City Notes: Israeli and Palestinian girls compete in mixed soccer matches

A round-up of news from across the nation.

By COMPILEDJULIE STEIGERWALD
Lake Kinneret (photo credit: JULIE STEIGERWALD)
Lake Kinneret
(photo credit: JULIE STEIGERWALD)
CENTER
More than 200 Israeli and Palestinian girls took to the field last Tuesday in Modi’in for a soccer tournament held to encourage peace, coexistence and female empowerment. The girls, ranging in age from eight to 10, came together from 12 communities to participate in the end-of-year event for the Twinned Peak Sport Schools program.
Girls from communities in Israel and the West Bank, such as Jericho, Yatta, Beersheba, Sderot and Jerusalem, played in mixed teams in matches against each other in the main tournament. Opening exhibition matches also included the athletes’ parents, their coaches and the facilitators of the event.
The partnering program, developed by the Peres Center for Peace, pairs Israeli-Jewish girls with Palestinian- Arab girls for bi-weekly soccer training in mixed groups, along with meet-ups throughout the year and efforts to learn the language of the other.
‘Picasso in Bikini’ on display at TA beaches
The beaches of Tel Aviv have transformed into art galleries with the installment of reproductions of selected works by world-renowned artists. The outdoor exhibition, held in cooperation with the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, is due to last a month and showcases some of the museum’s works by Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Kandinsky and Van Gogh. While all the pieces displayed on the beaches are reproductions, the originals can be seen at the museum.
Rockefeller Foundation chooses White City in Resilient Cities challenge
The Rockefeller Foundation selected Tel Aviv from 325 applicants last week as one of the winners in its global 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) grant competition.
As a member of 100RC, Tel Aviv will soon be appointed a chief resilience officer to lead efforts in preparing to face future social, economic and physical challenges. The global 100RC community provides member cities with access to tools, funding, technical expertise and other resources to build resilience for the challenges of the 21st century.
“We selected Tel Aviv because of its leaders’ commitment to resilience-building and the innovative and proactive way they’ve been thinking about the challenges the city faces,” said 100RC President Michael Berkowitz. “For us, a resilient city has good emergency response and meets its citizens’ needs.”
NORTH
EMTs gear up for beach season at Lake Kinneret
Volunteer marine rescue workers with United Hatzalah have been gearing up for beach season at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee). The organization maintains an emergency water rescue service that works with police and local lifeguards at the popular tourist destination in the Galilee.
United Hatzalah’s Tiberias and Kinneret chapter has a 24-hour patrol and a team of 47 volunteer EMTs, some of whom double as water rescue responders. According to the organization, it has trained eight of the chapter’s EMTs to be rescue divers who respond to underwater emergencies during the summer months.
“We work hard on preventive measures, warning swimmers and beach goers not to stay in the water too long during the afternoon and evening hours when the strong winds blow, and not to use ill-equipped flotation devices such as dinghies, inflatable mattresses or paddle boards, as these get swept out into a part of the lake that is deeper than a person is comfortable swimming in,” said Yossi Vaknin, head of the Tiberias unit’s water rescue team.
Technion launches quantum engineering center
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology inaugurated an innovative center for quantum engineering this week with an opening international conference on Wednesday and Thursday. Dozens of leading international experts attended the two-day symposium held at the university.
The university hailed the unveiling of the new Technion Center for Quantum Science Matter and Engineering as a major development that meets industry needs and can provide opportunities to boost the Israeli economy.
“The Quantum Engineering Center will focus on the quantum aspects of computing, communications, sensing and signal processing,” said Prof. Gadi Eisenstein, head of the Technion’s Nanotechnology Institute, which houses the new center.
SOUTH
Motorist dies after crashing into camels
A 60-year-old woman died after running her vehicle into a group of camels on the road between Beersheba and Hatzerim in the Negev on Sunday night.
Magen David Adom paramedics attempted to revive the victim, but her severe injuries rendered her lifeless, and she was pronounced dead on the scene.
“This was a very serious accident between a private vehicle and three camels on the roadside near some trees,” said MDA first responder Carmel Cohen.
She added that when emergency workers arrived at the scene, they found a crushed, dismantled car with the driver pinned in the front seat without a pulse.