page 4 |
The research is done in the south desert plain, (Israeli Arava), near the Jordanian and Egyptian borders, situated in the Syrio-African Rift. The center is in a Kibbutz, by the name of- KTURA. It is about 60 kilometer of an uninhabited area. The center Arava, is a center for environmental studies (AIES), and is working toward peace, and environmental cooperation between peoples. The students, are from many Middle Eastern countries, like Jordan, Palestinians ( yes Yes!) and other Arab countries.
The research is about the diversity, the richness, and amount of different species of animals like: rodents, reptiles, beetles, different kinds of birds, ants, spiders and all kinds of insects. The questions asked in that research are about the influence of man and society on the landscape.
A western society, tends to change natural terrain to an agricultural one, plants development, and other purposes, but is aware of the necessity to conserve the natural habitat, and therefore hunting, for instance, is forbidden.
A traditional society tends to keep the landscape in its natural form. There is less awareness of hunting, and part of the natural vegetation is destroyed by cattle, but nevertheless it stays in its natural form.
The contact with the Jordanian scientists is about 2 years old. It is done by emails, phone, and personal meetings. This contact resulted in the development of
very close relations between Dr. Uri Shanas (photo on left), a zoologist from the biological department of Haifa University/ Oranim and his group, and scientists from the university in Jordan. Uri told me that while meeting they talk of many subjects, starting with women, politics, and you name it...........
The benefit for the two societies is significant. For the Israeli side it is research of an area that was not accessible before, and for the Jordanians it is an economical (budgets) and scientific benefit.
Jordan has a very developed definer of reptiles that was copied for the Israeli group. The prospect for the future is that more researchers from both sides will join, and research and personal contact will grow considerably.
Is end of conflict possible? The answer is definitely Yes!
Dear Chat Liners, conflicts are all around the Globe. The story shows, that even the impossible is possible.
Pnina Evental
Givatayim Club
Israel has become a world leader in biotechnology, with Israeli companies leading the way in elements of cancer and autoimmune disease research. With close ties to Israel's flourishing research universities and educational system, as well as support from the government, Israeli biotech has become industry leading, providing advances in research. Tragically, Israel has become the world leader in the medical treatment of injuries caused by terrorism. Aside from medicine, Israeli research on many subjects - ranging from computer technology to archeology - is among the most respected in the world.
Israelis, because of their dedication to learning and research, are applying research as a means to improve relations with their neighbors. The account of collaborative environmental research, recounted here by Pnina, is an excellent example of how research can play a broader role than simply that of gathering knowledge.
We trust with Pnina that an end to the conflict is indeed possible.
Hendré Falkson MBChB MD
The difference between the 2 communities posed different problems to the country. Culturally, it was relatively easier for the first group to assimilate to life of the Israeli society, as the 2 cultures' mentalities are closer to each other. Part of immigrants to Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries came from the Soviet Union, and so part of Israeli culture is based on that culture. Completely different problems were posed to the country by the Ethiopian community whose culture is very different from the local one.
The gap between a developed country as Israel, and a country like Ethiopia posed a huge problem to the immigrants of closing that gap. It posed problems as well to the people working with the community, as a result of not being familiar with the codes of conduct that were and are common in that society. Both sides had to go a long way to study and understand each other, a process which is still going on.
Many efforts were, and are done, to help the community to strike roots. Much research were, and are done by psychologists, social workers, teachers and others to understand the characteristics of that culture, as a means to enhance the results of absorption. Many new and advanced learning methods were and are developed to help the language qualifications, and other skills needed. Results, are “coming in”, slowly and with a lot of efforts from both sides.
Nowadays, there are more and more university graduates! Community members are starting to take roles in the general society. As you know, we as Soroptimist members are taking part in that process as well, and I would like to share it with you. I met Efrat when I started my photography project of the Ethiopian community. She already was an RN. We became friends and she was one of my guides in understanding the codes of the culture, through meeting her family and participating in the community life. I was helping and watching her progress, and celebrated with her and her family last week at Tel-Aviv University, her BA graduation in Nursing Science!!!
To tell you in short, Efrat has continued her studies in ICU (a year of hard work and studies), took a course of guiding new nursing students, English course, and is preparing herself for her MA.!
(My friend Aviva Tal, a teacher and photographer , received the prize for founding a photo gallery at her primary school, with lessons of photography, and my Ethiopian exhibition was part of her school project of education, concerning the Ethiopian culture in particular. The exhibition was there for about 6 months with pupils working, facing the photos in the gallery. The products of the pupils were stunning! ).
There I met Sigalit (violet in Hebrew), 18 years old and a High school student in the Biotechnological class.
Sigalit received the award because she has founded in her school a group of tutors in order to help children which needed help in school and society ( many of them of Ethiopian origin). She has chosen10 tutors from the best pupils, and each one of them tutored a pupil that needed help. As a group they have discussed as well social problems, and looked for solutions. She not only did it to her age group, but offered the project to other classes, teaching them how to do it! Add to this she is an excellent pupil! Her future plans are all set up!( she wants to be a dentist.) She was chosen to thank the committee on behalf of the other pupils getting the award, and did a striking Job ! A real young leader, and a very bright young girl.
Pnina Evental
Givatayim Club
Much of Israel's success and many of the achievements of Israel are due to the Israelis' dedication to study and learning. On this page Pnina has recounted excellent examples of the importance of a nation's attitude about education. What she has told here shows how research can play a broader role than simply that of gathering knowledge and how education can play an important role in bridging a gap and towards the development of initiatives which will help build bridges between indigenous people and the wider community.
It should never be ignored, that Israel has become, through hard work, ingenuity and, most of all, dedication to freedom and learning, a prosperous country, despite many hardships and drawbacks.
'To learn
You must want to be
taught'
Proverbs 12:1
The Soroptimist position regarding Minorities and Racism is to "assist migrant people to integrate into their adopted country while maintaining their own cultural identity, to develop initiatives which will help to build bridges between indigenous people and the wider community."
The Givatayim Club, SI Israeli Union, received a '2004 Best Practice Award' in the Programme Area "Human Rights" from Soroptimist International.
For details about the Givatayim Club's Ethiopian Project 
Click here
Hendré Falkson MBChB MD
Israeli Medicine - A meeting with Prof. Shimon Slavin
Pnina writes:
Dear Chatliners,
I would like to share with you a very special meeting with Prof. Slavin.
Prof. Slavin is the head of the Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) and Cancer Immunotherapy department at Hadassah Medical Center University Hospital in Jerusalem. It is recognized as THE National center for BMT in Israel.
Some introduction.
Israeli medicine is well known. Many sick people from countries close by and far away, including Arab countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with us and are arriving incognito, come to Israel to seek medical help. Some of the big hospitals in Israel have special departments for dealing with these patients.
There are two main factors that enhance Israeli knowledge and experience. Being situated in a constant war zone , with so many very badly wounded casualties, enhances the need of Israeli physicians to work in states of emergency to find creative solutions to complicated medical situations.
The second factor is Israel’s concern to develop its science and technology. Israel has some worldwide well known centers for research, like the Weizmann Institute, for example.
Meeting Prof. Slavin.
Prof. Shimon Slavin, an impressive and soft spoken man, whom I met recently, is one of those special individuals, standing in the forefront of the medical war against cancer, AIDS and many other diseases involving the immune system.
Prof Slavin’s research resulted in improved treatment methods. It all began about 18 years ago with a little boy, terminally ill with leukemia, despite BMT with his sister as donor. Prof. Slavin decided to try injecting blood (that contains lymphocytes, the “combatant” white cells of the immune system) from the sister to the severely ill boy, he did it for 6 weeks, and the “miracle” happened. The disease of the child went into remission, and his blood cancer disappeared! To-day the boy is a soldier in the Israeli army!!
This procedure, called donor lymphocyte infusions (DLI) based on using donor’s immune system cells to fight off disease, provide proof of a principle, namely that: foreign (allogeneic) donor lymphocytes can eliminate tumor cells that are resistant to maximally tolerated doses of chemotherapy and radiation. The new procedure is based on the need to accept donor stem cells for induction of transplantation tolerance, for permanent acceptance of donor cells and tissues. Additional strategies were developed for prevention of stem cell rejection that made it possible to apply BMT also for patients with no matched donor available. This procedure has also solved the problem of cost since it is a cheaper method.
Prof Slavin’s methods are now well known and practiced, with his team guidance, in countries around the world. His attempt nowadays, is to try again, to convince the head of a central hospital in the Palestinian Authority, to treat sick children voluntarily, as his personal efforts towards peace!.
I feel privileged to have met Prof Slavin and being able to share it with you.
Love , light and health, to all of you my friends.
Pnina Evental
Givatayim Club
Pnina has provided another example, through personal contact with Prof Slavin, of Israel’s medical expertise. Dr Shimon Slavin is a world-renowned leader in the field of cancer immunotherapy and autoimmune diseases.
It is important to know that almost 2 decades ago, Dr. Slavin recognized that new and smarter, rather than more aggressive means, were required in order to produce successful anti-cancer therapies. Because of this, research was conducted during the past two decades enabling Dr. Slavin and his team to provide more effective, less toxic therapy options for cancer patients. This therapy, considered a treatment of choice in many other transplant centers around the world for patients who relapse after transplantation, is known as Donor Lymphocyte Infusion.
I am pleased to be able to print this narrative from Pnina that focuses on Dr Shimon Slavin’s role in developing innovative treatment for cancer as well as his important work in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for autoimmune diseases.
Hendré Falkson MBChB MD
In a Chatline Posting Pnina drew our attention to the news that two Israeli scientists will be receiving the Nobel Prize for Science, she wrote "Dear Chat Liners
Thanks for your support and being with us on that terrible day, where cruel terror without any borders, has shown its ugly face - at the Taba Hilton in Egypt,
We HAVE to look at the HALF-FULL GLASS .......... Well, here is my half full glass for today:
Two Israeli scientists prof. AVRAHAM HERSHKO, and prof. AHARON CHEHANOVER, will receive on December 10th the Nobel Prize for their excellent work in CHEMISTRY.
They have discovered the chemical system of protein dismanteling in the cell, which controls every chemical process in our body and controls the disposal of spoiled proteins. It will lead, and already does, to find new remedies for cancer, and other diseases which are attacking the human body.
This is my half-full glass EQUATION for to-day."
Pnina Evental
Givatayim Club
for PAGE 5
