Other

Original Article Published on The Jerusalem Post

Checking out great new digital talent in Jerusalem

The new animated film Rango stars the voice of Johnny Depp and follows the life, adventures and struggles of an aspiring hero in the form of a pet chameleon (Rango) as he becomes local sheriff in the Old West town of Dirt. When the movie is over, viewers can go home and continue to enjoy the great chase scenes, think about the chameleon in a Hawaiian shirt and have an Israel experience. In which case, you might now be wondering what Israel possibly has to do with a film about an animated chameleon?

Well, thanks to Israeli company, Funtactix, fans of Rango can go home and play Rango: The World, an online game based on the movie. Funtactix, the browser-based game developer, is releasing a game where players can meet characters from Rango, create an avatar, explore film environments and take on quests – all with their online friends. Imagine entering the world of your favorite film!

Funtactix is one of several hot, innovative Israeli companies making a difference in animation, gaming, social networking and more! Working out of the recently renovated national Mint of the British Empire and the Ottoman warehouses next door to the area surrounding Jerusalem’s old train station, over 300 artists, animators, programmers, engineers, storytellers and others huddle together in the Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) Media Quarter in Jerusalem, where they work enthusiastically on animated films, websites and video games. All of this exciting, high quality innovation is taking place a short fifteen minute walk from the Western Wall, the City of David and archaeological excavations which are over 3,000 years old. Welcome to Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) Media Quarter-home to Funtactix, Animation Lab, AnyClips, Qlipso, and more!

The JVP Media Quarter, started in 2002, is the brainchild of Erel Margalit, the founder and managing partner of JVP, a leading Israeli venture capital firm with over $820 million under management. The JVP Media Labs house a dozen companies, as well as a performing arts incubator and theater, The Lab (Hama’abada), and a social profit organization JVP Community (Bakehila).

Margalit playfully noted that, Unlike most labs, our focus is not on molecules and atoms, but rather, colorful, exciting stories and characters. Our employees are hard at work creating games, movies, virtual environments, web applications and mobile/iPod content for both children and adults. The Animation Lab team is currently hard at work on its animated feature film about a group of wild flowers that must contend with an evil gang of genetically-engineered plants. It follows a teenaged daisy (named Daisy) who was raised in the Sacred Meadow. According to the Animation Lab website, Daisy “now has to brave the great, dangerous world outside the Meadow’s walls and team up with a secret society of plant spies who have worked covertly to protect the planet from human activity since the beginning of time. Daisy discovers that she alone can save her Meadow, and the world at large, against an attack by an army of genetically modified corn stalks.

The film is currently in production in the Jerusalem animation studio. It was originally called The Wild Bunch when the filming first began, but the title is sure to change before its release in late 2011 or early 2012. It combines action, comedy, adventure and romance and features the voices of famous actors including Abigail Breslin, Willem Dafoe, Chris Klein, and Elizabeth Hurley.

Ayelet Weinerman, CEO of Animation Lab proudly said that, “Most of the work will be done in the studio in Israel. Some of the animators will come from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, as part of the planned future cooperation between the design academy and Animation Lab.

Weinterman added, “We plan to compete with the world’s big studios. The films are being designed for international distribution, at movie theaters worldwide. The budget for the film is about $20 million.

On a recent visit to the Media Lab, I began to get curious when I saw the phrase I’ll have what she’s having stickered on every light switch. I smiled, remembering that is a line from the movie When Harry Met Sally. Little did I know, this was also PR for a new company! Thanks to AnyClip , another Israeli company housed in the Media Lab, finding any clip is easy. Anyclip.com is basically a search engine to find any moment from any film ever made.

Did you ever love a movie scene so much that you wished you could just watch it over and over again? Is there line from a movie or funny scene that pops into your head and you suddenly wish you could share it with a friend? Your dream just came true! AnyClip maps, indexes, and tags entire films for you!

Another cool project of the media center is Qlipso. When we find a funny video on YouTube or someplace else, we often send the link to a friend or tell them on Facebook. Now, with Qlipso, there is a way to view or listen to content online with our friends. Qlipso calls itself a multi- user content-sharing platform.

With Qlipso’s Multiuser Content- Sharing Platform, we can now bridge those experiences we share in real-life with our online social network. They let us share the things we love with our social networks. In March 2010, Qlipso purchased Veoh has a library of more than one million videos, TV shows, online games and other interactive content. Qlipso allows you and your friends to interact with this amazing content photos, music, video and games!

These are only a few of the many amazing innovations coming out of a small old warehouse in Jerusalem. Next time you watch an impressive animated movie, or connect with a friend online, think of Israel – the technology may easily have been developed in the land of milk, honey and computers!

Read more

SECAUCUS, N.J. – In his keynote presentation entitled, “State of the Kosher Industry: The Transition of Kosher Foods to a New Level,” Menachem Lubinsky, President and CEO of LUBICOM Marketing Consulting, pointed out just how far the kosher food industry has come. “In the early years, there were nine booths with potato kugel. Then there were 10 or 12 booths displaying sponge cake. Now, there are gourmet and health products–change has come to the kosher food industry in a dramatic way !”

Lubinsky was referring to the rows and rows of booths at Kosherfest, the trade show for the kosher food industry, which took place Oct. 26 and 27 at the Meadlowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, N.J. Kosherfest is the yearly gathering of everyone who’s anyone in the kosher food industry-manufacturers, distributors, certifying agencies, cookbook authors, magazines, camps, restaurants, caterers and more.

Lubinsky further notes that today’s kosher consumer is much younger, more health conscious, and has learned to navigate the retail map, shopping in a variety of stores –from supermarkets, to smaller independent kosher markets, to stories like Costco.

A walk through the aisles at the two-day show gave a glimpse of the 125,000 kosher products now available in U.S. supermarkets, produced in the plants of 10,650 kosher producing companies–all contributing to a market with a dollar value of $12,500,000,000.

Old favorites displaying products include Manischewitz, Streit, Tulkoff, Barton’s Chocolates, Gold’s and Osem. But even these companies came with new products and new packaging.

There were corporate “tie ins,” too. Cookbook author, Susie Fishbein, was promoting her new book, “Kosher by Design: Teens and 20-Somethings,” in front of the Kolatin kosher gelatin booth, and Jamie Geller, author of “Quick and Kosher Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing” and the new “Quick and Kosher: Meals in Minutes,” was distributing recipe cards at the Kosher.com booth. There are many new, tasty products to look for on super market and specialty store shelves. Chocolate raspberry macaroons by Lily Bloom’s Kitchen, were voted both best new dessert/candy and Best In Show-First Runner Up.

Elite Natural 100% Organic Juices, with a plant in Ankara, Turkey, offers an assortment of juices, including pear, quince, honeydew melon and pomegranate. President, Ali Suman and Vice President Mark Rollino were happy to answer all of my questions, including number of watermelons it takes for one bottle of their watermelon juice (it takes 8). The juice was voted Kosherfest’s Best New Beverage; and, in case you wanted to know, it takes 20 or 23 pomegranates to fill a bottle of the company’s pomegranate juice and in development is a juice made of persimmons.

Kind Healthy Snacks offered samples of its six new all natural gluten free flavors (my favorites: apple cinnamon and pecan, and pomegranate blueberry pistachio + antioxidants). Big Apple Pretzels passed out soft pretzels. Freund’s Fish Market had sushi for the taking. Steve Katz, owner of Katz’s Bakery in Southfield, Mich. was handing out very tasty seven layer cake samples.

A record number of countries were represented — from Poland to Ecuador, Argentina, Canada, Lithuania, Switzerland, Belgium, England, Spain, Australia, China and of course, Israel. Osem chefs prepared Israeli whole wheat and tri-color cous cous. Vegetali vegetarian hot dogs in a blanket was voted Best New Fine Food from Israel (and they had many other wonderful vegetarian products–including Moroccan cigars). Neviot is hoping to soon bring their bottled water and flavored water to the American market; the Etz Hazait Collection of oils of Haifa, marketed as “The recipe for good health,” is also “not here yet but looking to be here,” according to Shirley Rocheli, company spokesperson.

Other items of interest include Sue Fishkoff’s new book “Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority;” a new bi-monthly kosher food magazine, entitled “Kosher Inspired;” “New York Kosher News,” a free publication of Kashrus Magazine focusing on New York and New Jersey area kashrut news.

Read more

Aaron Rudolph’s drive to work from his home in West Hartford to the Walgreen’s Distribution Center in Windsor is usually uneventful. Having special needs and landing a meaningful job often poses more of a challenge.

Rudolph is one of the lucky ones. A story in the Hartford Courant five years ago about a yet-to-be-built Walgreens facility, a meeting with a job counselor at the Bureau of Rehab Services in Hartford, and a drop of good fortune were all part of the young man’s journey toward meaningful employment.

After graduating from high school, Rudolph began a one-year food service training program at Manchester Community College. He was then connected to a job counselor, which led to some work in food services. A job counselor was impressed with his work and suggested that Rudolph might be a good candidate for the Walgreen’s program. Following an interview to assess his job and social skills, and a nine-week, eight-hour a day unpaid training program in different areas of potential employment, followed by nine-week training stints, Rudolph was ultimately hired by Walgreens.

The 24-year old West Hartford resident, who loves the Beatles, Beach Boys and You Tube, has been to Israel four times, and regularly attends The Emanuel Synagogue, recently celebrated his nine-month anniversary as a Walgreens’ employee. While initially hired to work in the AKL division (where he essentially moved quickly up and down the aisles filling orders), he was soon switched to “detrash,” where he rapidly opens boxes and transfers items to plastic bins and places them on a conveyer belt.

Rudolph works 40 hours per week, and has full benefits – like sick time, medical, dental, a 401K and stock options, and soon he will be eligible for two weeks paid vacation.

“When you think of people with cognitive disabilities, they are usually involved in menial jobs or they work in workshops-they often bag groceries or work a few hours a week. And you always worry about how secure the job is-especially during an economic downturn. At Walgreen’s, Aaron has the potential to be there a long time,” reports the young man’s mother, Alison Rudolph, who explains that her son has mild to high functioning autism.

Her son, she says, couldn’t be more proud of his work noting that he “always speaks up and enunciates” when asked about his work” and “never complains when he is asked to do mandatory overtime.”

Rudoph is, perhaps, a bit more candid in describing his work. “It is nice, but it has its tough moments!” he says. “Sometimes the boxes I open are pretty hard. When I open the plastic wrapping, sometimes it goes all over the floor-especially with the huge fan going!”

But he does enjoy the camaraderie of his fellow workers. “I get along with them, I have lunch with them, and we sometimes talk about our weekends,” he says. “I feel great working full time and I feel good about the job!”

“Aaron is a great employee,” Joe Wendover, Walgreens’ outreach manager at the Windsor Distribution Center, told the Ledger. “Hiring Aaron helps to show other employers that it is a good thing and the right thing to do.”

Walgreens invites other companies to tour their distribution center to see that it is truly possible to train and hire people with disabilities. “It is unfortunate that some employers can’t see past a disability,” says Wendover, who will participate in a panel on vocational training and employment at Advance: The Ruderman Jewish Special Needs Funders Conference to be held in New York City on Oct. 20 to discuss funding for special needs programs in the Jewish community (see story).

Alison Rudoph and her husband, Jeff, are impressed with Walgreens’ commitment to hiring people with disabilities.

“In the warehouse, there are people with many kinds of disabilities. I have seen people in wheelchairs, people who are hearing impaired, and many others. As long as you can do the job, you will be employed there. They feel very fortunate that Aaron is part of the Walgreens family. “

Read more

WESTPORT – Most school children have completed the required family tree and family history project. The project typically involves interviewing relatives, writing a paper, and making an oral presentation, accompanied by old photos and documents. But a second career for Westville senior Stanley Dalnekoff has him taking the research and presentation of family history to new heights.

Dalnekoff, who grew up in Glasgow, Scotland during World War II, firmly believes that “every person’s life is interesting. No matter how ordinary you might think your life is, to your descendants and future researchers it is extraordinary!”

Dalnekoff seeks to help families pass down their stories — in audio, video, or book form. His website www.HeritageVideo.net invites potential clients to “Let your grandchildren get to know you!” Dalnekoff, the grandfather of four, says.

Dalnekoff’s colorful personal story includes growing up the son of a leather merchant in Glasgow, obtaining his CPA degree, moving to Israel and opening a business in Beersheva in the 1960s before moving to Connecticut and founding New Haven Travel Service in 1966. Dalnekoff, along with his wife, Donna, who holds a PhD in comparative literature from Yale, turned their travel agency into a $20 million business. The Dalnekoffs raised their three adult children in New Haven, where they have served the Westville Jewish community for more than 40 years. Stanley served as president and gabbai of the Westville Synagogue for many terms, and Donna has been a long term board member and editor of the synagogue newsletter. The Dalnekoffs were also instrumental in the founding of the Hebrew High School of New England.

“I was always interested in history — especially Jewish history around World War II – and I wanted to get more into technology as a way of documenting it,” says Dalnekoff, who chanced upon the Association of Personal Historians. “Six hundred people in the world do this for a living–and many happen to be Jewish.” Dalnekoff’s latest venture as a personal historian is an opportunity for him to focus on his life long love for Judaism, Jewish history and the Jewish people. “We have a heritage and we like to pass it down to future generations–it is like a living will–what was good and bad, how we handled trials and tribulations.” Dalnekoff suggests that aging has made people more interested in telling their story. “I specialize in Jewish people. I empathize with them. We have a special story to tell.”

Dalnekoff sends a list of possible topics to prospective clients. In the first meeting, he reviews photos and videos and begins to listen to the family’s story. Dalnekoff then begins recording the story. Dalnkeoff and his team manage all aspects of videography, sound, and lighting which he feels enhance the look and feel of the final movie. Once the recording sessions are completed, Dalnekoff reviews the tapes, suggests additions or deletions, scans and digitizes photos and adds footage from family movies. Dalknekoff has also been known to carefully research and add appropriate music and footage from town or world history from the time period. Once the family reviews the video and gives final approval, the DVD is made and delivered to the client. “Our sole purpose is to provide you with the ability to let your children, grandchildren, extended family, and friends get to know you!” says Dalnekoff.

Read more