Here are a few of the most popular Stories and videos we shared with you on Israelseen for 2013. We also presented some of the top stories and videos from other major blogs that brought to light Israel’s incredible year.
Here are the 5 Most popular stories on IsraelSeen for 2013:
- 1 Guess Who’s Valedictorian at Israel’s Top Medical School?
- 2 Israel isTransforming the Operating Room – No More Scalpels or Scars
- 3 See What Happens When an Anti-Semitic Politician learns he is a Jew!!!
- 4 What the Palestinians do not want Jews to know
- 5 Israel – Researchers Find American Indians With Jewish Genetic Markers
WATCH: Greatest IDF Moments of 2013
2013 was a momentous year for the IDF. Through all of the challenges and celebrations, we remained focused on our supreme goal: to defend the people of Israel.
This year, as every year, terrorism struck Israeli civilians and soldiers. Whether it was gunfire on troops, rockets fired at civilians, explosives placed near soldiers, or attempted kidnappings, terrorist organizations did their utmost to carry out attacks against the State of Israel – but the enemy’s determination only strengthened our resolve to defend Israel and its citizens.
The motivation that fuels us extends far beyond defense against terrorism. On the other side of the world, we rushed to help victims of a typhoon in the Phillipines. At home, we conducted exercises with the largest militaries in the world, developed cutting-edge technologies, and expanded other efforts to overcome the challenges facing Israel.
In 2013, as always, our soldiers carried out difficult missions while sustaining the values that make the IDF unique. As the year comes to a close, watch an exclusive video that will immerse you in the IDF’s most important moments of 2013.
[youtube=youtu.be/sDIzjh1yeRU&w=520&h=315]
NoCamels Top 10 Stories Of 2013
Over the course of 2013, NoCamels traveled across the Startup Nation to cover the most fascinating stories on Israeli innovation. From the rise of the 3D industry to holographic hearts and cancer-preventing treatments, NoCamels’ stories were shared across the globe. But which stories beat out all others in popularity?
Here are our top 10 stories that went viral in 2013.
1. First 3D Printed Car To Hit The Roads In Two Years
Israeli-American 3D printing giant Stratasys is on the forefront of 3D innovation and is showing us why 3D printing is the future of manufacturing. This story, published in March, described how Stratasys is planning to put the first 3D printed car on the road by 2015. Jim Kor, president and senior designer for KOR EcoLogic, which is partnering with Stratasys on the project, said: “As a mechanical engineer, I’ve always believed we could use technology to help us solve some of society’s greatest challenges, like minimizing our dependence on oil and reducing ozone emissions.”
2. Israeli Company That Turns Tumors Into Ice Balls Now Sets Its Sight On Lung Cancer
IceCure is an Israeli company that developed a minimally invasive procedure that uses extreme cold to kill tumors inside the body. The company’s technology, proven effective on benign and some malignant breast tumors, is now being tested on lung cancer, which claims more lives annually than any other cancer. This story spread around the world, and calls came flooding in for more information on treatment possibilities. This story showed how the best Israeli minds can come together to save lives.
3. Researchers In Israel Announce A Revolutionary Alternative To Fuel
Prof. Moti HerskowitzWith oil supplies around the world fast depleting, researchers around the world have been trying to find an alternative that could sustain the energy needs of mankind. A team at Israel’s Ben Gurion University may have come up with an alternative fuel, made from water and carbon dioxide. The Israeli team, led by Professor Moti Herskowitz, was able to develop a crude-oil substitute from water and CO2. He predicts that this breakthrough technology should be commercially viable within 10 years.
4. Beamr Can Cut Video File Size By Half – Without Losing Quality
While over 100 hours of video are being uploaded on YouTube every minute and video has become the preferred way to consume content online for many, there are still drawbacks to watching content on the internet. One is the tradeoff that needs to be made between file size and quality. That is why this story about Israeli company Beamr, which developed compression technology that can keep videos in their full HD quality, while shrinking the file size in half, made its rounds around the globe.
5. Israeli Startup Develops Wireless Mobile Chargers Using Infrared Light
With smartphones ever expanding capacities, they are also increasingly in need of charging. While carrying a charger with you throughout the day might solve the problem, it makes mobile phones less, well, mobile. Israeli startup Wi-Charge has developed a technology that it claims can charge phones using infrared light. While not yet on the market, the company is hoping its technology will allow users to charge their phone wirelessly, eliminating the need to connect your phone to a physical charger.
6. Given Imaging’s PillCam May Make Colonoscopies A Thing Of The Past
There are few medical exams that are as dreaded as a colonoscopy. So much so, that people often choose to forego it, which is why colon cancers are on the rise. Israeli company Given Imaging (recently acquired by Covidien for $860 million), developed a swallowable pill that contains a miniature camera, which can can often replace the need for colonoscopies.
7. Israeli Tech Puts 3D Holographic Heart In The Doctor’s Hand To Save Lives
It may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but Israeli company Real View has developed holographic technology that can project a real-time image of a patient’s heart floating in mid-air in front of the surgeon. The hologram can serve as an effective tool for doctors to get a better image of their patient’s condition while in the operating room.
8. Carry Your Computer Desktop On A Simple USB Key With Keepod’s Free Operating System
Keepod is credit-card sized device that essentially carries your whole computer’s information, meaning you no longer have to worry about saving information on various computers. The Israeli startup, also named Keepod, promises that strong security means it will be hard to break into the card and will allow users to “carry” their desktops wherever they go. Going even further, the startup now says it can turn any normal USB USB flash drive into a Keepod, making the technology accessible to an even wider audience.
9. Israeli Researchers Stop The Brain From Aging To Prevent Alzheimer’s
Many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, develop later in life. The reason is that some mechanisms in the brain fail over time and toxins that cause the diseases are not inhibited. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, alongside an Israeli startup called TyrNovo, have made a major step towards halting these diseases – by essentially stopping the brain from aging. The researchers found that a novel compound developed by TyrNovo inhibits the brain’s aging mechanism and in the future, may be the basis for a new form of treatment for Alzheimer’s.
10. Israeli Researcher Discovers Cell-Destroying Protein That May Help Eradicate Cancer
Dr. Sarit Larisch of the University of Haifa has spent more than a decade researching a cure for cancer. Larisch found that unlike normal cells, cancerous cells lack a “self-destruct” mechanism, and for that reason, never stop growing and develop into tumors. She then found that a protein called ARTS is in charge of the “self-destruct” button in cancer cells and has started developing treatments based on this discovery.
Top Ten MidEast Media Mangles for 2013 |
|
|
This year, the media have blundered all too many times in reporting on the Middle East. There were, unfortunately, countless potential “winners,” but CAMERA has identified our…
Top Ten MidEast Media Mangles for 2013: |
1. The New York Times Relentlessly Promotes the Palestinian Narrative 
60 Minutes Executive Producer and CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager still refuses to correct material falsehoods in a 2012 segment, “Christians in the Holy Land,” that inaccurately asserted a “wall completely surrounds Bethlehem, turning the little town where Christ was born into what its residents call an open air prison.” CAMERA produced an analysis of the segment, alerted its supporters to the problems with the story and published an ad in the Wall Street Journal drawing attention to some of the more egregious errors in the segment. This year, Fager spoke at his home church in New Canaan, Connecticut, repeated many of the errors originally broadcast and tried to portray himself and his news network – one of the most powerful media institutions in the country – as the victims of bullying by CAMERA and other viewers who have simply called on 60 Minutes to correct the record. Let Mr. Fager know again that the error still needs correcting and the public hasn’t forgotten! Call him at (212) 975-1073.
3. CNN Seemingly Conducting PR Campaign for the Iranian Regime
On several occasions, CNN has whitewashed the rhetoric of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The network falsely reported that President Rouhani’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly “was absent anti-Israel rhetoric.” In a later interview, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour pointedly asked Rouhani about his views on the Holocaust and mistranslated his comments to imply that he, unlike his Holocaust-denying predecessor, publicly acknowledged and condemned the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Though numerous translators and media outlets agree that Rouhani never used the word “Holocaust” and never acknowledged the systematic attempt to wipe out European Jewry, CNN has never corrected. Another misleading report presented a ridiculously utopian portrait of a tolerant and benevolent Islamic Iranian regime whose Jewish citizens enjoy the same religious freedoms as those living in Israel. A self-proclaimed standard-bearer of international journalism like CNN should be able to penetrate the smooth facade presented by the Iranian regime.
There’s Ha’aretz in Hebrew and then there’s Ha’aretz in English. The Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz has a very low circulation in comparison to other Israeli newspapers; its influential English site is the go-to portal for Western journalists, policymakers, diplomats, and a vast public. Close reading of both print editions over the course of years has revealed an ongoing pattern in which the Hebrew articles are not merely translated, but often altered. In sometimes dramatic and sometimes subtle cases, time and again, information appearing in the Hebrew original concerning Palestinian aggressiveness, violence and other Arab wrongdoing is downplayed or omitted entirely. In some instances, the English account is completely at odds with the original Hebrew. Among dozens of corrections issued by Ha’aretz at CAMERA’s prompting in recent years, many have involved errors in translations.
5. Two Major International Newspapers Feature Anti-Israel Cartoons Using Blood Libel Imagery 
6. UK Media Characterize Terrorists and Killers Released by Israel as “Political Prisoners”
The Israeli government is in the process of releasing 104 convicted terrorists as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority to facilitate negotiations. British media such as The Guardian and The Independent have misrepresented the killers as “political prisoners.” Though both of those outlets eventually corrected the characterization, there has been a widespread neglect by all media of the crimes committed by the released convicts and the details of the lives of their many victims.
7. PBS Doubles Down on Anti-Israel Films
Of the fifteen films broadcast in the 2013 season of the documentary series POV, two of them, more than 13 per cent, were anti-Israel. PBS aired “The Law in these Parts” August 19 and “5 Broken Cameras” on August 26. Among the thousands of documentaries released in recent years on all subjects – medical advances, pollution, political corruption, architecture, famous crimes, literature, internet dating, the life of Elvis – why did PBS select two in one season that are misleading and anti-Israel? And air them in successive weeks?
8. C-SPAN Provides Ongoing Platform for Obsessive Anti-Israel, Often Antisemitic Callers
Since November 2008, CAMERA’s C-SPAN Watch has documented hundreds of on-air anti-Jewish, anti-Israel calls to Washington Journal, C-SPAN’s daily 7-10 a.m. (Eastern) public affairs call-in show. Potentially reaching millions of viewers, these hateful rants typically have been facilitated by hosts who fail to repudiate the numerous slanderous falsifications and distortions.
9. BBC’s Inaccurate Report Used to Promote Hate
During Operation Pillar of Defense, the BBC, flouting its own editorial guidelines on accuracy and impartiality, falsely reported that the young son of one of their staffers was killed by an Israeli airstrike. Though it was later determined that the death was likely the result of a misfired Palestinian rocket, subsequent corrections received far less attention. Promoted as part of a preconceived narrative depicting Israelis as ‘baby killers,’ an image of Jihad Masharawi holding his son’s body became entrenched in the minds of many as a depiction of Israeli wrong-doing. The image has since been used in several anti-Israel protests and continues to foment hatred against Israel. Months later, the flawed account of Omar Masharawi’s death was still featured prominently in the Magazine section of the BBC website.
10. Prominent Newspapers from Coast to Coast Publish U Penn Professor Ian Lustick’s Calls for the Demise of Israel
In The Los Angeles Times in March and again in The New York Times in September, Ian Lustick depicts Israel as a pariah state, glosses over the sins of its adversaries, and goes so far as to call for the dissolution of the Jewish state. While he apparently suffers from the delusion that Jewish self-criticism and Israeli concessions can bring a unilateral end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, theoutrage here is the fact that influential newspapers believe it is reasonable to debate the idea of eliminating Israel, a democratic country and the world’s only Jewish state.
Can we expect 2014 to be a better year for Israel and media coverage? While CAMERA is gratified at the many instances of responsible action by members of the media, it’s also obvious there will be numerous challenges!
Here are the 10 most watched ISRAEL21c videos in 2013. How many have you watched?
1. OrCam
The OrCam camera device is one of Israel’s top 10 advances in vision. Hebrew University Prof. Amnon Shashua – who is also behind the Mobileye driver-safety system — created this technology that “sees” and “reads” for the visually impaired. Click on the video and get ready to be amazed.
[youtube=youtu.be/EMLHtywaqSY&w=520&h=315]
For the last few years, ISRAEL21c has marked Israel’s Independence Day with a celebratory video. In 2013, we invited readers to send in photographs of “real” Israel.
The montage video of smiles and sunsets, babies and bakers, surfers and clergymen, were set to the awesome song “Shine” by Israel-born singer and songwriter Rosi Golan.
[youtube=youtu.be/269ajfksUQM&w=520&h=315]
Haifa has been Israel’s baking capital for over 80 years. A group of immigrants from Eastern Europe settled in the northern city and became known for their fancy cream cakes, fresh yeast buns and old-fashioned breads.
Today, the third-largest city in Israel still has the most number of bakeries per person in the country.
Take a virtual bite out of this video:
[youtube=youtu.be/n03AcUpQN9g&w=520&h=315]
Snow in Jerusalem brings joy and slippery fun for all.
In January and December 2013, the biggest snowstorms in more than two decades hit Jerusalem, sprinkling white flakes everywhere. The city’s road traffic was trifling but foot traffic was momentous as residents – young and old — came out to play.
[youtube=youtu.be/zOkTU_4fNqc&w=520&h=315]
5. Postcard from Israel – Emek Refaim
This year we launched a new “Postcard from Israel” travel-log video series. These videos offer snapshots of Israel, including fun and beautiful places you may never have seen before.
Our stroll down Emek Refaim in Jerusalem one Friday morning proved to be the most popular so far.
[youtube=youtu.be/wt16NS8wGts&w=520&h=315]
6. Postcard from Israel – Light Rail
The Light Rail in Jerusalem is much more than a public transportation system. Hosting the city’s multi-ethnic residents and visitors, this sleek trolley glides past all the major landmarks in the world’s most talked-about city.
Hop on:
[youtube=youtu.be/DZBUIKubTiw&w=520&h=315]
Tel Aviv is one of the world’s most innovative cities, with about 700 tech startups in its 20 square miles. California’s Silicon Valley? Check out Israel’s Silicon Wadi!
Click on the video and you’re sure to be surprised by the names of companies that started here in Tel Aviv:
[youtube=youtu.be/XJLu0Yri0GM&w=520&h=315]
8. The Man Who Taught Me To Fly
Israel is one of the most important centers for birdwatching in the world with over 500 million birds flying over the country in spring and fall.
In a joint initiative by ISRAEL21c and the iCenter, as part of the latest iMMERSE installment, we tell the story of how Yossi Leshem, director of Israel’s International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, became one of the leading bird experts in the world today.
It is a video created for youngsters but one that appeals to everyone:
[youtube=youtu.be/k2WvIDgCHlA&w=520&h=315]
9. Postcard from Israel – Dizengoff Street
Strolling down Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv will give you a real taste of the city. The famous boulevard was built in the 1930s in tribute to the city’s first mayor, Meir Dizengoff.
Visitors to this thoroughfare will soak up history and culture as they make their way from chic boutiques in the north to the Fredric R. Mann Auditorium in the south.
[youtube=youtu.be/pSeTKtSARzs&w=520&h=315]
10. Postcard from Israel – First Train Station, Jerusalem
Another video from ISRAEL21c’s popular Postcard from Israel series takes viewers to the Ottoman-era train depot in Jerusalem. Hundreds of people pack the former train platform, which has turned into the city’s hottest new culture and dining destination.
Click to see where all the action is happening:
[youtube=youtu.be/AkaBMgsGOIk&w=520&h=315]
Watch ISRAEL21c’s Top 10 videos for 2012: http://israel21c.org/culture/israel21cs-year-in-videos/
Biggest stories Elder of Ziyon broke:
1. UN verifies that BBC reporter’s son was killed by Hamas
2. Passover blood libel in Hanan Ashrawi’s “Miftah” website
3. Yeshiva U law school to give award to Israel-hater Jimmy Carter (updated)
4. The Economist reveals its anti-Israel bias
5. Hamas terrorists mourn Helen Thomas
6. UNRWA dean of education posts Hitler quote on FB
7. Egyptian newspaper publishes TWO articles saying Jews drink gentile blood on Passover
8. My conversation with an anti-Israel Amnesty spokesperson
9. Arab TV series inciting hate against Jews coming in July. Will anyone do anything to stop it?
