Innovation Blog

Israel:  Light Bulb Unto the Nations

By Shlomo Maital

“I will establish you as a….light unto the nations.” Isaiah 60:2-3

illustration by Avi Katz

A recent BBC World Service poll completed in February reveals a painful fact − Israel is regarded by much of the world as illegitimate,  a pariah, a social reject.  The survey covered 29,000 people, interviewed by phone or face-to-face in  28 countries.   The question was: For each of 17 countries,   do you regard the influence of Country X in the world as mostly positive or mostly negative? Half the respondents rated Israel’s influence as negative.  Only 19 per cent rated it as positive.  The rest were either neutral or ‘don’t know’.    Incredibly,  the  results for North Korea are slightly better than for Israel; Iran rates only slightly worse.   In only two of 28 countries does Israel have a perceived net positive balance:  America and Kenya.  And in America,  only 40 per cent gave Israel a “positive” rating, down from 47 per cent a year ago.    There is not a shred of evidence that Israel’s leaders lose sleep over these terrible numbers, let alone take action.

Against this tsunami of anti-Israel sentiment,  rises Start-up Nation, the best-selling book about Israeli innovativeness by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.   Thousands are reading the book to learn how this little country invented the cell phone, Copaxone, Azilect, a kind of heart pump, drip irrigation, the Given Imaging pill that ‘broadcasts’ your intestines’ condition,  the Pentium chip,  and a thousand other life-changing inventions,  while fending off enemies and squabbling endlessly with one another.  “What is driving it,” Senor recently told the cable network CNBC, “is a national ethos, resilience, the fight for survival.”

Why not rebrand Israel as the nation where creativity lives — come see it for  yourself?  A first step in this direction was taken recently by Prof. Shimon Shocken,  who heads the Arazi School of Computer Science at Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center.  Shocken and a team of dynamic young people led by Maya Elhalal and Liat Aaronson organized a TEDx gathering on April 26 at a highly unusual venue near Jaffa Port called Na Laga’at (see below).  TED (“ideas worth spreading”)  is well-known to all those interested in innovation; TEDx conferences are TED gatherings held outside the US.

What we learned from this amazing day was that Israeli innovativeness is not confined to high-tech.  It is pervasive and ubiquitous,  in social action, education,  therapy, music,  dance.  (And in politics?  Alas − no creative politicians could be located).  Participants ranged in age from 14-year-old Ori Sagy, who is a “scientist of the future” at Tel Aviv U., to myself (age 67),  Raphael Mehoudar, who invented drip irrigation for Netafim and Anita Shkadi, who introduced horseback therapy to Israel many years ago.   Here is just one of the 15 amazing brief talks we heard.

Anita Tal, who directs plays, was asked in 2001 to come to Jaffa to work with a dozen deaf and dumb actors suffering from Usher’s Syndrome, a progressive genetic disease,  and until then living in darkness and silence.   How in the world does one do that, she wondered?   Result:    The curtain rose in the Na La-ga’at (“please touch”, in Hebrew) Center on “Light Is Heard in Zig Zag”.   In 2004 the unusual company toured Canada and the U.S. and won rave reviews.  Today the Na Laga’at Center, where the TEDx conference was held, features the Blackout Restaurant, where dinner is served by blind waiters in complete darkness — a startling experience I strongly recommend.  Tal was given the Chesed (Grace) Award at the Knesset in 2008.

It is an utter travesty for Israel to be perceived by the world as a pariah, rather than what it truly is,  a light-bulb unto the nations.   At a time when countries in the West are struggling to recover from the global crisis and are seeking new innovations to lead the way, they can learn much from Israel.  Let every Israeli official abroad convey that message with conviction, at every opportunity.

A version of this blog will appear in the Marketplace column,  Jerusalem Report