Shahar Peer

By Adam Michael Segal

For the first time in almost 110 years, an Israeli female tennis player has served her way into the semifinals of Canada’s top tennis tournament.

Israeli tennis dynamo Shahar Peer paired up with Romania’s Monica Niculescu en route to a semifinal finish at the Rogers Cup, held recently in Montreal.

The duo beat both the fourth and sixth seeds at the tourney before falling to the second seeds in the semis.

While she didn’t fare as well in singles, losing in the first round, Peer was enthusiastic about her double’s performance and continues to do well on the tour.

She is ranked 18^th in the world and has had excellent results at the French Open, where she made it to the fourth round and in Dubai, where the 23-year-old reached the semis.

She is currently competing at the prestigious US Open in New York where she is seeded 16^th in singles.

Good luck, Shahar.

You can find out more about this tennis sensation at www.shaharpeer.col.il.

There was a time when factor 15 was considered more than adequate when it came to sunscreen protection, but today it’s not uncommon to find factor 50 on the grocery store shelves. We all know the importance of protecting our skin from the harsh rays of the sun, but a new study in Israel suggests that looking at our food may be a more effective way to do it than reaching for a cream.

Dr Niva Shapira of Tel Aviv University’s School of Health Professions recently published the findings of her study in Nutrition Reviews. In it she showed that a diet like the one eaten in Mediterranean regions – rich in antixodants and omega-3 fatty acids – can help protect against skin cancer.

Based on her research, Shapira recommends consuming foods such as olive oil, fish, yogurt, whole grains, beans, red wine in moderation, colorful fruits and vegetables and lots of water. These foods, she says, will fight the oxidizing effect of the sun, – though wearing sunscreen and using hats and beach cover-ups doesn’t hurt either. “Eating foods high in antioxidants is supposed to compliment, not substitute other sun protection measures,” she says.

The premise of Shapira’s study was that if the body was prepared with sufficient and relevant antioxidants, sun damage could be reduced. Partnering with Prof. Bodo Kuklinski of Rostock University, Shapra conducted a study at the Baltic Sea comprised of two groups. One was supplied a drink high in antioxidants and the other drank carbonated beverages. Both groups spent up to six hours a day in the sun for two weeks.

The researchers found that those who drank the oxidant-rich beverage had 50 percent fewer oxidation products in their blood at the end of the study. Further studies proved that these antioxidants had delayed skin erythema, which shows the start of tissue and DNA damage that can result in skin cancer.

The Israel Cancer Association included Shapira’s nutritional findings in their “Smart in the Sun” series, and she is approaching the World Health Organization with her findings in the hope they will include the data in their sun recommendations, too.

So, how much of these foods should you eat? That depends on what you’re consuming right now. “If you rarely eat them, you will need a longer time to build the levels of carotenoids in the skin and blood which will support solar self-protection,” she explains. “But it’s good to eat those foods all year round, because even in winter we’re exposed to some ultraviolet light.”

Shapira estimates that melanoma cases are three-to-four times higher in the United States than they are in Mediterranean countries. “When we think about protecting our skin, most of us consider it an external problem, which is a mistake,” she says. “The body has all the answers, but we have to give it the tools for self-protection.”

These findings are important for all of us but particularly for children up to 18 years old, she explains. “Birth to age 18 are the critical years for future melanoma incidence. Sunscreen alone has not proved adequately effective to protect children and slathering it on may give them the false feeling of protection while increasing their exposure and risk.”

The Nation of Yisrael Lives… In a Film

When I lived in Toronto, I spent many nights at my boyfriend’s shed, off King West in the Liberty Village area. Many of the city’s hipsters and artists haunted the hood, living in old warehouses, eking out a living painting, photographing, sculpting and acting. It was common to wake in the morning, swing open the shed door to find a freshly painted tagline of a graffiti artist who’d left his tag –– in spray paint –– left behind. We liked it. But the graffiti never seemed to say much, just that “I was here.”

In Israel graffiti seems to often come with a social or political message. Except for a couple of well established artists like Klone or Know Hope, most graffiti here isn’t all that artistic or well crafted, but it’s the message that counts. Take for example the graffiti “Am Yisrael Chai,” which translates to the “Nation of Israel Lives.”

The urban legend in Tel Aviv is that the graffiti is painted by a bearded men, dressed in a white cloak, wearing a yarmulke. He roams south Tel Aviv with the same message: “Am Yisrael Chai” (The Nation of Israel Lives), painted on a white background with a Star of David.

Meant as a spiritually uplifting, if not a Zionist message, that the people of Israel are resilient and strong, you can find Am Yisrael Chai graffiti in Hebrew almost anywhere you look in south Tel Aviv. Some people think it’s an eyesore.

Over the years the graffiti has evolved to a dialogue. As many slogans one might find sprayed on signs, on walls, and on shop doors, you can find an alternate message. Someone has responded to the bearded man and creatively augments the Hebrew “The Nation of Israel Lives,” to take on a new message.

A letter added here and there, or a new phase tagged on to the end, with a question mark alters the original message altogether.

Look at some pictures I’ve taken, and what the “responder” (usually sarcastic) to the graffiti has written:

The Nation of Israel Lives !???… No Sh*t

The Nation of Yisrael Lives… and Maybe The Rest Can Be Together?

The Nation of Yisrael Lives… And Also the Palestinians

The Nation of Yisrael Lives Are Soldiers

The Nation of Yisrael Lives, Lives, Lives

(Dr. Josef Haik.)

Not long after I gave birth myself, a couple of weeks ago, I read news from Romania that shocked: a fire had blazed through a maternity ward in a Romanian hospital, the Giulesti hospital in Bucharest on August 16, killing five preemies, and seriously burning six others. Women still in labor were rushed outside to safety, but staff cuts to the hospital meant that there weren’t enough people to adequately transfer those in the preemie room, to outside.

They say that after you have a baby yourself, any news endangering babies and children, can make you weep.  And even though there wasn’t much they could do after arriving on the scene, an Israeli team of burn specialists were flown into Romania to offer their help.

Among them was the team leader Dr. Josef Haik, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and a specialist in the treatment of burns, who heads the Sheba Regional Burns Center. Like many Israeli physicians, Dr. Haik had trained in Canada, gaining expertise at the Burn Unit of the Division of Plastic Surgery at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada.

The Israeli team was gladly welcomed by the Romanian doctors assigned to treat the surviving babies: “We’ve treated premature babies, but we have not seen so many cases in one place,” Dr. Haik told the Associated Press.

After hearing about the news, the Israeli medical staff were happy to offer their help. And the Romanian doctors were more than happy to have them. A recent joint military exercise in Romania between Romania and Israel, that left Israeli soldiers dead, has brought the two countries closer together in recent months.

In the last years, Israel has been keen on offering medical humanitarian aid. They were the first medical team on the scene in Haiti after the earthquake this year, and were also the first to reach a town in the Congo to treat hundreds of people with severe burns. They are currently building a permanent burn center in the African country.

“Body beside body, beside body,” is how one reporter described the scene after a devastating fire engulfed a neighborhood in a Congo town in July this year. An oil tanker overturned, igniting a nearby cinema packed with people watching the World Cup in Sange, a town of 50,000 about 40 miles from the regional capital city Bukavu. Within 48 hours, an Israeli team was in place to provide expert care to the victims.

Due to its expertise in fighting terror attacks, unfortunately, Israel has made itself into a nation prepared for mass casualties, disasters and severe burns. The good news is that they are sharing this expertise with the world.

More medical news from Israel:
Israel and Canada doctors kidney failure genes
Canadians Save a Child’s Heart in Israel
Frozen Pigs’ Liver Saves Lives in Israel

::Associated Press

Tel Aviv and Vancouver may be ocean’s apart and very different cities in many respects, but they have something snazzy in common – both cracked the prestigious list of Top 10 beach cities in the world.

National Geographic Magazine selected Tel Aviv and Vancouver for number nine and 10 respectively on the flashy list.

Tel Aviv Beach

Vancouver Beach

Dubbing Tel Aviv ”Miami Beach on the Med(iterranean),” the magazine lauded the beautiful city for its seaside cafes, ravishing restaurants and open till dawn discos. It also extolled the virtues of Gordon Beach and encouraged travelers to visit.

Number 10 Vancouver got the lofty label of “Canada’s most adventurous metropolis” and special mention of Wreck Beach and the picturesque North Shore Mountains.

Atop the illustrious list is Spain’s Barcelona, with Cape Town, South Africa placing second and Hawaii’s Honolulu rounding out at number three.

To see the full list, please visit http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/beach-cities-photos/.

Step right up to the plate and smack a huge hit for Israel.

That’s what baseball aficionados are hoping to do at the upcoming Pitch for Israel charity baseball tournament, which takes place on Sunday, August 22 in Brampton, Ont.

The third annual event will be at Brampton’s Powerade Centre with participants raising funds to help send vulnerable Israeli children to camp.

Satellite tournaments will also be hosted in London, Ont., and Detroit, Mi.

“We are thrilled about the major expansions we have made to The Pitch for Israel this year,” said Pitch for Israel Founder Daniel Warner. “There are no boundaries on how far this tournament can go.”

In addition to the hits, pitches and all the action on the field, the event will also feature a kosher BBQ, cool prizes for fundraisers and winning teams, as well as fantastic entertainment.

Donations to the cause can be made online at www.thepitchforisrael.com.

This month Nefesh B’Nefesh brought 234 North American immigrants to Israel, among them several Canadians who plan to start new lives in Israel. NBN works with the Jewish Agency for Israel, its goal to assist North Americans who want to immigrate. The organization helps with forms and documents, financial support, employment agency assistant and checking up on new immigrants after they’ve arrived. Their first chartered flight was in 2002 but this year’s flight was the biggest ever, with a group of 85 young people who were moving to Israel specifically to enrol in the Israeli Defence Force.

Shimon Peres, President of Israel, welcoming new Olim (immigrants)

Tony Gelbart, chairman and co-founder of NBN, said the number of North American Jews moving to Israel has risen in the past eight years, and that the flight that left on August 2 was filled with future soldiers, families, toddlers, young adults and elderly people from all walks of life and levels of religious observance. “The trend of increasing numbers of people moving to Israel will increase,” he predicts.

Canadian Jewish News reporter Rita Poliakov accompanied the trip and said emotions ran high, particularly in the last hour of the flight. There were two Canadians out of the 85 group of new soldiers, she said: Shar Leyb from Calgary, and Jenna Greenbloom from Toronto.

The group of new immigrants was met at Ben Gurion airport by journalists and by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who addressed the crowd. “All of you made [aliyah] of your own choice. You decided to change your life in order to change the lives of Jewish people in the future,” he told the new arrivals. Addressing the future soldiers, he said: “We’re going to build peace for us, for our nation. You are coming to… an army with a human responsibility, an army that never wants to fight, but always fought what was imposed upon them. We are sincerely hoping for peace. In one word, when I look at you, I would say each of you is a hope for us.”

Israeli rhythm dynamos Balkan Beat Box will be making their Toronto debut at the upcoming Ashkenaz Festival.

The band will appear at Harbourfront Centre’s Sirius Stage on Sunday, September 5.

Renowned for their high-energy electric live shows, Balkan Beat Box serves up a funky fusion of reggae, rock and electronic dance music. There are distinct Mediterranean influences in their beats and the band prides itself on offering a “new breed of 21^st century music.”

Band members include drummer Tamir Muskat, vocalist Tomer Yosef, Ori Kaplan on sax and Jeremiah Lockwood playing the guitar.

Audiences at festivals such as Paleo, Roskilde and Bonaroo have been dazzled by the groups pumped up live performances. Much anticipation awaits their night on the big stage at Ashkenaz Festival, the largest Jewish cultural event in Canada.

Delek Group is one of Israel’s largest conglomerates and its business is gas. Gas stations in particular. Last week the company re-initiated talks with Shell Canada to discuss purchasing Shell’s refinery in Montreal.

It’s not the first time the subject has come up, but according to Larry Lalonde, a spokesman for Shell Canada, it’s the last time the two companies will try to negotiate a sale. If there’s no sale, Shell has announced its intention to convert the refinery into a fuel terminal in November 2010. The conversion would mean a workforce of 40 at the refinery, much smaller than the number of people presently working there. Operating and upgrading costs at the refinery have been estimated at $600-to-$800 million.

The two companies have been trying to reach a deal for over a year, with Delek being represented by one of its US subsidiaries. Last week Shell gave Delek 48 hours to reconsider its decision to leave the negotiating table last month.

According to news reports, Shell said it would be willing sell the refinery to Delek-U.S. for the “offer sheet” price of up to $200 million, plus an additional $400 million in working capital and $500 million in capital investments, such as maintenance and upgrades.

Israeli researchers are now combining nature and Greek mythology to develop a small “Trojan Horse” drug delivery system to fight cancer. To aid in their quest, the researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, used an extract from the coniferous Larix (Larch) tree, a dominant plant in Canada’s boreal forest. They attached a folic acid, and cancer drug to the Larch tree extract as part of the new Trojan delivery system.

“We were looking for a natural polymer that would be highly soluble in water, and found it in a polysaccharide known as arabinogalactan, which is extracted from the Larix [tree],” explains lead researcher Dr. Yoav Livney from the Technion.

He explains how certain cancerous cells produce between 10 to 100 times more folate receptors than healthy cells. These receptors bind folic acid, which is needed by cancer cells to grow and divide rapidly. In the study, the researchers applied folic acid as “cancer bait.”

Once bound to the receptor, the folic acid linked to a cancer drug, triggers a process causing the cancer cell membrane to fold within itself, and to fuse with enzymes which are part of the cell’s digestive system. The cancer in turn gets digested.

The development is expected to be especially efficient against ovarian, kidney and uterine cancer, which are characterized by a high production of
folic acid receptors. In the future, the researchers plan on simultaneously delivering several anti-cancer drugs – a cancer cocktail – to synergistically eradicate malignant cells of a specific cancer type in individual cancer patients. Personalized medicine at its best, with the help of a Trojan Horse.

Read more medical news from Israel:
In Israel, as in Canada, Science, Medicine and Prayer
Canadian-Israeli Studies Genes
Canadians Volunteer for Save a Child’s Heart in Israel
A Seaweed Biogel Heals Broken Hearts

::Technion