Every Friday, Jspace News partners with the America Israel Cultural Foundation to bring you an interview with one of the many Israeli artists they support throughout the world. The painter Matan Ben-Tolila was born in 1978 in Kvutzat Yavne, Israel and currently lives and works in Jerusalem. In 2006 he received his BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem with The Mitchell Presser Prize for excellency in painting. In 2010 he graduated with an MFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Tel …More

Elana Widmann, NoCamels - Israeli Innovation News Working parents often feel like they do not spend enough quality time with their kids. In the United States, the overall participation rate in the labor force of mothers with children under the age 18 is 70.6 percent, and for fathers, 93.5 percent, according to American Bureau of Labor Statistics. Israeli startup TinyTap launched a new iPad app aimed at strengthening the bond between parents and children. The TinyTap platform allows parents to create …More

Every Friday, Jspace News partners with the America Israel Cultural Foundation to bring you an interview with one of the many Israeli artists they support throughout the world. Efrat Kedem was born 1980 in Jerusalem, Israel, and currently resides in Princeton, NJ. She received her B.Ed.F.A. in 2005 from the Midrasha School of Art, and her MFA with honors from Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in 2008. Her art shows her curiosity about the traces left by the time-flow of everyday life and conversions and …More

AbbaNibi Team, AbbaNibi.com - Israel/Jewish Entertainment and Culture Newswire New cellphone technology has changed the idea of photography on many levels. Similarly, photo-editing packages have enabled photographers to manipulate their work in unexpected ways. The Photography department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design has embraced all the concepts and teaches through the innovations. Aner Gelem has never been to America, but she feels as if she has because of all the similarities and the close …More

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. Rina Elchai’s first love was Aryeh “Leon” Sevilla. The two met in the early 1950s at the Youth Aliyah village of Kiryat Yearim, then dated as students attending the Ben-Shemen agricultural boarding school in central Israel. The couple took walks on the school grounds. Aryeh sometimes rode his bicycle to visit Rina, whose maiden name was Arazi, at her parents’ home in Tel Aviv. He would summarize the …More

NoCamels Team, NoCamels - Israeli Innovation News Every year the design academy Bezalel in Israel opens an exhibit of final projects created by the academy’s recent graduates. This year, a number of designs exemplified innovative solutions for community problems. Amber Edri, Via Via is a system designed to guide the blind and visually impaired through public spaces, without being gaudy or too noticeable. The system consists of an iPhone GPS application that communicates with jewelry worn by the user. By …More

The Bezalel Academy, Israel’s historic fine arts school, will now offer a degree track specifically designed for ultra Orthodox students. Attendees at the Oman Center in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Romema will be able to take a preparatory year starting this autumn, and join a graduate program beginning in 2013, all under the auspices of the Bezalel Academy. At the finish, the students will hold a Bezalel degree without ever setting foot on the campus. The degrees can focus on either fine arts or …More

Every Friday, Jspace News partners with the America Israel Cultural Foundation to bring you an interview with one of the many Israeli artists they support throughout the world. Some artists need supplies to help them create their next masterpiece, but multidisciplinary artist and designer, Yael Alkalay, just needs space. Over the last few years, Yael has received a number of awards, national and international, for her work in art and design. She also volunteers at a number of spots like the Museum at Eldridge …More

Boris Schatz should have been a Yeshiva student. His father was a teacher in a cheder in Lithuania and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. But Schatz had a talent for art and an affinity for Zionism, so he left the world of academia for that of economically driven creativity in what was then Palestine. In 1904, Schatz pitched Theodor Herzl his grand idea: to create an academy of arts and crafts in Palestine that would brand a new Jewish national identity while providing locals with an independent economic …More

Alexandra Mann, NoCamels - Israeli Innovation News Tagging people in your photos is a great way to make pictures social and an elegant way to show off the cool things you do. But while tagging five friends in a photo from last night’s pub outing is easy, a graduation picture, on the hand, is a project that requires mutliple “taggers.” So what about a music concert or a sports event, with tens of thousands of people? How can they all be captured in the same image and then be spotted individually …More

A Bezalel Academy art gallery presents Hassidic art. [Ynet] IDF rabbinate launches a competition to encourage enforcement of Jewish dietary law on Navy vessels. [The Times of Israel] Only six out of 31 city councilors approve a new contract for the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem. [The Jerusalem Post] British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sends a special “mazel tov” prayer to Queen Elizabeth. [Arutz Sheva 7] Jewish star Rita Jahanforuz remakes Persian oldies in Tel Aviv. …More

The official poster in honor of Yom HaShoah depicts an old man walking down a cobbled street flanked by the shadow of his family, who perished in the Holocaust. Designed by Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design graduate Dorielle Rimmer Halperin, the poster will be distributed by Yad Vashem and the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. Rimmer told Bezalel that her grandparents, who are Holocaust survivors, inspired the poster design. “This was an exciting challenge for me,” said Rimmer. …More