Supporting Israeli education at home for the holyland

Published April 13, 2008 on The Jerusalem Post website

By MARISSA LEVY

The Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools is an exciting new organization that seeks to bolster the financial underpinnings of Israel's most historically important network of schools and colleges. This new North American fundraising arm supports the leading science and technology educational system in Israel, nurturing highly skilled graduates who are instrumental in maintaining Israel's qualitative technological edge.

This leading network plays a unique, hands-on role in educating thousands of students who go on to become some of Israel's most productive and specialized citizens. With over 100,000 students in 165 schools across Israel, these schools are creating a workforce of engineers, senior military personnel, high-tech entrepreneurs and scientists who constitute the backbone and future of Israel, and make up the fabric of its booming economic engine.

With comprehensive high schools, industrial schools, educational centers and technical, engineering, and academic colleges throughout Israel, this network constitutes the state's largest non-governmental school system. It operates in over 60 communities that span the length and breadth of the country, including remote localities such as Hatzor, Yokneam, Beit Shean, Yeruham, Arad, Ma'a lot and Migdal Haemek.

One out of every 10 Israeli high school students studies within the system and benefits from a strong education in the sciences and technology. 67 percent of its students are on a technology track, compared to 37 percent of other Israeli students, while 70 percent of graduates become technicians, compared to 35 percent of the national average. Network students also benefit from a curriculum emphasizing Jewish values, social awareness and national solidarity, lessons essential to the survival of Israel and its people. These schools routinely outperform the national averages for graduates serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.

Recognizing the importance of an education system to shape the next generation, this network places particular emphasis on community outreach programs aimed at helping disadvantaged populations in Israel, including those who suffer from socioeconomic difficulties, the learning disabled, immigrant populations and residents of peripheral regions in general. These outreach programs actualize the network's chief commitment to bridging the gaps between the sizable and different populations that make up the state of Israel while instilling a sense of humanitarian values into its students.

Founded in Russia in 1880, the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training took root in Israel in 1949, where a network of schools was established based on the same ideals and in the belief that education is the foundation of a strong Jewish nation. Almost 60 years later, this singular network continues to cultivate the academic talents of all Israeli students, from the most gifted to the most disadvantaged, from every part of Israel and from every economic level.

With the Friends of Israel Sci-Tech schools, you can help build the future of Israel.

Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools
245 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036
212-840-1166
http://www.israel-scitech-schools.org/

In the hills of Israel, the Golan Winery is taking Israeli wines to new heights

Published April 4, 2008 in The Jewish Chronicle UK

By Marissa Levy

The past 25 years have marked Israel's celebrated debut onto the international wine scene, and the Golan Heights Winery has undisputably raised the bar on Israeli wines. The third largest and among the best of Israel's 120 wineries, the Golan Heights Winery showcases the ideal grape cultivating climate of Israel's cool, high-altitude Golan Heights region.

What began in the 1970's as a kibbutz and moshav cooperative endeavor, when residents planted the pioneering vines in the northern town of Katzrin, part of the rocky, forest-capped territory newly captured from Syria in the six-day war, has now become an internationally acclaimed, wine-making powerhouse.

Today, Golan has a total of 16 vineyards and produces six million bottles per year. The winery has captured almost a quarter of Israel's domestic market and accounts for nearly 40 percent of Israeli wines exported abroad. Golan's wines are shipped to some 30 countries around the world, ranging from the United Kingdom and North America to continental Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

The winery is also Israel's largest organic grape grower.

Golan produces 15 different types of premium varietals and proprietary blend wines, from Chardonnay and Merlot to Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese, all marketed under its three labels Yarden, Gamla and Golan. Most highly-rated wines come from its premium flagship range Yarden, the Hebrew name for the Jordan River, which bisects the Golan Heights from the Upper Galilee.

Since the winery was established in 1983, Golan's wines have garnered upwards of 45 awards at major international wine exhibitions. Yarden's 2004 Heights Wine won a trophy at last year's International Wine Challenge in London, while its 2005 Viognier captured the gold medal and a trophy at the 2007 Citadelles du Vin.

Chief winemaker Victor Schoenfield, a graduate of the University of California at Davis, and his team of three associates educated in California, Bordeaux and Burgundy, attribute Golan's noble and successful grape to the unique diversity of the Israeli climate. With vineyards stretching from the mouth of the Sea of Galilee to the foot of the snowcapped Mount Hermon, Golan manages a sophisticated system of 11 weather stations and satellite photography to closely regulate irrigation and individual vines.

The Golan Heights Winery is still owned by the kibbutzes and moshavs of its founding, and its internationally recognized products exhibit the company's perfect vertical integration of vineyards and wines, growers and winemakers, to justify Golan's reputation as the gold-standard of Israeli wine.