Haifa ranked ‘smartest city in Mideast’

The “Dragon in the Yarkon” festival is set to be held in Tel Aviv on Shavuot.

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Dragon racing comes to Tel Aviv on Shavuot (photo credit: Courtesy)
Dragon racing comes to Tel Aviv on Shavuot
(photo credit: Courtesy)
NORTH
Haifa nabbed the title of “smartest city in the Middle East,” as ranked by the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra in Barcelona last week.
Every year, the school surveys 135 cities in 55 countries to create their IESE Cities in Motion Index.
Cities are ranked according to 10 dimensions: governance, public management, urban planning, technology, environment, international outreach, social cohesion, mobility, transportation and economy.
This year, Tokyo came in first with a perfect score, followed by London, New York, Zurich, Paris, Geneva, Basel, Osaka, Seoul and Oslo in 10th.
Tel Aviv came in second after Haifa as smartest city in the Middle East, and the latter came in 24th overall. The city of Karmiel reached 10th place in the criteria of social cohesion, 12th in urban planning and 16th in governance.
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav responded to the good news about his city, saying: “Haifa has some of the best schools in the country, which have existed for over a century, including the Technion [Israel Institute of Technology] and the University of Haifa.
Haifa is a small city with the largest number of Nobel Prizes in science and the country’s largest hitech and life science park in Israel. I’m glad we got another seal of approval and we will continue forward with full force.”
Gas leak on Golan Heights keep residents behind closed doors
There was a hydrocarbon gas leak from a tanker on Sunday, in Ma’aleh Gamla on the Golan Heights. Galilee-Golan Fire and Rescue Services arrived at the scene and instructed residents to stay indoors. The teams sprayed water on the truck to prevent the gas from spreading, while working to stop the leak. They brought another tanker to the scene to empty out the truck. A command room was set up on the Golan Heights for the Northern District firefighters. Additionally, police blocked the entrance to the surrounding neighborhood and Highway 808 in both directions.
Young man killed in a shooting near Nazareth
A man in his 20s was shot last weekend while sitting with friends in a cafe in Iksal, a village near Nazareth.
Magen David Adom paramedics immediately took him to the hospital in Afula in critical condition, and he died shortly after. Afula police were investigating the incident.
Hadera man arrested on suspicion of growing drugs
Police arrested a 35-year-old resident of Hadera on suspicion of keeping a hydrolab for growing drugs in his apartment. In a search of his apartment, police found 50 plants and fertilizers. The suspect was set to be brought for remand extension at the Hadera District Court.
CENTER
Ancient Chinese dragon racing tradition comes to Tel Aviv
The “Dragon in the Yarkon” festival is set to be held on Shavuot, in a joint initiative between the Tel Aviv Municipality, the Daniel Rowing Center and the Chinese Embassy. The carnival will open in the traditional manner of the 2,000-year-old Chinese tradition, with the dotting of the bulging eyes of the carved dragon’s head attached to the boat, and the scattering of rice into the water. The festival begins at 8 a.m. and members of the Chinese Embassy staff will take part in the rowing event.
Each boat holds 10 paddlers and one drummer.
TAU flick wins student Oscar
A film made by Tel Aviv University master’s film student Hadas Ayalon won a Student Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category last week.
Ayalon was one of three winners in this category with her short film Paris on the Water marking the first time an Israeli student film has been granted an Oscar in this category.
TAU describes the film as “a 27-minute movie about a once-famous actress, Batya, who after years of professional frustration finally gets a chance to make a comeback. On audition day, however, an unexpected event forces her to deal with personal issues. The film reveals Batya’s internal struggle to confront her most basic priorities.”
The film is set to premiere at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, hosted by TAU’s Film and Television Department in June and chaired by Hollywood producer Steve Tisch.
Man dies after falling at archeological excavation site
A 51-year-old man died Sunday at an archeological excavation site in Ramle when he fell from a height of four meters, Israel Radio reported.
Firefighters were able to rescue his body from the site, but he was already dead.
Police were investigating the circumstances of the incident.
SOUTH
BGU comes in second at int’l student engineering competition in Istanbul Ben-Gurion University of the Negev students took second place with their information and communications technology- based mobile application at the International Cultural and Academic Meeting of Engineering conference in Istanbul last week. The three students, Gilad Keizler, Yuval Ben-Zion and Nimrod Shalit of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, were the only Israeli students to be accepted in the competition this year.
Dozens of student teams from around the world from various engineering disciplines entered the competition, which has been held in Istanbul for the last 20 years. The StaTeam system was developed by the BGU team under the supervision of Dr. Adir Even.
According to BGU, “the system provides a comprehensive ICT-based solution for basketball teams. The system is based on a mobile application for efficient data collection and storage during games. It also provides a variety of Business Intelligence utilities for analyzing and visualizing the data collected over time.”
Children of South attend Lag Ba’omer day of fun
More than 2,500 people celebrated Lag Ba’omer last week at Lachish’s Action Park. The event was attended by children from the South, as well as former residents of Gush Katif, including some terrorism victims. The “day of fun” began at 10 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m., with a variety of concerts, magic shows and other free attractions for children. Singer Avi Benayoun and his orchestra performed, as well as the Jerusalem Boys Choir conducted by Hanan Avital, who saluted terrorism victims and the children of the South.
The director of the Gush Katif Museum, Shlomo Wasserteil, who organizes the event every year, thanked the councils that sponsored the event, led by the Kiryat Malachi Council, the Hof Ashkelon Council, the Nahal Sorek Council, the Torah Culture Division of the Education Ministry and Yad Tamar Association.
Israel’s only nude festival set for Shavuot
Israel’s only nude festival, “Pashut [meaning ‘simply,’ and a play on the word for undressing] Wild,” is set to commence next week on Shavuot, hosted by the Desert Ashram in Nahal Shittim. The theme of this year’s event, which begins on Wednesday and ends on Saturday, is “Wild and Tribal.”
“This festival is all about the freedom to let go of the masks and roles that we wear in the Western culture, because of all sorts of socials pressures. We hide behind the clothes we wear and the story they tell about us,” the festival website reads.
“Now we have the opportunity to take them all off and revisit our boundaries in order to meet each other and ourselves from a simpler and more authentic place. Let’s reconnect to ourselves without hiding, without pretending, without shame.
Love ourselves without conditions: to love and be loved as we are.”
Activities include music, workshops “connecting to our inner tribal beat” and meditation “to reconnect to our core soul.” Festival organizers invite people to participate in the festival, with or without their clothes, according to what feels comfortable for them. Tickets costs NIS 309 in advance and NIS 349 on the day.