My Rehovot ( ISSN 1817-101X )

Sitting in the laundry room of what used to be a working kibbutz on Kibbutzim Hill in the middle of Rehovot, Israel, it is impossible to guess where or how the brave kibbutzniks made their way underground to the secret bullet factory that produced nearly three million bullets in three years and helped win Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.

Everything at the Ayalon Institute is exactly as it was six decades ago, but for the fact that the kibbutz is now a museum and there is no British army station just down the hill and under whose nose about 40 men and women contributed clandestinely to the founding of the State.

The Ayalon Institute’s fascinating story is about a top-secret operation that took place during the years between the end of WWII and Israel’s War of Independence.

Under the vigilant eyes of the British who ruled the area, a clandestine plant for the production of much-needed bullets was built underground in anticipation of the armed struggle between Jews and Arabs in Israel (and neighboring Arab countries) that came with the termination of the British Mandate.

It was built in just three weeks as a cooperative effort between members of Hatzofim Aleph, a pioneer group, members of the local Jewish clandestine military, and Haganah trainees. Using the laundry room as their cover -- the noise of the machines and the exhaust camouflaged the subterranean machines -- the group worked day in and day out in a 300-square-yard space 26 feet underground.

Above ground, living quarters, a dining hall, a chicken coop, a barn filled with animals, workshops, and agricultural fields gave the Hill the outward appearance of being an ordinary kibbutz. Several dozen other kibbutzniks actually worked it as such, knowing nothing about what was going on underground.

The munitions makers daily risked their lives. If caught they could be killed; the ongoing work caused health deficiencies and they needed to be given special diets and time each day with one of the first sun lamps to restore the vitamins that a lack of sunlight deprived them of. At any time, the gun powder, that was handled by hand, could explode, and great pains were taken to enter and exit without being seen by moving a heavy piece of machinery under which a steep staircase was revealed. Their clothes and hair were inspected at each day’s end to remove bullet shavings and stains.

The machinery had been purchased in Poland in 1938 and was smuggled by the underground to Beirut, Lebanon and from there to Israel in 1942. The Haganah had other bullet factories; this was the larges, producing case after case of bullets for the Sten sub machine gun used by the fighters.

The factory was in full operation until the establishment of the State in 1948. In 1987, the Ayalon Institute (Kibbutz Hill) was declared a historic site, with a museum opened and operated by The Council for Restoration and Preservation of Historic Sites in Israel, established to identify, restore, and protect irreplaceable heritage buildings and sites associated with the country’s rebirth.

Jewish National Fund has partnered with the Council as it is not just JNF’s job to help build Israel’s future, but also to preserve the country’s rich history for generations to come.

The Council maintains a national database listing of over 250 heritage sites and takes action to protect them from falling into neglect or being jeopardized by real estate development. More than 50 sites have already been successfully preserved and serve as viable facilities in service of the community.

The Ayalon Institute, along with the other sites administered by the Council, welcomes over two million visitors each year. The restored sites serve as viable educational and cultural centers throughout the country and host hundreds of thousands of teachers, students, soldiers, tourists, and Israelis from all walks of life. The Council views education as a primary goal and actively works to raise public awareness of Israel's history through preservation. The Council is also working to incorporate education about its project into school curriculums and has developed 17 different educational programs, each dedicated to a specific restored heritage site.

Each project is individually budgeted and financed with money contributed by local authorities, public and private foundations, national institutions, and the Israeli government.

Source: Jodi Bodner. Secret underground factory helped win Israel’s War of Independence. JewishLedger.com (17 April 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Made in Rehovot, Rehovot News 1948

The technology of Lumus Ltd., a Rehovot , Israel company, has just received the Red Herring 100 Europe Award, a recognition given to the 100 "most promising" companies driving the future of technology. Though not a medical device, the company's augmented reality display could be incorporated into a variety of surgical and interventional radiology devices, such as intraoperative mapping and preoperative surgical planning systems. In addition, one can also see how this system can be used for training residents and medical students.

Here's how the company explains the workings of its wearable display:

The Lumus PD-10 Professional Series Displays offer full see-through, full color and high brightness. The frameless, top-down design, enables unobstructed peripheral vision, and is particularly suitable for mounting on professional head-gear. The superior performance of the Lumus PD-10 makes it the optical wearable display solution for mixed and augmented reality (MR & AR) applications.

Lumus' patented, revolutionary Light-guide Optical Element (LOE) comprises a flat, transparent optical substrate that incorporates a set of embedded partially reflecting facets. The upper figure illustrates the LOE function. An optical image, generated by a microdisplay (e.g. LCD, LCoS or OLED), is coupled into the LOE substrate. Trapped by total internal reflection, the image components are guided along the LOE. The image is then expanded and coupled out by a set of partial reflectors for viewing by the user. The LOE provides the viewing experience of a large distant screen: an enlarged, distant image, with a large field-of-view (FoV).

The LOE is thin and, as it expands, the optical exit pupil can work with a small image source. Consequently, the LOE offers unprecedented compactness, breaking the conventional tradeoff between the optical performance and the physical size of a near-to-eye display. Unlike conventional optics, the FoV, eye motion box (the volume in which the eye should be located to view the entire image) and overall size of the optical system are all independent of the LOE thickness. For example, the thickness of conventional imaging optics increases dramatically with FoV (graph on right). In contrast, a 2-3mm thick LOE supports even very large FoVs. In addition the LOE is free of chromatic aberrations and optical distortions, delivering a high-resolution quality image.

Source: Lumus Displays (23 March 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Made in Rehovot

Featherless broilers may soon enter the market because of their various advantages over their covered counterparts.

This is the conclusion of Professor Avigdor Cahaner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Rehovot, Israel. Cahaner, who led the project, explained, "This is not a genetically modified chicken. It comes from a natural breed whose characteristics have been known for 50 years. I am just transferring that to fast growing broiler chickens. It's a normal chicken except for the fact it has no feathers."

The scientists also hope the new breed will grow faster because it won't need to use energy to grow feathers and that will would also cause the chicken itself to grow larger.

After five years of intensive selection work and commercial trials Cahaner says he now has a bird that can be kept in hot climates without suffering from heatstress and poor performance. The birds prove to more resistant to heat, show less health and skin problems and require less feed to produce more and better quality meat.

Another obvious advantage is that processors do not need feather pluckers, and an environmental plus, will also have less waste.

Source: Naked birds may have market advantage. worldpoultry.net (March 2007[FullText]

Labels: Made in Rehovot

Atom Limited, a provider of content management solutions, has issued a new version of its WSCraft CMS for flexible building and managing powerful dynamic Websites without involving a programmer. WSCraft is both a development platform and content management system. A site powered by fully functional WSCraft CMS will meet all the customers’ needs.

WSCraft enables a Web designer who is familiar with HTML and CSS only to flexibly develop and maintain Web, extranet, and intranet sites without any help of a programmer. With WSCraft designers accomplish various tasks, such as design integration, content output definition, creating multiple content representations, configuration of e-commerce capabilities, and building multi-language sites, all alone.

With WSCraft designers are able to build Web, extranet, and intranet sites of any scale, from corporate sites to online portals.Since no project stage requires a programmer, designers are also able to reduce project costs, risks, and time while to become independent of programmers.

Deployment of WSCraft, including design integration, customization, and installation takes a few hours and does not require involving additional implementation partners except a Web designer. It makes a total cost of ownership low and lets both Web designers and business users accurately predict the project budget and avoid unexpected costs.

With WSCraft any bussiness site becomes a powerful instrument for management and product promotion since all the apdating and any necessary changes take seconds instead of days, weeks, months, as it took previously when a programmer was required for even minor alternations.

Here are only a few among the variety of powerful features characterizing WSCraft 4.5

The key development features include:

Seamless and painless integration of virtually any design and layout into WSCraft.

Using multiple design templates throughout a site; switching between design templates in a click.

Creating any content representation, including image galleries, product catalogs, news, articles, blogs, and bulletin boards, without having to acquire additional modules; switching between content representations in a click.

Flexible manipulation of content output by editing a pure HTML/CSS code completely isolated from a programming code.

Instant assembling of pages that contain compound content extracted from multiple pages.

Full control over navigation menu look and behavior through customization of a pure CSS file.

AJAX support.
Support for localization of site interface and administrative interface.
Open architecture for integration of third parties PHP scripts into WSCraft as plugins.

The key content management features include:

Easy content update
Multi-author content creation
Workflow management
Version control

Content personalization both on a page level and text fragment level.
Forum membership integration; phpBB, vBulletin, Invision Power Board, and Simple Machines Forum are supported.
Integration with internationally recognized payment systems: PayPal, 2CheckOut, and Authorize.net.
Tracking purchases from WSCraft Administrative Panel.
Creating multi-language sites.
Automatic generation of RSS feeds.
Friendly URLs generation.

The previous version of WSCraft launched on August 29, 2006 has already numerous installations around the world, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Spain, UK, and USA.

WSCraft has a Web browser based interface, which means that users can manage their Websites wherever they are located.

Pricing and Availability:

WSCraft is distributed in two editions: Premium and Ultimate.

In addition, plugins that enhance WSCraft functionality as well as various professional services are available. WSCraft, plugins, and professional services can be ordered through the product Website http://www.wscraft.com. The evaluation copy is available for press. It can be obtained by contacting Jeff Masycheff at +972 8 931 9357, by sending e-mail to jeff@wscraft.com, or by visiting the product Website, www.wscraft.com.

About Atom Ltd.
Atom Ltd. is a provider of marketing communication solutions headquartered in Rehovot, Israel. The company offers full-cycle services, from strategic development to development of software that support marketing initiatives. WSCraft Software is a department of Atom Ltd. which specializes in developing Web content management solutions. WSCraft is a trademark of Atom Limited.

Source: A new even more powerfull version of WSCraft software has been issued. (2 February, 2007) Software News: PRLeap.com [FullText]

Labels: Made in Rehovot, Rehovot Hitech

"One kilogramme of Hazera Genetics "Summer Sun" tomato hybrid seeds is sold to farmers in Europe for US$350,000, according to Hazera, Israel's largest producer and marketer of vegetable and field crops hybrid seeds.

The company said this week that the price is paid for Hazera unique yellow coloured cherry tomatoes, developed jointly by Hazera in cooperation with scientists at the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot.

"Summer Sun" tomatoes have larger than average sugar content, giving them a taste of honey. They are marketed under the brand "Hazera Boutique", which includes a wide range of gourmet tomatoes.

Eran Shafrir, Hazera Genetics marketing manager, said strong demand from European consumers for the boutique tomatoes has escalated their retail price to US$23.70 a kilo. "European consumers are willing to pay the price owing to the special taste and the tomato's health properties, as the 'Summer Sun' tomatoes contain also high level of the antioxidant beta carotene," he said."

Source: $350,000 a kilo tomato seeds. freshinfo.com (22 January 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Made in Rehovot, Rehovot Hitech