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Go Daddy picks Bar Refaeli for Super Bowl ad

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January 7, 2013
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Sexy Super Bowl ads may emit a tad less sizzle this go-round – but two will feature knock-out supermodels.

Go Daddy, historically the Super Bowl’s raciest advertiser, on Friday will name supermodel Bar Refaeli as its newest Super Bowl-bound Go Daddy girl.

She was ranked No. 1 on Maxim’s Hot 100 for 2012. The move comes just weeks after Mercedes-Benz announced that supermodel Kate Upton will star in its game spot.

Both models are former Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girls.

But neither of the hotter-than-hot models will appear in racy attire. In fact, both will appear in formal dresses – as plans are right now. Even as Super Bowl marketers are reaching out to the world’s most beautiful models, some appear to be evolving away from ultra-racy imagery.

“It’s about intrigue and desire,” says Noreen Jenny Laffey, president of Celebrity Endorsement Network, which links celebrities with marketers. “It’s not what you see; it’s what you don’t see – but you know is there.”

For Go Daddy, it’s also an attempt to soften its image. “The new sexy at Go Daddy is all about the customer,” says Barb Rechterman, chief marketing officer.

This will be Refaeli’s first Super Bowl spot. The Israeli native, who has dated actor Leonardo DiCaprio on and off, will star with veteran race car driver Danica Patrick in the 30-second ad.

Refaeli, 27, who was the cover model for the 2009 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, says she has no hesitation about linking up with an advertiser whose brand image has been built and tarnished by its often-racy Super Bowl commercials.

“I am a model who is well known for her body and feminine image,” she says. “I’m not here to make people think I’m the next Einstein.”

The ad, to be filmed next week in Los Angeles, also features Patrick, who will star in her record 11th and 12th Super Bowl spots for Go Daddy.

Go Daddy won’t reveal detailed contents of the spot, called “The Perfect Match.” But the two will likely discuss why helping customers is the new meaning of sexy at Go Daddy.

While Refaeli’s outfit in the commercial is still undecided, it will be a cocktail dress or something very formal, says Rechterman. “We’re not thinking bikinis or anything like that,” she says. “You might say we’ve come up in the world.”

Mercedes-Benz is featuring Upton, 20, in its commercial to appeal to a younger customer with its new, lower-price Mercedes-Benz CLA, says Stephen Cannon, CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA.

But in keeping with Mercedes’ brand image, Upton, who was the cover model on the 2012 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, will be wearing a cocktail dress, says Cannon. “We don’t have her on the hood of a car in a bikini.”

Source: 9news.com

VIDEO: A peek inside Israel’s premiere design school

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January 7, 2013
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Israel’s Shenkar College of Engineering and Design produces design professionals who push the envelope.

“Shenkar is a very unique school,” says Prof. Yuli Tamir, president of Shenkar College of Engineering and Design (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/IsraelExperience/Forging_fashion_tradition-Feb_2011…), on introducing a new exhibit about the Ramat Gan-based school.

“It combines art, design and engineering. What is so special about this event is really a lot of people come here to see the state of the art. This is an opportunity to see the beautiful young creative side of Israel, the side we are very proud of. This is Israel at its best.”

Deli Delatore, a graduate of the fashion design school, says, “Shenkar College is the kind of place that pushes you to your limits.”
But in the opinion of teacher Marlin Nowbakht, the creative push comes from the students themselves: “I think Israeli students are very targeted on what they do….They’re pushing the boundaries of their thoughts. They don’t accept every answer as it is. And there is a lot of creativity within that breaking-the-boundaries kind of approach.”

Anne-Darla does Israel: Day 2… Touchdown, Wine and some Holy Times

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January 7, 2013
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by Anne-Darla

Day 2

Touch down

We arrived at Ben-Gurion airport absolutely exhausted. If you had to situate us on a spectrum of exhaustion, we would be right at the feeling like feces level. I mean let’s put things into perspective. Most of the group had time to get drunk and sober up twice (or more) by the time we arrived in Israel. Mix that with the inability to shower, move or sleep properly and you have feeling like sh*t as a result. Listen, I don’t enjoy swearing and I did make a conscious effort to look in the dictionary to find a better word, your welcome mom, but shit was still the best option. Sorry.

I gave a shout out to my mother because she always tells me that swearing stems from an inability to express oneself properly and that I should look in the dictionary to find a more suitable word. What she fails to understand, miss proper, is that sometimes you just need to swear. It’s cathartic. And yes I’m very much intellectually capable of finding a better term, but I just don’t want to. So, on that note, fuckfucfuckfuckfuck..

Getting back to the text messages. Naturally, when I got text messages like

“How do you feel now that you’re in Israel?”
“How does it feel to be surrounded by so much history?”
“How does it feel to be walking where Jesus walked?”

I was like okay buddy…I’ve been here for approximately 15 minutes, what do you want me to tell you? The air tastes really great, I can definitely see Israel has lower levels of c02? Or, even better, the baggage claim is a clear display of Israel’s technologically innovative spirit? I don’t know, but what I do know is…

LOL.

P.S I can feel this post getting increasingly offensive as I write it. Sorry Dan Haddad, I know you gave me carte blanche for this thing, I hope you don’t regret it

We picked up our luggage and began walking towards the bus. The parking lot was filled with teenagers waiting outside next to their respective tour buses. Most of them seemed like birthright groups. You could tell by how loud they were talking.

Emmanuelle from the CAQ and I were talking about something funny in French and walked in front of this one group. Once we were about a meter past them they screamed “Vive le Quebec libre osti!” I automatically put my fist up in the air like a black panther activist and screamed “yea!”

I realized two seconds later that I was a complete nutcase and had just encouraged A) A separatist political party B) People making fun of our accents and where we’re from while C) Supposed to be an ethical, neutral Journalist.

Smooth.

The positive thing about this idiotic moment is that it definitely did make for a funny story. Keeping it to myself would be doing the world a great disservice, so I tried to find someone from the PQ group. Felix was the first one I saw. I pulled him to the side and told him what happened. He stared at me flabbergasted for about 30 seconds. I wasn’t sure whether he was overwhelmed with pride, joy and astonishment or was still a little drunk.

I say this because I’ve noticed that when people drink too much there’s normally a 1-5 minute delay between receiving words, processing them and then responding. My best guess was that at that very moment it was a mix of both.

I liked the PQ kids. They understood how to deal with hypothetical situations and thus life. AKA If your worried there may be motherf*cking snakes on a motherf*cking plane, drink.

HERE’S AN IDEA

Let me give you another hypothetical situation. Your grandmother is really old. She barely ever gets out of the house. Her back, legs and bones hurt constantly. The people she cares about the most are dropping dead like flies. She’s incredibly bored. She feels like life is behind her and what lies ahead of her does not constitute much of a “life”. As a result, she drinks everyday. Sometimes you notice she takes one too many painkillers. In other words, she likes to get a little funky you know. So you tell her it’s dangerous, she agrees with you and then does it anyways. Can you come up with one argument discouraging her from acting that way, that is not a selfish one?

I’ve pondered this question quite a bit and really I couldn’t find one. The only argument I could find discouraging my grandmother from drinking too much and getting fucked up is that it’s dangerous and I wouldn’t want to loose her. You see? Who wouldn’t want to loose her? I wouldn’t want to loose her. Selfish argument.
She gave me life now to what extent does her responsibility towards me extend itself?

I guess the core of the question would then be whether you consider life to be alienable or unalienable. Interesting thing to consider.

IDEA ENDED

MOTY AND THE FRENCH SUPERIORITY COMPLEX

Once Emmanuelle and I got to the bus we hung around outside waiting for our tour guide Moty to arrive.

This is Moty.

I was excited to meet Moty because he’s somewhat of a legend. My father has been to Israel over 30 times on missions similar to this one and always comes back home with stories about Moty. Jono also kept insisting that I would “fall in love with him in three seconds.”

“Ah la fille de Luciano,” he exclaimed. He was short, had curly white hair and the most welcoming body language I’ve ever come across. He kind of looked like a white version of Willy Wonka’s umpa lumpas. I swear he even breaks out dancing and singing randomly like them.

20 minutes into the bus ride, as the atmosphere started dying down and people were falling asleep here and there, Moty got up and asked for everyone’s attention. We all woke up or stopped what ever we were doing, it seemed important.

“How does a French woman commit suicide,” he asked. How does a French woman commit suicide. You could practically hear everyone in the bus repeating the question in their heads extremely confused. He raised his eyebrows, put his hand 10 inches above his head and pretended to shoot. “Right here in her superiority complex.”

I fell in love.

This is our bus. It’s big, it’s orange, outsiders might assume a group of Chinese tourists lie inside AND it has WIFI. What more could you ask for.

What did you say? Sorry I fell asleep while you were talking.

On our way to the hotel, Moty took the opportunity to bring us on a panorama tour. Of course Sarah and I, exemplary ambassadors of alertness, seemed to not have known about it and knocked out cold.

So when I was awaken by my dad’s voice I felt disoriented, confused and slightly traumatized. I looked like I got hit my a train, saliva was probably still running down my face, but out of fight-flight reflex I grabbed my backpack and barreled out of the bus. I ran towards Moty. Halfway there I jumped and almost tripped because a wedding party screamed “Mazel Tov” for the camera as I passed in front of them. I looked like an absolute weirdo and once I caught up with the group Jono was nodding his head. This would be the start of a long string of him wondering if I was dropped on my head as a child moments.

We had stopped at “le Moulin de Montefiore’. Moty was recounting some significant historical events that happened at the location, but I felt so lost his voice went in and out of tune like a weak radio wave. I caught words like “King Herod”, “David”, something about “75 000 people sleeping in Bethlehem on Christmas eve”, but nothing that created a complete and coherent picture in my brain.

Complimentary happy hour? I love Hotel Harmony.

For the next 3 nights we were going to stay at Hotel Harmony in Jerusalem. Hotel Harmony is a beautiful boutique hotel located in the Nahalat Shiva neighborhood. It’s on a pedestrian street, so we had to drag our luggage up ourselves. At first it seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, I almost gave up on life then and there, but it really wasn’t that bad. There was so much to see on my way to the hotel that it kept me distracted.

The area was filled with historical buildings. Quaint little restaurants and bars could be found scattered here and there as well as boutiques selling local art. Coble stoned alleys leading to mysterious unknown areas stood on the side of every second or third building. It was beautiful.

The hotel in general had a great location. It was a 10-minute walk from the Old City and about 5 minutes away from Jerusalem’s Mamilla shopping center.

To be honest I really wasn’t expecting something that nice. The last time I went on a organized group trip we stayed in 2 star hotels and hostels. As long as I have a bed and a bathroom I’m happy. This hotel was not only clean but it was modern and stylish. As I waited in the lobby my eyes skimmed around the room. It had elements representing Israel and Jerusalem all around it. The ceiling particularly caught my attention. A gorgeous mosaic of pictures taken by local artists covered it.

I think Sarah and I got stuck in the room for little people, because I kid you not our room was probably around 100 square feet. It was so tiny our two single beds were virtually stuck to each other. Two straight men might have found it extremely awkward.

This is one of the bigger rooms.

Some other cool perks are that breakfast is served every morning and that the hotel has a complimentary happy hour every evening in the business lounge. When Jono announced the happy hour part everyone’s eyes lit up, a couple people high fived each other and the PQ group headed straight there. This is what I mean when I say they understand the meaning of life.

How do I say no more wine in Hebrew?

We had about an hour to get ready and were told to meet each other in the lobby so we could walk over to restaurant Angelica for supper.

My dad made sure to remind me “to dress appropriately because we were going to church here,” BRO. I had to add that. My father’s of Italian origin, every time he gives me an order I like to pretend he’s Tony Soprano. It makes a relatively annoying experience that much more entertaining. In my head at least.

WHAT I’M WEARING: H&M jacket, H&M shirt, Everything scarf, H&M leggings, Zara shoes and La Sella purse.

When I got to the lobby Jono was standing there with a Santa Claus hat and a somewhat matching T-shirt. Clearly he had something up his sleeve, but we were all too tired to figure out what it was. So we just let it go and walked like zombies towards the restaurant.

It was a lovely restaurant and we had our own private room at the back end. Pascale Zonszain, our first conference guest, was waiting for us at the table. Pascal Zonszain is a journalist and jurist. She has been covering events in Israel for the past 10 years and has worked for media outlets such as Radio Shalom, the Moroccan television channel Medi 1 and more.

The goal was to eat and drink while she was giving her conference. Sounded like a fair goal to me. The food was great. We had little portions of everything from eggplant to liver as starters. I ordered a steak as a main course. The thing is, I think the waiter was fucking with me. He kept refilling my wine glass and telling me “have, have” with a thick Israeli accent even though I looked at him increasingly defeated and tipsy every time. I’ve come to conclusion Israeli’s are probably worst then Italians when it comes to hospitality.

In the middle of the conference Jono got up from his seat in his ridiculous Christmas hat to make an announcement.

“It’s our first night in Israel, I’d like to welcome you all here and wish you a merry Christmas,” he said, “to celebrate the occasion, I have little gifts for all of you,” he bent down grabbed a bunch of plastic bags and began passing them around. Each bag had a Santa Clause hat, T-Shirt written I love J.M.L and chocolate.

Jono is sticking to the story that the t-shirts mean I love Jerusalem, but I’m convinced it goes further then that and that it really it stands for I love Jono, Moty and Luciano. I know you Jono. I know there is a double meaning.

ABU GOSH

It was around 11 P.M. and I was falling asleep in my plate. I stayed positive because Moty told us that we would go visit a church with Benedictine monks in Abu Gosh and that during the ceremony there would be some amazing Gregorian chants. I love Gregorian chants. I’ve listened to plenty on youtube and I remember even using some to study. So even though I was absolutely exhausted, I had something to look forward too.

On our way to Abu Gosh, Moty gave us a brief history lesson. He wanted us to come here because, in his opinion, it was a very special location. It was one of the only locations in Israel that remained a hub of peace. He told us that Arabs, Jews and Christians have come here to gather, have coffee and live side by side for years.

Of course, nobody knows about this. Israel is only interesting to the outside world when stories conflict and not happiness are involved.

The church was called St-Mary of the resurrection. It was absolutely stunning. We entered through the crypt and walked up the stairs to the upper level where the ceremony was going to happen.

We sat down and waited for the ceremony to start. Jono was standing right in front of me and I took the opportunity to tell him how excited I was to hear the Gregorian chants. He looked at me for a second to see if I was being serious and when he saw I was he said, “you must have been dropped on your head as a child.” Louis-Charles from the Liberals, who was right in front of me, started laughing and my dad said, “actually we did.” They did. I was six months old. I fell from a rocker onto my head and apparently was laughing the whole time. My family and I have concluded that’s when the disconnect happened and I became a space cadet.

Okay so the chants weren’t what I expected. I guess I’ve listened to too many electronic music rave versions and was expecting something like that. Needless to say, 30 minutes into the ceremony I was fighting sleep and was bored to death. At some point this young monk got up to do a solo and was ridiculously off pitch. Sarah burst out laughing. Reflexually ( I know that’s not a word) I did also.

Everybody looked at us as if we committed murder. It was awkward. But the awkwardness just made the whole thing worst and for about five minutes Sarah and I couldn’t stop laughing. Defeated and exhausted I tried to muffle the laughter with my scarf until it passed.

This whole ceremony was excruciatingly painful. Jono was sitting diagonally from me and I was staring at the back of his head wondering what I could possibly do to it. I settled with the idea of taking all my spare change and flinging it at him.

Luckily, the ceremony finished just in time. By the way, to every single person that moralized us with their eyes when Sarah and I started laughing… you’re not saints either…Jesus saw how fast you got out of your seats and A-lined towards the exit when the ceremony ended. Old man across from me, he also saw you pick your nose the whole time. And finally, Monk in the right corner, he saw you fall asleep.

For the record, this is what I was expecting

And THIS is what I got

Click here to check out AD’s previous post

a STARTUP featured: SDM’s ONE-on-ONE with BannerPlay CEO Rafi Ton

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January 7, 2013
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Online advertisement is a HUGE industry, startups in Israel are a HUGE success, put them together… out comes BannerPlay, an Israeli startup that brings Israeli innovation to the online advertising world, and best of all, it’s mostly FREE to use! We spoke to Rafi Ton about how his company will revolutionize online advertising for Small-Medium Businesses.

Tell us about BannerPlay

BannerPlay is a startup company that aims to revolutionize the online display advertising industry by making display ads, banners… accessible to small and medium businesses. More often than not, a big budget is required in order to advertise efficiently online. You needed graphic designers to design the ads, you needed a media placement person and you need a service that will give you analytics you can understand. This fragmentation is a real barrier for people. It’s a headache. That’s why small-medium businesses use Google, it’s fairly simple, but that’s not really display advertising, it’s Adwords.  We decided to take the simplicity of Adwords and bring it to the display advertising market.

Using a very simple web interface, BannerPlay allows users to create banners in no time. After creating the banner, BannerPlay allows you to target the banners to the right users and on the right sites (where your banners are going to appear and who is going to see them), buy the media with your PayPal account and get real time statistics so you always know how your ads are performing.

What is the cost?

BannerPlay uses a simple Pay Per Click model, so the only thing you pay for is actual interaction with your ad. Other than that, you can use our system as much as you like, create as many banners as you like and as many campaigns as you like. You’ll pay only for the clicks.

How will this help businesses?

BannerPlay provides an alternative to Google Adwords. At this point in time, advertisers with limited budgets really only have once practically a single way to use online advertising while the big brands can select either search or display advertising. BannerPlay brings the big brands’ toolbox to the small advertiser.

BannerPlay will save small-medium businesses money and time by offering a new way to advertise. Quite simply, when you reduce the production cost to zero you can direct your entire budget to buying the media, and because we’re performance driven, you don’t waste money on testing, designers’ fee, un-converted views or analytics.

Who came up with the concept?

I came up with the idea and co-founded the company. My previous company, Casual Mobile, dealt with building branded games and apps for big brands that wanted to interact with people on the web. Seeing the high level of user engagement with these interactive ads, it became clear then that these tools (i.e. interactive banners) should be made available  to companies of every size. Then came BannerPlay.

However, small businesses do not have the manpower nor the expertise to buy media themselves and use third parties to monitor their campaigns, hence we needed to complete the service by adding an ad network and analytics tools where small businesses can effectively measure the performance of their campaigns, create variations of their banner ads and change their ads in the process.

Today, BannerPlay is the only end-to-end display advertising service which allows any advertiser to create banners, find the right traffic, monitor the campaign and optimize its performance in a single web based interface.

It seems pretty easy to use, how does it work?

We worked very hard to make the service as simple as possible – which means that under the hood it is quite complex. We are actually trying to address two types of users – the absolutely novice user and the more experienced user.

For the first kind, we focus on creating simple wizards such as our newly introduced Super Simple Wizard™, which creates a banner for the advertiser’s business in merely 3 clicks, our upcoming WordPress plugin and more.

For the more advanced users we offer our visual online banner builder, which allows to control and design every single aspect of your ad using a simple and intuitive web interface.

Either way, the process begins with trying to understand what you are going to advertise. That’s why we ask you to enter your URL first. We then analyze your URL and offer you templates that should fit your business profile. Then you continue to customize the template or even start from scratch, add your texts, and integrate social elements and so on.

The Interface for the advanced banner maker somewhat resembles the Photoshop interface, with a main toolbar on the left, a frames toolbar on the right and a library of pictures from your site on the bottom. The main toolbar gives you the ability to add images, backgrounds, animations, buttons, social media (Youtube videos, Facebook likes), insert text and add lead forms.

After you’re done with your ad creation, you are taken to where you target your banner ads with keywords that describe your businesses and buy the media. This process is critical for a successful campaign. Banners are automatically associated to media buying while, for example, search advertising is more associated to targeting. We are bringing the search targeting methodology to display advertising. We understand that it takes time for advertisers to understand targeting for banner ads so we offer also the ability to target specific sites.

The entire payment process is done using Paypal – which is the simplest and most common way to pay online. Just 2-3 clicks and you’re done. After all this, when your campaign is on the air, you get real-time statistics from us on every banner and every campaign. That’s generally how simple it is. You can even get a list of sites displaying your banner ad and remove sites that do not perform well from your campaign.

Mobile browsing is the future, is that a focus for BannerPlay?

We’ve built BannerPlay to focus on HTML and HTML5, no Flash whatsoever, so we’re compatible with mobile browsing, in-app advertising and all current and future browsers out there.

Our advertisers can advertise on the web, mobile web and in-app mobile ads using the same banners they created on banner play.

Why is it, in your opinion, that Israel is such an innovation hub?

Evolution. I’m a big believer in the story of the Jewish people and its history of how we became who we are today. We became a startup hub and a startup nation because we had to, because necessity is the mother of all invention and when we came to Israel we needed to invent pretty much everything- We needed to bring the people, invent housing and roads, invent the democracy and the government, invent the society that was scattered across the globe, “evolutionize” the IDF from the resistance organizations we had back then, create the industry, the education system, everything. We just had to.

When it comes to Innovation and Israel, does Size Matter?

Actually it does – but in a totally different way. The smaller you are the faster you move, the quicker you adapt to changes, the more agile you are. So yes, size does matter and being small, agile and quick to respond, allows us to innovate every day. This is why startups in Israel thrive.

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VIDEO: Obama’s grandma visits Israeli hospital

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January 6, 2013
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Sarah Obama has her eyes examined at Israeli medical facility in Equatorial Guinea, tells doctors: ‘Everyone in Africa is talking about you’

Will US President Barack Obama’s grandmother help warm up the chilly relations between her grandson and the Netanyahu government? Sarah Obama recently visited the Israeli hospital in Equatorial Guinea as part of a special delegation and had her eyes examined.

The hospital was established about 18 months ago in the capital of Malabo by businesspeople Yardena Ovadia and Arie Horesh. It employs more than 100 doctors, nurses, and staff members – all of whom are Israeli.

An Israeli flag flies at the entrance to the building, and all the medical equipment is from Israel. Even some of the signs in the facility are in Hebrew.

Equatorial Guinea’s president decided to name the hospital “Shalom,” explaining that he hoped Israel would make peace with its neighbors soon.

The Israeli hospital, which provides medical services to residents of the third world country, recently received a special visit from a delegation led by Equatorial Guinea’s health minister. The guest of honor was the leader of the free world’s grandmother, who lives in the remote village of Kogelo in Kenya.

Sarah Obama had hardly left the village for years, but since her grandson’s election in 2008 she has become an international celebrity. The decision to include her in the visit to the hospital was made by the Equatorial Guinean president.

Grandma Obama received the royal treatment from Ovadia and Horesh, hospital manager Dr. Michael Averbuch and the project’s architect, Ehud Gefen.

During the visit she had an eye examination, and doctors determined she was suffering from an eyesight problem.

At the end of the visit Sarah Obama told the staff, “Everyone in Africa is talking about your hospital and about the fact that we no longer have to fly to Europe for medical care.”

Businesswoman Yardena Ovadia said, “Grandma Obama is a charming personality, and it was very exciting having her here. We sent our regards to her grandson and invited him to visit as well.”

Source: Ynetnews.com

Israel joins UNICEF Executive Board

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January 6, 2013
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This is the third time that Israel has served on the Board of Directors of this prestigious and important organization, after a break of over 40 years.

Israel’s term as member of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Board begins on 1 January 2013. This is the third time that Israel has served on the Executive Board of this prestigious and important organization, after a break of over 40 years.

UNICEF, which operates in approximately 200 countries, is a humanitarian rescue organization that is concerned with children’s health around the world, and supplies them with clean water, proper nutrition, education, humanitarian relief in disaster zones and more.

The organization was established in 1946 by Ludwik Rajchman, a Jewish-Polish pediatrician and Holocaust survivor. Dr. Rajchman’s original idea, to help European children who were victims of the Holocaust, developed into an international organization whose goal was to help all children, anywhere in the world.

UNICEF’s connection with Israel began in 1948, at which time the organization responded favorably to the request to provide humanitarian aid to the new country, and shipped food, blankets, vaccines and medical equipment for the treatment of children and mothers.

Later on, from 1951 to 1959, Israel served on the UNICEF Executive Board under the status of a developing country. In 1955, Israel chaired the Board. This position was filled by Mrs. Zina Harman, the wife of Israel’s ambassador to the United Statesand a member (until 1955) of Israel’s delegation to the United Nations.

Mrs. Harman also represented Israel on the UNICEF Executive Board from 1963 to 1965, during which time she received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the organization. In 1969 she established the Israel Fund for UNICEF, a non-profit organization staffed by volunteers whose aim was providing education and fund-raising for the international organization. Thus, Israel was transformed from a country initially assisted by UNICEF into a ‘supporter country’, joining the long list of Western UNICEF members.

Israel has an excellent network of connections with the organization. The Israeli Fund for UNICEF, operating from Tel Aviv, has raised millions of shekels for the organization’s activities for the benefit of children around the world. Israel also cooperates with the organization in various areas of assistance projects in Third World countries.

Israel’s term on the UNICEF Executive Board is for the duration of one year, 2013, and its representatives, MFA officials, intend to take an active role in discussions and in the management of the organization.

Source: MFA