Tag Archives: Israel

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In Memory: an Official Google blog honoring -the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day …TODAY 2011

01/27/2020 Nativegrl77

In honor of the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day , we’re partnering with Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based center for remembering the Holocaust‘s victims and survivors, to bring their collections of photographs and documents to the web.

Click on the link below …Explore Yad Vashem’s Holocaust archives online
January 26, 2011

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/B-hgGdxAZ1E/explore-yad-vashems-holocaust-archives.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

On a trip to Jerusalem three years ago, Jonathan Rosenberg visited Yad Vashem. Struck by the museum’s vast historical record housed within the physical building, he hoped Google could do something powerful to showcase this information. Inspired by the challenge, a few of us, in our “20% time,” started working with Yad Vashem and eventually grew our effort into a full project, introducing a YouTube channel in 2008 and now this collections site.

Within the archive you will find more than 130,000 images in full resolution. You can search for them via a custom search engine on Yad Vashem’s collections site. And by using experimental optical character recognition (OCR), we’ve transcribed the text on many images, making them even more discoverable on the web. This means that if you search for the name of a family member who was in the Holocaust, you might find a link to an image on the Yad Vashem site.

To experience the new archive features yourself, try searching for the term [rena weiser], the name of a Jewish refugee. You’ll find a link to a visa issued to her by the Consulate of Chile in France. OCR technology made this picture discoverable to those searching for her.

Yad Vashem encourages you to add personal stories about images that have meaning for you in the “share your thoughts” section below each item. Doron Avni, a fellow Googler, has already added a story. He found a photograph of his grandfather taken immediately after his release from a Nazi prison. His grandfather had vowed that if he should survive, he would immediately have his picture taken to preserve the memory of his experience in the Holocaust. He stitched the photo into his coat, an act that later saved his life. After hiding in the forest for a year, Russian soldiers mistook him for a German enemy, but released him once they saw this picture.

Doron’s grandfather

The Yad Vashem partnership is part of our larger effort to bring important cultural and historical collections online. We’ve been involved in similar projects in the past including digitizing major libraries in Europe, collections at the Prado Museum in Madrid, and the LIFE photo archive. We encourage organizations interested in partnering with us in our archiving efforts to enter their information in this form.

We’re proud to be launching this significant archive that will allow people to discover images that are part of their heritage, and will aid people worldwide researching the Holocaust.

Posted by Eyal Fink, Software Engineer and Yossi Matias, Head of Israel R&D Center

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His father was dragged off

08/09/2013 Nativegrl77

Dear friends,

The images of 5-year-old Khaled screaming out for his father as the Israeli security forces dragged him off are hard to look at. This is daily life for Palestinians living in the segregated, military-controlled West Bank. But a nonviolent movement for freedom is growing. And it needs our help. Pledge just $4 now to get them lawyers, cameras, training, and campaigners to take this local resistance movement global:

It was the hottest week of the year.

All Fadel Jaber wanted was some water for his family.

But Fadel lives in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli government has redirected water pipes to provide swimming pools for Jewish settlers and empty faucets for Palestinians like Fadel.
When the Israeli forces dragged Fadel off for taking water, his heartbroken five-year-old son Khaled could be heard screaming “baba, baba!” as his dad was torn away. This is daily life for Palestinians living under the brutal fist of martial law where their land and water has been stolen by settlers and they have no basic human rights. But after years of violence and hopelessness, a movement is growing in Palestine — a nonviolent resistance seeking the same thing that all Israelis already have: freedom, dignity and a state of their own.
For years, the media has focused on Palestinian militants, and to this day, extremists on both sides are pushing peace further out of reach. But what’s lost in all that vitriol are the loving families like Fadel’s that just want a normal life. Now, those families are stepping forward, leading peaceful marches, organizing sit-ins, and working with Israeli activists to seek justice and freedom. In response, the Israeli military has thrown them in jail, beaten up organisers, and ripped children from their beds.
Days ago, I went to the West Bank to meet with these brave, peaceful people. When I proposed that our community could come to their aid, their eyes lit up. They need funds for lawyers when they are jailed on spurious charges, cameras to document abuses, training in media skills and nonviolent tactics, and campaigners to take this local protest global. These families are the real hope. If enough of us pledge $4 now, we can boost the peaceful movement over the extremist ones and give Khaled a future worthy of his father’s dreams. Avaaz will only process the pledges if we get enough to make a real difference:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/palestine_rpr_enndl/?biEWLbb&v=27710
This occupation has gone on for too long and for too long the resolution of this conflict has been controlled by extremists on both sides. But today, there are a few things most people agree on: first, both the Israelis and the Palestinians should each be entitled to a state; and second, the treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories violates every sense of justice we have, from international law to basic common sense. Even hard-line retired Israeli national security officials agree.
But the current Israeli government is only making things worse. While they pay lip service to peace talks and a two-state solution, they expand more settlements in the West Bank, making a two-state solution permanently impossible. And the Israeli military subjects Palestinians in the occupied territories to a whole different set of laws than the Jewish settlers who occupy those lands, even throwing children into prison for months at a time.
The best hope for ending this injustice and finally reaching peace is this peaceful resistance movement. Here are a few of the ways we can support them:

Support life-saving legal aid to help nonviolent leaders defend themselves from trumped up charges and kangaroo military courts;
Bring in civil disobedience experts from other movements to share strategies and tactics with communities across the West Bank;
Provide media equipment and trainings to leaders so they can both document abuses and get the word out to the world about this hopeful, inspiring movement;
Hire top-notch campaigners on the ground to provide ongoing support to this movement, scale actions across the West Bank, and engage our global community to take this movement from local to global;
Livestream their nonviolent actions on our site and organise a global day of action across the world.

In our history we have seen how nonviolent movements have freed peoples across the world — Gandhi’s movement in India, Dr. King’s movement in the US, and Mandela’s movement in South Africa. We know that it can work, and indeed in this case it’s our only hope. Let’s give this inspiring movement the global solidarity it needs to succeed. Pledge just $4 now and let’s help change history:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/palestine_rpr_enndl/?biEWLbb&v=27710
The Avaaz community has been unwavering in its support for freedom, justice and conflict resolution across the world. Today, one of the most virulent bastions of injustice on the planet is the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestinian lands. But even there, hope springs. And together, we can be a part of the generation that brings freedom and peace to two peoples, betrayed so often by governments, both of whom so desperately need it. Let’s show what our community can do.
With hope and determination,
Alice and the rest of the Avaaz team
MORE INFORMATION
Video / Palestinian boy upset by father’s arrest garners international media attention (Haaretz) http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/video-palestinian-boy-upset-by-father-s-arrest-garners-international-media-attention-1.306155
When Montgomery comes to Nabi Saleh (Foreign Policy) http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/26/when_montgomery_comes_to_nabi_saleh
The Rise of Palestinian Non-Violence: A Conversation with Mustafa Barghouti (Daily Beast) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/07/the-rise-of-palestinian-non-violent-resistance-a-conversation-with-mustafa-barghouti.html
Israel in Peril (New York Review of Books) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/israel-in-peril/
‘Drip, Jordan’: Water supply as a focal point of occupation (Harper’s Magazine) http://harpers.org/archive/2011/12/drip-jordan/
Is this where the third intifada will start? (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/magazine/is-this-where-the-third-intifada-will-start.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all&_r=0
For West Bank protesters, legal knowledge is power (+972 Magazine) http://972mag.com/for-west-bank-protesters-legal-knowledge-is-power/71412/
The West Bank’s 2012: The Year of the Israeli Settlement (TIME) http://world.time.com/2012/12/31/the-west-banks-2012-the-year-of-the-israeli-settlement/

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Official Google

07/19/2013 Nativegrl77

Campus for Moms: Helping women entrepreneurs in Israel

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 09:35 AM PDT

Since opening our Campus Tel Aviv last December, we’ve hosted thousands of promising entrepreneurs and developers at events, workshops, lectures and hackathons. Many of these entrepreneurs refer to their start-ups as their “baby,” and it’s easy to understand why. Like having a newborn, a start-up is super-exciting, yet the days are hectic and the nights are… sleepless.
What’s really inspiring (and just a little bit crazy) is that some people do both at the same time. Take, for example, Israeli entrepreneur Hilla Brenner, who raised $5 million for her first start-up when she was nine months pregnant. Earlier this year, I had the chance to meet Hilla and we began talking about how juggling work and kids doesn’t leave much time to invest in learning and developing new skills. We also discussed how maternity leave can be one of the few times when women can stop and think about their career. We asked ourselves: what could we do to help women with young children get access to self-development and career support and, in doing so, to help more women become tech entrepreneurs?
Campus for Moms is a baby-friendly start-up school for new moms, run by Google in partnership with Yazamiyot, a networking group for Israeli women entrepreneurs. The first course, which ended this week, included nine sessions led by successful entrepreneurs, investors, technology experts and others. The sessions covered personal success stories, finance, legal and presentation skills, and tech knowledge, like cloud computing. We arranged mattresses, bean bags and diaper-changing facilities so that the moms could take care of their young ones during the sessions. Four babies were born during the course and one new mum returned to the program less than a week after giving birth!
At the end of the course, participants presented their initiatives to venture capital funds and the course speakers. Their ideas are exciting—including a platform for teachers to create apps for their students, a fashion-tech meet up to encourage cooperation between local fashion-related start-ups, a 2G mobile ecommerce gateway for emerging markets and a bunch of other great initiatives.
The participants are continuing to develop their skills: two of the start-ups have joined the Campus Tel Aviv “Launch Pad” program, an intensive week-long bootcamp for entrepreneurs, and another will be visiting Campus London to meet with U.K.-based entrepreneurs.

The first course of “Campus for Moms” is over, but we’re gearing up for another course in October. We’re also looking forward to sharing the tools and best practices we’ve developed at Campus for Moms with others, so they can help entrepreneurial moms in their communities. After all, whether they’re moms or not, entrepreneurs can always do with a helping hand with their “baby.”
Posted by Tal Sarig-Avraham, Product Marketing Manager

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Take a Peek at the President’s Trip

03/22/2013 Nativegrl77

President Barack Obama is greeted by Israeli President Shimon Peres and members of Hora, a local children’s dance troupe, upon his arrival at the President’s residence in Jerusalem, March 20, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

It’s President Obama’s second day in the Middle East, during the first foreign trip of his second term. While in the region, he’s met with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and today he addressed the Israeli people from Jerusalem, where he spoke about the future of the region: “That is where peace begins – not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people.”

See photos and videos from President Obama’s trip to the Middle East.

whitehouse uploaded videos – click on the links

03/13/2012 Nativegrl77

President Obama Speaks on Manufacturing

President Obama speaks at a Rolls-Royce jet engine manufacturing plant about the importance of a strong American manufacturing industry that creates good jobs for workers making products that can be sold all over the world. March 9, 2012.More

Weekly Address: Investing in a Clean Energy Future

Speaking from a factory in Virginia, President Obama talks about how companies are creating more jobs in the United States, making better products than ever before, and how many are developing new technologies that are reducing our dependence on foreign oil and saving families money at the pump.More

3/8/12: White House Press Briefing

White House Press Briefings are conducted most weekdays from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing.More

West Wing Week: 3/9/12 or “Speak Softly; Carry a Big Stick”

Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This week, the President addressed both the Conservation and AIPAC conferences, sat down with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, Prime Minister Al-Keeb of Libya, and President Mills of Ghana, hosted a White House news conference, announced steps the administration is taking to support homeowners, and traveled to the Daimler Mount Holly Truck Plant in North Carolina. That’s March 2nd to March 8th or, “Speak Softly; Carry a Big Stick.”More

President Obama Speaks on Manufacturing