Diverse lands often spawn tremendous creativity.

Such is the case in Canada and Israel, both of which boast vibrant artistic communities and a keen appreciation of creative pursuits.

This common thread makes Toronto a perfect place to showcase some of Israel’s most brilliant works of art, which is exactly what’s taking place right now.

Toronto’s Gardiner Museum is featuring more than 40 contemporary ceramic artists who create their masterpieces using the ancient clay of Israel.

The exhibit, entitled From the Melting Pot into the Fire, runs until May 9, 2010.

Ceramic works being featured illuminate the themes of home and identity in Israel, with conceptual creations that are rich from a cultural, aesthetic and philosophical perspective.

Each work includes a label personally written by the artist, with their ideas and reflections adding a poignant element to the exhibit.

The exhibit was organized by the Ceramic Artists Association of Israel in concert with the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, North Carolina.

To find out more about the exhibit and featured artists, please log onto www.gardinermuseum.com or phone 416-586-8080.

By Adam Michael Segal

Renewable energy is all the rage these days, and Israel is looking to connect with Canada for help in fuelling up.

To that end, a group of Canadian businesspeople recently attended an information session in Toronto regarding opportunities with the Eilat-Eilot Energy Technological Center.

The centre aims to “develop vertically integrated renewable energy projects in the Eilat-Eilot region that will generate sustainable regional development and promote Israel’s renewable energy industry.”

Once up and running in the Eilot region, the centre will work towards developing innovative Israeli technologies and supporing Israeli companies commercializing these products.

A number of pilot projects specializing in alternative energy production are already in the works.

Several industrial groups and individuals backing the centre, including Ben-Gurion University and investor Ligad Rotlevy, spoke at the session, which was hosted by the Canada-Israel Chamber of Commerce.

To learn about the centre, please contact Keren.Segal@CanadaIsraelChamber.com.

Some folks who’ve experienced celebrity look completely different in person to how they look on stage or on the covers of the albums, - but Idan Raichel is not one of them. A few days ago I had the opportunity of meeting him back stage at the UBC Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as he prepared for an 8pm performance, his first and only one in Vancouver. Raichel was chatty, friendly, and identical to his picture.

Raichel said he and his fellow musicians were incredibly jetlagged after arriving in Vancouver via Seattle. They were off to Boston on Friday and New York after that, stopping only briefly in Israel before heading to Europe. But he was completely unfazed by the travel schedule.

“You lose sense of time when you’re on tour, and it’s a great feeling, - not exhausting at all,” he confessed. “We’re so used to being tied to a schedule. Two years ago my sister left for a Brazilian island where she’s opened a bar on the beach. She has no concept of time anymore and she called us to say she’s not coming back.”

Luckily for Israel, Raichel has every intention of going home eventually, when his tour ends. He’s thinking about creating a DVD of his music in the coming months, set in the shadow of the King David Tower in Jerusalem. “I’d like to play there and in-between the songs, to talk to people and discuss the music,” he muses. “I’m trying to find an interesting concept.”

His performance on Thursday night entertained a packed audience where Hebrew was an oft-heard language – both on stage and among the audience. It was the opening night of the 2010 Chutzpah Festival and though many spectators were Jewish, Raichel was quick to point out that his is not a Jewish project.

“Sure, we have Jewish influences, for example we had a cantor, Yehia Tsubara, join us for a few songs. But before anything else, I see myself as an Israeli artist. Not everyone in the group is Israeli, but it’s definitely an Israeli project.”

Raichel was joined on stage by five of the many musicians who form part of the Idan Raichel Project. There are some 75 musicians who have participated in the project, some as young as 16 and others in their 80s. Each song changes shape, style and sound, incorporating different languages and the rhythms of the countries represented by the musicians. Raichel composes and arranges many of the tracks, plays the keyboard and collaborates with the other vocalists and musicians.

“I really suck at playing the piano,” he confessed. “I’m not a pianist, just a piano player.” But you wouldn’t have known it to listen to his music, though, nor to watch him perform. Raichel hunched over the piano, focusing intensely and deliberately on the sounds emanating from it. He was so absorbed in his music that when it came time for intermission, he was quite willing to skip it.

The audience applauded loudly and when he asked if anyone wanted an intermission, everyone expressed a preference to keep listening to his music. The Chan Centre staff weren’t about to forego their opportunity to make a few bucks at the concession, though. They gave Raichel another five minutes for a last song and then insisted the group take a break.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will be leading a trade mission to Israel and the West Bank May 24-27, with plans to stop in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Bethlehem. The trip is intended to expand the province’s research cooperation with Israel and build more economic partnerships in health care.  The premier also hopes his trip will enable Ontario to tap into Israel’s expertise in turning good high-tech ideas into good high-tech jobs.

A press release from the premier’s office said that Ontario’s exports to Israel have grown by more than 70 percent since 2004. “This is an important market for Ontario and this trade mission will strengthen cultural and commercial ties while creating jobs for Ontarians,” McGuinty said at a press conference in late February.

He added that this will be his first ever trip to the Middle East. “I think it’s high time and I’m very much looking forward to it,” he said.

In a surprising twist for international hockey, a team from Israel recently skated to a gold medal at a tournament held in Quebec City.

The team, who are based in Bat Yam, Israel, scored the top prize at the 35^th annual BSR International Peewee Hockey Tournament.

Victories were earned in all the division games the players participated in, along with the final match, in which the Israelis shot their way to an 8-7 win over a New Brunswick team.

While it may have been at the peewee level, the win was no small feat, with over 130 teams from eight countries taking part.

In addition to winning the gold, the players were treated to a tour of the Montreal Canadiens’ Bell Centre, as well as a meet and greet with Jean Perron, coach of the Canadiens 1986 Stanley Cup winning team.

Israeli hockey organizers expect the championship to further spur peewee hockey in the Holy Land, which has a few hundred kids playing today.

Ever wonder where Canada’s Foreign Ministry dollars go? When it comes to teaching Canadian-style global democracy and educational values, some of Canada’s taxpayer’s money goes to creating equal opportunities in Israel. A project through the Merchavim Institute in Ramle, Israel, is helping teach Israeli society how to embrace –– and access –– its multi-cultural identity. With some 8,000 to 10,000 Arab Israeli teachers without work, and with a shortage of Israeli Jewish teachers, the Institute’s project “Teaching Across School Streams” aims to bring Israeli Arab educators into the fold. With four different school systems in Israel, and very challenging political points of view, Teaching Across School Streams is working to make sure that more Arab Israeli schoolteachers are finding employment in Israeli schools.

For Canadians, who welcome any race, religion, and previous nationality to teach in their school systems, this need to bring more Arab Israelis into the school system might sound archaic. As a fairly young country, Israel is still challenged to trust the ‘other’, and to oversee the complicated political reality facing it. It’s the same reality the southern states in America faced 40 years ago when it brought the first black teachers into the school system in southern America. That was only 40 years ago! The organizers of Merchavim see the opportunity of employing more Arab Israelis in the school system and are now in the process of placing several hundred teachers in several hundred Israeli schools.

The director of Merchavim, Mike Prashker, says, “By placing Arab teachers in Jewish schools, we aim to address a growing shortage of Jewish teachers, raise teaching standards and provide employment for some of Israel’s 10,000 unemployed Arab teachers. We also intend to raise familiarity and comfort levels between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel and help them develop a greater sense of awareness and pride in their shared Israeli citizenship.”

When Prashker invited an American colleague to visit a Jewish school in Ramle a couple of years ago, they met Iman, one of a few Arab Israelis teaching at a Jewish school. As part of a program undertaken by Merchavim, Israel’s Ministry of Education, and donors like Canada’s Foreign Ministry, Iman got the opportunity to teach a fourth-grade Arabic class. In traditional Muslim wear, “We could tell that her placement was a great success,” says Pashker to the Forward two years ago. “The special connection and mutual affection between this 25-year-old traditionally dressed Muslim Israeli and her Jewish students was obvious. It was only when we left the school that I saw how deeply moved my American colleague had been by the experience.”

The visit reminded his colleague of her first black teacher in a very white Southern school almost 40 years ago, she told Prashker.

In 2006, Merchavim, working with Israel’s Ministry of Education, began integrating Arab-Palestinian-Israeli teachers in Jewish-Israeli schools to promote shared citizenship, raise teaching-standards and provide much needed employment opportunities. Here is a great video about the project: 

To learn more about Merchavim, please see their website in English.

Karin, a Canadian-Israeli, meets Prince Hassan of Jordan at a water security conference in Switzerland last week.

It was a meeting of minds, water minds. Water consultants, ambassadors who’ve built water treaties, and government specialists and negotiators from around the Middle East and Europe gathered in Montreux, Switzerland for a two-day workshop on Water Security in the Middle East last week. Green Prophet was invited to attend. The object was to explore sustainable and cooperative solutions to water security, and to use the problem of water and turn it into an instrument of peace.

Organized by the Strategic Foresight Group, the same India-based firm that brought us the Cost of Conflict to the Environment in the Middle East report, the event included a gala supper, and meeting with the Prince of Jordan, sponsored by the Swiss and Swedish governments. Both peace-loving and humanitarian nations are eager to ease future conflicts in the Middle East, with all fingers pointing to water conflict being the fuel for the next big one, many believe. But how can it be done?

The second day workshop, which I was invited to attend (and presented my interviews with Israeli water experts), included a panel of Palestinians, Turks, Israelis, and Jordanians, and officials from Ireland, Switzerland and Sweden, India and Syria who helped moderate.

Before the long day of talks, we met for cocktails and supper at the Montreux Palace Hotel. We were in great company: previous guests to the hotel include Deep Purple (whose fan burned down the Montreux Casino by accident), Led Zeppelin, Freddie Mercury, and and Dostoevsky. It was a venue fit for a king, or at least a prince.

After some small talk with that day’s workshop (from Iraq, Lebanon and more), we all greeted Prince Hassan bin Talal, the Prince of Jordan, and a voice for global sustainability, reconciliation and interreligious understanding, graced us with his presence, along with his wife Sarvath last Monday.

Canadian factoids: In 2002, Prince Hassan was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of York in recognition of his contribution to the field of post-war reconstruction and development, and when I met with him he praised the university, the Canadian people, including Lloyd Axworthy, a well-known Canadian politician, now University of Manitoba president, and a celebrated human rights activist.

At a keynote address Prince Hassan talked about the problems of global warming, water scarcity, and the impact it will have on humanity.

“When Al Gore talked about global warming, I talked of human warning,” said Prince Hassan, who pointed to the Balfour Declaration signed 90 years ago, as the as the start of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arab people. In the context of water, “Territory migration is the conflict we face,” he said.

Possible solutions?

Prince Hassan talked about developing the earthquake prone Jordan Rift Valley, and how the region needs a “master plan for water management. We need to go from concept building to a new concept,” he addressed, adding it was time to mobilize the “silenced majority.”

“War does not make additional water, but regional cooperation can… There is an urgent need for developed countries to provide technical assistance and support to water poor countries to reach a better level of water safety,” he said.

“Our challenge in this part of the world is to come to terms with the international inconsistency and double standards to which we find ourselves subjected year after year. We have had enough of being the subject of development policies. We would like to become the object of development,” he added.

Jordan is one of the most resource-poor countries in the Middle East, but a moderate that can help broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Prince sees the following avenues open to explore new channels in fulfilling water supply and demand in the region:

He mentioned the significance of Desertec – a pan-European, pan-African solar project that will collect solar energy from North Africa and pipe it to Europe, and the need for other countries in the Middle East to be involved in the project.

He talked about the potential of freshwater reserves from the Nile region in Egypt, and reminded us about the Dead-Red canal, and the project’s potential to bring water and energy to the resource strapped region.

Prince Hassan pointed out the value of surface water, especially for the Palestinians in Gaza, as a means for obtaining more freshwater, explored Jordan’s advancing technologies in nanotechnology to remove pollution from water; and Jordan’s interest in turning the clay-based deserts into arable farmland while pointing out the role the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, should play in the Middle East.

When I met him I promised to make sure that Jordan gets even and fair coverage of its environment news and breakthroughs; and he said he’d be happy to help in any way he could.

Facing the waters of Lake Geneva, held by mountains on both sides, the night provided a safe and secure meeting ground for us to listen to Jordan’s concerns, which were all of our concerns; we later heard from Swiss and Swedish governments; and how the Swiss and French worked to turn Lake Geneva into a clean cross-boundary water resource now enjoyed by millions.

We went to bed with our bellies full of Swiss delights –– chocolate and cheese –– with high hopes for the next day’s workshop. Stay tuned for my updates.

::Strategic Foresight Group
(This post was first run on the Green Prophet blog)

Say what you will about figure skating judges, at least this year they were consistent in the ice dance. Israel’s Olympic duo of Alexandra and Roman Zaretsky placed 10th in all three ice dance events: compulsory, original and free skate.

In my books, that makes them a perfect 10th.

They skated wonderfully, had lots of drama and solid moves. Skating first in the 4th group with Brits, Russians and two French couples. And like many others before them, they got to bask in the glory of first place in the free skate for a few minutes until the other couples took to the ice.

Tenth place in the world in this highly competitive sport is pretty darn good and bodes well for the future. My prediction is they’ll go much higher in four years time at the next winter games in Sochi, Russia. As well, the Zaretskys are not like skaters for other countries who parachute in by virtue of a passport. There’s no shortage of Canadians, Americans and others who are great skaters, but skate for a different country because they didn’t make the top position at home to qualify for the Olympics.

The sister and brother duo were aged 3 and 7 when they moved to Israel from Belarus. They grew up in Israel, speak Hebrew like Israelis, and are patriotic and devoted to Israel unlike no others. For them, skating to music from an Italian opera is out of the question - it has to be a Jewish theme. In this final event of the 3-part ice dance, they chose music from the movie Schindler’s List.

For those of you who missed their skating, my buddy Daniel Sass has their original and free dances on his website, as well as the slalom run by downhill skier Mikail Renzhin.

In the mens giant slalom, Renzhin finished in 62nd place. However, Daniel pointed out that even though 62nd sounds like it’s far, far, far away from a medal, Renzhin finished way ahead of American downhill superstar, Bode Miller, who wiped out, and higher than any other country from our side of the world including Tajikistan (63rd), Iran (65th), Lebanon (67th), Iran (81st), Morocco (83rd), Pakistan (87th), and Turkey (didn’t finish).

Renzhin improved in the mens slalom, which was postponed by bad weather to the second last day of the Olympics. The weather was still miserable conditions with falling snow and thick fog, but the Olympics ran out of time and the race couldn’t be delayed any longer. Renzhin skied to 39th place, a full five seconds behind winner Giuliano Razzoli of Italy. Don’t be fooled by that 5 second gap - the course was so difficult that 4 dozen racers failed to finish including Miller (again), one of the favorites.

And while I’m here, a short update for fans of Israeli figure skater Tamar Katz. She’s the singles skater who was barred from Vancouver by a bizarre Israel Olympic Committee decision that Katz needed to do better than the Olympic standard. The woman who replaced her in Vancouver, Australian Cheltzie Lee, skated wonderfully and finished 20th gaining much experience for her own next attempt at Olympic gold.

I know Katz should have been in Vancouver and Israel’s Olympic Committee collection of old boys should resign in shame for putting the brakes on this talented athlete. I’m hoping she’ll continue to skate and improve, and that we’ll see her in Sochi in 2014.

Vancouver was another winter sports success for Israel. We were there, we did well, and our athletes did what athletes are supposed to do: they were outstanding emissaries of goodwill for their country.

The Idan Raichel Project is a band whose music consistently tingles my skin and makes me yearn to get back to Israel. So I was thrilled to learn that Raichel and his team will be traveling to Vancouver March 4 to perform for the opening night of the Chutzpah Festival at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Raichel, 32, has sold some 300,000 records since he launched his first album eight years ago. He started out playing backup for other Israeli pop singers but after a while determined he would follow his own musical ideals, which encompass a variety of musical styles.

His recordings for the Idan Raichel project in 2002 include the sounds of 70 different musicians - Ethiopian Jews, Arabs, traditional Yemenite vocalists, a Suriname percussionist and a South African singer among them. Raichel composed and arranged many of the tracks. He plays the keyboard and collaborated with the other vocalists and musicians.

There are love songs in Hebrew, songs in Amharic and traditional sounding tunes set to modern music. But each track on the album feels distinctly different, which makes for great listening. You don’t get the sense of sameness and repetition that haunts many other artists.

My favourite of his songs is Mi’ma’amakim, (”From the Depths”) which was the title track of his second album, launched in 2005. This album also has songs in Arabic, Zulu, Hindi and Yemenite Hebrew. With this rich mixture of voices and dialects, it’s easy to tell that Raichel appreciates the beauty and musicality of language.

High on my to-do list is to get my hands on a copy of Within My Walls, his third studio album launched in 2008. I’ll be applauding Raichel from the audience March 4 and blogging about his music the next day.