December 2003
Bert, Ernie, Tzachi, and Ibtisam
From left - Noah, Tzachi, Brosh, and Ibtisam star in the Israeli version of Sesame Stories.
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Dec. 7, 2003 - It starts out like a scene that could be broadcast on Sesame Street in the U.S. Tzachi, a mild-mannered Jewish handyman wearing a turned-around baseball cap, is busy in his workshop accompanied by his Muppet assistants Noah and Brosh.
Then suddenly, Tzachi's neighbor Ibtisam, an art student, walks into the room. She greets him in Arabic, they exchange friendly pleasantries, then asks if she can have the paint for a project she is working on. Tzachi agrees.
The young, naive Noah looks at the two humans in wonderment, "Are you two friends? How is that possible? You are so different!"
This sparks a conversation about the different things that Ibtisam and Tzachi have in common and what is different about them. Between comparing their hair color, eye color and favorite hobbies, the two neighbors note the fact that Tzachi is Jewish and Ibtisam is Arab.
What sounds like casual conversation is carefully scripted by the team that has created Sesame Stories, the third incarnation of Sesame Street to air in Israel, whose creators hope to reinforce education for tolerance and prevention of violence.
This time around, Sesame Street has a unique twist: it's part of a triad production - filming has taken place in Israel, Ramallah, and Jordan. Each of the entities is creating its own version of the show, using common materials, are simultaneously airing the show on the HOP! TV channel in Israel, Jordanian JRTV, and the Palestinian Ma'an Network.
The Israeli Sesame Stories production carries a message of hope, respect and understanding, and non-violent conflict resolution to children aged four to seven - but with messages hoping to influence their families as well. The series enables Israeli Jewish children to get to know their Israeli Arab neighbors and provides Israeli Arab children with the opportunity to see themselves as an expression of their culture on-screen. Through the segments filmed in the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, they also get to know their more distant neighbors better.
Content consultant Alia Abou Shmeiss, an Israeli Arab who lives in Jaffa, said that she said yes immediately when asked to participate in the project. "We wanted to give the Arab child a chance to define himself."
In Israel, the four main characters, Noah, Brosh, Tzachi and Ibtisam deal with subjects like: pride and self-esteem, helping others, majority/minority issues and others. Woven throughout the show are Sesame Street classic library segments, starring the beloved and well-known characters like Ernie and Bert, Big Bird, and Elmo. Like other Sesame Workshop production, Sesame Stories addresses literacy skills, while also giving Israeli culture and tradition wide expression.
Writers from the Sesame Workshop have collaborated closely with child psychologists and educational advisors in making the three programs, with the participation and contributions of professional advisors from various fields, including education, psychology, sociology, and many more. The format of the program was developed on the basis of the educational goals of the program, as well as the research conducted before the production began.
Shmeiss said that since Israeli Arab society was heterogeneous, she consulted members of the community around the country when creating the Arab content on the program. "Unfortunately, in Israel today, culture is a one-way street - the Arab community is exposed to Israeli culture. We wanted to give expression to Arab culture on screen: to show the holidays, the deep multi-generation family connection and cultures, the holidays, and to give exposure to the Arab language."
She worked carefully on creating the character of Ibtisam. "We wanted a young woman that that they could identify with and feel affection for: like a sister or an aunt."
The producers of the show are trying to extend the reach of their messages beyond the television.
"We want to use this material on the ground, and move beyond simply showing it on the screen," said Yael Bar Lev, the head content advisor for Sesame Stories.
To this end, Sesame Stories was planned from its inception as a multi-media project that dealt with values and subjects. By simultaneously using television and other supporting media, they would be able to give the viewer additional meeting points with the project's characters and messages off-screen. This way, the child can repeat and process the viewing experience in other venues, such as via the internet, books, activities, preschool learning kits, and other enrichment materials developed by educational professionals and other specialists.
All these educational outreach materials will be designed for the Arab sector as well as the Jewish sector and will be produced in both languages in order to promote the social and educational goals upon which the series was built.
A centerpiece of the off-screen outreach initiative is the Sesame Stories Website, that is housed within the HOP! Website. Children who would like to continue the experience of Sesame Stories and play with Brosh and Noah are welcome to visit the characters' new home on the website.
The games in Noah and Brosh's home allow children to experience and engage with subjects raised in the series such as: self esteem, understanding different points of view and others. This is one of the first web sites for young children in Israel that is also available in Arabic and that offers games and enrichment activities in both languages. Furthermore, the preschool area of the website, designed for educators in preschools and elementary schools, offers activities and material based on the series' subjects. Other activities will comprise a separate parents' area of the site.
This third Israeli version of Sesame Street reflects the sober times in which it was created. In the 90s at the height of Oslo and peace, there was a version where the Israeli puppets visited back and forth with their neighbors on a Palestinian Sesame Street. It was shot with a joint Israeli-Palestinian production team. Sesame Stories reflects the current reality - the action takes place in a private space. The idea of Israelis and Arabs mixing freely on each other's street - the creators decided - was too far from their viewer's reality.
That is the reason that Sesame Stories takes place not on the street, but in the workshop belonging to Tzachi, a dreamer-inventor and technician who lives with his two young assistants - Noah and Brosh.
Ibtisam, their neighbor and best friend, is an Arab-Israeli artist who lives next-door to the workshop. Ibtisam is treated like a member of the family in Tzachi, Noah and Brosh's workshop, and she takes part in every event that occurs in their house. Tzachi and Ibtisam tell Noah and Brosh stories that impart lessons and conclusions that are important on both personal and general levels.
Under the umbrella of the Sesame Stories project a great number of short documentary segments were produced, and these are integrated into each episode of the series. The films expose the viewers to different aspects in the lives of Jewish and Arab children engaged in subjects with which viewers can identify. Furthermore, the films open a window onto Israel's multi-cultural society and promote the educational goals of the series.
These documentary films all feature real children - not actors with scripts - who provide a glimpse into their daily lives. For example, My Dad the Lifeguard introduces Juli Bols, an Arab Israeli lifeguard at the Bat-Galim beach in Haifa and his daughter who is proud of her father's work.
My Coral is a film about a group of children that decided to rescue and rebuild the spectacular coral reef preservation in the Red Sea that suffers from pollution caused by industry and individuals. The film aims to strengthen children's belief in their ability to change reality and to take care of the environment.
Holiday of Holidays describes the three "light holidays" of three religions that can fall within close dates on the calendar (Hanukah, Ramadan, and Christmas). The film emphasizes the joint motifs the three holidays share and the ways that three children, living in Haifa and representing all three religions, experience them.
Courtesy http://www.israel21c.org/
MDA specialists gave advanced study course to the Kenyan Red Cross in the treatment of terrorist attack casualties
Dec. 15, 2003 - Magen David Adom, which in the past three years has accumulated a vast experience and proficiency in everything pertaining to the treatment and evacuation of terror attack casualties, gave a study course and trained the workers of the Kenyan Red Cross in their country, in the treatment of terror attack casualties.
At the conclusion of the theoretical studies a summarizing drill was held - an attack on a bus with 30 casualties. The drill took place in the presence of Israel Ambassador in Kenya, a senior representative of the Kenyan Infrastructure Ministry and Deputy Director of the Kenyan Red Cross.
The ministry's representative said during the drill that they had approached MDA due to its proficiency and the vast experience accumulated in the treatment and evacuation of terror casualties, and in view of MDA's worldwide reputation in professionalism and efficiency in emergency medicine. The representative stressed the assistance given his country by Israel after the terrorist attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, in 1998.
The graduation ceremony took place on the memorial day of the attack on the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa. In this context, Israel's Ambassador to Kenya, Emanuel Seri, referred to the expansion of international terror, stressing the recent occurrences in Istanbul, Turkey.
"They were interested in subjects in which MDA has a lot of experience and showed great interest," said Ofer Snit and Dudi Abady, MDA specialists who trained the Kenyans. During the course they learned about the activation of ambulances in multi-casualty incidents, management of an incident of such scope, medical treatment of the casualties, and the channeling of the casualties to hospitals, their priorities, management of an incident site, cooperation with additional emergency services and control.
Additional Red Cross organizations have already approached MDA in order to hold a similar study course.
"Smart Bomb" Delivery Destroys Tumors in Mice
A new method selectively kills cancer cells, leaves healthy ones intact
Dec. 29, 2003 - Weizmann Institute scientists have destroyed malignant tumors in mice using a chemical that occurs naturally in garlic. The key to the scientists' success lies in the development of a unique, two-step system for delivering the cancer-wrecking chemical straight to the tumor cells.
Allicin, as the chemical is called, is the substance that gives garlic its distinctive aroma and flavor. For many years, scientists studying allicin have known that it is as toxic as it is pungent. It has been shown to kill not only cancer cells, but the cells of disease-causing microbes, and even healthy human body cells. Fortunately for our body's cells, allicin is highly unstable, and breaks down quickly once ingested. However, the rapid breakdown and undiscriminating toxicity presented twin hurdles to creating an allicin-based therapy.
At the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry Department, Drs. Aharon Rabinkov, Talia Miron and Marina Mironchick, working with Profs. David Mirelman and Meir Wilchek, have solved both these problems by designing an ingenious delivery method that works with the pinpoint accuracy of a smart bomb. Their findings were reported in the December issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.
The method parallels the way allicin is synthesized in nature. Not present in whole, unbroken cloves of garlic, allicin is the product of a biochemical reaction between two substances stored apart in tiny, adjoining compartments within each clove. The two are an enzyme, alliinase, and a normally inert chemical called alliin. When the clove is damaged, whether by soil parasites intending to eat the tender tissues, or by cooks making sauce, the membranes separating compartments are ruptured and rapid allicin production follows. The scientists realized that if doses of allicin could be repeatedly generated in this way at the site of the tumor, the highest concentration of the toxic molecules would be available for killing cancer cells.
To zero in on the targeted tumor, scientists took advantage of the fact that most types of cancer cells exhibit distinctive receptors on their surfaces. An antibody that is "programmed" to recognize the tumor's characteristic receptor is chemically bound to the enzyme, alliinase. Injected into the bloodstream, the antibody seeks out these cells, and lodges itself and its passenger enzyme on the tumor cells. The scientists then inject the second component, alliin, at intervals. When it encounters the alliinase, the resulting reaction turns the normally inert alliin molecules into lethal allicin molecules, which penetrate and kill the tumor cells. Due to the precise delivery system, neighboring, healthy cells remain intact.
Using this method, the team succeeded in blocking the growth of gastric tumors in mice. The tumor-inhibiting effects were seen up to the end of the experimental period, long after the internally produced allicin was spent. The scientists note that the method could work for most types of cancer, as long as a specific antibody can be customized to recognize receptors unique to the cancer cells. The technique could prove invaluable for preventing metastasis following surgery. "Even though doctors cannot detect where metastatic cells have migrated and lodged themselves," says Mirelman," the antibody-alliinase-alliin combination should chase them down and destroy them anywhere in the body."
Prof. David Mirelman's research is supported by the Y. Leon Benoziyo Institute for Molecular Medicine Robert Drake, The Netherlands; Mr. and Mrs. Henry Meyer, Wakefield, RI; M.D. Moross Institute for Cancer Research; and The late Claire Reich, Forest Hills, NY. Prof. Mirelman is the incumbent of the Besen-Brender Chair of Microbiology and Parasitology.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,500 scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
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