Every New Yearâ€s, I like to roll out some predictions of what I think might happen in the 12 months to come. For 2014, though, I want to take a look back, at a set of predictions made on the occasion of the 1964 New York Worldâ€s Fair, by the science fiction master Isaac Asimov. In a New York Times article penned some 50 years ago, Asimov got a few things right on, a bunch more completely wrong, and touched on Israeli innovation several times, albeit very obliquely.

That Israel figured into Asimovâ€s thinking at all is not surprising. A staunch Jewish atheist, Asimovâ€s breakout “Foundation” series has provided Jewish pundits 70 years of fodder on the question of whether Asimov had the Jewish people or Israel in mind as he wrote. Foundation tells the story of a group of super intelligent “Encyclopedists.” who have been sequestered on a planet at the far end of the galaxy to guard the last remnants of human knowledge during a coming dark age. Surrounded by hostile peoples on nearby planets, and with no defenses but their own smarts, these futuristic “people of the book” develop ever more advanced technologies, open clandestine trade routes, and eventually subdue and subsume their enemies.

Before Foundation, Asimov wrote “Pebble in the Sky,” featuring as its protagonist a retired tailor named Joseph Schwartz whose home planet, 11,000 years from now, is populated by what Asimov calls “an obstinate and stiff-necked race” who are despised by the 500 quadrillion people living on some 200 million inhabited planets in the Galactic Empire.

Asimovâ€s 1964 predictions for 2014 donâ€t share the same implied Jewish subtext or space-age grandeur; indeed, other than a profound apprehension over overpopulation (which he says will be such a hot topic in the coming year that there will be “a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control”), his crystal ball gazing is decidedly much more down to earth. Here are a few of my favorite nuggets.

In keeping with the zeitgeist of the 1960s and perhaps even the animated TV show “The Jetsons,” Asimov saw the cities of 2014 filled with moving sidewalks (“with benches on either side and standing room in the center”); flying cars (although, unlike in the Jetsons, only a foot or two off the ground raised up by jets of compressed air – can you say Elon Musk and Hyperloop?); cars that drive themselves (hello Google Car); and automated kitchens that prepare most of your food for you.

“Breakfasts will be ‘ordered†the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning. Complete lunches and dinners, with the food semi-prepared, will be stored in the freezer until ready for processing,” Asimov wrote, although he admitted, “it will still be advisable to have a small corner in the kitchen unit where the more individual meals can be prepared by hand, especially when company is coming.” (Nothing about an automated hot plate for Shabbat.)

Will we have something equivalent to the Jetsons†cybernetic maid, Rosie the Robot by 2014? “Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence…capable of general picking up, arranging [and] cleaning.” More like a Roomba than a Danger, Will Robinson.

On the other hand, Asimov was right on when he predicted that children of the future will be taught “the fundamentals of computer technology” and computer programming languages (even if the Fortran he foresaw has long since passed out of vogue). He also anticipated distance and online learning, although for him it was “closed circuit TV and programmed tapes.” He correctly imagined two-way video communication (ala Skype or Israelâ€s ooVoo), And he envisioned television “wall screens” replacing “the ordinary set” – certainly true – although the 3D “cubes” he predicted for home viewing havenâ€t quite arrived yet.

As he tried to plan for an overpopulated 2014, Asimov missed the mark a bit with his prediction that homes would mostly be built underground so that the surface of the Earth could be devoted to agriculture and parks. He went so far as to suggest that, at his imagined 2014 Worldâ€s Fair, there would be a model of a 5-star underwater hotel and exhibits showing cities constructed in the deep sea.

His Israel-related predictions came in three places. He specifically forecast “large solar power stations” in Israelâ€s Negev desert (as well as in Arizona and Kazakhstan). Thanks to Israeli entrepreneurs like Yosef Abramowitz and his Arava Power and Energiya Global concerns, that is happening, albeit probably not on as large a scale as Asimov would have liked.

Asimov was a big believer in algae with his 2014 featuring algae-fied foods like “mock turkey and pseudo-steak.” While suspicious schnitzel and other mystery meats are still aplenty at Israeli youth hostel and field school dining rooms (and a few wedding halls too), theyâ€re not yet made of algae (tofu maybe). Michael Kagan, VP of Product Development at the Israeli biotech firm Qualitas Health, is leading the blue and white advance on Asimovâ€s algae dreams, although Kagan says that the more immediate…and lucrative use of algae is creating Omega-3 oils from the stuff. “Theyâ€re vegetarian, sustainable, contain no mercury or PCBs like fish oils [the usual source for Omega-3] and contain more EPA – the fatty acid that adults need – than fish,” Kagan explains.

Rounding out Asimovâ€s Israeli innovation prediction trilogy, the sci fi master also imagined weâ€d have windows where “the degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.” That sounds a bit like Israeli tech innovators Gauzy. (I wrote about the company here.)

Asimov had one more prediction that may give creepy comfort to parents of the next generation of Jewish doctors. He forecast that as technology spread, people would lead increasingly sedentary lives, moving us in the direction of becoming “a race of machine tenders.” Whether he was thinking of factory automation or thumb swiping video games on an iPad, the result would be the same: “mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom…[which] will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences and, I dare say, that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty of 2014.”

This piece was published first on The Jerusalem Post.

Whether their taste was Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or just good old aliens, there was something for every Sci Fi fan at the tenth annual ICON Festival held recently in Israel.

Bringing together more than 5,000 young enthusiasts to the Tel Aviv Cinemateque, the festival was a four-day celebration for fans of science fiction, fantasy and role-playing.

15-year-old Gabe Trachtenberg spent the entire four days at the show – his fourth ICON convention.
“People in Israel are very open, you can just start talking to them,” he said.

Trachtenberg is an active member of the Star Trek-centric StarBase 972. Earlier this year, he organized a lecture on the evolution of Star Trek’s Klingons.

Having found a common world, the teenagers and twenty-somethings at the ICON show seemed to be having a grand time. While many were clad in some combination of goth black clothing or furry bunny ears (the latter to signify that the wearer feels some kinship with animated animal characters known in fan circles as “furries”), the overall atmosphere was free of posturing.

The ICON kids were clearly more interested in catching up with old friends than in pushing either a frightening or snooty agenda. If there was any kind of chic at all, it was geek, and attendees spanned both secular and religious – a true Israeli cultural melting pot.

Filled with tens of lectures and more than 50 film screenings taking place nearly around the clock and into the wee hours of the night, the festival featured screenings from a variety of countries including the US, France, Russia, Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Hungary and Switzerland – and Israel,

Home-grown Israeli productions included the fan film What’s the Deal with Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Director’s Cut while international imports featured a campy Canadian-made vampire flick with a religious spin entitled Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter; the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-inspired documentary Life, the Universe and Douglas Adams; Night of the Living Dorks and Incident at Loch Ness; plus mandatory showings of Star Trek The Motion Picture and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There were also plenty of episodes of current and classic sci fi TV shows, from Babylon 5 to Stargate SG-1.

Lectures at ICON covered such diverse subjects such as “Why do Aliens Always Speak English in Science Fiction?” “Space Stations – Dream or Reality?” and “The Capitalist Nightmare of Harry Potter.” There were stations set up for role playing games (such as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic The Gathering), archery lessons, a mobile planetarium, and a 3D maze in which to lose some time.

Israel’s ICON Festival is organized by four different organizations.

The Israeli Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, a general group with 400 active members focuses on “anything mysterious,” from dragons to the Bermuda Triangle.

StarBase 972, with 300 members, is Israel’s official organization dedicated to all things Star Trek; it focused mostly on the film festival part of the ICON program. The group alternates monthly meetings between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to chat and watch episodes of their favorite programs.

The Israeli Role Player Association organized ICON’s table games and has 500 members.

The Sunnydale Embassy in Israel – the Holy Land’s home for Buffy fans.

Scattered all around the Cinematheque were tens of booths selling everything a Sci Fi and fantasy fan needs to further his or her obsession: books and videos, 11-sided dice, t-shirts, toys (a whole table was devoted to perennial 80s favorite The Transformers) and mountains of miniatures – miniature dragons, miniature wizards – used in late night role playing adventures.

Yehuda Porath was doing a brisk business at his sprawling booth where had brought some 2,000 items to sell out of a collection of 2,600 paperbacks and 3,500 comic books he has on the shelves of his small
Jerusalem apartment. The pudgy-faced student, who says he has a “regular normal job,” claims it’s “all just for fun”… for now, at least.

Despite all the action at this year’s ICON, Israel’s science fiction and fantasy scene is small by international standards says
24-year-old Tomer Shalev, head of StarBase 972.

“There is no dedicated science fiction channel on television like in the United States and you can’t even find Star Trek to rent in most video stores,” Shalev laments.

Star Trek’s Voyager program aired only late at night in Israel, he pointed out and the last in the Star Trek Franchise, Enterprise, was abruptly cut off after the second season due to poor ratings. Neither the original Star Trek nor The Next Generation series ever aired in Israel at all.

That’s mainly because, as a small country, Israel’s publishing houses haven’t translated all that many science fiction and fantasy books into Hebrew, thus hindering more mass interest in the genre as a whole. “Every book that comes out in the US can be read by all the fans immediately,” Shalev says. “Here you have to find someone who thinks it’s economically feasible.” An average of only 40 science fiction titles are translated into Hebrew per year.

While there are a handful of writers creating science fiction and fantasy in Hebrew, it’s clearly not on the scale of the North American market. Up until the last decade, most science fiction fans were, in fact, reading in the original English, says Inbal Saggiv, a Sci Fi fan who wrote a graduate thesis on the genre while a student at Tel Aviv University. She points out that just 20 percent of the material in the now defunct Fantasia 2000 magazine, which published until the mid-1980s, was from local writers and that only two major publishing houses – Masada and Am-Oved – deal with science fiction in Israel.

Saggiv attributes the initial lack of interest in the genre in Israel to the “hardships and inherent dangers of life in Israel,” including ongoing terror, war and economic depression. Science fiction, she says, requires “a detachment from everyday life” that’s hard to come by in Israel.

In addition, Israel, until recently, didn’t have the same “boldly go where no man has gone before” culture embodied in the science fiction ethos. The country is small; borders with its neighbors are mostly closed, although that has changed in recent years with many young Israelis making regular post-army trips to India and South America.

The army’s influence on Israeli society is also part of the reason Sci Fi remains limited, Shalev says. “The people who come to the ICON show can be split into three groups: high school and junior high school students, soldiers on vacation, and university students in their twenties. Our fan base doesn’t go much beyond the age of 25,” just about the point most Israelis are done with their army service and ready to settle down into work or school.

In the US, fans who grew up on the original Star Trek in the mid-1960s can range into their 50s and 60s today. “Here, after age 30, it becomes weird to hang around these people and hear these lectures,” Shalev explains. “Maybe the army makes people grow up faster.”

Do fans of Israeli Sci Fi and fantasy dream of a bigger following some day?

“Not really,” Shalev says. “In the US, some people really live it. They go to conventions all the time. For us, though, it’s really just a hobby.”

So, for most Israeli Sci Fi enthusiasts, the furry bunny ears will go back to the closet – at least until “Olamot,” the next Sci Fi and fantasy gathering due to take place during Pesach vacation in April.

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This article was first published on Israel21c.com.