The Israeli channel 2 morning show recently featured an interview with an English speaking Chinese tour-guide who takes mainland Chinese groups to visit Israel. The short interview provides some insights into how the Chinese see Israel and offers some curious cross-cultural interactions.     Here’s the video : (Hebrew introduction) A: You’ve been to China? [...]

The current Israeli prime minister – Benjamin Netayahu – spoke at the last Israeli Business Convention and elaborated the importance of introducing Chinese studies to the Israeli education system. I’ve known about this for quite a while, but I finally got around to listen to his speech.     Here’s the video of Benjamin Netanyahu [...]

3 years after I wrote about the first signs of the Israeli Chinese studies trend and there are signs that the trend is still going strong (see “The Chinese Language Studies Trend in Israel” and “Channel 2 story : Israelis studying Chinese” for more info). Every once in a while, Israeli news channels rediscover this [...]

I know a few cross-cultural couples who live in Israel and every once in a while when I go back to Israel I get to meet a few more. It’s only natural, since I am on the Israel-Asia line and many of the people I know are western expats living in Asia or Asians living [...]

CCTV, China’s national TV channel(s), produced a documentary TV series about Israel called “Walk into Israel – The Land of Milk and Honey” (走近以色列, zou jin yiselie). There was a recent launch event , and the episodes are already screening in China and available on the web.   Israeli TV station Channel 2 had an [...]

The Gay Pride Parade 2010 titled “Marching for Equality” was held in Jerusalem during July this year to mark the one year anniversary of the Bar-Noar shooting incident. Jerusalem Post has the intro: Under a stream of rainbow-colored flags and amongst a consortium of different participants, nearly 3,000 people from around the country turned out [...]

One of the most interesting things about Safed are the local people who live there. You get all sorts of curious combinations of origins and accents, dressed up in traditional religious clothing reflecting their sects. The one I liked the most – by far – was this Yemen guy who runs a hand-made type of [...]

Welcome to Safed, the proclaimed “World Capital of Spirituality and Jewish Culture” were eager souls (like Madonna) come to absorb the holy word of Jewish spiritual teachings, like the Kabbalah. The old city of Safed is a unique jewel. It’s been years since I last visited the place, and it’s a shame, since it’s beautiful, [...]