Happy New Jewish Year - ה'תשע"ו (5776) או בקיצור תשע"ו שנה חדשה עברית

The old synagogue of Prague, Europe 

(Photo Aug. 2015)

The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam
One of the oldest synagogues in Europe (since 1671)

More on: May 15th 1948 - My Startup Nation View

The year 1948:
Headlines from the Maariv Newspaper -
The British Mandate is Finished; Long live our State!
The Hagana Message on Invasion Danger
Fights Continue along the Road to Jerusalem
The Hagana Holds Many Buildings in Jerusalem

1890,s My Grand Grands pictured in East Europe-Russia before their trip to the Holyland:

1948, My Father's Certificate from the War:

Back to 2015:
Here is a recent IDF ceremony for young recruits finishing their basic training, somewhere in the south of the country.

This Day - May 15th 1948

The original article in the New York Times read: "In one of the most hopeful periods of their troubled history the Jewish people here gave sigh of relief and took a new hold on life.,

It started on Friday afternoon 14-May-1948, in Tel Aviv, just before the Jewish Shabat, Ben Gurion gathered the Moezet Haam to witness and vote, against all his advisers' recommendations, on establishment of the new State of Israel.

Jerusalem was viewed a centerpiece of the new country and it was under a siege. The whole country was under a threat of invasion (should a new state will be declared), from the Arab countries, including non neighbors like Iraq.

My uncle and many others RIP died defending Jerusalem and the new state. The number of Israelies died in the following war was 1% of the total population. Ben Gurion later (1970's) said that he had feared many more casualties on the Israeli side, while he was speaking and proudly declaring the independence of the new country. Thus, 2000 years of survival, dreams and prayers had come to a crucial moment of "now or never".

In the picture below is a view of the no-man's land area dividing West and East Jerusalem, up until 1967. The photo taken during 1960's shows on the left the public housing the Israeli government built for new immigrants in Israel, while in the background one can see the Citadel of David on the  Jordanian side.

Here is a page from Amos Oz excellent book A Tale of Love and Darkness, giving an eyewitness account of the excitement a few months before the 14-May-1948 Independence Declaration:

Just Before the 67th Independence Day

In the photo the British soldiers are showing off their weapons, in Jerusalem, around 1930.

Some 67 years ago, the British left Palestine and Ben Gurion had declared the independent State of Israel. Today almost 8.5m people live in Israel, and the British legacy is a very distant memory.

So the British built the railroad, going on the left side still today, the police force and the (red color) post boxes. In Jerusalem, stories abound about the British army entering the city in 1917, at the Jaffa Gate, on foot. Starving and war weary residents greeted the victorious army. My grandpa had said that he saw then a British soldier feeding his horse with a perfect cake.

Robots for Hire

NYT: The Machines Are Coming

   

PAUL PAETZEL

A robot with emotion-detection software interviews visitors to the United States. 

Emotional-processing software has gotten so good that ad companies are looking into "mood-targeted" advertising, and the government of Dubai wants to use it to scan all its closed-circuit TV feeds.

The Faster You Fail, The Faster You’ll Succeed

Jay Samit: Speed to fail gives a startup more runway to pivot and ultimately succeed. What the founders of YouTube and Twitter recognized early on is that there is a huge difference between failing and failure.

The average entrepreneur experiences several failures before their final success. Often the only attribute that separates the heroes from the zeroes is persistence. Henry Ford had three businesses fail before starting Ford Motor Company at age 53...Read More

Remembering Shoah 2015

There are 189,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today. Two thirds are women; a full quarter of the survivors live below the government poverty line.

On this day, we post a recent photo of a never-to-forget Polish sign of a victim's writing, Benyamin Fundan 1944, "... Remember I was innocent...".

עם ישראל חי! ״ונתתי רוחי בכם וחייתם, והנחתי אתכם על אדמתכם״

Ezekiel 37:14 - "And I will put My spirit into you, and you shall live, and I will set you on your land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it..."   

China Using A Powerful 'Great Cannon' Weapon to Censor The Internet

China has something very impressive that we are not aware of. The country has a powerful and previously unknown weapon that its government is using to bolster their cyber attack capabilities. Read More

A Present for the New Spring Season 2015

Today is a "winter day" and I saw this little baby popping up his head on our tree, all safe, waiting for his mom. She will be back, I saw her.

150 Years Ago: End of US Civil War

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NYT 1865 - 150 years ago today:

Thanks to God, the Giver of Victory.

Honors to Gen. Grant and His Gallant Army.

Gen Grant: Thanks to the Almighty God for the great victory with which he has the day crowned you and the gallant armies under your command.

Greetings Just Before Passover 2015 Ends

Tomorrow passover 2015 ends and the spring is here. Two photos of the Western Wall from this year and from more than 100 years ago, when there were no cellphones and no internet!

Digital Readiness

Countries Are Building Digital Infrastructure at Uneven Rates

WSJ: Apple Acquires FoundationDB

Apple bought a startup that’s developing a lightning-fast database, a sign the tech giant may be seeking ways to run software services like iMessage more efficiently.

Apple agreed to acquire FoundationDB, a Virginia-based startup that developed database technology designed to crunch massive quantities of digital information very quickly. Such technologies are useful to data-reliant companies including those that tailor digital advertisements for websites. Read More

WSJ: Chinese Internet giant Alibaba has invested in Israel-based venture fund JVP

Focused on cyber security investments, JVP was the main shareholder in Cyberark, which started trading on the NASDAQ.

Earlier this month PayPal Inc. announced the acquisition of CyActive.

The pace of tech deals between Chinese and Israeli firms has been picking up over the last two years, spurred by the efforts of both governments. Read More..

Cisco's winning $1.5 billion bet on Israeli high-tech

Haaretz-Mar 9, 2015

The giant U.S. maker of networking equipment has a long history in Israel, now helping to develop super-fast Internet. Read More ..

NYT: The New Net Neutrality Rules

The Federal Communications Commission is to take a more active role in regulating the Internet as a public utility, which is expected to provoke court cases from major broadband providers. Read More...

US Senate Advances Major Cyber-Security Bill

National Journal‎:
Responding to Sony Hack, Senate Advances Major Cyber-Security Bill
In a closed-door meeting, the panel advanced 14-1 the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which would provide expanded legal liability

WP: There are good reasons not to save every e-mail sent by public officials

The revelation that Hillary Clinton used a personal e-mail account during her tenure as secretary of state has drawn attention to an area of public transparency that, most would agree, is still in an evolutionary period. 

New York City A Place For Tech Start-Ups 

NYT: "People who have founded start-ups on the East and West Coasts say there can be an advantage to being in a place like New York where tech is not so all-consuming. Those at start-ups in New York repeatedly mention the intimacy of the relatively small but tight-knit industry here — in fact, they may be the only people who say they moved to New York because they liked its small-town vibe."

http://nyti.ms/JHdoEz

Udi Levin Over the years, economies were looking for effective ways of rewarding their creative workers (creators of "original work"). Now the discussion has moved to the courts. We, the engineers, sit on the sidelines and watch!

Oracle Vs. Google, Week One bits.blogs.nytimes.com

The Larry (Ellison) versus Larry (Page) show closed out its first week inconclusively, and now likely moves into the technical weeds. But don't be fooled: the right kind of decision in this trial could profoundly affect much of the tech industry