I spent my time walking around my area. Without iPod ear buds in my ears, I listened to my surroundings: they were in Hebrew. There were tons of Israelis everywhere! I had no idea where they all came from (I had never heard so many before), but I cared about the language itself too much to find out: I could only partially understand it.
I walked in similar areas for a month, seeing how much Hebrew I could pick up. Although I had tried to resurrect my old vocabulary and build a new one, it was not very useful. If I knew the vocabulary, I could usually understand what was being said, but it was clear that I would need more help.
My summer vacation on the Cape confirmed that idea. I found myself in a house with about a dozen Israelis who had immigrated to the country (ie. Israel) in the seventies from one of the “-stan” countries (again, my memory fails me). They spoke Hebrew. I was able to understand some of it, but I did not have enough confidence to speak with the “patriarch” of the family, so to speak, in Hebrew; even a “Ma Nishma (What’s up)?” did not provoke a response from me. Not with my terrible Hebrew.
Soon enough, it was September, and I found myself taking a full-year introductory-level Hebrew course (I chose that one because I was not confident that I remembered enough Hebrew to take a higher-level). I studied during the year, spent more time listening to music (or thinking about some of Aviv Geffen’s lyrics; I was able to pick up dual-meanings used in one line, for example), and even watched movies to improve my skills. My Hebrew definitely got better, but how good was it, really, and how good could it get?
I paused to evaluate further. I would (and will) continue with Hebrew this September, but what will I do after? I had developed an interest in Yehonatan Geffen (Aviv Geffen’s famous father), his poetry, his songs, and his books (I am currently reading “Isha Yekara,” which is translated as “Lovely Lady”, in Hebrew; only having read a few very good pages, I don’t know how accurate that is yet) this year too: how would I read books in Hebrew — more than I would have access to in the libraries in my area? How would I own those books in a “grand” at-home-library? How would I watch Israeli movies without waiting for them to come out in American theaters (and even then, those are the major ones…)? How would I buy Israeli music without going online every time? I had also started writing poetry in Hebrew and learned that I love “writing” in Hebrew and would like to do it “for real” — ie. with a good vocabularly and a greater ability to express my thoughts; I even went so far as to say that, in some ideal world, I would want to be a singer-songwriter and/or writer in Hebrew (more on this in a later entry).
These line of questions seem silly as I type them. I have plenty of access to reading materials, and if I probably try really, really hard, I can pay high shipping and handling fees to purchase Israeli books I may or may not like. I can just watch major movies; not everything that comes out is worth seeing, after all; besides, I am not a huge fan of movies. I can pay shipping and handling fees for the music I want to order online. I can take Hebrew in graduate school or take some lessons at an ulpan in Israel….No wonder people don’t list such “cultural reasons” as “pull factors.”
But what if I don’t want to do that? What if I want a greater access to books? What if I have to read the book before I buy it? What if I don’t want to pay ridiculous shipping and handling fees? And isn’t it true that no matter how many Hebrew lessons I take, I won’t be able to maintain my skills unless I use the language every day?
If one thinks about it all of these concerns can be summed up as “language skills”: how will I maintain them? Beyond this shallow concern lies my “pull factor”: a love of Hebrew. I watched those movies, not because I like movies, but because I wanted to learn more Hebrew (it turns I would actually like some of these, but that’s a story for another entry). I can express my thoughts more effectively (by most measures) in English, but I wanted to write in Hebrew.
I think I want to be surrounded by Hebrew. I want to go into a store, skim through a book in Hebrew — as easily as I do in English — and then buy it. I want to go to an Aviv Geffen concert in Israel without paying a ton for airplane tickets. I want to write in Hebrew. I want to think and speak in Hebrew with ease. That is what I need Israel for. I don’t have any grand dreams. This isn’t about “living the dream” in most senses of the phrase. I just want Hebrew.
. . .
Before I create any more posts, I want to make clear that this will not obsess about Israel (it will probably only obsess about Mishpahat Geffen). I know every country, and perhaps even ideology, has its problems. This will simply be an attempt to figure out how interested I really am in moving to Israel.
I hope you will join me as a reader, commenter, and/or discussion-participant.
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