In the News

Petty Partisanship or Unfortunate Blips: This Week at the Western Wall and Better Place

August 27, 2013

This was not a good week for progress. Or more to the point, for continuing the progress that we thought we’d already made. Rather, it seems like politics and “business as usual” have torpedoed two bold initiatives that could have made real change. The issues on the table: the government’s backward proposal for addressing egalitarian […]

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Where was OurCrowd When I Needed Them?

August 15, 2013

Where was OurCrowd when I needed them 10 years ago, back when I was trying to start a company and couldn’t find anyone to fund it? For those who haven’t followed the torrent of press about the company lately, OurCrowd is the latest startup from serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist Jon Medved, who has founded some of Israel’s most interesting ventures […]

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Frequently Asked Questions about Better Place (from an Electric Car Owner)

June 30, 2013

As owners of a Renault electric vehicle, we have been deluged with questions since Better Place — the company that runs the electric car network in Israel — announced its bankruptcy at the end of last month. Since many of the questions tend to be the same, I put together a brief Q&A on those […]

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Dan Ariely and the Black Market

June 23, 2013

The most thrilling session at the Israeli Presidential Conference last week was not the panel on “Should We Wait It Out: Israel and a Changing Middle East” which featured three U.S. and Israeli ambassadors and a former head of the Mossad. It was not Yair Lapid’s speech on how integration of the haredim will produce an economic […]

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Electric Parade

June 10, 2013

There were two parades taking place on Friday in Tel Aviv. Just a few kilometers from the better exposed of the two, the city’s annual Gay Pride Parade, a smaller group was standing up for its right to make the world a better place in its own way. Several hundred owners of 100% electric cars from the […]

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Jerusalem’s Old-New Train Station in the Movies

May 21, 2013

In 1984 I worked on an educational film produced by the Gesher Foundation. Titled “The Journey,” it told the story of a 13-year-old boy during World War II Russia who was being sent off by his aunt to stay safe with distant family. It was also his bar mitzvah, but the boy knew nothing about Jewish coming […]

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Supersol Gets Spooky Online

March 25, 2013

I hate grocery shopping in Israel. I might hate it in the Old Country too, but I don’t remember it so well. But here, I have no problem recalling my recoil. The aisles are too narrow, the lines are ridiculously long and slow, the store (in winter) has no heating, and whoever heard of a […]

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Telecommuting No More at Comverse (and Yahoo)

March 21, 2013

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was in the news last month after she announced that the company she heads will no longer support telecommuting. Starting June 1, employees who work from home, all or part of the time, will be asked to report to the office. If they don’t, too bad. The company is even discouraging […]

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“Nice Jewish boy” Launches Playboy in Israel

March 8, 2013

When I was growing up, my father always kept a stack of Playboy magazines in the living room, next to the stereo. They were there for anyone to read, and despite the public potential for teenage titillation, I’m sure that my father really did intend that we read them. But just in case there were other reasons they were […]

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Glass Half Full – Better Place Transforms Station Error into Customer Service Case Study

February 20, 2013

Hey Better Place electric car aficionados: ever wonder what would happen if you pulled into one of the company’s fully automated battery swap stations and it didn’t work? Well, I’m here to tell the tale. It’s a classic glass half empty/half full situation. Half empty: the station broke down and we weren’t able to get […]

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