RISHON LEZIONForeign Relations Update

September 2009

Dear Friends of Rishon LeZion around the world

I am pleased to present to you an additional municipal electronic newsletter, bringing to your attention my plans for the next five years. I intend to:Focus on reinforcing and improving the educational system.Bring to the city high-tech industries and other investments and thus create new job opportunities for the local inhabitants.Improve the environment.Encourage tourism.  I call upon you to learn and update yourself about those said developments of our daily life and invite you heartedly to honor us with your remarks, suggestions and most important visit us.

Dov ZurMayor

It is a rewarding and challenging experience to introduce Rishon LeZion to the world, and the World to Rishon LeZion.

Our city is blessed with many visitors. Including ambassadors and groups of abroad: business, cultural, touristic, students exchanges and more.

I hope you will enjoy our update on Rishon LeZion domestic, foreign and business.

Please join us in our work. E-mail us back of your interest, input and ideas. Please feel free to subscribe anyone you know who is a relative abroad, a potential investor, partner, tourist or...Oleh.

With Best Regards,

Itzhak Oren Director of Rishon LeZion Foundation

&Foreign Relations

A hightech park in  Rishon Le Zion

 

 

 

The planning department of Rishon Le Zion's municipality has recently issued a request to city planners to come up with design proposals for a high tech park to be built in a compound located in the western areas of the city. The a/m

compound is adjacent to the Superland lake  .

Rishon's municipality owns about 450 dunams in the said compound where it intends to build in the foreseeable years, as earlier mentioned, a high tech park.

The park will be planned using advanced concepts, according to the needs of the

high tech companies and will no doubt, be one of the leading parks in Dan region,due to its size, location and accessibility to road # 431 and the Ayalon  highway.  After the planing which will last two to three years, the land marketing phaseto companies and initiators will  commence.

 

Cinema City .

 

* Zman Eshkol - ZE The educational, leisure time center "Zman Eshkol" (ZE) will start to be active as of Mach 2010 in the Cinema City of Rishon Le Zion . Such centers operate in the past four yearsin cooperation with the external studies center of the Ben Gurion University.The concept whereby the ZE already operates successfully in the Cinema City of Ramat Hasharon and Ranana, combines studies of the highest level, using top leading lectures with a unique pleasant learning environment atmosphere in indulging, comfortable halls equipped withimproved sound systems and modern huge screens which turn each meetingand lecture to a real learning experience.

* Univercity , a unique training center for managers of the Cinema City Group Univercity is a center which integrates the best local lecturers with a unique training system combined with Hollywood movies. The Cinema City compound bestows the trainees an unusual dynamic environment with advanced technology so as to enhance the learning experience. The center which is run by senior local organizational psychologists together with leading consultants will be happy to give you advice as to how to build a training program, most suitable for your organization

Rishon Le Zion's Municipal’s Hot Line

 The mayor answered personally to callers to the municipal information center.

Local citizens, who phoned to the Municipal Information Center, were surprised to be responded by the mayor himself. The inhabitants presented their appeals to mayor Zur who handled their issues just like a regular, skilled, professional operator. City Hall says that: "This is part of the mayor's initiative to improve and strengthen the links between the municipality and the local inhabitants". Zur did not suffice with handling the appeals and asked the callers for their opinions regarding various pending municipal issues. The timing of Zur's presence in the center was not casual; Sunday's morning hours are known to be the most overloaded ones with calls from the public, compared to the other days of the week.  According to City Hall it is not supposed to be a one time event. The mayor intents to show up often, however randomly in the Information Center in order to sense the public feelings from first hand so as to be able to inspect the ways the appeals are being handled.

ISRAMUN

Role playing – UN Model - simulation of the UN operation.Approximately 100 students from Israel and abroad simulated for about a week the activity of the UN's various institutions within the frame work of special UN Model conference which took place in Rishon Le Zion's College of Management. The students 'played' the roles of UN diplomats. The conference simulates the activity of five of the UN institutions: the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the Human rights Committee, the Women Rights Committee and the General Assembly. About half of the participants came from abroad, from the: USA, Germany, Holland, Greece, France, UK, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Pakistan, Estonia, Croatia, Nepal and Turkey. In the 'Women Right Committee', for instance, discussed the influence of nuclear radiation on the fertility (of women); 'the Security Counsil' discussed a sudden nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan and so on.The conference was sponsored by the: College ofManagement, Government Ministries, Cultural Establishments, the US Embassy and the Municipality of Rishon.In the opening ceremony speeches were made by Mayor Dov Tzur, Mr. Richard Myron the UN general Secretary's local spokesman and Mr. Louis Moreno the Vice US ambassador.

Sister Cities Park in Rishon LeZion

The Sister Cities Park in Rishon LeZion is an exceptional park. The first of its kind in Israel that brings the world to Rishon LeZion and serves as a tribute to our Sister Cities beauty , culture and heritage. The participating cities are: Lublin, Heerenveen, Munster, Debrecen, Tianjin, Brasov and Lublin. The concept used to plan the park demonstrates the connection between the city of Rishon Lezion and her Sister Cities. The Architects used a map of Rishon Lezion's center as a background for the park. Inside the map we assigned pieces of land for ourSister Cities. The mission of these area is to express the close ties between the cities. Every plot of land is a small “City” and the elements in the plot are supposed to represent the City. The whole idea is for the physical expression to be like it is in real life so that visitors from each city when visiting the park, will immediately recognize their own cities.

Open Doors Monument

 Seventy years ago, during those dark days when Jews were fleeing from Europe and most countries refused their admission, the Republic of the Philippines opened its doors and offered them safe haven. Three doors of increasing heights open inward to form a triangle, a common feature in both Philippines and Israeli flags. In front of each door are imprinted footprints of three persons:

George Loewenstein who was among the thousands of Jews who sought refuge in the Philippines in 1939; Max Weissler who arrived in Manila in 1941 at

the age of 11 years as a refugee from Germany,

grew up in the Philippines, and is presently residing in Hod Hasharon, Israel;

And Doryliz Goffer, a Philipino-Israeli child born in the Philippines, granddaughter of Holocaust

survivors, representing the continuing friendship

between the Philippines and Israel.  

The Mayor visited municipal summer camps

 

Rishon Le Zion's mayor Mr. Dov Zur visited the summer camps which

are operated by the local Municipal Company.

Mr. Zur talked to the children and participated in the

various activities taking place there including a chess game with a kid who has beaten the Mayor.  

The Municipal Company activated this summer about 130 better equipped camps placed in various locations in city area, such as schools, community centers, stadiums, sport halls and swimming pools, with the participation of about 8,900 children in two rounds. Each camp had a leading subject such as, environmental sciences, performance arts, poetry, dance and theatre, fighting arts, chess, languages and sports.

 

 

Renovate Your Home

The city's council has recently confirmed a municipal by-law promoted by mayor Tzur, regarding the issue of preserving and renovating the facades of buildings and houses throughout the city. The Ministry of the Interior has approved last week the said y by-law. The law will now be proceeding to the Ministry of Justice so as to be published in the official bulletin of the government.  

According to the by-law the municipality will now be able compel the inhabitants to renovate the facades of their homes in order to keep an adequate appearance of the house, preventing its wear and negligence. In order to achieve that, the inhabitants are required to do the reparation works as a result of their own initiative or due to an official demand to be handed over to them by the municipality. It is a revolutionary, dramatic resolution intended to improve the countenance of the buildings in the city. The municipality has created a funds' support system which will offer the inhabitants loans to finance the overhaul works at unprecedented sizes and low interest rates.

Additional to the overall improvement of the external appearance of the houses, the value of the

inhabitants' real estate will increase substantially, meaning

that the whole concept will also be financially most rewarding.

 

* If you have any comments, suggestions and feedback, write to

ItzhakO@rishonlezion.muni.il

* For more details on the Rishon LeZion Foundation and student scholarships, write to:

Ingridy@rishonlezion.muni.il

* Editor: Uri Wagner

We wish our friends all over the world, a Happy 5770 New Year

Rishon LeZion Foundation & Foreign Relations20 Hacarmel Str., Rishon LeZion 75264

Tel: 03-9547201 03-9547255 Fax: 03-9547090