[{"content":"ASA Izakaya is a modern Japanese izakaya on Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am Street in central Tel Aviv, built around a traditional Irori charcoal grill that fills the space with smoke and energy. The menu features sushi, gyoza, ramen, udon, tempura, and charcoal-grilled seafood, alongside an extensive sake selection, beer, and cocktails.\nThe restaurant draws on authentic izakaya culture, designed for sharing plates and staying late. Standout dishes include the ramen, gyozas, and beef yukke. Knowledgeable staff guide diners through the sake list, and the atmosphere is loud and lively, with a DJ adding to the vibe on busy nights.\nASA is part of a hospitality group that also operates HIGHBALL by ASA Izakaya, a Japanese-Tel Avivian vinyl bar upstairs, as well as Chacoli (a Spanish fish restaurant) and HELENA Wine Bar.\nAddress: Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am 54, Tel Aviv\n","date":"1 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/asa-izakaya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"ASA Izakaya is a modern Japanese izakaya on Ahad Ha’Am Street in central Tel Aviv, built around a traditional Irori charcoal grill that fills the space with smoke and energy. The menu features sushi, gyoza, ramen, udon, tempura, and charcoal-grilled seafood, alongside an extensive sake selection, beer, and cocktails.\n","title":"ASA Izakaya","type":"directory"},{"content":"The HUJI Japan Club is a student cultural organization at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Department of Asian Studies. The club promotes Japanese culture and strengthens Japan-Israel ties through a variety of activities including traditional tea ceremonies (Chado), cultural lectures, and academic events.\nNow in its fifth year running the \u0026ldquo;Green Tea for Peace\u0026rdquo; project, the club hosts authentic Japanese tea ceremonies at the Mt. Scopus campus library, often attended by the Deputy Ambassador of Japan. The club also participates in anime and manga conventions like Harucon and Planet Anime, and co-organizes the annual Asia Day alongside sister clubs for China, Korea, India, and Indonesia.\nThe club is part of the Department of Asian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities, one of the oldest and largest Asian studies programs in Israel, home to close to 300 students specializing in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and India \u0026amp; Indonesia Studies.\nAddress: Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus Campus, Jerusalem\n","date":"1 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/huji-japan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The HUJI Japan Club is a student cultural organization at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Department of Asian Studies. The club promotes Japanese culture and strengthens Japan-Israel ties through a variety of activities including traditional tea ceremonies (Chado), cultural lectures, and academic events.\n","title":"HUJI Japan Club","type":"directory"},{"content":"SUKka Sushi is a new premium sushi chain launching across central Israel with three locations in Ramat Gan, Bat Yam, and Netanya. The brand promises a new standard of taste in sushi, featuring unique rolls, meticulous presentation, and premium-quality ingredients.\nThe chain offers delivery across a wide range, covering everywhere from Rishon LeZion to Hadera. Orders can be placed through their online ordering platform.\nLocations:\nSderot Ben Gurion 108, Ramat Gan Derech Ben Gurion 131, Bat Yam HaNotea 1, Netanya ","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sukka-sushi/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"SUKka Sushi is a new premium sushi chain launching across central Israel with three locations in Ramat Gan, Bat Yam, and Netanya. The brand promises a new standard of taste in sushi, featuring unique rolls, meticulous presentation, and premium-quality ingredients.\n","title":"SUKka Sushi","type":"directory"},{"content":"Cafe Bollywood is an authentic Mumbai street food restaurant in Florentin, Tel Aviv, run by Puja and Maskin Moses — a couple who immigrated to Israel from Mumbai over a decade ago. Maskin grew up in a family of acclaimed dancers and performed in Bollywood films as a teenager, which inspired the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s name.\nThe entirely vegetarian menu draws from Mumbai\u0026rsquo;s street food culture, with dishes priced between ₪18–55. Highlights include pani puri, sev puri, masala dosa, pav bhaji, chole bhature, and vada pao alongside mains like paneer butter masala, malai kofta, and dal makhni. All paneer is handmade in-house. Desserts include motichur and kulfi, and drinks feature masala chai, rose lassi, and spiced milk. The menu incorporates Ayurvedic principles.\nThe colorful space is decorated with items brought from India, including hand-hammered bowls and traditional chai cups designed for shared drinking. A rare find in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Indian dining scene — affordable, vegetarian, and rooted in genuine Mumbai street food tradition.\nAddress: 5a Maon Street, Florentin, Tel Aviv\n","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cafe-bollywood-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Cafe Bollywood is an authentic Mumbai street food restaurant in Florentin, Tel Aviv, run by Puja and Maskin Moses — a couple who immigrated to Israel from Mumbai over a decade ago. Maskin grew up in a family of acclaimed dancers and performed in Bollywood films as a teenager, which inspired the restaurant’s name.\n","title":"Cafe Bollywood","type":"directory"},{"content":"Chef Ash is a Korean cooking workshop service based in Tel Aviv, offering hands-on experiences for groups of friends, families, and private events. Workshops cover a range of Korean techniques including gyoza folding methods, making ramen from scratch, Korean corn dogs (Gamja Hotdog), Thai-style sriracha, and coconut curry.\nWith over 2,900 followers on Instagram and consistent high engagement, Chef Ash has built a reputation for approachable, authentic Korean cuisine instruction. His content showcases dishes like shoyu ramen, Kong-guk-su (Korean cold soy milk noodle soup), and various Korean street food staples — all recreated in an Israeli home kitchen context.\nWorkshops and open meals can be booked by messaging directly. He operates from his kitchen in Tel Aviv and also travels to client locations for private events and corporate team-building.\nContact: WhatsApp or via Instagram @chefff_ash\n","date":"28 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chef-ash-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Chef Ash is a Korean cooking workshop service based in Tel Aviv, offering hands-on experiences for groups of friends, families, and private events. Workshops cover a range of Korean techniques including gyoza folding methods, making ramen from scratch, Korean corn dogs (Gamja Hotdog), Thai-style sriracha, and coconut curry.\n","title":"Chef Ash","type":"directory"},{"content":"Torah in Chinese (中文妥拉社群) is a global community of Chinese converts and Chinese-speaking Jews who are pioneering the study and practice of Torah in Chinese. The organization makes timeless Torah insights accessible, understandable, and relevant to a vast new audience through books, media, classes, and an online community forum.\nThe community offers one-on-one learning with expert teachers including Susan Wang, Chaya Kong, and Tziporah Ya Li Wu. Resources are available in both English and Chinese, with a WhatsApp group for community connection. The project is dedicated by Jin \u0026amp; Shoshana Meng.\nTorah in Chinese represents a unique bridge between Jewish tradition and Chinese culture, serving Chinese-speaking Jews worldwide — including those living in Israel.\nWebsite: torahinchinese.org WhatsApp Community: Join here\n","date":"28 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/torah-in-chinese/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Torah in Chinese (中文妥拉社群) is a global community of Chinese converts and Chinese-speaking Jews who are pioneering the study and practice of Torah in Chinese. The organization makes timeless Torah insights accessible, understandable, and relevant to a vast new audience through books, media, classes, and an online community forum.\n","title":"Torah in Chinese","type":"directory"},{"content":"UMA Thai Bar brings a modern Thai nightlife experience to the heart of Tel Aviv. Located on Bograshov Street, this kosher bar and restaurant combines authentic Thai cuisine with expertly crafted cocktails in a vibrant, Bangkok-inspired atmosphere.\nThe menu spans classic Thai dishes — som tam, pad thai, pad see ew, green curry, satay skewers, and gyoza — alongside creative cocktails like passionfruit caipirinha. Prices are wallet-friendly, with mains ranging from 42 to 66 NIS. For a limited time, they also serve a signature som tam burger: an entrecôte patty with tom yam aioli and crispy shallots.\nUMA is fully kosher and opens after Shabbat on Saturdays. The venue has a protected space (safe room) on-site. Reservations can be made through Ontopo or by calling directly.\nAddress: 18 Bograshov St, Tel Aviv\n","date":"27 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/uma-thai-bar/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"UMA Thai Bar brings a modern Thai nightlife experience to the heart of Tel Aviv. Located on Bograshov Street, this kosher bar and restaurant combines authentic Thai cuisine with expertly crafted cocktails in a vibrant, Bangkok-inspired atmosphere.\n","title":"UMA Thai Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"Orshina Culture Space TLV is an avant-garde Japanese cultural boutique venue in the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s business district. Founded and managed by Iris Samra, a Butoh dancer and modern Japanese theater artist rooted in Zen Buddhism, the space offers immersive cultural experiences that blend Japanese aesthetics with contemporary art.\nVisitors can participate in \u0026ldquo;Japanese Meetings\u0026rdquo; — boutique events where guests wear kimonos and experience Zen meditation, traditional Japanese tea ceremonies, and multi-course Japanese meals accompanied by sake. The space also hosts Nordic-themed experiences, corporate events, workshops, lectures, and cultural gatherings in an intimate, artistically curated setting.\nOrshina brings a unique slice of Japanese culture to Israel, creating meaningful sensory experiences that explore Japanese values, Zen philosophy, and how they intersect with daily life.\nAddress: Ha-Shfela St 4, Tel Aviv-Yafo\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/orshina-culture-space-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Orshina Culture Space TLV is an avant-garde Japanese cultural boutique venue in the heart of Tel Aviv’s business district. Founded and managed by Iris Samra, a Butoh dancer and modern Japanese theater artist rooted in Zen Buddhism, the space offers immersive cultural experiences that blend Japanese aesthetics with contemporary art.\n","title":"Orshina Culture Space TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"Hebrew Tour Guide Japan offers affordable Hebrew-language guided tours in Japan, focusing on Tokyo and Kyoto. Founded by Suzy Cohen-Okubo, an Israeli who has lived in Japan for years, the company provides daily group tours led by Israeli guides with deep knowledge of Japanese culture, history, and hidden gems.\nThe service includes budget-friendly group tours for individuals, couples, and families, as well as private boutique tours for those seeking a more personalized experience. The website also serves as a comprehensive travel resource for Israelis planning trips to Japan, with guides on accommodation, transportation, food, and practical tips.\nSuzy is also the author of A Stranger in Japan (זרה ביפן), a book offering readers a rare glimpse into the depths of Japanese culture through the eyes of an Israeli living there.\nWebsite: hebrewtourguidejapan.com\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hebrew-tour-guide-japan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Hebrew Tour Guide Japan offers affordable Hebrew-language guided tours in Japan, focusing on Tokyo and Kyoto. Founded by Suzy Cohen-Okubo, an Israeli who has lived in Japan for years, the company provides daily group tours led by Israeli guides with deep knowledge of Japanese culture, history, and hidden gems.\n","title":"Hebrew Tour Guide Japan","type":"directory"},{"content":"Begopa (בגופה — Korean for \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m hungry\u0026rdquo;) is the private-dining project of South-Korean-born chef Tajin Kim-Doron (טג\u0026rsquo;ין קים-דורון), who hosts small, authentic Korean meals at her home in Kfar Saba. Each sitting is an intimate supper-club format: reservations are made via Ontopo, and the exact address is shared once the booking is confirmed.\nKim-Doron reached a wider Israeli audience through her run on MasterChef Israel season 8 and a Shabbat-magazine feature on i24, and she now shares Korean recipes, cultural context, and cooking content with a community of 58k Instagram followers. The home dining itself leans into classic Korean home cooking and fusion tasting menus — a rare chance in Israel to eat Korean food the way a Korean home serves it.\nReservations: ontopo.co.il/30424496 · WhatsApp 050-236-6986 · Instagram @begopa_korean_chef\n","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/begopa-kfar-saba/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Begopa (בגופה — Korean for “I’m hungry”) is the private-dining project of South-Korean-born chef Tajin Kim-Doron (טג’ין קים-דורון), who hosts small, authentic Korean meals at her home in Kfar Saba. Each sitting is an intimate supper-club format: reservations are made via Ontopo, and the exact address is shared once the booking is confirmed.\n","title":"Begopa — Korean Private Dining","type":"directory"},{"content":"Unisources (יוניסורס) is a Rishon LeZion-based recruitment and placement agency specialising in foreign workers for Israel\u0026rsquo;s construction and industry sectors. Their one-stop-shop model covers the full employment lifecycle: obtaining permits, recruiting workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Moldova and other source countries, arranging housing and transport, and providing ongoing administrative support until the worker leaves the country.\nFor employers, that means a single partner handling the bureaucracy, sourcing, onboarding and welfare of workers — with direct relationships to leading recruitment agencies in Thailand and other international partners. For many of the Asian workers who arrive in Israel each year, agencies like Unisources are the practical pipeline through which placements, housing, and legal status flow.\nContact: WhatsApp 055-711-7840 · unisources.co.il · Instagram @unisources_il\n","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/unisources/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Unisources (יוניסורס) is a Rishon LeZion-based recruitment and placement agency specialising in foreign workers for Israel’s construction and industry sectors. Their one-stop-shop model covers the full employment lifecycle: obtaining permits, recruiting workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Moldova and other source countries, arranging housing and transport, and providing ongoing administrative support until the worker leaves the country.\n","title":"Unisources","type":"directory"},{"content":"Batyush offers boutique cooking workshops focused on Japanese and Asian cuisine, run by Batya — a molecular biologist who brings scientific precision to culinary art. Her workshops combine hands-on instruction with an understanding of the chemistry behind the food.\nThe Asian workshop menu includes sushi for beginners and advanced (maki, inside-out, nigiri, cone, and sandwich sushi), ramen with all its components and nuances, and gyoza plus steamed buns with various fillings. Ramen workshop participants also receive access to a digital workshop guide afterward. Sushi workshops are priced at 450 NIS and ramen workshops at 450 NIS per person.\nWorkshops are available as private sessions for individuals, couples, families, and corporate groups. She also offers Italian-focused workshops (pasta, ravioli, gnocchi) and meat workshops. Bookings can be made through her website.\nWebsite: batyush.co.il\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/batyush-workshops/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Batyush offers boutique cooking workshops focused on Japanese and Asian cuisine, run by Batya — a molecular biologist who brings scientific precision to culinary art. Her workshops combine hands-on instruction with an understanding of the chemistry behind the food.\n","title":"Batyush","type":"directory"},{"content":"The Japanese House of Ella is a home-based cooking workshop in Ashdod run by Ella Barlev, a math teacher who turned her passion for Japanese food into a second career as a chef. Her workshops cover ramen, sushi, and dumplings (gyoza and buns), and she is known in Israeli food communities for her detailed, patient teaching style.\nBarlev\u0026rsquo;s ramen workshops teach participants to make everything from scratch — from the broth and noodles to the toppings and presentation. Her sushi workshops cover beginner through advanced techniques. The dumpling workshops include chicken and vegan fillings with steamed buns featuring braised brisket.\nShe has been repeatedly recommended in Facebook food groups as one of the best Asian cooking workshop options in Israel, with followers praising her generous instruction and the depth of knowledge she brings to each session. Workshops are held at her home in Ashdod and can be booked via her Facebook page.\nAddress: Ashdod\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ella-barlev-japanese-house/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The Japanese House of Ella is a home-based cooking workshop in Ashdod run by Ella Barlev, a math teacher who turned her passion for Japanese food into a second career as a chef. Her workshops cover ramen, sushi, and dumplings (gyoza and buns), and she is known in Israeli food communities for her detailed, patient teaching style.\n","title":"Ella Barlev Chef - The Japanese House","type":"directory"},{"content":"Swadika Thai Food is run by Chef Alon Hevel, who has been immersed in Thai cooking for 28 years. What started with a honeymoon trip to Thailand in 1997 turned into a lifelong pursuit — he returned dozens of times to learn directly from restaurant owners across the country, picking up techniques and secrets not found in cookbooks.\nHe offers a wide range of Thai cooking workshops including regular, vegan, gluten-free, and children\u0026rsquo;s/family sessions, as well as private chef meals and culinary tours. All workshops are kosher and can be customized. He is based in Shemshit but also travels to clients\u0026rsquo; homes and offices. Hevel appeared as a judge and taster on the Israeli cooking competition show \u0026ldquo;Mishakey HaShef\u0026rdquo; and has been featured on \u0026ldquo;HaKol Kalul.\u0026rdquo;\nWorkshops are available as private sessions at his location or at your home. He also offers subsidized workshops for couples where one partner served over 30 days in reserve duty, with reimbursement of up to 1,500 NIS from the state.\nAddress: Shemshit (also travels to clients)\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/swadika-thaifood/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Swadika Thai Food is run by Chef Alon Hevel, who has been immersed in Thai cooking for 28 years. What started with a honeymoon trip to Thailand in 1997 turned into a lifelong pursuit — he returned dozens of times to learn directly from restaurant owners across the country, picking up techniques and secrets not found in cookbooks.\n","title":"Swadika Thai Food","type":"directory"},{"content":"Tomoko\u0026rsquo;s Kitchen is run by Tomoko Nakamura, a Japanese woman who made aliyah and now teaches authentic Japanese cooking and fermentation from her home in Moshav Bnei Zion, between Netanya and Kfar Saba. She is one of the few people in Israel offering hands-on workshops in traditional Japanese fermentation techniques.\nHer workshops cover miso-making (seasonal, typically in late winter for year-round use), gyoza, tofu and soy milk, and complete Japanese family meals. She is a specialist in koji — the fermentation culture at the heart of miso, soy sauce, and sake — and sells handmade miso, chili miso oil, and other Japanese ingredients. Her workshops have been featured by TikTok food bloggers and draw participants from across Israel.\nWorkshops are intimate, held in her home kitchen, and combine cooking instruction with cultural context about Japanese food traditions. She teaches in Hebrew, English, and Japanese.\nAddress: Moshav Bnei Zion\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tomokos-kitchen-bnei-zion/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Tomoko’s Kitchen is run by Tomoko Nakamura, a Japanese woman who made aliyah and now teaches authentic Japanese cooking and fermentation from her home in Moshav Bnei Zion, between Netanya and Kfar Saba. She is one of the few people in Israel offering hands-on workshops in traditional Japanese fermentation techniques.\n","title":"Tomoko's Kitchen","type":"directory"},{"content":"ShamSiam is a Thai cooking workshop and private chef business run by Chef Eli Shamsian from his kitchen in Rehovot. Shamsian, who grew up in a Persian-Israeli household, draws a direct line between Persian and Thai communal dining traditions — both built around many dishes shared together at the center of the table.\nHe offers a range of workshops including classic Thai cooking, Thai grill, vegan Thai, Asian dumplings spanning Chinese, Japanese, and Thai traditions, and Thai street soups. Workshops run about four hours for up to 12 participants, with a recipe booklet included. He also provides private chef dinners, corporate events, and occasional pop-ups at venues around Israel.\nShamsian trained alongside Thai street food vendors over many years of travel and worked at leading Thai restaurants in Israel before launching ShamSiam. He is available at his Rehovot kitchen or travels to client locations.\nAddress: Rehovot (home kitchen, also travels to clients)\nRead our full profile\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shamsiam-rehovot/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"ShamSiam is a Thai cooking workshop and private chef business run by Chef Eli Shamsian from his kitchen in Rehovot. Shamsian, who grew up in a Persian-Israeli household, draws a direct line between Persian and Thai communal dining traditions — both built around many dishes shared together at the center of the table.\n","title":"ShamSiam","type":"directory"},{"content":"Azia 19 is a kosher Japanese restaurant nestled on Aza Street in the heart of Rehavia, one of Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s most sought-after neighborhoods. Opened by Bar Yedid, a second-generation Jerusalem restaurateur, the restaurant brings an izakaya-inspired dining experience to a city that has long lacked high-end Asian options.\nThe concise menu balances sushi and sashimi with kushiyaki (Japanese charcoal grill) and Japanese-style burgers. Highlights include creative uramaki rolls, charcoal-grilled salmon in teriyaki glaze, and a yaki burger with Japanese barbecue sauce. The restaurant also offers a happy hour from 17:00–19:00 and a 20% lunch discount.\nAzia 19 holds a Jerusalem Rabbinate kosher certificate and delivers via Wolt. Since opening during the difficult summer of 2024, it has quickly become one of Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s most talked-about restaurants — a rare combination of quality Japanese cuisine and kosher dining in a city where both are hard to find.\nAddress: 19 Aza Street, Rehavia, Jerusalem\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/azia-19/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Azia 19 is a kosher Japanese restaurant nestled on Aza Street in the heart of Rehavia, one of Jerusalem’s most sought-after neighborhoods. Opened by Bar Yedid, a second-generation Jerusalem restaurateur, the restaurant brings an izakaya-inspired dining experience to a city that has long lacked high-end Asian options.\n","title":"Azia 19","type":"directory"},{"content":"Yume — meaning \u0026ldquo;dream\u0026rdquo; in Japanese — is a kosher Mehadrin Japanese restaurant in Binyamina, founded by brothers Gil and Roi Barda. After years of culinary experience establishing some of Israel\u0026rsquo;s top restaurants, the Barda brothers joined forces to bring a blend of Japanese quality and traditional hospitality to Binyamina. The restaurant holds Mehadrin kosher certification under Badatz Beit Yosef.\nThe menu features fresh sushi, specialty rolls, stir-fried noodles, tempura, and Japanese curry dishes, all made with the freshest ingredients available. Yume also offers an impressive selection of Japanese sake and boutique beers imported directly from Japan. The restaurant caters to diverse dietary needs with vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and pregnancy-safe sushi options.\nYume is available for private events and business functions, and offers delivery through Wolt and 10bis. With over 1,400 reviews and a strong local following, it has become a go-to destination for Japanese cuisine in the Sharon area.\nAddress: HaMeyasdim 4, Binyamina\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yume-sushi-binyamina/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Yume — meaning “dream” in Japanese — is a kosher Mehadrin Japanese restaurant in Binyamina, founded by brothers Gil and Roi Barda. After years of culinary experience establishing some of Israel’s top restaurants, the Barda brothers joined forces to bring a blend of Japanese quality and traditional hospitality to Binyamina. The restaurant holds Mehadrin kosher certification under Badatz Beit Yosef.\n","title":"Yume | Binyamina","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel is home to a large and varied Asian diaspora — Thai agricultural workers, Filipino caregivers, Japanese expats, Korean residents, Indian professionals and Bnei Israel Jews, Chinese students and entrepreneurs, and communities from across Southeast and South Asia. Behind this population sits a dense institutional layer: embassies, government cultural centers, diaspora associations, meditation centers, museums, and NGOs. Whether you need consular services, are looking for language classes, want to connect with a cultural community, or need workers\u0026rsquo;-rights support, there is an organization for it.\nThis guide maps the key institutions by category. For the full searchable listing, see our Asian businesses directory.\nEmbassies \u0026amp; Consulates # Official diplomatic missions handle visas, citizenship documents, notarial services, and emergency consular support for their nationals.\nEmbassy of Japan in Israel — Tel Aviv\nThe Japanese embassy handles visas, citizen registration, and cultural diplomacy. The Japan Foundation programs and events are coordinated through this mission.\nisrael.emb-japan.go.jp\nEmbassy of the Republic of Korea in Israel — Tel Aviv\nHandles visas, citizen services, and coordinates with the Korean Cultural Center in Jerusalem on public cultural programming.\noverseas.mofa.go.kr/il-en\nEmbassy of India in Israel — Tel Aviv\nManages consular services for Indian nationals and coordinates with the Indian Cultural Centre on cultural outreach.\nindembassy.co.il\nRoyal Thai Embassy in Israel — Tel Aviv\nPrimary point of contact for Thailand\u0026rsquo;s large agricultural-worker community in Israel. Handles documentation, welfare support, and emergency consular services.\ntelaviv.thaiembassy.org\nEmbassy of the Philippines in Israel — Tel Aviv\nServes one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest foreign-worker communities. The embassy runs active labour-welfare programs alongside standard consular services.\ntelavivpe.dfa.gov.ph\nTaipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel — Tel Aviv\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s de-facto diplomatic representation in Israel, handling all consular services in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.\nroc-taiwan.org/il\nCultural Centers # Government-funded cultural diplomacy institutions offering language classes, exhibitions, film screenings, and cultural events open to the public.\nKorean Cultural Center in Israel (KCCIL) — Jerusalem\nThe most active Asian cultural center in Israel. KCCIL runs Korean-language courses from beginner to advanced levels, hosts K-Pop and K-drama events, and organises cultural workshops throughout the year. The annual K-Pop World Festival competition at Tel Aviv University is staged in coordination with the center.\n📍 Ben Yehuda 2, Office 153, Jerusalem | kccil.org.il | @kccil_official | 02-624-2556\nIndian Cultural Centre — Tel Aviv\nA branch of India\u0026rsquo;s ICCR network, offering music workshops, classical dance performances, yoga classes, and Diwali celebrations. The center operates alongside the Indian embassy as the cultural arm of the Indian government\u0026rsquo;s presence in Israel.\niccr.gov.in/indian-cultural-centre/tel-aviv | @iccr_israel\nTikotin Museum of Japanese Art — Haifa\nThe only museum in Israel dedicated exclusively to Japanese art. Located in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Carmel neighbourhood, it holds a permanent collection of prints, ceramics, and textile arts and runs a regular programme of temporary exhibitions, tea ceremonies, calligraphy workshops, and the annual Japan Day celebration.\ntmja.org.il | 04-989-9566 (Wilfrid Israel Museum)\nWilfrid Israel Museum of Asian Art and Studies — Emek Yizrael Area\nOne of Israel\u0026rsquo;s oldest museums (founded 1951), dedicated to Asian and Eastern art. The collections span five thousand years of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian civilisation and are housed in Kibbutz HaZore\u0026rsquo;a.\nwilfrid.org.il | @wilfridmuseum | 04-989-9566\nIsrael Museum — Asian Art Wing — Jerusalem\nThe national museum\u0026rsquo;s Asian art gallery covers five millennia of works from China, Japan, India, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Free admission for children and discounted for students.\nimj.org.il/en/wings/arts/asian-art\nMuseum of Far Eastern Art — Ramat Gan\nA smaller but significant collection of Chinese and Japanese art, including woodblock prints and ivory carvings.\nOrshina Culture Space TLV — Tel Aviv\nAn immersive Japanese cultural venue in central Tel Aviv running tea ceremonies, Zen meditation, kimono-dressing sessions, Japanese food events, and butoh dance performances. More intimate and pop-up-driven than a conventional cultural center — check their feed for upcoming dates.\norshinatlv.com | @orshinatlv | 050-658-0534\nSivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre — Tel Aviv\nIn operation since 1971, this is Israel\u0026rsquo;s oldest Indian cultural institution. More than a yoga studio — it functions as an urban ashram offering classical yoga, meditation, and Vedanta philosophy in the Sivananda tradition.\nsivananda.co.il | @sivanandayogatlv | 03-691-6793\nAnnual Cultural Festivals # Japan Month at Dizengoff Center — Tel Aviv\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s largest annual Japanese cultural festival, held each spring at Dizengoff Center. The 2025 edition drew 700,000 visitors across a month of events: the Tokyo Market, cosplay competitions, karate demonstrations, workshops, and food. One of the most attended cultural events in the country.\nAki-no Japanese Film Festival — Jerusalem\nAn annual Japanese cinema event at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The 2026 edition marks the festival\u0026rsquo;s tenth year, reflecting a decade of bringing contemporary and classic Japanese cinema to Israeli audiences.\njer-cin.org.il/aki-no\nK-Pop World Festival Israel — Tel Aviv\nAn annual K-Pop performance competition at Tel Aviv University, organised by the Korean embassy. Israel\u0026rsquo;s winning act advances to the global final in South Korea.\nChinatown Asian Food Festival — Tel Aviv\nAn annual street-food festival at Sarona Market featuring vendors from across Asia: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Indian cuisines alongside live chef demonstrations.\nShen Yun Performing Arts — Tel Aviv\nThe internationally touring Chinese classical dance and music production performs in Israel annually. Productions revive 5,000 years of Chinese cultural heritage through choreography, live orchestra, and traditional costumes.\nil.shenyun.org\nJapan Day at Tikotin Museum — Haifa\nAn annual open day at the Tikotin Museum featuring tea ceremony demonstrations, calligraphy workshops, and Japanese cultural activities for all ages.\nAcademic Institutions # Bar-Ilan University Asia Studies Department — Ramat Gan\nThe most active academic department for Asian studies in Israel, offering undergraduate and graduate programmes in East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian history, languages, and politics. Also runs a public lecture series.\nbiu.ac.il/field-of-study/tracks/13258 | @barilanuni_asia_studies | +972 3-531-8000\nHUJI Japan Club — Jerusalem\nThe Japan studies student club at Hebrew University\u0026rsquo;s Mount Scopus campus. Organises Japanese tea ceremonies (chado), Asia Day events, anime conference attendance, and cultural talks.\n@huji_japan\nCommunity Associations # Diaspora organisations run by community members for community members — social events, mutual support, cultural preservation.\nIsrael-Japan Friendship Society \u0026amp; Chamber of Commerce\nFounded in 1956, the oldest bilateral friendship organisation in Israel. Promotes cultural and commercial ties between Israel and Japan.\nisrael-japan.org\nJapanese Community Exchange in Israel\nA social and cultural exchange organisation for Japanese residents in Israel. Events, gatherings, and community support for Japanese expats.\nfacebook.com/japaneseinisrael\nIsraeli Association for Japanese Studies\nThe academic community for Japan scholars in Israel — conferences, seminars, and publications.\njapan-studies.org\nKorean Association in Israel\nThe primary community organisation for Israel\u0026rsquo;s approximately 500 Korean residents. Runs social and cultural programmes throughout the year.\nisraelhanin.org\nIsrael-China Friendship Society\nFounded in 1992, this association promotes Israel–China cultural exchange through art, commerce, and academic cooperation.\nisraelchinafriendship.org\nAssociation of Chinese in Israel\nSupports Chinese citizens living in Israel — educational programmes for the children of Chinese nationals and volunteer cultural activities.\nAssociation of Former Residents of China in Israel\nA community organisation for Jews who lived in China, based at Beit Fonveh in Tel Aviv. Weekly social gatherings and cultural events preserve the memory of Jewish life in China.\njewsofchina.org\nSino-Israel Global Network \u0026amp; Academic Leadership (SIGNAL)\nAn academic platform analysing China–Israel relations, publishing research and commentary including analysis of Chinese media influence.\nsino-israel.org\nTaiwan Israel Chamber of Commerce\nPromotes bilateral trade, technology, culture, education, and tourism between Taiwan and Israel.\nticc.org.tw\nFederation of Filipino Communities in Israel\nThe umbrella body for all Filipino associations and groups in Israel, founded in 2002. Coordinates community events and advocacy.\nVietnamese Association in Israel\nFormally established in March 2025, this association works to strengthen social cohesion among Vietnamese workers and residents in Israel.\nNational Union of Bene Israel Jews\nPreserves the heritage of the Bene Israel community — India\u0026rsquo;s oldest Jewish community — through youth programmes, elder care, and cultural events.\nIndia BaLev — Indian Origin Community Israel\nConnects Israelis of Indian origin, promoting the deep cultural and historical links between India and Israel.\nBharatiya Gorkha Association Israel\nServes Israel\u0026rsquo;s Gorkha Indian community with cultural events, parades, and community celebrations.\nfacebook.com/groups/107225726534317\nIsrael-India Friendship Association\nPromotes Israel–India cooperation in science, culture, education, and civil society.\nfacebook.com/groups/IIFRIENDS\nIsrael-Asia Chamber of Commerce\nA business network promoting Israel–Asia commercial relations through events, conferences, and networking.\nisrael-asia.org\nReligious \u0026amp; Meditation Centers # ISKCON Israel (Hare Krishna)\nThe International Society for Krishna Consciousness maintains centers across Israel: Tel Aviv (Ben Yehuda 22A), Haifa, Bat Yam, Petah Tikva, Be\u0026rsquo;er Sheva, Kiryat Gat, Ashkelon, Arad, and Eilat. Programs include bhakti yoga classes, Sanskrit studies, free vegetarian meals, and Vedic festivals.\niskcon.org.il | 050-717-7647\nDiamond Way Buddhist Centers\nThe Karma Kagyu lineage maintains three Diamond Way centers in Israel: Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Be\u0026rsquo;er Sheva. Open to the public; regular meditation evenings and introductory courses.\nkarmapa.org/centers/country/israel\nDhamma Pamoda — Israel Vipassana Center — Near Tiberias\nThe official Goenka-lineage Vipassana center in Israel, located near Kibbutz Degania Bet in the Jordan Valley. Runs 10-day silent meditation retreats throughout the year, free of charge.\npamoda.dhamma.org\nNewman Vipassana Center — Yavne\u0026rsquo;el, near Tiberias\nA Buddhist meditation center practicing Vipassana in the Ajahn Tong tradition. Retreats and ongoing classes.\nnewmanvipassana.co.il\nTovana — Insight Meditation Israel\nA non-profit teaching Vipassana and mindfulness in the Theravada tradition. Runs retreats across Israel and has a large community of practitioners.\ntovana.org.il\nFalun Dafa (Falun Gong) Israel\nA Chinese spiritual practice combining meditation and qigong based on the principles of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance. Registered association in Israel; practice groups meet in Yarkon Park and other locations.\nhe.falundafa.org\nTorah in Chinese\nAn online global community of Chinese-speaking Jews and converts pioneering Torah study and practice in Mandarin — books, media, classes, and a community forum.\ntorahinchinese.org\nNGOs \u0026amp; Support Organizations # Sathya Sai Educare Israel — HaSharon\nThe Israel branch of the global Sathya Sai Organisation, offering education in human values, spiritual development, and community service inspired by Indian Vedic tradition.\nOnline Communities \u0026amp; Media # Filipinos Working and Living in Israel\nThe main Facebook group for Filipino workers and residents in Israel — job listings, legal advice, community support, and event coordination. One of the most active Filipino community spaces in the country.\nfacebook.com/groups/839099479563042\nIsrael Mega — 以色列美角\nA Taiwanese content creator covering Israel for Chinese-speaking audiences — over 32,000 followers and more than 1,000 pieces of Israel content in Chinese. A key bridge between Israel and the Taiwanese/Chinese-speaking world.\nfacebook.com/israeltravelmega\nChina Radio International — Hebrew Service\nCRI\u0026rsquo;s Hebrew-language broadcasts and online presence in Israel, launched in 2009. Includes \u0026ldquo;Itzik the Chinese\u0026rdquo; — a Chinese correspondent who speaks fluent Hebrew and produces content about China for Israeli audiences.\nIsraeli Chinese Medicine Association\nThe professional association for traditional Chinese medicine practitioners in Israel.\ntcmisrael.org\nQuick Reference: Who to Contact for What # Need Contact Japanese visa / citizen services Embassy of Japan Korean visa / citizen services Embassy of Korea Korean language classes Korean Cultural Center (KCCIL) Indian visa / citizen services Embassy of India Thai worker welfare / documents Royal Thai Embassy Filipino worker welfare / documents Embassy of the Philippines Taiwan visa / citizen services Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Japanese art and exhibitions Tikotin Museum (Haifa) or Israel Museum (Jerusalem) Vipassana meditation retreat Dhamma Pamoda (near Tiberias) Connecting with Korean community Korean Association in Israel Connecting with Filipino community Federation of Filipino Communities Chinese medicine practitioners Israeli Chinese Medicine Association Academic Japan/China/Korea research Bar-Ilan University Asia Studies For the full directory of Asian-community businesses, organizations, restaurants, and services across Israel, see asiansinisrael.com/directory/.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-community-organizations-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel is home to a large and varied Asian diaspora — Thai agricultural workers, Filipino caregivers, Japanese expats, Korean residents, Indian professionals and Bnei Israel Jews, Chinese students and entrepreneurs, and communities from across Southeast and South Asia. Behind this population sits a dense institutional layer: embassies, government cultural centers, diaspora associations, meditation centers, museums, and NGOs. Whether you need consular services, are looking for language classes, want to connect with a cultural community, or need workers’-rights support, there is an organization for it.\n","title":"Asian Community Organizations \u0026 Cultural Centers in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eating great Asian food in Israel has become easy. Learning to cook it is a different story — until recently, that meant importing a cookbook and improvising. A growing number of cooking instructors have changed that: Japanese immigrants teaching miso-making in their home kitchens, a Thai chef with 28 years of Bangkok-trained experience running workshops from the Galilee, a Korean MasterChef finalist hosting private dinners in Kfar Saba. The options now span every budget and every corner of the country.\nWhether you want a date-night sushi class, a corporate team-building afternoon, or a birthday experience that isn\u0026rsquo;t a restaurant booking, the options below are the best in each cuisine category.\nJapanese # Tomoko\u0026rsquo;s Kitchen — Moshav Bnei Zion # The standout for authentic Japanese home cooking. Tomoko Nakamura made aliyah from Japan and teaches from her kitchen in Moshav Bnei Zion (between Netanya and Tel Aviv). The workshops cover miso-making, gyoza, tofu, koji fermentation, and traditional family meals — the kind of cooking that rarely appears on Israeli menus. Classes are taught in Hebrew, English, and Japanese, and skew toward small, intimate groups.\n📍 Moshav Bnei Zion | tomokojapanese.co.il | @tomokojonak | 052-593-1115\nBatyush — Multiple Locations # Batya is a molecular biologist who retrained as a chef and now runs boutique Asian cooking workshops across Israel. The focus is sushi, ramen, gyoza, and steamed buns — with the precision you\u0026rsquo;d expect from someone who once spent their days in a lab. The combination of detailed technique and genuine culinary knowledge makes these workshops unusually good for serious home cooks.\n📍 Private kitchen, location varies | batyush.co.il | @batyush_\nElla Barlev — The Japanese House, Ashdod # Ella Barlev is a math teacher turned chef who teaches ramen, sushi, and dumpling workshops from her home kitchen in Ashdod. Her workshops are known for unusually detailed instruction — she writes out the science alongside the technique — and a generous teaching style that works well for beginners. The south Tel Aviv area has few good Japanese cooking options; this fills the gap.\n📍 Ashdod (home kitchen) | @ellabarlevchef\nYarin Ben Shushan — Private Sushi Chef (Nationwide) # A private Japanese sushi chef who travels to clients across Israel. Yarin offers traditional omakase dinners, authentic sushi workshops, and sashimi platter delivery. If you want a hands-on sushi class at your own kitchen table — with all the fish and rice brought to you — this is the most flexible option in Israel. Kosher-certified.\n📍 Travels across Israel | WhatsApp booking | @yarin_ben_shushan\nThai # ShamSiam — Rehovot (also travels to clients) # Chef Eli Shamsian\u0026rsquo;s Thai cooking workshops are the most established in Israel. Shamsian is Persian-Israeli with deep roots in Thai cuisine and runs workshops from his kitchen in Rehovot or at clients\u0026rsquo; homes across central Israel. The menu of workshop types is comprehensive: classic Thai, vegan Thai, Thai grill, Asian dumplings, and street soups. Tuesdays and Fridays are typical workshop days, with morning and evening slots.\nGood for: corporate team events, private groups, birthday experiences. Vegan-friendly.\n📍 Rehovot (also travels) | shamsiam.co.il | @sham__siam | 054-673-4521\nSwadika Thai Food — Shemshit (Galilee, also travels) # Chef Alon Hevel has 28 years of Thai cooking experience and offers workshops from his base in Shemshit in the Lower Galilee, with travel to clients on request. Workshop formats include standard, vegan, gluten-free, and children\u0026rsquo;s programmes, plus culinary tours and corporate team-building packages. Kosher-certified and vegan-capable — a relatively rare combination for Asian cooking in Israel.\n📍 Shemshit, Lower Galilee (also travels) | thaifood.co.il | @sawadika_thaifood | 050-462-4111\nKorean # Chef Ash — Tel Aviv # The most accessible Korean cooking workshop in Israel. Chef Ash runs hands-on sessions covering gyoza folding, ramen from scratch, Korean corn dogs, house-made sriracha, and more — from her home kitchen in Tel Aviv, or at yours. Private events, open group sessions, and corporate experiences are all available. Vegan options on request.\n📍 Tel Aviv (also travels) | linktr.ee/Chefff_Ash | @chefff_ash | 054-565-0877\nBegopa — Kfar Saba # Tajin Kim-Doron is South Korean by birth and known in Israel from MasterChef Israel season 8. She hosts private Korean dining experiences and cooking workshops from her home in Kfar Saba — the address is shared upon reservation via Ontopo. The format is closer to a private dinner-with-instruction than a formal cooking class: you cook, you eat, you ask questions. With 58k Instagram followers and a genuine reputation for Korean home cooking, the waiting list can be long.\n📍 Kfar Saba (home dining) | Reservations via Ontopo | @begopa_korean_chef | 050-236-6986\nChinese \u0026amp; Multi-Cuisine # Bishulon — Tel Aviv # Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest cooking school runs dedicated Asian cooking workshops as part of its broader curriculum: Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Indian, and sushi classes all appear on the schedule. If you want a more structured school environment — fixed curriculum, professional kitchen facilities, multiple class dates to choose from — Bishulon is the practical choice. Good for solo sign-ups rather than private group bookings.\n📍 Tel Aviv | en.bishulon.co.il | @bishulon\nPractical Notes # Price ranges. Most independent workshops run ₪200–₪350 per person for a two-to-three hour session, typically including all ingredients and a shared meal at the end. Private group bookings (6–15 people) often work out cheaper per head. Bishulon prices are similar for open enrolment.\nBooking lead time. Independent instructors — especially Tomoko, Begopa, and Yarin — book up weeks in advance, particularly for Friday mornings and weekends. Contact as soon as you have a date in mind.\nGift certificates. Several instructors (ShamSiam, Swadika, Chef Ash) offer gift vouchers on request — worth asking about if you want a present for someone who cooks.\nCorporate and team events. ShamSiam and Swadika both explicitly offer team-building packages. Chef Ash also does group events. For a full private experience, Tomoko\u0026rsquo;s Kitchen and Begopa work well for smaller teams (up to around 12 people).\nLanguages. Most workshops are conducted in Hebrew, with several instructors also offering English instruction (noted above). Tomoko\u0026rsquo;s Kitchen is the only one that also teaches in Japanese.\nFor the full directory of Asian food businesses in Israel, see our Asian businesses directory.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-cooking-classes-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eating great Asian food in Israel has become easy. Learning to cook it is a different story — until recently, that meant importing a cookbook and improvising. A growing number of cooking instructors have changed that: Japanese immigrants teaching miso-making in their home kitchens, a Thai chef with 28 years of Bangkok-trained experience running workshops from the Galilee, a Korean MasterChef finalist hosting private dinners in Kfar Saba. The options now span every budget and every corner of the country.\n","title":"Asian Cooking Classes in Israel: Learn Japanese, Thai, Korean \u0026 More (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Israel has one of the most unusual martial arts cultures in the world. Krav Maga was forged here; the IDF has exported it globally. Judo has an Olympic pedigree — Yael Arad\u0026rsquo;s 1992 Barcelona silver medal triggered a national conversation about combat sports. And yet, beneath the headlines about self-defence and Olympic judo, a quieter tradition has grown steadily: thousands of Israelis train in classical Asian disciplines — Japanese karate and aikido, Chinese kung fu and tai chi, Korean taekwondo and hapkido — drawn in part by the anime and manga boom of the 2000s that reached deep into Israeli youth culture, and in part by practitioners from Japan, China, and Korea who settled here and opened schools.\nThis guide covers dojos and schools across Israel by tradition and city. For the full searchable listing, see our Asian businesses directory.\nJapanese Martial Arts # Karate # Japan\u0026rsquo;s most widely practised martial art has strong roots in Israel. Multiple lineages operate here, from the Okinawan mother-arts to sport karate. The following schools maintain direct affiliation with international Japanese organisations.\nIOGKF Goju Ryu Karate Israel — Tel Aviv\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s branch of the International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karate-Do Federation, one of the most respected traditional karate lineages worldwide. Goju-Ryu (\u0026ldquo;hard-soft style\u0026rdquo;) was founded in Okinawa by Chojun Miyagi and emphasises circular, close-range techniques alongside rigorous breathing exercises (ibuki and nogare). The Israeli branch trains under the global IOGKF umbrella, meaning visiting practitioners from Japan and elsewhere can step in for class.\nkarateisrael.co.il\nOkinawa Goju Ryu Karate — Tel Aviv\nA dojo on Reading Street in northern Tel Aviv, focused specifically on Okinawan Goju-Ryu tradition. Sessions cover kata, kumite, and the traditional conditioning exercises (hojo undo) that distinguish classical Okinawan karate from its mainland Japanese and sport derivatives.\n📍 Reading 26, Tel Aviv\nTEISHINKAN Karate — Ramat Gan\nA karate school on HaBonim Street in Ramat Gan. Teishinkan schools combine traditional Japanese karate syllabus with structured grading and competition preparation — a solid choice if you want both classical technique and the option to compete.\n📍 HaBonim 8, Ramat Gan\nAikido # Aikido\u0026rsquo;s philosophy of redirecting an attacker\u0026rsquo;s energy rather than opposing it directly has attracted a steady community in Israel, particularly practitioners who come from a background in yoga, Feldenkrais, or other body-awareness traditions.\nAikido Tel Aviv\nA dojo on Ya\u0026rsquo;akov Mozer Street in central Tel Aviv. Aikido training in Israel is typically conducted in keikogi (the white training uniform) on tatami mats, following the Ueshiba lineage. Classes cover ukemi (breakfalls), basic throws (nage waza), wrist locks (kote gaeshi, ikyo), and weapons work (bokken and jo) at more advanced levels.\n📍 Ya\u0026rsquo;akov Mozer 1, Tel Aviv\nChinese Martial Arts # China\u0026rsquo;s martial arts tradition — collectively referred to as wushu or kung fu — is the most diverse category in this guide. Several distinct lineages operate in Israel, from the southern Shaolin temple arts to internal practices like tai chi and bagua.\nWing Chun # Wing Chun is a southern Chinese style known for close-range striking, simultaneous attack and defence, and the chi sao (\u0026ldquo;sticky hands\u0026rdquo;) sensitivity drills that develop tactile reflexes. It gained global recognition partly through Bruce Lee, who trained in it before developing Jeet Kune Do.\nWing Chun Kung Fu Federation of Israel — Tel Aviv\nThe national federation body for Wing Chun in Israel, with the main school in Tel Aviv. The federation maintains international affiliations and runs instructor certification. A good starting point if you want to understand the Wing Chun landscape in Israel before committing to a specific school.\nwingchun.co.il\nKung Fu Wing Chun Tel Aviv\nA school on Hafetz Hayim Street in Tel Aviv. Wing Chun training follows the classical three-form curriculum — Siu Lim Tao, Chum Kiu, and Biu Jee — alongside the wooden dummy (muk yan jong) and two weapons forms.\n📍 Hafetz Hayim 10, Tel Aviv\nWing Chun Sifu Roy — Ramat Gan\nA school on Krinitsi Street in Ramat Gan. Sifu (teacher) Roy runs structured group classes and private sessions. Ramat Gan\u0026rsquo;s central location makes this accessible from both Tel Aviv and the Gush Dan suburbs.\n📍 Krinitsi 20, Ramat Gan\nWing Chun Lo Man Kam Israel — Ashdod\nAshdod\u0026rsquo;s Wing Chun school follows the Lo Man Kam lineage — a direct branch of Ip Man\u0026rsquo;s tradition, transmitted through Ip Man\u0026rsquo;s nephew Lo Man Kam, who taught in Taipei for decades. One of the more traceable lineage lines in Israeli Wing Chun.\n📍 Janusz Korczak 11, Ashdod\nWing Chun Kung Fu Givatayim\nA school on HaMeri Street in Givatayim. Convenient for the eastern Tel Aviv suburbs.\n📍 HaMeri 51, Givatayim\nShaolin Kung Fu # Shaolin kung fu (北少林, northern Shaolin) encompasses the external, physically demanding styles associated with the Shaolin Temple in Henan, China. Training typically includes forms (kata equivalent: taolu), weapons, conditioning work, and traditional stretching.\nSanshu Israel — Tel Aviv\nA kung fu school on Etzyon Gever Street in northern Tel Aviv. Sanshu (散手, free-fighting) schools typically combine traditional forms with applied sparring and conditioning — a bridge between classical Chinese martial arts and modern combat sports.\n📍 Etzyon Gever 11, Tel Aviv\nDragon\u0026rsquo;s Heart Kung Fu — Tel Aviv\nA school on Mal\u0026rsquo;akhi Street in Tel Aviv. The \u0026ldquo;dragon\u0026rsquo;s heart\u0026rdquo; name signals a traditional external style — likely a Shaolin-lineage system.\n📍 Mal\u0026rsquo;akhi 8, Tel Aviv\nWhite Crane Kung Fu — Tel Aviv\nA school on HaRav Kosowski Street in northern Tel Aviv. White Crane (Bai He Quan) is a southern Chinese style emphasising linear power generation, fingertip and crane-beak strikes, and a distinctive evasion footwork pattern. It is also considered one of the arts that influenced Okinawan karate.\n📍 HaRav Kosowski 46, Tel Aviv\nKlempi KungFu — Tel Aviv\nA school on Pinhas Ben Ya\u0026rsquo;ir Street in Tel Aviv.\n📍 Pinhas Ben Ya\u0026rsquo;ir 3, Tel Aviv\nShaolin Kung Fu Ra\u0026rsquo;anana\nA Shaolin school on Hatikva Street in Ra\u0026rsquo;anana, in the northern Sharon suburbs.\n📍 Hatikva 2, Ra\u0026rsquo;anana\nShaolin Hung Gar Kung Fu — Tirat Carmel (Haifa area)\nHung Gar (洪家) is a southern Shaolin style known for powerful stances, low horse stance conditioning, and the tiger-crane paired form. This school is in Tirat Carmel, close to the Haifa metropolitan area. One of the few Hung Gar schools operating in northern Israel.\n📍 Etsel 36, Tirat Carmel\nShaolin Kung Fu Herzliya\nA Shaolin school in Herzliya, accessible from the northern Tel Aviv suburbs.\nBagua and Internal Arts # Bagua Academy of Martial Arts — Tel Aviv\nBagua Zhang (八卦掌, \u0026ldquo;eight trigram palm\u0026rdquo;) is one of the three main Chinese internal martial arts, alongside tai chi and xingyi. It is characterised by circle-walking practice, spiral body mechanics, and a unique eight-directional footwork. Less common than tai chi in Israel, but the Bagua Academy maintains a dedicated curriculum.\nbagua-academy.com\nWu Shu Ancient Wisdom — Karmiel\nA wushu school on Sderot Beit HaKerem in Karmiel, in the Galilee. One of the few dedicated Chinese martial arts options in the north outside Haifa, making it the default choice for practitioners in the Karmiel-Acre-Nahariya corridor.\n📍 Sderot Beit HaKerem 4, Karmiel\nTai Chi # Tai chi (太極拳) is practiced in Israel both as a martial art and as a health and movement practice. Its slow, meditative forms have attracted a large community of practitioners who come from yoga, physiotherapy, and stress-reduction backgrounds rather than from combat sports.\nTaichi Center Israel — Tel Aviv\nThe main dedicated tai chi centre in Tel Aviv, on Herzl Street. Sessions typically cover one or more of the standard Yang or Chen family forms, push hands (tui shou), and basic qigong.\n📍 Herzl 158, Tel Aviv\nTao Hall — Herzliya\nA centre on Wingate Street in Herzliya covering tai chi and related movement arts. The name suggests a broader approach to Taoist-influenced practice — likely encompassing qigong alongside tai chi forms.\n📍 Wingate 168, Herzliya\nKorean Martial Arts # Taekwondo # Taekwondo is the Korean national sport and has strong institutional presence in Israel, with clubs affiliated to the World Taekwondo Federation (formerly WTF) operating in most cities. The following offer dedicated instruction from qualified instructors.\nMandel Taekwondo — Tel Aviv\nA school inside Dizengoff Center in central Tel Aviv. Location inside a shopping centre is an advantage for central Tel Aviv residents — parking, public transport, and central access all sorted. Classes for children and adults.\n📍 Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv\nMuay Thai and Southeast Asian Arts # Muay Thai (มวยไทย) — Thai boxing — is technically a Southeast Asian art rather than an East Asian one, but its explosion in Israeli gyms over the past decade makes it a natural inclusion here. It has overtaken traditional karate in popularity among young Israeli practitioners who want a contact sport with clear practical application.\nRudy Boxing Gym — Haifa\nHaifa\u0026rsquo;s most prominent striking arts gym, on Sara Street in the Haifa city centre. Rudy Boxing offers training in boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, and functional fitness. With phone, website, and Instagram all active, it is the most comprehensively documented martial arts school in our directory.\n📍 Sara 7, Haifa Downtown | rudyboxing.com | @rudy.boxing.gym | 052-221-6771\nMuay Thai Academy Jerusalem\nA dedicated Muay Thai academy in Jerusalem — the only capital-city option in this guide for Thai boxing. Covers striking technique, clinch work, and pad work in the traditional Muay Thai curriculum.\nthaibox.co.il\nHercules Muay Thai — Beer Sheva\nA studio on HaTikva Street in Beer Sheva combining Muay Thai and functional fitness training. The Negev\u0026rsquo;s main option for structured Thai boxing instruction.\n📍 HaTikva 14, Beer Sheva\nTips for Beginners # Choosing a Discipline # The decision usually comes down to what you want from training:\nSelf-defence focus — Krav Maga remains the dominant choice for Israelis; for a traditional system with strong self-defence applications, consider Wing Chun or Muay Thai. Sport and competition — Taekwondo (Olympic sport), judo, and sport karate all have active competitive circuits in Israel through their respective national federations. Physical fitness — Muay Thai gyms typically run the most physically demanding general-fitness classes. Kung fu schools with conditioning programmes are a close second. Mindfulness and body awareness — Tai chi, aikido, and bagua all emphasise internal principles over muscular force. They are slower to show self-defence results but excellent for stress relief, posture, and proprioception. Cultural connection — If you\u0026rsquo;re from a Japanese, Korean, or Chinese background and want to continue training in a specific lineage, the federation-affiliated schools (IOGKF for Okinawan karate, Wing Chun Federation for Wing Chun) are the most reliable for maintaining the cultural and technical continuity of your home-country practice. What to Expect in Your First Class # Most dojos will ask you to arrive 10–15 minutes early for a first session. You\u0026rsquo;ll typically be paired with an existing student who will guide you through warm-up and basic movements. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry about not knowing anything — the first session is observation and orientation more than serious training. Come in sports clothes; a gi (training uniform) is usually not required until after you\u0026rsquo;ve decided to continue.\nGear and Gi # Gi (uniform): A white cotton karate or judo gi costs ₪150–₪300 new. Your school may have second-hand options. For Muay Thai you only need shorts and hand wraps to start (₪80–₪150 combined). Gloves: Muay Thai and kickboxing gyms require boxing gloves (₪150–₪400). Most will have rental gloves for your first few sessions. Hand wraps: Required for any striking art. ₪30–₪60 per pair. Weapons: Kung fu and karate schools that include weapons will generally advise when and where to acquire your first weapon — don\u0026rsquo;t buy ahead. Prices # Training costs vary widely. Expect:\nMonthly membership: ₪250–₪600 per month depending on frequency and school Drop-in class: ₪80–₪150 per session Private lesson: ₪200–₪400 per hour Many schools offer trial classes at no cost or reduced price — worth asking directly via phone or WhatsApp before committing.\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers the main options; our Asian businesses directory lists all martial arts schools in Israel, searchable by city and discipline.\nLooking for other Asian activities? See the Asian wellness and massage guide or the Asian restaurants guide.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-martial-arts-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel has one of the most unusual martial arts cultures in the world. Krav Maga was forged here; the IDF has exported it globally. Judo has an Olympic pedigree — Yael Arad’s 1992 Barcelona silver medal triggered a national conversation about combat sports. And yet, beneath the headlines about self-defence and Olympic judo, a quieter tradition has grown steadily: thousands of Israelis train in classical Asian disciplines — Japanese karate and aikido, Chinese kung fu and tai chi, Korean taekwondo and hapkido — drawn in part by the anime and manga boom of the 2000s that reached deep into Israeli youth culture, and in part by practitioners from Japan, China, and Korea who settled here and opened schools.\n","title":"Asian Martial Arts in Israel: Dojos, Schools \u0026 Classes (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Haifa does multiculturalism differently than Tel Aviv. The Arab-Jewish coexistence of the Carmel hillsides, the international student population at the Technion, the port workers and shipping engineers who arrive from across Asia, the old German Colony cafés sitting beside Palestinian hummus shops — all of it creates an appetite for diversity that extends to the table. Asian cuisine has found a receptive home here, and the scene is more varied than visitors often expect.\nThis guide covers the standout options by cuisine. For the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory.\nKorean # Koreana Haifa\nThe city\u0026rsquo;s flagship Korean restaurant, and one of the best in northern Israel. Located on Independence Street in the Hadar neighbourhood, Koreana serves the full Korean canon: bibimbap, bulgogi, japchae, and jjigae stews, with a banchan spread that distinguishes it from the pan-Asian wok chains that dominate the suburbs. The kitchen has been consistent for years — a reliable choice for community events, family meals, and solo bibimbap cravings alike.\n📍 Independence Street 66, Haifa | @koreana_haifa | 04-834-9597\nJapanese # Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Japanese offering is spread across a range of formats — from sushi counters in the Carmel Centre to fast-casual chains in the northern malls.\nRamen Talpiot\nThe city\u0026rsquo;s dedicated ramen option, in the Talpiot market district. A neighbourhood spot rather than a destination restaurant, but a genuine ramen counter with proper broth and a short, focused menu. Go for the classic tonkotsu or shoyu; skip the fusion additions.\nTatami — HaCarmel\nA Japanese restaurant in the Carmel neighbourhood. Sushi, maki rolls, and teriyaki dishes in a sit-down setting.\nGiraffe — Haifa\nPart of a small Israeli chain with a Japanese-leaning menu. Reliable for sushi and noodle dishes; popular with families.\nFrangelico — German Colony / Lev HaMifratz\nTwo branches of Frangelico operate in the Haifa area: one in the historic German Colony and one at the Lev HaMifratz shopping centre. The menu spans sushi, Asian-fusion small plates, and cocktails — a good option when you want something more atmospheric than a mall counter.\nJapanika (multiple branches)\nThe Japanika chain operates several Haifa-area branches, including a kosher-certified location. A solid chain option for sushi and Japanese-style noodles — kosher certification makes it suitable for a broader range of groups.\nOther Japanese counters in the area include Banzai Sushi, Tokyo Sushi, Rice \u0026amp; Fish, and Wasabi in Haifa proper; HaSushia, Minna Tomei, and KING KONG in the Krayot suburbs to the north.\nChinese # Yan Yan Chinese Restaurant\nOne of Israel\u0026rsquo;s most storied Chinese restaurants. The Yan Yan family fled Vietnam for Israel generations ago, and their children serve in the IDF — the restaurant has been operating for over four decades on Derech Yafo. The kitchen cooks Cantonese from Guangdong province, and the menu reflects that heritage: dim sum, whole fish, clay-pot dishes, and noodle soups that are a world away from the sweet-and-sour fare served at lesser establishments.\n📍 Derech Yafo 26, Haifa\nLong Sang\nOne of Israel\u0026rsquo;s most authentic veteran Chinese restaurants — 41 years of Cantonese cooking from Guangdong province. A Haifa institution worth seeking out for anyone who takes Chinese food seriously.\nThai # The Thai in the Market\nAuthentic Thai street food at the Talpiot market — real Bangkok flavours using ingredients sourced directly from Thailand. The setting is informal, the prices are low, and the food is the genuine article. Worth the trip to Talpiot on its own.\nThai Chin\nA Thai restaurant in the greater Haifa area. Pad thai, green and red curries, and the standard Thai repertoire.\nPan\nA Thai option in the Haifa area for neighbourhood regulars.\nIndian # Chapati\nIndian home cooking and catering in Tirat HaCarmel, south of Haifa. Chapati operates as a prepared-food and catering service as much as a restaurant — worth calling ahead to confirm hours and availability.\nKesar and Moriah\nTwo further Indian options in the Haifa area, covering the city\u0026rsquo;s Indian and South Asian community needs.\nPan-Asian and Wok Chains # The northern suburbs — Krayot, Kiryat Ata, Kiryat Bialik, Kiryat Motzkin — are dotted with pan-Asian wok restaurants that cover a broad sweep of Chinese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian dishes under one menu. These include:\nASI ATI — branches in Haifa and Kiryat Hayim Chang Ba — branches in Haifa and Kiryat Bialik Panda Wok — in Kiryat Motzkin TeaBar — branches at Azrieli Haifa, Kiryat Motzkin, and Kiryon mall WokStreet — on Sderot HaNassi and at Bat Galim Wok \u0026amp; Sandwich Station — Grand Mall Haifa Poke Van — Haifa, for poke bowls Taipei, Samurai, Pho 26 — further pan-Asian options across the area These chains are not destination restaurants, but they fill a practical role — accessible, reasonably priced, and family-friendly, especially on weekday evenings.\nVietnamese # Bun Cha\nA Vietnamese restaurant in Haifa bringing the Hanoi classic of the same name — grilled pork with rice noodles, fresh herbs, and dipping broth — to the northern dining scene.\nFinding Ingredients # For cooking at home, Haifa has a solid set of Asian grocery stores:\nTAYO Asian Market Haifa — Derech Yafo 21, Haifa | ta-yo.co.il — Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian imports My Asia Haifa — Shmaryahu Levin 8, Haifa | @myasiahaifa — a well-stocked neighbourhood Asian grocer East and West Haifa — HeHalutz Street 1, Haifa — Middle Eastern and Asian produce in one stop North of Haifa # The northern region surrounding Haifa has its own small cluster of options worth knowing about. Izakaya Karkur in Pardes Hanna-Karkur (about 30 km south on the coast road) is the best Japanese restaurant between Haifa and Tel Aviv — a full izakaya menu in a relaxed setting.\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers the recommended and most characterful options. Our Asian businesses directory lists all restaurants in the Haifa area, searchable by cuisine and city.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-restaurants-haifa/","section":"Posts","summary":"Haifa does multiculturalism differently than Tel Aviv. The Arab-Jewish coexistence of the Carmel hillsides, the international student population at the Technion, the port workers and shipping engineers who arrive from across Asia, the old German Colony cafés sitting beside Palestinian hummus shops — all of it creates an appetite for diversity that extends to the table. Asian cuisine has found a receptive home here, and the scene is more varied than visitors often expect.\n","title":"Asian Restaurants in Haifa: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jerusalem is unlike anywhere else in Israel for Asian food. The city\u0026rsquo;s large religious population means that kashrut matters here in a way it simply doesn\u0026rsquo;t in Tel Aviv — a large share of diners will only eat at certified kosher establishments, and restaurants know it. The result is an Asian dining scene shaped as much by religious law as by culinary ambition: sushi bars and pan-Asian kitchens that operate under full rabbinical supervision, curry houses that are naturally aligned with kosher principles, and a handful of non-certified spots serving the secular and tourist crowds.\nFor visitors who keep kosher — whether Israeli families on a Shabbat trip or Jewish tourists from abroad — Jerusalem offers more certified Asian options than any other city in the country. This guide maps the full picture: standout destinations, neighbourhood workhorses, and everything in between.\nFor the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory. For a cross-Israel perspective on kosher Asian dining, see the kosher Asian restaurants guide.\nJapanese \u0026amp; Sushi # Azia 19 — Rehavia (Kosher)\nThe standout Japanese restaurant in Jerusalem and the most complete Asian dining experience in the city. Opened in 2024 on Aza Street in Rehavia, Azia 19 runs an izakaya-style menu: sushi and sashimi, kushiyaki on a charcoal grill, Japanese-style burgers, and cocktails. The kitchen operates under full kosher certification — the rare combination of genuine Japanese technique and rabbinical supervision that observant diners rarely find outside Jerusalem. Wolt rating: 8.6.\n📍 Aza 19, Jerusalem | @azia19_ | 02-587-7722\nSushi Rehavia — Multiple branches\nA Jerusalem institution with branches on Aza Street and Emek Refaim, plus a mehadrin-certified branch on Rehov Rachel Imenu. Sushi Rehavia covers the everyday sushi fix — rolls, maki, salads — at accessible prices. The mehadrin branch (Rachel Imenu) is particularly useful for the Katamon–German Colony crowd.\nJapan Japan — Jaffa Street (Kosher)\nPart of the Japan Japan chain, with a branch on the central Jaffa Street corridor. Pan-Asian rather than strictly Japanese — sushi, noodles, and Asian fusion — in a casual format suited to the busy commercial strip. A separate mehadrin-certified branch serves the French Hill neighbourhood.\nJapanika — Cinema City (Kosher)\nThe Cinema City Jerusalem branch of the national Japanika chain. Reliable kosher sushi and Japanese-inflected dishes in a high-traffic entertainment venue — useful if you\u0026rsquo;re heading to the complex for a film.\nAtza Sushi Bar — Multiple branches\nAtza Sushi Bar has three Jerusalem-area locations: Jerusalem city, Pisgat Ze\u0026rsquo;ev, and a further branch in Beit Shemesh. A sushi chain with consistent standards across the chain.\nOshi Oshi — Jerusalem\nPan-Asian sushi and noodle bar with a Jerusalem branch as well as a location in Mevaseret Zion — useful for residents of the western suburbs who want a quick Asian meal without driving into the city.\nSushi Fuze, Sushiya, Sushi YOYO, WokMan — Various Jerusalem neighbourhoods\nJerusalem has a dense network of smaller sushi and Japanese-adjacent spots. Sushi Fuze, Sushiya, Sushi YOYO, and WokMan are neighbourhood operations — the kind of place that handles lunch deliveries, quick dinners, and Shabbat pre-orders for local families. Standards vary; most operate under kashrut supervision.\nNei Gong (ניי גונג), JUJU Asian Kitchen, Chooka, Hoke Poke, Poke Bowl Haivrit, Sud, Yapani — Jerusalem\nA second layer of sushi bars, poke bowl counters, and Japanese-flavoured kitchens across the city\u0026rsquo;s residential districts. This category has grown rapidly since 2022 as Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s appetite for Asian food has caught up with Tel Aviv.\nPan-Asian \u0026amp; Fusion # Satya — Keren HaYesod (Non-certified)\nThe most ambitious Asian-influenced restaurant in Jerusalem. Satya on Keren HaYesod Street runs a fish and fusion menu with a clear Southeast Asian lean — Thai aromatics, Japanese umami, elements of Vietnamese and Indonesian cooking. Not kosher-certified, which limits its audience in Jerusalem, but the cooking is a cut above the city\u0026rsquo;s certified options. Worth the trip for secular diners and tourists who don\u0026rsquo;t require supervision.\n📍 Keren HaYesod 36, Jerusalem | satya.co.il | 02-650-6808\nCOCORECO — Jerusalem\nA pan-Asian operation covering the broader Asian-fusion format: sushi, noodles, rice dishes. One of several neighbourhood spots that have filled demand in residential Jerusalem.\nMandarin — Jerusalem\nA long-established Chinese-influenced pan-Asian restaurant with a Jerusalem presence. The Mandarin name appears across multiple Israeli cities; this branch serves the local neighbourhood market.\nNaya — Beit Hakerem and Mevaseret Zion\nTwo branches of Naya serve the western Jerusalem corridor — one in Beit Hakerem inside the city, another in Beit Nekofa near Mevaseret Zion. Naya is a pan-Asian chain known for consistent quality and a broad menu.\nPoke Toke — Jerusalem\nPoke bowl counter in Jerusalem. The poke format — rice bowls with raw fish, vegetables, and sauces — has become a reliable lunchtime option across the city.\nRiver Sushi Bar Kosher — Jerusalem (Kosher)\nA kosher-certified sushi bar serving Jerusalem diners. Part of the expanding certified sushi infrastructure that has made Jerusalem a viable destination for kosher Asian food.\nSushi Bayit Vegan — Jerusalem\nAn all-vegan sushi operation — relevant both for religious diners (dairy-free, pareve options) and for the city\u0026rsquo;s health-conscious crowd. Plant-based sushi has found a natural audience in Jerusalem.\nTeabar — Jerusalem\nAsian-influenced drinks and light food. Teabar straddles the café and restaurant categories — useful for afternoon visits and as a lighter alternative to a full dinner.\nWok to Walk — Jerusalem\nThe Jerusalem branch of the international Wok to Walk chain. A fast-casual stir-fry concept: choose noodles or rice, pick a protein and sauce, eat immediately. One of the city\u0026rsquo;s more accessible Asian options for tourists on the go.\nIndian # Jeera Indian Food — Jerusalem\nIndian cuisine maps well onto kosher requirements — the vegetarian tradition is deep, and the separation of meat and dairy is close enough to halal and kosher practice that certified Indian restaurants are relatively uncommon but conceptually compatible. Jeera is one of the few dedicated Indian restaurants operating in Jerusalem, serving the city\u0026rsquo;s small South Asian community and curious diners alike.\nIchikidana — Jerusalem\nA second Indian option in the capital. Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Indian restaurant scene is small but stable — the community is anchored partly by the Indian Jewish community (particularly from Mumbai and Cochin) and partly by diplomatic and tech-industry residents.\nKorean, Thai \u0026amp; Chinese # Seoul House — Jerusalem\nJerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Korean restaurant. Seoul House covers the basics: bibimbap, Korean fried chicken, and the broader Korean-food-in-Israel repertoire. Korean food has a small but loyal following in Jerusalem, partly through the Korean Christian pilgrim community which visits the city year-round.\nThe Thai Jerusalem and Thailandi Bamoshava — Jerusalem\nTwo Thai options in the city. Thai food in Jerusalem faces the same kashrut tension as elsewhere — authentic Thai cooking uses shellfish, fish sauce, and pork in ways that complicate kosher certification — so both restaurants cater primarily to secular diners. Station 9 is a third Thai-flavoured venue in the city.\nTake A Wok and Mian Noodles — Jerusalem\nTwo Chinese-influenced spots cover the noodle and wok format in Jerusalem. Mian Noodles focuses on Chinese noodle dishes; Take A Wok covers the broader stir-fry and rice menu. Sheyan is a further Chinese option.\nOutside Jerusalem: Mevaseret Zion and Beit Shemesh # Oshi Oshi Mevaseret, Naya Beit Nekofa, Atza Sushi Bar Mevaseret, Deknoy, Sushi Box Mevaseret, Shinzu Ein Karem — Mevaseret Zion area\nThe communities just west of Jerusalem — Mevaseret Zion, Beit Zayit, and Mevasseret — have their own cluster of Asian restaurants. This makes sense: many Jerusalem families live in the western suburbs and commute, and they want local Asian food without the drive into the city. Shinzu has a branch in Ein Karem as well as Ramot.\nJapan Japan Beit Shemesh, Atza Sushi Bar Beit Shemesh, Sushi N\u0026rsquo; Bagel Beit Shemesh, Sushi Tokyo Beit Shemesh, Kapao Beit Shemesh — Beit Shemesh\nBeit Shemesh, 30 km west of Jerusalem, has developed its own significant cluster of Asian restaurants. The city\u0026rsquo;s large Anglo-immigrant religious population creates strong demand for kosher Asian food — particularly sushi — and the local scene reflects that. Kapao in Beit Shemesh is notable for a menu that goes beyond standard sushi into broader Asian-fusion territory.\nA Note on Kosher Certification # In Jerusalem, kashrut is not an afterthought. The religious and observant population is large enough that the market for certified Asian food has grown considerably. Key terms:\nKosher (כשר) — rabbinical supervision at a standard level Mehadrin (מהדרין) — stricter kosher supervision, required by many haredi and strictly Orthodox diners Chalav Yisrael — dairy products supervised by Jewish-observant personnel Many Asian restaurants in Jerusalem advertise kosher certification without specifying the level. If kashrut matters to your group, always confirm the certification body and level directly with the restaurant before booking.\nNote also that some restaurants naturally avoid pork and shellfish without being formally certified. This does not constitute kosher certification and should not be assumed to meet kashrut requirements.\nIngredients: Balagan Eastwest Food # If you\u0026rsquo;re cooking Asian food at home in Jerusalem, Balagan Eastwest Food on Agripas Street is the essential stop. The store carries an extremely wide range of ingredients for Japanese, Thai, Indian, Filipino, Korean, and Chinese cooking — fresh Asian vegetables included. One of the best-stocked Asian grocery stores in Israel outside Tel Aviv.\n📍 Agripas 47, Jerusalem | ewi.co.il | 02-623-0332\nOpen Sun–Thu 09:00–18:30, Fri 08:00–15:30\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers the recommended options; our Asian businesses directory lists the full Jerusalem scene, searchable by cuisine and neighbourhood.\nFor certified options across Israel, see the kosher Asian restaurants guide.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-restaurants-jerusalem/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jerusalem is unlike anywhere else in Israel for Asian food. The city’s large religious population means that kashrut matters here in a way it simply doesn’t in Tel Aviv — a large share of diners will only eat at certified kosher establishments, and restaurants know it. The result is an Asian dining scene shaped as much by religious law as by culinary ambition: sushi bars and pan-Asian kitchens that operate under full rabbinical supervision, curry houses that are naturally aligned with kosher principles, and a handful of non-certified spots serving the secular and tourist crowds.\n","title":"Asian Restaurants in Jerusalem: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/association/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Association","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/banh-mi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Banh Mi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/businesses/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Businesses","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/community/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Community","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cooking-class/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cooking-Class","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cultural-center/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cultural-Center","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/embassy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Embassy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/financial/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Financial","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/haifa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Haifa","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/india/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"India","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jerusalem/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jerusalem","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/judo/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Judo","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/karate/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Karate","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/korean/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Korean","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kosher/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kosher","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel is a rare place where kashrut and Asian cuisine genuinely intersect. A growing number of restaurateurs — Israeli, Japanese-trained, and Asian-born alike — have built kitchens that are both authentically Asian and fully certified kosher. The result is a niche that barely existed a decade ago and now spans sushi bars, pan-Asian street-food chains, a lone Vietnamese restaurant, and a mehadrin-certified Japanese izakaya in Binyamina.\nThis guide covers every certified kosher Asian restaurant we know of in Israel, organised by cuisine and region. For the full searchable directory, see our Asian businesses directory.\nSushi \u0026amp; Japanese # Yume — Binyamina (Mehadrin) # The standout on this list. Yume holds a mehadrin kosher certification — the stricter standard — and delivers a full Japanese menu: fresh sushi, stir-fries, Japanese boutique beers, and sake. The kitchen is in Binyamina, making it the only mehadrin Japanese restaurant outside Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s religious neighbourhoods. Worth a detour from Netanya or Hadera.\n📍 HaMeyasdim 4, Binyamina | yume.co.il | @yume_binyamina | 04-980-4444\nAzia 19 — Jerusalem (Kosher) # The top Japanese option in Jerusalem, and arguably the most ambitious kosher Japanese restaurant in Israel. The menu is modelled on an izakaya: sushi, sashimi, kushiyaki on a charcoal grill, and Japanese-style burgers. Opened in 2024 in the Rehavia neighbourhood — quickly became the go-to for Asian food in the capital.\n📍 Aza 19, Jerusalem | @azia19_ | 02-587-7722\nYoko Sushi Bar — Florentin, Tel Aviv (Kosher) # All-you-can-eat sushi in Florentin, with rolls made in front of you and a dim sum section alongside. Delivers across Tel Aviv. One of the few kosher sushi spots that draws a mixed religious and secular crowd.\n📍 5 Florentin Street, Tel Aviv | sushiyoko.co.il | @yoko.sushibar | 077-332-2230\nKona Sushi Bar — Modiin (Kosher, Rabbinate of Modiin — Meat) # Two branches in Modiin serving sushi and Asian-fusion dishes. Certified by the Modiin rabbinate as meat (basar). Good delivery coverage across the Modiin–Maccabim–Reut corridor.\n📍 Lea Imenu 1, Modiin (main branch) | Modiin Center mall (second branch) | kona.co.il | @konasushi_modiin | 08-684-3472\nKanki Sushi — Tel Aviv (Kosher) # One of the better kosher sushi options in central Tel Aviv. Known for Japanese fusion rolls and creative combinations. On Bograshov, convenient for pre-cinema or post-beach dinners.\n📍 Bograshov 23, Tel Aviv\nOtoro — Ramat Gan (Kosher) # A hand-roll sushi bar (temaki) in Ramat Gan. The hand-roll format is inherently fast and casual — nori cones filled and served immediately, eaten before the seaweed softens. Good for a quick kosher Japanese fix in the Diamond District area.\n📍 HaChilazon 1, Ramat Gan\nPan-Asian \u0026amp; Fusion # Street Chan — Tiberias (Kosher) # A popular Asian street-food restaurant and sushi bar in Tiberias, drawing both locals and tourists staying near the Kinneret. The menu spans noodles, curries, bao buns, sushi, and burgers — the broad pan-Asian format that works well for families with varied tastes. Lively, young atmosphere.\n📍 20 Yohanan Ben Zakai Street, Tiberias | street-chan.rest.co.il | @street_chan_tiberias | 04-662-1688\nSin Chan — Tiberias (Kosher) # A kosher Chinese and Asian chain with a branch in Tiberias, serving sushi, dim sum, noodles, and classic Chinese dishes. The Tiberias location serves the religious tourist market well — Tiberias sees high hotel occupancy from observant Israeli and diaspora visitors.\n📍 Shimon Dahan 10, Tiberias | sinchan.co.il | 04-672-3355\nYa\u0026rsquo;ar HaOren — Tiberias (Kosher) # One of Israel\u0026rsquo;s oldest kosher Asian restaurants — open since 1985. The Chinese-Thai menu leans traditional: generous portions of stir-fries, noodle soups, and Thai curries. Forty years of serving the Tiberias religious tourism market has given it a steady, loyal clientele. On the Galilee lakefront strip.\n📍 52 HaGalil Street, Tiberias | @yaar__aoren | 04-679-0242\nChinese # Pikansin — Tel Aviv (Kosher) # A kosher Chinese restaurant in Tel Aviv. Information is limited — worth calling ahead to confirm hours and current kashrut certification before visiting.\n📍 Tel Aviv\nChinatown — Tel Aviv (Kosher) # Another kosher Chinese option in Tel Aviv. As with Pikansin, confirm directly before visiting — small kosher restaurants in Israel sometimes change certification status.\n📍 Tel Aviv\nVietnamese # Cà Phê Hanoi — Tel Aviv (Kosher) # Reportedly the only kosher Vietnamese restaurant in Israel — a remarkable distinction. The menu centres on pho, bao buns, and spring rolls: Vietnamese comfort food served in a certified kosher kitchen. If you are craving Vietnamese food and keeping kosher, this is your option in the entire country.\n📍 Tel Aviv\nA Note on Kashrut Levels # Not all kosher certifications are equal. A few markers to know:\nMehadrin is the stricter standard — additional requirements around the slaughter, preparation, and supervision of meat, and often more rigorous checking of produce. Yume in Binyamina holds mehadrin certification, which is unusual for a Japanese restaurant.\nRegular rabbinate certification (rabbinate of the local municipality) is the baseline standard required for a restaurant to display a kosher certificate. The certification must be current — certificates expire annually, and restaurants do occasionally lapse. Always check the physical certificate on-site or call ahead.\nChalav Yisrael / Pas Yisrael: Some observant diners require dairy products supervised by a Jew from milking (chalav Yisrael) and bread baked under Jewish supervision (pas Yisrael). If this matters to your group, ask specifically — it is not always covered by standard certification.\nA common misconception: many non-certified Asian restaurants in Israel naturally avoid pork and shellfish, which are the most visible non-kosher ingredients. This does not make them kosher. Mixing meat and dairy, use of non-kosher wine in sauces, and issues with produce supervision are equally relevant. Never assume a restaurant is kosher because it skips pork.\nOutside the Certified List # Several well-regarded Asian restaurants in Israel operate without kosher certification but are run by religious families, avoid the main prohibited ingredients, or are known in the community as \u0026ldquo;de-facto\u0026rdquo; friendly. These are not listed here — this guide covers certified establishments only. If certification is critical, always ask for the written certificate.\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers certified kosher options we have verified in our database. The Asian businesses directory lists all Asian restaurants in Israel — filter by city, cuisine, or search for kosher options.\nLooking for the full Japanese restaurant scene (including non-kosher)? See the complete Japan guide.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/kosher-asian-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel is a rare place where kashrut and Asian cuisine genuinely intersect. A growing number of restaurateurs — Israeli, Japanese-trained, and Asian-born alike — have built kitchens that are both authentically Asian and fully certified kosher. The result is a niche that barely existed a decade ago and now spans sushi bars, pan-Asian street-food chains, a lone Vietnamese restaurant, and a mehadrin-certified Japanese izakaya in Binyamina.\n","title":"Kosher Asian Restaurants in Israel: The Complete Guide (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/krav-maga/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Krav-Maga","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kung-fu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kung-Fu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/martial-arts/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Martial-Arts","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/money-transfer/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Money Transfer","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/philippines/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Philippines","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pho/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pho","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/remittance/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Remittance","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/restaurant/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Restaurant","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sending money home is one of the most routine and highest-stakes tasks in the lives of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian worker and expat community. Filipino caregivers, Thai agricultural workers, Indian tech professionals, and workers from Nepal, China, and beyond collectively transfer hundreds of millions of shekels out of Israel every year — supporting families, paying mortgages back home, and funding children\u0026rsquo;s education.\nThe options have multiplied in recent years. Where a trip to a physical agent was once the only choice, today a mix of Israeli-built fintech platforms, global giants, and community-specific services compete for that business. This guide maps what\u0026rsquo;s available, what it costs to navigate, and how to get your money where it needs to go.\nFor the full directory of remittance services, see our Asian businesses directory.\nIsraeli-Built Services # These platforms were built specifically for Israel\u0026rsquo;s foreign worker and expat market, and often offer the best rates for the most common corridors.\nGMT — Global Money Transfer\nGMT is the best-known Israeli remittance company serving the foreign worker community. It operates an online platform and has a partnership with Cebuana Lhuillier — one of the Philippines\u0026rsquo; largest pawnshop and financial services networks, with over 2,500 branches — meaning cash pickup is accessible almost anywhere in the Philippines. GMT also serves Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Nepali workers.\ngmtonline.co.il\nMoneySend\nAn Israeli platform offering transfers to 90+ countries including the Philippines, Thailand, and India. Transactions are credit-card based with no branch visit required — you apply and send entirely online. Popular with caregivers who need a fast, low-friction option.\nmoneysend.co.il\nRewire by Remitly\nRewire started as an Israeli startup targeting migrant workers and was later acquired by US-based Remitly. The local platform still operates under the Rewire brand and covers 130+ countries. The app is available in multiple languages including Tagalog and Thai, and the service is frequently cited in Filipino and Thai worker communities in Israel for competitive exchange rates.\nrewire.co.il\nMonox Philippines by 019\nA dedicated Philippines-to-Israel corridor service operated by 019 (an Israeli telecom and financial services company). Advertises zero transfer fee — you pay only on the exchange rate spread. Options include cash pickup, direct bank transfer, and GCash (the Philippines\u0026rsquo; dominant e-wallet). For workers sending exclusively to the Philippines, this is worth comparing directly against GMT and Rewire.\nFacebook: MonoxPhilippinesby019\nMoneyLowCost\nA community-oriented service specialising in Israel–Philippines transfers, notable for one unusual feature: it offers 20-day interest-free credit. This means a worker can initiate a transfer before their salary clears, with repayment due later. Organised as a Facebook group community; best suited for workers with established trust in the service.\nFacebook group\nNeema Digital Wallet\nNeema (operated via the i-Change platform) is a digital wallet designed for foreign workers in Israel. It issues a physical Mastercard, enabling workers to receive their salary, spend locally, and transfer abroad at relatively low fees. The wallet model is useful if your employer or recruiter supports direct deposit to it.\ni-change.co.il — Neema wallet\nGlobal Networks With Israeli Presence # Western Union Israel\nWestern Union operates through agents across Israel — including post offices, exchange bureaus, and dedicated agents in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and other cities. As one of the world\u0026rsquo;s largest remittance networks, it offers coverage to virtually every country in Asia. Rates are typically less competitive than the Israeli-focused platforms above, but the brand is trusted, the branch network is wide, and cash-payout options at destination are mature.\nwesternunion.com/il\nIsrael Post — Western Union Service\nIsrael Post branches nationwide serve as Western Union agents. This is a practical option for workers in smaller cities or towns where dedicated remittance agents don\u0026rsquo;t exist. Post office hours are limited compared to private agents — check branch hours before travelling.\nIsrael Post money transfer page\nMoneyGram Israel\nMoneyGram operates a network of agents across Israel for both sending and receiving. Coverage at destination is strong in the Philippines, India, and Thailand. As with Western Union, rates are often less competitive than Israeli-focused digital platforms, but the cash-payout network in remote areas of destination countries can be an advantage.\nmoneygram.com — Israel\nDigital-Only Alternatives # Wise (formerly TransferWise)\nWise uses mid-market exchange rates with transparent, low fees — and publishes both upfront, so you know exactly what arrives before you confirm. It is popular with Indian tech workers, Chinese expats, and anyone sending larger amounts where the fee differential between Wise and a bank transfer is significant. Wise requires identity verification and a bank account in Israel; it is less useful for workers who are paid in cash or who do not have an Israeli bank account.\nwise.com/il\nBy Destination Country # Philippines # The largest single corridor from Israel. The best-covered services are:\nGMT (Cebuana Lhuillier pickup network, 2,500+ branches) Rewire (Tagalog-language support, competitive rates) Monox by 019 (zero fee, GCash supported) MoneyLowCost (interest-free credit option) Western Union / Israel Post (cash pickup nationwide in the Philippines) GCash, the Philippines\u0026rsquo; dominant e-wallet, is supported by Monox and some GMT transfers. If your recipient uses GCash, this can be faster than a bank deposit.\nThailand # GMT (Thai worker support) MoneySend (covers Thailand) Rewire (Thai-language support) Western Union / MoneyGram (cash pickup at PromptPay-linked agents and banks) India # GMT (Indian corridor supported) MoneySend (covers India) Wise (strong for bank-to-bank INR transfers, popular with tech workers) Western Union / MoneyGram (broad agent network in India) SWIFT/bank transfers from Israeli banks are also viable for India if the amounts are large and your recipient has a bank account with SWIFT access.\nChina # GMT (Chinese workers supported) Wise (CNY transfers to Chinese banks) Western Union (China coverage) Note: transfers to mainland China face additional compliance checks on both the Israeli and Chinese sides. Allow extra time and ensure your recipient\u0026rsquo;s bank account details are accurate.\nNepal # GMT (Nepali workers listed in GMT\u0026rsquo;s supported corridors) Western Union / MoneyGram (strong network in Nepal) Nepal has a large and active remittance-receiving infrastructure — most services that cover South Asia cover Nepal. GMT and the global networks are the most reliable options.\nPractical Tips # What to Bring # For in-person agents, bring your teudat zehut (Israeli ID, for residents and citizens) or passport (for those on work visas). Some services also require your Israeli work visa or residency permit. For digital services, identity verification is done via app upload — have your documents photographed in advance.\nExchange Rate vs. Transfer Fee # Do not evaluate services on fee alone. A service advertising \u0026ldquo;no fee\u0026rdquo; may offer a worse exchange rate than a service charging a small fee. Always compare the amount that arrives at the destination for the same amount sent — this is the only honest comparison. Most of the platforms above have rate calculators on their websites; use them side by side before deciding.\nBest Times to Send # Exchange rates fluctuate with the shekel. The NIS has historically been stronger against Asian currencies mid-week on days with good Israeli economic news. There is no universal \u0026ldquo;best day,\u0026rdquo; but avoiding major news events (elections, central bank announcements, escalations in the security situation) when the shekel is under pressure will typically produce better rates.\nIsrael Tax Authority (ITA) Reporting # The Israeli Tax Authority requires reporting of certain large outgoing transfers. For most workers sending regular monthly amounts, the sums involved fall well below reporting thresholds. However, if you plan to send a large one-time transfer (e.g., for a property purchase or significant family expense), consult with the service agent or a tax professional about whether the transfer requires declaration.\nBank of Israel Regulations # Israel\u0026rsquo;s Bank of Israel regulates money transfer services. Licensed operators must comply with anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) rules — which is why all services listed here require identity verification. If a service asks for unusually high fees, requests payment in cryptocurrency without proper licensing, or offers rates that seem too good to be true, treat it as a red flag. Stick to licensed operators.\nFor complaints or verification of a service\u0026rsquo;s license status, contact the Bank of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Supervisor of Banks and Payment Services.\nChoosing the Right Service # Need Best option(s) Lowest total cost, Philippines Compare Monox, GMT, Rewire Cash pickup in remote Philippines GMT (Cebuana) or Western Union GCash delivery Monox by 019 Thai agricultural worker, send THB Rewire or GMT Indian tech worker, send INR Wise or GMT No Israeli bank account Western Union / Israel Post (cash-based) Small-town Israel, no nearby agent Israel Post branches Large one-time transfer Wise (lowest rates on large amounts) Need credit before salary clears MoneyLowCost (Philippines only) The full list of remittance services in our directory is at Asian businesses directory. If you use a service not listed here and want it added, contact us via the contact page.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/money-transfer-asia-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sending money home is one of the most routine and highest-stakes tasks in the lives of Israel’s Asian worker and expat community. Filipino caregivers, Thai agricultural workers, Indian tech professionals, and workers from Nepal, China, and beyond collectively transfer hundreds of millions of shekels out of Israel every year — supporting families, paying mortgages back home, and funding children’s education.\n","title":"Sending Money to Asia from Israel: Remittance Services Guide (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sushi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sushi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taekwondo/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taekwondo","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tel-aviv/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tel Aviv","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thai","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thailand/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thailand","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vietnamese/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vietnamese","type":"tags"},{"content":"Vietnamese cuisine is one of the quieter stories in Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian food scene. While Japanese and Korean restaurants have multiplied rapidly, Vietnam has arrived more softly — a handful of bánh mì counters tucked into markets, a kosher pho spot in central Tel Aviv, a bún chả place up north in Haifa. Small in number but genuine in character.\nPart of the backdrop is a real community: tens of thousands of Vietnamese workers came to Israel in the 1990s and 2000s to work in construction and agriculture. Many stayed, settled, and some eventually opened restaurants. Today the food they serve ranges from street-food sandwiches (bánh mì) to fragrant beef-noodle soups (pho) to grilled pork over vermicelli (bún chả). None of it is fusion — this is the real thing.\nThis guide covers every Vietnamese restaurant we track. For the full directory, see our Asian businesses directory.\nA Quick Vietnamese Food Primer # If you\u0026rsquo;re new to Vietnamese food, here\u0026rsquo;s what you\u0026rsquo;ll see on most menus:\nPho (pronounced roughly fuh) — Vietnam\u0026rsquo;s national dish. A clear, deeply aromatic broth — typically beef or chicken — with rice noodles, slices of meat, fresh herbs, bean sprouts, lime, and chilli on the side. Made properly, the broth simmers for hours. Light and complex at the same time.\nBánh mì — A Vietnamese baguette sandwich, a direct legacy of French colonial rule. The contrast is the point: crunchy French bread, savoury pork or pâté or tofu, pickled daikon and carrot, fresh coriander and chilli. The best bánh mì in Israel are at dedicated counters, not afterthoughts.\nBún chả — Grilled pork patties served over cold vermicelli rice noodles with a dipping broth, fresh herbs, and pickled vegetables. The dish Barack Obama ate with Anthony Bourdain in Hanoi. Smoky, refreshing, and easy to like.\nGỏi cuốn (spring rolls / summer rolls) — Fresh rice-paper rolls filled with shrimp or pork, vermicelli, mint, and lettuce. Not fried; eaten at room temperature with peanut sauce or hoisin. Lighter than their fried counterparts and a good starter anywhere.\nBún bò Huế — A spicier, richer noodle soup from the central city of Huế. Less common than pho but worth seeking out — the lemongrass-heavy broth has a completely different personality.\nTel Aviv # Bánh Mì Spots # Banh Mi 13 — Levinsky Market\nThe most-discussed Vietnamese spot in Tel Aviv, tucked into Nahalat Binyamin Street in the Levinsky spice market. Bánh mì sandwiches built the right way — crusty baguette, pickled vegetables, fresh coriander, chilli — alongside Vietnamese soups. The market setting fits: Levinsky has long attracted immigrant food vendors, and Banh Mi 13 belongs in that tradition.\n📍 Nahalat Binyamin 107, Levinsky Market, Tel Aviv\nBanh Mi Nong — Mikve Israel\nA Vietnamese restaurant at the top of Mikve Israel Street, with outdoor seating and an unpretentious feel. The bánh mì here are well-regarded, and the menu also features pork noodle dishes. Good for a quick lunch if you\u0026rsquo;re near the old agricultural school area.\n📍 Mikve Israel 1, Tel Aviv\nFlorentin # Florentin House — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nA Vietnamese restaurant in Florentin with a loyal neighbourhood following — over 140 reviews on TripAdvisor averaging 4.5 stars. The menu covers Vietnamese classics in a casual setting that suits the neighbourhood\u0026rsquo;s character. Details are limited but the rating speaks to consistency.\n📍 Florentin, Tel Aviv\nKosher Vietnamese # Cà Phê Hanoi — Tel Aviv (Kosher)\nThe only kosher Vietnamese restaurant in Israel. The name means \u0026ldquo;Hanoi Café\u0026rdquo; and the menu follows through: pho soup, bao buns, spring rolls, and Vietnamese-style small plates. For observant diners — or anyone curious — this is a genuine rarity.\n📍 Tel Aviv | (Kosher-certified)\nDelivery \u0026amp; Virtual Kitchens # Lampur — Tel Aviv\nDescribed as \u0026ldquo;Malaysian by Hanoi\u0026rdquo; — a mashup concept with Vietnamese-Malaysian crossover dishes. King George 30 area. Available on Wolt.\n📍 King George 30 area, Tel Aviv | Order on Wolt\nVong | TLV — Tel Aviv\nWok and Asian street bowls with a Vietnamese-influenced menu. Located on Derech Menachem Begin. Available on Wolt for delivery across central Tel Aviv.\n📍 Derech Menachem Begin 150, Tel Aviv | Order on Wolt\nFood Terminal | Tel-Aviv — Tel Aviv (delivery)\nA virtual kitchen covering ramen, sushi, wok, burgers, and poke. Vietnamese-adjacent comfort food; convenient for delivery but no dine-in option.\nOrder on Wolt\nOutside Tel Aviv # Bun Cha — Haifa\nThe main Vietnamese option in Israel\u0026rsquo;s north. Named after the classic Hanoi grilled-pork dish, Bun Cha in Haifa brings Vietnamese food to a city where the Asian restaurant scene has been growing steadily. Details are limited — worth calling ahead to confirm hours.\n📍 Haifa\nFood Terminal | Rishon LeZion — Rishon LeZion (delivery)\nThe Rishon branch of the Food Terminal virtual kitchen. Same broad Asian menu; Wolt delivery covers the southern Tel Aviv area and Rishon.\nOrder on Wolt\nWhat to Order, Where # If you want… Go to The best bánh mì in Israel Banh Mi 13 (Levinsky) or Banh Mi Nong Pho in a kosher-certified setting Cà Phê Hanoi A sit-down Vietnamese meal in Florentin Florentin House Vietnamese food in Haifa Bun Cha Late-night delivery Vong or Food Terminal (Wolt) The Scene in 2026 # Nine entries is a small number for a cuisine this good. The Vietnamese community in Israel is large enough to sustain more restaurants, and the food — fresh, herbal, relatively light — fits Israeli palates well. The bánh mì format in particular has obvious street-food appeal in a market culture that already loves sandwiches.\nWatch Levinsky Market: the area around Nahalat Binyamin and the spice stalls has become a natural landing zone for immigrant food vendors, and Vietnamese food fits the neighbourhood\u0026rsquo;s spirit. Banh Mi 13 is unlikely to be the last.\nFor the complete list — including any newcomers added after this guide was written — see our Asian businesses directory.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/vietnamese-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vietnamese cuisine is one of the quieter stories in Israel’s Asian food scene. While Japanese and Korean restaurants have multiplied rapidly, Vietnam has arrived more softly — a handful of bánh mì counters tucked into markets, a kosher pho spot in central Tel Aviv, a bún chả place up north in Haifa. Small in number but genuine in character.\n","title":"Vietnamese Restaurants in Israel: Pho, Bánh Mì \u0026 More (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/workshop/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Workshop","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/acupuncture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Acupuncture","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel has a surprisingly deep Asian wellness scene. Thai massage studios operate in most major cities, Chinese medicine clinics are a fixture in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Japanese head spas have emerged as a fast-growing niche, and acupuncture practitioners trained in East Asia see patients across the country. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re after a recovery session after army service, a couples treatment, or a TCM consultation for a chronic condition, the options have never been broader.\nThis guide covers the landscape by tradition and city. For the full searchable listing, see our Asian businesses directory.\nThai Massage # Thai massage is the most common Asian wellness modality in Israel, with dozens of studios run by Thai practitioners across Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, and beyond. Traditional Thai massage (nuad boran) uses no oil — the therapist uses hands, elbows, knees, and feet to stretch and compress along energy lines. Oil massage, foot reflexology, herbal compress, and hot stone treatments are commonly offered alongside.\nTel Aviv # Tim Thai Massage — Yirmeyahu, Tel Aviv\nA boutique studio on Yirmeyahu Street run by therapist Tabtim (\u0026ldquo;Tim\u0026rdquo;), who leads a team of certified Thai practitioners. Known for authentic technique and a relaxed, low-key atmosphere. Booking by phone or WhatsApp.\n📍 Yirmeyahu 20, Tel Aviv | timthaimassage.co.il | @timthaimassage | 03-793-1141\nCarmel Thai Massage — Carmel Market, Tel Aviv\nA well-appointed spa next to Carmel Market offering Thai massage for individuals, couples, groups, and families. Open on Saturdays — one of the few wellness venues that is. The space is larger than a typical studio: multiple treatment rooms, good for pre-arranged group sessions.\n📍 Yishkan 43, Tel Aviv | carmelthaimassage.co.il | @carmelthaimassage | 077-303-4102\nThai Massage Center — Ben Yehuda, Tel Aviv\nA professional Thai massage centre on Ben Yehuda Street in the heart of central Tel Aviv. Multiple therapists, walk-in friendly.\n📍 Ben Yehuda 49, Tel Aviv | thai-massage.co.il | 03-773-3079\nSabai Sabai Thai Spa — Ben Yehuda, Tel Aviv\nA specialist spa focused on foot massage, traditional Thai, Swedish, deep tissue, hot stone, herbal compress, and pre/post-natal massage. Historically one of the more comprehensive treatment menus in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Thai spa scene.\n📍 Ben Yehuda 125, Tel Aviv | sabai-sabai.co.il\nThai Touch — Frishman, Tel Aviv\nOriginal Thai massage on Frishman Street. Small studio, experienced practitioners.\n📍 Frishman 18, Tel Aviv | thaithara.co.il | 052-088-6667\nKoThai Spa — Bograshov, Tel Aviv\n📍 Bograshov 4, Tel Aviv | kothai.co.il | 03-771-5858\nSamui Thai Massage — Ben Yehuda, Tel Aviv\nProfessional Thai massage on Ben Yehuda Street. Walk-ins welcome.\n📍 Ben Yehuda 31, Tel Aviv | samui-massage.com | @samuithaimassage_benyehuda31\nNUAD Thai Massage — Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv\nInside Dizengoff Center, staffed by certified Thai therapists. Convenient location for a treatment before or after shopping.\n📍 Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv | nuadthaimassage.net\nChang Thai Massage — King George, Tel Aviv\nTraditional Thai massage in the King George Street area, central Tel Aviv.\n📍 King George 18, Tel Aviv | 058-555-2841\nBangkok Thai Massage — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nTraditional Thai massage rooted in yin-yang principles. In the Florentin/Pinsker neighbourhood.\n📍 Pinsker 61, Tel Aviv\nHaifa # Nok Thai Massage — Sderot HaNasi, Haifa\nAuthentic Thai massage experience in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s main boulevard area.\n📍 Sderot HaNasi 113, Haifa | facebook.com/NokThaiHAIFA | 050-687-9999\nYONG Thai Massage — Haifa (women only)\nTraditional Thai massage in Haifa — women-only policy.\n📍 Palmach 51, Haifa | yong.co.il\nSukanya Thai Massage — Haifa\nProfessional Thai massage by certified Thai practitioners.\n📍 Bat Khen 7, Haifa | 054-973-9237\nFeel Thai Massage by Ronalyn — Haifa\n📍 Hanita 7, Haifa\nGIGI Royal Thai Massage — Haifa\n📍 Palmach 51, Haifa\nKhao San Road Thai Massage — Herzl, Haifa\n📍 Herzl 59, Haifa\nJerusalem # Original Thai Massage Jerusalem\nTraditional and authentic Thai massage studio in central Jerusalem.\noriginalthaimassages.co.il\nThai Massage Jerusalem\n📍 Dorot Rishonim 5, Jerusalem\nOutside the Main Cities # ThaiTime Massage — Netanya\nTraditional Thai massage combining yoga, acupressure, energy healing, reflexology, and meditation.\n📍 Tel Khai 4, Netanya | thai-time.co.il | @Thaitimemassage\nThai Vibe Massage — Netanya\n📍 Netanya\nDiamond Thai Massage — Herzliya Pituach\n📍 Herzliya | diamondthaimassage.co.il\nSmile Thai Massage — Herzliya\n📍 HaMa\u0026rsquo;apilim 39, Herzliya\nRose Gold Thai Massage — Herzliya / Netanya\nProfessional Thai massage serving both Herzliya and Netanya.\nDay Massage — Beer Sheva\nA Thai spa in the south with six certified practitioners from Thailand and the Philippines.\nday-massage.co.il\nThai Massage Beer Sheva\n📍 Hayim Hazaz 8, Beer Sheva\nSala Thai Massage — Multiple locations\nA Thai massage chain with branches in Haifa, Rishon LeZion, Jerusalem, and Beer Sheva.\nJapanese Head Spa # The Japanese head spa (ヘッドスパ, headspa) is a relatively new arrival in Israel but has grown quickly. Sessions typically last 45–90 minutes and combine scalp massage, steam treatment, and Japanese-method hair care. Good for stress relief and scalp health — particularly popular with people experiencing hair thinning or scalp sensitivity.\nHead Spa Israel — Tel Aviv\nThe original Japanese head spa brand in Israel. Scalp massage and hair treatment using traditional Japanese methods.\nheadspa.co.il\nHead Spa Israel — Petah Tikva (branch)\n📍 Ezra Gaba\u0026rsquo;i 3, Petah Tikva | @head.spa.il\nOSPA Japanese Head Spa — Modi\u0026rsquo;in\n📍 Modi\u0026rsquo;in | ospa.co.il\nWater Bodywork: Watsu # WatsuTlv — Tel Aviv\nWatsu (water + shiatsu) is an aquatic bodywork method developed in the 1980s based on shiatsu principles: the practitioner moves, stretches, and applies pressure while the client floats in warm water. It is particularly effective for chronic pain, PTSD recovery, and mobility limitations. WatsuTlv offers sessions in central Tel Aviv.\n📍 Ben Yehuda 49, Tel Aviv | @watsutlv | 053-948-0064\nAcupuncture # Acupuncture in Israel is practiced both by Chinese-trained practitioners and Israeli therapists certified through local schools. The following offer specifically East Asian-trained or East Asian-led practice.\nTel Aviv Acupuncture \u0026amp; TCM\nRun by Joyon Kim from Seoul, Korea. Chinese acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine in Tel Aviv.\ntelavivacupuncture.com\nAcupuncture Jerusalem — Jamie Bacharach\nChinese acupuncture, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, and shiatsu massage in Jerusalem.\nacupuncturejerusalem.com\nAcupuncture Israel — Daniel Feld\nJerusalem-based certified acupuncturist specialising in migraines and fertility.\nacupunctureisrael.com\nOded Giyat Center For Chinese Acupuncture — Tel Aviv\n📍 Ya\u0026rsquo;avets 30, Tel Aviv\nChi Chinese Medicine — Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv\n📍 Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv\nChinese Health — Tel Aviv\n📍 Miriam HaHashmonait 27, Tel Aviv\nKeren Or Japanese Acupuncture — Tel Aviv\nOne of the few practitioners in Israel using specifically Japanese acupuncture technique (gentler needling, thinner gauge, palpation-led diagnosis).\n📍 Brodetski 32, Tel Aviv\nTraditional Chinese Medicine \u0026amp; Herbal Clinics # TCM in Israel has expanded well beyond acupuncture. The following clinics offer integrated TCM services including herbal prescriptions, tui na (therapeutic massage), cupping, and moxibustion.\nNeiJing Chinese Medicine Clinic — Jerusalem \u0026amp; Tel Aviv\nThe leading advanced Chinese medicine centre in Israel, with clinics in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Offers the full range of TCM modalities.\nneijing.co.il\nSerenity Chinese Medicine — Jerusalem\nA specialist TCM centre in Jerusalem offering acupuncture, herbal medicine, and tui na.\nserenity.co.il\nSinteva Chinese Medicine Clinic — Jerusalem\nTraditional Chinese medicine clinic in Jerusalem.\nsinteva.co.il\nThe Community Center For Chinese Medicine — Tel Aviv\nAcupuncture and herbal medicine on Dubnov Street. Community-oriented pricing and approach.\n📍 Dubnov 10, Tel Aviv | kehilaty.com\nDaniel Elyakim Chinese Medicine — Tel Aviv\n📍 Arlozorov 82, Tel Aviv\nJapanese and Chinese Medicine — Tel Aviv\nA clinic offering both Japanese and Chinese medicine modalities.\n📍 Weissburg 17, Tel Aviv\nPatia Traditional Chinese Medicine — Tel Aviv\n📍 Kuf Mem 67, Tel Aviv\nDr. Li Hong Pen — Tel Aviv\nA practitioner originally from China.\n📍 HaBazel 3, Tel Aviv\nSun Tuina — Tel Aviv\nTui na (Chinese therapeutic massage) in Tel Aviv.\n📍 Shalom Aleichem 58, Tel Aviv\nAyurveda # Israeli Center for Ayurveda — Dr. Eran Magon — Tel Aviv\nAyurvedic medicine consultations and treatments in Tel Aviv.\n📍 Brodetski 43, Tel Aviv\nWhat to Expect: A Practical Guide # Thai Massage # Sessions typically run 60, 90, or 120 minutes. Traditional Thai massage (no oil) is done fully clothed on a mat; oil massage is on a table. Expect:\nPrice range: ₪150–₪350 per session depending on length and location Booking: Most studios accept walk-ins but WhatsApp booking is common; weekends fill up fast Dress code: Loose, comfortable clothing for traditional dry massage; the studio provides a change of clothes for oil treatments Acupuncture \u0026amp; TCM # Initial consultations are usually 60–90 minutes; follow-up treatments are 45–60 minutes. Practitioners will take a detailed health history (pulse, tongue diagnosis).\nPrice range: ₪250–₪500 for an initial consultation with treatment; follow-ups ₪180–₪350 Course of treatment: Most conditions require a series of sessions; chronic issues typically 6–10 sessions minimum Herbs: Many clinics dispense granule or raw herbs on-site; costs vary Japanese Head Spa # Sessions run 45–90 minutes.\nPrice range: ₪200–₪450 depending on length and add-ons What happens: Consultation about scalp condition, steam application, layered scalp massage, optional hair masking Frequency: Once a month is typical for maintenance; weekly for active scalp issues Watsu # Sessions are 60–90 minutes in a heated pool. Swimwear required.\nPrice range: ₪350–₪600 per session Recommended for: Chronic pain, anxiety, trauma recovery, mobility issues The Full Directory # This guide covers the main options; our Asian businesses directory lists all wellness and massage businesses in Israel, searchable by city and type.\nLooking for Asian food? See the Japanese restaurants guide, Korean restaurants guide, or Asian grocery stores guide.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-massage-wellness-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel has a surprisingly deep Asian wellness scene. Thai massage studios operate in most major cities, Chinese medicine clinics are a fixture in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Japanese head spas have emerged as a fast-growing niche, and acupuncture practitioners trained in East Asia see patients across the country. Whether you’re after a recovery session after army service, a couples treatment, or a TCM consultation for a chronic condition, the options have never been broader.\n","title":"Asian Massage, Spa \u0026 Wellness in Israel: The Complete Guide (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tel Aviv has the most developed Asian food scene in Israel — and one of the most varied in the Middle East. Japanese omakase counters, Thai street-food kitchens, Korean izakayas, Sichuanese dumpling bars, Indian thali joints, and Vietnamese bánh mì shops sit within a few kilometres of each other across the city\u0026rsquo;s neighbourhoods: Florentin, Carmel Market, Neve Tzedek, the old train station area, and along Dizengoff and Ibn Gabirol.\nThis guide covers the standout options across every Asian cuisine active in Tel Aviv. Individual cuisine deep-dives are linked in each section — use this page as your starting point.\nFor the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory.\nJapanese # Tel Aviv is home to Israel\u0026rsquo;s densest concentration of Japanese restaurants — from minimalist omakase rooms in Jaffa to ramen bars and sake pubs scattered across Florentin and the city centre. See the full Japanese Restaurants in Israel guide and the dedicated Best Sushi in Tel Aviv guide.\nTerasu — Jaffa The most-discussed omakase counter in Israel. Book weeks ahead for this modern fine-dining room on Yefet Street in Jaffa\u0026rsquo;s old city. 📍 Yefet 20, Jaffa | @terasutlv | 055-989-9366\nUMAI Izakaya — Jaffa 22-seat room run by chef Alex Abramov, six years trained in Japan. Kaiseki-influenced tasting menus and a more casual izakaya mode alongside. 📍 Abed El Rauf El Bitar 8, Jaffa | umai-tlv.com | @umai.modern.japanese | 052-597-7897\nKimuraya — Tel Aviv First Israeli branch of a nearly 200-location Japanese chain. Yakitori, sashimi, kushiage, and a proper sake list on Maze Street. 📍 Maze 3, Tel Aviv | kimurayaisrael.com | @kimuraya.j_israel | 055-299-6579\nASA Izakaya — Tel Aviv Charcoal-grill izakaya focused on robata cooking. Also runs sushi, gyoza, ramen, and udon, near Habima Square. 📍 Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am 54, Tel Aviv | @asa__izakaya | 03-375-2977\nAkiko — North Tel Aviv Sushi bar in the north of the city, a reliable neighbourhood option. 📍 Aba Ahimeir 17, Tel Aviv | akiko.co.il | @akiko_sushi_bar | 03-641-7641\nPan-Asian \u0026amp; Fusion # These are the multi-cuisine spots that deliberately blend influences — the places where Japanese technique meets Thai flavour, or where a menu spans sushi alongside Korean small plates.\nFifi\u0026rsquo;s Asian Food — Levinsky Market A gem tucked inside the Levinsky spice market. Iconic seafood ramen, rotating Asian small plates, and cocktails. One of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most talked-about neighbourhood finds. 📍 Zvulun 5, Tel Aviv | @fifisasianfood\nA Restaurant — Sarona Chef Yuval Ben-Neriah\u0026rsquo;s flagship at the Azrieli Sarona Tower. Japanese technique with bold Thai influences — a sophisticated choice in the business district. 📍 Azrieli Sarona Tower, Begin 121, Tel Aviv\nShi-Shi — Ibn Gabirol Asian-inspired wraps and bowls on Ibn Gabirol, from the team behind Manta Ray. Fast-casual but done with the same care you\u0026rsquo;d expect from that group. 📍 Ibn Gabirol 33, Tel Aviv\nOSU — City Centre Japanese-inspired smash burgers made from locally dry-aged Holstein beef. A focused, single-concept spot. 📍 Hillel HaZaken 18, Tel Aviv\nGo Asian Canteen (Kosher) — Multiple TLV Branches The most accessible kosher pan-Asian chain in the city, with branches near the Bursa, Yehuda Halevi, Yitzhak Sadeh, and Azrieli. Reliable for office lunches and family dinners where certification matters.\nKorean # Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Korean scene is smaller than its Japanese one, but growing quickly on the back of K-culture interest. See the full Korean Restaurants in Israel guide.\nKimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV — Lilienblum The standout Korean option in Tel Aviv. Authentic Korean flavours on Lilienblum Street, with a strong selection of vegan-adaptable dishes. 📍 Lilienblum 21, Tel Aviv | kimchi-tlv.com | @kimchistlv\nThai # Thai is one of the most established Asian cuisines in Tel Aviv, with several long-running neighbourhood institutions and a few notable newer additions. See the full Thai Restaurants in Israel guide.\nThai at Har Sinai — City Centre A Tel Aviv institution. A shaded outdoor courtyard at the foot of the Great Synagogue on Har Sinai Street — been here over a decade, and still reliable for casual Thai. 📍 Har Sinai 1, Tel Aviv | thaisinai.com | @thai_harsinai | 03-5666975\nEisan — Carmel Market Authentic Isaan cuisine (northeastern Thailand) inside the Carmel Market. Known for the pad ped at 16 chilli heat — one of the most genuinely spicy bowls in the city. 📍 Rabbi Akiva 22, Carmel Market, Tel Aviv | eisan.co.il | @eisantlv\nEl Mano Asian — Tel Aviv A hidden Thai gem with a wide-ranging menu of authentic dishes. 📍 Yesud HaMa\u0026rsquo;ala 46, Tel Aviv | @elmanoasian\nNam Thai — Dizengoff A spacious Thai restaurant on upper Dizengoff. Broad menu from spicy salads to curries, rice, noodles, and soups. 📍 Dizengoff 275, Tel Aviv\nChinese # Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Chinese scene is modest in size but has a few authentic spots worth knowing, particularly for Sichuanese and dim sum. See the full Chinese Restaurants in Israel guide.\nMálà Sichuan \u0026amp; Dumplings — Neve Tzedek Authentic Sichuanese cooking in Neve Tzedek: dan dan noodles, mapo tofu, hand-made dumplings. The most interesting Chinese kitchen in Tel Aviv. 📍 Lilienblum 21, Tel Aviv | @mala_sichuan_tlv | 050-286-6049\nHong Bao — Sarona Market Hand-made dim sum stall in Sarona Market, run by a former Chinese tour guide turned chef. 📍 Sarona Market, Aluf Kalman Magen 3, Tel Aviv | 050-494-8889\nSan Mei — Carmel Market Gyoza and Chinese dumplings made by hand, in the Carmel Market. 📍 Yom Tov 17, Carmel Market, Tel Aviv\nIndian # Tel Aviv has a small but genuine Indian community restaurant scene, concentrated in Florentin. See the full Indian Restaurants in Israel guide.\nCafe Bollywood — Florentin Mumbai street food run by Pooja and Maskin Moses, olim from Mumbai. Pani puri, dosas, thali, and more — a vegetarian dhaba with the real thing. 📍 Maon 5a, Florentin, Tel Aviv | @cafebollywood.tlv | 054-514-1114\nKalu Baba Thali — Florentin Rajasthani vegetarian thali in Florentin. A quiet, generous meal for the price. 📍 Florentin, Tel Aviv | @kalubabathali\nVietnamese # A small but growing Vietnamese presence — mostly centred on bánh mì sandwiches and pho. See the full Vietnamese Restaurants in Israel guide.\nBanh Mi 13 — Levinsky Market Vietnamese bánh mì and soups in the Levinsky market area. 📍 Nahalat Binyamin 107, Levinsky Market\nBanh Mi Nong — Tel Aviv Quality bánh mì sandwiches near Mikve Israel Street. 📍 Mikve Israel 1, Tel Aviv\nCà Phê Hanoi — Tel Aviv (Kosher) Vietnamese pho, bao buns, and spring rolls — reportedly the only kosher Vietnamese restaurant in Israel.\nQuick Reference # Restaurant Cuisine Area Kosher Terasu Japanese / Omakase Jaffa No UMAI Izakaya Japanese Jaffa No Kimuraya Japanese Izakaya City Centre No ASA Izakaya Japanese Near Habima No Akiko Japanese Sushi North TLV No Fifi\u0026rsquo;s Asian Food Pan-Asian Levinsky No A Restaurant Pan-Asian Fusion Sarona No Shi-Shi Pan-Asian Ibn Gabirol No Go Asian Canteen Pan-Asian Multiple Yes Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV Korean Lilienblum No Thai at Har Sinai Thai City Centre No Eisan Thai (Isaan) Carmel Market No Nam Thai Thai Dizengoff No Málà Sichuan Chinese Neve Tzedek No Hong Bao Chinese Dim Sum Sarona Market No San Mei Chinese Dumplings Carmel Market No Cafe Bollywood Indian Florentin No Kalu Baba Thali Indian Florentin No Banh Mi 13 Vietnamese Levinsky No Cà Phê Hanoi Vietnamese TLV Yes All Asian Restaurants in Israel # This guide focuses on Tel Aviv. For the country-wide picture by cuisine:\nJapanese Restaurants in Israel Best Sushi in Tel Aviv Korean Restaurants in Israel Thai Restaurants in Israel Chinese Restaurants in Israel Indian Restaurants in Israel Vietnamese Restaurants in Israel Or browse the full Asian businesses directory — searchable by city, cuisine, and kashrut status.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-restaurants-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tel Aviv has the most developed Asian food scene in Israel — and one of the most varied in the Middle East. Japanese omakase counters, Thai street-food kitchens, Korean izakayas, Sichuanese dumpling bars, Indian thali joints, and Vietnamese bánh mì shops sit within a few kilometres of each other across the city’s neighbourhoods: Florentin, Carmel Market, Neve Tzedek, the old train station area, and along Dizengoff and Ibn Gabirol.\n","title":"Best Asian Restaurants in Tel Aviv: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/blogger/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Blogger","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s Chinese food scene is small but real — and for the Chinese community here, it matters. Around 40 Chinese restaurants operate across the country, concentrated in Tel Aviv but with outposts in Haifa, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva, and the Sharon region. That number is modest compared to many Western cities, but the quality ceiling has risen in recent years, and the best places are genuinely worth seeking out.\nSimplified Chinese readers are the largest audience on this site — this guide is written with you in mind too. A Chinese-language version of this article appears below.\nThis guide covers standout options by style. For the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory.\nDim Sum \u0026amp; Cantonese # Hong Bao — Sarona Market, Tel Aviv\nThe most authentic dim sum option in Israel. The stall is run by a Chinese chef-turned-tour-guide who still makes every piece by hand. Find it inside Sarona Market on Aluf Kalman Magen Street. The menu rotates but typically includes har gow, siu mai, cheung fun, and a rotating daily special. Speaks Chinese, Hebrew, and English. Available on Wolt for delivery.\n📍 Sarona Market, Aluf Kalman Magen 3, Tel Aviv | 050-494-8889 | Order on Wolt\nHong Kong Dim Sum — Tel Aviv\nA downtown Tel Aviv spot offering dumplings, spring rolls, and noodles in an approachable setting. Vegan and gluten-free friendly. Useful for a quick sit-down dim sum meal in the centre of the city.\nLong Sang — Haifa\nOne of the oldest authentic Chinese restaurants in Israel — 41 years of Cantonese cuisine from Guangdong province. This is the kind of place that locals in Haifa have been eating at for decades, and the kitchen has not changed much, which is either a strength or a weakness depending on what you want. If you are in Haifa and want real Cantonese cooking, this is your best option.\nYan Yan Chinese Restaurant — Haifa\nA family-run restaurant on Derech Yafo in Haifa, operated by a Chinese family that originally fled Vietnam. The family has been in Israel for decades — their children serve in the IDF. A reminder that the Chinese community in Israel has roots going back further than most people realise.\n📍 Derech Yafo 26, Haifa\nSichuan \u0026amp; Regional Chinese # Málà Sichuan \u0026amp; Dumplings — Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv\nThe most serious Chinese restaurant in Israel right now. Located on Lilienblum Street in Neve Tzedek, Málà serves an authentic Sichuan menu: dandan noodles, mapo tofu, Sichuan-style chicken, and handmade dumplings. The 麻辣 (málà) combination — numbing spice from Sichuan pepper plus chilli heat — is done correctly here, which is rare outside China. The restaurant also offers Korean and Taiwanese dishes alongside the Sichuan core. Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week.\n📍 Lilienblum 21, Tel Aviv | @mala_sichuan_tlv | 050-286-6049\nMian Noodles — Jerusalem\nA noodle-focused Chinese restaurant in Jerusalem with solid TripAdvisor reviews (4.3 from 144 reviews). If you are in Jerusalem and want Chinese noodles, this is the place to look for.\nCasual Chinese \u0026amp; Delivery # San Mei — Carmel Market, Tel Aviv\nA dumpling stall inside the Carmel Market on Yom Tov Street. Classic handmade Chinese dumplings (gyoza-style) alongside Filipino adobo and Russian-style fillings — an only-in-Israel mix that reflects the market\u0026rsquo;s character. Cheap and fast.\n📍 Yom Tov 17, Carmel Market, Tel Aviv\nLittle China — Tel Aviv\nA neighbourhood Chinese delivery and sit-down option on Bugrashov Street. Reliable for everyday wok dishes and noodles.\n📍 Bugrashov 34, Tel Aviv | Order on Wolt\nThe Chinese Wall — Tel Aviv\nStreet-level Chinese on Mikveh Israel Street in southern Tel Aviv. Described as \u0026ldquo;authentic Chinese food\u0026rdquo; — wok dishes, noodles, and rice plates.\n📍 Mikveh Israel 26, Tel Aviv | Order on Wolt\nWok to Walk — HaHashmonaim, Tel Aviv\nFast-casual wok chain on HaHashmonaim Street. Quick, affordable, and good for a no-fuss weekday meal.\n📍 HaHashmonaim 86, Tel Aviv | Order on Wolt\nFurama — Tel Aviv\nA long-running Chinese restaurant in Tel Aviv, rated 4.1 on TripAdvisor with 80 reviews. Mid-range, reliable.\nHaAnoi HaSinit — Beer Sheva\nCantonese-style Chinese food in Beer Sheva\u0026rsquo;s Resco Shopping Centre on Rager Boulevard. The best Chinese option in the south.\n📍 Resco Shopping Center, 28 Rager Boulevard, Beer Sheva | Available for delivery\nSunflower Chinese Restaurant — Rishon LeZion\nThe main Chinese option in the Rishon LeZion area, rated 4.2 on TripAdvisor (60 reviews).\nShiitake | Chinese Cuisine — Safed\nSurprisingly, one of the few Chinese restaurants in northern Israel — on Jerusalem Street in Safed. Worth knowing about if you are in the Galilee.\n📍 Jerusalem 53, Safed | Order on Wolt\nHong Kong Street Food # Eggzit — Tel Aviv\nHong Kong-style egg waffles (雞蛋仔 gai daan jai) — the bubble-grid street snack that has become globally popular. Operating as a pop-up and delivery service in Tel Aviv. Follow them for current locations.\nTea Wei — Bugrashov Beach, Tel Aviv\nA Chinese-run bubble tea spot near Bugrashov Beach. Staff speak Chinese, Hebrew, and English. One of the few places in Tel Aviv where you can order in Mandarin.\n📍 Near Bugrashov Beach, Tel Aviv\nKosher Chinese # Options for observant diners are limited but exist:\nPikansin (Tel Aviv) — Kosher-certified Chinese restaurant Chinatown (Tel Aviv) — Kosher-certified Chinese restaurant Wok to Walk Kosher (Petah Tikva) — Kosher wok chain; Order on Wolt nu:nu NOODLES SHOP (Rishon LeZion) — Kosher Asian noodles; Order on Wolt Jessica (Rehovot) — Kosher local Asian food; Order on Wolt Sheyan (Jerusalem) — Kosher Asian restaurant, Rambam 8; Order on Wolt Note: Many non-certified Chinese restaurants in Israel naturally avoid pork, but this does not constitute kosher certification. Always confirm directly with the restaurant if kashrut matters to your group.\nChef-Driven Chinese # The Red Chinese — Tel Aviv (Chef Yuval Ben Neriah)\nChef Yuval Ben Neriah\u0026rsquo;s Chinese-inspired menu, now at a new location near Givon Square. Ben Neriah is the force behind Café Taizu, one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s most respected Asian-influenced restaurants. His Red Chinese project applies similar technique to more casual Chinese formats. Available on Wolt.\n📍 HaHashmonaim 99, Tel Aviv | Order on Wolt\nCAFE TAIZU — Tel Aviv (virtual kitchen)\nBen Neriah\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Asiaterranean\u0026rdquo; delivery concept — a virtual kitchen blending Asian technique with Mediterranean ingredients. Not a traditional Chinese restaurant but worth knowing about for those interested in creative Asian cooking in Israel. Available on Wolt.\nOn Authenticity: What\u0026rsquo;s Here and What\u0026rsquo;s Missing # Forty restaurants is a thin number for a country of ten million people, and a very thin number for a Chinese community that has grown significantly in recent years. The honest picture:\nWhat you can find: Decent Sichuan at Málà, reliable Cantonese dim sum at Hong Bao, forty-year-old Guangdong-style cooking at Long Sang, and a scattering of competent wok kitchens across the country.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s hard to find: 粤式早茶 (Cantonese yum cha), proper 小笼包 (xiaolongbao), 北方面食 (northern wheat-based dishes like hand-pulled noodles or jianbing), decent Hunanese or Shanghainese cooking. The regional diversity that exists in any Chinese city is largely absent here.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s almost impossible: 火锅 (hotpot) restaurants, late-night dim sum, the kind of cheap, fast, open-until-2am Chinese staple restaurants that anchor every Chinese neighbourhood in Europe, North America, or Australia.\nFor Chinese expats cooking at home, the Asian grocery stores in Israel guide covers where to source proper ingredients — soy sauces, chilli bean paste, Sichuan peppercorns, rice wine, and fresh produce.\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers recommended options. Our Asian businesses directory lists all 40 Chinese restaurants in Israel, searchable by city.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/chinese-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s Chinese food scene is small but real — and for the Chinese community here, it matters. Around 40 Chinese restaurants operate across the country, concentrated in Tel Aviv but with outposts in Haifa, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva, and the Sharon region. That number is modest compared to many Western cities, but the quality ceiling has risen in recent years, and the best places are genuinely worth seeking out.\n","title":"Chinese Restaurants in Israel: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-cuisine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Cuisine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/curry/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Curry","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/dim-sum/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Dim-Sum","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/directory/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Directory","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/education/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Education","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hasharon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hasharon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/indian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Indian","type":"tags"},{"content":"Indian food and Israeli culture make an instinctively good pair. The overlap between Indian vegetarian cooking and Israeli dietary habits — a country where roughly a third of the population avoids meat at least part of the time — means that dal makhani, paneer tikka, and aloo gobi land here without adjustment. Add a sizable Indian tech-worker community centred in Tel Aviv and Ra\u0026rsquo;anana, the ancient Bene Israel Jewish community whose families brought their own Konkan-influenced food traditions from Mumbai and Pune, and you have an unusually receptive audience.\nThe scene is smaller than Israel\u0026rsquo;s Japanese or Korean restaurant count, but it is real, and it spans the country more broadly than most people expect — from Florentin pop-ups to a thali spot in the Upper Galilee.\nThis guide covers the standout options by city and style. For the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory.\nTel Aviv # Street Food \u0026amp; Casual # Cafe Bollywood — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nThe most-followed Indian spot in Tel Aviv, and the one with the clearest identity: Mumbai street food, run by Pooja and Maskin Moses, olim from Mumbai. The menu runs pani puri, dosa, vada pav, and thalis in a compact Florentin space. The owners brought their recipes directly from home, and it shows — this is the kind of food you get at a Mumbai dhaba, not an approximation of it. Check their Instagram for current opening hours and seasonal specials.\n📍 5a Maon Street, Tel Aviv | @cafebollywood.tlv | 054-514-1114\nKalu Baba Thali — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nA Rajasthani vegetarian thali operation in Florentin, with over a thousand posts on Instagram and a loyal following among the Indian community. The thali format — multiple small portions covering a full meal — suits Israeli communal dining well. Pop-up scheduling: follow @kalubabathali for current dates and locations.\n📍 Florentin, Tel Aviv | @kalubabathali\nGandhi Fast Indian Food — Tel Aviv\nFast-casual Indian in Tel Aviv. A no-frills counter with a rotating daily menu — curries, rice dishes, and wraps at accessible prices. Good option for a quick lunch.\nHimalaya Kitchen — Tel Aviv\nHimalayan-influenced Indian cooking in Tel Aviv, with a menu that skews North Indian: curries, tandoori dishes, and rice. A reliable neighbourhood option.\nMasala — Tel Aviv\nA sit-down Indian restaurant in Tel Aviv with a broad menu spanning tikka masalas, biryanis, and vegetarian specials. Popular with the Indian tech community for group lunches.\nIndira — Tel Aviv\nAn Indian restaurant in Tel Aviv named after the former prime minister. Expect a full North Indian menu — butter chicken, palak paneer, naan — in a comfortable setting.\nTali Lama (TLV) — Tel Aviv\nThe Tel Aviv branch of the Tali Lama concept (also present in Pardes Hanna). Tibetan-Indian crossover menu with momos, thukpa, and Indian curries.\nTandoori Lands End — Tel Aviv\nTandoori-focused Indian at the edge of Tel Aviv. The name flags the cooking method: clay-oven breads, kebabs, and tikka dishes are the main draw.\nMa Pau Indian Food — Tel Aviv\nA smaller Indian operation in Tel Aviv, oriented toward takeaway and delivery. Core Indian comfort food — dals, curries, and rice dishes.\nSaone Rhone — Tel Aviv\nA restaurant with an Indian food component alongside other cuisines. Worth checking for Indian specials.\nCafe Kaymak — Tel Aviv\nIndian food among a broader Middle Eastern menu. Worth checking for Indian dishes.\nBeyond Tel Aviv # Herzliya \u0026amp; Sharon # Tandoori Herzliya — Herzliya\nAn Indian restaurant on Maskit Street in Herzliya — conveniently placed for the tech park cluster along the coast. Tandoori dishes, curries, and rice. A solid option if you\u0026rsquo;re working or staying in the area.\n📍 Maskit Street 32, Herzliya\nHaHavaya HaHodit (The Indian Experience) — HaSharon\nBat-Chen Yakuti ran a cooking school in New Delhi for three years before returning to Israel. Her Indian cooking workshops and event catering cover a vegetarian and vegan menu rooted in that experience. Available for private events and group cooking classes across the Sharon region.\n📍 HaSharon | @havaya_hodit | 050-719-0311\nRajnee\u0026rsquo;s Indian Vegetarian Food — Kfar Saba\nIndian vegetarian catering in Kfar Saba, on Azar Street. A good option for the northern suburbs if you need Indian food for an office lunch or small gathering.\n📍 Azar Street 53, Kfar Saba\nManali — HaSharon\nAn Indian restaurant in the Sharon area. Named after the mountain town in Himachal Pradesh — expect a Himalayan and North Indian menu.\nGreat India — Petah Tikva\nIndian food in Petah Tikva. Part of the broader suburban Indian restaurant scene serving the large Indian tech community in the Petah Tikva–Ra\u0026rsquo;anana corridor.\nPardes Hanna # Tali Lama — Pardes Hanna\nThe original Tali Lama: a Tibetan-Indian crossover restaurant in Pardes Hanna. Momos, thukpa, curries, and chai in a laid-back setting. Worth the drive if you\u0026rsquo;re in the Sharon area.\nAnanda Curry House — Pardes Hanna\nA curry house in Pardes Hanna with a focus on South Asian flavours. A local favourite for the Indian community in the area.\nTaj — Pardes Hanna\nIndian restaurant in Pardes Hanna. Tandoori dishes and North Indian curries.\nJerusalem # Ichikidana — Jerusalem\nAn Indian restaurant in Jerusalem. A standalone option for the capital — worth confirming current opening hours directly.\nJeera Indian Food — Jerusalem\nNamed after the cumin seed (jeera) that anchors Indian cooking, this Jerusalem restaurant focuses on home-style Indian food. A practical option for Shabbat visitors and tourists in the city.\nHaifa \u0026amp; the North # Kesar — Haifa\nAn Indian restaurant in Haifa. Kesar (saffron) in the name signals a menu built around North Indian flavours — expect biryanis and curries with the aromatic profile the name suggests.\nChapati — Tirat Carmel (Haifa area)\nIndian home cooking and catering in Tirat Carmel, near Haifa. Chapati and daily dishes to order.\nMoriah — Haifa\nAn Indian restaurant in Haifa.\nThali — Sde Nehemia, Upper Galilee\nThe most remote Indian food operation in Israel — a thali restaurant in kibbutz Sde Nehemia in the Upper Galilee, near the Lebanese border. Open Monday and Thursday 13:00–20:00; cooking classes on Tuesday. WhatsApp bookings only.\n📍 Kibbutz Sde Nehemia, Upper Galilee | @kalubabathali | 058-787-9575 (WhatsApp)\nGanesh — Acre–Nahariya area\nAn Indian restaurant in the western Galilee. Named after the elephant-headed deity of new beginnings — a common name for Indian restaurants worldwide, but this one is genuinely in the north.\nSouth # Little India — Beer Sheva\nThe main Indian option in the Negev, on Ringelblum Street. A full Indian restaurant serving the Beer Sheva student population and Indian professionals.\n📍 Ringelblum Street 15, Beer Sheva\nNamaste — Ashdod\nAn Indian restaurant on the Ashdod promenade (Tayelet). A good option if you\u0026rsquo;re on the southern coast.\n📍 Tayelet Ashdod\nMaharaja — Ramla\nIndian food in Ramla, on the main boulevard. One of the few Indian options between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.\n📍 Sderot Shlomo HaMelech 14, Ramla\nThe Indian — Afula\nAn Indian restaurant in the Afula market (HaShuk). A rare Indian option in the Jezreel Valley — practical for the large Indian agricultural worker community in the area.\n📍 HaShuk, Afula\nA. Taj — Yokneam\nIndian restaurant in Yokneam, near the tech park. Convenient for the Indian-Israeli tech community in the Haifa Bay area.\nVegetarian \u0026amp; Vegan # Indian food is structurally well-suited to Israeli vegetarian culture. Many of the restaurants above — particularly Cafe Bollywood, Kalu Baba Thali, Rajnee\u0026rsquo;s, and HaHavaya HaHodit — are either fully vegetarian or heavily oriented that way. Even in meat-serving Indian restaurants, the vegetarian section of the menu is typically the most developed.\nKey vegetarian dishes to look for: dal makhani (black lentil curry), palak paneer (spinach and cottage cheese), chana masala (spiced chickpeas), aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower), and the full thali spread, which almost always has a vegetarian version.\nFor vegan diners: most Indian curries can be prepared without ghee or cream on request. Dosas, idlis, and the Mumbai street-food tradition (pani puri, bhel puri, vada pav) are naturally vegan.\nKosher Indian # At time of writing, no Israeli Indian restaurant in our directory carries kosher certification. The structural challenge is familiar: Indian cooking relies on butter (ghee), cream, and the combination of meat and dairy — separations that require significant menu re-engineering for certification.\nThat said, many Indian restaurants in Israel naturally keep halal-friendly menus, and some avoid beef entirely out of cultural rather than religious custom. If kashrut matters for your group, call ahead — several operators are willing to discuss accommodation for events.\nIngredients \u0026amp; Spices # Cooking Indian food at home, or looking for specific spice blends? Several of the Indian and South Asian grocery sections covered in our Asian grocery stores in Israel guide carry Indian staples: atta flour, basmati rice, lentil varieties, and spice blends including garam masala, chaat masala, and asafoetida (hing).\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers known and recommended options. Our Asian businesses directory lists all Indian restaurants and food businesses in Israel, searchable by city.\nKnow a restaurant we\u0026rsquo;ve missed? Contact us or tag us on Instagram — we update the directory continuously.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/indian-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indian food and Israeli culture make an instinctively good pair. The overlap between Indian vegetarian cooking and Israeli dietary habits — a country where roughly a third of the population avoids meat at least part of the time — means that dal makhani, paneer tikka, and aloo gobi land here without adjustment. Add a sizable Indian tech-worker community centred in Tel Aviv and Ra’anana, the ancient Bene Israel Jewish community whose families brought their own Konkan-influenced food traditions from Mumbai and Pune, and you have an unusually receptive audience.\n","title":"Indian Restaurants in Israel: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/itinerary-planning/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Itinerary-Planning","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/izakaya/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Izakaya","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/language-school/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Language-School","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel is one of the world\u0026rsquo;s more unlikely hubs for East Asian language learning — and the scene is bigger than most people realise. Anime and manga have driven a generation of young Israelis to pick up Japanese. K-pop and K-drama have made Korean the fastest-growing language class in the country. And Mandarin Chinese has earned its place in business and academia, attracting both expats maintaining ties to China and locals who see it as a serious career asset.\nFor the Asian expat community, the picture is slightly different: Japanese, Korean, and Chinese speakers in Israel often want Hebrew lessons integrated with cultural grounding, or are looking for spaces to practice their mother tongue with others. Either way, the infrastructure exists — and it\u0026rsquo;s better than most people expect.\nThis guide covers every serious option we know of: language schools, cultural centre courses, university programmes, and the online alternatives that work specifically in an Israeli context.\nJapanese # The Japanese Language Center — Tel Aviv # The most established Japanese language school in Israel. Founded in 2008 by Sigal Izraeli, who holds an MA in East Asian Studies, it has been running group and private courses for nearly two decades. The curriculum covers all levels — absolute beginner through advanced — with JLPT preparation baked in from intermediate level onwards. There are dedicated teen classes, a pre-travel Japanese course for people heading to Japan, and an emphasis on cultural context throughout (you learn how to use a phrase, not just what it means).\nThe school operates from Montefiore in Tel Aviv and maintains an active alumni Facebook community.\n📍 Shefa Tal 12, Tel Aviv | japanese-center.co.il | @japanesecenter | 052-883-5857\nKimura Japanese School — Online (all Israel) # An online-first school with native Japanese teachers, covering all levels through group classes, private tuition, and self-paced digital courses. Useful if you\u0026rsquo;re not in Tel Aviv or prefer structured remote learning with a living teacher rather than an app. The name is unrelated to the Kimuraya restaurant group.\nkimura.co.il | @kimura_yapanit | 054-740-4924\nJapanologic — Center for Japanese Studies — Tel Aviv # One of the larger Israeli Japanese schools, running online and in-person classes. The website has registration and scheduling details; the school markets itself toward adults who want structured classroom learning rather than app-based self-study.\njapanologic.co.il\nTASI — The Asian Institute — Tel Aviv # A business-and-culture bridge organisation that has been running language courses since the early 2000s. TASI covers Japanese, Chinese, and Korean under one roof — worth knowing about if you want to study more than one language, or if the business/professional angle is relevant to your goals.\nfacebook.com/tasi.israel\nOrshina Culture Space — Tel Aviv # Not a language school in the traditional sense, but a Japanese cultural venue that runs workshops, tea ceremonies, Zen meditation, and kimono dressing sessions. For people who learn languages through immersive cultural experience rather than grammar drills, Orshina is worth adding to your week.\n📍 Ha-Shfela 4, Tel Aviv | orshinatlv.com | @orshinatlv | 050-658-0534\nKorean # Korean Cultural Center in Israel — Jerusalem # The official Korean government cultural centre in Israel, operated under the Korean Embassy. Since it opened in 2006, it has run subsidised Korean language courses alongside film screenings, cultural events, and K-pop programming. Courses are significantly cheaper than private schools — the trade-off is less scheduling flexibility. The centre is in central Jerusalem (Ben Yehuda Street); students from Tel Aviv make the trip.\n📍 Ben Yehuda 2, Office 153, Jerusalem | kccil.org.il | @kccil_official | 02-624-2556\nKorean School in Israel — Jerusalem # A community-run school focused on heritage learners: Israeli-born children of Korean families, and adult Koreans living in Israel who want to maintain their children\u0026rsquo;s language skills. Classes are in Korean and Hebrew. Less suited to complete beginners from outside the community, but worth knowing if you have family ties.\nTASI — The Asian Institute — Tel Aviv # As noted above, TASI runs Korean alongside Japanese and Chinese. One of the few places in Israel offering all three East Asian languages through the same institution.\nfacebook.com/tasi.israel\nChinese (Mandarin) # East-West Cultural Center — Jerusalem # The most structured Mandarin programme in Israel. The school follows the HSK curriculum from beginner (HSK 1) through Proficiency (HSK 6), taught by native Chinese-speaking teachers. Classes run online via Zoom in the evenings, which makes them accessible from anywhere in Israel. The programme also includes Business Chinese, weekly free \u0026ldquo;Chinese Corner\u0026rdquo; conversation sessions, and a China Tour programme for advanced students.\nThis is the best option for anyone who wants exam-aligned progression or a professional Mandarin qualification.\n📍 HaRav Agan 10, Jerusalem | ewccenter.com | @ewccenter_il | 058-780-4979\nTASI — The Asian Institute — Tel Aviv # TASI\u0026rsquo;s Chinese courses sit alongside its Japanese and Korean offerings. The institution\u0026rsquo;s business-focused orientation makes it particularly useful for people studying Mandarin for professional or trade reasons.\nfacebook.com/tasi.israel\nUniversity Programmes # Bar-Ilan University — Asia Studies Department # Bar-Ilan\u0026rsquo;s Asia Studies department at Ramat Gan offers BA and MA tracks focused on East, South, and Southeast Asia. For students who want language learning embedded in a broader academic framework — history, politics, culture — this is the route. The department includes language instruction as part of its curriculum.\nbiu.ac.il | @barilanuni_asia_studies | +972 3-531-8000\nHebrew University — Japan Club (HUJI) # The Hebrew University\u0026rsquo;s Asia Studies department in Jerusalem has a Japan Club (HUJI Japan Club) run by students. It organises tea ceremonies, Japan Day events, anime screenings, and cultural exchange activities. For students already enrolled at HUJI, this is the social and cultural layer around formal language study.\n@huji_japan\nCultural Centres as Language Entry Points # Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art — Haifa # Israel\u0026rsquo;s only dedicated Japanese art museum runs workshops in tea ceremony, calligraphy, and Japanese culture throughout the year. For learners in the north, this is both a cultural touchstone and a practical way to encounter Japanese in a non-classroom setting.\ntmja.org.il\nJapan Month at Dizengoff Center — Tel Aviv (Annual) # Every year Dizengoff Center runs a month-long Japan cultural festival — workshops, cosplay, karate demonstrations, and a Tokyo market. In 2025 the event drew 700,000 visitors, making it one of the largest Japan-themed events in the Middle East. The cultural saturation helps language learners connect vocabulary to experience.\nKorean Cultural Center (see above) # Worth repeating: the Korean Cultural Center in Jerusalem is one of the best-value routes into Korean culture for non-beginners and complete beginners alike. The film screenings and cultural programming complement the language courses.\nOnline Resources # Apps like Duolingo and Pimsleur are fine for the first few months of any East Asian language, but they don\u0026rsquo;t handle the Israeli context well: no Hebrew-language interface, no local exam prep, no community of people you\u0026rsquo;ll actually meet. The structured schools above are worth the investment once you\u0026rsquo;re past the absolute basics.\nTwo things that do work well in Israel:\nJLPT, TOPIK, and HSK exams: All three are administered in Israel. JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and HSK (Mandarin) are held annually; check with the relevant embassy or cultural centre for current exam schedules. TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) is run through the Korean Cultural Center in Jerusalem. Community groups: There are Hebrew-language Facebook and WhatsApp groups for Japanese and Korean learners in Israel. The Japanese Language Center and Japanologic both maintain active alumni communities. Search in Hebrew (לומדי יפנית, לומדי קוריאנית) for the most active groups. Tips for Getting Started # Which level am I? All the schools above offer placement assessments before enrolment. Don\u0026rsquo;t self-assess — placement tests exist because learners consistently misjudge their level in both directions.\nJapanese vs Korean vs Mandarin: which is harder? For Hebrew speakers, none of the three is easy. Mandarin has the most approachable pronunciation but the hardest writing system for long-term literacy. Korean has a logical phonetic alphabet (Hangul) that most learners can read within a week. Japanese requires managing three writing systems simultaneously. All three reward consistent study over short bursts.\nExam prep in Israel: JLPT, HSK, and TOPIK are all available in Israel. The Korean Cultural Center coordinates TOPIK registration; for JLPT and HSK, contact the Japanese Embassy and East-West Cultural Center respectively.\nThe Full Directory # This guide focuses on language learning. Our Asian businesses directory covers all cultural centres, associations, and community organisations mentioned here, plus many more.\nLooking for Japanese restaurants, Korean food, or Chinese grocery stores in Israel? The directory has you covered.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/learn-asian-languages-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel is one of the world’s more unlikely hubs for East Asian language learning — and the scene is bigger than most people realise. Anime and manga have driven a generation of young Israelis to pick up Japanese. K-pop and K-drama have made Korean the fastest-growing language class in the country. And Mandarin Chinese has earned its place in business and academia, attracting both expats maintaining ties to China and locals who see it as a serious career asset.\n","title":"Learn Japanese, Korean \u0026 Chinese in Israel: Language Schools \u0026 Classes (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/massage/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Massage","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pad-thai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pad-Thai","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pan-asian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pan-Asian","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pardes-hanna/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pardes-Hanna","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ramen/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ramen","type":"tags"},{"content":"Haifa\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene is small — one dedicated restaurant and a rotating cast of pop-ups — but what\u0026rsquo;s here is worth knowing about, especially if you\u0026rsquo;re not making the trek down to Tel Aviv. For the full context on Israeli ramen culture and the national ranking, see the full Israel ramen ranking.\nLooking for ramen elsewhere in the north? The center/Sharon region has two strong dedicated spots.\nThe Dedicated Restaurant # Ramen Talpiot — The Only Game in Town # Ramen at Ramen Talpiot | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nRamen Talpiot opened in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s bustling Talpiot Market and quickly became the go-to for ramen in the north. It\u0026rsquo;s honest, affordable, and local — three ramen options (beef, chicken, vegan) at 72–77 NIS. We tried the popular beef ramen: a generous bowl of flavorful, well-salted beef broth with shredded beef, zucchini, coarsely chopped green onion, and a near-hard-boiled egg.\nA caveat we\u0026rsquo;ll be honest about: the noodles are instant, visibly added from a package. If your definition of ramen requires fresh or handmade noodles, this won\u0026rsquo;t satisfy. But if you\u0026rsquo;re in Haifa and want a warm, hearty, flavourful bowl with real beef broth — Ramen Talpiot delivers. It ranked 11th in our national survey, largely on the noodle question, but it\u0026rsquo;s still the only dedicated ramen restaurant the city has.\nRamen Talpiot. Sirkin 28, Talpiot Market, Haifa. Not Kosher\nPop-Ups and Events # Tal Domoza serves ramen on Sunday mornings at Pizza Halalit inside Talpiot Market — worth arriving early, as it sells out. Follow on Instagram for current dates and menu.\nThe Talpiot area has seen rotating ramen pop-ups during winter; check what\u0026rsquo;s active on Instagram or ask inside the market.\nRamen at Haifa Asian Restaurants # Several Haifa restaurants that aren\u0026rsquo;t primarily ramen-focused serve ramen on their menus:\nSamurai — pan-Asian with occasional ramen on the menu Panda Wok — fusion kitchen, check current menu For a broader view of Asian dining in Haifa, see the Haifa Asian restaurant directory.\nSee Also # Full Israel ramen ranking — national survey with all 12 spots Ramen in the center/Sharon region — Pardes Hanna and Emek Hefer Best ramen in Tel Aviv — 8 dedicated spots ranked Found this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-ramen-haifa/","section":"Posts","summary":"Haifa’s ramen scene is small — one dedicated restaurant and a rotating cast of pop-ups — but what’s here is worth knowing about, especially if you’re not making the trek down to Tel Aviv. For the full context on Israeli ramen culture and the national ranking, see the full Israel ramen ranking.\n","title":"Ramen in Haifa (2026): Every Option Worth Knowing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Outside Tel Aviv, the center and Sharon region punches above its weight for ramen. Two dedicated restaurants — one a Zen-like retreat in Pardes Hanna, the other a minimalist ramen specialist at a busy junction — are worth making the drive for. Both ranked above most Tel Aviv spots in our national survey. For context on the national scene, see the full Israel ramen ranking.\nLooking for ramen in the north? Haifa\u0026rsquo;s dedicated spot is Ramen Talpiot.\nThe Ranking # 1st: Classic Ramen at Kamado Kitchen, Pardes Hanna — A Zen Culinary Escape # Kamado Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nKamado Kitchen, nestled in Pardes Hanna\u0026rsquo;s Artists\u0026rsquo; Stables complex, is the kind of place you\u0026rsquo;d drive an hour for. Tokyo-born chef Tomoaki Sasazaki and his partner Maya Spencer run a largely vegan-friendly ramen menu with five versions (58–66 NIS for soup, 4–15 NIS for toppings), all served in deep, satisfying bowls. Options include classic Kamado with soy-based tare or root/Himalayan salt-based tare, and a gluten-free version. Toppings include broccoli, chard, mizuna, seaweed, tofu crumble, cabbage, and extra noodles.\nWe tried the classic Kamado (66 NIS): fish broth, soy-based tare, ginger, and coconut cream, with ramen noodles, a melt-in-your-mouth fish cake, a perfectly marinated soft egg, chard, shiitake, green onion, and nori. With added chili sesame oil, garlic paste, and ramen sauce, it tasted remarkably close to excellent miso soup. Rich, creamy from the coconut milk, harmonious — 6th in our national ranking. The chill, Far Eastern atmosphere of the artists\u0026rsquo; complex makes this a genuinely special experience.\nKamado Kitchen. Artists\u0026rsquo; Stables Complex (Orvot HaOmanim, HaShalom 4), Pardes Hanna-Karkur. Not Kosher\n2nd: Beef Ramen at HaYapani, Mishmar HaSharon Junction — Minimalist Elegance # The Japanese Ramen from Emek Hefer | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nHaYapani (The Japanese) is a chef-driven Japanese fast-food concept at the Sharonit complex on Road 4, specializing in ramen with beef broth simmered for hours — a recipe Chef Guy Toledo learned in Osaka. The beef ramen (62 NIS) was the most minimalist we encountered in our national survey: a very dark, almost black, clear broth, perfectly balanced and profoundly deep in flavor. Plump yellowish noodles, a whole egg, a large slice of roasted kohlrabi, green onion, and thin slices of smoked brisket complete the bowl.\nThis is ramen that would appeal to a first-time diner and a seasoned enthusiast alike — uncluttered, clean, and honest. It ranked 9th nationally, docked mainly for being less memorable than spots higher on the list. But for its price point and location, it\u0026rsquo;s outstanding.\nHaYapani. Sharonit Complex, Mishmar HaSharon Junction, Road 4. Not Kosher\nAlso Worth Knowing in the Region # Asian Club in Kadima serves ramen alongside a broader pan-Asian menu — not a dedicated restaurant, but the ramen there has been praised. Worth checking if you\u0026rsquo;re in the Kadima/Sharon area.\nFor the full range of Asian restaurants in the Sharon region, see the Sharon region directory and Pardes Hanna directory.\nSee Also # Full Israel ramen ranking — all 12 spots nationwide Best ramen in Tel Aviv — 8 dedicated spots ranked Ramen in Haifa — what\u0026rsquo;s available in the north Found this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-ramen-hamerkaz/","section":"Posts","summary":"Outside Tel Aviv, the center and Sharon region punches above its weight for ramen. Two dedicated restaurants — one a Zen-like retreat in Pardes Hanna, the other a minimalist ramen specialist at a busy junction — are worth making the drive for. Both ranked above most Tel Aviv spots in our national survey. For context on the national scene, see the full Israel ramen ranking.\n","title":"Ramen in the Center/Sharon Region (2026): Pardes Hanna and Emek Hefer","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sakura-guide/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sakura Guide","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/spa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Spa","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/telaviv/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Telaviv","type":"tags"},{"content":"Thailand and Israel have a deeper connection than most diners realise. Since the 1980s, tens of thousands of Thai workers have come to Israel on agricultural contracts — at peak, over 30,000 at a time — and many brought their culinary culture with them. That labour migration seeded an Israeli appetite for Thai food that long predates the global pad-thai wave, and it has produced a restaurant scene more authentic in places than what you\u0026rsquo;ll find in many Western European capitals.\nToday roughly 42 Thai restaurants operate across Israel. The range is wide: from a tiny Isaan stall in the Carmel Market that was singled out by i24 News for some of the most legitimate regional Thai cooking in the country, to a slick Savyon bar-restaurant opened by the group behind Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s long-running Thai 148. Whatever you are after — incendiary green papaya salad, proper massaman curry, or a cocktail with Thai basil and lemongrass — there is now a table for you.\nThis guide covers the standout options by city and style. For the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory.\nTel Aviv: The Carmel Market Cluster # The Carmel Market (Shuk HaCarmel) has become the natural home for small Thai operations: low rent, foot traffic hungry for street food, and a culinary culture that rewards bold flavours.\nEisan | אייסאן — Carmel Market\nThe most talked-about Thai address in Tel Aviv. Named for the Isaan region of north-east Thailand — the source of laab, som tam, and crying-tiger beef — Eisan serves food that prioritises technique over comfort. The signature \u0026ldquo;Pad Pad\u0026rdquo; arrives with a full 16 chillies; i24 News called it one of the most authentic Thai dishes in Israel. The menu is compact and changes with availability; go early or expect to wait.\n📍 22 Rabbi Akiva Street, Carmel Market, Tel Aviv | eisan.co.il | @eisantlv\nGeveret Kwaytiew — Carmel Market\nA tiny, no-frills spot in the market dedicated to kwaytiaw — Thai rice noodle soup. Bold street-food energy: short menu, fast service, serious broth. One of the better options for a quick, genuine Thai lunch in central Tel Aviv.\n📍 Yom Tov 1, Carmel Market, Tel Aviv\nTel Aviv: Dizengoff \u0026amp; North # Thai at Har Sinai — Near the Great Synagogue\nOne of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most established Thai restaurants, running for over a decade in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue building. The shaded front terrace is a draw in summer; the menu spans the Thai hits — curries, pad-see-ew, mango sticky rice — alongside a basil-forward cocktail list. Reliable, unfussy, and a genuine neighbourhood institution.\n📍 1 Har Sinai Street, Tel Aviv | thaisinai.com | @thai_harsinai | 03-566-6975\nMoolam — Tel Aviv\nA self-described \u0026ldquo;spicy Thai gastro-bar\u0026rdquo; that leans into the more assertive end of the Thai flavour spectrum. Pork croquettes, fried calamari with Thai spices, and a cocktail menu keep it firmly in the bar-with-food category rather than the traditional sit-down restaurant mode. Good for an evening out with a group.\n📍 Har Sinai 1, Tel Aviv\nNam Thai — Dizengoff\nA spacious Thai restaurant on Dizengoff running a broad menu: spicy salads, curries, rice and noodle dishes, soups. One of the more relaxed options along the boulevard — good for groups who want to order across the menu rather than a single focused cuisine.\n📍 Dizengoff 275, Tel Aviv\nThai 148 — Dizengoff\nThe original outpost of what became a small group (the same team later opened Surin in Savyon). An energetic room on Dizengoff with a menu built around fresh ingredients and a tropical cocktail list. The longevity — Thai 148 has been operating for years on one of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most competitive restaurant strips — says something about the food.\n📍 Dizengoff 148, Tel Aviv\nTel Aviv: Florentin, Carlebach \u0026amp; South # UMA Thai Bar — Bograshov (Kosher)\nA kosher Thai bar in the heart of Tel Aviv, on Bograshov Street. The menu covers authentic Thai dishes alongside designed cocktails in a Bangkok-inspired setting. One of the few places where observant diners can access the full range of the Thai flavour palette: curries, noodles, salads, and stir-fries, all kosher-certified.\n📍 18 Bograshov St, Tel Aviv | @uma_thaibar | 03-695-4999\nOna Uma Thai Kitchen — Carlebach\nAn Isaan-focused kitchen on Carlebach Street, with an emphasis on the fermented, smoky, and deeply savoury flavours of north-east Thailand. A quieter, less-trafficked option than the Carmel cluster — worth knowing about if you are in the area.\n📍 Carlebach 15, Tel Aviv\nEl Mano Asian — Tel Aviv\nDescribed by regulars as a hidden gem for authentic Thai in Tel Aviv. The menu is wide-ranging, covering multiple Thai regional styles alongside other Asian dishes. Worth the search.\n📍 Yesud HaMa\u0026rsquo;ala 46, Tel Aviv | @elmanoasian\nKab Kem — Tel Aviv\nFrequently cited alongside Eisan as one of the more authentic Thai operations in the city. Details are sparse — it operates quietly — but the reputation among the Thai community in Israel is strong.\nTel Aviv: More Options # Several additional Thai restaurants operate across Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s neighbourhoods:\nWok Noodles Bar — A small spot near HaHagana with a delivery-friendly menu of Thai and Asian noodle dishes. China Doll — A longer-standing Asian-Thai restaurant with a broad menu. Khao-San — Named for Bangkok\u0026rsquo;s famous backpacker street; casual Thai food. Thai House — One of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s older Thai restaurants, still operating. Tiger Lilly (Sarona) — Thai-influenced dishes in the Sarona Market complex. Nam (Dizengoff / King George) — Two branches of this Thai restaurant running across central Tel Aviv. Asia-T, DNA.TLV, Ahan Thai, Giveret Kotiyao, Thai Street Food — Additional options across the city\u0026rsquo;s neighbourhoods. Beyond Tel Aviv # Chatuchak Restaurant — Netanya\nNamed after Bangkok\u0026rsquo;s famous weekend market, Chatuchak is the most established Thai restaurant outside the Tel Aviv metro area. The menu brings a wide range of Thai flavours to Netanya — curries, noodle dishes, salads — in a proper sit-down setting. The team has been running it long enough to have developed a loyal local following.\n📍 HaMelacha 4, Netanya | chatuchak.co.il | @chatuchak_il | 09-885-5599\nSurin — Savyon\nOpened in late 2025 by the Thai 148 group, Surin sits inside the G Center Savyon complex — a suburban dining destination east of Tel Aviv. Chef Umi\u0026rsquo;s menu emphasises pounded salads, slow curries, and the aromatic end of the Thai spectrum. A more polished, upmarket setting than the group\u0026rsquo;s Dizengoff original, and a good option for residents of the Gush Dan area who want a full-service Thai dinner.\n📍 1 HaShikma Street, G Center Savyon | surin.co.il | @surin_savyon | 053-582-4630\nThai Underground — Pardes Hanna\nStreet-food-focused Thai in Pardes Hanna: self-pickup and Wolt delivery. The name fits the ethos — no-frills, genuine flavours, community-facing. One of the better options if you are living in the Sharon region.\n📍 Hagana 1, Pardes Hanna | thai-underground.co.il | @thai_underground\nMosh Thai Kitchen — Acre / Nahariya Area\nA Thai kitchen in the Western Galilee, serving the northern coast. Details are limited but it fills a genuine gap in a region with few Asian dining options.\nHaifa # The Thai in the Market — Talpiot Market\nAuthentic Thai street food in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Talpiot Market, with ingredients reportedly sourced directly from Thailand. The market setting mirrors the Carmel cluster dynamic: affordable, fast, and focused. One of the better casual Thai options in Haifa.\nThai Chin — Haifa\nA Thai restaurant in the Haifa area. Part of the wider Israeli-Thai dining landscape that has spread well beyond Tel Aviv.\nPan — Haifa\nAn additional Thai option in Haifa, rounding out a city that has more Thai dining choices than most visitors expect.\nJerusalem # Station 9 — Jerusalem\nA Thai restaurant in Jerusalem. Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Asian dining scene has historically lagged behind Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s, but options are growing; Station 9 and The Thai Jerusalem offer alternatives for residents and visitors.\nThe Thai Jerusalem — Jerusalem\nA dedicated Thai restaurant in the capital, serving the Jerusalem market with Thai dishes for locals, expats, and visitors.\nElsewhere # Thaistory — Eilat (Tarshish 9): Thai and Asian dining in Israel\u0026rsquo;s southern resort city. Thai Way — Eilat: An additional Thai option for the Eilat market. Choo Tu — Petah Tikva: Thai food east of Tel Aviv. Sakon Nakhon — Rishon LeZion / HaShfela area: Named after a province in north-east Thailand. Vong — Rishon LeZion: Thai dining in the southern suburbs. Koji, Kimchi, Caesar | Meat Bar — Rosh Pinna / Tzfat area: Thai and Asian options in the Upper Galilee. Chef Experiences \u0026amp; Cooking Workshops # Two operators run Thai cooking workshops and private chef experiences across Israel — useful if you want to go beyond restaurants:\nShamSiam — Rehovot (travels to clients)\nChef Eli Shamsian offers Thai cooking workshops, private chef dinners, and culinary events. The workshops cover classic Thai technique as well as vegan adaptations.\nshamsiam.co.il | @sham__siam | 054-673-4521\nSwadika Thai Food — Shemshit (travels to clients)\nChef Alon Haval, with 28 years of Thai kitchen experience, runs workshops and private dinners. The programme covers standard Thai, vegan Thai, and themed events. Kosher-certified.\nthaifood.co.il | @sawadika_thaifood | 050-462-4111\nThai Ingredients in Israel # Cooking Thai at home is increasingly practical in Israel. Galangal, kaffir lime leaves, fresh lemongrass, fish sauce, and nam prik pao are now stocked in several Asian grocery stores — particularly in the Tikva Market area of south Tel Aviv and in specialty import shops. For a full rundown of where to source ingredients, see our Asian grocery stores in Israel guide.\nThe Thai Worker Community # The Thai worker community in Israel is one of the country\u0026rsquo;s largest migrant labour groups, concentrated mainly in agricultural regions — the Arava, the Beit She\u0026rsquo;an Valley, and the Galilee. At peak, over 30,000 Thai nationals worked in Israeli agriculture at any one time, with most on two- to five-year contracts.\nThis community has had a direct and underappreciated influence on Israeli food culture. Thai agricultural workers brought cooking knowledge, demand for authentic ingredients, and in some cases became cooks or restaurateurs themselves after their contracts ended. The Carmel Market cluster — small, fierce, affordable, and ingredient-led — reflects this heritage more directly than the polished urban Thai restaurants that came later.\nSeveral organisations support the Thai community in Israel, including assistance with contract rights, healthcare navigation, and cultural connection. If you are a Thai national in Israel looking for community resources, the community directory lists relevant organisations and businesses.\nKosher Thai # Kosher-certified Thai options are limited but present:\nUMA Thai Bar (Tel Aviv, Bograshov) — full Thai menu, kosher-certified, cocktails Swadika Thai Food (mobile, travels to clients) — Thai workshops and private dining, kosher-certified Note: Thai cuisine uses fish sauce extensively, and many dishes contain shellfish or pork. Non-certified Thai restaurants generally do not modify recipes for kashrut. Always confirm directly with the restaurant if certification matters to your group.\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers the standout and most-documented options. Our Asian businesses directory lists all Thai restaurants in Israel, searchable by city and neighbourhood.\nLooking to cook Thai at home? The Asian grocery stores guide covers where to source fresh and pantry ingredients across the country.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/thai-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thailand and Israel have a deeper connection than most diners realise. Since the 1980s, tens of thousands of Thai workers have come to Israel on agricultural contracts — at peak, over 30,000 at a time — and many brought their culinary culture with them. That labour migration seeded an Israeli appetite for Thai food that long predates the global pad-thai wave, and it has produced a restaurant scene more authentic in places than what you’ll find in many Western European capitals.\n","title":"Thai Restaurants in Israel: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tel Aviv and Jaffa hold the densest cluster of Japanese dining in Israel — and arguably one of the most interesting scenes in the Middle East. Florentin hides intimate izakayas and onigiri windows. Jaffa has serious omakase counters run by chefs who trained in Japan. The city\u0026rsquo;s wider sushi landscape runs from neighbourhood bars to hotel rooftops. This guide organises what\u0026rsquo;s worth knowing by type, so you can pick for the occasion rather than scroll a phone book.\nFor the full national picture (Jerusalem, Haifa, Sharon), see the best Japanese restaurants in Israel. If ramen is the specific mission, go to best ramen in Tel Aviv — the complete ranking lives there.\nIzakaya \u0026amp; small plates # The izakaya is where the city\u0026rsquo;s Japanese scene is most alive. These are all worth knowing about.\nSaka Ba # A tiny izakaya and sake bar on Zevulun Street in Florentin, open late. The focus is genuinely on the sake side — this is a destination for drinking Japanese, not just eating it. Intimate, low-lit, with a counter-culture Florentin energy.\nGaijin # A premium izakaya on Lilienblum, on Time Out\u0026rsquo;s best-of-2025 list. Design-forward, with excellent cocktails and luxe small plates and pristine raw fish. The polished end of the izakaya spectrum — good for a proper night out.\nASA Izakaya # Opened October 2025, built around an irori charcoal grill. The menu covers sushi, gyoza, ramen, udon, tempura and yakitori — an all-rounder that works well for groups.\nMententen # Izakaya and ramen bar on Nahalat Binyamin. Sits between a noodle joint and a small-plates bar, which makes it versatile. Also appears in the TLV ramen ranking for its Tan Tan Ramen.\nKimura-Ya # A Japanese izakaya on Mazeh Street covering sushi, ramen and yakitori. Solid neighbourhood option that does the basics across all three pillars without specialising in one.\nOmakase \u0026amp; fine dining # A small but serious group of restaurants — most requiring advance booking.\nUMAI Izakaya # An intimate 22-seat space in Jaffa from chef Alex Abramov, who trained for six years in Japan. UMAI runs kaiseki tasting menus, izakaya evenings and niku kappo nights. Book ahead — the room fills fast.\nTerasu # Modern omakase in Jaffa. Diners describe it as about as close to being in Japan as you can get without leaving Israel. The chef\u0026rsquo;s selection only — no à la carte.\nCichukai # Creative Japanese cooking in the Jaffa flea market, sister to Selas. Inventive twists and premium sushi rolls in one of TLV-Jaffa\u0026rsquo;s most atmospheric corners.\nDinings at the Norman Hotel # Rooftop sushi on the third floor of the Norman Hotel, with Mediterranean views and an ambitious menu. The setting makes it a natural special-occasion choice.\nJapón at The Setai # Elevated Japanese dining inside The Setai on the Jaffa seafront — sushi and cocktails in one of the city\u0026rsquo;s most striking buildings.\nSushi bars # Akiko # A dedicated Japanese sushi bar in north Tel Aviv, on Aba Ahimeir Street. Delivery available. The reliable neighbourhood option for the north of the city.\nWat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More # Sushi and ramen in the Gan HaShmal area on HaRakevet Street. Covers both, with delivery — a flexible pick in central Tel Aviv. Also features in the ramen ranking for its Tori Paitan chicken ramen (3rd place).\nRamen # The full Tel Aviv ramen ranking lives at best ramen in Tel Aviv — eight dedicated spots reviewed and ranked. The three entries below are the delivery and pop-up operations.\nTom Tom Ramen # The city\u0026rsquo;s original and most established delivery ramen operation. Home bowls without the queue.\nKoko Neko # Sit-down ramen in Florentin — a small, focused restaurant on Florentin Street itself. 2nd in our ramen ranking.\nDown Town Ramen # Pop-up by chef Sagi Dadush, rotating through TLV venues. Tokyo-style ramen and yakitori. Follow Instagram for current dates.\nCafés \u0026amp; casual # Onigiri-ya # A Florentin window dedicated to onigiri, on Florentin Street. Cheap, fast, vegan-friendly, genuinely specialised — one of the most authentic casual bites in the city.\nOkasan \u0026amp; Ikari # Japanese café with strong vegan and gluten-free options. Also appears in the ramen ranking (6th) for its clear, vegetable-rich chicken ramen at Carmel Market.\nKohi TLV # Japanese-inspired specialty coffee on Ben Yehuda — matcha sourced from Japan, single-origin beans, fluffy Japanese pancakes. A morning destination.\nKawaii Café # Asian-inspired sweet shop and café on Lilienblum. Dalgona coffee, matcha lattes, deliberately cute. More dessert-and-drinks than a meal, but a fun stop in the centre.\nPlanning # Neighbourhood map: Florentin for casual and izakaya (Saka Ba, Gaijin, Koko Neko, Onigiri-ya, Kimura-Ya). Jaffa for omakase (UMAI, Terasu, Cichukai, Japón). Central TLV/Gan HaShmal for izakaya and sushi (ASA, Mententen, Wat Sang). North TLV for sushi and coffee (Akiko, Kohi TLV). Hilton / Yarkon area for kosher ramen (Onami Kosher).\nKosher: The only kosher option in the restaurant tier above is Onami Kosher at the Hilton for ramen, and Kohi TLV for coffee. The directory\u0026rsquo;s Japanese kosher filter lists all options.\nReservations: Required for UMAI, Terasu, Cichukai, Dinings at the Norman, and Japón. Walk-ins usually fine at the izakayas, but call ahead on weekends.\nSee Also # Best Japanese restaurants in Israel — adds Jerusalem, Haifa, Ramat Gan, and Sharon Best ramen in Tel Aviv — 8 dedicated ramen spots ranked Best sushi in Tel Aviv — dedicated sushi ranking Found this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-japanese-restaurants-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tel Aviv and Jaffa hold the densest cluster of Japanese dining in Israel — and arguably one of the most interesting scenes in the Middle East. Florentin hides intimate izakayas and onigiri windows. Jaffa has serious omakase counters run by chefs who trained in Japan. The city’s wider sushi landscape runs from neighbourhood bars to hotel rooftops. This guide organises what’s worth knowing by type, so you can pick for the occasion rather than scroll a phone book.\n","title":"The Best Japanese Restaurants in Tel Aviv \u0026 Jaffa (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tel Aviv is where Israeli ramen culture lives. The city accounts for the majority of the country\u0026rsquo;s dedicated ramen spots, and the gap between a good bowl and a great one is significant. This guide ranks every serious Tel Aviv ramen restaurant we\u0026rsquo;ve tried — eight venues, all scored honestly. For context on Israeli ramen culture and what we look for in a bowl, see the full Israel ramen ranking.\nWant ramen outside Tel Aviv? Haifa has two dedicated spots, and the center region has surprises at Pardes Hanna and Emek Hefer.\nThe Tel Aviv Ramen Ranking # 1st Place: Tori Chashu Ramen at WABI — The Ramen University # The tastiest ramen in Tel Aviv — WABI | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nDean Shoshani, the \u0026ldquo;professor of ramen affairs,\u0026rdquo; has transformed his home-based operation into WABI, a permanent restaurant and true \u0026ldquo;university of ramen.\u0026rdquo; An employee patiently guides newcomers through the menu, explaining the nuances between salt tare (delicate) and soy tare (bolder) options, allowing for personalised ramen creations. From five menu options (60–65 NIS), we chose the Tori Chashu ramen (65 NIS) with a thick, soy-based chicken broth. It featured Shoshani\u0026rsquo;s on-site handmade ramen noodles (with egg for elasticity), a perfectly marinated egg with a runny yolk, bok choy, soy-marinated chicken thigh, green onion, and nori. WABI\u0026rsquo;s ramen was the most delicious and successful we tried — creamy, moderately oily, clear, deeply flavourful, and rich in ingredients, exactly as one imagines a perfect ramen.\nWABI. De Figotto 23 (corner Yehuda HaLevi), Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\n2nd Place: Pork Ramen at Koko Neko — A Florentin Gem # Koko Neko Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nKoko Neko, a newer Florentin spot, boasts a fantastic atmosphere and a concise Japanese menu featuring three ramens: tofu, chicken thigh, or pork (68–72 NIS). The Tonkotsu ramen (72 NIS) with crispy chashu pork, handmade noodles, bamboo shoots, a marinated soft-boiled egg, bok choy, sprouts, green onion, cabbage, and seaweed is near-impossible to stop eating, even after feeling full. Its pleasant texture, delightful thickness, and toppings offer a new, delicious experience with every bite — relatively delicate yet deep and complex, with juicy meat and refreshing greens. Served at the perfect temperature for immediate indulgence.\nKoko Neko. Florentin 5, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\n3rd Place: Chicken Ramen at Wat Sang — The Epitome of Balance # Wat Sang Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nWat Sang\u0026rsquo;s Tori Paitan chicken ramen, available with jumbo tempura shrimp (76 NIS), proved to be the most balanced ramen we tasted. With the waitress\u0026rsquo;s guidance, adding sansho pepper, togarashi, and chili oil transforms it into a perfect symphony where no single flavour dominates. The broth\u0026rsquo;s delicate texture is neither heavy nor overly oily, and the noodles — flexible, thin, and perfectly cooked — surpass others. This wonderfully understated ramen, coupled with a pleasant atmosphere and excellent service, truly stands out.\nWat Sang. HaRakevet 12, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\n4th Place: Tan Tan Ramen at Mententen — An Intense, Authentic Experience # Mententen Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nMententen, a successful Tel Aviv izakaya, offers an authentic Japanese ambiance, professional service, and a skilled team. With Japanese music and décor, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to forget you\u0026rsquo;re in Tel Aviv. Their menu features seven ramen types, including Tori Ramen (chicken broth), Kara Ramen (Japanese curry broth), and Tongara Ramen (pork broth), plus two cold options for summer. The Tan Tan Ramen (70 NIS, pork version) is spicy, intensely flavoured with a rich broth that lingers for hours. Its satisfying fattiness, slow-cooked ground meat, springy noodles, bamboo shoots, soft egg, red Japanese bean paste, chili, and tahini create a powerful, bold, less balanced dish — ideal for seasoned ramen enthusiasts. Flawlessly executed in a truly special setting.\nMententen. Nahalat Binyamin 57, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\n5th Place: Dirty Ramen at 2SR — A Bold, Modern Twist # Dirty Ramen at 2SR | Photo: David Rozen, Public Relations\n2SR, an Asian (not exclusively Japanese) restaurant, introduced us to \u0026ldquo;dirty ramen\u0026rdquo; — a modern, daring take on the traditional. This unique and affordable (64 NIS) Chinese-Korean ramen, based on beef broth, garlic, shiitake, and cabbage, is a revelation. Spicy, clear, and slightly oily, it features abundant sweet potato noodles and crispy shallots that deliver a delightful kick with every slurp. Tender, slow-cooked beef pieces, generous shiitake mushrooms, and chili oil elevate the experience. For those who\u0026rsquo;ve explored Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene and seek something truly distinctive, 2SR\u0026rsquo;s dirty ramen is an unmissable, sophisticated adventure.\n2SR. Rambam 16, Tel Aviv\n6th Place: Chicken Ramen at Okasan — A Taste of Home # Okasan Ramen from Carmel Market | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nManami Ono\u0026rsquo;s Okasan offers the most homely, clear, and vegetable-rich ramen we tasted. Her Japanese café serves two child-friendly versions: chicken and soy-based broth or vegetable-based broth, making it the most affordable ramen on our list (60 NIS). Served in a generously filled bowl, the broth is remarkably clear and fat-free, with clean, delicate flavours reminiscent of a Jewish mother\u0026rsquo;s homemade chicken soup. Toppings include lettuce, carrots, seaweed, cabbage, \u0026ldquo;boiled chicken\u0026rdquo; slices, a marinated egg, and ramen noodles — enjoyed at the bar amidst the vibrant chaos of Carmel Market.\nOkasan. Carmel Market, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\n7th Place: Sakana Ramen at Onami Kosher — The Only Kosher Option # The only kosher ramen on the list — Onami Hilton | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nOnami Kosher offers a single ramen option: Sakana Ramen (118 NIS) with long-cooked fish broth, sea bass yakitori, ramen noodles, a semi-soft egg, and bok choy. The large, juicy fish skewer is a highlight. The broth, reminiscent of crab bisque in texture and aroma, is rich and aromatic — some will find it too heavy, others will love the intensity. The only kosher ramen restaurant in Tel Aviv worthy of the category.\nOnami. Hilton Hotel, HaYarkon 205, Tel Aviv. Kosher\n8th Place: Hokkaido Ramen at Oban Koban — A Departure from Tradition # Oban Koban Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nOban Koban, a Japanese restaurant established in 2014, predates Israel\u0026rsquo;s ramen craze. With seven ramen options (67–78 NIS), the Hokkaido Ramen (78 NIS) features fish broth, coconut milk, and cream — resulting in something closer to Tom Yum than traditional ramen. Dry pork fillet slices, thin noodles, a semi-soft egg, shiitake, green onion, and spinach complete the bowl. Worth a visit for the broader menu; the ramen is the weakest part of it.\nOban Koban. HaArba\u0026rsquo;a 16, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\nAlso Worth Knowing in Tel Aviv # Delivery Ramen # Tom Tom Ramen by Tom Shamir is the oldest and most popular home-delivery ramen operation, available across Tel Aviv and other areas. Uri Foigel (Hato Ramen) also prepares highly praised ramens from his home, accessible via his WhatsApp group. Sagi Dadush (Downtown Ramen) crafts ramen in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Shapira neighbourhood.\nPop-ups # Cichukai at the Jaffa Flea Market, Fifi\u0026rsquo;s at Levinsky Market (Tuesdays and Wednesdays), and pop-ups at Rumiya in Carmel Market are worth following on Instagram for current dates. At the upper end, ZO on HaArba\u0026rsquo;a Street offers the most expensive ramen in Israel (129 NIS) — dashi broth, soba noodles, sea fish wontons, tiger shrimp, and leeks. Worth it for a special occasion.\nRamen in Non-Japanese Restaurants # Many Asian restaurants across Tel Aviv offer ramen alongside their broader menu: Nini Hachi, Ze Sushi, and the Kisso group (Kisso, Nishi, Notch, Nylon, Anzu) for kosher options. Herzl 16 and the Mina Tomey chain also worth checking.\nSee Also # Full Israel ramen ranking — includes Haifa, Pardes Hanna, and the Sharon region Best Japanese restaurants in Tel Aviv — beyond ramen Asian restaurants in Tel Aviv Found this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-ramen-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tel Aviv is where Israeli ramen culture lives. The city accounts for the majority of the country’s dedicated ramen spots, and the gap between a good bowl and a great one is significant. This guide ranks every serious Tel Aviv ramen restaurant we’ve tried — eight venues, all scored honestly. For context on Israeli ramen culture and what we look for in a bowl, see the full Israel ramen ranking.\n","title":"The Best Ramen in Tel Aviv (2026): A Full Ranking","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/traditional-medicine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Traditional-Medicine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/travel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Travel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vegetarian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vegetarian","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/wellness/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Wellness","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-market/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian-Market","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s sushi scene has developed into something that can stand alongside the best in Europe. The city runs the full range: a 22-seat counter in Jaffa where the chef trained for six years in Japan; a rooftop bar at one of the city\u0026rsquo;s most expensive hotels; a kosher all-you-can-eat operation in Florentin; and a Japanese street-food spot doing nothing but rice balls. If you know where to look, you\u0026rsquo;ll eat very well.\nThis guide is organised by style and price point. For the complete searchable list of Japanese restaurants in Israel, see our Asian businesses directory.\nOmakase \u0026amp; Fine Dining # The top tier of Tel Aviv sushi is genuinely competitive. These three places — two of them in Jaffa — represent serious Japanese technique rather than the local approximation of it.\nTerasu — Jaffa\nThe most-discussed omakase counter in Israel. Chef-owner Yossi Bar\u0026rsquo;s room on Yefet Street seats a small number around a counter; the menu changes with the season and the market. Everything from the rice temperature to the fish ageing is controlled to a degree unusual for Israel. Book four to six weeks ahead for weekends; midweek is slightly more available.\n📍 Yefet 20, Jaffa | @terasutlv | 055-989-9366 | Directory entry\nUMAI Izakaya — Jaffa\nChef Alex Abramov spent six years training in Japan before opening this 22-seat room on a quiet Jaffa side street. The menu moves between a kaiseki-influenced tasting course and a more casual izakaya mode — yakitori, niku kappo, seasonal small plates — depending on the evening and your preference. The sashimi selection is consistently the best available in the city: fish sourced with care, cut with precision.\n📍 Abed El Rauf El Bitar 8, Jaffa | umai-tlv.com | @umai.modern.japanese | 052-597-7897 | Directory entry\nDinings at the Norman Hotel — Tel Aviv\nDinings brings a rooftop sushi experience to Nachmani Street, with a menu that blends Japanese precision with Mediterranean ingredients and an unobstructed view of the city skyline. The setting — inside one of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most distinguished boutique hotels — makes it the natural choice for business dinners and special occasions when you want Japanese food without leaving the White City. Prices reflect the hotel context.\n📍 Nachmani 25, Tel Aviv | Directory entry\nIzakaya-Style Sushi # Izakayas occupy the middle ground: serious Japanese food and drink in a setting that doesn\u0026rsquo;t require a reservation three weeks out. All four places below do sushi as part of a wider Japanese menu.\nAkiko — North Tel Aviv\nA proper Japanese sushi bar in the quieter northern part of the city. Akiko draws a loyal neighbourhood crowd and does well-executed rolls and nigiri alongside a full Japanese menu. Easier to get a table than the Jaffa omakase spots, and reliably good for a weeknight dinner.\n📍 Aba Ahimeir 17, North Tel Aviv | akiko.co.il | @akiko_sushi_bar | 03-641-7641 | Directory entry\nGaijin — Tel Aviv\nOn the Lilienblum strip — Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s main late-night dining and bar corridor — Gaijin occupies a premium izakaya slot: excellent cocktails, high-quality raw fish, and small plates designed for sharing across an evening. Less formal than the Jaffa omakase counters, but not casual either. Go late, order several rounds of small plates.\n📍 Lilienblum 29, Tel Aviv | Directory entry\nKimuraya — Tel Aviv\nThe first Israeli branch of a Japanese chain with nearly 200 locations across Japan. The Kimuraya formula travels well: yakitori skewers, sashimi, kushiage, and a serious sake list in a room that feels imported rather than approximated. On Maze Street in the centre of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s main dining district. If you want an authentic izakaya feel without the fine-dining price tag, this is the call.\n📍 Maze 3, Tel Aviv | kimurayaisrael.com | @kimuraya.j_israel | 055-299-6579 | Directory entry\nASA Izakaya — Tel Aviv\nRobata charcoal cooking is the anchor of the menu here — fish, vegetables, and meats grilled over binchotan, which imparts a smokiness no gas grill can replicate. The menu also runs sushi, gyoza, ramen, udon, and tempura. Near Habima Square, which makes it a convenient option before or after an event at the theatre or Mann Auditorium.\n📍 Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am 54, Tel Aviv | @asa__izakaya | 03-375-2977 | Directory entry\nCasual \u0026amp; Delivery # Not every sushi meal needs to be an event. These two are the best casual options in central Tel Aviv.\nWat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More — Tel Aviv\nReliable sushi and ramen near the HaRakevet complex (the old train station area, now a leisure and dining destination). Wat Sang is the kind of place that does what it promises without fuss: fresh rolls, good ramen, reasonable prices. Popular for weekday lunches in the area and for evening delivery across central Tel Aviv.\n📍 HaRakevet 12, Tel Aviv | watsangsushi.co.il | @wat_sang | 077-980-0443 | Directory entry\nOnigiri-ya — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nIf you want Japanese food at street-food speed and price, Onigiri-ya in Florentin is the answer. Japanese rice balls (onigiri) with fillings ranging from classic tuna mayo to seasonal specials — cheap, fast, and done correctly. Not sushi in the conventional sense, but it belongs on this list as the street-food end of the Japanese spectrum in Tel Aviv.\n📍 Florentin 34, Tel Aviv | @onigiri_ya_tlv | 03-620-9922 | Directory entry\nKosher Sushi # Kosher-certified Japanese food in Tel Aviv is a smaller category, but the options have improved.\nYoko Sushi Bar — Florentin, Tel Aviv (Kosher)\nAll-you-can-eat sushi with freshly prepared rolls made in front of you, plus dim sum. The format — unlimited rolls for a fixed price — is popular for group dinners and family outings. Kosher-certified and delivering across Tel Aviv.\n📍 Florentin 5, Tel Aviv | sushiyoko.co.il | @yoko.sushibar | 077-332-2230 | Directory entry\nOtoro — Ramat Gan (Kosher)\nA hand-roll sushi bar in Ramat Gan, kosher-certified. The hand-roll format — nori wrapped around rice and fillings, eaten immediately — is one of the most enjoyable ways to eat sushi, and it\u0026rsquo;s underrepresented in the Tel Aviv metro area. Worth the short trip from the city if kashrut matters to your group.\n📍 HaChilazon 1, Ramat Gan | Directory entry\nA note on kashrut: many non-certified Japanese restaurants in Israel naturally avoid pork and shellfish, but this does not constitute kosher certification. If kashrut matters, confirm directly with the restaurant before booking.\nQuick-Reference Table # Restaurant Area Style Price Kosher Terasu Jaffa Omakase ₪₪₪₪ No UMAI Izakaya Jaffa Omakase / izakaya ₪₪₪₪ No Dinings at the Norman Tel Aviv Fine dining / rooftop ₪₪₪₪ No Akiko North TLV Sushi bar ₪₪₪ No Gaijin Tel Aviv Izakaya ₪₪₪ No Kimuraya Tel Aviv Izakaya ₪₪₪ No ASA Izakaya Tel Aviv Izakaya / robata ₪₪₪ No Wat Sang Tel Aviv Casual ₪₪ No Onigiri-ya Florentin Street food ₪ No Yoko Sushi Bar Florentin All-you-can-eat ₪₪ Yes Otoro Ramat Gan Hand-roll bar ₪₪ Yes Further Reading # This guide focuses on Tel Aviv and the immediate metro area. For a broader picture of Japanese dining across Israel — Jerusalem, Haifa, Pardes Hanna, the Sharon region — see the complete Japanese restaurants guide.\nOur Asian businesses directory lists all Japanese restaurants in Israel searchable by city, cuisine, and kashrut status.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-sushi-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tel Aviv’s sushi scene has developed into something that can stand alongside the best in Europe. The city runs the full range: a 22-seat counter in Jaffa where the chef trained for six years in Japan; a rooftop bar at one of the city’s most expensive hotels; a kosher all-you-can-eat operation in Florentin; and a Japanese street-food spot doing nothing but rice balls. If you know where to look, you’ll eat very well.\n","title":"Best Sushi in Tel Aviv: From Omakase to All-You-Can-Eat (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/boba/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Boba","type":"tags"},{"content":"The global boba wave has reached Israel. What started as a niche import has become a genuine scene — Taiwanese chains with international pedigree have opened branches, a Chinese-style tea shop operates near the beach in Tel Aviv, and a local chain has built a national footprint. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re an expat missing your regular order or a first-timer curious what the fuss is about, the options are better than you might expect.\nIsraelis have coined their own term for it: באבל טי (babel ti) — a transliteration that\u0026rsquo;s become standard across menus and delivery apps.\nTaiwanese Chains # Jungle Tea # The most established bubble tea brand in Israel. Jungle Tea is a Taiwanese-origin chain with two branches — one in central Tel Aviv, one in Kiryat Ono — and a menu built around classic milk teas, fruit teas, and seasonal specials. The tapioca pearls are cooked in-house and the customisation options (sugar level, ice level, topping combinations) follow the full Taiwanese format.\nThe Tel Aviv branch on Ibn Gabirol is the busier of the two and is available on Wolt for delivery across central Tel Aviv.\nTel Aviv branch 📍 Ibn Gabirol 24, Tel Aviv | jungle-tea.com | 077-610-6250\nKiryat Ono branch 📍 Naomi Shemer 5, Kiryat Ono | 03-622-1900\nThe Alley TLV # The Alley is a Taiwanese bubble tea chain known for its handcrafted preparation and artistic presentation — think layered drinks built to order, not poured from a tap. The Israeli branch is located inside TLV Mall on HaHashmonaim and carries the brand\u0026rsquo;s signature Brown Sugar Deerioca series alongside seasonal limited editions.\nIf you know The Alley from Singapore, Hong Kong, or other Asian cities, the TLV outpost holds up.\n📍 HaHashmonaim 96, TLV Mall, Tel Aviv | the-alley.shopper.shop\nChinese-Style Tea # Tea Wei # A small, independent Chinese bubble tea shop near Bugrashov Beach in Tel Aviv. The vibe is no-frills: a concise menu of classic milk teas and fruit teas, prepared to order, at prices that undercut the chains. Popular with the Chinese expat community in the area and increasingly with the wider neighbourhood.\nNo website or delivery — walk-in only.\n📍 Near Bugrashov Beach, Tel Aviv\nLocal Chain # Tea Bar Israel # Tea Bar is a locally-grown chain with branches across the country, including a Modi\u0026rsquo;in location in Azrieli Mall. The menu goes beyond straightforward boba: cold tea drinks with tapioca pearls, popping fruit balls, cream foam, and jelly — the full modern bubble tea toolkit. A reliable option when you\u0026rsquo;re not near one of the Taiwanese imports.\nteabar.co.il | Available on Wolt\nFor Matcha Lovers # Mix\u0026amp;Matcha # Not classic boba — but if your bubble tea habit is really a matcha habit, Mix\u0026amp;Matcha deserves its own mention. This Israeli brand sources ceremonial-grade matcha directly from Kagoshima, Japan, and opened their flagship \u0026ldquo;House of Mix\u0026rdquo; bar on Nachalat Binyamin in April 2026. The drinks lean toward matcha lattes, matcha smoothies, and matcha-based dessert drinks rather than tapioca pearls.\nVegan options available. Open Thursday–Friday.\n📍 Nachalat Binyamin 5, Tel Aviv | mix-n-matcha.com | @mix.and.matcha | 053-931-6613\nFirst-Timer Tips # What to order: Start with a classic milk tea — brown sugar milk tea with pearls is the consensus entry point. If you want something lighter, a fruit tea (passion fruit, lychee, peach) with no milk is a good alternative.\nCustomisation: Most shops let you choose sugar level (0–100%) and ice level (no ice / less / regular / more). For a first visit, 50% sugar and regular ice is a safe middle ground. You can always go sweeter next time.\nToppings: Tapioca pearls (boba) are the default, but look for grass jelly, pudding, aloe vera, or popping fruit balls as alternatives. The Alley\u0026rsquo;s signature Deerioca (soft, milky tapioca) is worth trying if you usually find regular pearls too chewy.\nOrdering on Wolt: Jungle Tea TLV is the most reliably available for delivery. Tea Bar branches also appear on Wolt depending on your location.\nFull Directory # Our Asian businesses directory lists all bubble tea shops and tea bars in Israel. For Japanese restaurants and other Asian dining, see the full guide.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/bubble-tea-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"The global boba wave has reached Israel. What started as a niche import has become a genuine scene — Taiwanese chains with international pedigree have opened branches, a Chinese-style tea shop operates near the beach in Tel Aviv, and a local chain has built a national footprint. Whether you’re an expat missing your regular order or a first-timer curious what the fuss is about, the options are better than you might expect.\n","title":"Bubble Tea in Israel: Where to Get Boba (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bubble-tea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bubble-Tea","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/drinks/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Drinks","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/grocery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Grocery","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ingredients/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ingredients","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/k-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"K-Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s Korean food scene is small but real. Where the country has 342 Japanese restaurants spanning everything from Tokyo-trained omakase counters to neighbourhood ramen bars, there are roughly 10 Korean establishments in the whole country — and most opened within the last few years. The driving force is the same one reshaping menus from London to São Paulo: K-pop and K-drama have made Korean food aspirational. Younger Israelis who grew up watching Korean content now want to eat kimchi jjigae and bibimbap, and a small but growing number of Korean expats and food entrepreneurs are here to serve them.\nThe scene is honest about its size. There is one main restaurant in Tel Aviv, one in Haifa, a sparse Jerusalem entry, and a handful of unique experiences — private dining, cooking workshops, dessert bars — filling in the gaps. That\u0026rsquo;s not a criticism; these places hold their own against the wider Israeli dining landscape, and the trajectory is upward.\nThis guide covers every meaningful Korean food option in Israel. For the full searchable directory, see our Asian businesses directory.\nTel Aviv # Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV — Lilienblum # Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s main Korean restaurant, and the address that gets mentioned every time someone asks where to eat Korean food in the city. Located on Lilienblum Street in the heart of the central nightlife district, Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s built its reputation on approachable, flavour-forward cooking and a notably wide range of vegan options — an unusual priority for a Korean kitchen.\nThe menu covers the classics: bibimbap (mixed rice with vegetables and gochujang), japchae (glass noodles stir-fried with vegetables and meat), tteokbokki (chewy rice cakes in spicy sauce), and kimchi jjigae (fermented cabbage stew). Nothing revolutionary, but executed well and priced reasonably for the location.\n📍 21 Lilienblum Street, Tel Aviv | kimchi-tlv.com | @kimchistlv\nSoBing — Ibn Gabirol (Desserts) # Not a restaurant but worth knowing about. SoBing on Ibn Gabirol is a Korean dessert bar specialising in bingsu — the Korean shaved-ice dessert topped with sweetened red beans, fruit, condensed milk, or tteok. It\u0026rsquo;s light, not overly sweet, and entirely unlike anything else on the street. Order at least one round of the red bean classic before experimenting with seasonal flavours.\n📍 Ibn Gabirol 65, Tel Aviv | Wolt delivery\nHaifa # Koreana Haifa — Independence Street # Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Korean option, on a busy stretch of Independence Street (HaAtzmaut). The menu is focused — bibimbap and bulgogi (marinated beef) are the anchors — and the atmosphere is more neighbourhood canteen than destination dining. Hours skew evening-heavy on weekdays, with expanded lunch service from Thursday through Saturday.\n📍 Independence Street 66, Haifa | @koreana_haifa | 04-834-9597\nJerusalem # Seoul House — Old City area # Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s entry into the Korean scene, located near Rehov Chabad in the Old City area (Chabad 34). The description leans into traditional ferments and local sauces — an interesting framing for a small restaurant in the capital. Data is sparse and the menu is not published online, so it\u0026rsquo;s worth calling ahead or checking Wolt before visiting.\n📍 Chabad 34, Jerusalem | Order on Wolt\nUnique Experiences # Begopa Korean Dining — Kfar Saba (Private dinners \u0026amp; workshops) # Begopa is the most interesting Korean food project in Israel and the one most worth seeking out if you\u0026rsquo;re serious about the cuisine. Korean chef Taejin Kim-Doron hosts intimate home-cooked dinners at her Kfar Saba kitchen — the address is provided on reservation. The format is Korean home cooking in the truest sense: fermented side dishes, slow-cooked stews, the kind of food that doesn\u0026rsquo;t travel well to a commercial restaurant kitchen.\nShe also runs cooking workshops for groups who want to learn the techniques rather than just eat the results.\nReservations via Ontopo. Worth booking early — capacity is limited by design.\n📍 Kfar Saba (address on reservation) | @begopa_korean_chef | 050-236-6986\nChef Ash — Tel Aviv (Cooking workshops \u0026amp; private events) # Chef Ash runs Korean cooking workshops from her Tel Aviv home kitchen, and also travels to clients for private events. The sessions are hands-on and dish-specific: gyoza folding, ramen from scratch, Korean corn dogs, sriracha making. Each class is a standalone workshop rather than a generic \u0026ldquo;Asian cooking\u0026rdquo; course — if you want to learn why Korean corn dogs have that particular chew, this is where to go.\nPrivate events (birthdays, corporate groups, bachelorette parties) are also available.\n📍 Tel Aviv (home kitchen, also travels to clients) | linktr.ee/Chefff_Ash | @chefff_ash | 054-565-0877\nCooking at Home: Ingredients # Two dedicated Korean grocers serve the home cook market:\nKonel Mart (Tel Aviv) stocks ramen, seaweed, snacks, seasonings, sauces, instant foods, and Korean alcoholic beverages. konelmart.com\nHorangi Korean Grocery (Netanya, Smilanski 7) bills itself as the first Korean grocery store in Israel. The range covers soya sauce, gochujang, soju, and a broad selection of Korean pantry staples. Open Sunday–Thursday until 20:00, Friday until 16:00. horangi.co.il | @horangi.netanya | 053-445-3888\nThe Bigger Picture # Ten Korean food options in a country of nine million is a thin scene by any measure — compare it to the 342 Japanese restaurants in the same market. But the trajectory matters: every place on this list opened within the last decade, most within the last five years. The Korean community in Israel is small, but the cultural pull of Korean pop culture is large, and the gap between demand and supply is closing.\nFor the full directory of all Korean businesses in Israel, see asiansinisrael.com/directory/.\n","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/korean-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s Korean food scene is small but real. Where the country has 342 Japanese restaurants spanning everything from Tokyo-trained omakase counters to neighbourhood ramen bars, there are roughly 10 Korean establishments in the whole country — and most opened within the last few years. The driving force is the same one reshaping menus from London to São Paulo: K-pop and K-drama have made Korean food aspirational. Younger Israelis who grew up watching Korean content now want to eat kimchi jjigae and bibimbap, and a small but growing number of Korean expats and food entrepreneurs are here to serve them.\n","title":"Korean Restaurants in Israel: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/matcha/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Matcha","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/omakase/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Omakase","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taiwanese/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taiwanese","type":"tags"},{"content":"Finding the right ingredients is half the battle when cooking Asian food in Israel. The supermarkets that most Israelis use — Shufersal, Rami Levy, Mega — carry soy sauce and jasmine rice, but that is roughly where pan-Asian coverage ends. For gochujang, rice paper, miso paste, bonito flakes, fresh Thai basil, galangal, or any of the hundred or so things that make Asian cooking taste right, you need a specialist. The good news is that Israel now has them, spread across the country, covering Korean, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Thai and pan-Asian cooking.\nThis guide covers the main stores — who they are, what they stock, and where to find them. For a city-by-city breakdown, see the companion Asian supermarkets guide. For where to eat out, our best Asian restaurants guide is the starting point.\nThe big chains # These stores cover the widest range of cuisines and have the most reliable stock. If you only have time to visit one shop, it should be one of these.\nTAYO Asian Supermarket # TAYO is the most widely distributed Asian supermarket chain in Israel, with three branches covering the south, centre and north. The range is genuinely pan-Asian: products from Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Korea and the Philippines sit alongside each other, making it the closest thing to a full Asian supermarket that exists in the country. Each branch also does nationwide delivery.\nBeer Sheva — Hayim Yakhil 3 (the chain\u0026rsquo;s original branch, considered by TAYO itself to have the largest variety) Rishon LeZion — Yosef Lishanski 9, Honim Konim Mall Haifa — Derech Yafo 21 📍 ta-yo.co.il | Delivery nationwide, 30₪ fee, 100₪ minimum\nGood for: rice varieties, soy sauce brands, instant noodles, Korean sauces, Japanese snacks, Thai curry pastes, Indian spices, frozen dumplings, mochi, Asian beverages, Korean skincare (some branches)\nEast and West (מזרח ומערב) # The oldest and most established name in Israeli Asian grocery. East and West started as a small stall in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market serving Thai and Filipino migrant workers, and has grown into a chain with several branches. Its flagship is still in the market — a dense, well-stocked shop that feels more community institution than chain store. The range covers Thai, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Chinese products, with particular depth in sauces and condiments.\nTel Aviv (flagship) — HaCarmel Market 17, Tel Aviv Tel Aviv — Sarona Market Haifa — HeHalutz 1 Jerusalem — Agripas 47 (Balagan Eastwest Food — also stocks fresh Asian vegetables) 📍 eastwest-stores.co.il | ewi.co.il\nGood for: sauces, condiments, noodles, snacks, coconut milk, Thai ingredients, Filipino products — the Jerusalem Agripas branch is one of the few places in Israel that reliably stocks fresh Asian greens (bok choy, choy sum and similar)\nDragon Food # Dragon Food positions itself around Far East and African food products, which means a slightly different angle from the pan-Asian chains: more focus on Chinese, Thai and Southeast Asian cooking, alongside African product lines. Three branches cover the southern and central coastal plain.\nTel Aviv — Rosh Pina 6 Bat Yam — Menahem Yekuel 7 Ashkelon — HaPalmach 3 📍 dragonfood.co.il\nGood for: Chinese cooking sauces, rice, noodles, tofu, dried ingredients, Southeast Asian pantry staples\nMundo Market # Mundo Market describes itself as the biggest Asian supermarket in Israel, with over 1,200 imported products from across Asia. Its flagship is at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, with expansion to Netanya and other locations. The sheer breadth of stock — products from dozens of Asian countries — makes it a strong option when you are looking for something niche that the other chains might not carry.\nGood for: wide selection across cuisines, harder-to-find imports, pan-Asian snacks and drinks\nKorean grocery # Korean cooking has a devoted following in Israel far beyond the Korean expat community — there is real demand for doenjang, gochujang, doenjang jjigae kits, dried seaweed, kimchi ingredients, and Korean ramen brands that aren\u0026rsquo;t available in mainstream shops.\nKonel Mart — Tel Aviv # A dedicated Korean grocery store in Tel Aviv, focused on the full Korean pantry: ramen (not just Shin Ramyun — multiple brands and varieties), seaweed snacks, Korean spices, seasonings and sauces, Korean instant foods, and Korean alcoholic beverages including soju. The most focused Korean food source in the centre of the country.\n📍 Tel Aviv | konelmart.com\nGood for: Korean ramen, gochujang, doenjang, Korean snacks, seaweed, soju and makgeolli, banchan ingredients\nHorangi Korean Grocery — Netanya # Horangi bills itself as the first dedicated Korean grocery store in Israel — and for residents of the Sharon and Netanya area, it is the go-to. The range covers soy products, gochujang and other fermented pastes, soju, and the Korean pantry staples that Korean expats and K-food enthusiasts can\u0026rsquo;t do without.\n📍 Smilanski 7, Netanya | @horangi.netanya | horangi.co.il\nGood for: Korean fermented products, Korean sauces, Korean drinks, full Korean pantry\nIndian stores # India is one of the most ingredient-diverse cuisines in the world, and the Israeli Indian community — augmented by a large Israeli population that has spent time in India — has driven the growth of a real Indian grocery scene.\nBombay Store — Tel Aviv # A dedicated Indian grocery store in Tel Aviv, carrying spices, pickles, lentils, snacks, chutneys and more, with delivery available. A reliable all-rounder for an Indian pantry.\n📍 Tel Aviv | bombay.co.il\nGood for: Indian spices, lentils and dals, pickles, chutneys, pappadums, Indian snacks\nIndian Store — Tel Aviv # A Tel Aviv-based online operation specialising in quality Indian imports: spices, sweets, cookware and more. Better for a broader range of products when you want them delivered.\n📍 Tel Aviv | indian-store.co.il\nJai Ho Spices — Levinsky Market, Tel Aviv # A small spice shop on Levinsky Street — Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s traditional spice quarter — that specialises in Indian spices and flour for chapati and roti. This is the place for fresh, properly stocked Indian spice jars rather than supermarket approximations. You can smell it from down the street.\n📍 Levinsky 121, Tel Aviv\nGood for: fresh-stocked Indian spice jars, chapati flour, spice blends, dal varieties\nTaj Indian Grocery — Jerusalem # The main Indian grocery address in Jerusalem, billed as the city\u0026rsquo;s only Indian store with a full range of spices, pickles, lentils, sweets, snacks and oils.\n📍 Jerusalem\nGood for: full Indian pantry for Jerusalem residents\nThe Indian Spices — Kiryat Ata (Haifa area) # The dedicated Indian spice option for the Haifa area and the north, on Mordei HaGetaot Street in Kiryat Ata.\n📍 Mordei HaGetaot 6, Kiryat Ata\nFilipino stores # The Filipino community is one of the largest Asian communities in Israel, and the sari-sari store model has taken hold in the cities with the highest concentrations of Filipino workers.\nAllin\u0026rsquo;s Kabayan — Ramat Gan # A dedicated Filipino grocery on Herzl Street in Ramat Gan, in the heart of the Ramat Gan Filipino community. Open daily including Shabbat — practical for caregivers whose free time falls on weekends.\n📍 Herzl 69, Ramat Gan\nGood for: Filipino-brand rice, noodles, sauces (banana ketchup, bagoong, patis), snacks, coconut products, Filipino frozen foods\nManila Shop Netanya — Netanya # A Filipino and Asian grocery on Sderot Hayim Weizman in Netanya, well rated and with long hours including weekends. The main Filipino grocery address for the Sharon region.\n📍 Sderot Hayim Weizman 3, Netanya\nGood for: Filipino staples, broad Asian grocery range for the Sharon area\nFor the full picture of Filipino shopping and community in Israel, see the Filipino food shops guide.\nOnline # OOMAME — nationwide delivery # OOMAME is a pan-Asian online marketplace with nationwide delivery. The range covers sauces, noodles, rice, ramen, spices, oils, pickles, snacks, drinks and kitchenware, and the site includes recipes and how-to guides alongside the products. Note that the address is a warehouse only — there is no walk-in or self-pickup.\n📍 oomame.co.il\nGood for: pan-Asian online orders, convenient delivery across the country, unusual and hard-to-find products\nJapanese and specialty lifestyle shops # Eastern Block (Tel Aviv, Givatayim, Ramat HaSharon) focuses on Japanese and pan-Asian cooking ingredients — sauces, sushi components, teriyaki, sesame, miso and curry. Tel Aviv: easternblock.co.il | Givatayim: Katzenelson 31 | Ramat HaSharon: Sokolow 34.\nGo Japan (Hod HaSharon) carries Japanese food products, snacks and ingredients, making it the specialist option for the Sharon region. il.gojapan.net\nShoppu (Tel Aviv) is a Japanese lifestyle and product shop — primarily non-food, but worth knowing for Japanese household items and the occasional food product. shoppu.co.il\nWhat to expect — and what\u0026rsquo;s hard to find # Generally well-stocked everywhere: soy sauce (multiple brands and types), sesame oil, rice varieties, instant noodles (ramen, udon, glass noodles), coconut milk, fish sauce, oyster sauce, curry pastes, miso, kimchi, frozen dumplings, seaweed, tofu (firm), Asian snacks and confectionery, Japanese condiments.\nRequires a trip to the right store: fresh tofu varieties (silken, soft), specific rice brands, niche Korean fermented products, Japanese dashi and bonito flakes, rice paper, tamarind, dried chilies beyond the basics.\nGenuinely hard to find: fresh Asian vegetables. This is the consistent gap in the Israeli market. Bok choy (白菜), choy sum (菜心), kai-lan (芥蘭), Chinese eggplant, fresh kaffir lime leaves, galangal root, and similar items appear occasionally but are not reliably stocked. The Balagan Eastwest Food shop at Agripas 47 in Jerusalem is the most consistently mentioned source for fresh Asian greens. Calling ahead before making a special trip is always worth it.\nKosher labelling: TAYO carries a range of kosher-certified Asian products clearly labelled in-store and online. Other shops vary — if kashrut matters for your kitchen, TAYO and the chains that label carefully are the safer starting point.\nThe full directory # Every store mentioned here has an entry in our Asian businesses directory, where you can find addresses, phone numbers, and opening hours. The Asian supermarkets guide lists additional stores not covered here, organised by city.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"29 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-grocery-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Finding the right ingredients is half the battle when cooking Asian food in Israel. The supermarkets that most Israelis use — Shufersal, Rami Levy, Mega — carry soy sauce and jasmine rice, but that is roughly where pan-Asian coverage ends. For gochujang, rice paper, miso paste, bonito flakes, fresh Thai basil, galangal, or any of the hundred or so things that make Asian cooking taste right, you need a specialist. The good news is that Israel now has them, spread across the country, covering Korean, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Thai and pan-Asian cooking.\n","title":"Where to Buy Asian Ingredients in Israel: The Complete Guide (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Israel has one of the most developed Japanese food scenes in the Middle East. More than 340 Japanese restaurants operate across the country — from an intimate 22-seat omakase counter in Jaffa to a Tokyo-trained ramen chef running a pop-up at a different venue each week, to a kosher izakaya in Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Rehavia neighbourhood. Whatever brought you here — expat nostalgia, culinary curiosity, or a community gathering spot — the options have never been better.\nThis guide covers the standout options by style and city. For the full searchable list, see our Asian businesses directory.\nFine Dining \u0026amp; Omakase # Terasu — Jaffa\nThe most-discussed omakase counter in Israel. Located on Yefet Street in Jaffa\u0026rsquo;s old city, Terasu offers modern Japanese fine dining built around seasonal produce and Japanese technique. The intimate setting fills up weeks in advance — book early for special occasions.\n📍 Yefet 20, Jaffa | @terasutlv | 055-989-9366\nUMAI Izakaya — Jaffa\nA 22-seat room helmed by chef Alex Abramov, who spent six years training in Japan. The menu moves between kaiseki-influenced tasting menus and a more casual izakaya mode: yakitori, niku kappo, seasonal small plates. One of the few places in Israel where the Japanese technique is genuinely contemporary rather than approximate.\n📍 Abed El Rauf El Bitar 8, Jaffa | umai-tlv.com | @umai.modern.japanese | 052-597-7897\nIzakaya: Japanese Gastropubs # Kimuraya — Tel Aviv\nThe first Israeli outpost of Kimuraya, a chain with nearly 200 branches across Japan. That pedigree shows: the menu spans yakitori skewers, sashimi, kushiage, and a serious sake list, in a setting that feels imported rather than approximated. On Maze Street in the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s dining district.\n📍 Maze 3, Tel Aviv | kimurayaisrael.com | @kimuraya.j_israel | 055-299-6579\nASA Izakaya — Tel Aviv\nA charcoal-grill izakaya centred on robata cooking: fish, vegetables, and meats over binchotan charcoal. The menu also runs sushi, gyoza, ramen, udon, and tempura alongside sake and cocktails. Part of a group that also operates HIGHBALL by ASA. On Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am, near Habima Square.\n📍 Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am 54, Tel Aviv | @asa__izakaya | 03-375-2977\nSaka Ba — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nA small, intimate sake bar with food in Florentin. The Japanese-pub format — sake and shochu paired with small sharing plates — makes it a good evening option when you want something low-key rather than a full sit-down meal.\n📍 Zevulun 8, Florentin, Tel Aviv | @saka_ba_tlv\nOBI — Sound \u0026amp; Kitchen — Tel Aviv\nA DJ-booth-plus-kitchen concept on Yavne Street: sushi, ramen, and yakitori from chef Didi alongside a resident DJ and rotating guest-chef evenings. OBI hosts regular collaboration nights with Down Town Ramen\u0026rsquo;s Sagi Dadush — check their Instagram for upcoming dates.\n📍 Yavne 31, Tel Aviv | @obi__31 | 077-880-1744\nIzakaya Karkur — Pardes Hanna-Karkur\nThe best Japanese option north of Tel Aviv outside Haifa. A full izakaya menu — sushi, yakitori, small plates — in a relaxed setting in the Pardes Hanna artisans\u0026rsquo; complex.\n📍 HaMoshav 42, Pardes Hanna-Karkur | izakaya.co.il | @izakaya_karkur | 053-383-1680\nRamen # Israel\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene has grown into something worth taking seriously. The complete ramen ranking goes deep — here\u0026rsquo;s the short version:\nWabi Ramen — Tel Aviv\nChef Dean Shoshani\u0026rsquo;s ramen bar on De Picciotto Street. Rich, powerful broth; the yaki soba, onigiri, and gyoza are solid supporting acts. 📍 De Picciotto 23, Tel Aviv\nKoko Neko — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nA neighbourhood ramen bar that\u0026rsquo;s built a loyal local following. Reliable and reasonably priced — good for a quick lunch or late-night bowl. 📍 Florentin 5, Tel Aviv\nKamado Ramen — Pardes Hanna-Karkur\nRun by Tokyo-born chef Tomoaki Sasazaki and his partner Maya Spencer. The menu is largely plant-based — an unusual and well-executed angle in the Israeli ramen space. 📍 HaShalom 4 (Orvot HaOmanim complex), Pardes Hanna | kamadokitchen.co.il | @kamado.ramen.il | 054-629-8760\nDown Town Ramen — Tel Aviv (pop-up)\nChef Sagi Dadush\u0026rsquo;s Tokyo-style ramen project. No fixed address — he rotates residencies at different Tel Aviv venues (recent run at OBI). Follow @down7own_ramen for current locations.\nSushi # Wat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More — Tel Aviv\nA reliable sushi-and-ramen spot near the HaRakevet complex (old train station area). Popular for weekday lunches and evening delivery across central Tel Aviv. 📍 HaRakevet 12, Tel Aviv | watsangsushi.co.il | @wat_sang | 077-980-0443\nYoko Sushi Bar — Florentin, Tel Aviv (Kosher)\nAll-you-can-eat sushi with freshly prepared rolls made in front of you, plus dim sum. Delivers across Tel Aviv. Kosher-certified. 📍 Florentin 5, Tel Aviv | sushiyoko.co.il | @yoko.sushibar | 077-332-2230\nOnigiri-ya — Florentin, Tel Aviv\nJapanese rice balls with fillings ranging from classic tuna mayo to seasonal market specials. Cheap, fast, done right — a standout for quick Japanese street food. 📍 Florentin 34, Tel Aviv | @onigiri_ya_tlv | 03-620-9922\nSUKka Sushi — Multiple locations\nA premium sushi chain with three branches and delivery covering Rishon LeZion to Hadera. 📍 Ramat Gan · Bat Yam · Netanya | sukkasushi.orderss.co.il | @sukka_sushi.il\nOtoro — Ramat Gan (Kosher)\nHand-roll sushi bar in Ramat Gan. Kosher-certified. 📍 HaChilazon 1, Ramat Gan\nOutside Tel Aviv # Azia 19 — Jerusalem (Kosher)\nThe standout Japanese option in Jerusalem. An izakaya-style menu in Rehavia: sushi, sashimi, kushiyaki on charcoal grill, and Japanese-style burgers. Opened in 2024 and quickly became the go-to for Asian food in the capital. Kosher-certified.\n📍 Aza 19, Jerusalem | @azia19_ | 02-587-7722\nHaYapani — Mishmar HaSharon\nChef Guy Toledo\u0026rsquo;s Japanese restaurant in the Sharon region, in the Alonit complex. Sushi, ramen, and donburi bowls using quality ingredients. One of the better options outside the main cities.\n📍 Alonit Complex, Mishmar HaSharon | hayapani.com | @hayapani_sushi | 077-772-9065\nKisu — Kiryat Ono\nA modern Asian restaurant combining Japanese-influenced sushi and wok dishes with a cocktail bar. Good for families and groups, with vegan and gluten-free options.\n📍 Rafael Eitan 1, Kiryat Ono | ki-su.co.il | @kisu_rest | 03-7501111\nKosher Japanese # For observant diners, the options have improved significantly:\nAzia 19 (Jerusalem) — full izakaya menu, kosher-certified Yoko Sushi Bar (Tel Aviv) — all-you-can-eat sushi and dim sum Otoro (Ramat Gan) — hand-roll sushi bar Note: many non-certified Japanese restaurants in Israel naturally avoid pork and shellfish, but this does not constitute kosher certification. Always confirm directly with the restaurant if kashrut matters to your group.\nThe Full Directory # This guide covers recommended options; our Asian businesses directory lists all 342 Japanese restaurants in Israel, searchable by city.\nLooking for ramen specifically? See the complete ramen ranking.\n","date":"28 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/japanese-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel has one of the most developed Japanese food scenes in the Middle East. More than 340 Japanese restaurants operate across the country — from an intimate 22-seat omakase counter in Jaffa to a Tokyo-trained ramen chef running a pop-up at a different venue each week, to a kosher izakaya in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighbourhood. Whatever brought you here — expat nostalgia, culinary curiosity, or a community gathering spot — the options have never been better.\n","title":"Japanese Restaurants in Israel: The Complete 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cameri-theatre/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cameri-Theatre","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/events/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Events","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/events/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Events","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv hosts a lecture on Japanese society — Kimono in a Hi-Tech World: The Life Cycles of Family and Education in Japan — on Monday, June 1, 2026, at 10:30. It is part of the theatre\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Wide Screen Beyond the Ocean\u0026rdquo; (Cameri Panorama) series.\nThe speaker and the subject # The lecture is given by Ayelet Eidelberg, an anthropologist and researcher of East Asian and Pacific cultures who also works as a journalist, photographer and tour guide. She uses Japan — one of the world\u0026rsquo;s most modern, developed countries, yet one where home and workplace still run on traditional codes — as a lens on questions that travel well beyond it.\nThe talk looks at emotion and restraint in Japanese life; the drive for excellence that turns the path from childhood to retirement into a demanding regimen; and the unequal division of roles in the Japanese family, contrasting a man\u0026rsquo;s near-total commitment to his workplace with the roles still traditionally expected of women at home. Along the way it asks broader questions about parenting, success and gender that any audience can recognise.\nDetails # What: Lecture — Kimono in a Hi-Tech World: Family and Education in Japan (in Hebrew) When: Monday, June 1, 2026, 10:30 (about 90 minutes) Where: Cameri Theatre, 19 Shaul HaMelech Blvd, Tel Aviv Tickets: Via the Cameri box office; the full series is also available by subscription. It is a daytime, lecture-format event rather than a performance, well suited to anyone interested in Japanese culture and society. Confirm the date, time and price with the Cameri before booking.\nSource: Cameri Theatre; Japanese Studies Center (המרכז ללימודי יפנית) announcement.\n","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/eidelberg-japan-lecture-cameri/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv hosts a lecture on Japanese society — Kimono in a Hi-Tech World: The Life Cycles of Family and Education in Japan — on Monday, June 1, 2026, at 10:30. It is part of the theatre’s “Wide Screen Beyond the Ocean” (Cameri Panorama) series.\n","title":"Japan Lecture at the Cameri: Family and Education","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-culture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese-Culture","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lecture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lecture","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/furoshiki/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Furoshiki","type":"tags"},{"content":"A hands-on workshop in the Japanese art of furoshiki — wrapping and carrying objects in a single square of cloth — takes place in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday, May 28, 2026, from 20:00 to 21:30. It is led by furoshiki practitioner Efrat Brashi (Furochic).\nWhat is furoshiki? # Furoshiki is a traditional Japanese wrapping technique that turns one piece of fabric into a reusable, zero-waste alternative to gift wrap and bags. With a handful of knots and folds you can wrap a gift elegantly, carry a bottle, or shape a cloth into a tote or basket. It is a practical skill rooted in Japanese ideas of sustainability and functional beauty — and it requires no special equipment beyond the cloth itself.\nWhat the session covers # The workshop walks through the core knots and folds and the \u0026ldquo;visual language\u0026rdquo; of Japanese wrapping, with practice on gift wrapping, bottle carrying, and forming bags from a single cloth. Each participant goes home with a furoshiki kit to keep practising. A short pop-up shop of Japanese textiles and pre-wrapped gifts follows the session.\nDetails # What: Furoshiki workshop — the Japanese art of fabric wrapping When: Wednesday, May 28, 2026, 20:00–21:30 (90 minutes) Where: 30 Gordon St., HaShmura complex, Tel Aviv Price: ₪230, including instruction and a personal furoshiki kit (shipping not included) Booking: furochicit.com. Students of the Japanese Studies Center were given the discount code JAPANESE. Places at a small in-person workshop are limited, so confirm availability and the current price on the booking page before planning to attend.\nSource: Japanese Studies Center (המרכז ללימודי יפנית) announcement; Furochic.\n","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/furoshiki-workshop-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"A hands-on workshop in the Japanese art of furoshiki — wrapping and carrying objects in a single square of cloth — takes place in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday, May 28, 2026, from 20:00 to 21:30. It is led by furoshiki practitioner Efrat Brashi (Furochic).\n","title":"Furoshiki Workshop: Japanese Fabric Wrapping in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/anime/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Anime","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/film-screening/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Film-Screening","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Tel Aviv Cinematheque\u0026rsquo;s Cinema Tokyo series, which presents Japanese films with introductory talks, screens Studio Ghibli\u0026rsquo;s The Secret World of Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, known in Hebrew as HaLakkhanim) on Thursday, June 11, 2026, at 19:00.\nThe film # The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi from a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, based on Mary Norton\u0026rsquo;s 1952 children\u0026rsquo;s novel The Borrowers. It follows Arrietty, a tiny \u0026ldquo;borrower\u0026rdquo; who lives beneath the floorboards of a house and quietly takes the small things humans won\u0026rsquo;t miss, and the friendship she forms with a boy staying there. It is a gentle, detail-rich entry in the Ghibli catalogue and works well on a cinema screen.\nScreening and lecture # The evening pairs the film with a lecture by Omri Nagari, in keeping with the Cinema Tokyo format of giving each screening cultural and cinematic context before the lights go down. The talk is delivered in Hebrew.\nDetails # What: The Secret World of Arrietty screening + lecture (Cinema Tokyo series) When: Thursday, June 11, 2026, 19:00 Where: Tel Aviv Cinematheque, 2 Sprinzak St., Tel Aviv Tickets: Book on the Tel Aviv Cinematheque event page. A discount code, אמאי30, was circulated with the announcement. For anyone with an interest in Japanese animation or Ghibli specifically, the screening-plus-lecture format is a good way to see a familiar film with added context. Confirm the date, time and price directly with the cinematheque before booking, as programmes can change.\nSource: Japanese Studies Center (המרכז ללימודי יפנית) announcement.\n","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/cinema-tokyo-arrietty-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Tel Aviv Cinematheque’s Cinema Tokyo series, which presents Japanese films with introductory talks, screens Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, known in Hebrew as HaLakkhanim) on Thursday, June 11, 2026, at 19:00.\n","title":"Studio Ghibli's 'Arrietty' Screens at Tel Aviv Cinematheque","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/studio-ghibli/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Studio-Ghibli","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/diplomacy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Diplomacy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/gilad-cohen/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Gilad-Cohen","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-japan-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-Japan-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, has been awarded the Higashi-Kuninomiya International Culture Award (東久邇宮国際文化褒賞) as he nears the end of a five-year posting in Tokyo. The Israeli Embassy in Japan announced the honour on its official channels, presenting it as recognition of Cohen\u0026rsquo;s work to strengthen Israel-Japan relations since he took up the post in October 2021.\nA selective honour # The Higashi-Kuninomiya International Culture Award is administered by a Tokyo-based foundation set up in 2009 to carry on the wishes of Prince Morihiro Higashikuni, the son of a member of Japan\u0026rsquo;s imperial family. It recognises individuals — Japanese and foreign — who have made significant contributions to Japan and the wider world in culture, diplomacy, science and other fields. Only a small number of recipients are named each year, and past honourees have included serving foreign envoys, such as a chargé d\u0026rsquo;affaires of the Georgian Embassy in Tokyo. An award to an Israeli ambassador during a politically sensitive period stands out in the current diplomatic climate, and the embassy framed it as a measure of how far bilateral ties have come.\nWhat changed during Cohen\u0026rsquo;s term # For readers in Israel with ties to Japan, several of the developments cited are concrete and practical:\nDirect flights. El Al launched its non-stop Tel Aviv–Tokyo route in March 2023, an initiative the embassy championed. It replaced a multi-stop journey with a single flight of roughly 12 hours and made business, tourism and family travel between the two countries far easier. Working-holiday visas. Israel and Japan signed a working-holiday agreement that lets young Israelis aged 18–30 obtain a one-year visa to live, work and study in Japan, with a reciprocal arrangement for young Japanese coming to Israel. Expo 2025 Osaka. Israel built a national pavilion at the Osaka world\u0026rsquo;s fair, which the embassy says drew around 1.8 million visitors and ranked among the exhibition\u0026rsquo;s more prominent national showcases. Economy and security. The embassy points to growing Japanese investment in Israel through the war years, alongside agreements in communications, science and health and expanded academic and technological cooperation. Cohen\u0026rsquo;s remarks # Accepting the award, Cohen said he received it \u0026ldquo;in humility — not only as a personal recognition, but first and foremost as a tribute to the enduring friendship between Israel and Japan.\u0026rdquo; He added that the two countries \u0026ldquo;have grown closer than ever — politically, economically, culturally and scientifically, and above all through the connections between our peoples,\u0026rdquo; and thanked the embassy team in Tokyo for its work.\nWhy it matters here # Japan has become one of the more active corners of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asia policy, and the people-to-people channels Cohen highlighted — direct flights, the working-holiday route, cultural exchange and a high-profile presence at Expo Osaka — are precisely the ones that touch the Asia-connected community in Israel and Israelis living in or travelling to Japan. Arriving as Cohen prepares to leave Tokyo, the award reads as much as a marker of that groundwork as a personal tribute.\nSources: Embassy of Israel in Japan · Higashi-Kuninomiya International Culture Award Foundation · The Times of Israel · Algemeiner\n","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/israel-japan-ambassador-cultural-award/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, has been awarded the Higashi-Kuninomiya International Culture Award (東久邇宮国際文化褒賞) as he nears the end of a five-year posting in Tokyo. The Israeli Embassy in Japan announced the honour on its official channels, presenting it as recognition of Cohen’s work to strengthen Israel-Japan relations since he took up the post in October 2021.\n","title":"Israel's Ambassador to Japan Wins Rare Culture Award","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/news/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"News","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tokyo/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tokyo","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/working-holiday-visa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Working-Holiday-Visa","type":"tags"},{"content":"This page sets out how Asians in Israel handles paid placements, sponsored content, and the relationship between commercial revenue and editorial decisions. It complements the editorial policy and the advertising rate card.\nIf you are a reader: this page tells you exactly what an advertiser can and cannot buy on this site, and how to spot sponsored content. If you are an advertiser: this is what you are agreeing to when you buy a placement.\nWhat we sell # The full price list and formats sit on /advertise/. In summary we sell:\nDirectory tier upgrades — \u0026ldquo;Verified\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Featured\u0026rdquo; placement in the business directory. Sponsored posts — articles we write about an advertiser\u0026rsquo;s business, event, product, or campaign. Newsletter slots — one sponsor slot per newsletter send. Custom partnerships — co-branded series, embassy-supported coverage, event partnerships negotiated case-by-case. All prices are quoted in shekels ex-VAT. We are registered with Israeli tax authorities as עוסק מורשה and issue a proper חשבונית מס/קבלה on payment.\nEditorial firewall # The hard rule: buying a placement does not buy editorial coverage, removal, or favourable framing.\nConcretely:\nWe will not write sponsored coverage that we believe to be factually misleading. If we cannot honestly write what the advertiser wants written, we refund the deposit and decline the placement. We will not remove or edit existing editorial coverage in exchange for sponsorship. This includes critical reviews, news items, or directory listings. If a business is unhappy with what we have written, the route is the corrections process, not the advertising contact. We will not change a \u0026ldquo;Free\u0026rdquo; directory listing\u0026rsquo;s category, hours, or description on payment alone — only on owner verification. The Verified tier exists precisely to make owner-submitted updates auditable. A directory tier upgrade does not move a business higher in editorial guides (e.g. the cuisine clusters). Inclusion in guides is editorial; the directory is commercial. How sponsored content is disclosed # Every sponsored post carries:\nA \u0026ldquo;Sponsored\u0026rdquo; label at the top of the post, before the headline. The advertiser\u0026rsquo;s name in the post body. The same byline conventions as editorial posts (named author, dated, with corrections route). Sponsored posts are not anonymised. A sponsorship: true flag in the post\u0026rsquo;s metadata, used by the templates and by anyone querying the content programmatically. A Featured-tier directory upgrade is marked with a \u0026ldquo;Featured\u0026rdquo; badge on the directory card and on the directory entry page. A Verified-tier upgrade is marked with a \u0026ldquo;Verified\u0026rdquo; badge. No other directory-tier indicators exist — the absence of a badge means a free listing.\nIf you see commercial content on this site that is not disclosed as above, that is a bug, not a policy — please flag it to editor@asiansinisrael.com so we can correct it.\nWhat we will not run # Political advocacy of any kind, including positions on Israeli–Palestinian, Taiwan–China, or any other contested topic. This applies whether paid or unpaid. Anti-community content — material that disparages any of the diaspora communities we cover, or that mischaracterises a community for commercial gain. Health, financial, or legal advice presented as factual when it is not verifiable. Cryptocurrency, MLM, casino, or adult-services placements. \u0026ldquo;Cosmetic\u0026rdquo; verification — we will not sell a Verified badge to a business we cannot confirm is operating. The Verified tier requires that we can confirm the business is open, where it claims to be, and run by who it claims to be. Conflicts of interest # The editor has no equity stake, employment relationship, or family relationship with any advertiser on this site. If that ever changes for a specific advertiser, that conflict will be disclosed in any post we write about them, and on the directory entry.\nThe site itself does not accept investment from advertisers, embassies, political parties, or governments. Revenue comes from advertising as listed above, plus optional reader support.\nRefunds and take-downs # If a paid placement has not yet gone live and you change your mind, we refund the full payment. If a placement has gone live and is materially different from what was agreed, we revise it free of charge or refund pro-rata. We reserve the right to take down a placement that turns out to violate this policy after it has gone live, with a pro-rata refund. Data we hold on advertisers # For each advertiser we hold: the business name and contact details, the placement type and price, the invoice details required for Israeli tax compliance, and any creative materials supplied. We do not share this data with third parties except where required by Israeli tax law. Advertisers can request a copy of their record or its deletion (subject to tax-record retention requirements) by emailing editor@asiansinisrael.com.\nReader feedback on commercial content # If you see commercial content on this site that you think is misleading, undisclosed, or inappropriate for our community, email editor@asiansinisrael.com. We log every such report and respond within five business days. Patterns of complaints — for example, multiple readers flagging the same advertiser — trigger a review of that advertiser\u0026rsquo;s placements.\nContact # For advertising enquiries: info@asiansinisrael.com For editorial questions about a specific placement: editor@asiansinisrael.com Related: editorial policy · methodology · advertising rate card · editor\u0026rsquo;s page\n","date":"16 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/advertising-policy/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"This page sets out how Asians in Israel handles paid placements, sponsored content, and the relationship between commercial revenue and editorial decisions. It complements the editorial policy and the advertising rate card.\n","title":"Advertising Policy","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/catering/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Catering","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cooking-workshops/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cooking-Workshops","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/havaya-hodit/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"HaHavaya HaHodit (The Indian Experience)","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hod-hasharon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hod-Hasharon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vegan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vegan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-community/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Community","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-grocery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Grocery","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-ingredients/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Ingredients","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-supermarket/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Supermarket","type":"tags"},{"content":"If you cook Asian food at home in Israel, you already know the problem. The recipe calls for gochujang, fresh kaffir lime leaves, the right kind of rice paper, a specific noodle, or a spice blend that the regular supermarket has simply never heard of. For the Asian community here — Filipino, Thai, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese households — stocking a kitchen the way you would back home is a genuine, week-to-week challenge, and for Israeli home cooks chasing a dish they ate while travelling, it is the difference between a real version and an approximation.\nThe good news is that Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian grocery scene has grown a lot. There are dedicated Asian supermarkets and import shops in almost every major city now, from chains with branches up and down the country to single neighbourhood stores run by community members who know exactly what their customers need. This guide maps them out city by city, so you can find the closest place that actually stocks what you are looking for. Every shop below is a real, verified entry in our community directory — nothing here is invented. It is a companion to our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel; when you would rather eat out than cook, start there.\nTel Aviv \u0026amp; Gush Dan # Tel Aviv and the surrounding Gush Dan towns have the densest concentration of Asian groceries in the country, from the historic Carmel Market shops to cuisine-specific import stores.\nEast and West Asian Stores # This chain started as a single stall in the Carmel Market and has since grown to several branches. The flagship is still on HaCarmel Street in the heart of the market, and it carries a wide spread of Asian products — Thai, Filipino, Japanese and more — making it a solid all-rounder for most home cooks. There is also a branch inside Sarona Market in central Tel Aviv if that is more convenient for you.\nDragon Food # Dragon Food specialises in Far East and African food products, with its Tel Aviv shop on Rosh Pina Street. It is a useful stop when you need staples across several cuisines, and the chain also has branches further out in Bat Yam and Ashkelon (see those city sections below).\nKonel Mart # A dedicated Korean grocery in Tel Aviv. Konel Mart is the place to go for ramen, seaweed, snacks, seasonings and sauces, instant foods, and Korean alcoholic beverages — essentially a one-stop shop for a Korean pantry, whether you are after gochujang for a stew or soju for the table.\nEastern Block # Eastern Block is a Tel Aviv Asian market focused on cooking ingredients: sauces, sushi-making components, teriyaki, sesame, curry, miso and more. It is a strong choice for Japanese and pan-Asian cooking, and the brand also runs branches in Givatayim and Ramat HaSharon (listed in the centre section).\nBombay Store # An Indian grocery store in Tel Aviv that brings Indian products to Israeli kitchens — spices, pickles, lentils, snacks and more — with delivery available. It is a good fit for anyone cooking Indian food regularly who wants reliable access to the basics.\nIndian Store # A Tel Aviv-based operation specialising in importing quality products from India: spices, sweets, cookware and more. It runs as an online store, so it is handy when you want Indian pantry staples delivered rather than making a trip.\nJai Ho Spices # A small Indian spice shop on Levinsky Street — fittingly, given Levinsky is Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s spice quarter. Jai Ho specialises in Indian spices and Indian flour for chapati, and regulars say you can smell it from down the block. Worth seeking out if you want freshly stocked spices over supermarket jars.\nAllin\u0026rsquo;s Kabayan # A Filipino grocery store in Ramat Gan, on Herzl Street, well rated by its community. It is the place to go in Gush Dan for Filipino pantry staples and the specific brands a Filipino kitchen relies on. For more on shopping and eating Filipino in Israel, see our Filipino food shops guide.\nEastern Block Givatayim # The Givatayim branch of the Eastern Block Asian market, on Katzenelson Street — the same focus on sauces, sushi ingredients, curry and miso as the Tel Aviv original, closer to home if you live in the eastern Gush Dan towns.\nEastern Block Ramat HaSharon # The Ramat HaSharon branch of Eastern Block, on Sokolow Street, serving the northern Gush Dan and Sharon area with the same range of Asian cooking ingredients.\nDragon Food Bat Yam # The Bat Yam branch of the Dragon Food chain, on Menahem Yekuel Street — Far East and African food products for the southern coastal end of Gush Dan.\nHaifa \u0026amp; the north # Haifa and its surrounding towns are well served, with both chain branches and independent neighbourhood stores covering Filipino, Indian, Thai, Korean and Japanese cooking.\nTAYO Asian Market Haifa # The Haifa branch of the TAYO Asian supermarket chain, on Derech Yafo. TAYO carries one of the widest Asian ranges in the country, spanning products from Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Korea and the Philippines, and the Haifa store offers delivery. If you are in the north and want a single shop that covers most cuisines, this is the obvious first stop.\nMy Asia Haifa # An Asian supermarket on Shmaryahu Levin Street in Haifa stocking Filipino, Indian, Thai, Korean and Japanese products, plus kitchenware and Asian utensils. It offers free home delivery, which makes it especially convenient for a full shop.\nEast and West Haifa # The Haifa branch of the East and West Asian store chain, on HeHalutz Street — a general Asian grocery covering the same broad product range as the Tel Aviv original.\nAsia Market Kiryat Yam # An independent Asian grocery on Giyora Yoseftal Street in Kiryat Yam, just north of Haifa, well rated by customers. A handy local option for the Krayot rather than driving into central Haifa.\nThe Indian Spices # An Indian spice shop in Kiryat Ata, in the Haifa area, on Mordei HaGetaot Street. If your priority is Indian spices specifically, this is the dedicated option in the north. For Indian cooking and dining more broadly, see our Indian restaurants guide.\nAsian Market Afula # An Asian grocery market in Afula, on Sderot Menachem Begin, serving the Jezreel Valley — a useful inland option for anyone living between Haifa and the north-east who would otherwise have a long drive for Asian ingredients.\nJerusalem # Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Asian groceries are concentrated around the Mahane Yehuda market area and along the main arteries, and they cover a strong spread of cuisines between them.\nBalagan Eastwest Food # On Agripas Street near Mahane Yehuda, Balagan Eastwest Food carries an extremely wide range of products for Japanese, Thai, Indian, Filipino, Korean and Chinese cooking, and crucially stocks fresh Asian vegetables — which are hard to find anywhere in Israel. For Jerusalem home cooks, this is the most complete single stop.\nSuper HaMizrah # Super HaMizrah is both an Asian restaurant and a grocery in Jerusalem, from the team behind Jaco Street. As a grocery it is a convenient option for picking up ingredients, and it is kosher for Passover — worth noting if you keep a kosher kitchen.\nTaj Indian Grocery Shop # Billed as the only Indian store in Jerusalem with a full range — spices, pickles, lentils, sweets, snacks and oils. If you cook Indian food in Jerusalem, this is the dedicated address for a proper Indian pantry.\nTropical Shack Asian Store # An Asian grocery on Herzl Street in Jerusalem, also available for delivery via Wolt. A useful general Asian option, particularly if you would rather have your ingredients delivered.\nThe centre — Rishon LeZion, Ness Ziona, Petah Tikva, Netanya \u0026amp; the Sharon # The central towns have filled in fast, with TAYO branches, the country\u0026rsquo;s first Korean grocery and several strong Filipino shops.\nTAYO Asian Supermarket Rishon LeZion # The Rishon LeZion branch of the TAYO chain, on Yosef Lishanski Street, very well rated by customers. Like its sister stores it carries a broad pan-Asian range, making it the main destination for Asian ingredients in the southern-central area.\nOnikon Asian Market # An Asian market in Ness Ziona, on Weizman Street, stocking ramen, noodles, sauces, frozen dumplings, tofu and Korean products. It is available on Wolt for delivery, which is handy across the Rishon LeZion and Shfela area.\nChili Baby # An Asian grocery store on Mohliver Street in Petah Tikva, well rated locally. The go-to general Asian option for Petah Tikva and the eastern centre.\nHorangi Korean Grocery # Horangi in Netanya bills itself as the first Korean grocery store in Israel — soy products, gochujang, soju and a full range of Korean ingredients. If you are building a Korean pantry and live in the Sharon, this is the dedicated address.\nManila Shop Netanya # A Filipino and Asian grocery shop on Sderot Hayim Weizman in Netanya, very highly rated by its customers. A reliable stop for Filipino staples in the Sharon — see also our Filipino food shops guide.\nGo Japan # A Japanese grocery and goods store in Hod HaSharon, on Derech Ramatayim, carrying Japanese food products, snacks and ingredients. If you cook Japanese food and live in the Sharon, this is your specialist option; for eating out, see our Japanese restaurants guide.\nThe south — Beer Sheva, Ashkelon \u0026amp; Bat Yam # The south has fewer shops than the centre, but Beer Sheva in particular is well covered for such a spread-out region.\nTAYO Asian Market Beer Sheva # The Beer Sheva branch of TAYO, on Hayim Yakhil Street, which the chain describes as carrying the largest variety in Israel — products from Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Korea, the Philippines and more. For the whole Negev, this is the anchor Asian supermarket.\nNoodles Market # An Asian grocery in Beer Sheva — a second option in the city for Asian pantry staples alongside the TAYO branch.\nDragon Food Ashkelon # The Ashkelon branch of the Dragon Food chain, on HaPalmach Street, carrying the same Far East and African food products as the rest of the chain — the main Asian grocery option for the southern coast.\nOnline \u0026amp; nationwide # If you do not live near a dedicated Asian grocery, or you simply want the convenience, several operations ship Asian ingredients across the country.\nTa-Yo Asian Supermarket # The TAYO chain as a whole, with branches in Beer Sheva, Rishon LeZion and Haifa (each listed in its city section above). TAYO is one of the most widely spread Asian supermarket brands in Israel, so wherever you are in the south or centre, there is a good chance a branch is within reach.\nEast \u0026amp; West Asian Grocery # The East \u0026amp; West Asian grocery brand operates nationwide, carrying a general spread of Asian products. Between this listing and the East and West Stores chain, the brand covers a lot of the country.\nDragon Food # Listed again here as a nationwide presence: with branches in Tel Aviv, Bat Yam and Ashkelon, Dragon Food\u0026rsquo;s Far East and African product range is accessible across the coastal plain.\nMundo Market # Mundo Market describes itself as the biggest Asian supermarket in Israel, with more than 1,200 imported products from all over Asia. Its flagship is at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, and it is expanding nationwide with newer locations including Netanya. If you want sheer breadth of stock in one place, this is the one to try.\nOOMAME # OOMAME is an online pan-Asian marketplace with nationwide delivery — sauces, noodles, rice, ramen, spices, oils, pickles, snacks, drinks and kitchenware, alongside recipes and how-tos. Note that its address is a warehouse only: there are no walk-ins or self-pickup, so this is strictly a delivery operation.\nA note on what to expect # Asian groceries in Israel vary a lot. The big chains and the largest single stores — TAYO, Mundo Market, Balagan Eastwest Food — aim to cover every cuisine, while many neighbourhood shops lean towards the community they serve, so a Filipino store and a Korean store will stock quite different shelves. Fresh produce — Asian herbs, leaves and vegetables — is the hardest thing to find consistently, so it is worth calling ahead if a recipe depends on it. Stock and even opening hours can change, especially for the smaller independent shops; this guide is reviewed periodically, but a quick phone call before a special trip never hurts.\nWhen you would rather let someone else do the cooking, our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel is the place to start, with companion guides for Japanese and Indian food, and a dedicated Filipino food shops guide for that community.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-supermarkets-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"If you cook Asian food at home in Israel, you already know the problem. The recipe calls for gochujang, fresh kaffir lime leaves, the right kind of rice paper, a specific noodle, or a spice blend that the regular supermarket has simply never heard of. For the Asian community here — Filipino, Thai, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese households — stocking a kitchen the way you would back home is a genuine, week-to-week challenge, and for Israeli home cooks chasing a dish they ate while travelling, it is the difference between a real version and an approximation.\n","title":"Asian Supermarkets \u0026 Grocery Stores in Israel, City by City (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bibimbap/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bibimbap","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bingsu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bingsu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cantonese/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cantonese","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/caregivers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Caregivers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/caregiving/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Caregiving","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/carmel-market/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Carmel Market","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/doctors/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Doctors","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/dumplings/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Dumplings","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/filipino-caregivers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Filipino Caregivers","type":"tags"},{"content":"Filipinos are one of the largest Asian communities in Israel, and the great majority work in the caregiving (siud) sector — looking after elderly people and people with disabilities, usually living in the employer\u0026rsquo;s home. It is demanding work, often isolating, and good plain-language information about your rights is hard to find. This guide pulls together the framework from Israel\u0026rsquo;s official bodies and the worker-rights NGOs so you know what the law says and where to get help.\nImportant — please read. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Rules and figures change, sometimes every year. Always confirm current details with the authoritative bodies: the Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA), Kav LaOved – Worker\u0026rsquo;s Hotline, and the Philippine Embassy / Migrant Workers Office in Tel Aviv. If your rights are being violated, get advice from one of them before signing anything or leaving a job.\nWho this is for, and the legal basics # This guide is for foreign nationals working as caregivers in Israel — including the many Filipinos who arrived through a licensed recruitment agency. Caregivers in Israel work under a B/1 work visa for the caregiving sector. Your visa ties you to working only in caregiving and only for a registered, licensed employer; you may not legally take other work, even on rest days or holidays.\nCrucially, the core rights of Israeli labour law apply to every worker in Israel — Israeli or foreign, documented or not. Minimum wage, a weekly rest day, sick pay, holidays, severance and notice periods are not optional extras; they are the legal floor.\nYour rights # Working hours and rest. You are entitled to a weekly rest day of at least 25 continuous hours, which should include the day of rest of your religion. If your employer asks you to work on your rest day, it must be by agreement and paid at a premium rate, plus you should get a replacement rest day. There is no separate legal entitlement to a fixed number of hours of free time every day, but living-in does not mean being on call every waking hour — reasonable breaks are part of humane and lawful employment.\nSick leave. When you are ill and bring a doctor\u0026rsquo;s note, you are entitled to sick pay: nothing for the first day, 50% of daily pay for the second and third days, and 100% from the fourth day onward.\nHolidays and vacation. After three months of work you are entitled to paid holidays — you may choose holidays according to your own religion. You also accrue paid annual vacation, and after one full year you are entitled to recuperation pay (dmei havraa), an annual fixed-rate payment.\nLiving conditions. Your employer must provide you with reasonable, dignified accommodation with appropriate privacy. Your employer may not take or hold your passport — your documents are yours, and withholding them is illegal.\nChanging employers. You have the right to change employers within the caregiving sector — you are not trapped with one family. There is a required process: you must give prior written notice both to the employer (or their representative) and to the licensed placement agency you are registered with, and the notice period depends on how long you have worked there. Special PIBA rules apply if you change employers several times. Always speak to Kav LaOved or your placement agency before resigning so you don\u0026rsquo;t accidentally fall out of status.\nWhat an employer may not do. An employer may not pay below minimum wage, withhold your passport, force you to work your rest day, deduct more than the legal limits from your pay, or dismiss you without proper written notice.\nSalary norms # Minimum wage applies to live-in caregivers. Your base salary must be at least the Israeli statutory minimum wage for a full-time post — the same floor that applies to Israeli workers. The figure is updated periodically (it rose again in 2026), so check the current minimum wage with PIBA or Kav LaOved rather than relying on an old number. Wages must be paid by the 9th of the following month.\nDeductions — what\u0026rsquo;s allowed. Israeli regulations let an employer deduct limited, capped amounts for things like medical insurance and, for some workers, housing and related expenses — but the maximum amounts are fixed in regulations and updated by the Ministry of Labour (the limits were last revised in 2025). Two key points for caregivers:\nTotal deductions are capped and may not swallow your wage — your take-home pay must still reflect the legal minimum. For a live-in caregiver, the housing situation is different from other migrant workers: you live in the home as part of the job. Do not assume the standard regional housing-deduction figures automatically apply to you — if your payslip shows housing or food deductions, ask Kav LaOved to check whether they are lawful in your case. \u0026ldquo;Pocket money.\u0026rdquo; In practice many caregivers receive a small weekly cash advance for day-to-day needs. This is an advance against your salary, not an addition to it and not a substitute for it — your full wage must still be paid and properly documented on a payslip.\nSeverance, pension and the deposit fund (pikadon). After a year of work you are generally entitled to severance pay if you are dismissed or the job ends through no fault of yours. Every worker is also entitled to a pension. For foreign caregivers, employers are required to make a monthly deposit into a dedicated government deposit fund (pikadon) covering pension and severance components — this money is on top of your salary and must not be deducted from it. You can normally withdraw the accumulated pikadon (with interest, minus bank fees and tax) only when you leave Israel permanently, by filing a request shortly before departure. You can check your pikadon balance and visa status through PIBA\u0026rsquo;s online system.\nKeep every payslip. They are your evidence that wages, deductions and deposits were handled correctly.\nIf your rights are violated: dispute resolution and help # If something is wrong — unpaid wages, illegal deductions, no rest day, a withheld passport, abuse — you do not have to handle it alone, and you do not have to keep silent to keep your visa.\n1. Keep documentation. Save payslips, your contract, your passport copy, and write down your daily hours, your rest days, and any incidents with dates. Photograph documents. This record is what makes a complaint succeed.\n2. Kav LaOved (Worker\u0026rsquo;s Hotline). This NGO gives free advice and legal aid to workers regardless of status, and runs a dedicated migrant-caregivers programme. They can calculate what you are owed at the end of a job and help you act on it. Contact details and reception hours are on the Kav LaOved website.\n3. PIBA complaint channels. The Population and Immigration Authority regulates the caregiving sector and licenses the placement agencies. Problems with an agency, your visa, or your employer\u0026rsquo;s registration can be raised through PIBA.\n4. The Philippine Embassy and the Migrant Workers Office (MWO). The Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv and its co-located Migrant Workers Office (MWO, formerly POLO) assist Filipino workers with labour disputes, contract problems, repatriation, OWWA welfare benefits, and counselling. They can also help when a case crosses between Israeli and Philippine systems. The Embassy is on Rehov Bnei Dan 18, Tel Aviv-Yafo; current phone numbers and emergency hotlines are on the Embassy website — check there for the latest contact details.\n5. Free legal help. Beyond Kav LaOved, other NGOs and legal-aid clinics assist migrant workers. Ask Kav LaOved or the MWO for a referral if your case needs a lawyer.\nFor groceries, remittance, churches and community organisations that support the wider Filipino community here, see our companion guide to Filipino food, shops and community in Israel. The Federation of Filipino Communities in Israel is the umbrella body for Filipino associations and can point you to local groups, and licensed remittance services such as Rewire are listed in our directory.\nThe Filipino caregiving community in Israel has also carried real loss — including caregivers killed in missile strikes during the 2025 conflict. Knowing your rights, keeping your documents in order, and staying connected to the community and to the bodies that exist to protect you are practical forms of safety.\nReminder: rules and figures in this guide change. Before acting on anything here, confirm the current position with PIBA, Kav LaOved, or the Philippine Embassy / MWO in Tel Aviv. This is general information, not legal advice.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/filipino-caregivers-israel-rights/","section":"Posts","summary":"Filipinos are one of the largest Asian communities in Israel, and the great majority work in the caregiving (siud) sector — looking after elderly people and people with disabilities, usually living in the employer’s home. It is demanding work, often isolating, and good plain-language information about your rights is hard to find. This guide pulls together the framework from Israel’s official bodies and the worker-rights NGOs so you know what the law says and where to get help.\n","title":"Filipino Caregivers in Israel: Rights, Salary, and Resolving Disputes","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/filipino-community/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Filipino Community","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/filipino-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Filipino Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"Filipinos make up one of the largest Asian communities in Israel — tens of thousands of people, the great majority working as caregivers for the elderly and people with disabilities. Spread across Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya and dozens of smaller towns, the community is held together less by neighbourhoods than by a network of shops, services and organisations that make life here feel a little closer to home.\nThis guide is not a \u0026ldquo;best restaurants\u0026rdquo; ranking — Israel has a huge Filipino population but very few dedicated Filipino restaurants. What the community actually relies on is something more practical: the grocery and sari-sari shops that stock Filipino ingredients, the remittance services used to send money back to family every month, and the organisations and groups that offer support, information and a sense of belonging. Here is where Filipinos in Israel find home. For the wider picture of Asian dining in Israel see our hub guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel, and for ingredient shopping in general our guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel.\nFilipino \u0026amp; Asian grocery shops # These are the shops where you can find rice, noodles, sauces, snacks, frozen goods and the everyday Filipino products that the big Israeli supermarkets don\u0026rsquo;t carry. A few are Filipino-specific; others are broader Asian groceries that keep a solid Filipino section.\nAllin\u0026rsquo;s Kabayan # A dedicated Filipino grocery store on Herzl Street in Ramat Gan, in the heart of one of the country\u0026rsquo;s busiest Filipino areas. It is well regarded by the community, with strong ratings on both Google Maps and easy. Open daily including Friday and Saturday, which makes it convenient for caregivers who only get time off at the weekend.\nManila Shop Netanya # A Filipino and Asian grocery shop on Sderot Hayim Weizman in Netanya, another city with a large Filipino community. It carries a wide range of Filipino and Asian products and has built up a strong reputation across nearly 170 reviews. Open seven days a week with long hours, including weekends.\nBalagan Eastwest Food # A long-running Asian grocery on Agripas Street in Jerusalem, near the Mahane Yehuda market. It stocks an extremely wide range of products for Japanese, Thai, Indian, Filipino, Korean and Chinese cooking, plus fresh Asian vegetables — a reliable stop for Filipinos in Jerusalem who can\u0026rsquo;t find what they need elsewhere.\nMy Asia Haifa # An Asian supermarket on Shmaryahu Levin Street in Haifa, carrying Filipino, Indian, Thai, Korean and Japanese products as well as kitchenware and Asian utensils. It offers free home delivery, which is especially useful for caregivers in the Haifa area who can\u0026rsquo;t easily get to a shop.\nMundo Market # Billed as the biggest Asian supermarket in Israel, with more than 1,200 imported products from across Asia. The flagship is at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, with newer branches including Netanya as the chain expands nationwide. Its Filipino range sits alongside products from the rest of Asia, so it works as a one-stop shop.\nEast and West Asian Stores # An Asian grocery chain that started as a small shop in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market serving Thai and Filipino workers, and has since grown to multiple locations. It keeps a wide variety of Asian products, including Filipino goods, and remains one of the most established names for Asian groceries in Israel.\nSending money home # Remittances are central to Filipino life abroad, and Israel has a dense market of services competing to move money to the Philippines. Fees and exchange rates change constantly and vary by amount and payout method, so it is always worth comparing a few before you send — the entries below describe what each service offers rather than quoting rates.\nMonox Philippines by 019 # A remittance service built specifically for transfers from Israel to the Philippines, run through an app. It advertises fast, secured transfers with options for cash pickup, bank transfer and GCash — covering the main ways families back home prefer to receive money.\nMoneyLowCost # A money transfer service focused on Israel-to-Philippines transfers, aimed squarely at Filipino workers. Its distinctive feature is an offer of 20-day interest-free credit for sending money — useful when payday and the family\u0026rsquo;s needs don\u0026rsquo;t line up.\nGMT — Global Money Transfer # An Israeli money transfer company that serves foreign workers across communities. For the Philippines it partners with Cebuana Lhuillier, which has thousands of pickup branches, making cash collection easy almost anywhere in the country. It also serves Thai, Indian, Chinese and Nepali workers.\nMoneySend # A money transfer service that sends from Israel to more than 90 countries, including the Philippines, via credit card and without needing to visit a branch. A straightforward option if you prefer to send online rather than queue at an agent.\nRewire by Remitly # A digital money transfer app covering more than 130 countries and widely used by Filipino and Thai workers in Israel. As an app-based service it lets you send money home directly from your phone, on your own schedule.\nWestern Union Israel # The global Western Union network, with agent locations across Israel including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa — and, separately, at Israel Post branches nationwide. It remains a familiar fallback for sending cash that can be picked up quickly almost anywhere in the Philippines.\nCommunity \u0026amp; support # Beyond shops and services, the Filipino community in Israel runs on its organisations and networks — for advocacy, for information, for celebrating together, and for help when something goes wrong.\nFederation of Filipino Communities in Israel # The umbrella organisation for Filipino associations and groups across Israel, founded in 2002 and based in Tel Aviv. It coordinates between the many regional and interest-based Filipino groups and acts as a point of contact for community-wide matters.\nFilipinos Working and Living in Israel # A major Facebook community group for Filipino workers and residents in Israel. It is one of the most active spaces for job listings, community support and day-to-day information sharing — often the first place people turn with a question about life or work here.\nFeel Thai Massage by Ronalyn # A professional massage practice in Haifa run by Ronalyn, a Filipino-Thai therapist, and highly rated on TripAdvisor. It is one of the visible Filipino-run service businesses in the north, and a reminder that the community\u0026rsquo;s footprint in Israel goes beyond caregiving.\nTourismo Filipino # A travel agency, based in Manila and Israeli-owned, that has specialised in trips to the Philippines since 2010 — private and group tours, island-hopping, jeep safaris and family packages. It is licensed by the Philippine Department of Tourism, and a useful contact for anyone planning a trip home or a holiday in the islands.\nFilipino food spots # Israel\u0026rsquo;s Filipino restaurant scene is genuinely small — most Filipino cooking here happens at home, with ingredients from the shops above, or at community gatherings. We have not been able to verify a standalone Filipino restaurant worth listing in the directory. If you know of one — a canteen, a home kitchen, a weekend pop-up — please tell us, and we will check it and add it. In the meantime, the grocery shops above are the most reliable route to Filipino flavours in Israel.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/filipino-food-shops-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Filipinos make up one of the largest Asian communities in Israel — tens of thousands of people, the great majority working as caregivers for the elderly and people with disabilities. Spread across Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya and dozens of smaller towns, the community is held together less by neighbourhoods than by a network of shops, services and organisations that make life here feel a little closer to home.\n","title":"Filipino Food, Shops \u0026 Community in Israel (2026 Guide)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/florentin/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Florentin","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/foreign-workers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Foreign Workers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/health-funds/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Health Funds","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/healthcare/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Healthcare","type":"tags"},{"content":"Understanding your own medical care is not a luxury — it is part of the care itself. A diagnosis you cannot follow, a prescription you cannot question, a consent form you sign without grasping it: these are real risks, not minor inconveniences. For members of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese communities, the language gap in a clinic can be the difference between good treatment and a frightening guess.\nThe good news is that you have more options than most people realise. This guide walks through the practical routes — what works, what to ask for, and where the limits are. Availability changes constantly, so treat every specific below as a starting point and confirm directly with your health fund.\nWhy this matters — and your starting point # Israel\u0026rsquo;s National Health Insurance Law gives every resident the right to healthcare regardless of background. In practice, the system runs through four HMOs (kupot cholim): Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet and Leumit. Whichever one you belong to is your first and most powerful tool, because each maintains an online directory of its own doctors — and those directories can be filtered by the language a doctor speaks.\nYou will not always find a doctor who speaks your exact language nearby. But you can often get closer than you expect, and where you cannot, interpreting services and community networks fill the gap.\nThe HMO route: filter doctors by language # Every HMO has an online \u0026ldquo;find a doctor\u0026rdquo; tool — on its website and in its app — where you search by specialty, city and other criteria. The key practical tip: look for the language filter (in Hebrew, שפה), usually tucked into an \u0026ldquo;additional filters\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;advanced search\u0026rdquo; section.\nThe general steps are the same across all four funds:\nOpen your HMO\u0026rsquo;s doctor-search page (website or app) and log in if prompted. Choose the specialty you need (family doctor, paediatrician, gynaecologist, etc.) and your city or area. Open the advanced / additional filters and select your language from the language list. Run the search, then check the results — you can usually see the clinic, availability and how to book. A few realities to keep in mind:\nThe language lists lean heavily toward Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai and other Asian languages appear far less often, and may not appear at all in your area — but it is always worth checking, because the data does include them in some cases. If the online filter draws a blank, call your HMO\u0026rsquo;s service line and ask directly. Reception staff often know which clinic has, say, a Mandarin-speaking nurse or a Tagalog-speaking doctor even when the website does not surface it. You can ask to be assigned to a clinic where staff speak your language. The HMO phone lines themselves operate mainly in Hebrew, with English and Russian commonly available. The main numbers are: Clalit *2700, Maccabi *3555, Meuhedet *3833, Leumit *507. Verify current numbers and options on your HMO\u0026rsquo;s site. If you are still choosing or switching HMO, ask each one — before you commit — what language coverage it can offer in your city.\nMedical interpreting services # When you cannot find a same-language doctor, a trained medical interpreter is the next best thing — and it is a service your providers can call in, not something you have to arrange alone.\nThe Ministry of Health interpreting centre (5144). Israel\u0026rsquo;s Health Ministry runs a telephone medical-interpreting centre, free of charge, that hospitals, health bureaus and HMOs with an agreement can call during your appointment — the clinician dials in, and the interpreter relays the conversation in both directions. This service is built on the Health Ministry\u0026rsquo;s 2011 Director General\u0026rsquo;s Circular on cultural and linguistic accessibility. Important honesty point: as of this writing the 5144 centre\u0026rsquo;s languages are Russian, Arabic, French, Amharic and Tigrinya — it does not currently cover Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese. It is still worth knowing about, and worth asking your clinic whether they can access interpreting for your language through any channel.\n*Bar-Ilan University\u0026rsquo;s emergency interpreting call centre (9392, extension 4). This call centre provides interpreting for professionals assisting non-Hebrew speakers, Sundays to Thursdays. Its language list — English, Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian, Amharic, Tigrinya, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Yiddish — also does not yet include Asian languages, but the service is expanding and the model (a clinician, you, and an interpreter all on one line) is exactly what to ask for.\nThe Tene Briut model. Tene Briut is an NGO that pioneered professional medical interpreting in Israel — specifically Amharic, for the Ethiopian-Israeli community — working inside clinics and hospitals. It is not an Asian-language service, but it is the proof of concept: it shows that organised, community-rooted medical interpreting works in Israel, and it is the kind of structure Asian communities can point to when asking hospitals and HMOs to do more.\nHospital interpreters. Larger public hospitals increasingly have arrangements for interpreting — sometimes staff who speak community languages, sometimes phone or video interpreting. Before a scheduled hospital visit, contact the hospital\u0026rsquo;s patient services or social work department and ask what is available for your language. Ask in advance; it is much harder to arrange on the day.\nCommunity and embassy routes # Often the fastest route to a same-language doctor is word of mouth.\nYour embassy. Some embassies keep informal lists of local doctors and clinics that have served their nationals, or can point you toward community contacts. It is a reasonable thing to ask the consular section. Community groups. Facebook and WhatsApp groups for the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese communities in Israel are full of lived experience — people will tell you which doctor in which city they actually go to, and what the booking process was like. Religious and cultural centres, and caregiver networks. For the large Filipino caregiver community in particular, established networks frequently share recommendations for clinics and doctors used to working across a language gap. When you ask, be specific: name your city, your HMO, the specialty you need, and the language. Specific questions get specific answers.\nIn an emergency # Do not let a language barrier stop you from getting emergency help. Call 101 for Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel\u0026rsquo;s national emergency medical service, or go to a hospital emergency department. Emergency dispatchers and hospitals deal with non-Hebrew speakers constantly and can pull in interpreting help; say your language clearly and stay on the line. If you can, have someone who speaks Hebrew or English with you — but the absence of one must never delay calling for help.\nFor wider emergency preparedness in your language, see our guides on multilingual emergency videos from the Population Authority and Israel\u0026rsquo;s four-stage alert system.\nA note on accuracy # Doctor rosters, HMO language filters and interpreting-service coverage all change. Phone numbers and the languages a service supports can be updated without notice. Use this guide to know which doors to knock on — then confirm the specifics with your HMO, the hospital, or the service directly before you rely on them. If you are a community member who has found a doctor or service that works well, that knowledge is worth sharing — it is how this kind of guide stays useful.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/asian-language-doctors-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Understanding your own medical care is not a luxury — it is part of the care itself. A diagnosis you cannot follow, a prescription you cannot question, a consent form you sign without grasping it: these are real risks, not minor inconveniences. For members of Israel’s Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese communities, the language gap in a clinic can be the difference between good treatment and a frightening guess.\n","title":"How to Find an Asian-Language-Speaking Doctor in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/indian-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Indian Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/indian-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Indian Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/interpreting/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Interpreting","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/isan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Isan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kav-laoved/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kav Laoved","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/korean-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Korean Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/korean-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Korean Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/language-access/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Language Access","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/levinsky-market/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Levinsky Market","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/minimum-wage/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Minimum Wage","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/overseas-filipino-workers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Overseas Filipino Workers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/patient-rights/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Patient Rights","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/restaurant-guide/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Restaurant Guide","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sari-sari-store/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sari-Sari Store","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sichuan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sichuan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/som-tam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Som Tam","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thai-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thai Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thai-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thai-Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thali/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thali","type":"tags"},{"content":"Asia eats well in Israel — far better than most newcomers expect. Tel Aviv alone has hundreds of Japanese kitchens; Thai food has been a fixture for decades; and the last few years have brought a wave of dedicated Korean, Vietnamese and regional Chinese openings, plus a steady spread of restaurants well beyond the big cities. This is our master guide to all of it: a starting point that routes you to a focused, regularly-updated guide for each cuisine.\nEvery restaurant we name links through to its entry in our business directory, where you\u0026rsquo;ll find the address, hours, contact details and — for the places we\u0026rsquo;ve covered in depth — a full write-up. Use the cuisine guides below to find the kitchen you\u0026rsquo;re after, then the directory to actually get there.\nKorean # The Korean scene is small but growing fast on the back of K-culture: a handful of genuinely authentic kitchens in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and Kfar Saba, plus dessert cafés and cooking workshops. Start with our guide to the best Korean restaurants in Israel.\nJapanese # Japan has left the deepest mark of any Asian cuisine on Israeli dining — sushi counters, ramen bars, izakayas, omakase rooms and onigiri windows, spread from Jaffa to Pardes Hanna. Our guide to the best Japanese restaurants in Israel curates the field by genre; for ramen specifically, see our dedicated ramen ranking.\nThai # One of the most established Asian cuisines in Israel, with a large Thai community behind it and restaurants in every region — from Carmel Market stalls to Eilat dining rooms. See the best Thai restaurants in Israel.\nVietnamese # Small but on the rise, concentrated in Tel Aviv: pho, bún chả and a banh mi mini-wave. Our guide to the best Vietnamese restaurants in Israel covers the whole scene.\nChinese # From old-school neighbourhood spots to a newer wave of dim sum, Sichuan and dumpling kitchens — with Cantonese and Hong Kong-style cooking given fair weight. Read the best Chinese restaurants in Israel.\nIndian # Long-established and popular far beyond the Indian community, with strong vegetarian options and kitchens from Beer Sheva to the Galilee. See the best Indian restaurants in Israel.\nFilipino # Israel has a large Filipino community but very few Filipino restaurants — so this is a practical guide to where the community actually finds home: sari-sari and grocery shops, remittance services and community organisations. See Filipino food, shops and community in Israel.\nAsian supermarkets # Cooking Asian food at home in Israel means knowing where to find the ingredients. Our city-by-city guide to Asian supermarkets and grocery stores maps the shops from Tel Aviv to Beer Sheva.\nThis guide is updated as the scene changes — new openings, closures and our own deeper reviews. Know a place we\u0026rsquo;ve missed? Tell us, and browse the full Asian business directory for everything beyond restaurants.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-asian-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Asia eats well in Israel — far better than most newcomers expect. Tel Aviv alone has hundreds of Japanese kitchens; Thai food has been a fixture for decades; and the last few years have brought a wave of dedicated Korean, Vietnamese and regional Chinese openings, plus a steady spread of restaurants well beyond the big cities. This is our master guide to all of it: a starting point that routes you to a focused, regularly-updated guide for each cuisine.\n","title":"The Best Asian Restaurants in Israel: 2026 Guide","type":"posts"},{"content":"Chinese food has been part of Israel\u0026rsquo;s dining landscape for decades — long before the current Asian-food boom. For years it meant the neighbourhood Chinese restaurant: a reliable, family-run kitchen turning out sweet-and-sour, fried rice and a wok counter, often kosher, often the only \u0026ldquo;Asian\u0026rdquo; option in town. Some of those places are still going strong after forty years. Alongside them, a newer wave has arrived — hand-folded dim sum stalls, a dedicated Sichuan kitchen, gyoza and dumpling bars, and Hong Kong-style street snacks — pushing the scene well beyond the old template.\nThis guide is for anyone chasing the real thing: Hong Kong and Cantonese expats missing home cooking, mainland and Taiwanese diners, and Israelis who want genuine regional Chinese food rather than a generic \u0026ldquo;Asian fusion\u0026rdquo; menu. It is part of our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel, and sits alongside our companion guides to the best Vietnamese restaurants in Israel and Asian supermarkets in Israel. Every place below is a real, verified entry in our community directory — we have not padded the list with invented restaurants, and where our records are thin we say so.\nCantonese \u0026amp; dim sum # Israel\u0026rsquo;s audience for this guide skews Hong Kong and Cantonese, so this is where we start — and, happily, it is also where some of the country\u0026rsquo;s most authentic Chinese cooking lives.\nLong Sang # One of the oldest authentic Chinese restaurants in Israel, Long Sang in Haifa has been serving Cantonese cuisine from Guangdong province for 41 years. If you want to understand how deep Chinese food\u0026rsquo;s roots in Israel really go, this is the address — a genuine Cantonese kitchen that predates almost everything else on this list. Worth the trip for anyone in the north, or anyone serious about the cuisine.\nYan Yan Chinese Restaurant # Another Haifa veteran, Yan Yan has been operating for around four decades. It is run by a Chinese family who fled Vietnam and rebuilt their lives in Israel — their children now serve in the IDF. The food is classic neighbourhood Chinese, but the story behind the kitchen is part of what makes it worth knowing. Between Long Sang and Yan Yan, Haifa quietly holds two of the country\u0026rsquo;s oldest Chinese restaurants.\nHong Bao # A hand-made dim sum stall inside Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, run by a Chinese chef who previously worked as a tour guide. The dim sum is folded by hand on site, there are vegan options, and it does delivery — a rare chance to eat genuine dim sum without a full sit-down restaurant. Open daily with shorter Friday hours. For a quick, authentic bite in central Tel Aviv, it is hard to beat.\nHong Kong Dim Sum # A dim sum restaurant in downtown Tel Aviv built around dumplings, spring rolls and noodles, with vegan and gluten-free-friendly options. Where Hong Bao is a market stall, this is the closer thing to a sit-down dim sum meal in the city centre. Details beyond the menu are thin in our records, so check current hours before heading over.\nHaAnoi HaSinit # Despite the Vietnamese-sounding name, this is a Cantonese-style Chinese restaurant — in the Resco Shopping Center on Rager Boulevard in Beer Sheva. It does delivery and sits at a mid-range price point. For Cantonese food in the south, where Chinese options are scarce, this is the one to know.\nSunflower # A Chinese and Asian restaurant in Rishon LeZion that flags itself as Hong Kong-style. It is a mid-range neighbourhood spot on Taramat Bet Street — a useful address for HK-leaning Chinese food in the Shfela area south of Tel Aviv.\nSichuan \u0026amp; regional # Málà Sichuan \u0026amp; Dumplings # The most exciting recent addition to Israel\u0026rsquo;s Chinese map. Málà, on Lilienblum Street in Neve Tzedek, is a dedicated Sichuan kitchen — dandan noodles, mapo tofu, Sichuan chicken and handmade dumplings, with the numbing heat the region is known for. It also runs Korean and Taiwanese dishes, and has vegan options. For anyone who has been waiting for proper regional Chinese food in Tel Aviv rather than generic wok fare, this is it.\nCafe Taizu # The \u0026ldquo;Asiaterranean\u0026rdquo; delivery kitchen from acclaimed chef Yuval Ben-Neriah, whose original Taizu restaurant helped redefine fine-dining Asian food in Tel Aviv. This is the delivery-focused arm of that world — refined pan-Asian cooking with Chinese roots, at the higher end of the price scale. Not a neighbourhood Chinese joint; a chef\u0026rsquo;s take on the cuisine.\nDumplings \u0026amp; noodles # San Mei # A handmade gyoza joint in Carmel Market, on Yom Tov Street. The core is classic Chinese dumplings folded by hand, with a few unexpected fillings — Filipino adobo and Russian-style — reflecting the market\u0026rsquo;s mix. Affordable, casual and central. A great low-commitment introduction to fresh dumplings.\nSan Mai Gyoza # Billed as the city\u0026rsquo;s first gyoza bar, San Mai sits on the same Yom Tov Street in the Carmel Market area. The whole menu is built around the dumpling — pan-fried, filled and served bar-style. A focused, mid-range spot for anyone who wants to make a meal of gyoza rather than treat it as a side.\nMian Noodles # A Chinese noodle restaurant in Jerusalem, well rated by diners (4.3 on TripAdvisor across 144 reviews). It is an affordable, noodle-focused kitchen — a welcome thing in a city where genuine Chinese options are limited. For a hand-pulled-noodle fix in the capital, start here.\nNeighbourhood classics \u0026amp; kosher Chinese # The backbone of Chinese food in Israel: dependable local kitchens, many of them kosher, found in cities across the country.\nThe Chinese Wall # A Tel Aviv restaurant on Mikveh Israel Street describing itself simply as authentic Chinese food. It is a mid-range neighbourhood kitchen — the kind of dependable Chinese restaurant every city should have. No website, so call ahead for current hours.\nFurama # A long-running Chinese restaurant in Tel Aviv, well established with a solid TripAdvisor track record (4.1 across 80 reviews). A mid-range, classic Chinese kitchen rather than a trend-driven one — reliable rather than flashy.\nSheyan and Take A Wok # Two related Jerusalem addresses. Sheyan, on Ramban Street, is a higher-end kosher Asian restaurant; Take A Wok, on Sarei Yisrael Street, is its more casual, mid-range sibling. Between them they cover both ends of the kosher Chinese spectrum in the capital — a useful pair to know if you keep kosher and want Chinese food in Jerusalem.\nPikansin and Chinatown # Two kosher Chinese restaurants in Tel Aviv. Both are mid-range neighbourhood kitchens listed under Chinese cuisine; our records are thin beyond that, so treat them as kosher options to call ahead and explore. We list them because kosher Chinese food is genuinely useful information in this city.\nCooking it at home # If this guide leaves you wanting to stock a Chinese pantry — soy sauces, Shaoxing wine, Sichuan peppercorns, dried noodles, dumpling wrappers — Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian supermarkets are the place to go. We cover them in full in our guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel, essential reading for anyone cooking Chinese food at home.\nChinese food in Israel runs deeper than it gets credit for: forty-year-old Cantonese kitchens in Haifa, a real Sichuan restaurant in Neve Tzedek, hand-folded dim sum in Sarona, and dependable kosher neighbourhood spots in between. If you know a Chinese restaurant we have missed — especially a Hong Kong or Cantonese place — tell us. This guide and our directory grow with the community.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-chinese-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chinese food has been part of Israel’s dining landscape for decades — long before the current Asian-food boom. For years it meant the neighbourhood Chinese restaurant: a reliable, family-run kitchen turning out sweet-and-sour, fried rice and a wok counter, often kosher, often the only “Asian” option in town. Some of those places are still going strong after forty years. Alongside them, a newer wave has arrived — hand-folded dim sum stalls, a dedicated Sichuan kitchen, gyoza and dumpling bars, and Hong Kong-style street snacks — pushing the scene well beyond the old template.\n","title":"The Best Chinese Restaurants in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Indian food is one of the most firmly established Asian cuisines in Israel. It has a built-in audience that few other cuisines can match: the huge number of Israelis who travelled India after their army service and came home craving thali, masala chai and a proper dosa. That demand has supported Indian kitchens here for decades — Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Indira has been cooking since 1991 — and it keeps new places opening, from Mumbai-style street-food dabas in Florentin to family curry houses in market towns up and down the country.\nIt is also, for many diners, the easiest Asian cuisine to eat well in Israel. Indian food is deeply vegetarian by tradition, so the meat-free and vegan-friendly options are real rather than an afterthought, and several places on this list are vegetarian from top to bottom. This guide is for Indian expats after home cooking, returning India travellers chasing a memory, and anyone who wants the genuine article instead of a generic \u0026ldquo;Asian\u0026rdquo; menu. It is part of our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel, and a companion to our guide to the best Thai restaurants in Israel. Every place below is a real, verified entry in our community directory — we have not padded the list with invented restaurants.\nTel Aviv and the centre # The Tel Aviv area has the densest Indian cluster in the country, ranging from veteran sit-down restaurants to Levinsky Market-style vegetarian counters.\nIndira # The grande dame of Indian dining in Tel Aviv, Indira has been serving authentic Indian food since 1991, from Sderot Shaul HaMelech 4. It is the most upmarket Indian address in the city, the place to go for a full sit-down meal rather than a quick plate. Decades in, it is still the reference point against which newer Indian kitchens are measured.\nGandhi # Gandhi is the fast, casual Indian street-food spinoff from the Indira kitchen, on Ibn Gabirol 30. It is kosher, which is still relatively rare among Israel\u0026rsquo;s Indian restaurants, and it is built for a quick, affordable plate rather than a long meal. A good central option when you want Indira\u0026rsquo;s cooking pedigree without the sit-down occasion.\nTandoori Lands End # Part of the long-running Tandoori family of restaurants, this branch sits right on the seafront at Herbert Samuel 76. It is one of the more established Indian addresses in the city, with a broad menu pitched at every taste, and a sea view to go with it. A dependable choice for visitors and a classic Tel Aviv Indian meal.\nHimalaya Kitchen # Himalaya Kitchen brings the food of the Indian and Nepalese Himalayas to the Florentin end of Herzl Street. The kitchen leans into the mountain end of the subcontinent\u0026rsquo;s cooking — expect momos and Himalayan dishes alongside the more familiar curries. A good pick if you want something beyond the standard north-Indian repertoire.\nCafe Bollywood # A vegetarian Mumbai street-food daba in Florentin, on Maon Street, run by Puja and Maskin Moses, immigrants from Mumbai. The menu is pure Mumbai snack culture: pani puri, dosa, pav bhaji, paneer butter masala, chole bhature and masala chai. It opens evenings most days, with a shorter Friday lunch service — one of the most genuinely characterful Indian spots in the city.\nKalu Baba Thali # Kalu Baba serves Rajasthani vegetarian thali in Florentin — the affordable, all-in-one platter that is the everyday meal of much of India. It is fully vegetarian with vegan options, an inexpensive, no-frills place that does one thing properly. The same people also run a Levinsky-area pop-up, Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s pop-up on Levinsky 36, for real vegetarian Indian food.\nCafe Kaymak # A Levinsky Market-style vegetarian eatery on Levinsky 49, Cafe Kaymak fits the neighbourhood\u0026rsquo;s casual, market-counter mould. It is inexpensive and vegetarian, the kind of small spot you stop at as part of a Levinsky food crawl rather than a destination dinner. Good value, and squarely in one of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s best eating streets.\nMasala # Just east of the city in Ramat Gan, on Jabotinsky 99, Masala serves authentic Indian food to the centre\u0026rsquo;s diners. It is a straightforward neighbourhood Indian restaurant — worth knowing if you are in Ramat Gan or Bnei Brak and want a curry without crossing into Tel Aviv proper.\nGreat India # Great India is an authentic, kosher Indian restaurant in Petah Tikva, on Struma 8. Kosher Indian food is genuinely hard to find in Israel, so for observant diners in the centre this is an important address. The cooking sticks to the classics, done properly.\nManali # Manali serves authentic Indian cuisine in Netanya, on HaTzoran 4 — the main Indian option for the HaSharon coast. A reliable stop for curry in Netanya, and handy for anyone along the northern coastal strip between Tel Aviv and Haifa.\nHaifa and the north # The north has a steady spread of Indian kitchens, from Haifa city out to the Galilee.\nKesar # Kesar is an Indian restaurant in central Haifa, on Sirkin 11. It is one of the city\u0026rsquo;s core Indian addresses — a straightforward, mid-priced curry house for Haifa diners. There is no website, so check current hours before heading over.\nMoriah # Moriah, on Moriah Street 105 in Haifa, is a vegan and gluten-free restaurant with Indian cooking at its heart. For Haifa diners who want Indian flavours within a fully plant-based, gluten-free kitchen, it is a useful and somewhat unusual option in the north.\nA. Taj # A. Taj serves authentic, kosher Indian cuisine from Ramat Yishai, in the Yokneam area. As with Great India in the centre, the kosher certification makes it a key address for observant diners — here, for the Jezreel Valley and the Haifa hinterland.\nThali # The northernmost Indian restaurant on this list, Thali is in Sde Nehemya in the Upper Galilee, near Rosh Pinna and Tzfat. It is well regarded locally and serves the kind of Galilee community that rarely has an Indian option nearby — worth the detour if you are travelling in the far north.\nJerusalem # Ichikidana # Ichikidana serves authentic Indian cuisine in central Jerusalem, on Hillel 24. It is one of the capital\u0026rsquo;s better-known Indian kitchens and a convenient, central address. There is no website, so confirm current hours before visiting.\nJeera Indian Food # Jeera serves homemade-style Indian food in central Jerusalem, on Heleni HaMalka 7, a short walk from Ichikidana. The emphasis is on home cooking rather than restaurant flash — a solid, unpretentious Indian option in the city centre.\nThe south and beyond # Little India # Little India brings Indian food to the Negev, on Ringelblum Street 15 in Beer Sheva. It is well rated locally and is the Indian address to know in the south — a part of the country where the cuisine is thin on the ground.\nNamaste # Namaste sits on the Ashdod promenade and is the city\u0026rsquo;s Indian option, well rated by local diners. A handy, sea-facing stop for anyone along the southern coast wanting a curry.\nMaharaja # Maharaja is an Indian restaurant in Ramla, on Sderot Shlomo HaMelech 14 — the Indian option for the Ramla–Lod area in the centre-south, well rated by local diners.\nCooking it at home # If this guide leaves you wanting to stock an Indian pantry — lentils, spices, ghee, basmati, ready-made paneer — Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian and Indian grocery shops have you covered. We cover them in full in our guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel, essential reading for anyone cooking the cuisine at home.\nIndian food has been part of Israel\u0026rsquo;s eating landscape for a generation, and it is still spreading — into Florentin dabas, market-town curry houses and Galilee villages alike. If you know an Indian place we have missed, tell us: this guide and our directory grow with the community.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-indian-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indian food is one of the most firmly established Asian cuisines in Israel. It has a built-in audience that few other cuisines can match: the huge number of Israelis who travelled India after their army service and came home craving thali, masala chai and a proper dosa. That demand has supported Indian kitchens here for decades — Tel Aviv’s Indira has been cooking since 1991 — and it keeps new places opening, from Mumbai-style street-food dabas in Florentin to family curry houses in market towns up and down the country.\n","title":"The Best Indian Restaurants in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"No foreign cuisine has shaped Israeli dining quite like Japanese food. Sushi is everywhere — in shopping-mall food courts, kosher neighbourhood counters and delivery apps from Eilat to Nahariya — and over the last few years the scene has matured well beyond the California roll. Florentin now hides intimate izakayas and onigiri windows, Jaffa has serious omakase counters, and chefs who trained in Japan are opening kaiseki rooms. Japanese is by far the largest single cuisine in our community directory, with hundreds of listings, which is exactly why this guide exists: to point you at the places worth a special trip.\nFocused on Tel Aviv and Jaffa? We have a dedicated best Japanese restaurants in Tel Aviv guide that covers only the city, with neighbourhood maps and reservation notes.\nThis is a curated pick, not a phone book. We have leaned toward established, recognisable spots with a clear point of view, spread across Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Haifa and beyond — sushi bars, izakayas, ramen projects and Japanese cafés. Every place below is a real entry in our directory; tap the name to see hours, location and contact details. If ramen is what you are really after, we have a dedicated ranking of the best ramen in Israel — this guide keeps that section short and sends you there. For the wider picture, start from our hub, the best Asian restaurants in Israel.\nIzakaya \u0026amp; small plates # The izakaya — a Japanese pub built around drinks, charcoal and small sharing plates — is where Israel\u0026rsquo;s Japanese scene is most exciting right now.\nSaka Ba # A tiny, intimate izakaya and sake bar tucked into Florentin on Zevulun Street. Saka Ba leans into the bar side of the izakaya tradition — sake poured alongside small plates, open late into the night, with a counter-culture Florentin energy. It is a destination for drinking Japanese, not just eating it.\nGaijin # A premium izakaya on Lilienblum that landed on Time Out\u0026rsquo;s best-of-2025 list. Gaijin pairs excellent cocktails with luxe small plates and pristine raw fish — the polished, design-forward end of the izakaya spectrum, and a strong choice for a night out.\nASA Izakaya # Opened in October 2025, ASA is a traditional izakaya built around an irori charcoal grill. The menu runs wide — sushi, gyoza, ramen, udon, tempura and yakitori — making it a good all-rounder for a group that cannot agree on one thing.\nMententen # A Japanese izakaya and ramen bar on Nachalat Binyamin in central Tel Aviv. It sits in the sweet spot between a noodle joint and a small-plates bar, and is handy if you are already wandering the Nachalat Binyamin pedestrian stretch.\nKimura-Ya # A Japanese izakaya on Mazeh Street covering sushi, ramen and yakitori. A solid neighbourhood option that does the izakaya basics across all three pillars rather than specialising in one.\nIzakaya Karkur # Proof that good Japanese food is not a Tel Aviv monopoly. Izakaya Karkur brings a full izakaya-with-sushi menu to Pardes Hanna-Karkur, on HaMoshav Street, and delivers locally — a genuine destination for the northern Sharon and Carmel coast.\nOmakase \u0026amp; fine dining # For special occasions, a small but serious group of restaurants is pushing chef-led, Japan-trained cooking.\nUMAI Izakaya # An intimate 22-seat Japanese culinary space in Jaffa from chef Alex Abramov, who trained for six years in Japan. UMAI runs kaiseki tasting menus, izakaya evenings and niku kappo nights — seasonal dishes rooted in traditional technique. Book ahead; the room is small.\nTerasu # Modern omakase in Jaffa, described by diners as about as close to being in Japan as you can get without leaving Israel. A fine-dining sushi experience built around the chef\u0026rsquo;s selection rather than an à la carte menu.\nCichukai # Creative Japanese cooking in the Jaffa flea market, the sister restaurant of Selas. Expect inventive twists and premium sushi rolls in one of Tel Aviv-Jaffa\u0026rsquo;s most atmospheric corners.\nDinings at the Norman Hotel # Rooftop sushi on the third floor of the boutique Norman Hotel, with Mediterranean and city-skyline views and an ambitious sushi menu. The setting alone makes it an occasion.\nJapón at The Setai # Elevated Japanese dining inside The Setai Tel Aviv hotel, on the Jaffa seafront — sushi and cocktails in one of the city\u0026rsquo;s most striking buildings. Another hotel address worth the splurge for a memorable evening.\nSushi bars # Sushi is the entry point for most Israelis, and a handful of bars stand out from the mall-counter crowd.\nAkiko # A dedicated Japanese sushi bar in north Tel Aviv, on Aba Ahimeir Street. Akiko focuses on doing sushi properly, with delivery available — a reliable neighbourhood pick for the north of the city.\nWat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More # A Japanese sushi and ramen spot in the Gan HaShmal area, on HaRakevet Street. Wat Sang covers both the sushi and the noodle bases, with delivery, making it a flexible choice in central Tel Aviv.\nOtoro # A hand-roll sushi bar in Ramat Gan, and notably kosher — a relative rarity for a dedicated sushi bar at this level. Worth knowing if you keep kosher and want sushi beyond the chain options.\nSushiya # A Jerusalem sushi bar on Trumpeldor Street, focused on quality ingredients and balanced, tradition-minded combinations. A dependable option in the city centre.\nIsushi # A Haifa sushi spot on HaNamal Street in the port area, blending meticulous sushi with fusion dishes that draw on both Japanese and Thai kitchens. A good anchor for the Haifa Japanese scene.\nRamen # Israel\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene deserves — and has — its own deep dive, so we keep this brief. For the full ranking, broth-by-broth, see our best ramen in Israel guide.\nTom Tom Ramen # A delivery-focused operation bringing authentic Japanese ramen to your door across Tel Aviv. If you want a proper bowl at home rather than a restaurant outing, this is the shortcut.\nKoko Neko # A Japanese ramen restaurant in the heart of Florentin, on Florentin Street itself — a small, sit-down option for when you are in the neighbourhood and want noodles, not small plates.\nDown Town Ramen # A pop-up ramen project from chef Sagi Dadush, with no fixed address — rotating guest residencies at Tel Aviv venues, focused on Tokyo-style ramen, yakitori and Japanese small plates. Recent runs include a recurring collaboration with OBI on Yavne Street. Follow the Instagram for dates and venues.\nCasual \u0026amp; cafés # Not everything Japanese is dinner. A growing café culture covers onigiri, matcha and Japanese-style coffee.\nOnigiri-ya # A Florentin window dedicated to onigiri — Japanese rice balls — on Florentin Street. Cheap, fast, vegan-friendly and genuinely specialised, it is one of the most authentic casual bites in the city.\nYapani # Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s onigiri specialists, on HaEgoz Street. Like Onigiri-ya in Tel Aviv, Yapani proves the humble rice ball can carry a whole concept.\nOkasan \u0026amp; Ikari # A Japanese café in Tel Aviv with a strong focus on vegan and gluten-free options — a gentle, everyday way into Japanese food rather than a sushi-bar splurge.\nKohi TLV # A Japanese-inspired specialty coffee shop on Ben Yehuda from Uzbek-born barista Sarbar Golomov — matcha sourced from Japan, single-origin beans, fluffy Japanese pancakes and tamago sandwiches. A morning destination, not a dinner one.\nKawaii Café # An Asian-inspired sweet shop and café on Lilienblum Street — Dalgona coffee, Vietnamese coffee and matcha lattes in a deliberately cute setting. More dessert-and-drinks than meal, and a fun stop in the city centre.\nPlanning your visit # A few practical notes. Tel Aviv and Jaffa hold the densest cluster — Florentin for casual and izakaya, Jaffa for the serious omakase counters — but Jerusalem, Haifa, Ramat Gan and the Sharon all have worthwhile spots. Kosher diners should note that most of the destination places above are not kosher; Otoro in Ramat Gan is a notable exception, and our directory lets you filter for kosher Japanese listings. Many of these places are small and reservation-dependent, especially the omakase counters and izakayas — call ahead.\nFor more, browse the full Japanese category in our directory, explore the best Korean restaurants in Israel for the other big East Asian scene, or stock your own kitchen with help from our guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-japanese-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"No foreign cuisine has shaped Israeli dining quite like Japanese food. Sushi is everywhere — in shopping-mall food courts, kosher neighbourhood counters and delivery apps from Eilat to Nahariya — and over the last few years the scene has matured well beyond the California roll. Florentin now hides intimate izakayas and onigiri windows, Jaffa has serious omakase counters, and chefs who trained in Japan are opening kaiseki rooms. Japanese is by far the largest single cuisine in our community directory, with hundreds of listings, which is exactly why this guide exists: to point you at the places worth a special trip.\n","title":"The Best Japanese Restaurants in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Korean food has arrived in Israel on the back of a wave it didn\u0026rsquo;t create alone. K-dramas, K-pop and a decade of Korean cooking videos online have made bibimbap, bulgogi and gochujang familiar words to a generation of Israeli diners — and the restaurant scene, while still small, has finally started to catch up. It is nothing like the density of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Japanese or Thai scenes. But what exists is real: Korean-run kitchens, a dedicated dessert café, a Korean grocery, and chefs teaching the cuisine hands-on.\nThis guide is for anyone — Korean expats missing home cooking, Israelis who fell for the food through a screen, or curious eaters who want the genuine article rather than a generic \u0026ldquo;Asian fusion\u0026rdquo; menu. It is part of our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel, and a companion to our guide to the best Japanese restaurants in Israel. We have kept it honest and focused: every place below is a real, verified entry in our community directory, and we have not padded the list with invented restaurants.\nTel Aviv # Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV # The most prominent Korean restaurant in Tel Aviv, Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s sits at 21 Lilienblum Street in the city centre. It serves authentic Korean flavours with an unusually extensive range of vegan options — a real advantage in a city where many diners avoid meat. It is open daily (with shorter Friday hours), does delivery, and is a sensible first stop for anyone new to Korean food in Israel. Look out for the kimchi-forward dishes and the vegan takes on classics.\nNorth Korean Restaurant # A Korean restaurant in Tel Aviv listed in local directories under Korean cuisine. Details are thin — there is no website and no published menu in our records — so treat this as one to call ahead and explore rather than one we can describe dish by dish. We list it because it is part of the city\u0026rsquo;s small Korean map; if you visit, we would welcome notes for the directory.\nSoBing # Not a restaurant but a Korean dessert café, SoBing on Ibn Gabirol 65 is where to go for bingsu — the shaved-milk-ice dessert piled with toppings that is a summer institution in Korea. It is an affordable, casual stop, and a useful one to know about: dedicated Korean dessert is rare in Israel, and SoBing fills that gap in central Tel Aviv.\nHaifa # Koreana Haifa # Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Korean restaurant, Koreana sits at Independence Street 66 and is one of the more established Korean kitchens in the country. The menu runs through the classics — bibimbap, bulgogi and more — and the kitchen offers both vegan and gluten-free options. Hours skew to evenings early in the week, opening earlier (from noon) Thursday through Saturday. For Korean food in the north, this is the address.\nJerusalem # Seoul House # Seoul House brings handcrafted Korean dishes to Jerusalem, on Chabad Street in the Old City area. It leans on traditional flavours built from local sauces and ferments, and is the Korean option to know in the capital. As with several places on this list there is no website yet, so check current hours before heading over.\nKfar Saba # Begopa Korean Dining # Begopa is something different: an authentic Korean home-dining experience in Kfar Saba, hosted by South-Korean-born chef Tajin Kim-Doron. Rather than a walk-in restaurant, it offers private dinners and cooking workshops by reservation. Kim-Doron reached a wider Israeli audience through MasterChef Israel and television features, and shares Korean recipes with a large Instagram following. Her private-dining and workshop bookings run through online reservation — this is the closest you will get to a Korean grandmother\u0026rsquo;s table in Israel.\nLearn to cook it: Korean workshops # Chef Ash # For those who want to make Korean food rather than just eat it, Chef Ash runs hands-on Korean cooking workshops in Tel Aviv — gyoza folding, ramen from scratch, Korean corn dogs, homemade sriracha and more. Sessions come as private events, open meals or group experiences, and there are vegan-friendly options. A good pick for a birthday, a team activity, or simply a deeper dive into the cuisine.\nCooking at home # If this guide leaves you wanting to stock a Korean pantry, Israel finally has a source: Horangi Korean Grocery in Netanya, the country\u0026rsquo;s first dedicated Korean grocery store, carries gochujang, soy products, soju and more. We cover it in full in our guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel — essential reading for Korean home cooks.\nKorea\u0026rsquo;s footprint on Israel\u0026rsquo;s food map is still modest, but it is growing in every direction at once: restaurants, dessert, groceries and teaching kitchens. If you know a Korean place we have missed, tell us — this guide and our directory grow with the community.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-korean-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Korean food has arrived in Israel on the back of a wave it didn’t create alone. K-dramas, K-pop and a decade of Korean cooking videos online have made bibimbap, bulgogi and gochujang familiar words to a generation of Israeli diners — and the restaurant scene, while still small, has finally started to catch up. It is nothing like the density of Israel’s Japanese or Thai scenes. But what exists is real: Korean-run kitchens, a dedicated dessert café, a Korean grocery, and chefs teaching the cuisine hands-on.\n","title":"The Best Korean Restaurants in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thai food is arguably the most established Asian cuisine in Israel. It has been here for decades — Israel\u0026rsquo;s long-standing Thai agricultural worker community brought real home cooking with it, and a generation of Israeli backpackers came back from Khao San Road wanting pad thai, som tam and green curry that actually tasted like the trip. The result is a Thai scene that is broader and deeper than any other Asian cuisine in the country: Carmel Market alone has a cluster of tiny Isan kitchens, and you will find a Thai restaurant in almost every city from Nahariya to Eilat.\nThis guide is for anyone who wants the genuine article rather than a generic \u0026ldquo;Asian fusion\u0026rdquo; menu — Thai workers and expats missing home cooking, Israelis chasing the flavours of a backpacking trip, and curious eaters who want to know where the real pounded salads and chili-heavy stir-fries are. It is part of our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel, and a companion to our guide to the best Vietnamese restaurants in Israel. Every place below is a real, verified entry in our community directory — we have curated the strongest and most distinctive rather than padding the list.\nTel Aviv # Tel Aviv has by far the densest Thai scene in the country, with a notable concentration in and around the Carmel Market.\nEisan # An authentic kitchen from the Isan region of northeast Thailand, tucked into the Carmel Market on Rabbi Akiva Street. Eisan is the home of the 16-chili \u0026ldquo;Pad Ped\u0026rdquo; that i24 News singled out as one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s spiciest dishes — but the menu rewards anyone, with proper Isan staples, vegan options and Wolt delivery. If you want the real, fiery thing, start here.\nThai at Har Sinai # A casual Thai kitchen tucked into the Great Synagogue courtyard on Har Sinai Street, and a Tel Aviv neighbourhood favourite for about a decade. It is known for leafy front-yard seating, Thai-basil cocktails and a proper papaya-salad-plus-curry menu. Open daily with a full website and delivery — a reliable, central choice that has earned its longevity.\nMoolam # A fiery Thai gastro-bar on Har Sinai Street — unapologetically spicy and proudly authentic. Expect pork croquettes, fried calamari in Thai spices, and a cocktail list that includes a drinkable som tam. This is Thai food as a night out rather than a quick lunch.\nGeveret Kwaytiew # A tiny Carmel Market eatery on Yom Tov Street serving bold Thai street-food flavours. The chef sometimes shuts the place down to go back to Thailand \u0026ldquo;for inspiration\u0026rdquo; — a good sign of where the cooking comes from. Small, genuine and worth seeking out.\nGiveret Kotiyao # A traditional Thai soup restaurant on Yom Tov Street in the Carmel Market. The focus is kuaytiao — Thai noodle soup done properly — which makes it a specialist worth knowing in a market full of generalists. Casual and inexpensive.\nKhao-San # Named for Bangkok\u0026rsquo;s famous backpacker street, Khao-San sits right by the Carmel Market on HaCarmel Street. It is the budget pick of the cluster — authentic Thai food at the lowest price point on this list — and leans on delivery, so it doubles as a reliable order-in option.\nThai House # One of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s veteran Thai restaurants, serving Thai cuisine on Bograshov Street since 1996. Three decades in, it is a sit-down restaurant rather than a market stall — a place that helped establish Thai food in the city long before the current wave.\nNam Thai # A spacious Thai restaurant on Dizengoff with an authentic ambience and an extensive menu — spicy salads, curries, rice, noodles and soups all covered. Roomy enough for a proper group dinner, which sets it apart from the cramped market spots. (The \u0026ldquo;Nam\u0026rdquo; brand also runs smaller Dizengoff and King George cook-house branches.)\nThai 148 # An energetic Thai spot at Dizengoff 148, built on fresh ingredients and a tropical cocktail menu. The same group has since expanded out of the city — see Surin in Savyon below — but the original Dizengoff branch remains a lively central option.\nEl Mano Asian # An authentic Thai gem on Yesud HaMa\u0026rsquo;ala Street with an extensive menu. The standing advice from diners: go with an empty stomach and a big group, because you will want to order widely. A solid choice for sharing.\nThe centre # Surin # A large Thai restaurant — about 180 seats — that opened in late 2025 in the G Center in Savyon, from the Thai 148 Tel Aviv group. Chef Omi\u0026rsquo;s menu emphasises pounded salads, curries and stir-fries, with a dedicated cold bar and a full cocktail programme. It is the most ambitious recent Thai opening outside Tel Aviv.\nChatuchak # Named after Bangkok\u0026rsquo;s famous Chatuchak weekend market, this Netanya restaurant brings a diverse Thai menu to the city. It has a website, does delivery, and keeps long daily hours (closed Saturdays) — a proper full-service Thai restaurant for the Sharon coast.\nSakon Nakhon # A Thai food house in the Rishon LeZion area, on Rothschild Street. It is one of the pricier entries on this list, which usually signals a more involved sit-down menu — worth a look if you are in the Shfela and want Thai beyond a quick bowl.\nJerusalem # The Thai Jerusalem # Billed as a \u0026ldquo;crazy noodles bar\u0026rdquo; on Jaffa Street, this is the Thai address to know in the capital. Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Thai scene is thin, so a dedicated noodle-focused spot in the city centre is genuinely useful. No website, so check current hours before heading over.\nStation 9 # A modern Asian kitchen on David Remez Street in Jerusalem, listed under Thai cuisine. Details are thin in our records — no website, no published menu — so treat this as one to call ahead and explore. We list it because it is part of the capital\u0026rsquo;s small Thai map.\nHaifa and the north # Pan # An authentic Thai kitchen on Oskar Schindler Street in Haifa. It is one of the established Thai options in the city — a straightforward, genuine kitchen rather than a fusion menu. Delivery via Wolt; no website, so call ahead for hours.\nThe Thai in the Market # Authentic Thai street food in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Talpiot Market — real Bangkok flavours built from ingredients brought straight from Thailand. It is the budget, market-stall counterpart to Pan, and the best pick in Haifa if you want street food rather than a sit-down meal.\nMosh Thai Kitchen # A Thai kitchen in the Acre–Nahariya area, near Achziv beach. Records are thin — no website — but it is the Thai option to know on the far northern coast, where the cuisine is otherwise hard to find. Delivery via Wolt.\nKoji # A Thai restaurant in Rosh Pinna, on Ma\u0026rsquo;ale Gai Oni Street. The Galilee panhandle is not an obvious place for Thai food, which makes a dedicated Thai kitchen in the heart of tourist Rosh Pinna a genuinely handy find for travellers in the north.\nEilat # Thaistory # A Thai and Asian restaurant on Tarshish Street in Eilat. The Red Sea resort city has a small but real Thai presence, and Thaistory is a central, dependable option for a Thai meal between the beach and the reef.\nThai Way # A kosher Asian restaurant in Eilat, on Gan Binyamin Street — worth flagging specifically because kosher Thai food is rare. For observant travellers in Eilat who want Thai flavours, this is the address.\nLearn to cook it: Thai workshops # ShamSiam # Thai cooking workshops, private chef dinners and culinary events by Persian-Israeli chef Eli Shamsian, run from his kitchen in Rehovot or at your location. The range is wide — classic Thai, vegan Thai, Thai grill, Asian dumplings and street-soup workshops — making it a good pick for anyone who wants to cook the cuisine, not just order it.\nSwadika Thai Food # Thai cooking workshops and private chef meals by Chef Alon Hevel, who has 28 years of Thai cooking experience, based in Shemshit in the north. He offers regular, vegan, gluten-free and kids\u0026rsquo; workshops, plus culinary tours and corporate team-building — and the workshops are kosher, which is unusual for Thai cooking.\nCooking at home # If this guide leaves you wanting to stock a Thai pantry — fish sauce, palm sugar, galangal, kaffir lime, the right curry pastes — Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian grocery scene has you covered. We map out where to shop in our guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel, essential reading for Thai home cooks.\nThai food\u0026rsquo;s footprint in Israel runs from market stalls to 180-seat dining rooms, from Nahariya to Eilat. It is the deepest Asian food scene in the country — and it keeps growing. If you know a Thai place we have missed, tell us; this guide and our directory grow with the community.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-thai-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thai food is arguably the most established Asian cuisine in Israel. It has been here for decades — Israel’s long-standing Thai agricultural worker community brought real home cooking with it, and a generation of Israeli backpackers came back from Khao San Road wanting pad thai, som tam and green curry that actually tasted like the trip. The result is a Thai scene that is broader and deeper than any other Asian cuisine in the country: Carmel Market alone has a cluster of tiny Isan kitchens, and you will find a Thai restaurant in almost every city from Nahariya to Eilat.\n","title":"The Best Thai Restaurants in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vietnamese food in Israel is a small scene, but a growing one. It rides the same global wave that put pho and banh mi onto menus from London to Melbourne — fresh herbs, light broths, a crusty baguette filled with pickles and pork — and in Israel that wave has landed almost entirely in Tel Aviv. There is no Vietnamese restaurant district here the way there is a sushi scene or a ramen moment, but there is a real cluster: dedicated banh mi counters, a Florentin sit-down spot, the country\u0026rsquo;s only kosher Vietnamese kitchen, and a handful of Wok-and-bowl venues that lean Vietnamese without being purist about it.\nThis guide is for anyone hunting the genuine article — Vietnamese expats missing home cooking, Israelis who fell for the food abroad, or curious eaters who want a proper banh mi rather than a generic \u0026ldquo;Asian\u0026rdquo; bowl. It is part of our guide to the best Asian restaurants in Israel, and a companion to our guides to the best Thai restaurants in Israel and the best Chinese restaurants in Israel. We have kept it honest: nine places is close to the entire Vietnamese map in Israel, every one is a verified entry in our community directory, and we have not padded the list with invented restaurants.\nTel Aviv # Banh Mi 13 # A banh mi specialist in the Levinsky Market, at Nahalat Binyamin 107. This is the iconic Vietnamese sandwich done right — the crisp baguette, the pickles, the pâté and herbs — plus Vietnamese soups. It is an inexpensive, counter-style stop, and the Levinsky Market setting makes it an easy add to a spice-market crawl. For a fast, authentic introduction to Vietnamese food in Tel Aviv, start here.\nBanh Mi Nong # A Vietnamese restaurant at the top of Mikve Israel Street (Mikve Israel 1), known for quality banh mi sandwiches and a pork noodle \u0026ldquo;bonbon\u0026rdquo; dish. It also has good outdoor seating — a genuine advantage in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s long warm season. Prices are low, the cooking is the draw, and it sits within easy walking distance of the Levinsky Market cluster.\nCà Phê Hanoi # The only kosher Vietnamese restaurant in Israel, which makes it a singular address. The menu runs through the recognisable classics — pho soup, bao buns and spring rolls — at a mid-range price point. If you keep kosher and want real Vietnamese food, this is currently the one place in the country to do it, so it earns its spot on any list.\nFlorentin House # A Vietnamese sit-down restaurant in Florentin, Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most food-dense neighbourhood. It is well regarded by diners — rated 4.5 on TripAdvisor across roughly 140 reviews — which makes it one of the more reliably reviewed Vietnamese kitchens in the city. There is no website yet, so check current hours before heading over, but for a proper sit-down Vietnamese meal in Florentin this is the address to know.\nLampur # Lampur, on King George 30, describes itself as \u0026ldquo;Malaysian by Hanoi\u0026rdquo; — a Hanoi-rooted kitchen cooking Malaysian-leaning Southeast Asian food. We list it here because of that Hanoi thread and its place in the same small Vietnamese-adjacent scene, but go in expecting a broader Southeast Asian menu rather than a strict Vietnamese one. Mid-range prices, central location.\nVong | TLV # Vong is a wok-and-bowls spot in the Midtown / Begin Road area, billed as \u0026ldquo;Wok \u0026amp; Asian Street Bowls.\u0026rdquo; It is filed under Vietnamese in our directory, but in practice it sits closer to pan-Asian street food than to a purist Vietnamese kitchen — useful to know if you are specifically chasing pho or banh mi. Treat it as a quick, casual bowl option rather than a destination Vietnamese restaurant.\nFood Terminal | Tel-Aviv # A delivery-oriented virtual venue (no walk-in address) serving a mixed menu — ramen, sushi, wok, burgers and poke. It is listed under Vietnamese in our directory, but the menu is broadly pan-Asian rather than focused. We include it for completeness: if you are ordering in and want an Asian wok bowl, it is on the map, but it is not where to go for a serious Vietnamese meal.\nRishon LeZion # Food Terminal | Rishon LeZion # The Rishon LeZion branch of Food Terminal, again a virtual delivery venue rather than a sit-down restaurant. The menu covers ramen, sushi, wok and poke — pan-Asian comfort food for delivery in the Rishon LeZion and Shfela area. As with the Tel Aviv branch, it is a convenient order-in option rather than a dedicated Vietnamese kitchen, but it is the closest thing to a Vietnamese listing outside the city centre.\nHaifa # Bun Cha # Bun Cha is Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Vietnamese restaurant — named, fittingly, after the grilled-pork-and-noodle dish that is a Hanoi staple. Details in our records are thin and there is no website, so call ahead to confirm hours and menu, but it is the Vietnamese address to know in the north. If you visit, we would welcome notes for the directory.\nVietnam\u0026rsquo;s footprint on Israel\u0026rsquo;s food map is still modest, but it is real and it is growing — banh mi counters, a Florentin sit-down spot, a kosher kitchen, and the first stirrings of Vietnamese food beyond Tel Aviv. If you know a Vietnamese place we have missed, tell us — this guide and our directory grow with the community.\nFound this useful? Stay connected.\nNew guides, openings and community news for Asians in Israel — straight to you.\nStay updated Subscribe Follow on Instagram ","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/best-vietnamese-restaurants-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vietnamese food in Israel is a small scene, but a growing one. It rides the same global wave that put pho and banh mi onto menus from London to Melbourne — fresh herbs, light broths, a crusty baguette filled with pickles and pork — and in Israel that wave has landed almost entirely in Tel Aviv. There is no Vietnamese restaurant district here the way there is a sushi scene or a ramen moment, but there is a real cluster: dedicated banh mi counters, a Florentin sit-down spot, the country’s only kosher Vietnamese kitchen, and a handful of Wok-and-bowl venues that lean Vietnamese without being purist about it.\n","title":"The Best Vietnamese Restaurants in Israel (2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vietnamese-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vietnamese Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vietnamese-restaurants/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vietnamese Restaurants","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/workers-rights/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Workers Rights","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/azia-19/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Azia-19","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fusion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fusion","type":"tags"},{"content":"AZIA 19 — the kosher Japanese izakaya on Aza Street in Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Rehavia neighbourhood — is hosting a one-night Japanese-Mexican crossover on Wednesday, 20 May 2026.\nThe teaser poster shows kushiyaki-style skewers tucked into tacos with pickled red onion, herbs and a wedge of lime. The chef\u0026rsquo;s note on Instagram describes it simply: \u0026ldquo;food you eat with your hands, casual atmosphere.\u0026rdquo;\nWhat to expect # Format: one-night pop-up menu alongside (or in place of) the regular izakaya offering Style: handheld plates — think yakitori-meets-taco rather than a sit-down tasting Kashrut: AZIA 19 is fully kosher, so the fusion stays within its usual standards Atmosphere: relaxed izakaya bar, not a ticketed event Details # Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2026 Venue: AZIA 19, 19 Aza Street (עזה 19), Rehavia, Jerusalem Phone / reservations: 02-587-7722 Instagram: @azia19_ Regular hours: 18:00–00:00 (call ahead to confirm whether the menu runs all night) No ticket link was published — book a table by phone or via the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s usual channels.\nView this post on Instagram Source: @azia19_ on Instagram\n","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/azia-19-japanese-mexican-night/","section":"Posts","summary":"AZIA 19 — the kosher Japanese izakaya on Aza Street in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighbourhood — is hosting a one-night Japanese-Mexican crossover on Wednesday, 20 May 2026.\nThe teaser poster shows kushiyaki-style skewers tucked into tacos with pickled red onion, herbs and a wedge of lime. The chef’s note on Instagram describes it simply: “food you eat with your hands, casual atmosphere.”\n","title":"Japanese-Mexican Night at AZIA 19, Jerusalem (Wed 20 May 2026)","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pop-up/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pop-Up","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rehavia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rehavia","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/delivery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Delivery","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/online/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Online","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/oomame/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"OOMAME","type":"directory"},{"content":"Taiwanese conductor CJ Wu (吳思潔) visits Israel this May for a rare three-concert run with the Ra\u0026rsquo;anana Symphonette Orchestra — one evening at Petah Tikva Cultural Hall and two nights at the Ra\u0026rsquo;anana Music \u0026amp; Arts Center. The visit is presented in cooperation with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s de facto embassy in Tel Aviv, which is encouraging both Israeli friends and the Taiwanese community in Israel to attend.\nThe conductor # CJ Wu is one of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s most internationally recognised orchestral conductors, with a career that spans Asian, European and North American podiums. Full biographies published by TECO: English bio · Chinese bio (中文).\nThe three concerts # Tuesday 19 May 2026 — Petah Tikva # 20:00, Petah Tikva Cultural Hall (היכל התרבות פתח תקווה) HaMaccabim St 5, Petah Tikva · map Tickets via SmarTicket Saturday 23 May 2026 — Ra\u0026rsquo;anana # 21:00, Ra\u0026rsquo;anana Music \u0026amp; Arts Center (משכן פיס עירוני למוסיקה ואמנויות) HaPalmach St 2, Ra\u0026rsquo;anana · map Tickets via SmarTicket Sunday 24 May 2026 — Ra\u0026rsquo;anana # 20:00, Ra\u0026rsquo;anana Music \u0026amp; Arts Center HaPalmach St 2, Ra\u0026rsquo;anana · map Tickets via SmarTicket Why it\u0026rsquo;s notable # Taiwanese classical artists do not visit Israel often. Wu\u0026rsquo;s three-night residency with a major Israeli orchestra — programmed in two cities back-to-back — is the kind of cultural exchange TECO has been quietly building since the Oct 7 war, when most foreign visiting artists cancelled and Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s diplomatic channels continued to support cultural programming in Israel. For the Taiwanese community in Israel and for Israeli classical-music audiences interested in conductors from East Asia, this is the rare week to catch a Taiwan-Israel collaboration live.\nSource # Taiwan in Israel on Instagram — the original TECO announcement, 12 May 2026 ","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/cj-wu-raanana-symphonette-2026/","section":"Events","summary":"Taiwanese conductor CJ Wu (吳思潔) visits Israel this May for a rare three-concert run with the Ra’anana Symphonette Orchestra — one evening at Petah Tikva Cultural Hall and two nights at the Ra’anana Music \u0026 Arts Center. The visit is presented in cooperation with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Tel Aviv, which is encouraging both Israeli friends and the Taiwanese community in Israel to attend.\n","title":"CJ Wu conducts the Ra'anana Symphonette — three concerts, 19–24 May 2026","type":"events"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/classical-music/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Classical-Music","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/concert/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Concert","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/petah-tikva/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Petah Tikva","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/raanana/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Raanana","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/china/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"China","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/civil-commission/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Civil-Commission","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/dj-masaya/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Dj-Masaya","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hostages/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hostages","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/migrant-workers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Migrant-Workers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/music/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Music","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nepal/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nepal","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nova-festival/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nova-Festival","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/october-7/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"October-7","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/psytrance/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Psytrance","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sexual-violence/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sexual-Violence","type":"tags"},{"content":"A new report from the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, Silenced No More: Sexual Terror Unveiled, puts a number on something Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian communities have lived with for two and a half years: October 7 was a multinational atrocity, and Thai workers were its single largest foreign-citizen casualty group.\nForeign victims, by the numbers # On page 76, under the heading \u0026ldquo;Cross-Border Impact: Foreign Nationalities of October 7th Victims,\u0026rdquo; the Commission tallies victims who held foreign or dual Israeli-foreign citizenship:\nThe October 7th Hamas attack targeted civilians from 52 countries. A total of 369 persons holding foreign or dual Israeli-foreign citizenship were murdered, including those killed in captivity. An additional 106 foreign or dual citizens were taken hostage and later released or rescued alive. Of the 475 total victims, 134 held a single foreign citizenship and 18 held three citizenships.\nThe country-by-country bar chart that follows is striking: Thailand sits at the top of the list, well ahead of the United States, Argentina, France, or any other country.\nThe Asian breakdown # Asian citizenships documented in the report:\nCountry Murdered Returned alive Total Thailand 48 28 76 Nepal 11 0 11 Philippines 7 2 9 Uzbekistan 7 0 7 China 6 0 6 Sri Lanka 2 0 2 Kazakhstan 2 0 2 Cambodia 1 0 1 India 1 0 1 (Figures from the Cross-Border Impact chart, p. 76. They count only victims holding the listed foreign citizenship — Israeli-Asian dual citizens are aggregated separately within the 323 dual-citizen total.)\nWhy Thailand bore so much of it # At the time of the attack, roughly 30,000 Thai workers were employed in Israel, almost all of them on agricultural moshavim and kibbutzim — and thousands of them were on farms within the Gaza envelope. They were the largest single source of migrant farm labour for Israeli agriculture, concentrated in exactly the communities Hamas overran on October 7.\nThe report\u0026rsquo;s section on Kibbutz Be\u0026rsquo;eri makes that exposure explicit. In a footnote to the kibbutz\u0026rsquo;s death toll, the Commission notes that the figure \u0026ldquo;includes residents who were killed outside the Kibbutz, as well as foreign workers residing in the Kibbutz.\u0026rdquo; (p. 91, fn. 204.) Foreign workers were not adjacent to the casualty count — they are inside it.\nThis site has covered the Thai dimension in earlier reporting: the December 2025 identification of Sudthisak Rinthalak, the last Thai hostage; the recovery of Nattapong Pinta\u0026rsquo;s body; and the return of Thai farmworkers to fields near the border in the months afterwards.\nA documented case: Joshua Mollel # Beyond the aggregate numbers, the report\u0026rsquo;s geographic chapter on Kibbutz Nahal Oz (p. 100, ¶81) documents an individual case involving a foreign agricultural student. The Commission describes videos published by Hamas showing the abuse of \u0026ldquo;a young male foreign student and his partially undressed body\u0026rdquo; — the man dragged, beaten, kicked, stabbed and shot, his body then transferred in a truck with men shouting \u0026ldquo;Here\u0026rsquo;s the Jew!\u0026rdquo; in Arabic, and ultimately taken into Gaza.\nThe footnote identifies him: Joshua Mollel, 21, an agricultural student from Tanzania. Mollel is not Asian, but he sits inside the same population this site has long covered — Thai, Nepali, and Tanzanian foreign workers and students whose names rarely lead Western coverage of October 7. His inclusion in the Commission\u0026rsquo;s record is one of the report\u0026rsquo;s contributions: foreign-worker victims named, not summarised.\nWhat the report is # Silenced No More is the work of the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, an Israeli non-profit founded and chaired by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, a 2024 Israel Prize laureate in human-rights and international law. The Commission has compiled an archive of more than 430 testimonies and over 1,800 hours of visual material, and the report identifies thirteen recurring patterns of sexual and gender-based violence committed on October 7 and against hostages held in Gaza afterwards.\nThe subject matter is, unavoidably, harrowing. The Commission has chosen to publish with restraint where families have asked for it and to anonymise survivors and victims throughout the body of the report. The link below is to the full PDF for readers who wish to engage with the evidentiary record directly.\nThe report is endorsed by figures including former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Prof. David Crane (founding chief prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone), and Prof. Yuval Shany (Hebrew University), among others.\nWhy it matters here # The Asian communities still working and living in Israel today — Thai farmworkers, Filipino caregivers, Nepali agricultural students, Chinese and Indian construction workers — share an inheritance with the people on that bar chart. The Civil Commission\u0026rsquo;s report is one of the documents that ensures their losses are part of the historical record under their own names and nationalities, not folded into a single Israeli total.\nThat counts for something.\nSources:\nSilenced No More: Sexual Terror Unveiled — the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children Full PDF of the report (Cross-Border Impact data: p. 76) Related coverage on this site: Sudthisak Rinthalak ","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/silenced-no-more-asian-victims-october-7-report/","section":"Posts","summary":"A new report from the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, Silenced No More: Sexual Terror Unveiled, puts a number on something Israel’s Asian communities have lived with for two and a half years: October 7 was a multinational atrocity, and Thai workers were its single largest foreign-citizen casualty group.\n","title":"Silenced No More: New October 7 Report Names the Asian Toll","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/spectra-sonics/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Spectra-Sonics","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/survivor-testimony/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Survivor-Testimony","type":"tags"},{"content":"Among the international acts billed for the Tribe of Nova / Universo Paralello Israel festival on October 7, 2023 was a Tokyo psychedelic-trance DJ listed simply as \u0026ldquo;Spectra Sonics (Japan)\u0026rdquo;. His real name is Masaya Ikeda; in Japan he is better known by his original DJ alias, DJ MASAYA. He arrived at the festival site near Kibbutz Re\u0026rsquo;im just as Hamas began its assault, was shot at, sheltered through the day with other survivors, and eventually made it back to Japan — where, more than two and a half years later, the experience still defines his daily life.\nWho is Spectra Sonics? # Masaya Ikeda has been DJing professionally since 2005. After a youth spent absorbing rock and club music, he moved into the Japanese psy-trance scene and is now considered one of its central figures, performing under the artist name SPECTRA SONICS (a.k.a. MASAYA). He is affiliated with the K-HOLE and N.P.S. collectives, and joined the international psy-trance label Grasshopper Records in 2010. His releases include the EP Voyage (2011), the album Sentimental (2015) and the mini-album REVIVAL (2017). His touring profile by 2023 already spanned major festivals across Asia, Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East — Israel had been on the map for the Japanese psy-trance community for years, partly through the legacy of Goa-trance and Israel\u0026rsquo;s outsized place in the global psytrance scene.\nHis public channels: Instagram, X / Twitter, Facebook, and the SPECTRA SONICS YouTube channel.\nThe trip # According to his own October 17, 2023 YouTube testimony — later picked up by Japanese outlets Kai-You, Maidona News and Daily Sports — the trip went like this:\nOctober 4 — left Japan. October 5 — arrived in Israel. October 6 — spent the day relaxing in Tel Aviv (he singled out a beach burger), then played a club warm-up party in the city that night. Overnight into October 7 — travelled south to the festival venue in the open desert near the Gaza border. ~06:30, October 7 — roughly thirty to forty minutes after arrival, the attack began. The attack and escape # The first sign was rockets overhead. \u0026ldquo;I lay face-down in the middle of the party,\u0026rdquo; Masaya recounted of the moment incoming missiles hit. When the music stopped and gunfire began, the crowd scattered for vehicles.\nHis group drove out, but the road was already blocked by gunmen. A bullet struck the centre of the windshield; another set of rounds passed through the cabin between the driver and front passenger seats. They abandoned the car and ran.\nSheltering at a roadside gas station, Masaya saw what was happening at scale: the CCTV monitors inside the station were showing people being shot and falling. It was at that moment, he says, that he believed he was going to die.\n「殺される。時間の問題だなと思った」 \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m going to be killed. It\u0026rsquo;s just a matter of time\u0026rdquo; — that\u0026rsquo;s what I thought.\nHe phoned the people most important to him to say what he assumed would be goodbye. Around him, others did the same.\nEventually IDF soldiers reached the gas station and moved the survivors to a temporary shelter closer to Gaza, where they stayed for roughly twelve hours until it was judged safe to leave. From there he was driven to a Tel Aviv hotel with an underground bunker, where the air-raid sirens forced repeated runs into the stairwell over the following days.\nA flight home, organised via the Japanese embassy, eventually got him out on October 11.\nAftermath # Back in Japan, Masaya posted his account on YouTube on October 17, 2023. The video was widely covered by Japanese music and general-interest media as one of the first first-hand Japanese accounts of the Nova massacre. (Both that video and a follow-up have since been set to private on his channel — likely a personal choice as he continues to recover.)\nThe aftermath he describes is, in his own words, a serious case of trauma. He has spoken about becoming hypersensitive to ambient sound, wearing noise-cancelling headphones almost constantly, and — most painful for someone whose entire livelihood is built around it — being unable to listen to music. His doctor\u0026rsquo;s prognosis, as he relayed it:\n「時間をかけて治していくしかない」 \u0026ldquo;This can only be healed by giving it time.\u0026rdquo;\nWhy this matters here # Among the 364 people killed and 44 taken hostage at the Nova festival, the foreign-national casualties have been disproportionately concentrated in the migrant-worker communities — Thai farmworkers above all, then Nepali, Filipino, Sri Lankan and others — a story documented in our report on the silenced victims. Spectra Sonics\u0026rsquo; story is a different cross-section of the same event: a Japanese musician in Israel for the same reason thousands of Israelis were there that night — to play and to dance — caught in the same attack.\nIt is also a reminder of how tightly the Japanese and Israeli psy-trance scenes have been bound together for decades. Israel is one of the global hubs of the genre; Japan is another. Lineups crossed regularly before October 7, and the artists, fans and labels in both countries are still working out how to make sense of what happened to one of their own.\nIf you want to support Masaya\u0026rsquo;s recovery, the most direct way is to follow him on his official channels and engage with his music when he is ready to put it back out into the world.\nSources # Kai-You — イスラエルで攻撃に巻き込まれた日本人DJ、帰国し現地の状況を伝える Maidona News — 「殺される。時間の問題だ」イスラエルでテロに遭った日本人DJ iFLYER — DJ MASAYA artist profile Psymedia — Tragic terrorist attack rocks Universo Paralello Israel warmup party Wikipedia — Nova music festival massacre Embassy of Israel in Japan — Oct 7 Nova memorial post Featured image: still from the SPECTRA SONICS testimony video on YouTube (October 17, 2023), via Internet Archive.\n","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/spectra-sonics-dj-masaya-nova-survivor/","section":"Posts","summary":"Among the international acts billed for the Tribe of Nova / Universo Paralello Israel festival on October 7, 2023 was a Tokyo psychedelic-trance DJ listed simply as “Spectra Sonics (Japan)”. His real name is Masaya Ikeda; in Japan he is better known by his original DJ alias, DJ MASAYA. He arrived at the festival site near Kibbutz Re’im just as Hamas began its assault, was shot at, sheltered through the day with other survivors, and eventually made it back to Japan — where, more than two and a half years later, the experience still defines his daily life.\n","title":"The Japanese DJ Who Escaped Nova: Spectra Sonics' October 7","type":"posts"},{"content":"Asians in Israel is the curated index of Asian businesses, services, and community life in Israel. Our 840+ directory entries, original news coverage, and bilingual (EN+HE) audience reach a niche that is otherwise hard to target: members of the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Nepali, Indian and related diaspora communities in Israel, plus Israelis who actively follow Asian culture, business, and travel.\nIf you run a restaurant, import Asian goods, teach a language, organise cultural events, or sell a service to this community, this page lists the ways you can put your business in front of our readers.\n1. Paid directory placement # Our business directory is the lead surface on the site. Every listing is curated and bilingual. There are three tiers:\nTier Annual price (ex-VAT) What you get Free — Standard listing in the relevant category, EN+HE name and description, contact links. This is how all 840+ existing businesses appear today. Verified ₪180 \u0026ldquo;Verified\u0026rdquo; badge on your card, priority sort within your category, owner-submitted hours and photos, the ability to update your listing details directly. Featured ₪650–1,200 Everything in Verified, plus: top placement in your category page, rotation on the homepage, an expanded card with a hero image, a backlink from one editorial post per year, and one mention in our newsletter. The Featured price band depends on the category — competitive categories (Japanese restaurants in Tel Aviv, Korean cosmetics) sit at the top of the band; smaller categories at the bottom. Email us for a quote for your specific category.\n2. Sponsored posts # We will write a sponsored article about your business, event, product launch, or campaign. Sponsored posts are clearly labelled as such and follow our normal editorial standards (we will not publish anything we believe to be false or misleading). You provide the brief and materials; we write, photograph, and publish.\nFormat Price (ex-VAT) Sponsored post, single language (EN or HE) ₪450–900 Sponsored post, full bilingual (EN and HE) ₪680–1,350 Event coverage (we attend and write a post) from ₪900 Final price depends on length, research effort, and whether on-site photography is needed.\n3. Newsletter sponsorship # Our newsletter goes out to subscribers interested in Asian community life in Israel. One sponsor slot per send, placed at the top or bottom of the email.\nFormat Price (ex-VAT) Single newsletter slot ₪220–450 4-send package (one per month) ₪780–1,600 Subscribe to the newsletter to see what a send looks like before you buy a slot.\n4. Custom partnerships # If you are running a campaign that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fit the formats above — a co-branded directory of importers, a recurring column from your team, an embassy-supported series, a launch event with attendance promotion — email us with what you have in mind and we will quote it.\nHow to buy # Email us at info@asiansinisrael.com with what you want to buy and any links to your business. For directory upgrades, include your existing listing URL. We reply within 2 business days with a final price, a draft of what your listing or post will look like, and payment instructions. Payment is by Bit or Israeli bank transfer in ₪. We issue a proper חשבונית מס/קבלה (Israeli tax invoice) on payment. Your placement goes live within 3 business days of payment confirmation. All prices on this page are ex-VAT. Israeli VAT (מע״מ) is added on the invoice as required.\nWhat we will not do # We will not write sponsored coverage that is factually misleading. We will not remove or edit existing editorial coverage in exchange for sponsorship. We will not run political advocacy or anti-community content of any kind. We will not sell cosmetic \u0026ldquo;verification\u0026rdquo; without actually verifying your business is operating. If you have a question that isn\u0026rsquo;t covered here, email info@asiansinisrael.com.\n","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/advertise/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"Asians in Israel is the curated index of Asian businesses, services, and community life in Israel. Our 840+ directory entries, original news coverage, and bilingual (EN+HE) audience reach a niche that is otherwise hard to target: members of the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Nepali, Indian and related diaspora communities in Israel, plus Israelis who actively follow Asian culture, business, and travel.\n","title":"Advertise with Asians in Israel","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cinema/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cinema","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cultural-event/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cultural-Event","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/film/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Film","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tel Aviv Cinematheque screens A Missing Part (Hebrew: החלק החסר; French original: Une part manquante) — a French / Belgian / Japanese drama by Guillaume Senez, starring Romain Duris, Judith Chemla and Mei Cirne-Masuki — on Saturday 18 July 2026 at 17:00, with a pre-screening lecture on the realities of divorced parents in Japan. Brought to Israel by distributor Kolnoa Hadash / New Cinema (@kolnoahadash).\nThe film # Une part manquante (France / Belgium / Japan, 2024, 98 min, French \u0026amp; Japanese with Hebrew and English subtitles).\nJay (Romain Duris), a French taxi driver living in Tokyo, has spent his days and nights driving the city\u0026rsquo;s streets for nine years — not just to earn a living. Since separating from his Japanese wife, he has been searching for his daughter Lily, whom he was never able to gain custody of. The sense of loss and loneliness follows him on every ride, until he finally decides to give up and return to France.\nThen, moments before his departure, a mysterious young woman gets into his cab: Lily. Jay\u0026rsquo;s world collapses when he realises the woman in front of him is his daughter — but she does not recognise him. Torn between the urge to reveal the truth and the wish to hold on to the fleeting moments he has with her, he begins an emotional journey that puts his past, his love and his capacity to forgive on trial.\nPre-screening lecture — Galia Dor # Before the film, Galia Dor delivers a lecture titled \u0026ldquo;When tradition, society and law meet\u0026rdquo; — on the unsettling reality faced by divorced parents in Japan, where post-divorce custody arrangements diverge sharply from the assumptions audiences typically bring from Israel or Europe. The lecture provides the legal-cultural backdrop that gives the film its emotional weight.\nPractical info # When: Saturday 18 July 2026, 17:00 (lecture first, then screening) Where: Tel Aviv Cinematheque, Shprintzak 2, Tel Aviv-Yafo Language: Hebrew (lecture); film in French and Japanese with Hebrew and English subtitles Tickets: book through the Tel Aviv Cinematheque box office or the distributor\u0026rsquo;s Instagram bio link Original announcement: Kolnoa Hadash on Instagram Related on the site # Aki-no Japanese Film Festival — the annual Japanese film festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, for readers who want more Japanese cinema on the calendar. Japan Month at Dizengoff Center — month-long programme of Japanese film and cultural events in Tel Aviv every August. ","date":"12 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/missing-piece-tel-aviv-cinematheque/","section":"Events","summary":"Tel Aviv Cinematheque screens A Missing Part (Hebrew: החלק החסר; French original: Une part manquante) — a French / Belgian / Japanese drama by Guillaume Senez, starring Romain Duris, Judith Chemla and Mei Cirne-Masuki — on Saturday 18 July 2026 at 17:00, with a pre-screening lecture on the realities of divorced parents in Japan. Brought to Israel by distributor Kolnoa Hadash / New Cinema (@kolnoahadash).\n","title":"The Missing Piece — French-Japanese drama + lecture on Japanese custody law","type":"events"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/aquatic-bodywork/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Aquatic-Bodywork","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chef-collab/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chef-Collab","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chef-driven/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chef-Driven","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/down-town-ramen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Down Town Ramen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/obi-sound-kitchen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"OBI - Sound \u0026 Kitchen","type":"directory"},{"content":"Chef Sagi Dadush (@down7own_ramen) returns to OBI on Yavne 31 for the second volume of their pop-up collaboration — three Sunday dinners in May 2026, each with a different concept. OBI\u0026rsquo;s chef Didi (@didi__san__) and Sagi take over the kitchen together, \u0026ldquo;two minds obsessed with Japanese cooking\u0026rdquo; working in tandem.\nDoors at 17:00. Reservations via OBI\u0026rsquo;s Ontopo page.\nThe three nights # Sunday 17 May — Japanese diner (מזללה יפנית) # Tokyo-style ramen, yakitori off the grill, and plenty of sake. The most classical of the three nights — a straight Tokyo izakaya menu.\nSunday 24 May — Fish-market night (שוק דגים) # An evening built entirely around fish: chirashi bowls, oysters, shio ramen with fish broth, white wines and champagne to make Sunday sparkling.\nSunday 31 May — \u0026ldquo;Everything except Japan\u0026rdquo; (הכל חוץ מיפן) # For the closer they break out of Japan: ramen with Thai influences, Korean-leaning dishes, sharp and assertive flavours, plus Ziv\u0026rsquo;s overcarbonated, over-the-top cocktails.\nWho\u0026rsquo;s behind it # OBI - Sound \u0026amp; Kitchen — Yavne 31\u0026rsquo;s izakaya-meets-DJ-booth concept. Directory listing. Down Town Ramen — chef Sagi Dadush\u0026rsquo;s no-fixed-location pop-up project, currently doing residencies around Tel Aviv. Directory listing. The original announcement is on Instagram: OBI\u0026rsquo;s post.\nPractical info # Where: OBI - Sound \u0026amp; Kitchen, Yavne 31, Tel Aviv-Yafo (Kerem HaTeimanim, near the Carmel Market) When: Sundays 17, 24, 31 May 2026 — doors at 17:00 Reservations: through OBI\u0026rsquo;s Ontopo Phone: 077-880-1744 ","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/obi-x-down-town-ramen-vol-2/","section":"Events","summary":"Chef Sagi Dadush (@down7own_ramen) returns to OBI on Yavne 31 for the second volume of their pop-up collaboration — three Sunday dinners in May 2026, each with a different concept. OBI’s chef Didi (@didi__san__) and Sagi take over the kitchen together, “two minds obsessed with Japanese cooking” working in tandem.\n","title":"OBI x Down Town Ramen vol.2 — three Sundays of Japanese pop-up dinners","type":"events"},{"content":"Hosting a festival, food pop-up, language exchange, embassy reception, or any other event the Asian community in Israel should know about? List it here and reach the right people directly — not just whoever happens to be in your WhatsApp group.\nWhy Post Here? # Targeted Reach # Asians in Israel is the only multilingual events board specifically for the Asian community in Israel. Your listing reaches Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Filipino residents — plus Israelis with a serious interest in Asia — who actively look for what\u0026rsquo;s on.\nMultilingual # Your event will be posted in English, Hebrew, and the relevant community language — whether that is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, or Vietnamese. People can read the listing in their own language, which means more attendees who actually show up.\nSEO # Each event page is a permanent, indexed page on our website. People find your event through Google when they search in their language. A WhatsApp message disappears in minutes; your listing here keeps working until the event date — and stays as an archive afterwards.\nFree # There is no cost to post an event. We want to help the community discover what\u0026rsquo;s happening and help organizers fill seats.\nWhat We Need From You # To create your listing, please provide:\nEvent name and a short description Date(s) and time(s) — single day, multi-day, or recurring Venue (name + address) and city Organizer (and website or Instagram, if any) Cost (free, ticket price, suggested donation) RSVP or ticket link Language(s) the event will be in Image (poster or photo) if you have one — we can also pull from your Instagram We will write the listing, translate it into the relevant languages, and publish it within 1–2 business days.\nSubmit Your Event # Fill out the form below and we will be in touch.\nName Email Event details (name, date, venue, organizer, cost, RSVP link, language) Submit Event ","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/post-an-event/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"Hosting a festival, food pop-up, language exchange, embassy reception, or any other event the Asian community in Israel should know about? List it here and reach the right people directly — not just whoever happens to be in your WhatsApp group.\n","title":"Post an Event","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/shiatsu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Shiatsu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/watsu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Watsu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/watsu-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"WatsuTlv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/adventure/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Adventure","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/aski-mongolia/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"ASKI","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hebrew-speaking/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hebrew-Speaking","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mongolia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mongolia","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tour-operator/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tour-Operator","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/festival/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Festival","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tel Aviv Eat is back for its 10th edition — Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest food festival, taking over Charles Clore Park on the Jaffa beachfront for four nights, Monday 11 to Thursday 14 May 2026, 18:00–23:00. Entry is free; you pay per dish at each stall, with portions priced between ₪25–45. The 2026 lineup runs to ~80 stalls; we\u0026rsquo;ve cross-referenced the official lineup against our directory and confirmed six Asian-cuisine stalls, all real Tel Aviv outfits you can also visit year-round.\nHere is what to look for if you came for the Asian food.\nConfirmed Asian vendors # Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s Korean Restaurant # The Tel Aviv Korean staple is running a stall across all four nights with a focused street-food menu: tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes in spicy gochujang sauce), Korean corndogs, KFC-style fried chicken wings, gimbap (Korean rice rolls), Korean BBQ off the grill, and soju bombs to wash it all down. Lines build up fast after 19:00 — go early or later in the evening if you want to skip the queue.\nIf you missed them at the festival, both Tel Aviv branches are in our directory: Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s Korean Restaurant.\nDim Sum Shop # The Dizengoff dim sum specialists are at the festival with a stand built around their Cantonese repertoire — steamed pork buns, har gow shrimp dumplings, and the rotating chef specials they normally cycle through at the restaurant. Quick-turnaround stall, perfect for a snack between heavier mains.\nBrick-and-mortar location: Dim Sum Shop on Dizengoff 50.\nKanu — Vietnamese street food # Tel Aviv doesn\u0026rsquo;t have many Vietnamese stops, so Kanu\u0026rsquo;s appearance at the festival is worth a queue. Expect their signature bánh mì sandwiches and pho-adjacent street snacks built for handheld eating in the park.\nTheir permanent location is on Herzl 77: Kanu.\nMochikva # The Israeli mochi specialists — soft Japanese pounded-rice cakes with modern fillings (matcha, salted caramel, halva, fruit). Closer to dessert than dinner, but a strong palate-cleanser between savoury rounds.\nFind Mochikva year-round: Mochikva directory listing.\nEggzit # Hong Kong-style bubble waffles (eggettes / 雞蛋仔) — that crisp-on-the-outside, custardy-on-the-inside honeycomb-pattern street snack you\u0026rsquo;d queue for in Mong Kok. Eggzit normally runs as a delivery + pop-up operation, so the festival is a rare chance to grab one fresh off the iron.\nDirectory listing: Eggzit.\nThai Street Food # The Shalom Aleichem 14 Thai stop — \u0026ldquo;Authentic \u0026amp; Original Thai Cuisine, sawasdee ka\u0026rdquo; — is at the festival with a stall built for handheld eating: pad thai, curries, and the rest of their street-food menu in to-go portions.\nYear-round at: Thai Street Food on Shalom Aleichem 14.\nBeyond the festival — pop-ups in May # Tel Aviv Eat finishes Thursday night, but the city\u0026rsquo;s Asian-food calendar continues. Two highlights on the directory worth knowing about:\nOBI x Down Town Ramen vol.2 — chef-driven Japanese pop-up nights at OBI on Yavne 31, every Sunday from 17 May through 31 May. Tokyo-style ramen, then a fish-market night, then a Thai/Korean-inflected ramen evening to close. OBI - Sound \u0026amp; Kitchen itself runs Monday–Saturday from 19:00 with sushi, yakitori and a DJ booth — a more relaxed alternative to festival queues. Down Town Ramen — chef Sagi Dadush\u0026rsquo;s wandering ramen project, no fixed location; check his Instagram for the next residency. Practical info # Where: Charles Clore Park, Tel Aviv-Yafo (south end of the seafront promenade, between Jaffa and Neve Tzedek) When: Mon 11 – Thu 14 May 2026, 18:00–23:00 each evening Getting there: parking is scarce — bus, tram, scooter or a 10-minute walk from Allenby/Rothschild. Tel Aviv Light Rail Red Line stops at \u0026ldquo;Yehuda Halevi\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Allenby\u0026rdquo; Pay: card and cash both accepted at most stalls; Bit is common Crowd: peaks Wed–Thu after 20:00 — the Monday opening and the early hours on weeknights are the calmest Updates and the live vendor lineup go up on the festival\u0026rsquo;s official Instagram, @tel.aviv.eat. If you spot another Asian vendor we should add to this guide, let us know on the community forum.\n","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/tel-aviv-eat-2026/","section":"Events","summary":"Tel Aviv Eat is back for its 10th edition — Israel’s largest food festival, taking over Charles Clore Park on the Jaffa beachfront for four nights, Monday 11 to Thursday 14 May 2026, 18:00–23:00. Entry is free; you pay per dish at each stall, with portions priced between ₪25–45. The 2026 lineup runs to ~80 stalls; we’ve cross-referenced the official lineup against our directory and confirmed six Asian-cuisine stalls, all real Tel Aviv outfits you can also visit year-round.\n","title":"Tel Aviv Eat 2026 — the Asian-food guide to Israel's biggest food festival","type":"events"},{"content":"","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tel-aviv-eat/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tel-Aviv-Eat","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/mix-and-matcha/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Mix\u0026Matcha","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"10 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tea","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tea-shop/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tea-Shop","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/diaspora/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Diaspora","type":"tags"},{"content":"In June 2004, Ehud Olmert — then Israel\u0026rsquo;s deputy prime minister and trade minister — slipped away from a business delegation in northeastern China for a private errand. He drove out to the Huangshan Jewish Cemetery on the wooded outskirts of Harbin and stood at the grave of his grandfather, Yosef Olmert. He laid stones on the headstone, recited the kaddish in Hebrew alongside his brother Amram, and afterwards spoke at length about a Chinese city he had never lived in but had grown up inside.\nA House Full of Harbin # Ehud Olmert was born in Binyamina in 1945, the son of two Harbin Jews who had emigrated to Mandate Palestine in the early 1930s. His father, Mordechai, had grown up in the Manchurian capital; his mother, Bella Wagman, came from the same community. The Olmert household spoke Russian, sang Russian songs, and — when memory turned eastward — slipped easily into Mandarin. According to Ehud, the last words his father uttered before his death in 1998 were in Chinese.\nMordechai went on to become a Knesset member for the Herut party between 1955 and 1961, in the political tradition of Ze\u0026rsquo;ev Jabotinsky\u0026rsquo;s Revisionist Zionism. The line connecting that hard-edged politics to a quiet Israeli childhood in Binyamina ran straight through Harbin.\nMordechai Olmert\u0026rsquo;s Manchurian Youth # Mordechai Olmert was born in Buguruslan, in the Russian Empire, in 1908. His family fled the chaos of the Russian Civil War, arriving in Harbin in 1919, when he was eleven. He finished school in the city, helped found the local branch of Betar — the Revisionist Zionist youth movement — and in his early twenties taught Russian at a Chinese high school. In 1933 he and Bella left for Mandate Palestine.\nThat trajectory — Harbin as a Russian-Jewish way station between the Pale of Settlement and the Yishuv — was extraordinarily common. For tens of thousands of Russian Jews, an unlikely city in northeast China was the place where Zionism stopped being an idea and became a plan.\nHow Jews Came to Harbin # Harbin barely existed before 1898, when Russia, having leased a concession from the Qing court, began driving the Chinese Eastern Railway across Manchuria as a shortcut for the Trans-Siberian. To populate its new outpost, the Tsarist government quietly suspended the residency restrictions Jews faced inside Russia proper. Jewish merchants, doctors, and engineers responded by moving east.\nThe community was formally constituted in November 1903 with around 500 members. By 1908 it had grown to 8,000. By the late 1920s, with successive waves of refugees from Tsarist pogroms, the Russian Civil War, and Soviet repression, Harbin\u0026rsquo;s Jewish population reached around 13,000 — the largest Jewish community in the Far East. The first synagogue went up in 1907; the larger New Synagogue, designed by the Jewish architect Yosef Levitin, opened in September 1921 and could seat eight hundred worshippers.\nIt was a strikingly autonomous world. Rabbi Aharon Moshe Kiselev led the community from 1913 until his death in 1949. Dr. Avraham Kaufman, who chaired the community council from 1933 to 1945, oversaw a Jewish hospital, schools, a Russian and Yiddish press, and the Zionist youth movements that included the young Mordechai Olmert.\nThe Long Decline # The Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 and the founding of the Manchukuo puppet state in 1932 changed everything. Far-right Russian émigré groups, operating under loose Japanese protection, began extorting and abducting wealthy Jews. The breaking point came in 1933, when Semyon Kaspe — a French-citizen concert pianist and son of the Jewish owner of the Hotel Moderne — was kidnapped, mutilated, and murdered. The Japanese authorities took no real action. Within a few years, most of those who could leave had left, for Tianjin and Shanghai, for the United States and Australia, and for Palestine.\nAfter 1945 the Soviet army\u0026rsquo;s brief occupation effectively ended Zionist activity; Dr. Kaufman himself was deported to a Soviet labour camp. Communist rule, the Cultural Revolution, and ordinary attrition completed the work. The community\u0026rsquo;s institutions formally closed in 1963. Hanna Agra, the last Jewish resident of Harbin, died in 1985.\nA Prime Minister Returns # Ehud Olmert\u0026rsquo;s 2004 visit to his grandfather\u0026rsquo;s grave was reported widely in the Chinese, Israeli, and international press, and it set off a small renaissance. The local government accelerated restoration of the Huangshan cemetery — the largest surviving Jewish cemetery in the Far East, with roughly six hundred graves — and in 2005 a delegation of about a hundred Israelis of Harbin descent travelled back together to walk the rows of headstones. By the time Olmert became prime minister in 2006, Harbin had quietly repositioned itself as one of China\u0026rsquo;s most-promoted Jewish heritage sites.\nHarbin Today # The New Synagogue on Tongjiang Street has been restored and now operates as the Harbin Museum of Jewish History and Culture. The old Jewish Middle School is a museum too. The cemetery is signposted, with a Hebrew-language notice at the entrance. There are no Jews left.\nFor an Israeli audience, the Harbin story sits oddly between two more familiar narratives — the wartime Shanghai refuge of the 1940s, and the older Jewish trading communities of Kaifeng. It is neither. It is the story of a Russian-Jewish city built almost from scratch in northeast China, of children like Mordechai Olmert who grew up bilingual in Mandarin and Yiddish, and of how thoroughly that world has now vanished — except inside the families who left, of which the Olmerts are only the most politically prominent.\nSources: Wikipedia: Mordechai Olmert, Wikipedia: History of the Jews in Harbin, China.org.cn: Finding Family Roots at Harbin\u0026rsquo;s Jewish Cemetery, China Daily: Israel deputy PM visits grandpa\u0026rsquo;s Harbin grave.\n","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/olmert-family-harbin-roots/","section":"Posts","summary":"In June 2004, Ehud Olmert — then Israel’s deputy prime minister and trade minister — slipped away from a business delegation in northeastern China for a private errand. He drove out to the Huangshan Jewish Cemetery on the wooded outskirts of Harbin and stood at the grave of his grandfather, Yosef Olmert. He laid stones on the headstone, recited the kaddish in Hebrew alongside his brother Amram, and afterwards spoke at length about a Chinese city he had never lived in but had grown up inside.\n","title":"Ehud Olmert's Harbin Roots: A Manchurian Jewish Story","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ehud-olmert/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ehud-Olmert","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/harbin/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Harbin","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/history/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"History","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-china-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-China-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jewish-history/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jewish-History","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/manchuria/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Manchuria","type":"tags"},{"content":"Two Chinese nationals were briefly detained by police on Friday after onlookers caught them placing ducks into a large black bag at the Ramat Gan National Park. Local outlet News3 and Israel Hayom carried different versions of the same incident; together they paint a fuller picture than either does on its own.\nWhat the two reports say # Per News3, eyewitnesses noticed the pair behaving suspiciously near the park\u0026rsquo;s lake, watched them load two ducks into a black bag they had brought with them, and called police. Officers from Ramat Gan station detained the two men on suspicion of theft of the birds, with police reportedly suspecting they intended to take the ducks for food. Because the suspects spoke only Chinese, investigators had to wait for an interpreter to arrive before they could question them. The men told the interpreter they had only wanted to \u0026ldquo;adopt\u0026rdquo; the ducks, and were released after questioning.\nIsrael Hayom, reporting the same incident, says the two were spotted by park rangers on a routine patrol rather than by civilians, describes them as Chinese workers, and frames the detention as a brief questioning before release.\nThe reports do not fully reconcile — including on the basic question of whether the men were tourists or labour migrants — and neither news outlet has named or quoted the suspects directly.\nA wider pattern at the park # Buried in News3\u0026rsquo;s report is a detail that makes the incident harder to dismiss as a one-off cultural misunderstanding: regular visitors say that in recent weeks roughly 84 ducks have gone missing from the lake area. If accurate, that is a substantial loss from the park\u0026rsquo;s resident waterfowl population, and changes the policing calculus around what would otherwise look like an isolated, vaguely comic episode.\nIsrael Nature and Parks Authority (רשות הטבע והגנים) inspectors have not, as of writing, publicly linked the detained pair to those disappearances.\nThe legal context # Wildlife in Israeli national parks is protected under the National Parks, Nature Reserves, National Sites and Memorial Sites Law (1998) and the Wildlife Protection Law (1955). Removing, harming, or feeding animals in a national park is prohibited, and offences are enforced by Nature and Parks Authority inspectors, who hold powers of detention. Penalties range from fines to criminal prosecution depending on intent and scale.\nThe rules apply equally to residents, tourists, and foreign workers. Park signage is primarily in Hebrew and English, and the underlying premise — that ordinary-looking ducks at a city park are protected wildlife the public is not allowed to touch — is not necessarily intuitive to visitors arriving from very different legal and cultural frameworks.\nCultural footnote # Ramat Gan National Park is, with some irony, home to a small population of Mandarin ducks (ברווז המנדרין הסיני) — a species native to East Asia and historically associated in Chinese culture with marital fidelity. The reports do not specify whether the birds taken from the bag were Mandarin ducks or the much more common mallards that dominate the lake; for now, that detail is missing from the public record.\nCommunication and community # The need to wait for a Chinese interpreter is a recurring issue in Israeli law-enforcement contacts with Chinese nationals — whether tourists, students, or the large population of construction workers brought in on tied employer visas. Police stations in Gush Dan do not routinely staff Chinese-language officers; community advocates and the Chinese embassy have raised this in the past in the context of labour disputes and traffic incidents.\nFor anyone newly arrived in Israel, the takeaway is straightforward: the friendly-looking ducks at a national park are not yours to take home, however hospitable they look. For Israeli authorities and the park, the more pressing question is what happened to the other 80-odd birds.\nSources: News3, Israel Hayom\n","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/chinese-workers-ducks-ramat-gan-park/","section":"Posts","summary":"Two Chinese nationals were briefly detained by police on Friday after onlookers caught them placing ducks into a large black bag at the Ramat Gan National Park. Local outlet News3 and Israel Hayom carried different versions of the same incident; together they paint a fuller picture than either does on its own.\n","title":"Chinese Nationals Detained Over Ducks at Ramat Gan National Park","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-community/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Community","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/news/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"News","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ramat-gan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ramat Gan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/wildlife/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Wildlife","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/aliyah/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Aliyah","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bnei-menashe/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bnei-Menashe","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/immigration/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Immigration","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jewish-agency/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jewish-Agency","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mizoram/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mizoram","type":"tags"},{"content":"A third charter flight carrying 110 members of the Bnei Menashe community from Mizoram, India touched down at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday evening, 6 May 2026. The arrival completes the planned first wave of Operation Wings of Dawn, bringing the six-week total to roughly 600 new olim across three flights.\nView this post on Instagram The UJA-Federation leg # Unlike the two earlier flights in April, the 6 May leg was sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York. UJA CEO Eric S. Goldstein flew to Mizoram and accompanied the families back to Israel, later publishing a first-person dispatch from the trip, \u0026ldquo;To India, and Home.\u0026rdquo; His piece describes the singing of Hatikvah on the tarmac and the on-the-spot reunions with relatives who had made aliyah years — in some cases decades — earlier. UJA\u0026rsquo;s involvement marks the first time the operation has been carried by a North American federation rather than the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency alone.\nWhat the milestone means # In six weeks, three charter flights have moved approximately 600 Bnei Menashe from northeast India to Israel — roughly the entire first-wave target set by the November 2025 cabinet decision that launched the operation. About 5,800 community members remain in Mizoram and Manipur. Under the plan jointly run by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and the Jewish Agency, a further tranche is expected in the second half of 2026, with the full community of roughly 6,000 to be in Israel by 2030.\nWhere the new olim are headed # The 110 arrivals are being absorbed at the same northern integration centres used for the April flights — Nof HaGalil and Kiryat Yam — where most will spend the first year studying Hebrew and going through formal Orthodox conversion before moving on to permanent housing, often near relatives in Migdal HaEmek, Ma\u0026rsquo;alot, Afula or Kiryat Shmona. Several hundred earlier Bnei Menashe olim have served in the IDF since 7 October 2023; two staff sergeants from the community have been killed in action.\nBackground # For the operation\u0026rsquo;s history, the community\u0026rsquo;s claim of descent from the tribe of Manasseh, and the 2005 recognition by then-Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, see our earlier piece on the first Wings of Dawn flight. The New York Times also published a deeper feature on the community by Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar — \u0026ldquo;A Lost Tribe in India Makes Its Exodus to Israel\u0026rdquo; — on the day of the first flight.\nSources: UJA-Federation of New York, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Ynet.\n","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/wings-of-dawn-third-flight-uja/","section":"Posts","summary":"A third charter flight carrying 110 members of the Bnei Menashe community from Mizoram, India touched down at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday evening, 6 May 2026. The arrival completes the planned first wave of Operation Wings of Dawn, bringing the six-week total to roughly 600 new olim across three flights.\n","title":"Third Wings of Dawn Flight Brings 110 More Bnei Menashe, Completing the First Wave","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/uja-federation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Uja-Federation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/accessories/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Accessories","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chain/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chain","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cooking-workshop/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cooking-Workshop","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/homeware/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Homeware","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/minigood-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Mini Good Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/private-chef/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Private-Chef","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/retail/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Retail","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yarin-ben-shushan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yarin Ben Shushan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-american/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian-American","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bds/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bds","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/books/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Books","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-asia-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-Asia-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/literature/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Literature","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/r-f-kuang/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"R-F-Kuang","type":"tags"},{"content":"R.F. Kuang — the Chinese-American novelist behind Yellowface, Babel and the Poppy War trilogy — is facing a boycott campaign from her own readership after a leaked excerpt of her forthcoming novel Taipei Story revealed that the book contains a fleeting reference to an Israeli musician. The novel is due from HarperCollins on 8 September 2026.\nThe passage in question # The disputed scene runs a few paragraphs. Lily, the protagonist, walks into Taipei\u0026rsquo;s National Concert Hall on a whim with her NTU student card, picks up the programme and reads:\nThe pianist was from Israel, and he was a big deal: He had performed at concert halls throughout Europe and the Americas and been a soloist with all sorts of philharmonic orchestras. This was his first time in Taiwan. The National Concert Hall was honored to host him.\nLater in the scene, after the recital — a Liszt programme — the pianist is described as \u0026ldquo;a dour-faced man who did not so much as crack a smile as we applauded.\u0026rdquo; That is the full extent of the Israeli content of the novel as far as the leaked screenshots circulating on Threads, X and TikTok show. The pianist is unnamed, does not return, and is described as both eminent and a bit of a sourpuss.\nTaipei Story itself, per HarperCollins, follows Lily Chen, a Chinese-American college freshman who travels to Taipei for an intensive Mandarin summer programme, only to be derailed by the death of her grandfather and the silences in her own family history. The book is marketed as a coming-of-age novel about diaspora, language and grief.\nR.F. Kuang\u0026rsquo;s politics — and why this is an awkward controversy # Kuang has aligned herself with the BDS movement\u0026rsquo;s framework on cultural boycotts. In late 2025 she withdrew from the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai — a decision widely framed at the time as a \u0026ldquo;BDS withdrawal,\u0026rdquo; though the immediate trigger was the UN\u0026rsquo;s findings that the UAE has been arming the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, not the UAE\u0026rsquo;s relationship with Israel. The Palestinian BDS National Committee had called on writers to boycott the Dubai festival in solidarity with Sudanese civilians, and Kuang\u0026rsquo;s statement invoked the wider principle: she has \u0026ldquo;always respected organized calls for cultural boycotts against genocide from communities directly affected and in particular, guidelines set forth by the BDS movement.\u0026rdquo; PACBI publicly thanked her.\nSo her public position is: pro-BDS as a framework, and willing to take a financial hit (a high-profile festival appearance, fees, audience) to act on it. That position has been read — by both her supporters and her current critics — as also implying full participation in the cultural boycott of Israel, even though her Dubai withdrawal was specifically about Sudan.\nAgainst that backdrop, the Taipei Story excerpt is harder to fit into either camp\u0026rsquo;s narrative. Kuang did not write a sympathetic portrait of an Israeli soldier; she did not write an essay defending Israel. She wrote a passage in which an Israeli pianist exists, is described as internationally accomplished, performs Liszt, and is observed by the protagonist as cold-mannered. That treatment is not a polemic in either direction. For an author who has otherwise aligned herself with the cultural-boycott framework, the deliberate choice to invent an Israeli musician — rather than, as the Ordinary Times blog pointed out, a fictional musician of any other nationality — is a small but real authorial decision. Kuang has not explained it. Comments have been disabled on her recent Instagram posts and she has not commented publicly. Readers are left to interpret the passage on its own terms.\nWhere the backlash is coming from # The pile-on is concentrated in the same Anglophone, online-progressive book-community spaces — BookTok, Bookstagram, Threads — that previously celebrated Kuang. One widely shared post, quoted in The Express Tribune, captured the tone: \u0026ldquo;RF Kuang had 190+ countries to choose from to write about a character\u0026rsquo;s nationality, and she still chose to write about the one who\u0026rsquo;s actively committing genocide against Palestinians for years.\u0026rdquo; Other readers reported cancelling their pre-orders.\nThe defence has come from the same constituency. A Threads user wrote that the people boycotting Kuang \u0026ldquo;over a single mention of an Israeli pianist being booked at a concert hall\u0026hellip; lack so much f\u0026mdash;ing nuance. There\u0026rsquo;s literally no mention of Zionism, yet y\u0026rsquo;all can\u0026rsquo;t seem to differentiate.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Ordinary Times blog noted a separate dynamic worth flagging: a number of the loudest critics on BookTok are themselves working YA authors, competing for the same finite reader attention and book-budget that Kuang dominates. In a publishing ecosystem where readers might buy a dozen books a year and BookTok decides much of what they pick, a high-profile competitor briefly stumbling into a \u0026ldquo;cancellable\u0026rdquo; passage is, in the cynical reading, a market opportunity.\nCoverage in The Jewish Chronicle, JNS, The Times of Israel, Yahoo and several Pakistani and South Asian outlets has framed the episode as another example of literary boycott culture treating any acknowledgement of Israeli existence as an endorsement of Israeli policy.\nHow this lands in Taiwan # Because Taipei Story is set in Taiwan and Kuang is one of the highest-profile Sinophone-diaspora writers working today, the book will be read carefully on the island as well. The political backdrop there is not the one her American critics are operating in.\nSince 7 October 2023, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s government has held a position broadly supportive of Israel. Taipei condemned Iran\u0026rsquo;s October 2024 missile attack on Israel in unusually direct language, signed a bilateral cultural exchange agreement with Israel that same month, and has continued to deepen security and humanitarian cooperation through Israeli representative Maya Yaron and Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative in Tel Aviv, Abby Lee. The intuitive sympathy comes from a shared self-image, articulated by the Taipei-based researcher Felix Brender-Wong: \u0026ldquo;Taiwan knows what it\u0026rsquo;s like to have a neighbour which doesn\u0026rsquo;t accept you exist.\u0026rdquo; The two states have a long, sometimes uncomfortable history together — Cold War \u0026ldquo;pariah\u0026rdquo; cooperation on arms and even nuclear technology — that older Taiwanese commentators are well aware of.\nA pro-Palestinian current does exist in Taiwan, but it is small and concentrated in younger left-wing civil society rather than in mainstream politics. The Taiwan Alliance for a Free Palestine (TWAFP) coordinates rallies — about 200 demonstrators marched through Taipei\u0026rsquo;s Ximending district in October 2024 — and outlets such as New Bloom Magazine cover the cause regularly. Voices in this current, including the activist Aurora Chang and the Palestinian academic Hazem Almassry at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, argue that Taiwanese should identify with Palestinians on the basis of self-determination rather than with Israel on the basis of \u0026ldquo;small democracy facing a hostile neighbour.\u0026rdquo;\nKuang herself, on her stated public positions, sits squarely with this small Taiwanese pro-Palestinian left rather than with the Taiwanese mainstream. Her invocation of BDS guidelines, her anti-colonial frame of reference, and her academic milieu (Yale East Asian Languages and Literatures) are exactly the register in which TWAFP, New Bloom and the Ximending demonstrators operate. If she had set foot in Taipei the week of the October 2024 march, that is the demonstration she would plausibly have attended.\nWhat makes the Taipei Story passage interesting is precisely that it does not read as a piece of writing produced from inside that political position. Lily picks up the programme, registers that the pianist is from Israel, registers that he is internationally distinguished, sits through the recital, and finds him personally cold. There is no commentary on his nationality, no mention of Gaza, no narrative weight placed on the fact that an Israeli is performing in Taipei at all. In purely textual terms, that is much closer to how the Taiwanese mainstream — which finds nothing remarkable about an Israeli soloist headlining the National Concert Hall — would read the scene than to how Kuang\u0026rsquo;s TWAFP-aligned political peers would frame the same encounter.\nSo the Taiwanese readership splits two ways. The English-reading, US-discourse-following activist left will likely join the BookTok boycott. The much larger mainstream reading public — for whom Israeli classical musicians touring Taipei is genuinely unremarkable, and for whom the protagonist\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;dour-faced\u0026rdquo; line will register as routine concert-goer commentary — will probably not understand what the fuss is about. Kuang\u0026rsquo;s politics align with the first group; her actual sentence aligns with the second.\nWhat the controversy actually reveals # The story is not really about R.F. Kuang. She has written a novel about a Chinese-American girl in Taipei trying to understand her grandfather, and she has populated it — as authors do — with peripheral people who exist. One of them happens to be Israeli. That this is enough to trigger pre-order cancellations and a multi-outlet news cycle says more about the boundaries the boycott constituency is now policing than it does about Kuang\u0026rsquo;s politics, which remain what they were. For Asian-American literature in particular, it raises an awkward question that the field has so far avoided: whether an Asian-American writer is now permitted to put an Israeli, of any kind, on the page at all.\nView this post on Instagram Sources: The Express Tribune, The Jewish Chronicle, HarperCollins, Global Taiwan Institute, Literary Hub, Ordinary Times.\n","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/rf-kuang-taipei-story-israeli-character-backlash/","section":"Posts","summary":"R.F. Kuang — the Chinese-American novelist behind Yellowface, Babel and the Poppy War trilogy — is facing a boycott campaign from her own readership after a leaked excerpt of her forthcoming novel Taipei Story revealed that the book contains a fleeting reference to an Israeli musician. The novel is due from HarperCollins on 8 September 2026.\n","title":"R.F. Kuang Faces Boycott Push Over Israeli Character in 'Taipei Story'","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taipei/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taipei","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taiwan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taiwan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/alpine-safety/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Alpine-Safety","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asahidake/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asahidake","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/daisetsuzan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Daisetsuzan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hiking/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hiking","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hokkaido/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hokkaido","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tevel Shabtai, a 23-year-old Israeli traveller from Modi\u0026rsquo;in, was found dead on Tuesday on the slopes of Mount Asahi (Asahi-dake) in northern Japan, ending a five-day search and rescue operation in Daisetsuzan National Park.\nMount Asahi is the highest peak on the island of Hokkaido at 2,291 metres, and sits at the heart of Daisetsuzan \u0026ndash; Japan\u0026rsquo;s largest national park and one of the most popular alpine destinations for international visitors travelling through northern Japan.\nWhat happened # Shabtai was hiking alone as part of an extended trip through Japan. According to Israel\u0026rsquo;s Kan public broadcaster and The Times of Israel, she rode the Asahidake Ropeway up to the trailhead and registered with park staff at the entrance to the nature reserve before setting off.\nHer last contact was a phone call to her mother on 1 May, in which she said she planned to climb the mountain. When she did not check in afterwards, her family alerted Israel\u0026rsquo;s embassy in Tokyo. The embassy informed Japanese police on the afternoon of 4 May, and a multi-agency search began the following morning.\nConditions on the mountain were severe throughout the operation. Temperatures ranged from 0°C to −5°C (32-41°F), with snowfall and high winds significantly hampering visibility and ground movement. The Israeli search-and-rescue company Magnus was brought in to coordinate alongside Japanese police, mountain rescue teams, volunteers and a helicopter unit. Her body was located on Tuesday morning.\nDaisetsuzan and Mount Asahi for Israeli travellers # Daisetsuzan is a year-round draw for Israeli travellers exploring Hokkaido \u0026ndash; particularly in late summer for hiking and autumn-foliage trips, and in winter for ski tourism in nearby Furano and Niseko. Mount Asahi itself is reached by the Asahidake Ropeway from the village of Asahidake Onsen, about an hour\u0026rsquo;s drive from Asahikawa city.\nEven at the height of summer the alpine zone above the ropeway is exposed and can see snow, freezing temperatures and rapid weather changes. By early May \u0026ndash; when Shabtai began her ascent \u0026ndash; the upper trails are still in full winter conditions. The official park guidance recommends crampons, ice axe and full winter alpine equipment for any climb above the ropeway in shoulder-season months, and strongly advises against solo ascents at that time of year.\nPractical guidance for Israelis travelling in Japan # The Israeli embassy in Tokyo emphasises a small number of practical steps for travellers heading into remote or alpine areas in Japan:\nRegister your itinerary. Japanese trailheads in national parks accept written registrations (tozan-todoke); fill them out, and leave a copy of your plan with someone in Israel as well. Stay in regular contact. A daily check-in with a family member or friend is the single most useful step in shortening any future search. Carry the right gear for the season, not the calendar \u0026ndash; Hokkaido alpine weather is closer to Scandinavia or the Alps than to mainland Japan. Save the embassy\u0026rsquo;s emergency line. The 24-hour duty number for Israeli citizens in Japan is published on the embassy website. The Asians in Israel community sends its condolences to Tevel Shabtai\u0026rsquo;s family and friends.\nSources # Kan News, \u0026ldquo;After 5 days of searches: Tevel Shabtai, 23-year-old Israeli traveller in Japan, found without signs of life\u0026rdquo; (Hebrew, 6 May 2026). The Times of Israel, \u0026ldquo;Israeli hiker found dead in Japan after 5-day search\u0026rdquo; (6 May 2026). Ynetnews, \u0026ldquo;Israeli hiker found dead on Japan mountain\u0026rdquo; (6 May 2026). Image: Mount Asahi (Asahi-dake) and Sugatami-no-ike, Daisetsuzan National Park, Hokkaido. Photo by 663highland, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.\n","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/israeli-hiker-tevel-shabtai-died-mount-asahi-japan/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tevel Shabtai, a 23-year-old Israeli traveller from Modi’in, was found dead on Tuesday on the slopes of Mount Asahi (Asahi-dake) in northern Japan, ending a five-day search and rescue operation in Daisetsuzan National Park.\n","title":"Israeli hiker Tevel Shabtai, 23, found dead on Hokkaido's Mount Asahi after five-day search","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israeli-embassy-japan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israeli-Embassy-Japan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israeli-travelers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israeli-Travelers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/magnus-search-rescue/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Magnus-Search-Rescue","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/modiin/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Modiin","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mount-asahi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mount-Asahi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-business/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian-Business","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/branding/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Branding","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fact-check/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fact-Check","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/food-drink/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Food-Drink","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ikigai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ikigai","type":"tags"},{"content":"Yesterday a Hebrew-language Instagram carousel by the Israeli self-help account @danielmorad_1 told its readers that \u0026ldquo;the third principle of Ikigai\u0026rdquo; is Jōnetsu — passion. The post lays out a numbered hierarchy: Spark (התלהבות רגעית, momentary excitement), Burning (מסירות, devotion), and Core (התמזגות, fusion — Flow). The framing is unmistakable: this is presented as Japanese tradition, with Japanese kanji and a numbered system attributed to the wisdom of Japan.\nIt is a falsifiable claim. Either there is a numbered Japanese system called \u0026ldquo;the principles of Ikigai\u0026rdquo; with Jōnetsu as principle three, or there isn\u0026rsquo;t. So we checked.\nWhat Ikigai is in Japanese sources # The foundational academic treatment of ikigai (生きがい) in Japanese is Ikigai-ni-tsuite (生きがいについて) by the psychiatrist Mieko Kamiya (神谷美恵子, 1914–1979), published by Misuzu Shobō in Tokyo in 1966. Kamiya developed her thinking through years of clinical work with leprosy patients at the Nagashima Aiseien Sanatorium; her book is still treated as a standard reference by Japanese researchers six decades later.\nKamiya\u0026rsquo;s ikigai is a phenomenological category: the felt sense that one\u0026rsquo;s life is worth living. It is approached through case histories, philosophical reflection, and clinical observation. There is no four-circle Venn diagram in her book. There are no \u0026ldquo;principles\u0026rdquo; of ikigai. There is no numbered hierarchy in which Jōnetsu sits at position three.\nIn everyday Japanese, the word is broader and looser than the English self-help genre allows. Children speak of their ikigai as collecting stamps. Retirees speak of their ikigai as their grandchildren. The neuroscientist Ken Mogi, whose 2017 book The Little Book of Ikigai (Quercus, 7 September 2017) is the most-translated Japanese-authored explanation aimed at Western readers, has been direct in interviews about the Western diagram: it is \u0026ldquo;completely wrong,\u0026rdquo; and ikigai in Japan is \u0026ldquo;much more flexible and tolerant\u0026rdquo; than the schematic it has become abroad.\nNotice what is not in any of this: a numbered list of principles. Not in Kamiya. Not in Mogi. Not in everyday usage.\nWhere the four-circle diagram came from # The famous Venn diagram that flooded LinkedIn, TED-style decks, and Hebrew self-help feeds — four circles labelled \u0026ldquo;what you love / what you\u0026rsquo;re good at / what the world needs / what you can be paid for,\u0026rdquo; with ikigai in the middle — is not Japanese. It was published in English on a British personal blog on 14 May 2014.\nThe author, Marc Winn, has stated explicitly what he did. He encountered Andrés Zuzunaga\u0026rsquo;s 2011 Spanish-language Venn diagram of propósito — purpose — which already had the four overlapping circles. He had also watched Dan Buettner\u0026rsquo;s TED Talk How to Live to Be 100+, which used the Japanese word ikigai in describing Okinawan longevity. So Winn took Zuzunaga\u0026rsquo;s diagram and changed one word. In his own description: \u0026ldquo;His 2011 framework mapped four intersecting elements: what you love, what you\u0026rsquo;re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. The diagram resonated with me, but its label — \u0026lsquo;Purpose\u0026rsquo; — felt limiting. In a moment of insight, I replaced \u0026lsquo;Purpose\u0026rsquo; with \u0026lsquo;Ikigai.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo;\nThat sentence is the receipt. The diagram is Spanish. The word swap is British. The implied claim \u0026ldquo;this is from Japan\u0026rdquo; is false.\nZuzunaga himself confirmed the lineage on Winn\u0026rsquo;s own blog. In an April 2017 comment on the original 2014 post, he wrote that the graphic \u0026ldquo;is copy of a spanish graphic made [by] Andrés Zuzunaga two years before (2012),\u0026rdquo; and pointed to its earlier Spanish-language publication.\nThe diagram now circulates as ancient Japanese wisdom. It is younger than Instagram.\nWhat Jōnetsu is and isn\u0026rsquo;t # The Instagram carousel does the same move at smaller scale. Jōnetsu (情熱) is a perfectly ordinary Japanese word: passion, ardour, enthusiasm. You can hear it on a baseball broadcast or read it in a job advertisement. It has no canonical role as \u0026ldquo;the third principle of Ikigai,\u0026rdquo; because there is no canonical sequence of Ikigai principles to be third in.\nThe carousel\u0026rsquo;s three-stage structure — momentary spark, sustained burning, fused core / Flow — is not from Japanese tradition either. It is a recognisable summary of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi\u0026rsquo;s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper \u0026amp; Row, 1990), with Japanese vocabulary applied on top. Csíkszentmihályi was a Hungarian-American psychologist at the University of Chicago. The Japanese word \u0026ldquo;Flow\u0026rdquo; appears in Japanese self-help precisely because it was imported from his English-language work, not the other way around.\nWhat is presented in the post as a Japanese tier system is, on inspection, a Western motivational schema with Japanese labels stuck to its three rungs.\nA reader\u0026rsquo;s test # This is the broader pattern, and the reason it matters here. Once you notice the move — invent a numbered framework, attach a Japanese word, present as ancient — you start to see it everywhere. Hebrew \u0026ldquo;Kaizen in five steps\u0026rdquo; courses sit at a great distance from the Toyota Production System literature on which the term kaizen (改善) was actually built. \u0026ldquo;The seven rules of Wabi-Sabi\u0026rdquo; lists circulate freely in English and Hebrew with no counterpart in Japanese aesthetic-philosophy sources. Pop-Mottainai bypasses the Buddhist environmental-ethics genealogy of the original.\nThe corrective is not to retreat from Japanese vocabulary, and certainly not to treat Japanese words as too sacred to use — that would be its own kind of orientalism, the inverted-flattering kind that pretends East-Asian terms carry a depth other languages lack. Words are for using.\nThe corrective is a small set of factual questions. Before trusting a piece of \u0026ldquo;Japanese wisdom\u0026rdquo; content, ask:\nIs there a Japanese-language source older than the framework being claimed? If \u0026ldquo;the three principles of Ikigai\u0026rdquo; is ancient, where in Kamiya, in Mogi, in any pre-2014 Japanese text does the trio appear? Does the source author cite that Japanese-language source — or only other English self-help books? A chain of citations that ends in 2010s Anglophone material and never reaches Japan is a tell. Can the claim be dated before 2014? The 2014 cut-off is a specific test for ikigai content because of Winn. For other concepts, find the analogous origin date. For Japanese readers, the value is recognising when one\u0026rsquo;s culture is being used as decoration. For Israeli readers interested in Asia, the value is a sharper instrument for distinguishing what was actually thought in Japan from what was thought in Britain or California and stamped with a Japanese label on the way out.\nThe fault, named precisely # The fault here is not \u0026ldquo;using Japanese words.\u0026rdquo; Words are for using, and ikigai is a real and rich word with real Japanese scholarship behind it.\nThe fault is asserting that an invented numbered system is Japanese tradition when it isn\u0026rsquo;t. Ikigai is a real Japanese word. The four-circle Venn diagram is a 14 May 2014 British blog post. \u0026ldquo;The third principle of Ikigai\u0026rdquo; is, on present evidence, neither.\nSources: Mieko Kamiya, Ikigai-ni-tsuite, Misuzu Shobō, 1966; Ken Mogi, The Little Book of Ikigai, Quercus, 2017; Marc Winn, \u0026ldquo;What Is Your Ikigai?\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;The Story Behind the Ikigai Venn Diagram\u0026rdquo;, theviewinside.me, 14 May 2014; Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper \u0026amp; Row, 1990; the triggering Instagram post by @danielmorad_1.\n","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/ikigai-made-in-britain/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday a Hebrew-language Instagram carousel by the Israeli self-help account @danielmorad_1 told its readers that “the third principle of Ikigai” is Jōnetsu — passion. The post lays out a numbered hierarchy: Spark (התלהבות רגעית, momentary excitement), Burning (מסירות, devotion), and Core (התמזגות, fusion — Flow). The framing is unmistakable: this is presented as Japanese tradition, with Japanese kanji and a numbered system attributed to the wisdom of Japan.\n","title":"Ikigai, Made in Britain","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-philosophy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese-Philosophy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kfar-saba/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kfar-Saba","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/misinformation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Misinformation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/self-help/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Self-Help","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/social-media/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Social-Media","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/suma-kfar-saba/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"SUMA","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"5 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-studies/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian-Studies","type":"tags"},{"content":" The department # Bar-Ilan University\u0026rsquo;s Department of Asian Studies is one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s main academic centres for the interdisciplinary study of Asia. Programmes span East Asia (China, Japan, Korea), South Asia (India), and Southeast Asia, combining language acquisition with history, politics, religion, and contemporary affairs.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s on offer # Languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and additional Asian languages depending on year. Tracks: undergraduate (BA) and graduate (MA) study tracks; coursework covers cultural history, political economy, and area-studies methodology. Public side: the department\u0026rsquo;s Instagram (@barilanuni_asia_studies) posts events, lectures, and current-affairs commentary that\u0026rsquo;s open to the broader community. Practical # Programme page: biu.ac.il/field-of-study/tracks/13258 University switchboard: 03-531-8000 Address: Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002 Instagram: @barilanuni_asia_studies\n","date":"5 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/bar-ilan-asia-studies/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The department # Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Asian Studies is one of Israel’s main academic centres for the interdisciplinary study of Asia. Programmes span East Asia (China, Japan, Korea), South Asia (India), and Southeast Asia, combining language acquisition with history, politics, religion, and contemporary affairs.\n","title":"Bar-Ilan University — Department of Asian Studies","type":"directory"},{"content":"Su-Shai brings Japanese sushi traditions to Tel Aviv with a focus on fresh ingredients and classic preparations. The restaurant offers an extensive menu of sushi rolls, sashimi, and traditional Japanese dishes, crafted with attention to authentic flavors and presentation.\nWith a strong delivery presence across the city, Su-Shai has become a go-to option for those seeking quality Japanese cuisine in the comfort of their homes. The menu balances familiar favorites with more adventurous options, catering to both sushi newcomers and experienced enthusiasts.\nFor Asians in Israel and sushi lovers throughout Tel Aviv, Su-Shai represents reliable Japanese dining with convenient accessibility. Their active Instagram presence showcases daily specials and seasonal offerings, keeping regulars informed about new additions to the menu.\n","date":"5 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/su-shai-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Su-Shai brings Japanese sushi traditions to Tel Aviv with a focus on fresh ingredients and classic preparations. The restaurant offers an extensive menu of sushi rolls, sashimi, and traditional Japanese dishes, crafted with attention to authentic flavors and presentation.\n","title":"Su-Shai","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"5 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/university-department/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"University-Department","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/confectionery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Confectionery","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/culinary-events/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Culinary-Events","type":"tags"},{"content":" A short Japanese pop-up in a Florentin zen garden # Koko Zen (קוקו זן), the small Japanese café tucked into a zen garden at Florentin 5 in Tel Aviv, is running a limited-time dessert pop-up with visiting Japanese confectioner Ai through May 31, 2026. Run by Japanese chef Mihoko-san, the café has built a steady queue along its sidewalk since opening, mainly for its fluffy Japanese pancakes and a menu that swings between sweet and savory.\nThe visiting chef # Ai grew up in northern Japan and moved to Israel 18 years ago. She runs Mushroom Cafe (her Instagram handle is @lovekinokokissa_ai — kinoko means mushroom in Japanese) from her home, and the Koko Zen collaboration is one of the few chances to taste her work outside that setting.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s on the special menu # For the duration of the pop-up, three items join the regular Koko Zen offering:\nMochi pancake with matcha cream — ₪59 White-chocolate sand pancake with red bean paste — ₪59 Taiyaki (fish-shaped filled pastry), two fillings — ₪20 each The standard menu — Japanese pancakes both sweet and savory, sando sandwiches, and tea-based drinks like hojicha — runs alongside.\nVisiting details # Address: Florentin 5, Tel Aviv Hours: Monday–Saturday, 11:00–20:00 Pop-up runs through: May 31, 2026 The café reopened to full hours after a brief closure during April\u0026rsquo;s security situation. Expect a queue, especially at weekends.\nSources: Walla Food, Instagram – Koko Zen\n","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/japanese-dessert-pop-up-koko-zen-tel-aviv-may-2026/","section":"Posts","summary":"A short Japanese pop-up in a Florentin zen garden # Koko Zen (קוקו זן), the small Japanese café tucked into a zen garden at Florentin 5 in Tel Aviv, is running a limited-time dessert pop-up with visiting Japanese confectioner Ai through May 31, 2026. Run by Japanese chef Mihoko-san, the café has built a steady queue along its sidewalk since opening, mainly for its fluffy Japanese pancakes and a menu that swings between sweet and savory.\n","title":"Japanese Dessert Pop-Up at Koko Zen Tel Aviv Through May","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-cafes/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese-Cafes","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-desserts/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese-Desserts","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/koko-zen/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Koko-Zen","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mihoko/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mihoko","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/wagashi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Wagashi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cafe/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cafe","type":"tags"},{"content":"Koko Zen is Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s dedicated Japanese pancake café, bringing the delicate art of soufflé-style Japanese pancakes to Israel\u0026rsquo;s culinary capital. Describing themselves as a \u0026ldquo;Japanese pancake garden,\u0026rdquo; they serve both sweet and savory versions of the iconic fluffy pancakes, including creative preparations like pancakes topped with hollandaise sauce and a soft-cooked egg. The café also specializes in traditional hojicha tea served at the highest quality standards, offering an authentic taste of Japanese tea culture.\nBeyond their core menu, Koko Zen regularly hosts pop-up collaborations with Japanese pastry chefs, such as their recent partnership with renowned Japanese confectioner @lovekinokokissa_ai, featuring limited-time traditional Japanese desserts. The café has garnered media attention and a loyal following of 9,600+ Instagram followers who appreciate their commitment to authentic Japanese café culture. They also offer a strawberry sando (Japanese fruit sandwich) that has become a customer favorite.\nFor visitors to asiansinisrael.com seeking an authentic slice of Tokyo\u0026rsquo;s café scene, Koko Zen delivers a genuine Japanese experience in a relaxed Tel Aviv setting. The café is open Monday through Saturday from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM, making it an ideal spot for weekend brunch or afternoon tea.\n","date":"4 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/koko-zen-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Koko Zen is Tel Aviv’s dedicated Japanese pancake café, bringing the delicate art of soufflé-style Japanese pancakes to Israel’s culinary capital. Describing themselves as a “Japanese pancake garden,” they serve both sweet and savory versions of the iconic fluffy pancakes, including creative preparations like pancakes topped with hollandaise sauce and a soft-cooked egg. The café also specializes in traditional hojicha tea served at the highest quality standards, offering an authentic taste of Japanese tea culture.\n","title":"Koko Zen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/child-welfare/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Child-Welfare","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/immigration-enforcement/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Immigration-Enforcement","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/iranian-operators/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Iranian-Operators","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israeli-diaspora/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israeli-Diaspora","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/koh-phangan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Koh-Phangan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/southeast-asia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Southeast-Asia","type":"tags"},{"content":" Raid on Illegal Educational Institution # On Friday, Thai security forces conducted a raid on an educational institution operating illegally on the popular island of Koh Phangan. During the raid, 89 Israeli children aged 2 to 12 were found on the premises—a number five times greater than the facility\u0026rsquo;s permitted capacity.\nThe Arki Kid School had received a license to operate a daycare center for only 18 children aged two to five. In reality, the institution functioned as a full school with a much larger student body and a wider age range.\nArrests and Charges # Three individuals were arrested during the raid: Aydin Kishipor, 45, and his wife Nadin Kishipor, an Iranian couple who ran the facility, as well as Pratomthip Yu-in, 61, a Thai citizen who worked with them.\nThe charges include operating a private educational institution without proper permits, employing foreign workers without legal work authorization, failing to report the employment of foreigners, and violating Thai child protection laws.\nIn addition to the Israeli children, 40 employees from Myanmar and 12 additional workers from other countries were found on the premises—nearly all without valid work documentation.\nBackground: Growing Israeli Settlement # The raid came following numerous complaints about foreigners operating businesses on the island without complying with legal requirements. According to estimates, approximately 2,500 Israelis now reside on Koh Phangan—a significant number that is changing the local character of the tourist island.\nIn recent years, the island has become a particularly favored destination for Israelis seeking high quality of life at low costs. The mass settlement has created tensions with the local population, especially around issues of property acquisition, business operations, and regulatory compliance.\nImplications for Israeli Families # The case highlights the challenges facing Israeli families wishing to settle in Thailand. Many parents seek educational solutions in Hebrew or English, but do not always verify the legal status of the institutions.\nImmigration experts advise families to thoroughly examine the licenses of educational institutions and ensure they operate within Thai law. Thai authorities are increasing enforcement against foreign businesses operating without proper permits.\nSource: Israel Hayom\n","date":"3 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/thai-authorities-raid-unlicensed-school-89-israeli-children-koh-phangan/","section":"Posts","summary":"Raid on Illegal Educational Institution # On Friday, Thai security forces conducted a raid on an educational institution operating illegally on the popular island of Koh Phangan. During the raid, 89 Israeli children aged 2 to 12 were found on the premises—a number five times greater than the facility’s permitted capacity.\n","title":"Thai Authorities Raid Unlicensed School Holding 89 Israeli Children","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kan-news/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kan-News","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nap-competition/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nap-Competition","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/reuters/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Reuters","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/seoul/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Seoul","type":"tags"},{"content":"Seoul hosted its third annual power nap (afternoon nap) contest this weekend at Han River Park, drawing hundreds of participants of all ages dressed in pajamas and creative sleep costumes, exhausted and eager to compete for the deepest, most peaceful sleep.\nThe timing is notable for Israeli readers: South Korea and Israel share surprising parallels as nations with mandatory military service, regional security pressures, and work cultures that prize intensity. Both countries rank among the most overworked in the OECD, with Israeli tech workers and Korean office workers alike reporting chronic sleep deprivation.\nFor the Korean community in Israel—estimated at several thousand workers, students, and residents—the contest may resonate differently. Many Korean caregivers, hotel workers, and tech professionals in Israel work demanding schedules that mirror what their compatriots face back home.\nOrganized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the contest began at 3:00 PM as participants lowered eye masks across the lawn. Judges measured participants\u0026rsquo; heart rates before and after sleeping to determine who maintained the most stable rhythm—a key indicator of deep, restorative sleep.\nThe surprising winner of the contest was an 80-year-old man, who achieved the most stable heart rate. The runner-up was Hwang Du-seong, a 37-year-old office worker, who said: \u0026ldquo;I was completely drained after many night shifts at work and frequent driving. When I saw the contest, I was determined to sleep and recharge in the river breeze, and I\u0026rsquo;m very happy to take second place.\u0026rdquo;\nParticipants stood out with creative costumes: a 20-year-old student dressed in a crimson robe of a Joseon Dynasty monarch, and a 24-year-old English teacher from Ilsan who wore a plush koala onesie hoping to \u0026ldquo;borrow a little of the koala\u0026rsquo;s magic for deep sleep.\u0026rdquo;\nThe contest highlights a chronic issue in South Korea—the country ranks among the most overworked and sleep-deprived OECD nations. Many students and workers report getting only 3-4 hours of sleep per night, relying on daytime naps at the office or university to get by.\nSeoul, a city that runs 24/7 with round-the-clock shopping malls, competitive hustle culture, and high iced Americano consumption, sees the contest as an opportunity to encourage residents to rest and prioritize their health.\nNapping Cultures: Korea vs. Israel # The nap competition highlights a stark contrast in how the two nations view daytime sleep. In South Korea, napping is deeply normalized—nearly 60% of office workers report taking regular afternoon naps, and many companies provide dedicated nap rooms or \u0026ldquo;relaxation zones.\u0026rdquo; The government\u0026rsquo;s sponsorship of a nap contest reflects a societal consensus that rest is essential for productivity, not a sign of weakness.\nIn Israel, attitudes are far more ambivalent. While tech companies like Google Israel and local startups have introduced nap pods, the broader work culture—shaped by the dugri ethos of constant activity—often stigmatizes daytime sleep. A 2024 survey found only 12% of Israeli workers take regular naps, with most citing fear of being perceived as lazy. The Israeli comments on the Korean contest (\u0026ldquo;Does he have a pulse?\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Let him come to Israel, we\u0026rsquo;ll toughen him up\u0026rdquo;) reflect this underlying skepticism: napping is often framed as unproductive, even comical.\nFor the Korean community in Israel, this cultural gap is tangible. Korean caregivers working 24/7 shifts, or students balancing part-time jobs, often find themselves caught between their home culture\u0026rsquo;s acceptance of napping and Israel\u0026rsquo;s expectation of non-stop hustle. As one Korean expat in Tel Aviv told us: \u0026ldquo;In Seoul, taking a 20-minute nap after lunch is normal. Here, if I nap during my break, my colleagues joke that I\u0026rsquo;m \u0026rsquo;turning Korean again.'\u0026rdquo;\nWhat This Means for Asians in Israel # The viral video and its Israeli comment section reveal a cultural gap that affects Asian communities living in Israel daily. Korean students at Israeli universities, Thai workers in construction and caregiving, and Chinese professionals in the tech sector all navigate between their home cultures\u0026rsquo; emotional norms and Israeli expectations of toughness.\nWhen an Israeli comments \u0026ldquo;let him come to Israel, we\u0026rsquo;ll toughen him up\u0026rdquo; on a video of a crying Korean bus driver (see our previous article), or mocks an 80-year-old Korean man\u0026rsquo;s tearful victory in a nap contest, it reflects the same cultural lens. For Asians in Israel, adapting often means learning not just Hebrew, but also the dugri culture of emotional restraint.\nThe nap contest also highlights workplace pressures familiar to many in Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian community. Korean caregivers working 24/7 shifts, Thai construction workers facing dangerous conditions, and Filipino nurses in understaffed hospitals—all experience the exhaustion that drove hundreds to compete for a prize for sleeping.\nIsraeli Audience Reactions # The post by Kan News garnered hundreds of reactions from Israeli followers, ranging from humorous to curious:\n\u0026ldquo;Go compete\u0026rdquo; - a playful encouragement to join the contest \u0026ldquo;Does he have a pulse?\u0026rdquo; - a humorous jab about the elderly winner \u0026ldquo;No parents of small children were found among the participants\u0026rdquo; - a wry observation about the contest demographic \u0026ldquo;Enough already, this is a competition? They sleep max 8 hours and much less during the day!\u0026rdquo; - a critical take on the sleep duration \u0026ldquo;My dream\u0026hellip; literally\u0026rdquo; - a pun on the Hebrew word \u0026ldquo;חלום\u0026rdquo; (dream, both sleep dream and aspiration) \u0026ldquo;I can sleep for three days\u0026rdquo; - a relatable comment from a sleep-deprived follower View this post on Instagram Source: Kan News | Photo: Reuters | Additional credit: The Straits Times\n","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/korea-nap-competition/","section":"Posts","summary":"Seoul hosted its third annual power nap (afternoon nap) contest this weekend at Han River Park, drawing hundreds of participants of all ages dressed in pajamas and creative sleep costumes, exhausted and eager to compete for the deepest, most peaceful sleep.\n","title":"Seoul Nap Competition: 80-Year-Old Man Wins Annual Sleep Contest","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sleep-deprivation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sleep-Deprivation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/south-korea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"South-Korea","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/work-culture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Work-Culture","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/children/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Children","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/illegal-school/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Illegal-School","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/iran/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Iran","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israelis-abroad/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israelis-Abroad","type":"tags"},{"content":"Thai security forces raided an illegal school operating on the popular tourist island of Koh Phangan on Friday, May 2, 2026, discovering 89 Israeli children aged 2 to 12 on the premises — nearly five times the number permitted by the school\u0026rsquo;s license.\nRaid at Arki Kid School # The operation took place at 12:30 PM at the Arki Kid School, which was officially licensed to operate only as a daycare center for 18 children aged 2 to 5. Instead, authorities found 89 Israeli children, along with 40 workers from Myanmar and 12 employees from various other countries.\nThe school was operated by an Iranian couple — Aydin Kishipur and Nadine Kishipur, both 45 — and a 61-year-old Thai woman, Prathomthip Yoo-in. All three were arrested and face multiple charges including operating an educational institution without a permit, employing foreigners without work permits, failing to report foreign employees, and violating child protection laws.\nGrowing Israeli Presence on Koh Phangan # The raid follows complaints about foreigners operating businesses that may pose risks to national security. In recent years, Koh Phangan has become an increasingly popular destination for Israelis. According to estimates, approximately 2,500 Israelis have settled on the island, creating local tensions and repeated complaints about property acquisitions and businesses operating without proper legal compliance.\nThe Israeli presence on Thai islands, particularly Koh Phangan and neighboring Koh Samui, has grown significantly since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023. Many Israeli reservists and young adults have extended their stays, with some establishing permanent residences and businesses.\nBroader Context # This incident highlights the challenges Thai authorities face in regulating the growing expatriate communities on its islands. The presence of Iranian nationals managing facilities catering to Israeli children also raises security concerns, given the tense relations between Israel and Iran.\nThai-Israeli relations have generally been warm, with approximately 25,000 Thai workers in Israel and many Israelis visiting Thailand annually. However, incidents involving Israeli tourists and residents have occasionally strained local relations, including recent concerns about behavioral issues among war-weary reservists vacationing in Thailand.\nThe three suspects remain in custody as Thai authorities continue their investigation into what they describe as a threat to national security and child welfare.\nSource: Israel Hayom\n","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/05/koh-phangan-israeli-school-raid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thai security forces raided an illegal school operating on the popular tourist island of Koh Phangan on Friday, May 2, 2026, discovering 89 Israeli children aged 2 to 12 on the premises — nearly five times the number permitted by the school’s license.\n","title":"Thai Authorities Raid Illegal School on Koh Phangan, Find 89 Israeli Children","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"2 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tourism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tourism","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cultural-exchange/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cultural-Exchange","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sake/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sake","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/student-club/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Student-Club","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/university/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"University","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bat-yam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bat-Yam","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/netanya/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Netanya","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cultural-differences/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cultural-Differences","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/emotional-expression/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Emotional-Expression","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/masculinity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Masculinity","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mumbai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mumbai","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/public-transport/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Public-Transport","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/street-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Street-Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/viral-video/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Viral-Video","type":"tags"},{"content":"On April 24, a bus driver on route BL38 in New Taipei City slumped over his steering wheel and sobbed. A female passenger had accused him of skipping her stop. He insisted she never pressed the stop bell. The argument escalated until the driver, overwhelmed, broke down: \u0026ldquo;Why are you bullying the driver?! You clearly didn\u0026rsquo;t press it\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;\nThe two-minute video, filmed by a fellow passenger, went viral across Asia within days. By the time Kan News shared it on Instagram on April 29, it had already been covered by CNN, Channel News Asia, and dozens of outlets from Singapore to Nigeria. It racked up 273,000 plays on Kan\u0026rsquo;s page alone.\nBut what made the video truly interesting for our purposes was not what happened on that bus in Taipei. It was what happened in the comments underneath the Israeli broadcast.\nWhat Actually Happened # The facts are straightforward. The passenger swiped her EasyCard (Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s transit card) but did not press the stop bell — two separate actions that many passengers confuse. The driver tried to explain: \u0026ldquo;Auntie, you swiped the card — you didn\u0026rsquo;t press the stop bell. How would I know you wanted to get off?\u0026rdquo; He asked another passenger to demonstrate by pressing the bell, and when the chime sounded, pointed out the difference.\nThe woman pushed back: \u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t need to be so loud, you\u0026rsquo;re scaring me.\u0026rdquo; The driver stood up and asked the bus: \u0026ldquo;Who was the one talking loudly just now?\u0026rdquo; He threatened to call the police, then declared: \u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t bully the driver! The driver has heart disease!\u0026rdquo; The woman shot back: \u0026ldquo;I also have heart disease — I had surgery!\u0026rdquo;\nEventually other passengers intervened. The woman softened: \u0026ldquo;Okay, sorry, sorry\u0026hellip; I did press it, but it didn\u0026rsquo;t light up.\u0026rdquo; But by then, the driver had reached his breaking point. He slumped forward and wept audibly.\nThen he dried his tears, drove to the next stop, and let her off.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s Response: Empathy, Critique, and a Policy Shift # The Taiwanese public reaction was largely sympathetic but not uncritical.\nThe dominant sentiment treated the driver\u0026rsquo;s breakdown as a symptom of systemic pressure. One widely shared comment captured it: \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s not losing control of emotions — it\u0026rsquo;s pressure overflowing. Rear-view mirror, road conditions, bus stops, passenger safety — everything has to be monitored simultaneously. Some breakdowns aren\u0026rsquo;t sudden; they\u0026rsquo;ve been building for a long time.\u0026rdquo;\nFellow bus drivers chimed in with solidarity and dark humor. One wrote: \u0026ldquo;When I encounter passengers who didn\u0026rsquo;t press the bell wanting to get off, the one crying is the passenger. You take a week off, rest well.\u0026rdquo;\nBut there were critical voices too. The New Taipei Transportation Bureau director said publicly that \u0026ldquo;both sides should reflect,\u0026rdquo; a diplomatic acknowledgment that the driver\u0026rsquo;s reaction, while understandable, was also not ideal. Some online commenters called the breakdown \u0026ldquo;melodramatic.\u0026rdquo; Others were more cynical, reading it as strategically effective: \u0026ldquo;This driver has high IQ — that\u0026rsquo;s exactly how you should do it.\u0026rdquo; In this reading, the tears were a power move, not a genuine collapse.\nThe safety dimension was not lost on Taiwanese commenters either. Some cited the 2018 Chongqing bus disaster, where a driver-passenger fight sent a bus off a bridge, killing fifteen people. A crying driver is still a driver who is not watching the road.\nThe incident also coincided with another viral bus video from the same week — a Taoyuan bus driver who chased a student down the street after being insulted, abandoning his passengers. Two drivers, two breaking points, two very different responses: one turned inward, the other outward.\nOfficially, the response was substantive. San Chung Bus Company granted the driver paid leave and psychological counseling. The company chairman promised to personally give him a red envelope (a cash gift of encouragement) upon his return. Kaohsiung\u0026rsquo;s transportation department went further, announcing that starting May 1, it would deploy massage therapists to fourteen bus stations to give drivers free stress-relief sessions — an unusual policy response to a viral video.\nThe most revealing official comment came from the Taipei Bus Joint Management Committee, whose executive director identified the single greatest pressure on drivers: not traffic, not passengers, not long hours, but \u0026ldquo;passengers going online to publicly try the driver.\u0026rdquo; The fear of being filmed, posted, and judged without context — the very mechanism that made this video go viral in the first place.\nThe Israeli Comment Section # When Kan News posted the video, the Israeli response was immediate and revealing. The comments clustered around several themes, all of which tell us more about Israeli self-image than about Taiwan.\n\u0026ldquo;Let him come to Israel, we\u0026rsquo;ll toughen him up\u0026rdquo; — This was the most common register: patronizing, half-joking, framing Israeli harshness as a kind of gift. \u0026ldquo;He needs retraining in Israel,\u0026rdquo; wrote one commenter. The implication: emotional resilience is something Israel has and Taiwan lacks, and exposure to Israeli reality would fix the driver\u0026rsquo;s softness.\n\u0026ldquo;In Israel he\u0026rsquo;d get stabbed / a sandal to the face\u0026rdquo; — Multiple commenters competed to describe the violence an Israeli bus driver would face — or inflict — in the same situation. \u0026ldquo;Poor guy, in Israel he\u0026rsquo;d get stabbed.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;In Israel he\u0026rsquo;d get a sandal to the face to man up.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;If he were a driver in Israel, he\u0026rsquo;d probably close the doors on her head the moment she got off.\u0026rdquo; These comments oscillate between sympathy and boastfulness, presenting Israeli aggression as both a problem and a point of pride.\n\u0026ldquo;You can see there are no wars there\u0026rdquo; — The classic Israeli framework: the only reason someone would cry over a bus stop argument is because they have no real problems. Wars, rockets, and existential threats are the calibration point. Anything below that threshold is trivial. This comment dismisses the driver\u0026rsquo;s distress while simultaneously asserting Israeli toughness as battle-tested.\n\u0026ldquo;So gay\u0026rdquo; — The most concise and revealing comment. Two words that equate a man\u0026rsquo;s tears with homosexuality, which is itself treated as a slur. A man who cries publicly is not just weak — he is unmale. This comment received no pushback in the thread.\nWhat the Gap Reveals # The contrast between the two comment sections is not just about tone. It reflects fundamentally different assumptions about what emotional expression means.\nIn the Taiwanese discourse, the driver\u0026rsquo;s tears were treated as evidence — of working conditions, of systemic pressure, of what happens when emotional labor has no outlet. The conversation moved quickly from the individual to the structural: driver shortages (Taiwan is short nearly 2,000 bus drivers), low pay, the impossibility of the job. The tears were a data point.\nIn the Israeli discourse, the tears were treated as a character trait — specifically, a deficiency. The conversation never moved to working conditions. Nobody asked what Israeli bus drivers endure. Instead, the comments performed a kind of national self-portrait: we are tougher, harder, more real. We would never cry. We might stab someone, but we would never cry.\nThis maps onto well-documented patterns in Israeli sociolinguistics. The dugri (דוגרי) speech culture — directness as a moral virtue, emotional restraint as strength, vulnerability as liability — runs deep. Sociologist Tamar Katriel\u0026rsquo;s research on dugri speech describes it as a communicative style where straight talk is coded as authenticity, and emotional display is coded as manipulation or weakness. The bus driver\u0026rsquo;s tears, in this framework, are not a signal of distress but of failure — a failure to be tough enough.\nThe gendered dimension is equally stark. In Taiwanese public discourse, the driver\u0026rsquo;s crying prompted discussions about workplace mental health. In the Israeli comments, it prompted discussions about masculinity. The tears were immediately sexualized (\u0026ldquo;so gay\u0026rdquo;) or treated as a deficit requiring correction (\u0026ldquo;a sandal to the face to man up\u0026rdquo;). The Hebrew word lehit\u0026rsquo;ashet (להתעשת) — to toughen up, to pull yourself together — carries an explicitly masculine charge. It is what men are supposed to do instead of crying.\nThere is also a peculiar self-awareness in the Israeli comments that makes them more than simple machismo. \u0026ldquo;Hahaha, this is hilarious, let him come to Israel — we\u0026rsquo;ll toughen him up\u0026rdquo; is not entirely serious. Many of these commenters know that Israeli bus culture is dysfunctional. The humor is self-deprecating: we are the ones who are broken, not him. But even the self-deprecation reinforces the norm — it frames dysfunction as identity, aggression as culture, emotional suppression as national character.\nTwo Mirrors # A man cried on a bus. In Taiwan, a country grappling with labor shortages and the mental health costs of frontline work, the video became a policy conversation. Massage therapists were dispatched to bus stations. Paid leave was granted. Structural causes were named.\nIn Israel, the same video became a mirror. What Israelis saw in it was not a Taiwanese bus driver — it was themselves, reflected back through what they are not. Not soft. Not tearful. Not unscathed enough to cry about a bus stop.\nBoth reflections are partial. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s empathetic consensus papers over the commenters who called the driver melodramatic, and the structural critique can become its own kind of deflection — blaming the system instead of asking whether the driver handled it well. Israel\u0026rsquo;s self-deprecating machismo contains a genuine insight about living under pressure that most of the world does not understand, even as it forecloses any space for vulnerability.\nBut the gap between the two is real, and it matters for anyone living between these cultures. For the Asian communities in Israel — Thai workers driving delivery routes, Japanese professionals navigating office dynamics, Chinese students adjusting to Israeli directness — the gap is not abstract. It is the distance between the norms they were raised with and the norms they are expected to perform every day.\nSources: Kan News Instagram, Mothership.SG, The Online Citizen, MustShareNews, CTWANT, Newtalk, UDN\n","date":"30 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/taiwan-bus-driver-tears-israeli-masculinity/","section":"Posts","summary":"On April 24, a bus driver on route BL38 in New Taipei City slumped over his steering wheel and sobbed. A female passenger had accused him of skipping her stop. He insisted she never pressed the stop bell. The argument escalated until the driver, overwhelmed, broke down: “Why are you bullying the driver?! You clearly didn’t press it…”\n","title":"When a Taiwanese Bus Driver Cried, Israeli Comments Said More About Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nightlife/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nightlife","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/safety/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Safety","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/scams/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Scams","type":"tags"},{"content":"Japan consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world for travelers, but several Western governments are now warning tourists about a disturbing pattern in Tokyo\u0026rsquo;s entertainment districts: visitors lured into bars by street touts are having their drinks spiked and waking up with massive credit card charges.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s Happening # The scam follows a well-established pattern. Friendly English-speaking touts approach foreign tourists on the street — particularly in areas like Kabukicho, Roppongi, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro — and invite them into bars, sometimes with promises of free drinks or champagne. Once inside, the victims\u0026rsquo; drinks are spiked with sedatives. They lose consciousness or memory of the evening, only to discover later that thousands of dollars have been charged to their credit cards, or withdrawn from their bank accounts.\nOne British tourist described their experience: \u0026ldquo;They offered me to come into a bar and drink champagne — the next thing I remember is sitting on the subway, not knowing where I am or how I got there, with £6,000 charged to my credit card.\u0026rdquo;\nWhich Governments Are Warning # The issue has become serious enough that multiple Western governments have issued formal travel advisories:\nUnited Kingdom: The FCDO warns of \u0026ldquo;increased reports of drink spiking and credit card fraud\u0026rdquo; in Tokyo entertainment districts, with losses \u0026ldquo;ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds.\u0026rdquo; United States: The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has issued specific warnings about drink spiking in Roppongi. Canada: Travel advisories include warnings about bar scams in Tokyo nightlife areas. Australia: Similar warnings about spiked drinks and credit card fraud in entertainment districts. Tokyo Metropolitan Police have also stepped up warnings, particularly targeting areas around Kabukicho in Shinjuku, where touts actively approach foreign tourists.\nHigh-Risk Areas # The districts most frequently mentioned in warnings and tourist reports:\nKabukicho (Shinjuku) — Tokyo\u0026rsquo;s largest entertainment district, heavy tout presence Roppongi — Popular with foreign visitors, long history of drink-spiking reports Shibuya — Growing number of incidents reported Ikebukuro — Increasing tout activity targeting tourists Similar scams have also been reported in entertainment districts in Osaka.\nHow to Stay Safe # Authorities recommend several precautions for tourists visiting Tokyo\u0026rsquo;s nightlife:\nNever follow street touts into bars or clubs, no matter how friendly they seem Always check menus with prices before ordering anything Never leave your drink unattended Go out with trusted companions rather than alone Use reputable, well-reviewed establishments — check reviews on Google Maps or Tabelog before visiting If something feels wrong, leave immediately and contact the police (dial 110) Perspective # It\u0026rsquo;s important to stress that Japan remains one of the world\u0026rsquo;s safest destinations. The country\u0026rsquo;s overall crime rate is extremely low, and millions of tourists visit each year without any issues. These scams are concentrated in specific nightlife areas and primarily target tourists who are approached by street touts. By simply avoiding tout-led establishments and exercising standard nightlife precautions, travelers can enjoy Tokyo\u0026rsquo;s vibrant entertainment scene safely.\nFor Israeli travelers — who have been visiting Japan in record numbers — awareness of these localized risks is especially relevant as Japan continues to grow as one of the most popular destinations from Israel.\nSource: Ynet\n","date":"29 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/tokyo-nightlife-drink-spiking-scam-warning/","section":"Posts","summary":"Japan consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world for travelers, but several Western governments are now warning tourists about a disturbing pattern in Tokyo’s entertainment districts: visitors lured into bars by street touts are having their drinks spiked and waking up with massive credit card charges.\n","title":"Travel Warning: Drink-Spiking Scams Targeting Tourists in Tokyo Nightlife Districts","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/travel-warning/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Travel-Warning","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"28 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/gyoza/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Gyoza","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"28 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jewish-community/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jewish-Community","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"28 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/torah-study/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Torah-Study","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bar","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cocktails/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cocktails","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/butoh/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Butoh","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/culture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Culture","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tea-ceremony/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tea-Ceremony","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/zen/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Zen","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tour-guide/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tour-Guide","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sigenergy is a fast-growing Chinese energy technology company specializing in solar PV inverters and energy storage systems for residential and commercial \u0026amp; industrial (C\u0026amp;I) applications. The company is actively expanding its operations in the Israeli renewable energy market.\nSigenergy is hiring an Account Manager (Israel) to drive sales growth and build strong customer relationships across the Israeli market. Your focus will be on identifying new business opportunities, fostering long-term partnerships, and expanding Sigenergy\u0026rsquo;s market presence through local distributor and EPC installer networks.\nKey Responsibilities # Conduct market research and analysis to stay ahead of industry trends, competitors, and customer demands within the energy storage sector Develop and execute sales strategies based on market insights, focusing on lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention Establish and strengthen local distributor and EPC installer networks to drive product distribution and market expansion Actively develop new sales channels and partnerships to ensure continuous business growth Manage and grow relationships with existing and upcoming distributors and installers Lead sales negotiations and contract processes, ensuring alignment with company goals and revenue targets Provide market insights, sales reports, and customer feedback to management Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in Business Administration, Electrical Engineering, Renewable Energy, or a related field; Master\u0026rsquo;s degree preferred Over 5 years of sales experience in the solar PV or battery energy storage system industry, with in-depth knowledge of the residential and C\u0026amp;I energy storage market in Israel Proven experience in B2B sales, account management, or business development in the renewable energy industry Strong understanding of the Israeli energy market and its key players Demonstrated experience in channel sales, distributor management, and EPC installer engagement Self-motivated and target-driven, with the ability to work both independently and collaboratively Fluency in Hebrew and English; Chinese is a plus Willingness to travel within Israel as needed How to Apply # Apply through the Sigenergy careers page or search for \u0026ldquo;Account Manager Israel\u0026rdquo; on LinkedIn Sigenergy jobs.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/account-manager-sigenergy/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Sigenergy is a fast-growing Chinese energy technology company specializing in solar PV inverters and energy storage systems for residential and commercial \u0026 industrial (C\u0026I) applications. The company is actively expanding its operations in the Israeli renewable energy market.\n","title":"Account Manager (Israel) at Sigenergy","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/accounting/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Accounting","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel and Thailand maintain a bilateral government agreement for the recruitment of Thai workers in the agriculture and construction sectors. The program has been expanded significantly in recent years, reflecting the high demand for Thai workers and the strong diplomatic relationship between the two countries.\nCurrent Quotas # The Israeli government has expanded its quota to a total of 21,500 Thai workers:\n13,000 positions in agriculture — working on farms, orchards, greenhouses, and dairy operations across Israel 8,500 positions in construction — supporting Israel\u0026rsquo;s building and infrastructure projects The program is also expanding into additional sectors, including supermarkets, garages, and factories, opening new employment opportunities for Thai workers.\nVisa and Duration # Workers enter Israel on a B-1 work visa, which is renewable for a total stay of up to 63 months (5 years and 3 months). The visa is tied to a specific employer and sector, though transfers between approved employers within the same sector are possible under certain conditions.\nRecruitment Process # Recruitment is conducted exclusively through licensed Thai recruitment agencies approved by the Thai Ministry of Labour. This government-to-government framework is designed to prevent exploitation and ensure fair working conditions.\nImportant: Workers should never pay excessive recruitment fees. The bilateral agreement sets caps on what agencies may charge. Be wary of unlicensed brokers.\nHow to Apply # Contact the Thai Embassy Labour Office in Israel for current information and a list of approved recruitment agencies: israel.mol.go.th/en/info/labor-information Apply through a licensed Thai recruitment agency in Thailand Complete any required training and medical examinations Obtain your B-1 visa through the Israeli consulate in Bangkok Working Conditions # Salary range: approximately $1,500–$2,500 per month, depending on sector, experience, and overtime Employers are required to provide health insurance coverage Workers are entitled to protections under Israeli labor law, including minimum wage, rest days, and paid holidays Accommodation is typically provided by the employer in the agriculture sector Key Resources # Thai Embassy Labour Office in Israel — official information on labor rights and recruitment Thai Embassy in Tel Aviv: +972-3-613-1270 PIBA (Population and Immigration Authority) hotline: *3450 For questions about this program, contact Asians in Israel or reach out to the Thai Embassy Labour Office directly.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/thai-workers-israel-2026/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Israel and Thailand maintain a bilateral government agreement for the recruitment of Thai workers in the agriculture and construction sectors. The program has been expanded significantly in recent years, reflecting the high demand for Thai workers and the strong diplomatic relationship between the two countries.\n","title":"Agricultural \u0026 Construction Workers - Israel-Thailand Program","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/agriculture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Agriculture","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/agrochemical/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Agrochemical","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/automotive/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Automotive","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/compliance/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Compliance","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/construction/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Construction","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cybersecurity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cybersecurity","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/energy-storage/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Energy Storage","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/engineering/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Engineering","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/filipino/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Filipino","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/finance/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Finance","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sungrow is a global leader in renewable energy technology, with over 870 GW of clean power installed worldwide. Founded in 1997, the company is the world\u0026rsquo;s largest inverter manufacturer and offers PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications.\nSungrow Israel is looking for a Finance Business Partner to join its dynamic finance team in Petah Tikva. This role is essential in ensuring accuracy and compliance in financial reporting while contributing to operational efficiency and supporting financial decision-making across the organization.\nResponsibilities # Financial Reporting \u0026amp; Validation: Manage monthly closings, prepare financial statements, and reconcile accounts to ensure accuracy Accounts Management: Support accounts receivable and accounts payable processes Auditing \u0026amp; Compliance: Work with external auditors and tax consultants Daily Finance Operations: Review and monitor payments of suppliers and employee reimbursement, and address finance-related queries Business Partnering: Work closely with sales and operations teams to support financial decision-making Budget Management: Lead internal budget control processes, variance analysis, and business insights Forecasting \u0026amp; Planning: Support financial forecasts and performance monitoring Ad-Hoc Projects: Participate in various finance-related projects as needed Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in Accounting is a must; Certified Accountant (CPA) is an advantage 4-5 years of mandatory accounting experience CPA experience with a Big 4 firm is a strong advantage Comprehensive understanding of IFRS and financial reporting standards Proficient in Microsoft Excel; familiarity with ERP systems (e.g., SAP) is an advantage Fluent in English (written and spoken) Knowledge of Mandarin Chinese is a plus Meticulous, responsible, and patient with daily operational tasks Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with tight deadlines Why Sungrow Israel? # Industry Leadership: Be part of a company driving the future of renewable energy Exceptional Work Environment: Collaborate with top professionals in a supportive and dynamic culture Excellent Terms and Conditions: Competitive compensation packages and outstanding benefits Growth Opportunities: Career development, skill-building, and support to help you succeed International Exposure: Multinational team with European and global collaboration Training: Technical and commercial training at headquarters in Germany and R\u0026amp;D facility in China How to Apply # Apply via Sungrow\u0026rsquo;s careers page or visit the Sungrow Israel careers hub.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/finance-business-partner-sungrow/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Sungrow is a global leader in renewable energy technology, with over 870 GW of clean power installed worldwide. Founded in 1997, the company is the world’s largest inverter manufacturer and offers PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications.\n","title":"Finance Business Partner - Sungrow","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fintech/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fintech","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/garin-tzabar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Garin-Tzabar","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/government-program/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Government Program","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/herzliya/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Herzliya","type":"tags"},{"content":"Filipino caregivers are a vital part of Israel\u0026rsquo;s eldercare system. Approximately 30,000 Filipinos currently work in caregiving roles in Israel, comprising roughly one-third of the country\u0026rsquo;s formal caregiving workforce. Recruitment is ongoing through the bilateral government-to-government program between Israel and the Philippines.\nThe Role # Home-based caregivers provide daily living assistance to elderly and disabled Israelis in their own homes. Duties typically include:\nPersonal care (bathing, dressing, grooming) Meal preparation and feeding assistance Medication reminders and basic health monitoring Light housekeeping and laundry Companionship and emotional support Accompanying the care recipient to appointments and errands Overnight care as needed Caregivers live in the home of the person they care for (live-in arrangement), with designated rest hours and a weekly day off.\nRequirements # TESDA NC II Certificate in Caregiving — a 760-hour training program accredited by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority of the Philippines. This certification is mandatory for deployment to Israel. Valid Philippine passport Good physical health (medical exam required) Basic English communication skills No criminal record Age: typically 23–50 years old Recruitment Process # Recruitment is conducted through the government-to-government (G2G) program and POEA-licensed recruitment agencies. The process typically involves:\nRegister with a POEA-licensed recruitment agency or through the government program Complete TESDA NC II certification (if not already certified) Pass medical examinations at an accredited clinic Attend the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS) Obtain your Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC) from POEA Visa processing through the Israeli consulate in Manila Deployment to Israel Important: Use only POEA-licensed agencies. Check the agency\u0026rsquo;s status on the POEA website. Never pay excessive placement fees — the Philippine government regulates what agencies may charge.\nCompensation and Benefits # Salary: approximately $1,500 per month (varies based on care needs and location) Free accommodation (live-in with the care recipient) Health insurance provided by the employer One day off per week Paid holidays according to Israeli labor law Overtime pay for hours beyond the standard workweek Annual flight ticket to the Philippines (in many contracts) Key Resources # iSavta — Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest caregiver job platform, connecting caregivers with families POEA Jobs — Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, for verifying licensed agencies and job orders Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv: +972-3-613-5020 OWWA (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration) hotline: 1348 (from the Philippines) Rights and Protections # Filipino caregivers in Israel are protected under Israeli labor law and are entitled to:\nMinimum wage Rest hours and a weekly day off Health insurance Protection against abuse or exploitation Access to the Philippine Embassy for consular assistance The right to change employers under certain conditions (with PIBA approval) For questions about this program, contact Asians in Israel or reach out to the Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/filipino-caregivers-israel-2026/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Filipino caregivers are a vital part of Israel’s eldercare system. Approximately 30,000 Filipinos currently work in caregiving roles in Israel, comprising roughly one-third of the country’s formal caregiving workforce. Recruitment is ongoing through the bilateral government-to-government program between Israel and the Philippines.\n","title":"Home-Based Caregivers - Israel-Philippines Program","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hong-kong/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hong-Kong","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/idf/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Idf","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/independence-day/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Independence-Day","type":"tags"},{"content":"Bitsight is a cyber risk management leader transforming how companies manage exposure, performance, and risk for themselves and their third parties. The company, which acquired Cybersixgill (formerly Sixgill Ltd.), serves over 3,000 customers worldwide with its integrated cybersecurity solutions. With over 750 team members across Boston, Raleigh, New York, Lisbon, Singapore, and remote locations, Bitsight pioneered the cyber ratings industry in 2011.\nBitsight is hiring a Intel Collection Analyst for a remote position based in Israel. This is a unique role that bridges the gap between deep-web investigation and product innovation, involving hunting for new intelligence sources across the dark web and messaging platforms.\nProficiency in Chinese or Russian is a major advantage for this role, given the nature of the underground platforms and threat actor communities being investigated.\nKey Responsibilities # Targeted Source Discovery: Identify and gain access to high-value underground forums, markets, and decentralized messaging platforms (Telegram, Session, etc.) Product Research \u0026amp; Logic: Act as the subject matter expert for the Product team. Research how new threat actor platforms work and define the collection logic needed for engineers to build automated \u0026ldquo;spiders\u0026rdquo; and crawlers Operational Excellence: Monitor the health of existing collection streams, identify when a source has changed its structure, and provide the technical requirements to restore data flow Data Integrity: Validate the quality and authenticity of data breaches and credential leaks before they are integrated into Bitsight\u0026rsquo;s platform Competitive Intelligence: Research emerging collection technologies and competitor gaps to ensure Bitsight\u0026rsquo;s intelligence remains unique and high-impact Requirements # 2+ years in cyber security threat intelligence, OSINT, or military intelligence units Strong technical aptitude: you don\u0026rsquo;t need to be a coder, but you must understand how data is moved online Ability to translate \u0026ldquo;hacker\u0026rdquo; behavior into structured technical requirements for Product and R\u0026amp;D teams Fluent English Proficiency in Chinese or Russian is a major advantage Culture \u0026amp; Benefits # Bitsight is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. The company puts its people first with best-in-class benefits, a supportive culture, and opportunities for professional growth and skill expansion.\nHow to Apply # Apply via the Bitsight careers page.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/intel-collection-analyst-bitsight/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Bitsight is a cyber risk management leader transforming how companies manage exposure, performance, and risk for themselves and their third parties. The company, which acquired Cybersixgill (formerly Sixgill Ltd.), serves over 3,000 customers worldwide with its integrated cybersecurity solutions. With over 750 team members across Boston, Raleigh, New York, Lisbon, Singapore, and remote locations, Bitsight pioneered the cyber ratings industry in 2011.\n","title":"Intel Collection Analyst - Bitsight","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/intelligence/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Intelligence","type":"tags"},{"content":"KELA Cyber, a leading cyber threat intelligence company headquartered in Tel Aviv, is looking for a Japanese-speaking Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst. This role combines hands-on threat research with account management for KELA\u0026rsquo;s Japanese clients.\nAbout KELA Cyber # KELA is a cyber threat intelligence company that monitors the dark web, underground forums, and other threat actor ecosystems. With offices in Tel Aviv, Tokyo, London, New York, and San Francisco, KELA serves organizations worldwide with actionable intelligence on cybercrime, fraud, vulnerability exposure, and brand threats. The company\u0026rsquo;s platform includes modules for digital CTI, threat actor profiling, identity protection, and third-party risk management.\nKELA has a strong presence in the Japanese market, with a dedicated Tokyo office and a Japanese-language version of their website — reflecting the depth of their commitment to Japanese clients.\nThe Role # As a Japanese Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst, you will conduct threat research targeting the Japanese market and act as a trusted advisor to KELA\u0026rsquo;s Japanese-speaking clients. This is a unique position that bridges cybersecurity expertise with Japanese language and cultural competency.\nKey Responsibilities # Conduct cyber threat intelligence research focused on threats relevant to Japanese organizations Monitor dark web forums, marketplaces, and threat actor activity for Japanese-targeted threats Produce intelligence reports and briefings in both Japanese and English Manage relationships with Japanese client accounts, providing tailored threat intelligence Deliver presentations and threat briefings to Japanese-speaking stakeholders Collaborate with KELA\u0026rsquo;s research and product teams to enhance coverage of the Japanese threat landscape Stay current on trends in cybercrime, nation-state threats, and emerging attack vectors affecting the Japanese market Requirements # Native or near-native Japanese — professional written and spoken fluency Strong English — professional working proficiency Background in cybersecurity, intelligence analysis, or information security Understanding of the cyber threat landscape and dark web ecosystems Strong analytical and research skills Excellent communication and presentation abilities Ability to work independently and manage client relationships Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in a relevant field (cybersecurity, computer science, international relations, or similar) Nice to Have # Experience in threat intelligence or SOC/CERT environments Knowledge of OSINT tools and methodologies Familiarity with the Japanese cybersecurity regulatory environment Experience working with Japanese enterprise clients Hebrew language skills Why KELA # Work at the cutting edge of cyber threat intelligence Join a diverse, international team with offices worldwide Tel Aviv headquarters with a stunning rooftop deck Daily happy hours, music lessons, and a fully stocked kitchen Direct impact on protecting organizations from cyber threats How to Apply # Visit KELA Cyber\u0026rsquo;s careers page to see open positions and apply, or contact Asians in Israel for more information.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/japanese-threat-intel-analyst-kela/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"KELA Cyber, a leading cyber threat intelligence company headquartered in Tel Aviv, is looking for a Japanese-speaking Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst. This role combines hands-on threat research with account management for KELA’s Japanese clients.\n","title":"Japanese Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jobs/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jobs","type":"tags"},{"content":"Zota, a global payment technology company specializing in cross-border payment solutions for emerging markets, is hiring a Junior Risk Team Representative at their Tel Aviv office.\nAbout Zota # Zota operates a marketplace for payments, offering over 1,000 payment methods across Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, MENA, China, Latin America, CIS, and Europe. The company provides payment gateway and technology solutions, international credit card and crypto processing, and global fraud prevention services.\nThe Role # As a Junior Risk Team Representative, you will be part of the team responsible for monitoring and managing payment risk, fraud detection, and compliance across Zota\u0026rsquo;s global merchant network.\nKey Responsibilities # Monitor transactions and identify potentially fraudulent activity Analyze risk patterns across multiple payment methods and regions Assist with KYC/KYB processes and compliance checks Prepare risk assessment reports Collaborate with the payments and customer success teams Respond to risk-related inquiries from merchants Requirements # Excellent English (written and spoken) Strong analytical skills and attention to detail Ability to work in a fast-paced environment Interest in fintech, payments, and risk management Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree or equivalent experience Nice to Have # Native-level Chinese, Japanese, or Korean language skills Experience in payments, fintech, or financial services Knowledge of fraud detection tools and methodologies How to Apply # Visit Zota\u0026rsquo;s careers page to submit your application, or contact Asians in Israel for more information.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/junior-risk-team-rep-zota/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Zota, a global payment technology company specializing in cross-border payment solutions for emerging markets, is hiring a Junior Risk Team Representative at their Tel Aviv office.\nAbout Zota # Zota operates a marketplace for payments, offering over 1,000 payment methods across Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, MENA, China, Latin America, CIS, and Europe. The company provides payment gateway and technology solutions, international credit card and crypto processing, and global fraud prevention services.\n","title":"Junior Risk Team Representative","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/legal/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Legal","type":"tags"},{"content":"ADAMA is one of the world\u0026rsquo;s leading crop protection companies, headquartered at Airport City near Tel Aviv. The company is publicly listed in China (Shenzhen Stock Exchange) and has publicly traded debt in Israel, making it part of a unique cross-border corporate structure. ADAMA is a subsidiary of Syngenta Group, itself owned by ChemChina (now Sinochem).\nADAMA is looking for a Legal Counsel to join its global legal team. The role offers a hybrid work model and a strong focus on corporate and governance matters, alongside meaningful exposure to commercial and business-oriented legal work. This position provides hands-on experience in a dynamic international environment, combining classic corporate responsibilities with close collaboration with business units and commercial teams.\nKey Responsibilities # Act as a key legal partner to the Boards of Directors and Committees, including preparation, review, and ongoing governance support Advise internal stakeholders in Israel and globally on corporate, governance, and financing matters Shape and implement global corporate governance policies and practices Support and monitor compliance with Israeli and Chinese securities and corporate law requirements Prepare, review, and coordinate filings and disclosures with the Israeli and Chinese stock exchanges Provide day-to-day legal support to business teams on commercial and cross-functional matters Requirements # Certified Israeli lawyer 4-6 years of experience in corporate, capital markets, or corporate secretarial work Proven experience in corporate and securities law for publicly traded companies Hands-on experience in preparing periodic and immediate reports, and managing ongoing compliance with securities regulations Experience preparing materials for Board of Directors and Committee meetings Strong analytical skills with a practical and solution-oriented mindset Full professional fluency in English and Hebrew, written and spoken Business mindset and financial understanding \u0026ndash; an advantage Experience working with global or industrial companies \u0026ndash; an advantage Comfortable using approved AI tools in legal work How to Apply # Apply through the ADAMA LinkedIn job listing or visit the ADAMA careers page.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/legal-counsel-adama/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"ADAMA is one of the world’s leading crop protection companies, headquartered at Airport City near Tel Aviv. The company is publicly listed in China (Shenzhen Stock Exchange) and has publicly traded debt in Israel, making it part of a unique cross-border corporate structure. ADAMA is a subsidiary of Syngenta Group, itself owned by ChemChina (now Sinochem).\n","title":"Legal Counsel at ADAMA Ltd.","type":"jobs"},{"content":"A 20-year-old IDF corporal who relocated from Hong Kong to Israel at age 16 will be among 120 soldiers honored with the President\u0026rsquo;s Excellence Award during this year\u0026rsquo;s Independence Day ceremony. She is one of seven lone soldiers from the Tzofim Garin Tzabar program selected for the prestigious recognition.\nFrom Hong Kong to the IDF # Cpl. T. first immigrated to Israel at 18 through the Naale youth immigration program, after having moved from Hong Kong two years earlier. Her mother is Israeli, and the family made regular visits to the country throughout her childhood. She now serves in the Etzion Regional Brigade in the West Bank.\nThe October 7 attack deepened the family\u0026rsquo;s connection to Israel — her younger sister also made the move following the events of that day.\n\u0026ldquo;Being named a President\u0026rsquo;s Outstanding Soldier is greater than the dream I fulfilled by moving here,\u0026rdquo; Cpl. T. said. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s an honor that\u0026rsquo;s hard to describe.\u0026rdquo;\nGarin Tzabar: Lone Soldiers Making Their Mark # The President\u0026rsquo;s Excellence Award recognizes exceptional service members across the IDF. Among this year\u0026rsquo;s 120 honorees, seven arrived in Israel through the Tzofim Garin Tzabar program, which helps young Jews from around the world immigrate and enlist in the military without immediate family in the country.\nAnother honoree, Cpl. S., age 24, immigrated from Moscow roughly two years ago and serves in the military courts. He holds a bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree and is currently studying law while completing Israel Bar Association certification exams. \u0026ldquo;True excellence is taking care of people and always being on the giving side,\u0026rdquo; he said.\nAdditional honorees include an officer cadet who abandoned university studies in the United States after October 7 to serve in international relations, a training officer, and a soldier who left American studies behind to serve in a tank unit.\nA Growing Trend # The stories of these lone soldiers reflect a broader pattern of young people from across the globe choosing to build their lives in Israel through military service. Programs like Garin Tzabar and Naale continue to serve as critical bridges for young immigrants navigating the transition from their home countries to Israeli society.\nFor the Hong Kong community in Israel, Cpl. T.\u0026rsquo;s recognition is a point of pride — a testament to the contributions that members of Asia\u0026rsquo;s diverse diaspora are making to Israeli society.\nSource: Ynet News\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/hong-kong-lone-soldier-presidents-excellence-award/","section":"Posts","summary":"A 20-year-old IDF corporal who relocated from Hong Kong to Israel at age 16 will be among 120 soldiers honored with the President’s Excellence Award during this year’s Independence Day ceremony. She is one of seven lone soldiers from the Tzofim Garin Tzabar program selected for the prestigious recognition.\n","title":"Lone Soldier from Hong Kong Among President's Excellence Award Honorees","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lone-soldiers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lone-Soldiers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mobile-marketing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mobile Marketing","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/naale/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Naale","type":"tags"},{"content":"AppsFlyer is a global leader in mobile attribution and marketing analytics, helping brands measure and optimize their marketing campaigns across every platform. Headquartered in Herzliya, the company serves thousands of clients worldwide and is recognized as a trusted measurement partner by major tech platforms.\nAppsFlyer is hiring a Partner Development Manager - Mandarin Speaker to act as the strategic liaison between AppsFlyer and its most influential ecosystem partnerships, including media partners and OEMs. You will develop and execute partnership strategies that drive mutual business growth and innovation.\nKey Responsibilities # Build strategies together with top partners to drive success Develop comprehensive knowledge of each partner\u0026rsquo;s business, exploring their specific challenges and opportunities Map stakeholders and navigate the partner\u0026rsquo;s organization in pursuit of shared goals Advocate for and enhance the adoption of AppsFlyer products among mutual customers Identify opportunities for collaboration, such as joint marketing initiatives and shared R\u0026amp;D Leverage strong internal communication to ensure company-wide buy-in for partnership initiatives Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in Business, Marketing, Technology, or related field (or equivalent experience) 5+ years in Partner Management, Strategic Alliances, or Business Development in the tech industry Proven success managing high-impact partnerships independently Experience working with global partners and cross-regional teams Fluency in English and Mandarin Chinese (written and spoken) is required Knowledge of additional Chinese dialects (e.g., Cantonese) is a plus How to Apply # Apply directly through the AppsFlyer LinkedIn job listing or visit the AppsFlyer careers page.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/partner-development-manager-appsflyer/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"AppsFlyer is a global leader in mobile attribution and marketing analytics, helping brands measure and optimize their marketing campaigns across every platform. Headquartered in Herzliya, the company serves thousands of clients worldwide and is recognized as a trusted measurement partner by major tech platforms.\n","title":"Partner Development Manager - Mandarin Speaker at AppsFlyer","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/partnerships/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Partnerships","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/payments/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Payments","type":"tags"},{"content":"Looking to hire someone from the Asian community in Israel? Post your job here and reach the right candidates directly — no WhatsApp noise, no anonymous forwards.\nWhy Post Here? # Targeted Reach # Asians in Israel is the only multilingual job board specifically for the Asian community in Israel. Your listing reaches Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Filipino professionals and workers who are actively looking for opportunities.\nCredibility # Every listing includes the company name, role details, and how to apply. Candidates trust verified job postings over anonymous messages circulating in chat groups.\nMultilingual # Your job will be posted in English, Hebrew, and the relevant community language — whether that is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, or Vietnamese. Candidates can read the listing in their own language, which means more qualified applicants who fully understand the role.\nSEO # Each job posting is a permanent, indexed page on our website. Candidates find your listing through Google when they search for jobs in Israel in their language. A WhatsApp message disappears in minutes; your listing here keeps working for weeks.\nFree # There is no cost to post a job. We want to connect employers with the right talent and help community members find meaningful work.\nWhat We Need From You # To create your listing, please provide:\nJob title and a brief description of the role Company name (and website, if available) Location (city, remote, or hybrid) Language requirements (which languages the candidate must speak) How to apply (email address, application URL, or other instructions) Any other relevant details: salary range, working hours, visa sponsorship, etc. We will write the listing, translate it into the appropriate languages, and publish it within 1-2 business days.\nSubmit Your Job # Fill out the form below and we will be in touch.\nName Email Job details (title, company, requirements, how to apply) Submit Job ","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/post-a-job/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"Looking to hire someone from the Asian community in Israel? Post your job here and reach the right candidates directly — no WhatsApp noise, no anonymous forwards.\nWhy Post Here? # Targeted Reach # Asians in Israel is the only multilingual job board specifically for the Asian community in Israel. Your listing reaches Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Filipino professionals and workers who are actively looking for opportunities.\n","title":"Post a Job","type":"page"},{"content":"SOFAR (Shenzhen SOFARSOLAR Co., Ltd.), founded in 2013, is a Chinese high-tech enterprise integrating R\u0026amp;D, manufacturing, sales, and marketing of solar energy products. Their core product range covers grid-tied inverters (1kW-255KW), hybrid inverters (3-20KW), and multiple green power storage solutions. With R\u0026amp;D centers in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Wuhan, SOFAR\u0026rsquo;s products are sold in more than 80 regions worldwide, and the company has been recognized as a TOP 5 string inverter brand in China and received the \u0026ldquo;TOP Brand PV Inverter\u0026rdquo; award from EUPD in multiple countries.\nSOFAR is hiring a Presales Engineer to support its fast-growing business in Israel, focusing on commercial \u0026amp; industrial (C\u0026amp;I) solar and energy storage solutions.\nKey Responsibilities # Provide technical presales support to local distributors and partners Deliver product training and technical presentations on inverters and ESS Support solution design for C\u0026amp;I projects Assist in project bidding, proposals, and system configuration Work closely with sales and after-sales teams to drive business growth Requirements # Based in Israel with valid work authorization Experience in the solar PV / energy storage industry Solid background in C\u0026amp;I projects and channel/distributor support Presales or after-sales experience is highly preferred Strong communication skills in Hebrew and English How to Apply # Apply through the SOFAR LinkedIn job listing.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/presales-engineer-sofar/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"SOFAR (Shenzhen SOFARSOLAR Co., Ltd.), founded in 2013, is a Chinese high-tech enterprise integrating R\u0026D, manufacturing, sales, and marketing of solar energy products. Their core product range covers grid-tied inverters (1kW-255KW), hybrid inverters (3-20KW), and multiple green power storage solutions. With R\u0026D centers in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Wuhan, SOFAR’s products are sold in more than 80 regions worldwide, and the company has been recognized as a TOP 5 string inverter brand in China and received the “TOP Brand PV Inverter” award from EUPD in multiple countries.\n","title":"Presales Engineer at SOFAR","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/presidents-excellence-award/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Presidents-Excellence-Award","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sungrow is a global leader in renewable energy technology, specializing in PV inverters and energy storage systems. Founded in 1997 by Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow has become the world\u0026rsquo;s largest inverter manufacturer with over 870 GW of clean power installed worldwide. The company\u0026rsquo;s mission is \u0026ldquo;Clean Power for All.\u0026rdquo;\nSungrow Israel is looking for a PV Technical Sales Engineer to join its team in Petah Tikva. This role combines technical pre-sales expertise with product management responsibilities for Sungrow\u0026rsquo;s photovoltaic product line in the Israeli market.\nResponsibilities # Conduct technical pre-sales meetings with customers to understand requirements and generate solution proposals based on Sungrow\u0026rsquo;s products Obtain all required product certifications by working with Sungrow HQ and local offices (SII, IEC, etc.) Support tender documentation and provide frequent follow-up with customers on a technical level Deliver product presentations and manage technical documentation for dedicated products Convince customers to choose Sungrow products from technical, commercial, and service perspectives Work closely with EPCs, IPPs, investors, and distributors Benchmark Sungrow products against competition Attend national and international fairs and conferences Travel regularly throughout Israel with occasional trips to Europe and China headquarters Provide regular forecasts, reports, and market research Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in electrical engineering (power electronics) or a comparable qualification At least 2 years of experience in technical product management, technical support, or project management, preferably in the renewables energy industry (solar, ESS, inverters, EPC) Strong technical understanding of inverter products and/or energy storage systems in utility and C\u0026amp;I segments Commercial sales knowledge is an advantage Excellent communication skills in English (written and spoken) - mandatory Chinese language skills are a plus Excellent interpersonal and communication skills Proficiency in MS Office and CRM software Willingness to travel domestically and internationally Hands-on approach with a can-do mentality What Sungrow Offers # Opportunities for career advancement Bonus payments based on KPI agreements A multinational team with European and international collaboration Technical and commercial training at headquarters in Germany and R\u0026amp;D facility in China A dynamic workplace in the growing solar energy sector How to Apply # Apply via Sungrow\u0026rsquo;s careers page or visit the Sungrow Israel careers hub.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/pv-technical-sales-engineer-sungrow/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Sungrow is a global leader in renewable energy technology, specializing in PV inverters and energy storage systems. Founded in 1997 by Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow has become the world’s largest inverter manufacturer with over 870 GW of clean power installed worldwide. The company’s mission is “Clean Power for All.”\n","title":"PV Technical Sales Engineer - Sungrow","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/remote/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Remote","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/renewable-energy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Renewable Energy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/risk/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Risk","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sales/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sales","type":"tags"},{"content":"Trinasolar is one of the world\u0026rsquo;s leading providers of solar energy solutions, specializing in photovoltaic modules, energy storage systems, and smart energy management. Founded in 1997 in Changzhou, China, the company has grown into a global powerhouse in the renewable energy industry with operations across the world.\nTrinasolar is hiring a Sales Manager for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) based in Israel. This is an exciting opportunity for professionals with a background in energy storage or renewable energy sales to join a company at the forefront of the global clean energy transition.\nKey Responsibilities # Develop and manage sales of battery energy storage solutions in the Israeli market Build and maintain relationships with key clients, including EPCs, IPPs, utilities, and project developers Identify new business opportunities and drive revenue growth for BESS products Provide technical and commercial support throughout the sales cycle Collaborate with headquarters and regional teams on product positioning and market strategy Monitor market trends, competitor activities, and regulatory developments in Israel\u0026rsquo;s energy storage sector Prepare sales forecasts, reports, and market analysis Represent Trinasolar at industry events, conferences, and trade fairs Requirements # Minimum of 5 years of sales experience in the energy storage or renewable energy industry Strong understanding of battery energy storage systems and the broader renewable energy landscape Proven track record of achieving sales targets and building client relationships Excellent communication and negotiation skills Fluency in Chinese and English is required Knowledge of the Israeli energy market is an advantage Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in engineering, business, or a related field Willingness to travel domestically and internationally How to Apply # Apply via the Trinasolar LinkedIn posting or visit the Trinasolar careers page.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/sales-manager-bess-trinasolar/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Trinasolar is one of the world’s leading providers of solar energy solutions, specializing in photovoltaic modules, energy storage systems, and smart energy management. Founded in 1997 in Changzhou, China, the company has grown into a global powerhouse in the renewable energy industry with operations across the world.\n","title":"Sales Manager (BESS) - Trinasolar","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/solar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Solar","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sigenergy is a fast-growing Chinese energy technology company specializing in solar PV and energy storage systems (ESS) for residential, commercial \u0026amp; industrial (C\u0026amp;I), and utility-scale applications. The company is expanding its presence in the Israeli renewable energy market.\nSigenergy is hiring a Solution Manager for its Israeli operations. In this role, you will drive the success of Sigenergy\u0026rsquo;s product portfolio in the Israeli market by providing technical expertise, solution design, and consultative support to customers and partners. You will also play a key role in training and knowledge transfer within the local market.\nKey Responsibilities # Design PV solar \u0026amp; ESS solutions tailored to utility-scale, C\u0026amp;I, and residential project requirements in Israel Provide end-to-end technical expertise during pre-sales discussions, including system sizing, configuration, optimization, and compliance with Israeli grid codes Collaborate with HQ product and R\u0026amp;D teams to align customer requirements with product roadmaps Act as a trusted technical advisor for local customers, installers, EPCs, distributors, and utility stakeholders Organize and deliver technical training sessions for employees, customers, and partners Monitor solution adoption and performance in the Israeli market Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree or deep experience in Electrical Engineering, Renewable Energy, or a related field At least 3 years of practical working experience in the solar power and energy storage industry, with proven experience in the Israeli market Strong technical knowledge of PV solar \u0026amp; ESS systems Proven experience in technical consulting, solution selling, and customer/partner enablement Proficiency in relevant software tools (e.g., PVsyst, AutoCAD, MS Office) Fluent in Hebrew and English; Mandarin Chinese is a strong plus Willingness to travel domestically across Israel and internationally How to Apply # Apply through the Sigenergy LinkedIn job listing or visit the Sigenergy careers page.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/solution-manager-sigenergy/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Sigenergy is a fast-growing Chinese energy technology company specializing in solar PV and energy storage systems (ESS) for residential, commercial \u0026 industrial (C\u0026I), and utility-scale applications. The company is expanding its presence in the Israeli renewable energy market.\n","title":"Solution Manager at Sigenergy","type":"jobs"},{"content":"Sungrow is a world-class technology provider specializing in PV inverters and energy storage equipment for residential, commercial \u0026amp; industrial, and utility-scale applications. Founded in 1997, the company is one of the world\u0026rsquo;s leading manufacturers of PV inverters and is growing rapidly across Europe and the Middle East.\nSungrow Israel is hiring a Technical Sales Manager for Energy Storage Systems (ESS) based in Hod HaSharon. The role involves managing and developing energy storage customers across Israel, combining technical pre-sales expertise with strategic market development.\nKey Responsibilities # Manage and develop energy storage customers in Israel regarding ESS products Provide pre-sales support and technical/commercial alignment with clients (EPCs, system integrators, investors, technical advisors) Identify market potential in Israel and align the product portfolio with Sungrow HQ in China Convince customers to adopt Sungrow products from technical, commercial, and service perspectives Attend national and international fairs and conferences Conduct frequent benchmarking of Sungrow products against competition (commercially and technically) Provide periodic sales forecasts, reports, and market research Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in electrical engineering, electrical \u0026amp; electronic engineering, or a comparable qualification. A business degree with affinity to energy/engineering is also acceptable Technical understanding of energy storage systems in the utility and C\u0026amp;I segment with commercial sales knowledge Project management skills in an international environment with stakeholders across the globe Excellent communication skills in English and Hebrew Chinese language skills are a plus At least 3 years of experience in technical sales, business development, or project management. Prior experience at an energy storage company is a significant advantage Proficiency in MS Office and CRM software Willingness to travel domestically and internationally on a regular basis Personal Attributes # Self-motivated and performance driven Excellent interpersonal and communication skills Strong problem-solving ability Proactive, dynamic, and customer oriented What Sungrow Offers # A dynamic workplace in the solar sector An international team and environment Competitive salary above average An attractive bonus package Opportunities for career advancement Technical and commercial training in Germany and at the R\u0026amp;D facility in China How to Apply # Visit the Sungrow Israel careers page or search for the position on LinkedIn.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/technical-sales-manager-ess-sungrow/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Sungrow is a world-class technology provider specializing in PV inverters and energy storage equipment for residential, commercial \u0026 industrial, and utility-scale applications. Founded in 1997, the company is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of PV inverters and is growing rapidly across Europe and the Middle East.\n","title":"Technical Sales Manager - ESS - Sungrow","type":"jobs"},{"content":"UBIQUITY SERVICE is hiring a Test Engineer for their automotive division in Tel Aviv. This role requires fluency in both Chinese and English and focuses on quality assurance testing for automotive technology systems.\nAbout UBIQUITY SERVICE # UBIQUITY SERVICE is a technology services company providing engineering and testing solutions for the automotive industry. The company works with leading automotive manufacturers and technology providers on next-generation vehicle systems.\nThe Role # As a Test Engineer in the automotive division, you will be responsible for planning, executing, and reporting on tests for automotive systems and components. The role involves close collaboration with Chinese-speaking development teams and stakeholders.\nKey Responsibilities # Plan and execute test cases for automotive systems and software Develop and maintain test documentation and procedures Identify, document, and track software defects Collaborate with development teams to resolve issues Participate in test planning and review meetings Communicate test results and status updates to stakeholders in both Chinese and English Contribute to continuous improvement of testing processes Requirements # Fluent Chinese (Mandarin) — reading, writing, and speaking Strong English — professional working proficiency Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field Experience in software testing or quality assurance Understanding of testing methodologies and best practices Familiarity with automotive standards and protocols is a plus Experience with test automation tools is an advantage Strong analytical and problem-solving skills Attention to detail and ability to work independently How to Apply # Apply directly through UBIQUITY SERVICE\u0026rsquo;s job board or contact Asians in Israel for more information.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/test-engineer-automotive-ubiquity/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"UBIQUITY SERVICE is hiring a Test Engineer for their automotive division in Tel Aviv. This role requires fluency in both Chinese and English and focuses on quality assurance testing for automotive technology systems.\n","title":"Test Engineer (Automotive) - Chinese Speaker","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/testing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Testing","type":"tags"},{"content":"A 21-year-old Chinese foreign national was arrested in Herzliya on Saturday after he bit a police officer\u0026rsquo;s hand while resisting arrest during a routine traffic enforcement operation. Officers from the Glilot police station spotted the suspect riding an electric bicycle without a license plate in downtown Herzliya and committing additional traffic violations. When officers approached to check his details, the suspect attempted to flee the scene.\nDuring the ensuing arrest, the suspect bit one of the officers on the hand, causing an injury that required medical treatment. The suspect was taken into custody for questioning and subsequently jailed. A court hearing extended his detention until April 27, 2026, according to a report by Emess News.\nThe incident took place as part of a broader enforcement campaign by the Yarkon district police targeting micromobility violations across the region. Over the past week alone, officers issued 95 traffic tickets to electric vehicle riders and confiscated 49 vehicles as part of the crackdown, Ynet reported.\nIsrael Police stated that enforcement operations will continue in city centers across the district to reduce accidents involving electric vehicles. The police also emphasized a zero-tolerance policy toward violence directed at officers carrying out their duties.\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/chinese-citizen-arrested-herzliya-biting-police/","section":"Posts","summary":"A 21-year-old Chinese foreign national was arrested in Herzliya on Saturday after he bit a police officer’s hand while resisting arrest during a routine traffic enforcement operation. Officers from the Glilot police station spotted the suspect riding an electric bicycle without a license plate in downtown Herzliya and committing additional traffic violations. When officers approached to check his details, the suspect attempted to flee the scene.\n","title":"Chinese Citizen Arrested in Herzliya After Biting Police Officer During E-Bike Stop","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/electric-bikes/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Electric-Bikes","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/micromobility/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Micromobility","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/police/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Police","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/island-hopping/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Island-Hopping","type":"tags"},{"content":" The service # Tourismo Filipino is an Israeli-owned travel agency based in Manila (Makati), operating since 2010 under a Philippine Department of Tourism license. The agency specializes in custom Philippines trips for Israelis: private tours, organized group tours (12\u0026ndash;17 days), jeep safaris, island-hopping, honeymoon packages, family trips, and day tours. Destinations cover Palawan, Boracay, Bohol, Cebu, Banaue, and dozens more islands across the archipelago. Hebrew-speaking support is available throughout every trip.\nPractical # Website: טוריסמו-פיליפינו.com Phone: 03-912-2233 Email: info@tourismo-filipino.com Instagram: @philippine.trips.il Facebook: פיליפינים - טוריסמו פיליפינו\n","date":"26 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tourismo-filipino/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The service # Tourismo Filipino is an Israeli-owned travel agency based in Manila (Makati), operating since 2010 under a Philippine Department of Tourism license. The agency specializes in custom Philippines trips for Israelis: private tours, organized group tours (12–17 days), jeep safaris, island-hopping, honeymoon packages, family trips, and day tours. Destinations cover Palawan, Boracay, Bohol, Cebu, Banaue, and dozens more islands across the archipelago. Hebrew-speaking support is available throughout every trip.\n","title":"Tourismo Filipino","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bakery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bakery","type":"tags"},{"content":"Batal Saranga is 22 years old, speaks three languages, and carries two national identities. Born and raised on the Thai island of Koh Samui to Israeli parents, she navigates daily life at the crossroads of Thai and Israeli culture — a living bridge between two worlds that rarely overlap.\nFrom Honeymoon to a New Life # Batal\u0026rsquo;s story begins with her parents, who lived in central Israel before traveling to Thailand 27 years ago for their honeymoon. They fell in love with the slower pace of life, the beautiful beaches, and the warmth of what\u0026rsquo;s often called the \u0026ldquo;Land of Smiles\u0026rdquo; — and decided to stay.\n\u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s much less pressure in Thailand, beautiful landscapes and beaches,\u0026rdquo; Batal told mako. A year after settling, her parents opened one of the first Israeli restaurants on the island, recognizing the growing demand from Israeli tourists. That restaurant operated successfully for many years until 2019.\nGenesis Bakery: Kosher Baking in Koh Samui # Today the family runs Genesis Bakery, a kosher bakery located near the Chabad House in Koh Samui. Batal spends most of her mornings there, where the family bakes everything fresh — baguettes, croissants, pitas, and rolls — alongside homemade cheeses and jams, all kosher.\nThe bakery serves both local residents and the steady stream of Israeli tourists who pass through the island, offering a taste of home thousands of kilometers from Israel.\nThree Languages, Three Worlds # Growing up between cultures gave Batal fluency in three languages, each serving a different purpose. She uses Hebrew at work and when speaking with family or visiting Israelis. English is for her international social life and social media. Thai is her everyday language — how she communicates with local friends and coworkers.\n\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a language that\u0026rsquo;s part of me thanks to my family,\u0026rdquo; she says of Hebrew. The trilingual juggling act reflects the broader reality of her life: constantly switching between cultural contexts without fully belonging to just one.\n\u0026ldquo;I See Myself as Both Thai and Israeli\u0026rdquo; # Despite never having lived in Israel, Batal identifies strongly with her Jewish and Israeli heritage. \u0026ldquo;At home we celebrated Jewish holidays, but outside there were Thai celebrations,\u0026rdquo; she explains. \u0026ldquo;As a daughter of Israeli parents, I absolutely see myself as part of the Jewish people.\u0026rdquo;\nShe has visited Israel twice so far and is planning a third trip. Her impressions capture the contrasts that many Israelis take for granted. She was struck by the high cost of living, the constant honking on the roads, and the general sense of pressure — things that feel foreign to someone raised on a tropical island.\nBut she also experienced deeply meaningful moments. \u0026ldquo;When I was in Israel during Yom Kippur, I was incredibly moved to see how everything stops for one day — everyone sitting and playing in the streets, people pausing their entire lives for 24 hours.\u0026rdquo;\nSurprise on Both Sides # Batal\u0026rsquo;s dual identity consistently surprises people. Thai locals who don\u0026rsquo;t know her are shocked when she speaks, since she looks Thai but sounds Israeli. When she adds that she\u0026rsquo;s also Israeli, their surprise doubles — though always in a positive way.\nFrom the Israeli side, tourists can\u0026rsquo;t believe that this Thai-looking young woman is also one of them. \u0026ldquo;They always get excited when I speak Hebrew,\u0026rdquo; she says.\nA Message to Israeli Tourists # Batal has a request for Israelis visiting Thailand: \u0026ldquo;Be respectful. Don\u0026rsquo;t shout in public places. Ask for things politely.\u0026rdquo; She notes that Thai locals generally love Israelis and the feeling is mutual, but cultural differences need to be respected.\nShe also has a culinary recommendation: step beyond the default pad thai. She suggests trying Larb Gai — a spicy minced chicken salad that\u0026rsquo;s one of Thailand\u0026rsquo;s most popular and classic dishes but often overlooked by tourists. She also recommends Yam Mamuang, a spicy mango salad that works as a tangy-hot side dish. \u0026ldquo;People get addicted to it easily,\u0026rdquo; she says.\nSource: mako\n","date":"25 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/batal-saranga-israeli-thai-identity-koh-samui/","section":"Posts","summary":"Batal Saranga is 22 years old, speaks three languages, and carries two national identities. Born and raised on the Thai island of Koh Samui to Israeli parents, she navigates daily life at the crossroads of Thai and Israeli culture — a living bridge between two worlds that rarely overlap.\n","title":"Between Two Worlds: The Israeli Woman Who Grew Up in Koh Samui","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chabad/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chabad","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/identity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Identity","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/koh-samui/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Koh-Samui","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thai-israeli/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thai-Israeli","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chef-experience/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chef-Experience","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/private-dining/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Private-Dining","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/recruitment/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Recruitment","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/services/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Services","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nof-hagalil/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nof-Hagalil","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/northeast-india/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Northeast-India","type":"tags"},{"content":"Around 240 immigrants from the Bnei Menashe community in northeast India landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday night as part of Operation \u0026ldquo;Wings of Dawn\u0026rdquo; — a historic initiative to complete the community\u0026rsquo;s immigration to Israel. This was the first of three flights expected over the next two weeks, carrying a total of roughly 600 new immigrants.\nWho Are the Bnei Menashe? # The Bnei Menashe are a Jewish community living in the states of Mizoram and Manipur in northeast India, near the borders of Myanmar and Bangladesh. Community members belong to the Chin, Kuki, and Mizo peoples, and identify as descendants of the tribe of Manasseh — one of the ten tribes exiled from the Kingdom of Israel during the Assyrian conquest in 721 BCE.\nThe community\u0026rsquo;s Jewish awakening began in the 1950s, when a tribal leader reported a dream revealing the Land of Israel as his people\u0026rsquo;s ancestral homeland. From the 1980s onward, community members began making their way to Israel with the help of Israeli rabbis. In 2005, then-Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar formally recognized the Bnei Menashe as a lost tribe, paving the way for organized immigration. All community members undergo Orthodox conversion upon arrival in Israel.\nOperation Wings of Dawn # The operation follows a government decision from November 2025, initiated by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer, and Finance Minister Smotrich. It is jointly managed by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and the Jewish Agency for Israel, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, the Conversion Authority, the Population and Immigration Authority, and other agencies.\nUnder the plan, around 1,200 community members are expected to arrive by the end of 2026, with an additional 4,800 to follow by 2030. In total, Operation Wings of Dawn will bring approximately 6,000 immigrants, completing the Bnei Menashe community\u0026rsquo;s aliyah. Over the past two decades, some 4,000 community members have already made the journey under previous government programs, with the most recent arrivals landing in 2020.\nSettling in Northern Israel # The immigrants on the first flight — dozens of young families — will be absorbed at immigration centers in Nof HaGalil and Kiryat Yam, where they will reunite with family members who arrived in earlier waves.\nImmigration Minister Ofir Sofer said: \u0026ldquo;We are making history as we bring the entire Bnei Menashe community to Israel. There is no more fitting or moving time to welcome a plane full of immigrants than right after the country\u0026rsquo;s 78th Independence Day.\u0026rdquo;\nJewish Agency Chairman Major General (res.) Doron Almog added: \u0026ldquo;Aliyah is the growth engine of the State of Israel, and every new immigrant is a lighthouse of hope. The Bnei Menashe community brings with it unconditional love for the State of Israel.\u0026rdquo;\nPhoto: Maxim Dinshtein for the Jewish Agency for Israel\nSources: The Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel\n","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/operation-wings-of-dawn-bnei-menashe-aliyah/","section":"Posts","summary":"Around 240 immigrants from the Bnei Menashe community in northeast India landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday night as part of Operation “Wings of Dawn” — a historic initiative to complete the community’s immigration to Israel. This was the first of three flights expected over the next two weeks, carrying a total of roughly 600 new immigrants.\n","title":"Operation Wings of Dawn: Bnei Menashe Immigrants From India Begin Coming Home","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ceramics/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ceramics","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/design/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Design","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/handmade/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Handmade","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/or-yehuda/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Or-Yehuda","type":"tags"},{"content":" The studio # Studio Kawamura is a Japanese-style ceramics studio founded by designer Mai Kawamura (舞 קאוומורה), working from her own workshop in Or Yehuda. Every piece is hand-made — plates, bowls, tea and sake ware, serving platters, and seasonal holiday sets — drawing on Japanese form and glaze traditions while being designed for the way Israelis actually cook and host.\nAlongside the online shop, the studio offers custom commissions for private homes, chefs, and restaurants, plus collaborations with Israeli food and design brands. Finished pieces ship across Israel (free shipping above ₪299); most items are made to order with up to ~14 business days of lead time.\nWorkshops # The studio runs hands-on ceramics workshops for small groups and private events — introductions to hand-building, wheel throwing, and Japanese glaze techniques. Details and upcoming dates are listed on kawamura.co.il/workshops.\nWho runs it # Mai Kawamura is a Japanese-Israeli ceramic designer whose practice sits at the intersection of food, ceramics, and hosting. The bilingual bio (Hebrew + Japanese) and the recurring motif of Israeli–Japanese fusion run through the brand\u0026rsquo;s Instagram presence, where the studio has built a community of roughly 13k followers.\nPractical # Address: HaOren 6, Or Yehuda Website: kawamura.co.il Phone / WhatsApp: 055-266-8328 Instagram: @maikawamura Facebook: MaiKawamura.il Hours: Sun–Thu 09:00–16:00 · Fri \u0026amp; holiday eves 09:00–13:00 · Sat closed\n","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/studio-kawamura/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The studio # Studio Kawamura is a Japanese-style ceramics studio founded by designer Mai Kawamura (舞 קאוומורה), working from her own workshop in Or Yehuda. Every piece is hand-made — plates, bowls, tea and sake ware, serving platters, and seasonal holiday sets — drawing on Japanese form and glaze traditions while being designed for the way Israelis actually cook and host.\n","title":"Studio Kawamura","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/workshops/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Workshops","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/aesthetic-medicine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Aesthetic-Medicine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/k-beauty/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"K-Beauty","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/polynucleotides/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Polynucleotides","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rejuran/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rejuran","type":"tags"},{"content":"Rejuran, the salmon-DNA polynucleotide injectable made by Seoul-based Pharma Research, officially reached Israeli clinics in September 2025. What stands out is not that another K-beauty product arrived — several have — but how uniformly every tier of the Israeli rollout leans on one word: Korean.\nOne importer, one positioning # The sole Israeli distributor is Omegamedix, which runs a dedicated landing page at rejuran.omegamedix.co.il and an Instagram account, @rejuran.israel. The landing page\u0026rsquo;s header reads:\nREJURAN — הפולינוקליאוטיד המקורי מקוריאה (\u0026ldquo;REJURAN — the original polynucleotide from Korea\u0026rdquo;)\nBelow it: \u0026ldquo;ask your doctor for only this one\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;the #1 treatment in Korea for over 10 years\u0026rdquo;. The page cites three regulatory stamps — Israeli Ministry of Health approval, European CE MDR (received in the past year), and Korea\u0026rsquo;s KFDA — in that order, with the Korean regulator given equal billing.\nThe SKUs imported to Israel are Rejuran Healer (full face), Rejuran S (scars, including acne scars) and Rejuran I (eye area).\nThe Korean framing is the pitch # In Israeli press, clinic copy and social media, the Korean origin is not a detail — it is the headline.\nYnet Laisha ran a launch piece on 21 September 2025 titled \u0026ldquo;The Korean secret conquering Hollywood — REJURAN now in Israel\u0026rdquo;. The story (sponsored by Omegamedix) opens with a description of salmon runs in Gangwon province and quotes Ming Park, Pharma Research\u0026rsquo;s head of aesthetics, before adding: \u0026ldquo;The treatment reflects the familiar Korean philosophy: patience and natural results.\u0026rdquo; Mokasini published \u0026ldquo;Rejuran arrives in Israel: the Korean treatment that conquered Hollywood lands in the country\u0026rdquo; the week before. Maariv, same day as Ynet Laisha: \u0026ldquo;Fish DNA instead of Botox? The Korean treatment promising miracles\u0026rdquo;. Mako, 11 December 2025, placed Rejuran inside a broader frame: \u0026ldquo;Treating skin as sacred: how South Korea became a beauty superpower\u0026rdquo;. The @rejuran.israel Instagram markets it in Hebrew as \u0026ldquo;the talked-about Korean substance that conquered Asia, Australia and the US,\u0026rdquo; and in English as \u0026ldquo;the revolutionary Korean treatment.\u0026rdquo; Clinic copy matches. Dr. Shabo: \u0026ldquo;Rejuran is an innovative substance originating in South Korea.\u0026rdquo; Dr. Zeid in Tel Aviv: \u0026ldquo;Rejuran is an advanced Korean treatment.\u0026rdquo; Dr. Orly Fuzailov, quoted in Ynetnews (English): \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m among the first doctors to use the product, which comes from Korea… Koreans believe in slow and steady. In Israel, women have less patience.\u0026rdquo;\nHow much, and where # Pricing — per Dr. Fuzailov and the skinbymichaela.co.il price page — runs roughly:\nSingle 3cc face syringe: ₪3,000 2cc scar or eye syringe: ₪2,000 Full initial course (3–4 sessions, 3–4 weeks apart): ₪7,000–15,000 Maintenance: every 6–12 months Israeli practices currently advertising Rejuran include Dr. Moshe Rosen (Tel Aviv + Jerusalem), Dr. Orly Fuzailov, Dr. Monica Elman (medical director of Maccabi Aesthetics), Dr. Shabo, Dr. Zeid (Tel Aviv), Skin by Michaela, Aestella Klinika and Menscape Clinic. It is not an exhaustive list — the Omegamedix Instagram directs patients to DM for the authorised-clinic roster.\nWhy this is worth noting # Korean skincare brands have been on Israeli shelves for years — COSRX, Anua, Beauty of Joseon are in Super-Pharm — but those are drugstore goods. Rejuran is different: a prescription-only clinical injectable, priced at low-four figures per syringe, explicitly sold on its Korean provenance to Israeli consumers who until recently had only Italian and French polynucleotide alternatives. The launch is a notable data point in how Korean aesthetic medicine is crossing from \u0026ldquo;trendy\u0026rdquo; into Israeli medical practice, with the Korean origin carried through as a feature, not translated away.\nSources: Omegamedix, Ynet Laisha, Ynetnews, Mokasini, Maariv, Mako, Dr. Moshe Rosen.\n","date":"20 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/rejuran-korean-polynucleotide-israel-launch/","section":"Posts","summary":"Rejuran, the salmon-DNA polynucleotide injectable made by Seoul-based Pharma Research, officially reached Israeli clinics in September 2025. What stands out is not that another K-beauty product arrived — several have — but how uniformly every tier of the Israeli rollout leans on one word: Korean.\n","title":"Rejuran Lands in Israel, Marketed Explicitly as Korean","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"20 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/skincare/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Skincare","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/byd/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Byd","type":"tags"},{"content":"Chinese automaker BYD is preparing to bring its ultra-fast \u0026ldquo;Flash\u0026rdquo; charging technology to Israel as part of a broader European rollout planned for late 2026. The new chargers operate at 1.5 megawatts — nearly ten times the average rate of existing fast charging stations in the country and three times faster than Tesla\u0026rsquo;s newest V4 superchargers currently being piloted here.\nWhat Flash Charging Means in Practice # According to BYD, Flash-compatible batteries can charge from 10% to 97% in under ten minutes. More strikingly, just two minutes of charging can add hundreds of kilometers of range — roughly comparable to the time it takes to fill a gasoline tank.\nThe system has two components: the public charging stations themselves and a new generation of vehicle batteries designed to handle the extreme charging rates without overheating or degradation over time.\nIsrael in the First Wave # BYD has announced plans to deploy approximately 3,000 Flash chargers across Europe in the final quarter of 2026. According to Chinese industry sources, Israel will be included in the first wave of that rollout.\nThe charging stations use integrated storage systems that gradually draw power from existing electrical networks, meaning they don\u0026rsquo;t require special grid infrastructure. They can also charge standard electric vehicles and handle multiple cars simultaneously.\nSeveral new BYD models arriving in Israel in the coming months will support Flash charging, including a crossover slightly larger than the Seal U. Models from BYD\u0026rsquo;s premium Denza brand are expected to launch in Israel in early 2027. BYD says the new battery technology will not significantly increase vehicle prices.\nCompetition Heating Up # BYD is not alone in the race. Geely, another major Chinese manufacturer, unveiled its own rapid charging technology in China last week. With chargers capable of up to 1.1 megawatts, the system will initially serve Geely\u0026rsquo;s premium brands Lynk \u0026amp; Co. and Zeekr through new-generation batteries in key models.\nTesla has been operating a pilot of its V4 superchargers in Israel for several months, supporting a theoretical maximum of 1.2 megawatts, though in practice the current stations distribute charge among vehicles at up to 250 kilowatts each. Israeli fuel chain Paz has also begun installing chargers with rates up to 400 kilowatts.\nThe arrival of Chinese ultra-fast charging infrastructure marks a significant step in the ongoing transformation of Israel\u0026rsquo;s automotive landscape, where Chinese brands already hold over a quarter of the new car market.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/byd-flash-ev-charging-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chinese automaker BYD is preparing to bring its ultra-fast “Flash” charging technology to Israel as part of a broader European rollout planned for late 2026. The new chargers operate at 1.5 megawatts — nearly ten times the average rate of existing fast charging stations in the country and three times faster than Tesla’s newest V4 superchargers currently being piloted here.\n","title":"BYD's Two-Minute EV Charging Technology Coming to Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/electric-vehicles/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Electric-Vehicles","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/technology/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Technology","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/transport/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Transport","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/trip-planning/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Trip-Planning","type":"tags"},{"content":" The service # Yapanichi is a Hebrew-language Japan travel specialist offering two complementary services: small-group guided tours to Japan (limited to around twelve travelers) and one-on-one consultation sessions for people planning independent trips. Tours cover both the classic route — Tokyo, Kyoto, Mt. Fuji / Hakone — and deeper itineraries into Hokkaido, with separate women-only departures alongside mixed groups. Consultations are aimed at Israelis building their own itinerary who want region-specific advice, hotel recommendations, and help with the practical details of moving around Japan.\nWho runs it # Yapanichi is run by Adi Inbar (עדי ענבר), a licensed tour guide of twenty-plus years who has led groups to and from Japan for roughly the past decade. She describes herself as a yapanologit (יפנולוגית) — a Japanologist — and the service is built around Japanese language, culture, and long-standing contacts in the country rather than a generic tour-operator model.\nPractical # Phone: 054-474-6262 Instagram: @yapanichi Format: online consultations + guided group tours departing from Israel\n","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yapanichi/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The service # Yapanichi is a Hebrew-language Japan travel specialist offering two complementary services: small-group guided tours to Japan (limited to around twelve travelers) and one-on-one consultation sessions for people planning independent trips. Tours cover both the classic route — Tokyo, Kyoto, Mt. Fuji / Hakone — and deeper itineraries into Hokkaido, with separate women-only departures alongside mixed groups. Consultations are aimed at Israelis building their own itinerary who want region-specific advice, hotel recommendations, and help with the practical details of moving around Japan.\n","title":"Yapanichi","type":"directory"},{"content":" The service # FlySan is an Israeli travel agency specializing entirely in Japan. Rather than selling off-the-shelf packages, the agency builds custom itineraries tailored to each traveler — routes, hotels, trains, attractions, food recommendations, and the kind of small practical tips that are hard to find on your own. Operating mostly by phone, WhatsApp, and video calls, it\u0026rsquo;s a consultancy-style service aimed at Israelis planning trips to Japan, from first-timers to returning visitors.\nTypical help includes hotel bookings at rates leveraging in-country contacts, JR Pass and rail arrangements, day-by-day route planning, and region-specific recommendations across Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hakone, Kanazawa, Takayama, Nikko, Shirakawa-go, Kamakura, and beyond.\nWho runs it # FlySan is run by Yotam Ben David (יותם בן דוד), who founded the agency after years of independent travel across Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, and other destinations in Asia. The positioning is explicitly expertise-first: deep local knowledge and Japan-specific contacts, rather than a generic multi-destination travel shop.\nPractical # Website: flysan.co.il Phone: 055-507-5024 WhatsApp: wa.me/972555075024 Email: info@flysan.co.il Instagram: @flysan.co.il Office hours: Sun–Thu 09:00–18:00 · Fri 09:00–13:00\n","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/flysan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The service # FlySan is an Israeli travel agency specializing entirely in Japan. Rather than selling off-the-shelf packages, the agency builds custom itineraries tailored to each traveler — routes, hotels, trains, attractions, food recommendations, and the kind of small practical tips that are hard to find on your own. Operating mostly by phone, WhatsApp, and video calls, it’s a consultancy-style service aimed at Israelis planning trips to Japan, from first-timers to returning visitors.\n","title":"FlySan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/great-synagogue/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Great-Synagogue","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lev-hair/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lev-Hair","type":"tags"},{"content":" The place # Thai at Har Sinai (Hebrew: HaThailandit beSimtat Sinai — \u0026ldquo;The Thai at Sinai Alley\u0026rdquo;) sits in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue on Har Sinai Street, one block off Allenby and a short walk from Rothschild. The owners have been running it for a decade; the kitchen is built around home-style Thai cooking and the room is deliberately casual — colourful, a little chaotic, with a large leafy front yard that fills up on warm weeknights.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s one of the more locally-loved Thai kitchens in central Tel Aviv precisely because it isn\u0026rsquo;t trying to be a white-tablecloth place: you come for a papaya salad and a curry, you order a cocktail, and you leave without having spent a fortune.\nWhat to order # Som Tam (green papaya salad) — pounded fresh to order; ask for it Thai-hot if you can handle it. Pad Thai — the house version is the most-ordered dish; around ₪56 as of the last published menu. Wok and curry dishes — red/green/yellow curries and classic Thai stir-fries, with the spice level dialled to order. Tom Yum — a consistent recommendation in reviews. Thai-basil cocktails — the bar leans into Thai ingredients (basil, lemongrass, kaffir lime) for a short but strong list of sweet-sour cocktails. Coconut panna cotta — the dessert locals keep flagging. A good portion of the menu is vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free, or can be adapted on request.\nHappy hour \u0026amp; deals # 20% off the full menu, Sunday–Thursday, 17:00–19:00. 50% off cocktails, 18:00–20:00 (per a long-standing local recommendation — confirm with staff). 10% off lunch during midday service. 15% parking discount at the Beit HaPsanter lot, Ahad Ha\u0026rsquo;Am 25/27 — bring the parking ticket with you. Practical # Address: 1 Har Sinai Street, Tel Aviv (הר סיני 1, תל אביב) Phone / reservations: 03-5666975 Web: thaisinai.com Menu (PDF): getmood.io Book a table: Tabit Delivery \u0026amp; takeaway: Wolt, or self-pickup via the website Instagram: @thai_harsinai Facebook: thaiharsinai Hours: Sun–Thu 12:00–23:00 · Fri 12:00–16:00 · Sat 17:30–23:30 Features: vegan-friendly · vegetarian-friendly · gluten-free options · delivery · takeaway · outdoor seating · cocktails · cards and cash Sister venue: Mo Lam Bar — the operators\u0026rsquo; newer Thai-leaning bar concept.\n","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-at-har-sinai/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The place # Thai at Har Sinai (Hebrew: HaThailandit beSimtat Sinai — “The Thai at Sinai Alley”) sits in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue on Har Sinai Street, one block off Allenby and a short walk from Rothschild. The owners have been running it for a decade; the kitchen is built around home-style Thai cooking and the room is deliberately casual — colourful, a little chaotic, with a large leafy front yard that fills up on warm weeknights.\n","title":"Thai at Har Sinai | התאילנדית בסמטת סיני","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"19 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vegan-friendly/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vegan-Friendly","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/employment/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Employment","type":"tags"},{"content":"A premium spa with two branches, located just 100 metres from the sea, is urgently hiring four female massage therapists to join its team. The role offers a competitive fixed salary plus tips, professional working conditions, and a clientele drawn from the higher end of the market.\nPosition Details # Openings: 4 female massage therapists Salary: ₪12,000 per month, plus tips Employment type: Salaried employees or freelancers (Osek Patur — the Israeli self-employed registration for small businesses) both welcome Shifts (three options): 09:00–15:00 12:00–18:00 16:00–22:00 The spa describes the working atmosphere as professional and well-maintained, suited to therapists who want a stable income in clean, standardised surroundings.\nLocation # Two branches, both around 100 metres from the sea. The specific city is not stated in the listing — interested candidates should ask when they call.\nHow to Apply # Contact Ruth directly by phone: 053-628-7624.\nThis posting was forwarded to Asians in Israel in Thai and is shared here for the Thai-speaking community in Israel.\n","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/massage-therapist-seaside-spa/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"A premium spa with two branches, located just 100 metres from the sea, is urgently hiring four female massage therapists to join its team. The role offers a competitive fixed salary plus tips, professional working conditions, and a clientele drawn from the higher end of the market.\n","title":"Urgent Hiring: Four Female Massage Therapists at Seaside Spa","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cocktail-bar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cocktail-Bar","type":"tags"},{"content":" The school # East-West Cultural Center (EWCC / המרכז התרבותי מזרח-מערב) is a dedicated Chinese language school based in central Jerusalem at HaRav Agan 10. The school\u0026rsquo;s stated mission is to teach Chinese in cultural context — the idea being that language is an expression of a culture, so grammar drills alone won\u0026rsquo;t get a student very far. Classes are small, taught by a team of native Chinese-speaking teachers, and delivered primarily online via Zoom (in the evenings) with in-person options from the Jerusalem base.\nEWCC\u0026rsquo;s student body is deliberately mixed: entrepreneurs working on China business, students preparing for academic exchange, tour guides, and Israelis planning independent travel in China. Beyond the course track, the school runs a free weekly \u0026ldquo;Chinese Corner\u0026rdquo; — an informal speaking practice session with native-Chinese staff that\u0026rsquo;s open to students.\nCourse ladder # The core programme is an HSK-aligned progression:\nBeginner Chinese (Level 1) — pinyin foundation, 150 vocabulary, 52 characters, 45 grammar points, daily-topics conversation. Prepares for HSK 1. Elementary Chinese Intermediate Chinese Upper-Intermediate Chinese Advanced Chinese Proficiency Chinese A minimum 60% score on the level\u0026rsquo;s final exam is required to advance. Textbooks are the official HSK Standard Course series.\nOn top of the ladder, EWCC offers Business Chinese, an HSK exam track, and a China Tour programme that combines language study with on-the-ground travel in China.\nCurrent opportunity (April 2026) # EWCC is currently promoting Beginner Level 1 with a free first month:\nDates: 18 May – 8 June 2026 (month 1 free) Schedule: Mon \u0026amp; Wed 18:30–20:30, 2 months total, online via Zoom Second month: ₪700 / ₪1300 (see site for rate) Prerequisites: none Registration: ewccenter.com/beginner Announced on EWCC\u0026rsquo;s Instagram on 16 April 2026. Larger discounts are offered on subsequent levels.\nPractical # Address: HaRav Agan 10, Jerusalem Phone / WhatsApp: 058-780-4979 Email: office@ewccenter.com Web: ewccenter.com Instagram: @ewccenter_il Facebook: EWCC Office hours: Sun–Thu 09:00–17:00 Payment: bank transfer (preferred) · credit card · PayPal\n","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/east-west-cultural-center/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The school # East-West Cultural Center (EWCC / המרכז התרבותי מזרח-מערב) is a dedicated Chinese language school based in central Jerusalem at HaRav Agan 10. The school’s stated mission is to teach Chinese in cultural context — the idea being that language is an expression of a culture, so grammar drills alone won’t get a student very far. Classes are small, taught by a team of native Chinese-speaking teachers, and delivered primarily online via Zoom (in the evenings) with in-person options from the Jerusalem base.\n","title":"East-West Cultural Center (EWCC)","type":"directory"},{"content":" The place # Eisan (איסאן / อีสาน) is a small, family-run Thai kitchen tucked into the south end of Carmel Market at Rabbi Akiva 22, Tel Aviv. The name refers to the Isan region of northeast Thailand — the rural, Lao-adjacent belt that gives Thai food its most fiercely flavoured cooking: pounded salads, chilli-forward stir-fries, sticky rice, and generous use of lime, fish sauce, padek, galangal and fresh bird\u0026rsquo;s-eye chilli. The owners come from Isan, and they\u0026rsquo;ve kept the menu close to what you\u0026rsquo;d actually eat on the street in Khon Kaen or Udon Thani rather than softening it for a Tel Aviv palate.\nThe room itself is compact — counter-seating, a couple of tables, an open wok — and the real traffic is takeaway, delivery (Wolt) and market-goers who pull up a stool for a quick bowl. Market hours rather than dinner-service hours.\nThe signature: \u0026ldquo;Israel\u0026rsquo;s hottest dish\u0026rdquo; # Eisan\u0026rsquo;s calling card is Pad Ped (פאד פד) — a wok-fried dish built around 16 fresh bird\u0026rsquo;s-eye chillies and seasonal Thai eggplant. The restaurant has been featured on i24 News as one of the hottest dishes served anywhere in Israel; the i24 crew filmed a segment on Israelis who chase extreme heat and used Eisan as the final boss. Locals call it a rite of passage. If you don\u0026rsquo;t have a high spice tolerance, order literally anything else.\nOther things worth ordering # Pad Mee Korat — Eisan\u0026rsquo;s answer to pad thai: Korat-style stir-fried noodles, punchier and drier than the tourist pad thai you find elsewhere in the city. Som Tam Tad — the Isan tapas plate: green-papaya salad pounded fresh in the mortar, pork rinds, sticky rice, cabbage and long beans on the side. Poh Pia Sod — rice-paper rolls stuffed with vegetables and your choice of tofu or meat. One of the lightest, freshest things on the menu and a repeat-order favourite. Pad Kaprao — the classic Thai holy-basil stir-fry over rice, made properly: crispy edges, plenty of basil, a fried egg on top. Pad Pak Bong — stir-fried morning glory, a fast vegan side that rounds out any order. Curries and soups on the winter menu (northeast-Thai style) — heavier on lemongrass, galangal and lime than the sweeter central-Thai curries most Israelis have tried. A good portion of the menu is naturally vegan or can be made vegan on request.\nPractical # Address: רבי עקיבא 22, שוק הכרמל, Tel Aviv Phone / reservations: via the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s website Web: eisan.co.il Instagram: @eisantlv Delivery \u0026amp; takeaway: Wolt, self-pickup via the website Features: vegan-friendly · delivery · takeaway · market seating · cash and cards Press: i24 News feature on Israel\u0026rsquo;s spiciest dish (IG reel)\n","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/eisan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The place # Eisan (איסאן / อีสาน) is a small, family-run Thai kitchen tucked into the south end of Carmel Market at Rabbi Akiva 22, Tel Aviv. The name refers to the Isan region of northeast Thailand — the rural, Lao-adjacent belt that gives Thai food its most fiercely flavoured cooking: pounded salads, chilli-forward stir-fries, sticky rice, and generous use of lime, fish sauce, padek, galangal and fresh bird’s-eye chilli. The owners come from Isan, and they’ve kept the menu close to what you’d actually eat on the street in Khon Kaen or Udon Thani rather than softening it for a Tel Aviv palate.\n","title":"Eisan | איסאน | อีสาน","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hsk/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hsk","type":"tags"},{"content":" The place # Kona Sushi Bar (קונה סושי) is a kosher sushi bar and pan-Asian wok kitchen based in Modiin. It runs as a small local chain with two branches in the city — the flagship at Lea Imenu 1 and a second branch inside Modiin Center mall — and delivers to the wider Modiin area (Modiin, Maccabim, Re\u0026rsquo;ut, Shilat, Kfar Ruth, Hashmonaim, Lapid, Kfar HaOranim, Nof Ayalon).\nKashrut is under the Rabbanut Modiin (meat) — this is a meat kitchen, so no dairy on the menu, but the wok side carries plenty of vegan and vegetarian dishes. The team also runs a franchise programme (kona.co.il/franchise) and a customer loyalty club, and does party-platter catering for events.\nThe menu # Sushi bar — maki, inside-out rolls, futomaki, special rolls and large combo trays designed for sharing or for office and party catering. Wok stir-fries — classic Asian noodles and rice dishes with chicken, beef, salmon or tofu. Fish mains — grilled and pan-seared fish with Asian seasonings. Vegan \u0026amp; vegetarian options clearly marked across the sushi and wok sections. Full menu and online ordering: plweb.online. Practical # Main branch: Lea Imenu 1, Modiin · Second branch: Modiin Center mall Phone: 08-684-3472 (also 08-684-3572 · 054-253-0330) Owner / contact: Naor Benjamin Email: naor93@gmail.com Web: kona.co.il · konasushi.co.il Instagram: @konasushi_modiin Delivery: yes — Modiin–Maccabim–Reut and surrounding communities; also on Mishloha Kashrut: Rabbanut Modiin · meat Features: kosher · delivery · takeaway · party platters · loyalty club · franchise opportunities\n","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kona-sushi-modiin/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The place # Kona Sushi Bar (קונה סושי) is a kosher sushi bar and pan-Asian wok kitchen based in Modiin. It runs as a small local chain with two branches in the city — the flagship at Lea Imenu 1 and a second branch inside Modiin Center mall — and delivers to the wider Modiin area (Modiin, Maccabim, Re’ut, Shilat, Kfar Ruth, Hashmonaim, Lapid, Kfar HaOranim, Nof Ayalon).\n","title":"Kona Sushi Bar | קונה סושי","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/non-kosher/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Non-Kosher","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ono-valley/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ono-Valley","type":"tags"},{"content":" The place # Satya (סאטיה) is a non-kosher seafood and fusion restaurant on Keren HaYesod 36 in central Jerusalem, part of the same group as the Lonel restaurant. It\u0026rsquo;s consistently one of the top-ranked restaurants in the city — TripAdvisor lists it around #16 of 700 Jerusalem restaurants with a 4.5-star average over more than 600 reviews.\nThe kitchen is primarily Mediterranean with pronounced Asian accents. Fish, seafood and meat dominate the menu, but dishes routinely reach for Thai, Japanese and Southeast-Asian flavours — curries, ginger, miso, chilli, lemongrass — alongside the more expected olive-oil-and-citrus Mediterranean register. That\u0026rsquo;s the reason it\u0026rsquo;s worth flagging for this community: if you\u0026rsquo;re in Jerusalem and want Asian flavour at a sit-down fish-restaurant level rather than a market stall, Satya is one of the few addresses where it\u0026rsquo;s done seriously.\nGood to know # Non-kosher (opens Shabbat lunch). Vegetarian- and vegan-friendly — dedicated options on the menu, plus gluten-free. Events space: the restaurant hosts private and corporate events for up to 120 guests with custom menus. Reservations via the Tabit booking system linked from the website. Gift cards are available. The owners closed the restaurant during the opening weeks of the October 2023 war to cook meals for IDF soldiers; local press covered the effort at the time. Practical # Address: Keren HaYesod 36, Jerusalem Phone: 02-650-6808 Email: satyajerusalem@gmail.com Web: satya.co.il Hours: Sun–Fri from 18:00 until last guests · Sat 12:30–15:30 Features: vegetarian \u0026amp; vegan options · gluten-free options · private events (up to 120) · gift cards · non-kosher\n","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/satya-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The place # Satya (סאטיה) is a non-kosher seafood and fusion restaurant on Keren HaYesod 36 in central Jerusalem, part of the same group as the Lonel restaurant. It’s consistently one of the top-ranked restaurants in the city — TripAdvisor lists it around #16 of 700 Jerusalem restaurants with a 4.5-star average over more than 600 reviews.\n","title":"Satya | סאטיה","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/savyon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Savyon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/seafood/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Seafood","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/spicy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Spicy","type":"tags"},{"content":" The place # Surin (סורין) is a Thai restaurant that opened in late 2025 at HaShikma 1 in the G Center Savyon, the shopping complex that in recent years has turned into something of a food magnet for the Ono Valley (Mila, Dolce Mila, Moon Beit Shean all operate there). Surin is the second venue from the Thai 148 TLV group, who\u0026rsquo;ve been running a Thai kitchen on Dizengoff Street since 2024. Savyon gives them about 180 seats — roughly 60–70 more than the Dizengoff original — and a young, family-heavy audience that suits the format.\nThe group behind it # Thai 148 was built as a deliberate \u0026ldquo;test site\u0026rdquo; by partners Gal Cohen, Din Reichel, Asaf Cohen and Elad Adler, who run several other Tel Aviv venues. After roughly a year of operating Thai 148, they went looking for a second home — not a branch, they insist — and signed a long-term lease with the G City group (reportedly ~NIS 6 million, 15 years) to build Surin.\nThe restaurant is named after Surin, a province in northeast Thailand, and the menu was developed after the team\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;inspiration tour\u0026rdquo; in Thailand. Chef Omi, who also runs the Dizengoff kitchen, built the menu; the stated ambition is that Thai food in Israel \u0026ldquo;has yet to fulfil even a fraction of its potential\u0026rdquo; and Surin is designed to push on that.\nThe menu # Starters and salads take up a disproportionately large share of the menu — the team\u0026rsquo;s way of encouraging long, shared, tasting-board style meals. A cold bar for on-view pestle work: som tam, larb, other pounded salads made in front of the diner. A cocktail bar alongside the kitchen — the place is built to function as a bar as well as a restaurant. Thai classics — curries, noodles, stir-fries, grilled dishes — reinterpreted with a more modern, ingredient-forward plating than you typically see in Israeli Thai restaurants. Strong vegan and vegetarian options. The Ontopo, Mako and JPost reviews from the opening season all single out the salads and the playful cocktail list.\nPress # Jerusalem Post / Walla!, Jun 2025 — Welcome to Sorin restaurant in Savyon Mako, Jan 2026 — אכלנו בתאילנדית החדשה של קבוצת תאי 148 בסביון Ontopo, Feb 2026 — חריף, מתוק ומפתיע: הכירו את סורין Practical # Address: HaShikma 1, G Center Savyon Phone / WhatsApp: 053-582-4630 Web: surin.co.il Instagram: @surin_savyon Facebook: Surin savyon Hours: Mon–Thu 18:00–00:00 · Fri–Sat 12:00–00:00 (weekend lunch) · Sun closed Reservations: surin.co.il/הזמנת-שולחן Features: full bar · cocktail programme · cold bar · vegan-friendly · non-kosher · family-friendly\n","date":"16 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/surin-savyon/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The place # Surin (סורין) is a Thai restaurant that opened in late 2025 at HaShikma 1 in the G Center Savyon, the shopping complex that in recent years has turned into something of a food magnet for the Ono Valley (Mila, Dolce Mila, Moon Beit Shean all operate there). Surin is the second venue from the Thai 148 TLV group, who’ve been running a Thai kitchen on Dizengoff Street since 2024. Savyon gives them about 180 seats — roughly 60–70 more than the Dizengoff original — and a young, family-heavy audience that suits the format.\n","title":"Surin | סורין","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"15 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/gluten-free/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Gluten-Free","type":"tags"},{"content":" The place # Kamado Ramen (קמדו ראמן, also trading as Kamado Kitchen / קמדו קיצ\u0026rsquo;ן) is a tiny, deliberately handmade Japanese ramen and fusion restaurant tucked inside the Orvot HaOmanim — the \u0026ldquo;Artist Stables\u0026rdquo; — complex in Pardes Hanna-Karkur. The compound, a former cavalry stable that has become one of northern Israel\u0026rsquo;s most interesting culinary and craft clusters, suits Kamado perfectly: the restaurant seats only a handful of tables indoors with outdoor seating in the courtyard, the open kitchen is part of the dining room, and most evenings the chef himself is visible at the pass.\nGlobes food critic Roy Yerushalmi included Kamado in his March 2022 round-up of Israel\u0026rsquo;s six most memorable ramen bowls, describing it as a discovery brought to him by a young Instagram foodie who had stumbled into the Stables. Reviewers consistently say the place is \u0026ldquo;the closest thing to Japan\u0026rdquo; they have found in Israel since the pandemic — specifically the small riverside ramen stalls of Fukuoka, which Sasazaki openly cites as the inspiration.\nThe chefs # The restaurant is run by Tomoaki Sasazaki (笹崎 朋明 / ササザキ・トモアキ) and his partner Maya Spencer. Regulars and press in Israel know him simply as \u0026ldquo;Sasan\u0026rdquo; (סאסאן) — a Hebrew-friendly shortening of his family name that has stuck.\nSasazaki grew up in Tokyo and began cooking in his twenties at a Japanese izakaya in a ski town in Hokkaido, where he also worked summers as a cook in mountain huts in the Japanese Alps while snowboarding through the winters. Following both his wanderlust and a growing curiosity about food cultures, he left Japan and spent years travelling and cooking: a year in a Canadian ski town working an Indian kitchen, time back in Hokkaido in Italian kitchens, then stints through South America, Australia, the US, India, Nepal, Thailand and Europe.\nHow a Tokyo chef ended up in Pardes Hanna # The short answer is Maya. Maya Spencer is Israeli, and Sasazaki met her on one of his long trips abroad — he has said that at the time he spoke no English at all, and that cooking was how he connected with people before language caught up. The two kept travelling together, then returned to Japan, where Sasazaki studied cooking formally. In 2016 they moved to Israel together — to Maya\u0026rsquo;s home country — and that is why this Tokyo-trained chef is today running a ramen shop in Pardes Hanna-Karkur rather than anywhere else.\nOnce in Israel, Sasazaki spent a few years absorbing the local pantry, cooking at various kitchens, running pop-ups and events, and building a food stall. He says he was always expected to cook straightforward Japanese food but kept surprising people with fusion touches; the couple\u0026rsquo;s shared love of plant-based cooking gradually shaped the menu into what Kamado is today. The years on the road show on the plate — Kamado is, by design, a fusion ramen-ya rather than a pure-tradition one.\nThe name # Kamado (竈) is the traditional Japanese wood-fired clay oven built specifically for cooking rice. Cooking rice in a kamado takes time, patience and constant attention — gathering wood, building the right heat, holding an even temperature. Sasazaki picked the name because the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s philosophy mirrors the object: slow, careful cooking as a way of feeding people \u0026ldquo;something beyond raw food\u0026rdquo; and connecting across languages and cultures.\nThe journey to the restaurant # Kamado Kitchen launched in 2020 as a catering and takeaway operation built for pandemic-era Israel, followed by small-scale chef events. After two years of quiet, successful operation through the lockdowns, Sasazaki and Spencer began serving Japanese ramen from the courtyard of their own home. Word spread quickly and the house couldn\u0026rsquo;t contain the crowds, so in February 2022 they opened the current small ramen restaurant in Pardes Hanna. They continue to run catering, chef dinners and sushi workshops in parallel with the restaurant.\nThe menu # Most of the menu is vegan, with the only animal products appearing in the fish ramen options. Wheat ramen noodles can be swapped for rice noodles on request, and a gluten-free ramen can be prepared in a separate area — rare enough in Israel that the gluten-free-Israel community has singled Kamado out. The broths are all made in-house.\nRamen (ラーメン)\nKamado Classic Fish Ramen (69 ₪) — local fish broth (bream, sea bass), soy and ginger base, coconut cream, tsumire fish balls, soft-boiled marinated egg, stir-fried chard, shiitake braised in soy-sake-mirin, spring onion, nori. Kamado Vegan Ramen (62 ₪) — shiitake and kombu broth, soy-apple base, coconut cream, stir-fried broccoli and cauliflower, tofu crumble, shiitake, spring onion, nori. Add egg +4 ₪. Himalaya Fish Ramen (69 ₪) — Himalayan salt, celery and pear base, tsumire, marinated egg, wakame, mizuna, chard, nori. Himalaya Vegan Ramen (62 ₪) — mushroom and seaweed broth, same salt-celery-pear base, tofu crumble, wakame, mizuna, chard. Yakisoba (64 / 68 ₪) — stir-fried ramen noodles with vegetables and either portobello or Nile-perch tempura, bonito flakes, Japanese mayo, nori, fried onion. Can be made vegan. Tan Soba (64 ₪) — cold buckwheat soba with vegetable tempura, marinated egg, wakame, broccoli, served with a side mentsuyu of mushroom and seaweed stock, wasabi, ginger, grated kohlrabi and seasonal shiso. Dine-in only. Katsu Sama (60 ₪) — summery noodle salad with tahini-soy and cashew-tomato-olive dressing, crunchy tofu cubes, rocket, sprouts, baby leaves, lettuce, kohlrabi, pepper, edamame, carrot, cucumber and seasonal Japanese shiso. Add crispy tofu +15 ₪. Sides (前菜)\nGyoza, 3 pieces (34 ₪) — hand-folded dumplings pan-steamed and crisped, in three flavours: sweet-potato-and-cauliflower / mushroom-and-tofu / chard-and-cashew. Sesame-soy-miso sauce. Shiromi tempura (55 ₪) — Nile perch in tempura with Himalayan-matcha salt and mayo-teriyaki. Kinoko tempura (42 ₪) — portobello tempura, same dips; vegan option available. Tofu schnitzel bao (36 ₪) — steamed bao with crispy marinated tofu, pickle, tomato, lettuce, cabbage, house ketchup and chef\u0026rsquo;s sauce. A customer favourite. Spring rolls, 4 pieces (32 ₪) — gluten-free rice-paper rolls with roast cauliflower, avocado, beet, carrot and herbs in coconut-sesame crust, tahini-soy dip. Sweet potato tempura (38 ₪) — crispy sweet-potato strips, seaweed seasoning, house ketchup. Kamado salad (35 ₪) — gluten-free, bean noodles, wakame, avocado, vegetables, crunchy onion and coriander in sweet-sour dressing. Japanese pickles (22 ₪) — made on site, rotating seasonal vegetables. Kids\u0026rsquo; plate (33 ₪) — ramen noodles with sliced crispy tofu schnitzel and house ketchup. Dessert\nSweet gyoza, 3 pieces (42 ₪) — fried sweet dumplings. All sauces contain gluten; gluten-free ramen and gluten-free sauces are available on request.\nServices beyond the restaurant # Catering for weddings and private events, often fully vegan — repeat clients mention how guests \u0026ldquo;barely noticed the menu was plant-based.\u0026rdquo; Chef\u0026rsquo;s meals — three set-menu formats brought to your home. Sushi workshops — hands-on classes covering sushi technique and a wider introduction to Japanese food culture. For the Japanese community # Kamado is one of the very few kitchens in Israel run by a chef born, raised and trained in Japan, and one of an even smaller set outside Tel Aviv. For Japanese residents of the Sharon and Haifa area it\u0026rsquo;s a rare place to eat something that tastes like home; for the wider Asian-in-Israel community and for Israelis drawn to Japan, it\u0026rsquo;s a destination worth the drive to Pardes Hanna.\nPractical # Address: Orvot HaOmanim complex, HaShalom 4, Pardes Hanna-Karkur Phone: 054-629-8760 Email: kamadokitchen33@gmail.com Hours: Mon–Wed 12:00–22:00 · Thu 12:00–23:00 · Fri 12:00–16:00 · Sat–Sun closed Web: kamadokitchen.co.il Instagram: @kamado.ramen.il (also @kamado_kitchen) Facebook: Kamado Ramen Features: outdoor seating · wheelchair accessible · credit cards accepted · gluten-free options · mostly vegan menu · delivery \u0026amp; takeaway Press: Globes, March 2022 · Haaretz\n","date":"15 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kamado-ramen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The place # Kamado Ramen (קמדו ראמן, also trading as Kamado Kitchen / קמדו קיצ’ן) is a tiny, deliberately handmade Japanese ramen and fusion restaurant tucked inside the Orvot HaOmanim — the “Artist Stables” — complex in Pardes Hanna-Karkur. The compound, a former cavalry stable that has become one of northern Israel’s most interesting culinary and craft clusters, suits Kamado perfectly: the restaurant seats only a handful of tables indoors with outdoor seating in the courtyard, the open kitchen is part of the dining room, and most evenings the chef himself is visible at the pass.\n","title":"Kamado Ramen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-history/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-History","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-china/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-China","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jaffa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jaffa","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jaffa-orange/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jaffa-Orange","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/old-jaffa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Old-Jaffa","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tel Aviv is often called the \u0026ldquo;Big Orange.\u0026rdquo; New York became the \u0026ldquo;Big Apple\u0026rdquo; because everyone wanted a bite of the American dream. Tel Aviv got its own fruity nickname for a more literal reason: the Jaffa orange, which for the better part of two centuries was the land\u0026rsquo;s defining export, grew in groves just outside the city.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s less widely known is that the Jaffa orange\u0026rsquo;s family tree doesn\u0026rsquo;t start in the Mediterranean. It starts in southern China.\nA fruit that travelled the world # Sweet oranges (Citrus × sinensis) are native to the region that is today Guangdong, Guangxi, and the wider south of China. The Portuguese carried them home from their sixteenth-century trading outposts — most famously Macau, where, according to local legend, the first Portuguese arrivals asked locals the name of the place and were told \u0026ldquo;Mazu\u0026rdquo; (after the sea goddess\u0026rsquo;s temple), which became Macau. Along with the name, the Portuguese picked up the local \u0026ldquo;lucky fruit\u0026rdquo; and introduced it to the Mediterranean.\nOver the following centuries, the orange mutated, hybridised, and eventually produced the distinct Shamouti variety — the seedless, thick-skinned Jaffa orange that became a global brand in the late 1800s.\nThe coincidence runs deeper in Chinese itself. In many southern Chinese dialects, the word for orange sounds like the word for luck. Over time the written character even shifted from 橘 to 桔 (jú, \u0026ldquo;lucky\u0026rdquo;) in much of the south. Orange is the colour of almost every Chinese festival. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t just a fruit — it was an auspicious object that travelled well.\nThe orange that built a city # By the nineteenth century, the invention of the steamship made it possible to ship fresh fruit from the port of Jaffa to Europe within weeks. The Jaffa orange became one of the most valuable exports in the Ottoman Levant. It gave Arabs, Jews, and German Templers a reason to settle in what had been a sparsely populated coastal plain. It gave the Rothschild family and early Zionist settlers the economic foundation to build a national home. The groves of Petah Tikva, Rehovot, and Rishon LeZion were, in large part, citrus plantations.\nTel Aviv — founded in 1909 on the sand dunes north of Jaffa — inherited both the name and the fruit. Theodor Herzl\u0026rsquo;s 1902 utopian novel Altneuland (\u0026ldquo;The Old-New Land\u0026rdquo;) was translated into Hebrew as Tel Aviv, evoking both the ancient tel (archaeological mound) and the aviv (spring) of renewal. The oranges watered the spring.\nToday citrus has been overtaken by diamonds and high-tech in Israel\u0026rsquo;s export charts, but the nickname has stuck. And the fruit itself remains, quietly, Chinese.\nThe Floating Orange Tree # In Old Jaffa\u0026rsquo;s zodiac streets, tourists often stop at one of artist Ran Morin\u0026rsquo;s best-known works: the Floating Orange Tree. A live orange tree is suspended inside an enormous earthenware jug, hung off the ground by metal chains between two buildings, drip-fed by thin black irrigation tubes.\nMorin described the piece as a meditation on modern humanity — creatures that grow in containers, separated from the soil. For a Chinese visitor it reads differently too: a tree that came from China, cultivated in Mediterranean earth for five hundred years, is now literally lifted into the air and fed by machines. The original Chinese orange tree would probably prefer to put its roots down into adamah — the earth.\nWhen the Chinese blogger and licensed Israeli tour guide Aaron Zhang visited the sculpture in 2018, he noticed a small serendipity: parked beside the Floating Orange Tree was an orange-coloured Mobike, the Chinese dockless bike-share scheme that briefly invaded Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s streets that year. In Chinese cities, Mobikes were nicknamed 小橘车 — \u0026ldquo;little orange bikes.\u0026rdquo; Two centuries apart, two Chinese orange-coloured objects had found their way to the same Jaffa courtyard.\nSweet in the south, bitter in the north # There\u0026rsquo;s a 2,500-year-old Chinese parable attributed to the diplomat Yan Zi (晏子). Visiting a rival kingdom, he was asked with contempt whether people from his home state of Qi were all born thieves. Yan Zi replied: \u0026ldquo;Oranges grown south of the Huai River are sweet; north of it, they turn bitter (南橘北枳). The leaves look alike, but the water and the earth are different.\u0026rdquo;\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a story about context. A fruit — or a person — is shaped by where it takes root. In the south of China, the sweet orange; in the Mediterranean, the Jaffa orange; in Old Jaffa, an orange tree floating in a pot. Same genes, different soil, different story.\nAs Aaron Zhang likes to tell his Chinese visitors: come to Israel and taste it yourself.\nSource: Times of Israel Blogs — Aaron Zhang, \u0026ldquo;\u0026lsquo;Big Orange\u0026rsquo; and Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Chinese genes\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/tel-aviv-big-orange-chinese-jaffa-origin/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tel Aviv is often called the “Big Orange.” New York became the “Big Apple” because everyone wanted a bite of the American dream. Tel Aviv got its own fruity nickname for a more literal reason: the Jaffa orange, which for the better part of two centuries was the land’s defining export, grew in groves just outside the city.\n","title":"Why Tel Aviv Is Called 'Big Orange' — A Chinese Origin Story","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-jewish-history/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Jewish-History","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/french-resistance/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"French-Resistance","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/holocaust/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Holocaust","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nadine-hwang/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nadine-Hwang","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ravensbruck/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ravensbruck","type":"tags"},{"content":"At Yad Vashem, embroidered into a scrap of red cloth cut from a Nazi flag, there is a Chinese signature: 黄China — \u0026ldquo;Hwang China.\u0026rdquo; Most visitors walk past it. The display window partly obscures the name. But that signature, stitched by a Chinese prisoner in the final days of Ravensbrück concentration camp in April 1945, opens a door onto one of the strangest and most forgotten lives of the twentieth century.\nOn this Yom HaShoah, her name deserves to be spoken: Nadine Hwang (黄娜汀).\nA life that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been possible # Nadine Hwang was born in Madrid in 1902 to a Chinese diplomat father and a Belgian mother. Her sister, Marcela de Juan, became a respected writer and translator. Nadine herself trained as a lawyer — and then, in 1929, was commissioned as a lieutenant (later described in Spanish newspapers as an aviation colonel) in the Chinese army under the \u0026ldquo;Young Marshal\u0026rdquo; Chang Hsueh-liang. She served briefly in Beijing\u0026rsquo;s Beiyang government as confidential secretarial staff to Prime Minister Pan Fu.\nShe rode horses and drove cars when almost no Chinese woman did either. She flew planes. She played polo, cricket, and ice hockey. She dressed in men\u0026rsquo;s uniforms. Friends in China described her as both beautiful and \u0026ldquo;piratical\u0026rdquo; — the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi met her in 1930 and never forgot her.\nBy 1933, frustrated with the political upheavals of Republican China and the looming threat of Imperial Japan, she left for Paris.\nThe salon years # In Paris she entered the orbit of Natalie Clifford Barney, the American heiress whose literary salon gathered the Lost Generation and much of interwar European modernism. Hwang became Barney\u0026rsquo;s lover, chauffeur, secretary, and personal assistant. British biographer Diana Souhami describes her simply as a \u0026ldquo;new lover\u0026hellip; who had been a colonel in the Chinese army.\u0026rdquo;\nThe salon was not a refuge. Hwang reportedly endured \u0026ldquo;suffocating racism\u0026rdquo; because she was Chinese, and navigated bitter jealousies among Barney\u0026rsquo;s other lovers. But more importantly — and only recently documented — she was also working as an agent for the French Resistance.\nRavensbrück # In May 1944 the Gestapo arrested her and sent her to Ravensbrück, the Nazi concentration camp for women, 90 kilometres north of Berlin. Yad Vashem estimates that of 130,000 women interned there, around 92,000 died. Hwang was assigned to the Siemenskommando, forced labor building V-2 rocket parts for Siemens \u0026amp; Halske.\nThis is a history Chinese historiography has largely ignored. Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazis liquidated the Chinese quarter of Hamburg and the Chinese communities of Berlin and Bremen. Chinese prisoners were held at Mauthausen, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. Zhu Min — daughter of Communist China\u0026rsquo;s top marshal Zhu De — was deported from a Belarusian school to a Nazi camp in 1941 at age seven; she survived four years of torture and lifelong injuries.\nThe name she left behind # Inside Ravensbrück, Hwang met a Jewish inmate named Irene Krausz and her mother Rachel. Through Mary Lindell — a captured British spy organising rescues from inside the camp — Hwang helped place Irene and Rachel on the list for the White Buses operation of April 1945, the Swedish Red Cross rescue that pulled thousands from Ravensbrück in its final days.\nRachel made Hwang a promise: if her daughter Irene ever had a daughter, she would be named Nadine.\nIrene survived. She lived briefly on a kibbutz in Israel, then moved to South Africa, married, and had a daughter. The daughter was named Nadine.\nYad Vashem has not recognised Nadine Hwang as Righteous Among the Nations. But a Jewish girl carries her name because of a promise made in one of the darkest places the world has ever built.\nThe discovery # Hwang survived the war. She moved to Brussels via Sweden, reunited with her fellow camp survivor and lover Nelly Mousset-Vos, and the two spent two decades in Caracas, Venezuela, passing publicly as cousins. Her health failing, she returned to Europe in the late 1960s.\nIn November 2015, a Chinese student named Aaron Zhang — attending a curatorial course at Yad Vashem through the University of Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Weiss-Livnat program — noticed the Chinese signature on the embroidered cloth. He spent years tracing the woman behind it, piecing together archives from Spain, Germany, France, and Venezuela. His research, published on The Times of Israel blog network, is the reason most English-speaking readers know her story at all. The 2022 documentary Nelly \u0026amp; Nadine by Magnus Gertten has since brought the love story to wider audiences.\nWhy this matters today # Aaron Zhang\u0026rsquo;s central observation is worth holding on to: thousands of European Jews found refuge in Harbin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, and their memory is preserved in Chinese cities. But on the other side of the globe, Jews and Chinese in Nazi Europe \u0026ldquo;were on the same boat.\u0026rdquo; The Hamburg Chinatown was destroyed. Chinese Europeans perished in the camps. One of them signed her name in thread — \u0026ldquo;黄China\u0026rdquo; — in the last days of Ravensbrück.\nAs sirens sounded across Israel this morning, Nadine Hwang deserves to be among the faces we remember.\nSource: Times of Israel Blogs — Aaron Zhang, \u0026ldquo;\u0026lsquo;China Hwang\u0026rsquo; of the Nazi camp for women\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/nadine-hwang-ravensbruck-chinese-resistance/","section":"Posts","summary":"At Yad Vashem, embroidered into a scrap of red cloth cut from a Nazi flag, there is a Chinese signature: 黄China — “Hwang China.” Most visitors walk past it. The display window partly obscures the name. But that signature, stitched by a Chinese prisoner in the final days of Ravensbrück concentration camp in April 1945, opens a door onto one of the strangest and most forgotten lives of the twentieth century.\n","title":"The Chinese Woman of Ravensbrück: Remembering Nadine Hwang","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/yad-vashem/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Yad-Vashem","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/yom-hashoah/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Yom-Hashoah","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cgtn/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cgtn","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/propaganda/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Propaganda","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/raz-gal-or/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Raz-Gal-Or","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tomorrow, 14 April 2026, Israel stops. Sirens sound, cafes close, and for two minutes the country stands in silence for the six million murdered in the Shoah. It is the one day on the Jewish calendar reserved above all others for the moral obligation lo od pa\u0026rsquo;am — never again, and never to anyone.\nFive years ago, on 8 April 2021 — Yom HaShoah 5781 — an Israeli man in Beijing chose that exact day to publish a nearly fifteen-minute video from a Xinjiang cotton field, assuring his international audience that the mass internment of Uyghur Muslims is a Western fabrication and that everything in the region is, in his words, \u0026ldquo;totally normal.\u0026rdquo;\nHis name is Raz Gal-Or (רז גלאור; Chinese: 高佑思, Gāo Yòusī). He is arguably the most successful Israeli influencer in China. He is also, according to reporting by the BBC, the New York Times, Deutsche Welle, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Freedom House, one of the Chinese Communist Party\u0026rsquo;s most valuable foreign mouthpieces. On the anniversary of the Holocaust, he chose to lend a Jewish, Israeli face to genocide denial.\nFrom Tel Aviv to Peking University # Gal-Or was born in 1994 in a community near Tel Aviv. At thirteen he followed his father, the Israeli venture capitalist Amir Gal-Or, to Hong Kong, then on to mainland China. He attended the Canadian International School of Hong Kong, and studied international relations at Peking University — the Chinese Communist Party\u0026rsquo;s flagship institution for training future cadres. The South China Morning Post politely observed in 2017 that \u0026ldquo;his China journey was driven by the ambitions of his father.\u0026rdquo;\nIn December 2016, while still a student, Gal-Or co-founded YChina — 歪果仁研究协会, the \u0026ldquo;Foreigner Research Institute\u0026rdquo; — with his Chinese classmate Fang Yedun (方晔顿). The name is a sly pun: 歪果仁 (wāiguǒrén, \u0026ldquo;crooked nuts\u0026rdquo;) sounds almost identical to 外国人 (wàiguórén, \u0026ldquo;foreigner\u0026rdquo;). The schtick was light: goofy foreigners discovering Chinese dumplings, Chinese trains, Chinese tech.\nThe business model was less light. Amir Gal-Or\u0026rsquo;s Infinity Group — the pioneer Israeli venture fund in China — co-led a ¥10 million (about US$1.5 million) seed round alongside Will Hunting Capital (唯猎资本). That capital, and the connections that came with it, helped push YChina from a student channel to a company managing more than thirty foreign influencers with a combined 100 million followers across Weibo, Bilibili, Youku, Xiaohongshu and YouTube. Few 22-year-olds break the Chinese media market. This one had a father already inside it.\n\u0026ldquo;Borrowing a mouth to speak\u0026rdquo; # Chinese state media has a term for what Gal-Or does: 借嘴说话 — jiè zuǐ shuō huà, \u0026ldquo;borrowing a mouth to speak.\u0026rdquo; The strategy, well documented by the Alliance for Securing Democracy and by ASPI\u0026rsquo;s Borrowing mouths to speak on Xinjiang, is to amplify foreign voices that say what the Party cannot credibly say in its own accent. Gal-Or is not just a passive amplifier. The BBC reported in July 2021 that he works as a \u0026ldquo;global stringer\u0026rdquo; — a paid contributor — for CGTN, the Communist Party\u0026rsquo;s English-language state broadcaster.\nThe 8 April 2021 Xinjiang trilogy # In April 2021, as H\u0026amp;M, Nike, Burberry and other Western brands announced they would no longer source cotton from Xinjiang over well-documented forced-labour concerns, Beijing needed counter-narratives fast. YChina delivered three.\n\u0026ldquo;What is the REAL Xinjiang like? I\u0026rsquo;m going there to find out!\u0026rdquo; — the two-minute teaser (bv_zJf6a8nI, uploaded 2 April 2021), promising an unvarnished look. \u0026ldquo;What I saw in Xinjiang working as a Cotton Farmer\u0026rdquo; — the fourteen-and-a-half-minute main event (67pU0Ybovnc), uploaded on 8 April 2021, Yom HaShoah. Gal-Or, grinning under a wide-brimmed hat, picks cotton and declares the region \u0026ldquo;totally normal.\u0026rdquo; Two farmers, on camera, flatly deny any forced labour exists. \u0026ldquo;I visited 3 families in Xinjiang, here is what they told me\u0026rdquo; (5gbD-vfO_OU, uploaded 11 April 2021) — the follow-up, claiming spontaneous access to \u0026ldquo;random Xinjiang locals.\u0026rdquo; The BBC noted that Gal-Or was accompanied on these trips by a CGTN film crew — the same state broadcaster that later re-cut his footage as \u0026ldquo;Foreign blogger Raz Galor visits cotton farm in Xinjiang\u0026rdquo; and pushed it through its own channel. New York Times Asia technology reporter Paul Mozur then documented, in a December 2021 thread, that a single Gal-Or Xinjiang video had been shared by 35 Chinese-government-linked accounts with a combined 400 million followers, many of them Chinese embassies on Facebook reposting it in multiple languages.\nThe United States government has designated the treatment of the Uyghurs a genocide. The UK, Canadian and Dutch parliaments have passed the same designation. The independent Uyghur Tribunal in London ruled in December 2021 that crimes against humanity and genocide had been committed. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented mass arbitrary detention, forced sterilisation, family separation and systematic cultural destruction.\nOn the day Israel remembered its own murdered, Raz Gal-Or\u0026rsquo;s contribution to this record was to tell the world it was not happening.\nStill on the payroll # This is not a youthful misstep from which he has distanced himself. YChina has continued to function as a reliable CCP-aligned channel. Gal-Or collected multiple prizes at the 2021 state-run \u0026ldquo;My China Story\u0026rdquo; international short-video awards. In November 2023 he was announced as a brand ambassador for FOTILE (方太), one of China\u0026rsquo;s largest kitchen-appliance companies, beaming that \u0026ldquo;happiness starts from the kitchen.\u0026rdquo; Freedom House\u0026rsquo;s 2022 Beijing\u0026rsquo;s Global Media Influence: Israel report named him the single most prominent Israeli vector of CCP-aligned narratives.\nMeanwhile the Xinjiang Police Files, leaked to a consortium of international journalists in 2022, put faces on the camp detainees Gal-Or told us did not exist.\nWhy this matters, especially tomorrow # Reasonable people can disagree about how much personal moral responsibility a foreign vlogger carries for what a foreign state does with his videos. Reasonable people cannot disagree about the facts: on Yom HaShoah 2021, an Israeli citizen with more than a quarter of a million YouTube subscribers, funded out of the starting gate by his father\u0026rsquo;s China venture fund, recorded a piece of content whose sole editorial purpose was to tell a global audience that a programme of mass ethno-religious persecution was a lie invented by the West. That content was then pumped out through Chinese embassies to hundreds of millions of people. It is still online.\nLo od pa\u0026rsquo;am is not a slogan about Jews only. Ask any Holocaust survivor who ever spoke in a school gymnasium what the promise was; they will tell you it was about anyone, anywhere, whose neighbours were disappeared into camps. It was not a promise to stand up for Uyghurs only when it is commercially convenient. It was certainly not a promise to publish cheerful denials on the anniversary itself.\nTomorrow the sirens will sound in Israel. Raz Gal-Or will, presumably, be in Beijing. The videos are still up. The audience is still watching. The question is whether the Israeli public, and Israeli media that has been remarkably quiet about one of its own, will remember what they were supposed to remember.\nSources:\nBBC News, \u0026ldquo;The foreigners in China\u0026rsquo;s disinformation drive\u0026rdquo; (10 July 2021) The New York Times, \u0026ldquo;China Uses YouTube Influencers to Spread Propaganda\u0026rdquo; (13 December 2021) Deutsche Welle, \u0026ldquo;Truth or lies: The expat YouTubers praising China\u0026rdquo; (11 November 2021) ASPI, \u0026ldquo;Borrowing mouths to speak on Xinjiang\u0026rdquo; (10 December 2021) ASPI, \u0026ldquo;Singing from the CCP\u0026rsquo;s songsheet\u0026rdquo; (November 2023) Freedom House, \u0026ldquo;Beijing\u0026rsquo;s Global Media Influence: Israel 2022\u0026rdquo; Paul Mozur, Twitter/X thread (14 December 2021) South China Morning Post, \u0026ldquo;How the Israeli who captured Chinese hearts plans to turn online fame into fortune\u0026rdquo; (25 November 2017) ","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/raz-gal-or-ychina-xinjiang-yom-hashoah/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tomorrow, 14 April 2026, Israel stops. Sirens sound, cafes close, and for two minutes the country stands in silence for the six million murdered in the Shoah. It is the one day on the Jewish calendar reserved above all others for the moral obligation lo od pa’am — never again, and never to anyone.\n","title":"The Israeli Who Denied a Genocide on Yom HaShoah","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/uyghurs/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Uyghurs","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/xinjiang/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Xinjiang","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ychina/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ychina","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/instagram/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Instagram","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/intermarriage/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Intermarriage","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/korea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Korea","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/korean-israeli/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Korean-Israeli","type":"tags"},{"content":"When Yong Park, a Korean immigrant to Israel, bites into a piece of gefilte fish and announces his verdict in accented Hebrew, more than 600,000 people watch. The reel — one of many from his taste-test series with his Israeli wife Zlata — is part of a viral phenomenon that has turned the couple behind @zlata.park_ into some of the most-shared faces on Israeli social media.\nView this post on Instagram The Love Story # Zlata and Yong\u0026rsquo;s relationship began long-distance between Korea and Israel. For years they documented tearful airport goodbyes and months-long separations on Instagram. Yong eventually immigrated to Israel to be with Zlata, they married, and in the summer of 2025 he received his Israeli ID card — a milestone they celebrated publicly with their now nearly 25,000 Instagram followers.\nTheir joint account bio sums it up neatly: \u0026ldquo;זלטה הישראלית ויונג הקוריאני — משתפים את המסע שלנו ביחד\u0026rdquo; (\u0026ldquo;Zlata the Israeli and Yong the Korean — sharing our journey together\u0026rdquo;).\n\u0026ldquo;Yong Tastes\u0026rdquo; (יונגטועם) # The breakout format is simple: Yong tries an Israeli (or Jewish diaspora) food for the first time, reacts, and rates it. The hashtag #יונגטועם (\u0026ldquo;Yong Tastes\u0026rdquo;) now runs across dozens of reels and TikToks covering shawarma, matza during Passover, homemade sushi, fish cakes, nigiri salmon, and — most viral of all — gefilte fish.\n\u0026ldquo;We started making videos just for fun because we enjoyed filming, and then one day Yong filmed himself eating Israeli food and suddenly it blew up,\u0026rdquo; Zlata told Israeli outlet Mako in an August 2025 interview. \u0026ldquo;People are really supportive — the whole family, our friends, and even people we don\u0026rsquo;t know. They\u0026rsquo;re just crazy about Yong. People recognize him on the street, and in supermarkets they ask to take pictures with him.\u0026rdquo;\nSuccess has brought imitators. According to Zlata, other creators have begun impersonating Yong and copying his accent — and the couple finds it funny rather than annoying.\nPushing Back on Racist Comments # Not all the attention has been positive. The couple have spoken openly about racist responses to their intermarriage, with some commenters objecting to the fact that Yong is not Jewish and invoking tired tropes about \u0026ldquo;assimilation.\u0026rdquo;\nZlata\u0026rsquo;s response, in her Mako interview, cut through it: \u0026ldquo;Yes, we\u0026rsquo;ve run into nasty comments, racist comments about him not being Jewish and \u0026lsquo;assimilation\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;oy vavoy.\u0026rsquo; But people don\u0026rsquo;t understand that what matters, what counts, is not the religion — it\u0026rsquo;s the person themselves. And I got lucky.\u0026rdquo;\nWhy It Resonates # Small Asian communities in Israel are often discussed in abstract terms — as labor migrants, as business stories, or as diplomatic subplots. What Zlata and Yong offer is something different and harder to ignore: daily, affectionate, funny video of a mixed Korean-Israeli household navigating food, language, and in-laws. That kind of everyday visibility does more to normalize the presence of Korean (and other Asian) partners in Israeli life than any policy paper or festival.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s also, simply, good content. The format is easy to consume, the emotional register is warm, and Yong\u0026rsquo;s genuine reactions — wary of fish cakes, delighted by shawarma after Passover — hit the universal sweet spot of food-as-encounter. Yong\u0026rsquo;s personal account @yongikor now carries 19,000 followers in its own right, and their TikTok (@zlata_yong) and YouTube (@zlatayong) reach goes well beyond the combined Instagram footprint.\nFor a country whose public conversation about Asians often swings between exoticization and invisibility, Zlata and Yong\u0026rsquo;s feed is a quiet, delicious corrective.\nSource: Mako (Hebrew, August 2025).\n","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/zlata-yong-park-korean-israeli-couple-viral/","section":"Posts","summary":"When Yong Park, a Korean immigrant to Israel, bites into a piece of gefilte fish and announces his verdict in accented Hebrew, more than 600,000 people watch. The reel — one of many from his taste-test series with his Israeli wife Zlata — is part of a viral phenomenon that has turned the couple behind @zlata.park_ into some of the most-shared faces on Israeli social media.\n","title":"Korean-Israeli Couple Zlata \u0026 Yong Park Go Viral With 'Yong Tastes' Food Reels","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tiktok/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tiktok","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"13 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/viral/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Viral","type":"tags"},{"content":"Kimuraya (木村屋.J) is an authentic Japanese izakaya that opened its first Tel Aviv branch at Maze Street 3 on November 1, 2025. It belongs to the acclaimed Kimura-ya chain, which operates around 200 outlets across Japan, and brings that heritage to Israel with a menu designed by a Japanese chef and interiors by designer Mayuka Kojima.\nThe menu ranges across classic and modern Japanese dishes: wagyu shabu shabu, yakitori, sukiyaki, ramen, sushi and sashimi, with carpaccios (salmon, seabream, tuna) dressed in sesame oil and ponzu. The drinks list features premium sakes, shochu and Japanese whiskies. A new Friday and Saturday lunch service launched on 17 April 2026, and the restaurant runs unlimited shabu-shabu menus for groups.\nThe interior, designed by Mayuka Kojima, leans into a Tokyo-nightlife feel — tables at bar-district density, an inviting counter, and anime figurines tucked across the space — while the kitchen rounds out the izakaya staples with gyoza, karaage, Japanese curry, tempura and matcha desserts. The chain runs roughly 200 outlets across Japan and first stepped outside Asia to Dubai before choosing Tel Aviv.\nFor the Asian community in Israel — and especially Japanese expats — this is a rare chance to sit in a genuine chain izakaya without leaving Tel Aviv. The warm, detail-driven atmosphere and wide sake selection make it a strong choice for a proper Japanese night out.\nAddress: Maze Street 3, Tel Aviv-Yafo 6521311 Reservations: Tabit · WhatsApp · 055-299-6579\n","date":"12 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kimuraya-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Kimuraya (木村屋.J) is an authentic Japanese izakaya that opened its first Tel Aviv branch at Maze Street 3 on November 1, 2025. It belongs to the acclaimed Kimura-ya chain, which operates around 200 outlets across Japan, and brings that heritage to Israel with a menu designed by a Japanese chef and interiors by designer Mayuka Kojima.\n","title":"Kimuraya","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ashdod/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ashdod","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bnei-zion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bnei-Zion","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fermentation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fermentation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/miso/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Miso","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/persian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Persian","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rehovot/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rehovot","type":"tags"},{"content":"Eli Shamsian grew up in a Persian household where food was the language of love. As a child, he trailed his mother through Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market, learning to pick the freshest vegetables and the best cuts of meat from the vendors she trusted. On Shabbat and holidays, the extended family would gather — sometimes 40 people — spreading a cloth on the carpet and sharing a spread of Persian dishes together.\nThat communal table is the thread that connects his Persian upbringing to the cuisine he has devoted his career to: Thai food. \u0026ldquo;The Persian kitchen, like the Thai kitchen, is built around many dishes shared together at the center of the table,\u0026rdquo; he says. \u0026ldquo;That togetherness is an important spice.\u0026rdquo;\nFrom Carmel Market to Bangkok Street Stalls # Shamsian started working in professional kitchens at 15. His first trip to Thailand changed everything. He fell in love with the food culture — the flavors, the street vendors, the communal spirit — and kept returning, spending days cooking alongside local vendors and learning techniques that never make it into cookbooks. Back in Israel, he worked at some of the country\u0026rsquo;s leading Thai restaurants before launching his own venture: ShamSiam, a name that fuses his family name with Siam, the old name for Thailand.\nWhat ShamSiam Offers # ShamSiam operates out of Shamsian\u0026rsquo;s kitchen in Rehovot and also travels to clients\u0026rsquo; homes. The core offerings include:\nClassic Thai Cooking Workshop — Curry, stir-fry, sticky rice, salads, and relishes. Participants learn about traditional ingredients like kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and palm sugar, and work with mortar and pestle to make curry pastes from scratch. Thai Grill Workshop — Fish stuffed with herbs, marinated beef, skewers with sticky rice and spicy relishes. Vegan Thai Workshop — Plant-based Thai dishes using local and traditional vegetables. Asian Dumpling Workshop — A cross-cultural session spanning Chinese, Japanese, and Thai dumpling traditions, with different fillings, dough types, sauces, and dips. Thai Street Soup Workshop — A winter special focused on hearty Thai bowl meals. Private Chef Dinners — Shamsian comes to your home with fresh Thai ingredients and traditional cookware, transforming your dining room into a Thai dinner experience. Pop-ups and Events — Corporate team-building, birthday celebrations, and occasional pop-up dinners at venues like the wine bar at Mona Restaurant in Jerusalem. Workshops typically run about four hours and accommodate up to 12 participants. Everyone receives a recipe booklet to take home.\nPractical Details # Schedule: Tuesday evenings (17:30-21:30), Tuesday and Friday mornings (9:30-13:30)\nLocation: Shamsian\u0026rsquo;s kitchen in Rehovot, or at your location\nBooking: Via Instagram DM or phone. A minimum number of participants is required for workshops to run.\nPhone: 054-6734521\nWebsite: shamsiam.co.il\nInstagram: @sham__siam\nWhatsApp: Message on WhatsApp\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/shamsiam-thai-cooking-rehovot/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eli Shamsian grew up in a Persian household where food was the language of love. As a child, he trailed his mother through Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market, learning to pick the freshest vegetables and the best cuts of meat from the vendors she trusted. On Shabbat and holidays, the extended family would gather — sometimes 40 people — spreading a cloth on the carpet and sharing a spread of Persian dishes together.\n","title":"ShamSiam: Where Persian Roots Meet Thai Street Food in Rehovot","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/human-rights/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Human Rights","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/politics/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Politics","type":"tags"},{"content":"South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ignited a diplomatic firestorm on April 10 when he shared a video on X from a pro-Palestinian account alleging that Israeli soldiers \u0026ldquo;tortured a Palestinian kid and threw him off a roof.\u0026rdquo; Israel\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Ministry issued a sharp rebuke, accusing him of trivializing the Holocaust on the eve of Yom HaShoah, Israel\u0026rsquo;s Holocaust Remembrance Day.\nWhat Lee Shared — and What Actually Happened # The video Lee reposted was originally published by the X user \u0026ldquo;Jvnior,\u0026rdquo; an account known for anti-Israel content that has been repeatedly flagged by the platform\u0026rsquo;s Community Notes feature for spreading misleading claims.\nThe footage is real but the caption was not. It does not show a child being tortured. The video depicts an incident from September 19, 2024 in the town of Qabatiya, near Jenin in the West Bank. According to Ynet\u0026rsquo;s original reporting, IDF special forces raided a building targeting armed militants. Four armed men on the rooftop opened fire on the soldiers, who returned fire and killed them. After the operation concluded, soldiers were filmed pushing the bodies off the roof — with one soldier kicking a body before it fell.\nThe IDF spokesperson called it at the time \u0026ldquo;a serious incident that is inconsistent with IDF values\u0026rdquo; and launched an investigation. Channel 13 corroborated that account. White House spokesman John Kirby described the footage as \u0026ldquo;deeply disturbing\u0026rdquo; and the conduct as \u0026ldquo;despicable and unacceptable.\u0026rdquo;\nLee\u0026rsquo;s Remarks and the Comfort Women Comparison # In his initial post, Lee wrote that he needed to verify the video\u0026rsquo;s authenticity and assess what actions were taken. But he then drew an explosive historical parallel:\n\u0026ldquo;Wartime homicide is no different from matters that we take issue with, such as the forced [enslavement of] comfort women, and the massacre of Jewish people.\u0026rdquo;\nThe comparison to comfort women — Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II — carries immense weight in East Asia. It is a defining trauma for Korea and remains a live diplomatic wound between Seoul and Tokyo. Lee was effectively connecting one of Korea\u0026rsquo;s deepest historical grievances to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\nIn a follow-up post, Lee acknowledged the incident involved a corpse rather than a living person, calling this \u0026ldquo;a small mercy, if one can call it that.\u0026rdquo; He stressed that international humanitarian law must be upheld and that human dignity is \u0026ldquo;non-negotiable.\u0026rdquo;\nIsrael Responds with Fury # Israel\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Ministry issued a blistering statement on X, calling Lee\u0026rsquo;s remarks \u0026ldquo;unacceptable\u0026rdquo; and deserving of \u0026ldquo;strong condemnation.\u0026rdquo;\nThe ministry said Lee had relied on a \u0026ldquo;fake account\u0026rdquo; known for spreading \u0026ldquo;anti-Israeli disinformation\u0026rdquo; and had revived an incident from 2024 that was already \u0026ldquo;thoroughly investigated and addressed.\u0026rdquo; It accused him of trivializing the massacre of Jews — pointedly noting the timing on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day.\nThe statement added that during the original incident, soldiers were facing \u0026ldquo;direct and immediate threats to their lives,\u0026rdquo; and asked why Lee had said nothing about \u0026ldquo;the terrorists who were at the center of this event\u0026rdquo; or about \u0026ldquo;recent Iranian and Hezbollah terror attacks against Israeli citizens.\u0026rdquo;\nAccording to Times of Israel coverage, the diplomatic language was unusually harsh for a bilateral relationship that has generally been cordial.\nLee Doubles Down # Lee did not back down. In a subsequent post responding to Israel\u0026rsquo;s criticism, he expressed disappointment that Israel \u0026ldquo;has not once reflected on the global community\u0026rsquo;s criticism of its relentless inhumane and internationally unlawful actions, which have caused immense suffering.\u0026rdquo;\nHe added: \u0026ldquo;For the sake of universal human rights and the national interests of the Republic of Korea, I must work harder to find things I can do.\u0026rdquo;\nPolitical Context # Lee Jae Myung took office as South Korea\u0026rsquo;s president following the dramatic implosion of his predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol. In December 2024, Yoon attempted to impose martial law, was impeached by parliament, and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison in February 2026.\nLee, a progressive opposition leader who survived a stabbing attack in 2024, has signaled a foreign policy recalibration. His willingness to publicly challenge Israel — and to invoke the comfort women framework — suggests South Korea under his leadership may take a more vocal stance on human rights issues in the Middle East.\nFor the Asian communities in Israel, this diplomatic clash is a reminder of how the conflict reverberates through East Asian politics and collective memory, linking historical traumas from Japanese colonialism to present-day events in the region.\nA Note on Sources # This story was widely covered in English by Turkish state news agency Anadolu (AA), which provided the most detailed initial reports. Readers should be aware that AA operates under President Erdoğan\u0026rsquo;s government and has been documented as systematically echoing Ankara\u0026rsquo;s pro-Hamas narrative. Turkey openly hosts Hamas leaders and frames the group as a \u0026ldquo;resistance movement.\u0026rdquo; AA\u0026rsquo;s framing in this case notably omitted context about the militants firing at soldiers. Hebrew-language coverage of Lee\u0026rsquo;s post also appeared on Yaffa News Network, a self-described Palestinian media outlet that covers \u0026ldquo;occupied Palestine\u0026rdquo; and consistently frames its reporting from a Palestinian perspective. This article relies primarily on Kan News, Times of Israel, Ynet, Korea Herald, and Korea JoongAng Daily for balanced reporting.\n","date":"11 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/south-korea-president-idf-video-diplomatic-row/","section":"Posts","summary":"South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ignited a diplomatic firestorm on April 10 when he shared a video on X from a pro-Palestinian account alleging that Israeli soldiers “tortured a Palestinian kid and threw him off a roof.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a sharp rebuke, accusing him of trivializing the Holocaust on the eve of Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.\n","title":"South Korea's President Sparks Diplomatic Row by Comparing IDF to Comfort Women, Holocaust","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/coffee/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Coffee","type":"tags"},{"content":"Kohi TLV is a Japanese-inspired specialty coffee shop on Ben Yehuda 155 in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s old north. Opened by Sarbar Golomov, an Uzbekistan-born barista and certified coffee taster who previously managed the leading coffee company in Tashkent, the cafe channels his lifelong passion for Japanese culture and specialty coffee into a minimalist, beautifully designed space with a stone bar counter and fresh flowers on every table.\nThe menu leans into Japanese flavors with tamago egg sandwiches in soft brioche (36 NIS), fluffy Japanese souffle pancakes with yuzu and matcha or maple and blueberries (42 NIS), and French toast with yogurt and seasonal fruit. Golomov sources specialty beans from small roasters around the world — Japan, the Netherlands, the US, UK, Italy, and Israel — alongside fresh matcha imported directly from Japan. Espresso starts at 13 NIS, flat white at 17, cappuccino at 18.\nThe space draws a steady crowd of remote workers and coffee enthusiasts. Expect a 15-20 minute wait for a table during peak hours, and up to 50 minutes for food when it\u0026rsquo;s busy. Open every day 7:30-18:00.\nAddress: Ben Yehuda 155, Tel Aviv\n","date":"10 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kohi-tlv-japanese-coffee/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Kohi TLV is a Japanese-inspired specialty coffee shop on Ben Yehuda 155 in Tel Aviv’s old north. Opened by Sarbar Golomov, an Uzbekistan-born barista and certified coffee taster who previously managed the leading coffee company in Tashkent, the cafe channels his lifelong passion for Japanese culture and specialty coffee into a minimalist, beautifully designed space with a stone bar counter and fresh flowers on every table.\n","title":"Kohi TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/geopolitics/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Geopolitics","type":"tags"},{"content":"China now buys nearly every drop of oil Iran produces. A decade ago, it purchased roughly 30% of Iranian crude. Today that figure stands at around 90%, making Beijing the indispensable partner keeping Tehran\u0026rsquo;s economy afloat and its military funded — despite years of escalating U.S. sanctions.\nAccording to commodity research firm Kpler, China purchased approximately 1.4 million barrels per day of Iranian oil in 2025. That is more than double the roughly 650,000 barrels per day it bought in 2017, before the first Trump administration launched its \u0026ldquo;maximum pressure\u0026rdquo; campaign. At current oil prices, these purchases channel billions of dollars to Iran every month.\nFrom Maximum Pressure to Maximum Evasion # When Trump first imposed his toughest sanctions in 2018, Iranian exports collapsed from nearly 2.8 million barrels per day to just 200,000 by August 2019, as buyers worldwide fled the market. But Iran quickly adapted — with Chinese help.\nThe key was China\u0026rsquo;s network of smaller, independent refineries known as \u0026ldquo;teapots.\u0026rdquo; After state-owned giants like Sinopec and CNPC pulled back to protect their global operations from U.S. penalties, these teapot refineries filled the gap. They had less international exposure and could pay in yuan rather than dollars, insulating them from American financial reach. Beijing facilitated this shift by nearly doubling the teapots\u0026rsquo; crude import quotas, from 140 million metric tons in 2018 to 257 million this year.\nA Shadow Fleet on the High Seas # Moving sanctioned oil across thousands of kilometers of ocean requires creative deception. A sprawling shadow fleet of tankers has emerged to handle the trade, employing tactics straight out of a spy thriller.\nVessel operators change ship names, disable tracking transponders, and transmit fake location signals to disguise their movements. Ship-to-ship transfers at sea allow Iranian crude to be relabeled as originating from Oman, Malaysia, or other countries. One China-based tanker network alone, established in 2019, now comprises at least 56 vessels that have moved more than 400 million barrels of sanctioned oil, according to C4ADS, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on national security threats.\nIn one case described in U.S. court documents, a ship called the \u0026ldquo;Oman Pride\u0026rdquo; loaded Iranian crude at Sirri Island in the Persian Gulf while another vessel elsewhere transmitted fake signals pretending to be that same ship — a textbook case of maritime identity fraud.\nFollowing the Money # Financing the trade has required equally inventive methods. Bank of Kunlun, a small Chinese institution sanctioned by Washington in 2012 for facilitating Iranian financial transactions, became a primary conduit for yuan-denominated payments. Cut off from the U.S. financial system, the bank had nothing more to lose — and it grew rapidly as Iran\u0026rsquo;s oil revenues flowed through its accounts.\nAn elaborate network of front companies further obscures the money trail. U.S. prosecutors have alleged that buyers sometimes dealt directly with Iran\u0026rsquo;s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps through shell companies. Udi Levy, the former head of the Mossad\u0026rsquo;s economic warfare unit, has documented 66 front companies in Hong Kong and mainland China operating under Bank Tejarat, a major Iranian financial institution, to convert yuan into dollars and euros.\nBeyond conventional payments, China and Iran have developed a barter system in which Chinese state-backed companies build infrastructure in Iran as compensation for oil. This channel alone handled up to $8.4 billion in payments in 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal.\nWhy This Matters for Israel # The revenue flowing from this trade directly funds the military capabilities that threaten Israel. Iran uses oil income to develop ballistic missiles, manufacture drones, and finance proxy forces across the region. As Max Meizlish of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies put it: \u0026ldquo;Iran just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to fight this war without the years of support that it has received from China.\u0026rdquo;\nThe second Trump administration faces a familiar challenge: tightening enforcement without disrupting global oil markets or pushing U.S.-China relations past a breaking point. Meanwhile, the sanctions-evasion infrastructure has only grown more sophisticated and entrenched.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Ministry has said it \u0026ldquo;firmly opposes illegal and unreasonable unilateral sanctions\u0026rdquo; and will protect its energy security. Officially, Chinese customs authorities have not reported any crude imports from Iran since 2023 — even as satellite tracking shows a steady stream of tankers making the journey.\nSource: The Wall Street Journal\n","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/china-iran-oil-sanctions-evasion/","section":"Posts","summary":"China now buys nearly every drop of oil Iran produces. A decade ago, it purchased roughly 30% of Iranian crude. Today that figure stands at around 90%, making Beijing the indispensable partner keeping Tehran’s economy afloat and its military funded — despite years of escalating U.S. sanctions.\n","title":"How China Became Iran's Oil Lifeline and Sanctions Shield","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/middle-east/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Middle-East","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/national-security/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"National-Security","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/oil/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Oil","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sanctions/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sanctions","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/trade/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Trade","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/filipina/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Filipina","type":"tags"},{"content":"Lucille-Jane Gershevitz, a 29-year-old Filipina who moved to Israel to be with the man she loved, was killed on Saturday night alongside her husband Dima (42), and his parents Vladimir (73) and Lena (68), when an Iranian ballistic missile struck their residential building in Haifa, causing three floors to collapse.\nBefore the victims\u0026rsquo; names were released, major Israeli media misidentified Lucille-Jane as \u0026ldquo;המטפלת שלהם\u0026rdquo; — the family\u0026rsquo;s caretaker. She was not. She was Dima\u0026rsquo;s wife.\nThe Attack # The missile struck the six-story building during an Iranian barrage on the evening of April 5 as part of Operation Roaring Lion. According to investigators, the missile\u0026rsquo;s warhead did not detonate — instead, the projectile broke apart in the air, causing Israeli interceptors to miss as its trajectory changed. A section of the missile slammed into the building, and the sheer force of impact brought down the lower three floors.\nThe Gershevitz family lived on the bottom floor. Their nearest safe room was outside the building, requiring them to exit and climb to an external shelter. Vladimir and Lena, both elderly, could not make it in time. The family sheltered in the stairwell instead.\nRescue teams from the Home Front Command and the elite Lehava unit worked through the night, constructing a tunnel through unstable debris to reach the trapped family. All four bodies were recovered after an 18-hour search on Monday morning. Four other people were injured in the strike, including an 82-year-old man who underwent surgery and a 10-month-old baby with a head injury.\nThe Gershevitz Family # Vladimir (73) and Lena (68) immigrated to Israel from Kyiv. Vladimir had been in a prolonged hospital stay at Rambam Medical Center and was discharged just hours before the attack — his son Dima drove him home to Haifa that same day. Lena, born Ostrovsky, was a beloved voice development teacher at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Jerusalem, where she nurtured generations of actors over three decades. Israel\u0026rsquo;s actors\u0026rsquo; union issued a tribute: \u0026ldquo;For thirty years, Lena cultivated generations of actors with devotion, professionalism, and above all, great love for the profession and her students.\u0026rdquo;\nDima (42) was their only child. A software engineer at JFrog for nine years, he studied at the Technion in Haifa and later at Reichman University in Herzliya, where he lived with Lucille-Jane. A family friend described him as \u0026ldquo;an exceptional person — from childhood he stood out as a gifted child, a little genius.\u0026rdquo; He spoke eleven languages, played piano at a high level, painted, and loved cooking. \u0026ldquo;He brought creativity and excellence to everything he touched.\u0026rdquo;\nLucille-Jane (29) was from the Philippines. She met Dima while he was traveling in her home country. They married in April 2024. For years, she was apprehensive about moving to Israel, but ultimately chose to follow Dima. She arrived just months ago to build a life with him and worked at a kindergarten. A family friend said through tears: \u0026ldquo;Lucille was afraid to come to Israel, but she went in the footsteps of their love. They dreamed of a family and children — dreams that will never be realized. She loved him in an extraordinary way.\u0026rdquo;\nThe family\u0026rsquo;s relatives said: \u0026ldquo;A family of beloved people with hearts of gold. They were always kind and pleasant to everyone they met. They loved life, culture, and travel. They left a mark of light everywhere they went and on everyone they met. We are heartbroken. Losing them is a terrible tragedy — not just for us, but for everyone who knew them.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The Caretaker\u0026rdquo; # Before the victims\u0026rsquo; identities were officially released, both Calcalist (archived) and Ynet (archived) described the four missing as \u0026ldquo;בני זוג מבוגרים, בנם בן ה-40 והמטפלת שלהם\u0026rdquo; — \u0026ldquo;an elderly couple, their son in his 40s, and their caretaker.\u0026rdquo; Ynet\u0026rsquo;s subtitle even read: \u0026ldquo;Grave concern for the lives of four — an elderly couple, their son, and a caretaker — trapped under the rubble.\u0026rdquo; The label spread in English too: StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy group with over 80,000 followers on its WhatsApp channel, repeated the description verbatim — \u0026ldquo;an elderly couple, their son, and their caregiver.\u0026rdquo; As of April 7, none of the three have corrected the error.\nLucille-Jane was not the family\u0026rsquo;s caretaker. She was their daughter-in-law — \u0026ldquo;כלתם,\u0026rdquo; as Ynet\u0026rsquo;s later profile correctly identified her. She worked at a kindergarten. She married their son. She was part of the family.\nThe reflexive assumption — young Filipina woman found in a household with elderly Israelis, therefore she must be the hired help — speaks to how Israeli society often sees Filipinas through a single lens. An estimated 30,000 Filipinos live and work in Israel, the majority as caregivers. But they are also spouses, parents, students, kindergarten teachers, and community members. Reducing every Filipina to the role of \u0026ldquo;caretaker\u0026rdquo; erases their individuality and the fullness of their lives.\nThe English-language press, notably Israel Hayom and TPS/israel.com, was vaguer, describing her as \u0026ldquo;his partner\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;a foreign national\u0026rdquo; — not wrong, given that names had not yet been released. But where vagueness is understandable before identities are confirmed, calling someone \u0026ldquo;the caretaker\u0026rdquo; is not vague — it is an active assumption, and it was wrong.\nResponses # President Isaac Herzog called the Gershevitz family \u0026ldquo;a wonderful family that was wiped out in an instant by a criminal Iranian missile.\u0026rdquo; Culture Minister Miki Zohar paid tribute to Lena on X, honoring the impact she had on generations of actors. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett noted that he had grown up in a home just minutes from the family\u0026rsquo;s.\nOn April 7, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed Lucille-Jane\u0026rsquo;s death. The Israeli Embassy in Manila issued a statement expressing its \u0026ldquo;deepest condolences following the tragic loss of four members of a family, including a young Filipino woman who chose to build her life with her husband in Israel.\u0026rdquo; The embassy added that \u0026ldquo;Israel stands in profound solidarity with the bereaved family and the Filipino community.\u0026rdquo; Lucille-Jane\u0026rsquo;s family has asked that their privacy be respected during this period of mourning.\nFilipino Lives Lost in Israel # Lucille-Jane is the eighth Filipino killed in Israel since October 7, 2023 — and the sixth Filipina.\nFive Filipinos were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023: Angelyn Aguirre, Loreta Alacre (49), Grace Cabrera, Paul Vincent Castelvi, and Sgt. Cydrick Garin, a Filipino-Israeli soldier. Israel honored all five during its 2024 Memorial Day ceremony.\nOn July 13, 2025, Leah Mosquera (49), a caregiver from Negros Occidental, died of injuries sustained when an Iranian missile struck her apartment in Rehovot during the June 2025 Israel-Iran war.\nOn February 28, 2026, Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera (32), a caregiver from Pangasinan, was killed by an Iranian missile in Tel Aviv while helping her elderly patient reach a bomb shelter. She refused to leave the woman\u0026rsquo;s side. President Herzog called her a hero.\nThe contrast between de Vera\u0026rsquo;s story and Lucille-Jane\u0026rsquo;s is telling. De Vera was a caregiver, and her sacrifice was recognized and celebrated — in part because it fit the familiar narrative of the devoted Filipina caretaker. Lucille-Jane was a wife, a kindergarten worker, a woman who crossed the world for love. The media didn\u0026rsquo;t know what to make of her, so it defaulted to the only role it could imagine for a Filipina in Israel.\nUpdated April 7, 2026 with Philippine DFA confirmation, Israeli Embassy statement, and corrected Filipino death count.\nSources: Ynet, Israel Hayom, Calcalist, israel.com/TPS, Times of Israel, Manila Times, ABS-CBN News, Arutz Sheva, Amit Segal/Channel 12, GMA News, PNA\n","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/filipina-killed-haifa-iranian-missile-strike/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lucille-Jane Gershevitz, a 29-year-old Filipina who moved to Israel to be with the man she loved, was killed on Saturday night alongside her husband Dima (42), and his parents Vladimir (73) and Lena (68), when an Iranian ballistic missile struck their residential building in Haifa, causing three floors to collapse.\n","title":"Filipina Killed in Haifa Missile Strike Was the Family's Daughter-in-Law, Not Their Caretaker","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/media-bias/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Media-Bias","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/missile-strike/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Missile-Strike","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/operation-roaring-lion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Operation-Roaring-Lion","type":"tags"},{"content":"HaYapani is an authentic Japanese restaurant in Mishmar HaSharon\u0026rsquo;s Alonit Complex, led by Chef Guy Toledo, a sushi master with over 20 years of experience in Israel\u0026rsquo;s Japanese dining scene. Toledo has managed and co-founded dozens of restaurants including Kyoto, the River chain, Japanika, and Nori, and opened his own sushi restaurant Omai in Florentin in 2010. His passion for Japanese cuisine began during a formative stay in Osaka, where he discovered the city\u0026rsquo;s legendary fish market and learned from local kitchen masters.\nThe menu features a wide range of Japanese dishes: specialty sushi rolls, sashimi, nigiri, ramen with slow-cooked broths, donburi rice bowls, gyoza, wok noodles, and spring rolls. Many dishes are available gluten-free, and there are substantial vegan options throughout the menu including vegan ramen, gyoza, and sushi. HaYapani also offers party platters, catering for events, private chef service, and sushi workshops.\nBeyond the dine-in experience at the Alonit Complex, HaYapani delivers across the Emek Hefer region via Tabit. Orders can be placed for delivery, takeaway, or dine-in through their online ordering system.\nAddress: Alonit Complex, Mishmar HaSharon\n","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hayapani/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"HaYapani is an authentic Japanese restaurant in Mishmar HaSharon’s Alonit Complex, led by Chef Guy Toledo, a sushi master with over 20 years of experience in Israel’s Japanese dining scene. Toledo has managed and co-founded dozens of restaurants including Kyoto, the River chain, Japanika, and Nori, and opened his own sushi restaurant Omai in Florentin in 2010. His passion for Japanese cuisine began during a formative stay in Osaka, where he discovered the city’s legendary fish market and learned from local kitchen masters.\n","title":"HaYapani","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"6 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mishmar-hasharon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mishmar-Hasharon","type":"tags"},{"content":"When Beijing ordered the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Israel in late March 2026, following Iran\u0026rsquo;s retaliatory strikes after the US-Israeli military operation, the response from tens of thousands of Chinese construction workers was unequivocal: they refused to leave.\nAn estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Chinese workers are employed in Israel\u0026rsquo;s construction sector. Since the start of the war, the Chinese embassy has been organizing evacuations via the Taba border crossing into Egypt, and on March 25 it called on all citizens to return home or transfer out as soon as possible. The vast majority chose to remain on job sites within range of Iranian rockets. Videos of workers explaining their decision — broadcast by NTD Television and shared widely on X — offered a stark window into the economic conditions driving their choice.\n\u0026ldquo;We Want to Live with Dignity\u0026rdquo; # \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m working here, everything is normal,\u0026rdquo; one worker said in a video posted on X. \u0026ldquo;If there\u0026rsquo;s an air raid siren, you take cover. We\u0026rsquo;re used to it by now.\u0026rdquo; He went on: \u0026ldquo;Life isn\u0026rsquo;t just about having enough to eat. We want freedom. We want to live with dignity.\u0026rdquo;\nIn another clip filmed inside a workers\u0026rsquo; dormitory, one man asked his roommate whether he planned to evacuate. The reply was blunt: \u0026ldquo;We could get bombed to death here, but we can\u0026rsquo;t go back and starve to death!\u0026rdquo; His companion laughed: \u0026ldquo;Nobody wants to go back!\u0026rdquo;\nThe videos triggered a wave of online commentary from Chinese internet users. \u0026ldquo;Compared to dying poor, being bombed is instant — dying in poverty is slow torture,\u0026rdquo; wrote one commenter. Another observed: \u0026ldquo;Being injured in a missile attack is a low-probability event, but poverty is like a sniper — almost every shot hits the head.\u0026rdquo; A third wrote: \u0026ldquo;For those without the red background in China, it\u0026rsquo;s not just dying poor, it\u0026rsquo;s dying in humiliation.\u0026rdquo;\nWages That Dwarf Anything Available in China # The math behind their decision is straightforward. Chinese construction workers in Israel report earning between 30,000 and 80,000 yuan per month — roughly $4,100 to $11,000 — for 12-hour shifts. Israeli employers pay reliably and on time, workers said, a sharp contrast to the wage delays and withholding that have become widespread in China.\nDemand for these positions is intense. Workers typically enter a lottery or pay agency fees of 50,000 to over 100,000 yuan just to secure a spot. One carpenter described spending 80,000-90,000 yuan to get to Israel and now earning 45,000 yuan a month. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m not going home until I\u0026rsquo;ve made two million,\u0026rdquo; he said, adding that when he was injured on the job, the hospital arranged a Chinese interpreter and provided excellent care.\nAnother worker, a former home renovator who lost his job in China, now earns 60,000 to 70,000 yuan a month laying tile. \u0026ldquo;In five years, that\u0026rsquo;s two million. Back home I could barely support myself, let alone my kid and my parents.\u0026rdquo;\nSome Chinese state-owned companies also operate on Israeli construction projects, employing workers up to age 60 at lower salaries — under 30,000 yuan per month — but with insurance and flight tickets included. The wife of one such worker, a man born in the 1970s who has been on Israeli construction sites for over two years, described the daily reality: \u0026ldquo;There are bombings every day. Of course I\u0026rsquo;m worried. We do video calls every day, and whenever he has a free moment he calls.\u0026rdquo;\nA Bilateral Agreement Under Pressure # Israel and China signed a bilateral labor agreement in March 2017, originally permitting up to 20,000 Chinese construction workers to address Israel\u0026rsquo;s housing labor shortage. Arrivals were disrupted by the October 2023 war, but resumed in mid-2025 with the first cohort of roughly 1,000 workers. By early 2026, the number of Chinese workers had far exceeded the original quota, reflecting Israel\u0026rsquo;s acute need for construction labor — the sector remains short an estimated 38,000 workers despite increases in foreign labor.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s Deepening Economic Crisis # The workers\u0026rsquo; refusal to evacuate is inseparable from conditions in China. In early March 2026, just days after the Lunar New Year, waves of migrant workers who had traveled to southeastern coastal cities returned home after failing to find employment. Videos showed large crowds boarding trains out of Shanghai, with workers describing the job market as simply impossible.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s official unemployment rate stood at 5.3% as of February 2026, but the real picture is far worse. According to the World Bank, using a poverty line typical of upper-middle-income economies, about 17% of China\u0026rsquo;s population was living in poverty as recently as 2021. The situation has since deteriorated sharply: businesses closing, wages being withheld, consumer spending collapsing, and unemployment surging across industries. In major cities like Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing, growing numbers of laid-off workers — both white-collar professionals and migrant laborers — have been documented sleeping under overpasses, in subway entrances, and in 24-hour fast food restaurants.\nFor the Chinese workers in Israel, the calculation is clear. As one internet commenter put it: \u0026ldquo;They\u0026rsquo;d rather live within rocket range than go back to that kind of life.\u0026rdquo;\nSources: Vision Times, The Jerusalem Post, Maariv\n","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/chinese-workers-refuse-evacuation-order/","section":"Posts","summary":"When Beijing ordered the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Israel in late March 2026, following Iran’s retaliatory strikes after the US-Israeli military operation, the response from tens of thousands of Chinese construction workers was unequivocal: they refused to leave.\n","title":"Chinese Workers in Israel Refuse Beijing's Evacuation Order, Citing Economic Despair at Home","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-workers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Workers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/evacuation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Evacuation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/labor/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Labor","type":"tags"},{"content":"Street Chan is a popular Asian street food restaurant and sushi bar in the heart of Tiberias. Located on Yohanan Ben Zakai Street, the restaurant brings the flavors of Far Eastern street food to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, with a diverse menu spanning noodles, curries, bao buns, sushi rolls, poke bowls, and even Asian-inspired burgers.\nThe restaurant prides itself on high-quality fresh ingredients and an atmosphere that transports diners to the backpacker trails of Southeast Asia. With kosher certification, delivery service, and weekend hours including Saturday evening, Street Chan has become one of Tiberias\u0026rsquo;s most beloved dining spots with outstanding reviews across all platforms.\nAddress: 20 Yohanan Ben Zakai Street, Tiberias\n","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/street-chan-tiberias/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Street Chan is a popular Asian street food restaurant and sushi bar in the heart of Tiberias. Located on Yohanan Ben Zakai Street, the restaurant brings the flavors of Far Eastern street food to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, with a diverse menu spanning noodles, curries, bao buns, sushi rolls, poke bowls, and even Asian-inspired burgers.\n","title":"Street Chan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tiberias/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tiberias","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ya\u0026rsquo;ar HaOren (Pine Forest) is a legendary Chinese-Thai restaurant in Tiberias that has been serving the city since 1985. Located on HaGalil Street in the Galil Center area, the restaurant is known for its generous portions and authentic Asian flavors, offering a wide variety of stir-fries, noodles, soups, and Thai curries.\nWith a kosher certification from the local Rabbanut and nearly four decades of experience, Ya\u0026rsquo;ar HaOren has become a fixture of the Tiberias dining scene. The restaurant offers both dine-in and delivery service, making it a go-to spot for Asian food lovers visiting the Sea of Galilee region.\nAddress: 52 HaGalil Street, Tiberias\n","date":"5 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yaar-haoren/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Ya’ar HaOren (Pine Forest) is a legendary Chinese-Thai restaurant in Tiberias that has been serving the city since 1985. Located on HaGalil Street in the Galil Center area, the restaurant is known for its generous portions and authentic Asian flavors, offering a wide variety of stir-fries, noodles, soups, and Thai curries.\n","title":"Ya'ar HaOren","type":"directory"},{"content":"Kimura is an online Japanese language school run by Lihi Kimura, offering authentic Japanese instruction with a team of native Japanese teachers. The school\u0026rsquo;s philosophy is \u0026ldquo;learning Japanese culture through the language,\u0026rdquo; integrating deep cultural understanding into every lesson.\nCourses are available at all levels — from beginner to advanced — in group, private, and digital formats. The school also hosts lectures about Japan and cultural events. Kimura works with both individual students and corporate clients, providing personalized attention and a warm, family-like atmosphere.\nWebsite: kimura.co.il\n","date":"4 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kimura-japanese-school/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Kimura is an online Japanese language school run by Lihi Kimura, offering authentic Japanese instruction with a team of native Japanese teachers. The school’s philosophy is “learning Japanese culture through the language,” integrating deep cultural understanding into every lesson.\n","title":"Kimura Japanese School","type":"directory"},{"content":"Sin Chan is a popular kosher Chinese and Asian restaurant chain with a branch in the heart of Tiberias. Known as one of the best Asian restaurants in the north of Israel, it serves a wide menu spanning Chinese classics, sushi, dim sum, noodle dishes like pad thai, soups, stir-fries, and seafood options.\nThe restaurant is rated 4.1/5 on TripAdvisor with praise for its wide Asian selection, generous portions, and family-friendly atmosphere. It offers dine-in, takeout, delivery, and outdoor seating, with free parking and full wheelchair accessibility. Delivery is available through 10bis.\nAddress: Shimon Dahan 10, Tiberias\n","date":"4 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sin-chan-tiberias/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Sin Chan is a popular kosher Chinese and Asian restaurant chain with a branch in the heart of Tiberias. Known as one of the best Asian restaurants in the north of Israel, it serves a wide menu spanning Chinese classics, sushi, dim sum, noodle dishes like pad thai, soups, stir-fries, and seafood options.\n","title":"Sin Chan Tiberias","type":"directory"},{"content":"An investigation by The Telegraph, based on shipping data analysis, has revealed that sanctioned Chinese vessels have been delivering chemicals to Iran that could be used to manufacture hundreds of ballistic missiles — even as US and Israeli strikes continue to target Iran\u0026rsquo;s missile infrastructure.\nFive Sanctioned Ships Identified # The investigation identified five ships belonging to IRISL (Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines), Iran\u0026rsquo;s state-owned shipping company, which is under sanctions from the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Switzerland. Four of the ships arrived at Iranian ports from March 22 onward, after spending an average of three weeks at sea. A fifth ship was spotted near the Iranian coast and is still en route.\nThe vessels departed from China\u0026rsquo;s Gaolan port, a facility known for chemical storage, carrying sodium perchlorate — a key precursor for solid rocket propellant used in ballistic missiles.\nEnough for Hundreds of Missiles # Analysts estimate that the volume of chemicals delivered in recent shipments could enable production of approximately 785 additional missiles, exceeding the volumes shipped in 2025. European intelligence sources had previously confirmed to CNN that 2,000 tons of sodium perchlorate were shipped to Iran\u0026rsquo;s Bandar Abbas port in 2025 to support missile rebuilding after the June 2025 conflict with Israel.\nDecker Eveleth, a defense analyst quoted by The Telegraph, warned that while the deliveries demonstrate Iran still has missile production capability, ongoing US and Israeli bombardment may destroy manufacturing facilities before the chemicals can be used.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s Calculated Ambiguity # Experts note that China maintains a position of calculated ambiguity — providing materials that are technically commercial chemicals while knowing they serve military purposes. As one analyst explained, \u0026ldquo;They\u0026rsquo;re not sending missiles or warheads; nothing that is directly lethal,\u0026rdquo; allowing China to maintain plausible deniability while implicitly supporting Iran.\nThis pattern is not new. China has routinely exported these chemicals to Iran for years, both for missiles Iran supplies to Russia for use in Ukraine and for proxy organizations in Iraq. The continued shipments during wartime suggest this is an established commercial stream that China sees no reason to interrupt.\nImplications for the Ongoing Conflict # The deliveries come at a critical moment. Joint US-Israeli strikes since March 2026 have targeted Iran\u0026rsquo;s ballistic missile infrastructure, including production sites in Qom and Tehran, steel factories, and chemical suppliers. These strikes have reportedly reduced Iran\u0026rsquo;s launch frequency significantly.\nHowever, the influx of Chinese chemicals could help Iran replenish its solid-propellant capacity, potentially prolonging the conflict. Iran has continued retaliating with drones and missiles, including a recent attack involving 19 drones and 4 missiles targeting Bahrain on April 1.\nThe situation highlights the complex web of international relationships that sustains Iran\u0026rsquo;s military capabilities, with China playing a central but deliberately obscured role.\nSource: Maariv, based on The Telegraph investigation\n","date":"4 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/04/china-ships-iran-missile-chemicals/","section":"Posts","summary":"An investigation by The Telegraph, based on shipping data analysis, has revealed that sanctioned Chinese vessels have been delivering chemicals to Iran that could be used to manufacture hundreds of ballistic missiles — even as US and Israeli strikes continue to target Iran’s missile infrastructure.\n","title":"Chinese Ships Deliver Missile-Production Chemicals to Iran Amid War","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"4 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/military/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Military","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/missiles/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Missiles","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/artificial-intelligence/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Artificial Intelligence","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/freelance/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Freelance","type":"tags"},{"content":"Alice (formerly ActiveFence) is a global leader in trust, safety, and AI security, protecting over 3 billion users and supporting the world\u0026rsquo;s largest tech platforms and AI models. The company, headquartered in Ramat Gan, empowers companies to operate safely and responsibly through real-time guardrails, continuous red teaming, and intelligence-driven content detection across 117+ languages.\nAlice is building a curated network of elite experts for its GenAI Creative Prompt Writer program. The company is specifically seeking Korean native speakers for this role.\nThe Role # As a GenAI Creative Prompt Writer, you will craft diverse, context-rich prompts that challenge AI models across a wide range of policy domains. This role blends linguistic creativity with sociocultural insight to simulate realistic, localized, and nuanced use cases — from benign edge cases to adversarial deception attempts.\nResponsibilities # Produce high-quality, diverse prompt sets reflecting global linguistic and cultural nuances Research online behaviors of threat actors to inform realistic prompt design Cover multiple policy areas such as hate speech, sexual/graphic harm, or terrorism Adapt prompts for multiple languages and dialects where applicable Requirements # Strong creative writing background, ideally in journalism, fiction, or linguistics Familiarity with generative AI systems and policy-driven content domains Korean native speaker Proficiency in one or more additional non-English languages is a plus Ability to balance creativity with policy sensitivity Preferred Qualifications # Prior work in prompt generation or adversarial testing Regional expertise or cultural fluency in specific geopolitical areas Engagement Details # Scope: 160 or 80 hours/month, long-term engagement Tools \u0026amp; Access: All required accounts and resources provided by Alice Payment: $22–30 USD per hour (depending on experience) How to Apply # Visit the Alice careers page or search for \u0026ldquo;GenAI Creative Prompts Writer\u0026rdquo; on LinkedIn.\n","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/alice-genai-creative-prompt-writer/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Alice (formerly ActiveFence) is a global leader in trust, safety, and AI security, protecting over 3 billion users and supporting the world’s largest tech platforms and AI models. The company, headquartered in Ramat Gan, empowers companies to operate safely and responsibly through real-time guardrails, continuous red teaming, and intelligence-driven content detection across 117+ languages.\n","title":"GenAI Creative Prompt Writer - Alice (formerly ActiveFence)","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/trust-and-safety/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Trust and Safety","type":"tags"},{"content":"Dragon Food is one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest and longest-running Asian grocery stores, and an institution in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Neve Sha\u0026rsquo;anan neighborhood. Founded by Dani Rachum, the company is both an importer and retailer, directly sourcing over 2,000 products from the Far East and Africa \u0026ndash; giving it access to items unavailable elsewhere in Israel.\nThe flagship store on Rosh Pina 6 is at the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s de facto Chinatown, open seven days a week. It stocks everything from fresh Asian produce, tofu (the largest selection in Israel), noodles (100+ varieties), sauces, spices, and frozen seafood to woks, bamboo steamers, and traditional tea sets. The boutique branch on Levinski 48 is managed by a chef specializing in Eastern cooking and hosts free tastings every Friday.\nDragon Food serves a diverse clientele \u0026ndash; Chinese, Filipino, Thai, and African communities alongside Israeli food enthusiasts and professional chefs. Additional branches operate in Ashkelon, Bat Yam, and Ashdod.\nFlagship: Rosh Pina 6, Tel Aviv (Sun-Sat 9:00-22:00) Boutique: Levinski 48, Tel Aviv (Sun-Thu 9:00-19:00, Fri 9:00-16:00) Phone: 03-6884219 Website: dragonfood.co.il Instagram: @dragonfood.israel\n","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/dragon-food/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Dragon Food is one of Israel’s largest and longest-running Asian grocery stores, and an institution in Tel Aviv’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood. Founded by Dani Rachum, the company is both an importer and retailer, directly sourcing over 2,000 products from the Far East and Africa – giving it access to items unavailable elsewhere in Israel.\n","title":"Dragon Food","type":"directory"},{"content":"Eastern Block is a chain of Asian grocery stores with a particularly strong Korean product selection, including Buldak, Nongshim, tteokbokki, soju, and Korean snacks. Founded in 2020, the chain has grown to four locations across Gush Dan and offers over 423 products spanning Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Indian cuisines.\nThe stores stock sauces, noodles, frozen items (gyoza, dim sum, buns), spices, rice, snacks, beverages, and Asian alcohol. The flagship Ramat HaSharon branch also carries fresh fish and seafood. Online ordering is available through their website, and several branches deliver via Wolt.\nFlagship: Sokolov 34, Ramat HaSharon (Sun-Thu 8:00-19:30, Fri 8:00-15:00) Branches: Sokolov 53, Ramat HaSharon | Weizmann 51, Kfar Saba | Katznelson 31, Givatayim Website: easternblock.co.il Instagram: @easternblock1 WhatsApp: 051-5250043\n","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/eastern-block/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Eastern Block is a chain of Asian grocery stores with a particularly strong Korean product selection, including Buldak, Nongshim, tteokbokki, soju, and Korean snacks. Founded in 2020, the chain has grown to four locations across Gush Dan and offers over 423 products spanning Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Indian cuisines.\n","title":"Eastern Block","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/frozen-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Frozen-Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene keeps expanding, and now you can get restaurant-style ramen at home without leaving the house. Fuji Ramen (פוג\u0026rsquo;י ראמן) is a line of frozen ramen meals that you heat in a pot for 10-12 minutes \u0026ndash; no prep, no extra ingredients needed. Just drop the frozen disc in, cover, and wait.\nWhat Is Fuji Ramen? # Created by Israeli chefs Niv Cohen and Avinoam Ben Mocha, Fuji Ramen is a complete frozen meal \u0026ndash; not instant noodles. Each 700g pack contains handmade ramen noodles, a rich broth, protein, and vegetables, all flash-frozen into a disc shape. The product uses no preservatives and no MSG, and is kosher certified.\nThe Flavors # Beef \u0026ndash; Rich beef broth with roasted pulled beef, green onion, spinach, sweet corn, carrot, shimeji mushrooms, and five-spice blend Chicken \u0026ndash; Aromatic chicken broth with roasted chicken breast, green onion, spinach, sweet corn, carrot, shimeji mushrooms, and ginger Tofu (Vegan) \u0026ndash; Mushroom and miso broth with soy-marinated tofu cubes, green onion, spinach, sweet corn, carrot, and shimeji mushrooms Tan Tan Beef (Gluten-Free) \u0026ndash; A tan tan-style beef ramen using rice noodles instead of wheat, making it both gluten-free and kosher for Passover Where to Buy # Fuji Ramen is widely available across Israel:\nTiv Taam stores nationwide AM:PM convenience stores East \u0026amp; West Asian grocery stores TAYO Asian supermarkets Dragon Food in Neve Sha\u0026rsquo;anan and other locations Wolt for delivery Various butcher shops, delis, and specialty food stores You can find your nearest retailer on the Fuji Ramen store map.\nPrice # Expect to pay 49-59 ILS per 700g pack at most retailers. East \u0026amp; West stores occasionally offer a 2-for-99 ILS deal.\nLinks # Website: fujiramen.co.il Instagram: @fuji_ramen_il ","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/fuji-ramen-frozen-meals-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s ramen scene keeps expanding, and now you can get restaurant-style ramen at home without leaving the house. Fuji Ramen (פוג’י ראמן) is a line of frozen ramen meals that you heat in a pot for 10-12 minutes – no prep, no extra ingredients needed. Just drop the frozen disc in, cover, and wait.\n","title":"Fuji Ramen: Frozen Japanese Ramen Meals Now Available Across Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Makati Cabalen is the largest Filipino grocery store in Israel, located on the 4th floor of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Central Bus Station (store 4450). The store stocks a wide range of Filipino products alongside Thai, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese goods \u0026ndash; from canned goods and sauces to snacks, noodles, and frozen items.\nA diner section on the 5th floor serves affordable Filipino home-style food (~25 NIS per plate), including stews, soups, and Turon (banana spring rolls). Makati Cabalen is a central gathering point for the Filipino community in Israel, especially busy on Fridays and Saturdays.\nAddress: Central Bus Station, 4th floor, store 4450, Tel Aviv Website: makaticabalen.com\n","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/makati-cabalen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Makati Cabalen is the largest Filipino grocery store in Israel, located on the 4th floor of Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station (store 4450). The store stocks a wide range of Filipino products alongside Thai, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese goods – from canned goods and sauces to snacks, noodles, and frozen items.\n","title":"Makati Cabalen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/neve-shaanan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Neve-Shaanan","type":"tags"},{"content":"Om Indian Store is the main Indian grocery in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Neve Sha\u0026rsquo;anan neighborhood, located right at the entrance to the area on Rosh Pina 1. The well-organized store carries a wide selection of authentic Indian products including spices (garam masala, turmeric, cumin, and many more), lentils, rice, flours, snacks, sweets, and ready-made curry pastes.\nWith over 260 Google reviews and an 8.8 rating, Om is a go-to destination for the Indian community and Israeli home cooks looking for authentic ingredients. The store is open seven days a week, including Shabbat.\nAddress: Rosh Pina 1, Tel Aviv Hours: 10:00-21:00 daily (including Shabbat) Phone: 054-2307385\n","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/om-indian-store/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Om Indian Store is the main Indian grocery in Tel Aviv’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood, located right at the entrance to the area on Rosh Pina 1. The well-organized store carries a wide selection of authentic Indian products including spices (garam masala, turmeric, cumin, and many more), lentils, rice, flours, snacks, sweets, and ready-made curry pastes.\n","title":"Om Indian Store","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/product/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Product","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ramat-hasharon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ramat-Hasharon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/spices/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Spices","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-tour/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-Tour","type":"tags"},{"content":"When Israeli singer Itay Benda told two Chinese women he was from Israel, they paused for a moment. What followed was a warm, smiling interaction that Benda captured on video — and it has since racked up over 186,000 views on Instagram.\nThe clip, posted on March 29, shows Benda connecting with the two women through music as part of his ongoing \u0026ldquo;Peace through Music\u0026rdquo; project. \u0026ldquo;Peace through Music built another bridge,\u0026rdquo; he wrote in the caption, alongside a question for his nearly half a million followers: should he add a Chinese song to the setlist for his upcoming Israel tour?\nWho Is Itay Benda? # Benda is an Israeli musician originally from Jerusalem, now based in Los Angeles, who has built a massive following by singing in over 50 languages. His approach goes beyond phonetic mimicry — he invests deeply in pronunciation, emotion, and cultural context for each language he performs in. With around 489,000 Instagram followers and over 530,000 on TikTok, he has turned multilingual music into a form of grassroots diplomacy, regularly surprising people on live streams by revealing his Israeli identity only after singing in their native language.\nHis \u0026ldquo;Peace through Music\u0026rdquo; concept has resonated especially in the context of the Israeli-Iranian dynamic, where many of his interactions with Iranians still living in Iran have gone viral for their warmth and humanity.\nThe Community Responds # The reel has drawn over 10,000 likes and 420 comments, with reactions ranging from enthusiastic support for adding Chinese music to his repertoire to broader reflections on the power of music to cross cultural divides. One commenter summed it up simply: \u0026ldquo;Music is a universal link between people.\u0026rdquo;\nBenda has hinted that tour dates for Israel, the United States, and Canada are coming soon.\nWatch the original reel on Instagram\n","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/itay-benda-chinese-peace-through-music/","section":"Posts","summary":"When Israeli singer Itay Benda told two Chinese women he was from Israel, they paused for a moment. What followed was a warm, smiling interaction that Benda captured on video — and it has since racked up over 186,000 views on Instagram.\n","title":"Israeli Singer's Encounter with Chinese Women Goes Viral — Should He Add a Chinese Song?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/peace/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Peace","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/biscoff/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Biscoff","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/dessert/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Dessert","type":"tags"},{"content":"If you\u0026rsquo;ve been on Israeli social media in early 2026, you\u0026rsquo;ve probably seen it: people stuffing Lotus Biscoff cookies into cups of yogurt, refrigerating them overnight, and flipping out a dessert that looks like a proper cheesecake. The trend, known in Israel as \u0026ldquo;עוגת גבינה יפנית\u0026rdquo; (Japanese cheesecake) or \u0026ldquo;טרנד היוגורט היפני\u0026rdquo; (the Japanese yogurt trend), has flooded Israeli TikTok, Instagram, and food blogs. Major outlets like Ynet and Israel Hayom have covered it extensively, and Tnuva has confirmed a noticeable uptick in people using their protein yogurts for the recipe.\nBut what actually is this trend, where did it really come from, and what does it have to do with Japan?\nThe Real Japanese Origin # The trend started in early January 2026 on Japanese social media, where users placed coconut sable cookies — a type of buttery, crumbly shortbread common in Japanese convenience stores — into cups of plain yogurt and left them overnight in the fridge. The cookies absorb moisture from the yogurt, softening into a dense, creamy layer that resembles the texture of a no-bake cheesecake.\nThis is rooted in a broader Japanese tradition of creative, minimalist desserts. Japan has long had a culture of \u0026ldquo;rare cheesecake\u0026rdquo; (レアチーズケーキ) — unbaked, cream-based cheesecakes with a delicate, mousse-like texture. The yogurt-cookie hack taps into the same sensibility: light, elegant, minimal effort. Japanese home cooks also have a tradition of using mizukiri yogurt (strained yogurt) to create thick, cream cheese-like bases for desserts.\nThe key detail that often gets lost in translation: the original Japanese version uses neither Biscoff nor Greek yogurt. It uses local sable cookies and regular Japanese plain yogurt.\nHow It Went Global # When the trend jumped to international TikTok, two substitutions happened almost immediately. Creators swapped the Japanese sable cookies for Lotus Biscoff — widely available worldwide and already a beloved cheesecake-base ingredient — and replaced plain yogurt with Greek yogurt for a thicker, more protein-rich result.\nThe rebranding was equally significant. What started as a simple yogurt snack in Japan became \u0026ldquo;Japanese cheesecake\u0026rdquo; on English-language social media — a catchy name that evokes the famous Japanese soufflé cheesecake, even though the two have nothing in common. The Lotus Bakeries CEO confirmed the company had no hand in the trend; it was entirely organic and user-driven.\nThe Israeli Adaptation # Israel\u0026rsquo;s version went even further. The local food community, already deep into the protein-yogurt trend that has been growing for years, saw an opportunity to merge viral content with the country\u0026rsquo;s obsession with high-protein dairy products.\nIsraeli creators have been experimenting with local products and twists:\nProtein yogurts like Tnuva GO and Muller Greek yogurt, turning the dessert into a \u0026ldquo;fitness-friendly\u0026rdquo; treat Cottage cheese as a base, an unmistakably Israeli riff Espresso-dipped Biscoff, adding a tiramisu-like dimension Petit Beurre and \u0026ldquo;Ad Chatzot\u0026rdquo; (Israeli midnight snack cookies) as alternatives to Biscoff Ricotta cheese instead of yogurt, for a richer result Galit Mor Meshorer, head of Tnuva\u0026rsquo;s yogurt and GO business unit, told Ynet that protein-enriched yogurts have been on a growth trajectory for a decade, with a 9% increase in consumption over the past year. The Japanese trend gave it \u0026ldquo;another boost and more exposure,\u0026rdquo; though she noted it\u0026rsquo;s hard to attribute sales directly to a single viral moment.\nPopular Israeli food blogger Efrat Lichtenstadt tested multiple combinations, declaring Lotus cookies with 3% natural yogurt her favorite. One commenter suggested ricotta works even better.\nWant to Try It? # The basic recipe could not be simpler:\nOpen a cup of thick yogurt (Greek, protein-enriched, or regular) Push 3-4 cookies (Biscoff, sable, or your choice) vertically into the yogurt Cover tightly and refrigerate for 6-12 hours Eat straight from the cup, or flip onto a plate for the full effect For a more authentic Japanese experience, look for butter sable cookies at Asian grocery stores rather than Biscoff.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;d rather skip the DIY, Yango Deli sells a ready-made bundle with Yoplait yogurt and Biscoff cookies, marketed as \u0026ldquo;The Perfect Match for the Japanese Trend.\u0026rdquo; New users can get ₪30 off their first 3 orders plus free delivery on the first order — download the app at bit.ly/AnyFluencers and enter code rnfoa7pd at checkout.\nA Familiar Pattern # This is hardly the first time a Japanese food concept has been adapted and transformed on its way to Israel. From ramen shops that bear little resemblance to their Tokyo counterparts to matcha lattes that would puzzle anyone in Kyoto, the journey from Japanese original to Israeli interpretation usually involves more sweetness, more protein, and a healthy dose of local improvisation. The yogurt cheesecake trend is just the latest chapter — and it\u0026rsquo;s one of the more faithful adaptations, since the core idea (cookies + dairy + patience) remains intact.\nSources: Ynet, Israel Hayom, Okonomi Kitchen, RetailDetail\n","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/japanese-yogurt-cheesecake-trend-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"If you’ve been on Israeli social media in early 2026, you’ve probably seen it: people stuffing Lotus Biscoff cookies into cups of yogurt, refrigerating them overnight, and flipping out a dessert that looks like a proper cheesecake. The trend, known in Israel as “עוגת גבינה יפנית” (Japanese cheesecake) or “טרנד היוגורט היפני” (the Japanese yogurt trend), has flooded Israeli TikTok, Instagram, and food blogs. Major outlets like Ynet and Israel Hayom have covered it extensively, and Tnuva has confirmed a noticeable uptick in people using their protein yogurts for the recipe.\n","title":"From Tokyo to Tel Aviv: The Japanese Yogurt Cheesecake Taking Over Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tnuva/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tnuva","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/viral-trend/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Viral-Trend","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/yogurt/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Yogurt","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/employers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Employers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/home-front-command/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Home Front Command","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) is running a series of webinars for employers of foreign workers during Operation Roaring Lion, providing sector-specific guidance in coordination with the Home Front Command.\nWebinar Schedule — March 25, 2026 # PIBA held two live webinars on March 25, both featuring guidance from the Home Front Command on employer responsibilities during the security emergency:\nCaregiving sector employers — 10:30–12:00 All economic sectors (agriculture, construction, industry, and others) — 14:00–15:30 Both sessions were held via Google Meet. PIBA has been holding similar sessions throughout the operation as part of its outreach to the foreign worker employment sector.\nThai Workers Webinar Recording Available # A dedicated webinar for Thai worker employers has already been held, and the full recording is available on Zoom. The session covers emergency procedures, Home Front Command directives, and employer obligations specific to the agricultural sector where most Thai workers are employed.\nPIBA Offices on Emergency Schedule # During Operation Roaring Lion, PIBA branch offices across Israel are operating on reduced hours — 8:00 to 12:00, for emergency matters only. The authority has been announcing daily which branches will open, with over 20 locations typically available.\nStaff follow Home Front Command directives, entering shelters with all employees and visitors during alerts and sometimes continuing service inside shelters.\nUse Digital Services to Avoid Office Visits # PIBA is encouraging the use of its online services to reduce the need for in-person visits during the emergency. Several transactions can now be completed remotely:\nEntry and exit reports — available at gov.il without visiting an office Additional digital services accessible via QR codes published on PIBA\u0026rsquo;s channels Stay Updated # PIBA publishes real-time updates on office hours, webinar schedules, and emergency procedures through its official channels:\nTelegram: t.me/pibaIsrael WhatsApp: PIBA WhatsApp Channel For information about automatic visa extensions during the operation, see our earlier coverage: Israel Automatically Extends Visas Expiring Through May 2026.\nSource: PIBA Official Telegram Channel\n","date":"25 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/piba-employer-webinars-foreign-workers-emergency/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) is running a series of webinars for employers of foreign workers during Operation Roaring Lion, providing sector-specific guidance in coordination with the Home Front Command.\n","title":"PIBA Holds Guidance Webinars for Foreign Worker Employers During Emergency","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/population-authority/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Population Authority","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/thai-workers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Thai-Workers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/webinar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Webinar","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taiwan has significantly lowered the barriers for international graduates looking to build careers on the island. Under amendments to the Act of the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals, which took effect on January 1, 2026, foreign students who graduate from Taiwanese universities can now remain in the country and work for up to two years without needing a work permit.\nThe policy change is part of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s broader push to attract and retain global talent, and it carries direct relevance for Israelis studying in Taiwan as well as members of Asian communities in Israel considering educational opportunities there.\nWhat Changed # Previously, international graduates faced a tight window to secure employment and a work permit after completing their studies. The new rules grant an automatic two-year extension period during which graduates can seek jobs and work freely.\nGraduates whose existing Alien Resident Certificates (ARCs) do not include the \u0026ldquo;work permit exemption\u0026rdquo; designation can apply for updated cards at any local National Immigration Agency (NIA) office. Processing typically takes several working days. The change applies to graduates from 2025 onward, with the extension period beginning after the original student visa or ARC expires.\nPathways to Long-Term Employment # Beyond the two-year grace period, Taiwan offers several routes to securing a formal work permit:\nSalary-based pathway — Graduates who receive a job offer with a monthly salary of at least NT$47,971 (roughly ₪5,500) can apply directly for a work permit without prior work experience.\nPoints-based scoring system — The most popular route among former students. Applicants accumulate points across eight criteria: education level, salary, work or internship experience (one year of internship earns 10 points), job qualifications, Chinese language proficiency, foreign language or overseas experience, policy compliance, and academic performance. A score of 70 points or above typically qualifies.\nIntermediate skill workforce retention — Originally designed for blue-collar workers with six or more years of experience, this pathway now extends to graduates holding an associate degree or higher. It covers fields including caregiving, manufacturing, fishing, construction, and agriculture, with permits lasting up to three years.\nTravel and accommodation sector — Since August 2024, foreign and overseas Chinese graduates have been eligible to work in Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s tourism and hospitality industry.\nPractical Considerations # For Israelis and other internationals weighing a move to Taiwan, the policy shift makes the country a more appealing destination for higher education. Completing a degree in Taiwan now comes with a built-in runway to establish a career — a significant advantage over many other study-abroad destinations.\nThose interested in applying should check the National Immigration Agency website for current forms and requirements, or contact the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel for guidance.\nSource: Taiwan in Israel Newsletter #43 via TECO Israel\n","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/taiwan-eases-work-rules-international-graduates/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan has significantly lowered the barriers for international graduates looking to build careers on the island. Under amendments to the Act of the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals, which took effect on January 1, 2026, foreign students who graduate from Taiwanese universities can now remain in the country and work for up to two years without needing a work permit.\n","title":"Taiwan Makes It Easier for International Graduates to Stay and Work","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/work-permit/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Work-Permit","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sar-el/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sar-El","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/singapore/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Singapore","type":"tags"},{"content":"Singapore\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Ministry of Defence (Mindef) have issued a joint warning stating that involvement with organizations linked to the Israeli military, particularly the volunteer program Sar-El, is \u0026ldquo;not acceptable\u0026rdquo; under current conditions and could result in legal consequences.\nWhat Prompted the Warning # The government statement came after social media users resurfaced an old blog post by a Singaporean citizen that encouraged volunteering with Sar-El. The blog, originally written around 2018 or 2019, had been taken down in 2025 but was recently reposted by other users. At least one social media user questioned why the author had been encouraging others to join as IDF volunteers in Israel.\nAccording to the ministries, the blog\u0026rsquo;s author and his father had volunteered with Sar-El for approximately two weeks in December 2016.\nWhat Is Sar-El? # Sar-El (Volunteers for Israel) is a non-profit organization founded in 1983 during the Lebanon War by Dr. Aharon Davidi, a former IDF Paratrooper Corps commander. The program sends civilian volunteers from around the world to work on IDF bases in non-combat support roles, such as packing supplies, sorting materials, and performing maintenance tasks.\nThe organization\u0026rsquo;s website states it is \u0026ldquo;deeply committed to supporting the IDF,\u0026rdquo; and that its volunteers \u0026ldquo;work side-by-side with soldiers on IDF bases.\u0026rdquo; Since its founding, over 160,000 volunteers from more than 60 countries have participated in one-to-three-week programs.\nLegal Implications for Singaporeans # The joint statement made clear that participation in such organizations carries real legal risk: \u0026ldquo;Action will be taken under our laws against anyone whose involvement in such activities is found to be prejudicial to Singapore\u0026rsquo;s national security and interests.\u0026rdquo;\nSingapore maintains strict laws around military service through its Enlistment Act, which requires male citizens and permanent residents to complete National Service. The city-state also takes a careful approach to its foreign policy, maintaining balanced relations across the Middle East.\nBroader Context # The warning reflects growing scrutiny across Southeast Asian governments regarding their citizens\u0026rsquo; involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Singapore has historically maintained diplomatic relations with Israel while also supporting Palestinian statehood, walking a careful line in a region with significant Muslim-majority populations.\nFor the Asian diaspora in Israel, this development is a reminder that volunteering with military-adjacent organizations can have legal ramifications back home, even for programs marketed as civilian and non-combat in nature.\nSource: South China Morning Post\n","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/singapore-warns-against-sar-el-volunteering/","section":"Posts","summary":"Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Ministry of Defence (Mindef) have issued a joint warning stating that involvement with organizations linked to the Israeli military, particularly the volunteer program Sar-El, is “not acceptable” under current conditions and could result in legal consequences.\n","title":"Singapore Warns Citizens Against Volunteering With Israeli Military-Linked Sar-El","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/volunteering/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Volunteering","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-language/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Language","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/east-asian-studies/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"East-Asian-Studies","type":"tags"},{"content":"An Israeli student from Tel Hai Academic College\u0026rsquo;s East Asian Studies program recently completed a semester abroad in Taiwan, funded by a scholarship from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel (Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative office). The experience highlights growing academic ties between Israel and Taiwan and the opportunities available to Israeli students interested in East Asia.\nImmersive Chinese Language Studies in Taichung # Amit Tzemach, a B.A. student in East Asian Studies at Tel Hai, traveled to Taiwan to deepen his knowledge of Chinese. He was based in Taichung, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s third-largest city, where he spent each day in intensive Chinese language courses.\n\u0026ldquo;Every day we studied many hours of Chinese, which led to a significant improvement in my language abilities,\u0026rdquo; Amit shared. Living in Taichung gave him the chance to practice his Chinese in daily conversations with local residents, who he described as very friendly and genuinely curious about foreigners and about Israel in particular.\nBeyond classroom learning, the city offered rich cultural experiences. Amit attended local events including a jazz festival and an international food fair, which made his time in Taiwan especially rewarding.\nA Strong Foundation from Tel Hai # Amit arrived in Taiwan with a solid language foundation built during his studies at Tel Hai. The college\u0026rsquo;s East Asian Studies department, one of the few programs of its kind in Israel, provided him with the groundwork that allowed him to integrate quickly and advance in his studies abroad.\nHis lecturers at Tel Hai actively encouraged him to apply for the scholarship and helped him through the registration process. The college also provided additional financial support and personal guidance from faculty members, including practical advice on which cities in Taiwan are best for students.\nLooking Ahead: Career and Business Opportunities # The semester abroad reinforced Amit\u0026rsquo;s passion for language learning and opened new possibilities for his future. He described how the experience sparked ideas about potential career paths involving Chinese, whether through further studies or professional work.\nNotably, Amit also developed ideas for strengthening business ties between Israel and Taiwan, a field he sees as having significant potential. As trade and technology partnerships between the two countries continue to expand, graduates with Chinese language skills and firsthand experience in Taiwan are well-positioned to bridge cultural and commercial gaps.\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s Growing East Asian Studies Landscape # Tel Hai\u0026rsquo;s B.A. in East Asian Studies is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at what is now transitioning into the University of Kiryat Shmona. The program reflects Israel\u0026rsquo;s increasing academic interest in the Asia-Pacific region, and partnerships like the Taiwan scholarship provide students with invaluable international experience.\nFor Israeli students interested in East Asian languages and cultures, programs like these offer a direct pathway to immersive learning funded by institutional support from both Israeli and Taiwanese organizations.\nSource: Tel Hai Academic College\n","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/tel-hai-student-semester-taiwan-chinese-language/","section":"Posts","summary":"An Israeli student from Tel Hai Academic College’s East Asian Studies program recently completed a semester abroad in Taiwan, funded by a scholarship from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel (Taiwan’s representative office). The experience highlights growing academic ties between Israel and Taiwan and the opportunities available to Israeli students interested in East Asia.\n","title":"Israeli Student Spends Semester in Taiwan Deepening Chinese Language Skills","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/scholarships/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Scholarships","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/study-abroad/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Study-Abroad","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taichung/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taichung","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tel-hai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tel-Hai","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/afula-emek-yizrael-area/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Afula-Emek-Yizrael-Area","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/aki-no-japanese-film-festival/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Aki-no Japanese Film Festival","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/anime-shop-dizengoff/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Anime Shop","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chinese-association-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Association of Chinese in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/igud-yotzei-sin/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Association of Former Residents of China in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/begopa-korean-dining-kfar-saba/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Begopa Korean Dining","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/bharatiya-gorkha-association-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Bharatiya Gorkha Association Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/bishulon-cooking-studio/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Bishulon — The Cooking Studio","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/bun-cha-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Bun Cha","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cri-hebrew-service-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"China Radio International — Hebrew Service","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chinatown-festival-sarona-market/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chinatown Asian Food Festival at Sarona Market","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/explore-japan-travel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Explore Japan — יפן חוויה אחרת","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/falun-dafa-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/filipinos-working-living-israel-group/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Filipinos Working and Living in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/gmt-global-money-transfer/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"GMT — Global Money Transfer","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/health-beauty/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Health-Beauty","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/india-baklev-community/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"India BaLev — Indian Origin Community Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/iskcon-hare-krishna-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"ISKCON Israel (Hare Krishna)","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-mega-taiwanese-blogger/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel Mega — 以色列美角","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-museum-asian-art-wing/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel Museum — Asian Art Wing","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-post-western-union/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel Post — Western Union Service","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-asia-chamber-of-commerce/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel-Asia Chamber of Commerce","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-china-friendship-society/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel-China Friendship Society","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-india-friendship-association/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel-India Friendship Association","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/israel-japan-friendship-society/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Israel-Japan Friendship Society \u0026 Chamber of Commerce","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japan-day-tikotin-museum/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japan Day at Tikotin Museum","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japan-month-dizengoff-center/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japan Month at Dizengoff Center","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japanese-community-exchange-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japanese Community Exchange in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japon-setai-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japón at The Setai","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kpop-world-festival-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"K-Pop World Festival Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kuzco-anime-store/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Kuzco Anime \u0026 Manga Store","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/long-sang-chinese-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Long Sang","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/mala-sichuan-neve-tzedek/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Málà Sichuan \u0026 Dumplings","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/manga-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Manga Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/moneygram-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"MoneyGram Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/moneylowcost-israel-philippines/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"MoneyLowCost","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/monox-philippines-019/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Monox Philippines by 019","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/multiple/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Multiple","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/museum-far-eastern-art-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Museum of Far Eastern Art","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/my-asia-haifa-supermarket/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"My Asia Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/national-union-bene-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"National Union of Bene Israel Jews","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/neema-digital-wallet/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Neema Digital Wallet","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ngo/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ngo","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sala-thai-massage-chain/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sala Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sathya-sai-organization-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sathya Sai Educare Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shen-yun-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Shen Yun Performing Arts — Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sin-chan-beit-hashita/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sin Chan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sino-israel-org/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sino-Israel Global Network \u0026 Academic Leadership","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sivananda-yoga-vedanta-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/taiwan-israel-chamber-of-commerce/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Taiwan Israel Chamber of Commerce","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/temple/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Temple","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-in-the-market-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"The Thai in the Market","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/vietnamese-association-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Vietnamese Association in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/western-union-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Western Union Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wilfrid-israel-museum-asian-art/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wilfrid Israel Museum of Asian Art and Studies","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wise-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wise (TransferWise) Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yan-yan-chinese-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yan Yan Chinese Restaurant","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/a-restaurant-azrieli-sarona/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"A Restaurant","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/acupuncture-israel-daniel-feld/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Acupuncture Israel — Daniel Feld","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/acupuncture-jerusalem-bacharach/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Acupuncture Jerusalem — Jamie Bacharach","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/adon-kison/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Adon Kison","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/aikido-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Aikido Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/allins-kabayan-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Allin's Kabayan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ananda-curry-house/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Ananda Curry House","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 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If Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s brought Tel Aviv its bulgogi and tteokbokki, Kawaii is where the same kitchen does the other half of the East Asian table: coffee, matcha, hand-made buns and a wall of imported snacks.\nThe café is the work of Suni Kim, the Korean owner of Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s, who wanted to round out what she had built. \u0026ldquo;I wanted to bring here the flavours I remember from home,\u0026rdquo; she has said — \u0026ldquo;not only the barbecue and the cooked food, but also the coffee, the pastries and the other sweets associated with Japan and Korea.\u0026rdquo; Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s had already become one of the hardest tables to book in the city; Kawaii extended that project sideways into a daytime space that you can simply walk into.\nThe drink to order is the Korean dalgona coffee (around 18 NIS) — the whipped-coffee phenomenon that went viral worldwide, made properly here so that both the coffee crown and the milk beneath it are aerated into something closer to dessert than a flat white. Alongside it the short menu runs to ceremonial-style matcha, a Vietnamese-style coffee with condensed milk, plain filter coffee from about 11–14 NIS, and Japanese teas. The food cabinet is the other reason to come: taiyaki, the fish-shaped filled pancakes; melon pan and other soft, glazed Japanese buns; animal-shaped buns shaped like pandas and piglets, filled with red-bean paste, black sesame or chocolate; and tall, airy matcha and pumpkin-spice cloud cakes by the slice. A side wall is stacked with snacks, candy and brightly coloured drink bottles brought in from Japan and Korea — the kind of stock that is otherwise hard to find in Israel.\nIt is a genuinely small place, with a handful of round tables, so it works best as a stop-in rather than a sit-for-hours café; hours have settled into a long daily shift (closed Sundays). For the city\u0026rsquo;s Japanese and Korean communities — and the much larger crowd of Israelis who found this food through K-dramas, anime and TikTok — it is a low-key, unpretentious anchor: somewhere to pick up a familiar snack, try the coffee everyone has seen online, and not need a reservation to do it.\n","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kawaii-cafe-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Kawaii Café sits on Lilienblum Street, in the old banking quarter at the edge of Tel Aviv’s city centre — a small, pastel-walled room that opened at the end of 2024 as the sweet-shop counterpart to Kimchi’s, the pioneering Korean restaurant a few doors down. If Kimchi’s brought Tel Aviv its bulgogi and tteokbokki, Kawaii is where the same kitchen does the other half of the East Asian table: coffee, matcha, hand-made buns and a wall of imported snacks.\n","title":"Kawaii Café","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/keren-or-japanese-acupuncture/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Keren Or Japanese Acupuncture","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/khao-san-road-massage-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Khao San Road Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/klempi-kungfu-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Klempi KungFu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/konel-mart/","section":"Asian Business 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2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/nuad-thai-massage/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"NUAD Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/oded-giyat-chinese-acupuncture/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Oded Giyat Center For Chinese Acupuncture","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/okinawa-goju-ryu-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Okinawa Goju Ryu Karate","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/onikon-asian-market-ness-ziona/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Onikon Asian Market","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/original-thai-massage-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Original Thai Massage Jerusalem","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ospa-japanese-head-spa-modiin/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"OSPA Japanese Head Spa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/patia-traditional-chinese-medicine/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Patia Traditional Chinese Medicine","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/pikansin-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Pikansin","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/rajnees-indian-vegetarian/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Rajnee's Indian Vegetarian Food","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ramla/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ramla","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/rewire-remittance/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Rewire by Remitly","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rishon-lezion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rishon Lezion","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rishon-lezion-hashfela-area/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rishon-Lezion-Hashfela-Area","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/rose-gold-thai-massage/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Rose Gold Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rosh-pinna---zefat-area/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rosh-Pinna---Zefat-Area","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/royal-thai-embassy-in-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Royal Thai Embassy in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/rudy-boxing-muay-thai-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Rudy Boxing Gym","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sabai-sabai-thai-spa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sabai Sabai Thai Spa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/salon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Salon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/samui-thai-massage-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Samui Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/san-mei-dumplings/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"San Mei","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sanshu-israel-kung-fu/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sanshu Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sekai-japan-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sekai Japan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/serenity-chinese-medicine-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Serenity Chinese Medicine","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shaolin-hung-gar-kung-fu-tirat-carmel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Shaolin Hung Gar Kung Fu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shaolin-kung-fu-herzliya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Shaolin Kung Fu Herzliya","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shaolin-kung-fu-raanana/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Shaolin Kung Fu Ra'anana","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shi-shi-ibn-gabirol/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Shi-Shi","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/shoppu-japanese-store/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Shoppu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sinteva-chinese-medicine-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sinteva Chinese Medicine Clinic","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/smile-thai-massage-herzliya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Smile Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sobing-ibn-gabirol/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"SoBing | Ibn Gabirol","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sukanya-thai-massage-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sukanya Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sun-tuina-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sun Tuina","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sunflower-chinese-rishon/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Sunflower Chinese Restaurant","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/super-hamizrah-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Super HaMizrah","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/taichi-center-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Taichi Center Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/taipei-economic-and-cultural-office-in-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/taj-indian-grocery-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Taj Indian Grocery Shop","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tandoori-herzliya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tandoori Herzliya","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tao-hall-herzliya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tao Hall","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tasi-asian-institute/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"TASI — The Asian Institute","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tayo-beer-sheva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"TAYO Asian Market Beer Sheva","type":"directory"},{"content":"For an Asian home cook in the north of Israel, the hardest part of a recipe is rarely the cooking — it is finding the ingredients. Gochujang, fish sauce that tastes like fish sauce, fresh rice paper, the right short-grain rice, Thai curry paste that has not been sitting on a shelf for three years: these are the things that turn an approximation into the real dish. TAYO Asian Market on Derech Yafo 21 exists to close that gap, and for Haifa and the Krayot it has become one of the most reliable places to do it.\nTAYO is a small Israeli chain — alongside the Haifa store it runs branches in Rishon LeZion and Beer Sheva — built specifically around pan-Asian groceries rather than a general \u0026ldquo;international foods\u0026rdquo; aisle. The chain organises its range by country of origin: Korea, Thailand, China, Japan, the Philippines, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam, plus African, European and American sections. That structure matters in practice. A Filipino shopper looking for a specific brand, or a Korean parent after the snacks their kids grew up with, can find a coherent shelf rather than hunting through a jumble.\nWhat you actually find at the Haifa branch covers the full pantry. Sauces and pastes are the deepest section — soy sauces, oyster sauce, fish sauce, sriracha and chilli sauces, gochujang, Thai red and green curry pastes, tamarind. Then the staples: rice and rice paper, every kind of noodle from Korean ramen to rice vermicelli to egg noodles, dried seaweed and mushrooms, cooking oils, vinegars and spices. There is a fresh and chilled side too — fresh onigiri, tofu, pickles and kimchi — alongside frozen seafood and fish, plus the long tail of things that are otherwise impossible to source locally: Japanese and Korean snacks and sweets, bubble-tea tapioca, Asian soft drinks, instant hot meals, and kitchen kit like bamboo sushi mats and woks. A portion of the range is marked kosher, which widens who can shop the aisles.\nThe store sits on Derech Yafo, a main artery through the lower city, and it is open long hours through the week — roughly 9:30 to 20:00 Sunday to Thursday, with shorter Friday and Saturday hours — so it works for a planned shop or a last-minute one. It also delivers across Haifa and the Krayot through Wolt, and the chain runs its own online store at ta-yo.co.il for anything you cannot get to in person.\nFor the Asian communities of northern Israel — and for the restaurants and home cooks who feed them — a shop like this is less a convenience than a supply line. It is the difference between cooking the food you grew up with and settling for something close.\n","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tayo-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"For an Asian home cook in the north of Israel, the hardest part of a recipe is rarely the cooking — it is finding the ingredients. Gochujang, fish sauce that tastes like fish sauce, fresh rice paper, the right short-grain rice, Thai curry paste that has not been sitting on a shelf for three years: these are the things that turn an approximation into the real dish. TAYO Asian Market on Derech Yafo 21 exists to close that gap, and for Haifa and the Krayot it has become one of the most reliable places to do it.\n","title":"TAYO Asian Market Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tayo-rishon-lezion/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"TAYO Asian Supermarket Rishon LeZion","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tea-bar-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tea Bar Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/teishinkan-karate-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"TEISHINKAN Karate","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tel-aviv-acupuncture/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tel Aviv Acupuncture \u0026 TCM","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/diamond-way-buddhist-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tel Aviv Diamond Way Buddhist Center","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/terasu-jaffa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Terasu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-148-dizengoff/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai 148","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-chin-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Chin","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-massage-beer-sheva-hazaz/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Massage Beer Sheva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-massage-center-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Massage Center","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-massage-dorot-rishonim-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Massage Jerusalem","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-touch-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Touch","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thai-vibe-massage-netanya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Vibe Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thaistory-eilat/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thaistory","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thaitime-massage-netanya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"ThaiTime Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/thali-sde-nehemya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thali","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/the-alley-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"The Alley TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/community-center-chinese-medicine-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"The Community Center For Chinese Medicine","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/the-indian-afula/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"The Indian","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/the-indian-spices-kiryat-ata/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"The Indian Spices","type":"directory"},{"content":"The Japanese Language Center (HaMerkaz LeLimudei Yapanit) was founded in 2008 by Sigal Izraeli, who holds an MA in East Asian Studies and lived for years in Tokyo. The center teaches Japanese with an emphasis on the cultural context behind the language — the small nuances and etiquette that are central to communicating in Japan.\nCourses run from beginner to advanced levels and include JLPT and university exam preparation, classes for teenagers, private lessons, and short pre-travel Japanese courses. Students range from anime and manga fans to travellers, martial-arts practitioners, and businesspeople working with Japan.\nThe center is located on Shefa Tal Street in the Montefiore neighbourhood of Tel Aviv.\nWebsite: japanese-center.co.il Phone: 052-883-5857\n","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japanese-language-center/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"The Japanese Language Center (HaMerkaz LeLimudei Yapanit) was founded in 2008 by Sigal Izraeli, who holds an MA in East Asian Studies and lived for years in Tokyo. The center teaches Japanese with an emphasis on the cultural context behind the language — the small nuances and etiquette that are central to communicating in Japan.\n","title":"The Japanese Language Center","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tikotin-museum-japanese-art/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tim-thai-massage/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tim Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tonari-japanese-design/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tonari","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tovana-insight-meditation/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tovana — Insight Meditation Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tropical-shack-asian-store-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Tropical Shack Asian Store","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/umai-izakaya-jaffa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"UMAI Izakaya","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wabi-ramen-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wabi Ramen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/white-crane-kung-fu/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"White Crane Kung Fu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wing-chun-kung-fu-israel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wing Chun Kung Fu Federation of Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wing-chun-kung-fu-givatayim/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wing Chun Kung Fu Givatayim","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wing-chun-lo-man-kam-ashdod/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wing Chun Lo Man Kam Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wing-chun-sifu-roy-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wing Chun Sifu Roy","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wok-away-chain/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wok Away","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wok-noodles-bar-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wok Noodles Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/wu-shu-ancient-wisdom-karmiel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Wu Shu Ancient Wisdom","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yamatoya-bistro-kfar-saba/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yamatoya Bistro Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yauza-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yauza","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"23 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yong-thai-massage-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"YONG Thai Massage","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/beauty/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Beauty","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/manicure/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Manicure","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nail-art/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nail-Art","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nail-salon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nail-Salon","type":"tags"},{"content":"Trang Nailz TLV is a Vietnamese-owned nail salon on Ben Yehuda Street in central Tel Aviv, known for American-style manicures and intricate nail art. The salon offers gel manicures, pedicures, hard gel, acrylics, gel-x, dip powder, and lash services including lash lifts and extensions.\nThe team brings Vietnamese nail artistry traditions to Tel Aviv, with a clean, organized space and a reputation for detailed, creative work. Walk-ins and appointments are welcome, with booking available via WhatsApp or Calendly.\nAddress: Ben Yehuda St 15, Tel Aviv\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/trang-nailz-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Trang Nailz TLV is a Vietnamese-owned nail salon on Ben Yehuda Street in central Tel Aviv, known for American-style manicures and intricate nail art. The salon offers gel manicures, pedicures, hard gel, acrylics, gel-x, dip powder, and lash services including lash lifts and extensions.\n","title":"Trang Nailz TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/uuniku/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"‫🌱 Unniko | Hamasger","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/a-tag/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"A. Taj","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/acre-nahariya-area/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Acre-Nahariya-Area","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/agenda/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Agenda","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ahan-thaicarmel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Ahan Thai","type":"directory"},{"content":"Akiko has been a fixture of north Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s food scene since 2006 — two decades that make it one of the longest-running sushi bars in the city, and one of the few where the chef behind the counter is actually Japanese. Tucked into the Shuster Center in Ramat Aviv Gimmel, on Aba Ahimeir Street, it is a small, intimate room rather than a sprawling chain restaurant, and it has built a loyal following precisely because it never tried to be anything bigger.\nThe bar is named for its founder and chef, Akiko Ben-Zvi, who comes from Kumamoto in southern Japan and moved to Israel in the 1990s following a great love. She brought with her the modesty, discipline and tradition of the Japanese kitchen, and Akiko the restaurant is essentially her cooking made public — a kitchen she opened up to Israeli diners after years of refining the craft. For the Japanese community in Israel, and for Israelis who want sushi made the way it is made in Japan, that authenticity is the whole point.\nThe menu is built around the classics done properly: chirashi bowls layered with salmon, tuna, sea bass and tamago; thinly sliced sashimi; nigiri; inari; and the full range of rolls from hosomaki through futomaki, uramaki and hand-rolled temaki cones. Alongside the raw work there are hot dishes — miso soup, agedashi tofu in tempura batter, yaki soba — and Akiko\u0026rsquo;s own house-style Japanese pickles. The kitchen leans on specialist ingredients brought in by personal import: particular cuts of fish, eel, unusual seaweed, egg and starch noodles, and a deep list of sake and wine. There is a genuine vegetarian section too, with tofu-and-shiitake rolls and vegetable combinations rather than token afterthoughts.\nThe space, designed by architect Michael Azulay in a pared-back minimalist style, seats only about 15 inside, with additional seating out on the plaza. Sitting around the bar — watching the chef work — is the closest thing in Ramat Aviv to a counter seat in a busy Japanese neighbourhood. Prices sit at the higher end (plan for roughly 120 NIS and up per person), which reflects the imported ingredients and the hands-on approach.\nPractically: Akiko is at Aba Ahimeir 17, in the heart of residential north Tel Aviv, a short distance from Tel Aviv University and the Eretz Israel Museum. Delivery runs through Wolt, and you can reserve a table or order takeaway through the restaurant directly. Given how few seats there are, booking ahead is wise. Reach them on 03-6417641, follow @akiko_sushi_bar on Instagram, or see the full menu at akiko.co.il.\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/akiko/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Akiko has been a fixture of north Tel Aviv’s food scene since 2006 — two decades that make it one of the longest-running sushi bars in the city, and one of the few where the chef behind the counter is actually Japanese. Tucked into the Shuster Center in Ramat Aviv Gimmel, on Aba Ahimeir Street, it is a small, intimate room rather than a sprawling chain restaurant, and it has built a loyal following precisely because it never tried to be anything bigger.\n","title":"Akiko | North TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/akoi-sushi-bar/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Akoi Sushi Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/alibi-sushi-bar/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Alibi | Sushi bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/all-you-can-eat/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"All-You-Can-Eat","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/aloha-petah-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Aloha | Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ashdod-and-lachish-area/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ashdod-and-Lachish-Area","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/asi-ati/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"ASI ATI | Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/asi-ati-kiryat-hayim/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"ASI ATI | Kiryat Hayim","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/asia-t/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asia-T","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/asian-deli-kadima/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Club","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/atza-tira/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Atza | RM","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/atza-sushi-bar-afula/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Atza Sushi Bar | Afula","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/atza-beit-shemesh/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Atza Sushi Bar | Beit Shemesh","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/atza-sushi-bar-hadera/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Atza Sushi Bar | Hadera","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/atza-sushi-bar-yermiyahu/","section":"Asian Business 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The restaurant aims to bring the endless variety of Bangkok\u0026rsquo;s market to Israel through diverse flavors, aromas, and vibrant colors, serving both unique regional Thai dishes and classic favorites.\nThe menu features three categories — food, desserts, and an alcohol menu — with options for dine-in, takeout, and delivery. The restaurant offers a lunch menu from 12:00–17:45 with a 10% discount on direct orders, and delivery is available through both their website and Wolt. Free delivery is offered on orders over 550 NIS.\nAddress: HaMelacha 4, Netanya (Beit Sfundar-Pdelon, 1st floor)\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cha-tu-chak/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Chatuchak is a Thai Select 2-Star certified restaurant — the highest-rated Thai Select restaurant in Israel.\nChatuchak Restaurant is an authentic Thai restaurant in Netanya, named after Bangkok’s famous Chatuchak food market. The restaurant aims to bring the endless variety of Bangkok’s market to Israel through diverse flavors, aromas, and vibrant colors, serving both unique regional Thai dishes and classic favorites.\n","title":"Chatuchak Restaurant","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chimera/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chimera Sushi Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/china-class-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"China Class | Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/china-doll/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"China Doll","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/china-town-ayalon-mall/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"China Town | Ayalon Mall","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/china-town-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"China Town | Weizman","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chinese-food-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chinese Food","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/choo-tu/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Choo Tu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-hadera/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Hadera","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Jerusalem","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-petach-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-ramla/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Ramla","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-rosh-haayin/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Rosh Haayin","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chooka-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chooka | Weizmann Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chopstick-express/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chopstick Express","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/chopstikani/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"CHOPSTIKANI","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/class-sushi/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Class Sushi | RM","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cocoreco/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"COCORECO","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/deknoy/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Deknoy","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 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Urban | Chef \u0026 Sushi Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/frangelico-lev-hamifrats/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Frangelico | Lev HaMifratz","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/frangelico-the-german-colony/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Frangelico | The German Colony","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/fushushi/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"FU Sushi","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/gandhi-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Gandhi | Fast Indian Food","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ganeshnahariya/","section":"Asian Business 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Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-modiin/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Modi'in","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-ness-ziona/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Ness Ziona","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-petah-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-ramat-hachayal/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Ramat Hachayal","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-rishon-lezion/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Rishon Lezion","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-savion/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Savion","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/giraffe-ibn-gabirol/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giraffe | Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/girino/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Girino","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kotyio-lady/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Giveret Kotiyao","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-asian-canteen-azrieli-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Azrieli","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-asian-canteen-bursa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Bursa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-asian-canteen-ramat-efal/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Ramat Efal","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-asian-canteen-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Ramat Gan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-asian-canteen-rehovot/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Rehovot","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-asian-canteen-yehuda-halevi/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Yehuda Halevi","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/go-noodles/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Go Asian Canteen Kosher | Yitzhak Sadeh","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/great-india/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Great India","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/greenroll/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Green Roll Sushi","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/greenz-petah-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Greenz | Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/guerrilla-kitchen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Guerrilla Kitchen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/habuchari-begivatayim/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Habuchari BeGiv'atayim","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hanoi-beer-sheva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Hanoi | Beer Sheva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hasushia-kiryon/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"HaSushia | Kiryon","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hasushia-lev-hamifratz/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"HaSushia | Lev HaMifratz","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hasushia-rehovot/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Hasushia | Ness Ziona - Rehovot","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hasushia-petach-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"HaSushia | Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hasushiya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"HaSushiya | Eilat","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/j17/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Hativonit J17  🌱","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/the-chinese-sea/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Hayam Hasini","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/herzl-16/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Herzl 16","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/himalaya-kitchen-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Himalaya Kitchen","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hiyo/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"hiyo","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hoke-poke/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Hoke Poke","type":"directory"},{"content":"Hong Bao is a pop-up dim sum stall tucked inside Sarona Market, beside the Aloha branch. Its chef and owner, Hao Chang Che, arrived in Israel from China roughly 25 years ago, married an Israeli, opened a sushi restaurant in Zichron Ya\u0026rsquo;akov, and later qualified as a licensed tour guide — spending years leading Chinese visitors around the country. When inbound Chinese tourism collapsed after October 2023, Hao returned to his first love, cooking, and began folding dumplings by hand at a single steamer in the middle of the market.\nThe name is a bilingual pun: bao is the steamed bun, and hóngbāo (红包) is the red envelope of lucky money handed out on birthdays and Chinese New Year. The menu is small but covers four dumpling shapes — bao, gyoza, shumai, and a transparent tapioca-dough crystal dumpling that is gluten-free — across fillings of beef, chicken, lamb, shrimp, fish, and vegetable. Everything is pleated to order, steamed or pan-crisped in front of you, and served with house-made Chinese pickles. Wonton soups with bami noodles, wakame, and coriander round out the list; there is no kitchen beyond the steamer and no alcohol.\nSince opening in August 2025 the stall has picked up loud praise: Haaretz declared it the best dumplings in Tel Aviv, and Time Out placed it in its top-21 Asian restaurants in the city. Per-piece prices (22–28 ₪ for two units) make it one of the more accessible Asian openings of the year. Non-kosher; vegan-friendly fillings are clearly marked. Go for the shrimp shumai and the beef bao.\nAddress: Sarona Market, Aluf Kalman Magen 3, Tel Aviv\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hong-bao-dim-sum/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Hong Bao is a pop-up dim sum stall tucked inside Sarona Market, beside the Aloha branch. Its chef and owner, Hao Chang Che, arrived in Israel from China roughly 25 years ago, married an Israeli, opened a sushi restaurant in Zichron Ya’akov, and later qualified as a licensed tour guide — spending years leading Chinese visitors around the country. When inbound Chinese tourism collapsed after October 2023, Hao returned to his first love, cooking, and began folding dumplings by hand at a single steamer in the middle of the market.\n","title":"Hong Bao","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/hono-givat-shmuel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Hono | Givat Shmuel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ichikadna/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Ichikidana","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/indira/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Indira","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/isushi-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Isushi ","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/izakaya-sushi-market/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Izakaya Sushi Market","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japan-japan-ashkelon/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japan Japan | Ashkelon","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japan-japan-beer-sheva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japan Japan | Beer Sheva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japan-japan-beit-shemesh/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japan Japan | Beit Shemesh","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/japan-japan-jaffa-street/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japan Japan | Jaffa 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2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yapani/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yapani ","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yapani-jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yapani | Jerusalem","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/yokneam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Yokneam","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yoko-or-akiva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yoko | Or Akiva","type":"directory"},{"content":"Yoko Sushi Bar is one of Florentin\u0026rsquo;s go-to spots for Japanese food, known for its all-you-can-eat sushi deal at ₪129. Sushi chefs prepare fresh rolls right in front of you, and the menu extends beyond sushi to include dim sum, wok dishes, noodles, and poke bowls.\nLocated on Florentin Street in the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s trendy south side, Yoko has built a loyal following with over 1,000 reviews on Easy. The restaurant holds a local rabbinate kosher certificate, making it one of the kosher sushi options in the area. Delivery is available across Tel Aviv through their website, Wolt, and 10bis.\nAddress: 5 Florentin Street, Tel Aviv\nPhone: 077-332-2230\nHours:\nSunday–Thursday: 11:00–23:45 Friday: Closed Saturday: 20:15–23:45 Website: sushiyoko.co.il\n","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sushi-yoko/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Yoko Sushi Bar is one of Florentin’s go-to spots for Japanese food, known for its all-you-can-eat sushi deal at ₪129. Sushi chefs prepare fresh rolls right in front of you, and the menu extends beyond sushi to include dim sum, wok dishes, noodles, and poke bowls.\n","title":"Yoko Sushi Bar","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yoko-ono/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yoko-Ono","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yokozuna/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yokozuna","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yomi-sushi-line-kfar-saba/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yomi Sushi Line | Kfar Saba","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yomi-sushi-line-petah-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yomi Sushi Line | Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yomi-sushi-line-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yomi Sushi Line | Ramat Gan","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yomi-sushi-line-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yomi Sushi Line | Tel-Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/yomi-vegan-line-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Yomi Sushi Vegan | Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/zazurehovot/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Zazu","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ze-sushi-bazel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Ze Sushi | Bazel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ze-sushi-rishon-lezion/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Ze Sushi | Rishon-LeZion","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/zinc/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Zinc | Yehud","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/zo-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Zo sushi | TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/zozobra/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Zozobra | Tel-Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"21 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kasbah/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"קאלו באבא - פופאפ","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chaiwat-waewnil/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chaiwat-Waewnil","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cluster-munition/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cluster-Munition","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/moshav-adanim/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Moshav-Adanim","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ozer-farm/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ozer-Farm","type":"tags"},{"content":"Chaiwat Waewnil, a 30-year-old Thai agricultural worker from Chaiyaphum Province, was killed shortly before midnight on Wednesday, 18 March 2026, by shrapnel from an Iranian cluster-munition missile at Moshav Adanim in central Israel\u0026rsquo;s Sharon region. He had been working at a potato farm (Ozer Farm), roughly 12 kilometres from Herzliya, and is survived by his wife and young child in Thailand. He is the first Thai national killed since the Iran-Israel conflict escalated with Operation Roaring Lion on 28 February.\nIsraeli government statements initially referred to the victim by the transliteration \u0026ldquo;Walin Chayut,\u0026rdquo; but Thailand\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Labour and The Times of Israel identify him as Chaiwat Waewnil (Thai: ชัยวัฒน์ แว่วนิล).\nThe Incident # Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Iranian ballistic missiles struck multiple locations across Israel. One of them carried a cluster warhead, which scatters dozens of smaller submunitions across a wide area, and hit the agricultural community of Moshav Adanim. Waewnil was fatally wounded at 11:45 p.m., according to Thailand\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Labour.\nWaewnil was found in a tractor shed with severe head injuries from shrapnel. Magen David Adom paramedics were forced to pronounce him dead despite resuscitation efforts. MDA paramedic Idan Shina described the scene: \u0026ldquo;When we arrived, we were led to an agricultural area where there had been a strike in a shed. Metal fragments were scattered around, and nearby, a man was lying unconscious with very serious shrapnel injuries.\u0026rdquo;\nTwenty-four other Thai workers at the same site survived the attack after reaching a protected shelter in time. It remains unclear why Waewnil did not join his colleagues in the shelter.\n\u0026ldquo;A Quiet and Introverted Man\u0026rdquo; # Yoram Doktori, chairman of Moshav Adanim\u0026rsquo;s community association, spoke about Waewnil in an interview with Kan News. \u0026ldquo;He had been here for about six months. A quiet man. Introverted. I saw him every morning on the tractor, heading out to the fields,\u0026rdquo; Doktori said. Thai Ministry of Labour records, however, show Waewnil registered for overseas employment through Thailand\u0026rsquo;s Department of Employment on 27 May 2025, meaning he had actually been in Israel for roughly ten months.\nThe close-knit agricultural community had integrated the Thai workers into daily life at the moshav. \u0026ldquo;The Thai workers are part of our community,\u0026rdquo; Doktori emphasised. \u0026ldquo;What they go through, we go through. We are with them every day in the fields.\u0026rdquo;\nImpact on the Thai Worker Community # Waewnil\u0026rsquo;s death has sent shockwaves through the Thai agricultural worker community in Israel, which numbers approximately 25,000 people. Thai workers form the backbone of Israel\u0026rsquo;s agricultural sector.\nDoktori expressed concern about the psychological toll on the workers and the potential for another mass departure. \u0026ldquo;We are accompanying his colleagues — they are in shock and don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do with themselves. Of course, they haven\u0026rsquo;t been working since the incident. We are trying to help them,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;We are very worried that, like after October 7, there will be a wave of departures.\u0026rdquo;\nAfter the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, in which 39 Thai nationals were killed and several were taken hostage from agricultural communities in southern Israel, thousands of Thai workers left the country, creating a significant labour shortage.\nOfficial Responses # Israeli President Isaac Herzog personally telephoned Thai Ambassador to Israel Boonyarit Vichienpuntu on 19 March to offer condolences, underscoring \u0026ldquo;Israel\u0026rsquo;s commitment to the safety and security of all foreign workers residing in the country.\u0026rdquo; The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the indiscriminate nature of Iran\u0026rsquo;s attacks on civilians.\nThailand\u0026rsquo;s Labour Minister Treenuch Thienthong confirmed the death after a report from the Office of Labour Affairs at the Royal Thai Embassy in Tel Aviv, and directed the labour attaché in Israel to ensure Thai workers remain in safe areas and strictly follow authorities\u0026rsquo; instructions. She also ordered the Chaiyaphum labour office to visit the family and assist with repatriation paperwork. Thailand\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a formal statement.\nRepatriation and Support # The Royal Thai Embassy in Tel Aviv held a Buddhist memorial ceremony for Waewnil on Monday, 23 March 2026. His body is scheduled to be flown home after 27 March, when El Al resumed commercial operations. Officials from Thailand\u0026rsquo;s Department of Consular Affairs travelled to Chaiyaphum on Tuesday, 24 March, to offer condolences to the family and help process benefits and compensation.\nPermanent Secretary of Labour Wannapong Kotcharak outlined the entitlements available to Waewnil\u0026rsquo;s heirs:\n40,000 baht from Thailand\u0026rsquo;s overseas-workers assistance fund Up to 40,000 baht in actual funeral expenses incurred abroad A 71,459.14 baht old-age gratuity from Thailand\u0026rsquo;s Social Security Fund Bereavement and burial compensation, monthly and annual payments, children\u0026rsquo;s education allowances, and psychological assistance from Israel\u0026rsquo;s National Insurance Institute Separately, the Royal Thai embassies in Tehran and Ankara are coordinating the evacuation of four Thai shrimp farmers from Bandar Abbas in southern Iran.\nOther Casualties # Waewnil was one of several victims of the Iranian missile barrages that have struck Israel since the conflict began on 28 February. An elderly Israeli couple, Yaron and Ilana Moshe, were killed by a cluster munition that hit their Ramat Gan apartment earlier that week. In the same overnight barrage as Adanim, four Palestinian women from the Masalma family were killed by an apparent cluster munition that struck a bridal salon in the Hebron-area village of Beit Awwa, where they had been preparing a Ramadan meal.\nThe use of cluster munitions — banned under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which neither Iran nor Israel have ratified — has drawn international criticism due to their indiscriminate nature and the risk of unexploded ordnance.\nSources: Times of Israel, Kan News, Thai PBS World, Nation Thailand, Bangkok Post, Thairath English, Thailand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israeli President\u0026rsquo;s Office\n","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/thai-worker-valenin-chaiyot-killed-iran-missile-moshav-adanim/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chaiwat Waewnil, a 30-year-old Thai agricultural worker from Chaiyaphum Province, was killed shortly before midnight on Wednesday, 18 March 2026, by shrapnel from an Iranian cluster-munition missile at Moshav Adanim in central Israel’s Sharon region. He had been working at a potato farm (Ozer Farm), roughly 12 kilometres from Herzliya, and is survived by his wife and young child in Thailand. He is the first Thai national killed since the Iran-Israel conflict escalated with Operation Roaring Lion on 28 February.\n","title":"Thai Worker Chaiwat Waewnil Killed in Iranian Missile Strike at Moshav Adanim","type":"posts"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) announced on March 19, 2026, that all visas expiring during April and May 2026 will be automatically extended by three months. The extension is automatic — there is no need to visit a PIBA office. This is the second round of automatic visa extensions since the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion (מבצע שאגת הארי), Israel\u0026rsquo;s military response to the conflict with Iran that began on February 28, 2026.\nWhich Visas Are Covered # The following visa types are included in the automatic extension:\nB/1 – General Work Visa: The most common visa for Asian workers in Israel, covering agriculture, construction, caregiving, and other sectors B/2 – Tourist Visa: For visitors currently in Israel on tourist visas B/4 – Volunteer Visa: For those volunteering through recognized organizations A/1 – Temporary Resident Visa: For temporary residents A/2 – Student Visa: For students currently studying in Israel. Important: Agricultural trainees are excluded from this extension A/3 – Clergy Visa: For religious workers and clergy members A/4 – Companion Visa: For family members accompanying visa holders A/5 – Temporary Resident Visa: For long-term temporary residents DCL permit: For family reunifications and humanitarian cases Inter-visa: For workers between visa assignments Important clarification for sector workers # The official PIBA announcements list the B/1 General Work Visa as covered. However, immigration practitioners reviewing the announcement (see the Aid for Israel\u0026rsquo;s Community / aic.org.il summary and Erickson Immigration Group\u0026rsquo;s analysis) note that the restricted, sector-specific work permits issued through the Foreign Workers Administration — the permits most agricultural, construction and caregiving workers actually hold — were not addressed in the same digital-extension notice and have been handled on a separate track. In other words, \u0026ldquo;B/1\u0026rdquo; on paper is not always the same permit category as the sector permit in your passport.\nIf you are a Thai agricultural worker, an Indian or Chinese construction worker, or a caregiver, do not assume the automatic extension covers you. Confirm your status directly with your employer or recruitment agency, or contact PIBA (details below) before your original expiry date. Agricultural trainees on A/2 visas are explicitly excluded.\nWhat This Means in Practice # The extension is applied automatically by PIBA. You do not need to take any action, visit any office, or submit any paperwork. Your visa is extended by exactly three months from its original expiration date.\nFor example, if your visa was set to expire on April 15, 2026, it is now valid until July 15, 2026. If your visa expires on May 30, 2026, it is extended to August 30, 2026.\nKeep your existing visa document — it remains your proof of legal status. The extension is recorded in PIBA\u0026rsquo;s systems automatically.\nPrevious Extension Round # This is the second round of automatic extensions. On March 2, 2026, PIBA announced that visas expiring between February 22 and March 31, 2026 would be extended by three months. That announcement also covered approximately 4,600 inter-visas for workers who were abroad at the time, extending them through April 30, 2026.\nThe new March 19 round covers visas expiring in April and May 2026, ensuring continued coverage as the security situation continues.\nBackground: Operation Roaring Lion # The visa extensions are part of Israel\u0026rsquo;s broader emergency measures during Operation Roaring Lion (מבצע שאגת הארי), the military operation responding to the conflict with Iran that began on February 28, 2026.\nDuring this period, PIBA offices are open only for emergency services between 8:00 and 12:00, and visits require an appointment. Israel\u0026rsquo;s airspace has been subject to closures, affecting the ability of foreign workers to enter and leave the country by air. Workers can still enter Israel through land border crossings.\nPIBA has also been conducting webinars for Filipino and Sri Lankan workers to provide safety information and guidance during the security situation.\nHow to Check Your Status and What to Keep # Because the extension is digital, there is no new sticker or document — which can make it hard to prove your status to an employer, landlord or at a checkpoint. Practical steps:\nKeep your passport and existing visa document together. They remain your primary proof of legal status. Save any SMS notification PIBA sends about the extension, and keep a copy of the official PIBA announcement (screenshot the gov.il page or the PIBA Telegram post). If anyone questions your status, you can show the message plus the public announcement. Count three months from your original expiry date — not from the announcement date — to know your new expiry. If you are unsure whether you are covered, contact PIBA before your original expiry date rather than after. Do not let a visa lapse on the assumption you are covered. If Your Visa Type Is Not Listed or You Are Unsure # If your visa type does not appear on the list above, or you hold a sector-specific work permit and are not sure it is covered, contact PIBA directly:\nGeneral phone: 3450* (from within Israel) Multilingual foreign-worker assistance line: 1-700-707-889 — PIBA opened this line during the security situation for foreign workers in several languages Website: gov.il PIBA Telegram: @pibaIsrael Note that A/2 visa holders who are agricultural trainees are not covered by this extension. If you hold an A/2 visa, check whether your specific category is classified as a student visa or an agricultural trainee visa. Many Thai workers in Israel hold work permits issued through the Foreign Workers Administration; as noted above, these sector permits are not automatically covered by this digital extension and should be confirmed directly.\nStaying Safe and Informed During the Emergency # Visa status is only one part of getting through the security situation. If you are a non-Hebrew speaker, also make sure you understand the emergency alert system and know where to find safety information in your language:\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s Four-Stage Alert System: A Guide to Home Front Command Warnings — what each alert level means and how much time you have to reach shelter Population and Immigration Authority emergency preparedness videos in Chinese, Hindi and Thai — official safety guidance in your own language PIBA guidance webinars for foreign worker employers — sector-specific guidance your employer should be following Sources: PIBA official Telegram channel, gov.il visa extension announcement (March 2, 2026), PIBA official WhatsApp channel (March 19, 2026)\n","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/israel-visa-automatic-extension-april-may-2026/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) announced on March 19, 2026, that all visas expiring during April and May 2026 will be automatically extended by three months. The extension is automatic — there is no need to visit a PIBA office. This is the second round of automatic visa extensions since the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion (מבצע שאגת הארי), Israel’s military response to the conflict with Iran that began on February 28, 2026.\n","title":"Israel Automatically Extends Visas Expiring Through May 2026 Amid Security Operation","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/visa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Visa","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"18 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bible-quiz/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bible-Quiz","type":"tags"},{"content":"Yael Yao (יעל יאו), a 10th-grader who immigrated to Israel from Germany approximately three years ago, won first place in Israel\u0026rsquo;s National Bible Quiz for Youth (חידון התנ\u0026quot;ך הארצי לנוער) on March 17, 2026, in Kfar Saba. A Chinese speaker who is fluent in four languages — Chinese, German, Hebrew, and English — Yael will now represent Israel at the International Bible Quiz (חידון התנ\u0026quot;ך הבינלאומי) on Independence Day in Jerusalem.\nA Remarkable Rise # Yael\u0026rsquo;s trajectory in Bible competition is nothing short of extraordinary. In 2025, while still in 9th grade and only about two years after arriving in Israel, she won the Haifa District Bible Quiz in the state education stream — her very first year competing. She went on to win the district competition again in January 2026, this time alongside her classmate Georgi Ribnikov.\nAt the national competition on March 17, Yael claimed the top spot, with Georgi finishing in second place — marking a historic first: never before have two students from the same school and the same district both qualified for the International Bible Quiz.\nLeo Baeck: A Multicultural Foundation # Both Yael and Georgi study at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, a school known for its diverse, multicultural environment. According to reports, 17 different languages are spoken among students in a single classroom at the school. This environment appears to have provided fertile ground for Yael\u0026rsquo;s rapid mastery of Hebrew and deep engagement with the biblical text.\nYael participates in the \u0026ldquo;Tanakh B\u0026rsquo;Rosh\u0026rdquo; (תנ\u0026quot;ך בראש) project run by the HaMikra society, which supports young Bible scholars. In a recent interview with the society, she named Yoav ben Tzeruya as her favorite biblical character.\nVoices of Pride # Ronit Yariv, Yael\u0026rsquo;s Bible teacher, and Rabbi Ofek Meir, CEO of Leo Baeck Education Center, have both expressed immense pride in the achievements of their students. The school celebrated the historic double qualification as a testament to its educational approach and commitment to nurturing talent across cultural backgrounds.\nWhat It Means for the Chinese-Speaking Community # Yael\u0026rsquo;s win lands in a community whose presence in Israel is still often misunderstood. The Chinese-speaking population here is small, diffuse and varied — it includes the children of mixed families, students, professionals on work visas, returning Israelis raised abroad, and a sizeable cohort with roots in Hong Kong and the Cantonese-speaking diaspora. Unlike the larger Filipino or Thai communities, there is no single neighbourhood or institution that anchors it, and there are few public-facing role models. A teenager who arrived speaking Chinese and German, and who within three years can out-quiz Hebrew-native peers on the biblical text, quietly reframes what a Chinese-speaking immigrant in Israel is assumed to be capable of.\nIt also speaks to a wider pattern. Chinese-speaking newcomers — and Asian-Israelis more broadly — frequently report being read as perpetual outsiders regardless of how fluent or rooted they become. Achievement in the Bible Quiz, an arena saturated with Israeli cultural and religious meaning, is a particularly direct answer to that. Yael\u0026rsquo;s story sits alongside other recent examples of Asian-background Israelis excelling in unmistakably \u0026ldquo;Israeli\u0026rdquo; spaces — among them the Hong Kong-born lone soldier honoured with the President\u0026rsquo;s Award for Excellence — and together they push back, gently, on a narrow idea of who belongs.\nThe Road Ahead # Yael and Georgi went on to represent Israel at the International Bible Quiz, held on Israel\u0026rsquo;s Independence Day in Jerusalem — one of the country\u0026rsquo;s most prestigious annual events. The 2026 contest brought together 16 finalists from seven countries; this year\u0026rsquo;s edition was recorded in advance and broadcast from the Jerusalem Theatre owing to the security situation. The international title was won by Hodaya Cohen of Israel, with Akiva Schrier of the United States placing second. Reaching that stage at all, just three years after her immigration, is itself a powerful marker of integration and achievement — and, for a Chinese-speaking teenager from Haifa, an unusually visible one.\nPhoto: Eran Yardeni, GPO (Government Press Office)\nSources:\nHaipo — יעל יאו וגאורגי ריבניקוב ייצגו את ישראל בחידון התנ\u0026quot;ך הבינלאומי Radio Haifa 1075.fm — תלמידת כיתה ט\u0026rsquo; מחיפה זכתה בחידון התנ\u0026quot;ך המחוזי Radio Haifa 1075.fm — יעל יאו מחיפה זכתה בחידון התנ\u0026quot;ך הארצי Colbo News — תלמידים מחיפה ייצגו את ישראל בחידון הבינלאומי Jerusalem Post — Israel\u0026rsquo;s Hodaya Cohen wins 78th Independence Day Bible World Quiz ","date":"18 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/yael-yao-bible-quiz-champion-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yael Yao (יעל יאו), a 10th-grader who immigrated to Israel from Germany approximately three years ago, won first place in Israel’s National Bible Quiz for Youth (חידון התנ\"ך הארצי לנוער) on March 17, 2026, in Kfar Saba. A Chinese speaker who is fluent in four languages — Chinese, German, Hebrew, and English — Yael will now represent Israel at the International Bible Quiz (חידון התנ\"ך הבינלאומי) on Independence Day in Jerusalem.\n","title":"Chinese-Speaking Immigrant Yael Yao Wins Israel's National Bible Quiz","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"18 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/integration/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Integration","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"18 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/leo-baeck/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Leo-Baeck","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/adl/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Adl","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/antisemitism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Antisemitism","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/international-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"International-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jewish/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jewish","type":"tags"},{"content":"In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League\u0026rsquo;s first-ever Global 100 survey delivered a startling finding: 53% of South Koreans harbored antisemitic attitudes — more than double the 26% global average and far exceeding regional neighbors like Japan (23%) and China (20%). South Korea\u0026rsquo;s score placed it closer to Iran (56%) than to the rest of East Asia. A decade later, the picture has shifted dramatically.\nThe 2014 Shock # The original ADL Global 100 surveyed over 53,000 people across more than 100 countries, measuring agreement with 11 classic antisemitic stereotypes. South Korea\u0026rsquo;s 53% index score was one of the survey\u0026rsquo;s most unexpected results. Majorities agreed that Jews \u0026ldquo;have too much power in the business world,\u0026rdquo; are \u0026ldquo;more loyal to Israel than to this country,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;have too much control over global affairs.\u0026rdquo;\nWriting in The Diplomat at the time, Steven Denney and others noted the paradox: a country with virtually no Jewish population and no history of Jewish persecution had somehow developed deeply entrenched antisemitic stereotypes. South Korea\u0026rsquo;s score surpassed Indonesia (48%) and rivaled some Middle Eastern nations, despite having no comparable geopolitical grievances.\nA Decade Later: The 2025 Update # The ADL published its updated Global 100 data in January 2025, based on surveys conducted between July and November 2024. The results tell a story of diverging trajectories:\nSouth Korea: Down from 53% to 45% (an 8-point improvement) Global average: Up from 26% to 46% (nearly doubling) Asia overall: Up from 22% to 51% Indonesia: Up from 48% to a staggering 96% South Korea now ranks 62nd out of 103 countries surveyed and 9th out of 17 in Asia — placing it below the global average for the first time. The ADL estimates that approximately 19.9 million South Koreans still hold antisemitic views, but the trend line is moving in the right direction.\nWho Holds These Views? # The demographic breakdown reveals important patterns. By age, the gap is striking: only 34% of South Koreans aged 18–34 agreed with antisemitic stereotypes, compared to 55% of those over 50. The 35–49 age group fell in the middle at 37%. Gender differences were modest, with men at 48% and women at 42%.\nPerhaps most surprising is the education data: antisemitic attitudes held steady at approximately 45% across all education levels — primary, secondary, and post-secondary. Unlike many countries where higher education correlates with lower prejudice, South Korea\u0026rsquo;s stereotypes about Jews appear to cut across educational backgrounds.\nCultural Roots: Admiration and Stereotypes # South Korea\u0026rsquo;s relationship with Jewish culture is complex and paradoxical. Korean translations of the Talmud have been perennial bestsellers, and \u0026ldquo;Jewish education\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Jewish success secrets\u0026rdquo; are popular genres in Korean bookstores. But this admiration often flips into envious stereotyping — the same qualities praised as wisdom can be recast as cunning or excessive influence.\nSeveral cultural factors feed the pattern. The cartoons and writings of Rhie Won-bok, whose popular series depicted Jews as controlling global finance, introduced conspiracy theories to a mass audience. Korea\u0026rsquo;s highly competitive media landscape occasionally amplifies \u0026ldquo;Jewish money\u0026rdquo; narratives. The country\u0026rsquo;s strong evangelical Christian community brings a mix of biblical philo-Semitism and older theological stereotypes. And minjok (민족), the Korean ideology of ethnic nationalism, creates an in-group/out-group framework that can intensify suspicion of perceived outsiders.\nPositive Steps # Despite the complex picture, South Korea has taken notable steps to combat antisemitism and build ties with the Jewish world:\nIn August 2021, South Korea became the first Asian nation to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, signaling official recognition of the problem. Following October 7, 2023, South Korean Christian Zionists opened the country\u0026rsquo;s first Holocaust museum, aiming to educate the public about Jewish history and suffering. A small but growing Jewish community of approximately 2,000 people (per the U.S. State Department\u0026rsquo;s 2023 report) is supported by a Chabad House established in Seoul in 2011, along with a mikveh and regular religious services. Israel and South Korea have maintained diplomatic relations since 1962, with growing cooperation in technology and defense sectors. Looking Ahead # The generational divide in South Korea\u0026rsquo;s data offers reason for cautious optimism. Younger Koreans, more globally connected and exposed to diverse perspectives, are significantly less likely to endorse antisemitic stereotypes than their parents and grandparents. If the trend continues, South Korea\u0026rsquo;s rate could fall further as the population shifts.\nAt the same time, global trends are moving in the opposite direction. The post-October 7 environment has seen antisemitic attitudes surge worldwide, with Asia\u0026rsquo;s regional average more than doubling. South Korea\u0026rsquo;s improvement against this backdrop is all the more noteworthy — and worth studying for lessons that might apply elsewhere.\nSources: The Diplomat, ADL Global 100, Combat Antisemitism Movement, Tablet Magazine\n","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/south-korea-antisemitism-adl-survey/","section":"Posts","summary":"In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League’s first-ever Global 100 survey delivered a startling finding: 53% of South Koreans harbored antisemitic attitudes — more than double the 26% global average and far exceeding regional neighbors like Japan (23%) and China (20%). South Korea’s score placed it closer to Iran (56%) than to the rest of East Asia. A decade later, the picture has shifted dramatically.\n","title":"South Korean Antisemitism: From Outlier to Below Global Average","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/stereotypes/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Stereotypes","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/survey/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Survey","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/amazing-race-israel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Amazing-Race-Israel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/channel-12/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Channel-12","type":"tags"},{"content":"The official Facebook page of HaMerotz LaMillion (The Amazing Race Israel) surprised fans this week with a promotional image written entirely in Cantonese Chinese, challenging viewers to translate a playful message tied to the show\u0026rsquo;s Hong Kong episodes.\nThe Cantonese Puzzle # The post, shared on March 11, featured a promotional image with bold Cantonese characters reading: \u0026ldquo;你哋真係以為我哋會話 今晚九點半開始\u0026rdquo; alongside the HaMerotz LaMillion 2026 logo and host Yehuda Levi. The Hebrew caption read: \u0026ldquo;We couldn\u0026rsquo;t hold back! Translate and discover a huge hint for tonight\u0026rsquo;s elimination.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Cantonese text translates to: \u0026ldquo;You really thought we\u0026rsquo;d tell you it starts at 9:30 tonight?\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; a tongue-in-cheek scheduling tease connected to the show\u0026rsquo;s regular 21:30 Tuesday time slot. The playful misdirection hinted at a schedule change for the elimination episode while leaning into the Hong Kong setting.\nFans Race to Decode the Message # The post generated 125 reactions and 45 comments, with viewers eagerly employing various methods to crack the Cantonese text. Several commenters turned to AI tools for help, with one fan writing \u0026ldquo;Hahaha, Gemini says you tricked us!\u0026rdquo; and another simply thanking \u0026ldquo;artificial intelligence\u0026rdquo; while sharing a screenshot of Google Translate identifying the language as Cantonese and rendering the Hebrew translation.\nOne particularly detailed comment identified the text as Cantonese (a dialect of Chinese), provided a full translation, noted Yehuda Levi in the image, and described the post as \u0026ldquo;a humorous promotional poster that uses a foreign language to confuse viewers or hint at one of the race destinations.\u0026rdquo;\nOther fans provided their own English translation: \u0026ldquo;You guys really thought we would say starting at half past nine tonight.\u0026rdquo;\nSeason 10 in Hong Kong # The Cantonese teaser coincided with the show\u0026rsquo;s Hong Kong leg (Leg 3), which aired across four episodes from March 3 to March 10, 2026. Teams arriving from Croatia faced a series of challenges steeped in Hong Kong culture, including matching Chinese characters on traditional chop seals along the famous Central-Mid-Levels Escalators, feeding dumplings with oversized chopsticks at Kee Hing Restaurant in Kowloon Bay, and performing snake-style kung fu with a live snake at the historic King Yin Lei mansion.\nThe leg also featured teams riding Hong Kong\u0026rsquo;s iconic double-decker tramways, known locally as \u0026ldquo;Ding Ding,\u0026rdquo; while spotting Pit Stop signs. The leg concluded at Wan Chai Pier, from which teams departed by ferry to Macau for Leg 4, airing March 14.\nThe Cantonese teaser was posted ahead of the dramatic elimination episode on March 10, in which fan-favorites Ron Horvitz and Mitav Ziv were eliminated from the race. The engaged couple had been considered among the strongest teams since finishing first in Montenegro, but a critical mistake on the Hong Kong tram mission cost them the race. Host Yehuda Levi told them at the mat: \u0026ldquo;I was sure you\u0026rsquo;d make it to the final.\u0026rdquo;\nA History of Asian Adventures # Season 10, which premiered on January 24, 2026, is hosted by Yehuda Levi and airs on Channel 12. The season began in Montenegro and Albania before heading to Croatia and then East Asia.\nHaMerotz LaMillion has visited Asia in previous seasons as well. Season 9 (2024) took teams to South Korea, Vietnam, and Mongolia, while the very first season included legs in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan. The Hong Kong return in Season 10 gives the show a chance to revisit one of its original Asian destinations with a fresh set of challenges.\nWhy This Matters # The use of Cantonese in mainstream Israeli television marketing is a small but notable cultural crossover moment. For the Chinese-speaking community in Israel, seeing their language featured prominently on a major Israeli reality show \u0026ndash; and watching fellow Israelis engage enthusiastically with it \u0026ndash; represents a meaningful moment of cultural visibility.\nIt also reflects the growing accessibility of language tools: the comment section effectively became a collaborative translation exercise, with viewers using AI chatbots, Google Translate, and their own knowledge to decode the message within minutes of posting.\nSources: HaMerotz LaMillion Facebook Page, Mako\n","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/hamerotz-lamillion-cantonese-teaser-hong-kong-hint/","section":"Posts","summary":"The official Facebook page of HaMerotz LaMillion (The Amazing Race Israel) surprised fans this week with a promotional image written entirely in Cantonese Chinese, challenging viewers to translate a playful message tied to the show’s Hong Kong episodes.\n","title":"HaMerotz LaMillion Uses Cantonese Teaser for Hong Kong Episodes","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hamerotz-lamillion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hamerotz-Lamillion","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/reality-tv/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Reality-Tv","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/television/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Television","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bangkok/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bangkok","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/el-al/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"El-Al","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/evacuation-flights/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Evacuation-Flights","type":"tags"},{"content":"Transport Minister Miri Regev announced on Wednesday that Israel is expanding its \u0026ldquo;Safe Return – Wings of the Lion\u0026rdquo; evacuation operation to include Japan and Thailand, as the government ramps up efforts to bring home thousands of Israelis stranded across East Asia.\nThirteen Days of War # Since the launch of the joint US-Israeli military operation against Iran on February 27, Ben-Gurion Airport has been largely closed to commercial traffic. Over 120,000 Israelis found themselves stranded abroad, unable to return home as airlines canceled flights and airspace restrictions took effect.\nThe Ministry of Transportation has been coordinating a massive repatriation effort through multiple channels, including land crossings via Jordan and Egypt, sea routes, and a gradual reopening of limited air corridors at Ben-Gurion Airport.\nJapan and Thailand Next in Line # According to Regev, the Emirates-based evacuation — which has been the primary focus of rescue flights over the past week — is expected to be largely completed by Saturday night. Regev urged Israelis not to travel to the Emirates, \u0026ldquo;not even via connections.\u0026rdquo; Attention is now shifting to the Far East, where significant numbers of Israeli tourists and business travelers remain stranded.\nStarting Sunday, commercial flight capacity to Thailand will increase. El Al announced it will double its weekly flights from Far East destinations, operating approximately 20 rescue flights over the following week from three key hubs:\nBangkok – Thailand\u0026rsquo;s main international gateway Phuket – a popular resort destination with a large Israeli tourist presence Tokyo – Japan\u0026rsquo;s primary international hub These flights are expected to bring home more than 6,000 passengers in total, with the majority departing from Bangkok.\nPriority for Cancelled Ticket Holders # El Al has confirmed that passengers whose original flights were canceled due to the security situation will be given priority on the evacuation flights at no additional cost. This includes customers of both El Al and its subsidiary Sun D\u0026rsquo;Or. The airline has also committed to prioritizing exceptional humanitarian and medical cases, even for travelers who did not originally hold El Al tickets.\nFlights will be opened for general public sale only after all existing El Al and Sun D\u0026rsquo;Or customers have been accommodated.\nTimeline for Completion # Regev estimated that the overall rescue operation from East Asia could be completed within approximately one week, assuming the security situation allows continued flight operations at Ben-Gurion Airport. The airport has been operating under strict capacity limits since reopening — initially one 200-passenger aircraft per hour, gradually scaling to two larger planes per hour.\nThe operation marks a significant expansion of Israel\u0026rsquo;s repatriation efforts, which began with flights from European and American gateways and has now extended deep into the Asia-Pacific region.\nSource: Mako, The Jerusalem Post\n","date":"12 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/israel-evacuation-flights-japan-thailand/","section":"Posts","summary":"Transport Minister Miri Regev announced on Wednesday that Israel is expanding its “Safe Return – Wings of the Lion” evacuation operation to include Japan and Thailand, as the government ramps up efforts to bring home thousands of Israelis stranded across East Asia.\n","title":"Israel Expands Evacuation Flights to Japan and Thailand","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"12 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/phuket/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Phuket","type":"tags"},{"content":"The United Nations Security Council convened a special session on Wednesday to address the escalating crisis in Lebanon, producing a near-unanimous front against Hezbollah — with China and Russia as the glaring exceptions. While Western and even some non-aligned nations condemned the Shiite terror organization for dragging Lebanon into war, Beijing and Moscow chose to deflect blame onto Israel.\nA Rare Consensus Against Hezbollah # The session saw an unusually broad coalition of nations directing sharp criticism at Hezbollah for its decision to join Iran\u0026rsquo;s attacks against Israel. Representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and even countries like Greece, Denmark, and Latvia condemned the organization. A Lebanese civil society activist also spoke at the session, courageously denouncing Hezbollah\u0026rsquo;s actions.\nThe backdrop to the session is Hezbollah\u0026rsquo;s renewed aggression against Israel, which began on March 2 following the killing of Iran\u0026rsquo;s Supreme Leader Khamenei. The Security Council had recently passed Resolution 2790 extending the UNIFIL mandate in southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah\u0026rsquo;s attacks rendered the fragile ceasefire meaningless.\nFrance Leads the European Response # France emerged as the strongest European voice in the debate. The French ambassador declared that \u0026ldquo;Hezbollah made an unconscionable and irresponsible decision to join Iran\u0026rsquo;s attacks on Israel over ten days ago, thereby dragging Lebanon into a confrontation that the Lebanese authorities and people refused to be part of.\u0026rdquo;\nHe laid out the devastating human cost: more than 500 killed on the Lebanese side, hundreds wounded, and over 750,000 displaced by the military operations. France, he said, fully supports the Lebanese government\u0026rsquo;s courageous decision of March 2 to completely ban all military and security activity by Hezbollah.\n\u0026ldquo;Hezbollah must immediately cease its attacks against Israel and lay down its arms,\u0026rdquo; the French ambassador demanded. \u0026ldquo;It must stop holding the Lebanese people hostage to a war led from Tehran against Israel.\u0026rdquo; He added that the primary mission of the Lebanese army should be the disarmament of Hezbollah. At the same time, he called on Israel to respect Lebanon\u0026rsquo;s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to halt all large-scale ground operations and the continued occupation of Lebanese territory.\nChina Refuses to Condemn Hezbollah # China\u0026rsquo;s UN Ambassador Fu Kung notably avoided any condemnation of Hezbollah. Instead, he directed his criticism squarely at Israel. \u0026ldquo;An immediate ceasefire must be promoted,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;We call on all parties to cease hostilities and respect international law. Israel must withdraw from Lebanon immediately.\u0026rdquo;\nThe statement was consistent with Beijing\u0026rsquo;s broader pattern of shielding actors aligned with Iran on the international stage, a stance that has become increasingly visible as the conflict between Israel and Iran\u0026rsquo;s proxy network has intensified.\nRussia Accuses the West of \u0026ldquo;Distorting Reality\u0026rdquo; # Russia\u0026rsquo;s representative went further, accusing Western nations of attempting to \u0026ldquo;flip things around and distort reality.\u0026rdquo; She characterized the Israeli-American military operation as having \u0026ldquo;swept the region into chaos, causing loss of life and irreversible damage to civilian infrastructure.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Russian delegate cited Israeli airstrikes, claiming the IDF attacked over 60 towns in just the last four days, including a five-story building where Lebanese children were studying. She also condemned strikes on diplomatic facilities, referencing the deaths of four Iranian diplomats in Beirut and an attack on the Russian consulate general in Isfahan: \u0026ldquo;The Russian consulate general in Isfahan was attacked yesterday — this is unacceptable.\u0026rdquo;\nWhile expressing that Russia shares Israel\u0026rsquo;s security concerns, she insisted that \u0026ldquo;the IDF\u0026rsquo;s response is disproportionate and excessive,\u0026rdquo; accusing Israel of ignoring international law and targeting civilians.\nA Diplomatic Fault Line Deepens # The Security Council session exposed a deepening fault line in the international community\u0026rsquo;s response to the Middle East crisis. While the vast majority of nations recognized Hezbollah\u0026rsquo;s culpability in destabilizing Lebanon and threatening Israeli civilians, China and Russia continued to provide diplomatic cover for the Iran-backed organization.\nFor Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian diaspora community, China\u0026rsquo;s stance is particularly notable. It represents yet another instance of Beijing prioritizing its strategic alignment with Tehran over any pretense of balanced diplomacy — and doing so at the expense of a country where thousands of Chinese workers and citizens reside.\nBased on reporting by Itamar Eichner for Ynet.\n","date":"11 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/china-russia-shield-hezbollah-un-security-council/","section":"Posts","summary":"The United Nations Security Council convened a special session on Wednesday to address the escalating crisis in Lebanon, producing a near-unanimous front against Hezbollah — with China and Russia as the glaring exceptions. While Western and even some non-aligned nations condemned the Shiite terror organization for dragging Lebanon into war, Beijing and Moscow chose to deflect blame onto Israel.\n","title":"China and Russia Shield Hezbollah as UN Security Council Condemns Terror Group","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"11 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hezbollah/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hezbollah","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lebanon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lebanon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/russia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Russia","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/security-council/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Security-Council","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/united-nations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"United-Nations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/humanitarian-aid/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Humanitarian-Aid","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/solidarity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Solidarity","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Representative to Israel, Ya-ping (Abby) Lee, delivered an emotional speech at ZAKA\u0026rsquo;s annual \u0026ldquo;True Heroes\u0026rdquo; appreciation conference, held on Tuesday before an audience of thousands of the organization\u0026rsquo;s volunteers. During the event, the ambassador announced a dedicated contribution of 500,000 NIS (NT$5.14 million) used to purchase life-saving operational equipment for ZAKA.\nImmediate Response Since October 7 # Ambassador Lee emphasized Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s commitment to Israel since the outbreak of the war. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan was among the first to strongly condemn the terrorist attacks on October 7, and provided humanitarian aid and financial assistance to support kibbutzim, communities, and local authorities that were affected by the attacks and the threats that followed them,\u0026rdquo; she said.\nThe 500,000 NIS contribution was used to purchase life-saving operational equipment. \u0026ldquo;We are particularly proud to contribute to initiatives led by ZAKA and are pleased to see our contribution transformed into equipment of real value on the ground,\u0026rdquo; she added.\nEquipment Proven at Beit Shemesh # On Sunday, March 1, an Iranian ballistic missile struck the Beit Shemesh area, killing nine people and injuring over 40. ZAKA volunteers who arrived at the scene used portable lighting towers purchased with the Taiwanese donation. The equipment enabled operational work under complex conditions and during nighttime hours, including searching for trapped individuals in the rubble.\nThe Beit Shemesh attack was the deadliest in the escalation with Iran. The missile penetrated Israel\u0026rsquo;s multi-layered air defense systems and struck a residential structure, causing a partial building collapse, destroying a synagogue, and severely damaging a public shelter beneath it.\nShared Values of Small Democracies # Ambassador Lee conveyed a message of solidarity that went beyond the financial contribution. \u0026ldquo;Our contribution is more than financial assistance. It is a message of hope and solidarity to those affected by the war,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan and Israel may be geographically distant, but we are neighbors in our values — small democracies under constant external threat that continue to thrive and stand by one another.\u0026rdquo;\nHer words received a standing ovation from the thousands of ZAKA volunteers in attendance.\nThis donation is part of a series of solidarity measures by Taiwan toward Israel since October 7, including a 1.8 million NIS contribution to establish a satellite emergency communication system, 187,000 NIS to support demobilized soldiers from the Druze community, the establishment of a maritime resilience farm to rehabilitate Gaza envelope residents, and a 1.2 million NIS donation to victims of the Israel-Iran war.\nSource: Taiwan News\n","date":"4 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/taiwan-ambassador-zaka-conference/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan’s Representative to Israel, Ya-ping (Abby) Lee, delivered an emotional speech at ZAKA’s annual “True Heroes” appreciation conference, held on Tuesday before an audience of thousands of the organization’s volunteers. During the event, the ambassador announced a dedicated contribution of 500,000 NIS (NT$5.14 million) used to purchase life-saving operational equipment for ZAKA.\n","title":"Taiwan's Ambassador at ZAKA Conference: \"Small Democracies Standing Together\"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"4 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ya-ping-lee/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ya-Ping-Lee","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/zaka/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Zaka","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/caregiver/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Caregiver","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/eldercare/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Eldercare","type":"tags"},{"content":"Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, a 32-year-old Filipina caregiver from Basista, Pangasinan, has been identified as the first person killed in Israel during Iran\u0026rsquo;s retaliatory missile strikes on February 28, 2026. She was pregnant with her first child. She was killed while helping her elderly patient reach a bomb shelter — choosing to stay with the woman she cared for rather than flee to safety alone.\nThe Incident # Late on Saturday night, an Iranian ballistic missile struck next to a residential building in Tel Aviv as part of a massive barrage launched during Operation Roaring Lion. De Vera, who lived with her elderly patient as a live-in caregiver, was critically injured by shrapnel while assisting the woman to a bomb shelter. They did not make it in time.\nDe Vera was found in critical condition and pronounced dead en route to the hospital. Her patient was rescued alive from the rubble, though also injured. In total, 27 other people were wounded in the strike, including seven children.\nHer Story # De Vera had been working in Israel since 2019, part of the tens of thousands of Filipino overseas workers (OFWs) who serve as caregivers across the country. Like many Filipina caregivers in Israel, she lived with her patient, providing round-the-clock care and companionship. She married another Philippine national around 2024 and was pregnant with their first child at the time of her death.\nHer first patient in Israel was Doris Gurin, an 89-year-old woman who had immigrated from Riverdale in the Bronx to Beersheba. According to Gurin\u0026rsquo;s daughters, Barbara Wachspress and Janice Prawer, the bond between de Vera and their mother was \u0026ldquo;love at first sight.\u0026rdquo; They described de Vera as \u0026ldquo;a ray of sunshine — so special, caring, and devoted\u0026rdquo; and called her \u0026ldquo;an angel on Earth.\u0026rdquo; De Vera called Gurin \u0026ldquo;Mother Earth\u0026rdquo; and adored the family\u0026rsquo;s dog Wally, a Shih Tzu-dachshund mix — the family called her a \u0026ldquo;puppy-lover.\u0026rdquo;\nWhen Gurin contracted COVID and the caregiving agency recommended de Vera leave, she refused, insisting on staying by her patient\u0026rsquo;s side. Gurin ultimately died of COVID-related complications in late 2020. At the funeral, de Vera spoke through her tears: \u0026ldquo;Until we meet again, and I\u0026rsquo;ll continue to take care of you in the afterlife.\u0026rdquo;\nWhen the missiles began falling on February 28, she could have rushed to a shelter on her own. Instead, she stayed to help the elderly woman she was now caring for, trying to guide her to safety. It was an act of selflessness that cost her her life — and her unborn child\u0026rsquo;s.\nHer husband, also an OFW working in Israel, identified her remains through biometric records at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.\nOfficial Responses # The Israeli Embassy in the Philippines issued a statement honoring de Vera: \u0026ldquo;Mary Ann, like so many overseas Filipino workers in Israel, exemplified resilience, compassion, and quiet strength.\u0026rdquo; The embassy called her death \u0026ldquo;a stark reminder that the Iranian regime continues to sow terror indiscriminately, targeting civilians without distinction.\u0026rdquo;\nPresident Isaac Herzog personally called Philippine Ambassador Aileen Mendiola to offer his condolences on behalf of the State of Israel.\nPhilippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. confirmed de Vera\u0026rsquo;s death in a video message, explaining that she was helping her charge reach a bomb shelter when the missile struck. \u0026ldquo;She died from shrapnel from the falling bombs,\u0026rdquo; Marcos said, adding that her husband, also an OFW in Israel, had identified her. The Philippine government pledged full assistance to her family.\nVigil and Repatriation # Before her remains left Israel, the Philippine Embassy organised a prayer vigil for de Vera in Jerusalem. The service was presided over by His Beatitude Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the most senior Catholic figure in the Holy Land — a recognition that underscored how widely her death was felt across Israel\u0026rsquo;s faith communities.\nHer remains were repatriated to the Philippines roughly two weeks after the strike, flown home together with her husband, Bernie Lavarias. Before the journey, Lavarias met President Herzog in person to receive Israel\u0026rsquo;s condolences. The Israeli government has committed to providing lifelong support to de Vera\u0026rsquo;s family. Her family in Pangasinan has asked for privacy as they grieve.\nFilipino Caregivers in Israel # De Vera\u0026rsquo;s death has highlighted the vital and often overlooked role that Filipino caregivers play in Israeli society. An estimated 30,000 Filipinos live and work in Israel, the majority employed as live-in caregivers for elderly and disabled Israelis. They are part of a broader population of over 61,000 legal migrant caregivers in the country.\nFilipino caregivers have become deeply embedded in Israel\u0026rsquo;s eldercare system. The live-in care model means they share homes with their patients, forming close bonds that often go far beyond professional duty. During previous conflicts, many Filipino caregivers refused repatriation offers, choosing instead to stay with the patients who depended on them.\nA Community That Cannot Easily Take Cover # De Vera\u0026rsquo;s death drew attention to a structural vulnerability the Filipino community in Israel has long lived with. Live-in caregivers do not choose where they shelter. They are bound to their patients\u0026rsquo; homes — and many of those homes, especially older apartments occupied by elderly Israelis, have no reinforced safe room (mamad) and no quick route to a public shelter. When a siren sounds, a caregiver responsible for a frail or immobile patient often cannot reach protected space in the 90 seconds or so that central Israel allows. The choice de Vera faced was not unusual; it is one the community confronts every time the country is under fire.\nThis population is also largely invisible in Israel\u0026rsquo;s emergency planning. Caregivers are dispersed one-to-a-household rather than concentrated, frequently work without family nearby, and may have limited Hebrew — which makes Home Front Command instructions, municipal alerts and insurance processes harder to navigate. Community organisations such as the Federation of Filipino Communities in Israel and informal networks like Filipinos Working and Living in Israel often become the practical channel through which safety information, legal help and mutual support actually reach workers. For readers who want a fuller picture of the community\u0026rsquo;s everyday institutions, our guide to https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/filipino-food-shops-israel/ maps some of the shops and gathering points that anchor Filipino life across the country.\nDe Vera\u0026rsquo;s final act — staying with her patient when she could have saved herself — reflects the dedication that has earned Filipino caregivers deep respect in Israel. But it should not be read only as individual heroism. It is also a reminder of the human cost borne by foreign workers who make their lives in conflict zones, far from their own families, caring for other people\u0026rsquo;s loved ones — and of how much Israeli households quietly depend on people whose own safety the system has not fully accounted for.\nSources: Times of Israel, Times of Israel, GMA News, ABS-CBN News, Philippine Daily Inquirer — remains arrive in PH, Manila Times — Israel lifelong support\n","date":"1 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/03/filipina-caregiver-mary-anne-de-vera-killed-iran-missile-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, a 32-year-old Filipina caregiver from Basista, Pangasinan, has been identified as the first person killed in Israel during Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on February 28, 2026. She was pregnant with her first child. She was killed while helping her elderly patient reach a bomb shelter — choosing to stay with the woman she cared for rather than flee to safety alone.\n","title":"Filipina Caregiver Mary Anne de Vera Killed in Iranian Missile Strike on Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mary-anne-de-vera/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mary-Anne-De-Vera","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ofw/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ofw","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/imec/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Imec","type":"tags"},{"content":"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up a historic two-day state visit to Israel on February 26, during which the two countries signed 16 memorandums of understanding spanning artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, agriculture, fintech, education, labor mobility, and cultural cooperation. The visit formally elevated bilateral ties to a \u0026ldquo;Special Strategic Partnership for Peace, Innovation, and Prosperity.\u0026rdquo;\nKey Agreements # The 16 MoUs cover a wide range of sectors reflecting the breadth of the India-Israel relationship:\nArtificial Intelligence \u0026amp; Cybersecurity: A general AI cooperation framework and a letter of intent to establish an Indo-Israel Cyber Centre of Excellence in India, focusing on digital resilience, AI, and joint exercises. Agriculture: A flagship agreement to create the India-Israel Innovation Centre for Agriculture (IINCA), operated jointly by India\u0026rsquo;s ICAR and Israel\u0026rsquo;s MASHAV. The center will focus on precision farming, satellite-based irrigation, integrated pest management, and post-harvest technologies, along with 20 joint research fellowships. Education: An MoU between the two countries\u0026rsquo; education ministries on advancing education through AI, covering innovative teaching methods and teacher development. Financial Services: India\u0026rsquo;s UPI digital payments system will be linked to Israel\u0026rsquo;s payment infrastructure for cross-border remittances, alongside a fintech and regtech cooperation agreement between the two countries\u0026rsquo; financial authorities. Labor Mobility: A commitment to bring up to 50,000 Indian workers to Israel over the next five years. Cultural Exchange: A three-year program (2026–2029) covering music, theatre, dance, visual arts, and festivals, plus academic exchanges between Nalanda University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Other areas: Geophysical exploration, fisheries and aquaculture, commercial arbitration, maritime heritage development, and horizon scanning for strategic foresight. Joint Statements # Speaking at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem after the signing ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the visit as \u0026ldquo;short but very productive and exciting,\u0026rdquo; adding that the two countries are working on \u0026ldquo;concrete plans\u0026rdquo; and that another meeting between the countries\u0026rsquo; leaders will take place in India.\nModi thanked the Knesset, where he delivered a historic address, and said that stepping once again on the \u0026ldquo;historic and inspiring soil of Israel\u0026rdquo; was an emotional moment for him. He dedicated a medal he received from the Speaker of the Knesset to \u0026ldquo;1.4 billion Indians and the friendship between India and Israel.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;This friendship is built on deep foundations of democratic and human values,\u0026rdquo; Modi said. \u0026ldquo;Our ties have stood the test of time. Today, we have taken a historic decision to elevate our long-standing partnership to a special strategic partnership, symbolizing the aspirations of our two peoples.\u0026rdquo;\nFree Trade and the IMEC Corridor # Modi announced that the two countries will soon complete a new free trade agreement, with the first round of negotiations already held in New Delhi. He also said the talks covered advancing the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a major infrastructure initiative launched in 2023 that would connect India to Europe via the Gulf states and Israel through rail, shipping, energy, and digital networks. Israel plays a key role as a transit point in IMEC\u0026rsquo;s Northern Corridor, with the Haifa port serving as a hub for ship-to-rail transfers toward Mediterranean Europe.\nCounterterrorism and Regional Peace # Both leaders emphasized their shared stance on counterterrorism. \u0026ldquo;We both agreed that terrorism has no place in the world, regardless of its form or expression,\u0026rdquo; Modi said. \u0026ldquo;We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder against terrorism and its supporters.\u0026rdquo; He added that India supports efforts to promote peace in Gaza and will continue dialogue with countries in the region.\nModi described the visit as an \u0026ldquo;important milestone,\u0026rdquo; noting that Israel-India ties continue to deepen across security, agriculture, water, development, and employment, driven primarily by cooperation between the peoples of the two countries.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"26 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/modi-israel-visit-16-agreements-signed/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up a historic two-day state visit to Israel on February 26, during which the two countries signed 16 memorandums of understanding spanning artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, agriculture, fintech, education, labor mobility, and cultural cooperation. The visit formally elevated bilateral ties to a “Special Strategic Partnership for Peace, Innovation, and Prosperity.”\n","title":"India and Israel Sign 16 Agreements During Modi's Historic Visit","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/modi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Modi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-india-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-India-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/knesset/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Knesset","type":"tags"},{"content":"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian leader to address the Knesset on February 25, delivering a forceful speech that placed India squarely alongside Israel in its fight against terrorism and signaled a deepening strategic partnership between the two nations.\n\u0026ldquo;Either the Jihadist Axis of Evil Will Break Us, or We Will Break It\u0026rdquo; # Modi\u0026rsquo;s speech centered on an unequivocal message of solidarity. \u0026ldquo;India stands with Israel firmly with full conviction in this moment and beyond,\u0026rdquo; he declared, describing Israel as \u0026ldquo;a protective wall against barbarism.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Indian prime minister opened with a direct reference to the October 7 Hamas attack. \u0026ldquo;I carry with me the deepest condolences of the people of India for every life lost and for every family whose world was shattered in the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7,\u0026rdquo; Modi said.\nHe then delivered what may have been the speech\u0026rsquo;s most striking line: \u0026ldquo;The massacre of October 7 made it absolutely clear: either the jihadist axis of evil will break us, or we will break it. And we are breaking it — and will break it.\u0026rdquo;\nNetanyahu\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Iron Alliance\u0026rdquo; and the IMEC Corridor # Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the visit in grand strategic terms, announcing that India and Israel would build an \u0026ldquo;iron alliance\u0026rdquo; against \u0026ldquo;extremist Islam.\u0026rdquo; Netanyahu also highlighted both nations\u0026rsquo; roles in developing the US-backed IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Connector) transport corridor.\n\u0026ldquo;This maritime-land corridor can exist and flourish only if it passes through stable and secure countries,\u0026rdquo; Netanyahu said, positioning the India-Israel partnership as essential to the corridor\u0026rsquo;s viability.\nNetanyahu expressed deep personal emotion about the visit, telling Modi: \u0026ldquo;I am deeply, deeply moved by your visit here today.\u0026rdquo; He called Modi \u0026ldquo;more than a friend, a brother\u0026rdquo; — an echo of their long personal relationship, which includes a famous 2017 barefoot walk along the Mediterranean shore. Netanyahu had later presented Modi with a photograph of that moment, declaring their \u0026ldquo;partnership is a match made in heaven and consecrated on earth.\u0026rdquo;\nDuring the visit, both leaders posted in each other\u0026rsquo;s languages on X as they headed to an innovation event together.\nMoU on Defense Cooperation and the \u0026ldquo;Six Alliances\u0026rdquo; # Beyond the Knesset address, the visit included the expected signing of a memorandum of understanding to deepen defense cooperation between the two countries — a formalization of a relationship that has grown dramatically over the past decade.\nNetanyahu also referenced his \u0026ldquo;Six Alliances\u0026rdquo; concept — a strategic framework linking Israel, India, Greece, Cyprus, one Arab nation (likely the UAE), and one African nation (potentially Ethiopia) — as part of his vision for a broader alliance of like-minded states.\nOpposition Walkout — But Not for Modi # The Knesset session was not without political drama. Opposition MKs boycotted the speeches by Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, protesting the exclusion of High Court President Isaac Amit from the ceremony. However, they returned to the chamber for Modi\u0026rsquo;s address. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid addressed Modi directly, stating the boycott had \u0026ldquo;nothing to do with you.\u0026rdquo;\nFree Trade Agreement: Progress and Sticking Points # The visit also saw movement on economic ties. A delegation from Israel\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Trade Administration traveled to New Delhi to negotiate a formal trade agreement between the two countries.\nHowever, free trade talks face a significant obstacle: Israel opposes India\u0026rsquo;s demands to include provisions for foreign workers in any agreement, with concerns about uncontrolled immigration and lobbying influence within Israeli politics.\nSources: Times of Israel, Globes\n","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/modi-knesset-speech-india-stands-with-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian leader to address the Knesset on February 25, delivering a forceful speech that placed India squarely alongside Israel in its fight against terrorism and signaled a deepening strategic partnership between the two nations.\n","title":"Modi Tells Knesset 'India Stands Firmly With Israel' in Historic First Address","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/netanyahu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Netanyahu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/terrorism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Terrorism","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/arms-trade/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Arms-Trade","type":"tags"},{"content":"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to make an official visit to Israel this week, holding discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and addressing the Knesset. The two countries are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding to deepen defense cooperation. The visit underscores the deepening strategic and security relationship between the two countries, particularly in the defense sector.\nIndia: Israel\u0026rsquo;s Largest Defense Customer # Over the past decade, India has emerged as the single largest buyer of Israeli defense products. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India accounted for 34% of Israel\u0026rsquo;s total defense sales between 2020 and 2024. Figures from SIBAT, the Ministry of Defense\u0026rsquo;s International Defense Cooperation Directorate, put total arms sales from Israel to India during this period at approximately $20.5 billion.\nThe trajectory has been dramatic. SIBAT head Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yair Kulas outlined the growth: exports stood at $300 million in 2012, rose to $700 million in 2013, and crossed the $1 billion mark in 2014. The major leap came in 2017 with the sale of Barak air defense systems, which pushed annual sales to roughly $3.4 billion.\nAfter a decline to $880 million in 2023 — attributed partly to India\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Make in India\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Self Reliance\u0026rdquo; programs that require 50-60% local production content — sales have rebounded. Israel sold approximately $1.1 billion in defense products to India in 2024, and early estimates for 2025 exceed $1.5 billion.\nForbes India recently reported that total deals closed with India since the beginning of 2026 have reached $8.6 billion, though Kulas noted that official SIBAT figures only capture exports from Israel and do not include production by Israeli companies within India itself.\nBeyond Procurement: Local Manufacturing Partnerships # The relationship extends well beyond direct arms sales. All major Israeli defense companies now maintain Indian subsidiaries and collaborate with local industry. This shift responds to Modi\u0026rsquo;s push for productive independence, requiring foreign defense suppliers to establish significant manufacturing footprints within India.\nA prominent example is the partnership between Adani Corporation and Elbit Systems. Adani produces the Drishti 10 Starliner drone, based on Elbit\u0026rsquo;s Hermes 900 platform, at facilities in India. This kind of arrangement exemplifies the model Israeli defense firms have adopted: providing technology and designs while Indian partners handle substantial portions of manufacturing.\nKulas emphasized that Ministry of Defense Director General Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram has designated India as a key country, personally leading a delegation of all department heads to strengthen ties. During the ongoing conflict, Indian-made defense products reportedly reached Israel by ship, demonstrating the practical depth of the partnership.\nAir Defense and New Frontiers # According to India\u0026rsquo;s Hindustan Times, a key agenda item during Modi\u0026rsquo;s visit will be air defense cooperation. This includes potential joint development in ballistic missile defense and even laser-based defense systems — areas where Israel has developed significant expertise through its Iron Dome, David\u0026rsquo;s Sling, and Iron Beam programs.\nThe Challenge of Technological Copying # Israel\u0026rsquo;s position as a defense technology leader also comes with challenges. Last October, Armenian company Davaro unveiled the Dragonfly 3 suicide drone, which bore a striking resemblance to Israel Aerospace Industries\u0026rsquo; Harop loitering munition. Armenia maintains deep defense ties with India, which itself operates the Harop.\nKulas acknowledged the reality of copying attempts but emphasized Israel\u0026rsquo;s approach to staying ahead. \u0026ldquo;Before exporting, we go through various bodies such as the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment and MAFAT,\u0026rdquo; he explained. \u0026ldquo;This includes strict security agreements. It is clear that people try to copy, even at exhibitions, but this is a race in which we must always produce the next generation.\u0026rdquo;\nIsrael currently ranks eighth among the world\u0026rsquo;s defense exporters with 3.1% of global trade, according to SIPRI.\nBeyond Defense: Broadening the Economic Relationship # The Modi visit signals a shift in how both countries view the bilateral relationship. Dr. Oshrit Birvadker, an expert on India-Israel relations, noted that \u0026ldquo;the visit marks a shift from viewing the relationship as purely defense-focused to something broader\u0026rdquo; — despite ongoing regional security challenges.\nBilateral trade between the two countries reached $5 billion in 2025 across goods, services, and diamonds. Israeli exports to India have grown by 50% over the past five years, making India Israel\u0026rsquo;s second-largest Asian trade partner.\nThe Indian delegation is also seeking Israeli expertise in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, with a technology event involving Israeli companies scheduled in Jerusalem. A delegation from Israel\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Trade Administration has traveled to New Delhi to negotiate a formal trade agreement, signaling both sides\u0026rsquo; intent to move the relationship beyond its traditional defense focus.\nNetanyahu\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Six Alliances\u0026rdquo; Framework # Prime Minister Netanyahu has articulated a broader strategic vision through his \u0026ldquo;Six Alliances\u0026rdquo; concept — a framework linking Israel, India, Greece, Cyprus, one Arab nation (likely the UAE), and one African nation (potentially Ethiopia). The framework reflects Netanyahu\u0026rsquo;s ambition to build a coalition of like-minded states that extends beyond bilateral defense ties into a regional strategic architecture.\nThe inclusion of a potential African partner has drawn attention to regional dynamics, particularly Turkish concerns about Ethiopia potentially recognizing Somaliland\u0026rsquo;s independence in exchange for maritime access — a move that would reshape alliances across the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.\nIndia as a Gateway to Asia # Manufacturing within India serves a dual purpose. Beyond supplying the Indian military, it positions Israeli-Indian partnerships to reach broader Asian markets. \u0026ldquo;Once you produce in India, you can reach other countries,\u0026rdquo; Kulas noted. \u0026ldquo;The market is big not only for India itself but also for third countries in the region.\u0026rdquo;\nThis strategic calculus mirrors trends in other major markets — just as defense companies need production capacity in the United States for the American market or in Germany for NATO procurement, India is becoming the central anchor for the Asian defense market.\nOutlook # Despite challenges posed by boycott pressures and wartime difficulties, Kulas expressed confidence that Israel\u0026rsquo;s defense industry will break \u0026ldquo;another glass ceiling\u0026rdquo; in 2026. \u0026ldquo;The proof on the battlefield and the results of the fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are bringing a surge in our industries,\u0026rdquo; he said.\nThe Modi visit represents engagement at the highest political level, with both prime ministers directly guiding defense industry cooperation — a signal that the Israel-India defense relationship is poised for further expansion.\nSources: Globes, Globes\n","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/modi-visit-israel-india-defense-cooperation/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to make an official visit to Israel this week, holding discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and addressing the Knesset. The two countries are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding to deepen defense cooperation. The visit underscores the deepening strategic and security relationship between the two countries, particularly in the defense sector.\n","title":"As Modi Visits Israel, Defense Cooperation Between the Two Nations Deepens","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/defense/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Defense","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/elbit/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Elbit","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/make-in-india/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Make-in-India","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rafael/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rafael","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"17 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/crime/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Crime","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"17 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/death-penalty/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Death-Penalty","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"17 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hampi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hampi","type":"tags"},{"content":"A district court in Karnataka, India, has sentenced three men to death for the gang rape of a 27-year-old Israeli woman and a 29-year-old Indian woman near the historic Hampi UNESCO World Heritage site. The court described the case as one of the \u0026ldquo;rarest of rare,\u0026rdquo; warranting the maximum punishment under Indian law.\nThe Attack # The assault took place in March 2025 near the Tungabhadra Canal in the Hampi area. A group of five people — the Indian woman who was hosting the outing, two Indian men, an American man, and the Israeli woman — had gone on a stargazing trip when they were attacked by three men who arrived on a motorbike.\nThe attackers pushed the men into the canal, then gang-raped both women and stole their belongings. One of the Indian men, 26-year-old Bhibash Kumar Nayak, drowned in the canal during the attack.\nThe Verdict # The three convicted men — Handi Malla (22), Chaitannay Sai (21), and Sharanappa Sharanabasavaraj (27) — were found guilty by the district court in Karnataka. The judge ruled that the brutality of the crime, which included sexual assault, robbery, and the death of a victim, placed it in the \u0026ldquo;rarest of rare\u0026rdquo; category reserved for the most severe offenses in India\u0026rsquo;s legal system.\nThe death sentences are pending confirmation from a higher court, as is standard procedure in India for capital punishment cases.\nTourism Safety Concerns # The case drew significant attention both in India and Israel, highlighting safety concerns for tourists visiting India. Hampi, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its ancient ruins, is a popular destination for Israeli travelers, many of whom visit India after completing their military service.\nThe swift trial and severe sentencing reflect India\u0026rsquo;s efforts to address crimes against tourists and signal that such offenses will be met with the harshest penalties available under the law.\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"17 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/india-death-sentence-hampi-gang-rape/","section":"Posts","summary":"A district court in Karnataka, India, has sentenced three men to death for the gang rape of a 27-year-old Israeli woman and a 29-year-old Indian woman near the historic Hampi UNESCO World Heritage site. The court described the case as one of the “rarest of rare,” warranting the maximum punishment under Indian law.\n","title":"Indian Court Sentences Three to Death for Gang Rape of Israeli Woman Near Hampi","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"17 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/karnataka/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Karnataka","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-new-year/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-New-Year","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/church/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Church","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lunar-new-year/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lunar-New-Year","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Tel Aviv Chinese Church (特拉维夫华人教会) is hosting a special Chinese New Year gathering to ring in the Year of the Snake. The celebration takes place on February 17, 2026 — the first day of the Lunar New Year (正月初一) — and promises a morning of food, music, and community.\nEvent Details # Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Time: 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM Location: Levinski St 82, 2nd floor, Tel Aviv (400m west of the Central Bus Station, next to the gas station) Cost: ₪100 per person (meal ticket, must be purchased in advance) Registration deadline: February 14, 2026 What to Expect # The event — titled \u0026ldquo;New Spring Grace Gathering\u0026rdquo; (新春蒙恩聚会) — features:\nA festive feast (大餐) to celebrate the new year Hymns and worship (诗歌) Performances (节目) by community members Fellowship time (团契) to connect with others The gathering is inspired by Psalm 65:11: \u0026ldquo;You crown the year with your bounty; your paths overflow with abundance.\u0026rdquo;\nHow to Attend # Spots are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Meal tickets must be purchased in advance at ₪100 per person.\nTo reserve your spot, contact Zhou Mei (周美) at 0559807928.\nGetting There # The venue is at Levinski Street 82, 2nd floor, in Tel Aviv. It\u0026rsquo;s approximately 400 meters west of the Central Bus Station, next to the gas station. A QR code for navigation is available on the event flyer.\n","date":"14 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/tel-aviv-chinese-church-lunar-new-year-2026/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Tel Aviv Chinese Church (特拉维夫华人教会) is hosting a special Chinese New Year gathering to ring in the Year of the Snake. The celebration takes place on February 17, 2026 — the first day of the Lunar New Year (正月初一) — and promises a morning of food, music, and community.\n","title":"Tel Aviv Chinese Church Hosts Chinese New Year Celebration 2026","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/year-of-the-snake/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Year-of-the-Snake","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/journalism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Journalism","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/media/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Media","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/security/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Security","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s Shin Bet security service removed freelance journalist Nick Kolyohin from Prime Minister Netanyahu\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Wing of Zion\u0026rdquo; aircraft on Tuesday morning, just before the plane departed for Washington. Kolyohin, who contributes to Xinhua — China\u0026rsquo;s state-run news agency — as well as the blacklisted Russian state outlet RT and the American right-wing channel Newsmax, had received prior approval from the Prime Minister\u0026rsquo;s Office to join the press corps covering the Netanyahu-Trump meeting.\nThe Incident # After boarding the media section of the plane, Kolyohin was approached by Shin Bet agents and asked to disembark. He was told that his \u0026ldquo;connections\u0026rdquo; needed to be verified before he could be cleared. The Shin Bet later issued a statement saying that \u0026ldquo;decisions are made in order to reduce risk to the prime minister and to the information in his surroundings.\u0026rdquo;\nKolyohin had been scheduled to cover the trip for three Russian television channels in addition to his other media affiliations.\nWho Is Nick Kolyohin? # Kolyohin, 42, was born in Moscow and moved to Israel at age 9 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He claims to hold only Israeli citizenship. He served in the Israel Defense Forces and previously worked for Israel\u0026rsquo;s Channel 10 (now Channel 13). Between 2011 and 2012, he worked for a government agency within the Prime Minister\u0026rsquo;s Office.\nHis current work as a freelance contributor spans multiple foreign state-affiliated outlets, most notably Xinhua and RT. Israel\u0026rsquo;s The Seventh Eye media watchdog has previously accused Kolyohin of being paid to promote Russian interests — allegations he vehemently denies and is pursuing civil legal action over, calling the claims defamatory.\nThe Xinhua Connection # The removal highlights growing scrutiny of Chinese state media operations in Israel. Xinhua, as China\u0026rsquo;s official news agency, serves as a key instrument of Beijing\u0026rsquo;s global information strategy. Hebrew-language media investigations have raised suspicions about sponsored content and foreign state affiliations among journalists operating in Israel.\nThis incident follows a pattern of increased awareness in Israel about Chinese influence operations, including the unprecedented Knesset Spring Festival event that drew scrutiny for Beijing\u0026rsquo;s elite capture tactics, and Prime Minister Netanyahu\u0026rsquo;s own public accusations in September 2025 that China was running a media campaign and \u0026ldquo;legitimacy war\u0026rdquo; against Israel.\nThe Shin Bet\u0026rsquo;s decision to flag a journalist\u0026rsquo;s connections to Chinese state media — alongside Russian state media — signals that Israeli security services are taking the nexus of foreign state-affiliated journalism and national security increasingly seriously.\nBroader Context # The incident also raises questions about the intersection of Russian and Chinese state media influence in Israel. Both countries have been documented engaging in information operations targeting Israeli public opinion, and the fact that a single journalist contributed to both Xinhua and RT underscores how these networks can overlap.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s ambassador to Israel, Dr. Xiao Junzheng, has been documented using diplomatic events to advance Beijing\u0026rsquo;s narrative while deflecting from China\u0026rsquo;s record on issues like the October 7 massacre and hostage negotiations.\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/shin-bet-xinhua-journalist-removed-pm-plane/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s Shin Bet security service removed freelance journalist Nick Kolyohin from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “Wing of Zion” aircraft on Tuesday morning, just before the plane departed for Washington. Kolyohin, who contributes to Xinhua — China’s state-run news agency — as well as the blacklisted Russian state outlet RT and the American right-wing channel Newsmax, had received prior approval from the Prime Minister’s Office to join the press corps covering the Netanyahu-Trump meeting.\n","title":"Shin Bet Removes Xinhua-Linked Journalist from PM Netanyahu's Plane","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/shin-bet/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Shin-Bet","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/xinhua/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Xinhua","type":"tags"},{"content":"In an unprecedented event, the Israeli Knesset hosted a forum titled \u0026ldquo;Strengthening Israel-China Relations and Marking the Spring Festival\u0026rdquo; — the first time the Chinese Spring Festival has been celebrated in Israel\u0026rsquo;s parliament since the founding of the state. The event, initiated by the Chinese embassy, was hosted by coalition MK Akram Hasson (New Hope party) and Chinese Ambassador Dr. Xiao Junzheng, with the full Chinese diplomatic corps in attendance.\nBut the MK\u0026rsquo;s effusive praise for China\u0026rsquo;s supposed support of Israel has drawn sharp criticism from analysts who document a very different record.\nMK Hasson\u0026rsquo;s Claims # During the proceedings and in subsequent remarks to the Knesset plenum, Hasson publicly thanked China for being \u0026ldquo;among the few countries that condemned the massacre and what happened on October 7,\u0026rdquo; claiming that China \u0026ldquo;supported us and stood by our side.\u0026rdquo; He went further, describing China as one of the few countries that \u0026ldquo;did not allow\u0026rdquo; its 20,000 workers to leave Israel, and even suggested that China relocate its embassy to Jerusalem.\nThe Documented Reality # According to Tuvia Gering, a cyber-threat intelligence analyst and visiting fellow at the Israel-China Policy Center at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), these claims \u0026ldquo;invert the documented reality of China\u0026rsquo;s conduct during Israel\u0026rsquo;s most severe crisis in generations.\u0026rdquo;\n581 Days of Silence # China\u0026rsquo;s first unambiguous, on-the-record condemnation of the October 7 massacre did not occur until May 10, 2025 — 581 days after the attack. It came in a pre-recorded interview with Ambassador Xiao for a small English-language Israeli podcast. This was an isolated event in a controlled setting, following 18 months of China repeatedly condemning Israel in international forums.\nDiplomatic Actions Against Israel # The record of China\u0026rsquo;s actions since October 7, 2023 paints a starkly different picture from Hasson\u0026rsquo;s claims:\nFebruary 2024: China\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Ministry legal advisor argued before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Palestinian violence against Israel is not terrorism but a \u0026ldquo;legitimate armed struggle\u0026rdquo; and an \u0026ldquo;inalienable right.\u0026rdquo; July 2024: China\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Ministry hosted an official Hamas delegation for \u0026ldquo;reconciliation talks,\u0026rdquo; granting the terrorist organization international legitimacy. UN Voting: At every turn in the UNSC, UNHRC, and General Assembly, China pushed resolutions targeting Israel and pressured for \u0026ldquo;unconditional ceasefires.\u0026rdquo; September 2025: Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly accused China of running a media campaign and \u0026ldquo;legitimacy war\u0026rdquo; against Israel alongside Qatar. The Noa Argamani Case # China\u0026rsquo;s embassy rebuffed repeated requests to help secure the release of Noa Argamani, a half-Chinese Israeli hostage taken on October 7. Despite appeals from her family and a direct request from Prime Minister Netanyahu, Chinese officials reportedly cited that Argamani was only \u0026ldquo;half Chinese\u0026rdquo; through her mother and declined to take meaningful action.\nAntisemitism on Chinese Platforms # Outgoing Israeli Ambassador to Beijing Irit Ben-Abba confirmed that the wave of antisemitic and anti-Israel content on Chinese platforms was a deliberate, top-down political choice. She stated that Beijing \u0026ldquo;dictated harshly critical messages across every possible platform\u0026rdquo; while \u0026ldquo;hundreds of posts from the embassy and consulates were censored.\u0026rdquo; According to Ben-Abba, if Beijing had wanted to stop the incitement, it could have — because public discourse in China is \u0026ldquo;supervised, guided, and directed.\u0026rdquo;\nThe embassy has also made zero public mention of the four Chinese citizens murdered by Hamas on October 7.\nThe Workers Question # The narrative around the 20,000 Chinese construction workers is more nuanced than Hasson suggested. While China did not evacuate these workers — whose continued presence prevented the collapse of Israel\u0026rsquo;s construction industry — it simultaneously refused to send additional workers despite an urgent need, and banned all new investment in Israel.\nThe \u0026ldquo;Beit Israel\u0026rdquo; Initiative # One outcome of the Knesset event was the announcement by Itzik Moshe, an Israeli-Georgian businessman and associate of MK Hasson, of plans to open a \u0026ldquo;representative office\u0026rdquo; in China through his public-diplomacy organization Beit Israel. The initiative, intended to \u0026ldquo;tell the Israel story well,\u0026rdquo; would operate outside the Israeli Foreign Ministry\u0026rsquo;s oversight — which previously had issues with Moshe\u0026rsquo;s activities in Georgia.\nGering notes the obvious concern: \u0026ldquo;What China stands to gain in return, beyond another unregulated channel that bypasses formal state oversight and operates through moneyed elites.\u0026rdquo;\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s Solidarity in Contrast # While China turned a cold shoulder to Israel, Taiwan demonstrated full solidarity — a stark contrast frequently noted in Israeli media:\nTaiwan lit up Taipei 101 in support of Israel after October 7 Taiwan made generous donations to Israel\u0026rsquo;s home front, including through Magen David Adom Taiwan awarded scholarships to Israeli students displaced by missile attacks Taiwan funded medical infrastructure in Israeli communities As the Ynet report noted: \u0026ldquo;While China turned a cold shoulder to Israel, Taiwan demonstrated full solidarity and even showed it through generous donations to the Israeli home front.\u0026rdquo;\nStrategic Analysis # Gering characterizes China\u0026rsquo;s recent diplomatic warming — including this Knesset event — not as a moral awakening but as \u0026ldquo;Chinese transactional realism.\u0026rdquo; Israel\u0026rsquo;s battlefield victories, the fall of Assad, the degradation of Hezbollah, and the confrontation with Iran reshaped the region in ways that didn\u0026rsquo;t cooperate with China\u0026rsquo;s script.\nThe elite capture playbook is well-documented: target low-profile lawmakers with minimal China literacy, host lavish dinners at the ambassador\u0026rsquo;s residence, make modest gestures to an MK\u0026rsquo;s hometown, and turn these lawmakers into \u0026ldquo;ambassadors of friendship\u0026rdquo; who repeat Beijing\u0026rsquo;s talking points in the Knesset.\n\u0026ldquo;A steady relationship must not be built on lies,\u0026rdquo; Gering concludes. \u0026ldquo;If Chinese diplomats, and Israeli lawmakers for that matter, want better relations, they must work for today and tomorrow, without inventing a history of solidarity that never existed.\u0026rdquo;\nSources: Ynet (Itamar Eichner), Discourse Power (Tuvia Gering)\n","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/knesset-spring-festival-china-elite-capture/","section":"Posts","summary":"In an unprecedented event, the Israeli Knesset hosted a forum titled “Strengthening Israel-China Relations and Marking the Spring Festival” — the first time the Chinese Spring Festival has been celebrated in Israel’s parliament since the founding of the state. The event, initiated by the Chinese embassy, was hosted by coalition MK Akram Hasson (New Hope party) and Chinese Ambassador Dr. Xiao Junzheng, with the full Chinese diplomatic corps in attendance.\n","title":"Knesset Hosts First Chinese Spring Festival as MK's Praise for China Draws Scrutiny","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/spring-festival/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Spring-Festival","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/acquisition/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Acquisition","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/business/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Business","type":"tags"},{"content":"Chinese billionaire Haoyu Wang is in talks to buy control of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Netafim, the world\u0026rsquo;s largest precision irrigation company, from Mexico\u0026rsquo;s Orbia. The deal, if concluded, would mark a major Chinese acquisition in Israeli agritech — coming at a time when China has banned new investments in Israel.\nThe Deal # Orbia, which holds an 80% stake in Netafim, has been seeking to sell its holdings to reduce leverage. After negotiations with Israeli private equity fund Fortissimo (managed by Yuval Cohen) fell through at a valuation of $1–1.1 billion, Orbia is now examining the sale to Wang as part of a group of investors. The final price tag may be higher than what Fortissimo had offered. Orbia originally acquired Netafim at a company valuation of $1.5 billion from the Permira fund.\nThe remaining 20% of Netafim is held by members of Kibbutz Hatzerim near Beersheva, which founded the company.\nThe Buyer # Haoyu Wang currently lives in Maryland, US, and holds a master\u0026rsquo;s degree in business administration from Johns Hopkins University. He has served as chairman of Dayu Conserving Water Group (大禹节水集团) for the past nine years — a company founded by his father that specializes in drip micro-irrigation systems, much like Netafim itself.\nDayu describes itself as a \u0026ldquo;leading Chinese industrial manufacturer with large-scale operations.\u0026rdquo; The company has plants in several centers across China, including Tianjin. Founded in 2000, Dayu\u0026rsquo;s shares are traded on the Chinese stock exchange at a market cap of approximately 5 billion yuan ($710 million). The company had previously expressed interest in establishing a representative office in Israel to scout irrigation technologies.\nWang reportedly visited Israel in recent weeks as part of his due diligence into acquiring Netafim.\nNetafim: A Pioneer in Precision Irrigation # Netafim was founded in 1965 on Kibbutz Hatzerim and is widely credited with inventing modern drip irrigation — now called \u0026ldquo;precision irrigation.\u0026rdquo; The company is active in 33 countries, operates 19 factories and two recycling plants, and employs approximately 4,500 people worldwide.\nDespite intensifying competition from companies like Rivulis, India\u0026rsquo;s Jain Irrigation, and numerous Chinese manufacturers, the global irrigation market remains vast: only a small percentage of farmers worldwide use drip irrigation, with most agriculture still relying on more basic technologies.\nBroader Context # The potential acquisition carries an ironic dimension. China recently banned all new investment in Israel, classifying it as high-risk. However, Wang\u0026rsquo;s US residence and personal wealth may place this deal outside the scope of Chinese government investment restrictions.\nThe deal also highlights the continued strategic interest in Israel\u0026rsquo;s agritech sector — a field where the country remains a world leader despite broader geopolitical tensions.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/chinese-billionaire-netafim-acquisition/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chinese billionaire Haoyu Wang is in talks to buy control of Israel’s Netafim, the world’s largest precision irrigation company, from Mexico’s Orbia. The deal, if concluded, would mark a major Chinese acquisition in Israeli agritech — coming at a time when China has banned new investments in Israel.\n","title":"Chinese Billionaire in Talks to Acquire Israel's Netafim Irrigation Giant","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/irrigation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Irrigation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/netafim/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Netafim","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/consular/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Consular","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/government/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Government","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Tel Aviv is hiring an Assistant for its Consular Division, with a start date of March 1, 2026. This is an opportunity to work at Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s de facto embassy in Israel, located on the 21st floor of the Azrieli Center Round Building.\nTECO has represented Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s interests in Israel since 1993, handling diplomatic, economic, cultural, and consular affairs. The office serves as a key bridge between Taiwan and Israel, two nations that have steadily deepened cooperation in areas such as technology, defense, and academic exchange in recent years.\nThe Role # The Consular Assistant will serve as the first point of contact for individuals seeking consular services, including visas, passports, and document legalization. Responsibilities include:\nHandling face-to-face, telephone, and written inquiries on consular matters Collecting and pre-examining documents for visa, passport, and legalization applications Processing administrative procedures through internal systems, including generating visa stickers and legalization certificates Preparing monthly and annual statistical reports on consular services Planning and organizing visits, meetings, and events Receptionist duties and general administrative support Supporting media and cultural cooperation activities as needed Requirements # Bachelor\u0026rsquo;s degree Fluent in English and Hebrew (written and spoken) Mandarin Chinese proficiency is an advantage Background in Asian Studies or knowledge of Taiwan is an advantage Strong communication, organizational, and administrative skills Proficiency in MS Office and social media platforms Customer service orientation Working Hours and Location # Sunday to Thursday: 9:00–17:00 Friday: 9:00–12:00 Location: Azrieli Center, Round Building, 21st Floor, 132 Menachem Begin Rd., Tel Aviv How to Apply # Send your English resume (including a portrait photo) and a cover letter to isr@mofa.gov.tw.\nApplication deadline: February 15, 2026\nOnly shortlisted candidates will be contacted.\n","date":"4 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/teco-consular-assistant-2026/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Tel Aviv is hiring an Assistant for its Consular Division, with a start date of March 1, 2026. This is an opportunity to work at Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Israel, located on the 21st floor of the Azrieli Center Round Building.\n","title":"Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Recruiting Consular Assistant","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"4 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/teco/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Teco","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ballet-vision/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ballet-Vision","type":"tags"},{"content":"A lawsuit filed by members of Kibbutz Hanitah against Chinese investment fund Ballet Vision has brought to light a sweeping Chinese government policy: a blanket ban on all new investment in Israel. The kibbutz is seeking approximately $11 million in damages after the fund refused to exercise its contractual option to purchase the kibbutz\u0026rsquo;s remaining shares in the Hanita Lenses factory.\nThe Original Deal # In 2021, Ballet Vision acquired a 74% stake in Hanita Lenses, a medical optics manufacturer specializing in intraocular lenses, for $35 million. Of that sum, $25 million went directly to kibbutz members and $10 million was invested into the factory. The agreement included a purchase option for the kibbutz\u0026rsquo;s remaining shares, valued at approximately $9.5 million.\nFollowing the initial acquisition, Ballet Vision\u0026rsquo;s stake grew to roughly 80% through two subsequent dilution rounds. The first round brought $7 million in additional investment, with a second round of $8 million planned.\nThe Dispute # In December 2024, kibbutz members exercised the purchase option, expecting Ballet Vision to buy out their remaining shares. Instead, Liu Yuxiao — the fund\u0026rsquo;s director who had become the factory\u0026rsquo;s de facto CEO in March 2025 — sent a letter to kibbutz community leader Meir Oz refusing to complete the transaction.\nLiu\u0026rsquo;s explanation was direct: since the outbreak of fighting in October 2023, the Chinese government classified Israel as a \u0026ldquo;high-risk red category\u0026rdquo; zone, effectively banning all new Chinese investment in the country. She stated that under these conditions, the fund could not proceed with the purchase.\nLiu also urged the kibbutz to focus on the factory\u0026rsquo;s survival rather than the share dispute, warning that the company faced an \u0026ldquo;operational crisis\u0026rdquo; requiring \u0026ldquo;complete focus.\u0026rdquo;\nA Factory in Financial Trouble # The financial picture of Hanita Lenses paints a grim situation. Over the past three years, the factory has accumulated approximately $15 million in losses and roughly $4 million in bank debt. By March 2025, the company\u0026rsquo;s cash reserves had dwindled to just $100,000.\nThe kibbutz members argue that they have been effectively sidelined from management decisions, with the board reportedly inactive and all operational control in the hands of Ballet Vision\u0026rsquo;s appointees. For their part, kibbutz members say they \u0026ldquo;desperately need funds following Operation Swords of Iron\u0026rdquo; and that the facility \u0026ldquo;requires rehabilitation assistance.\u0026rdquo;\nChina\u0026rsquo;s Investment Freeze on Israel # The revelation that China has classified Israel as a high-risk investment zone is significant beyond this single dispute. While bilateral trade between China and Israel continues — reaching approximately $20 billion annually — Beijing\u0026rsquo;s decision to freeze new investments signals a meaningful shift in the economic relationship.\nThis classification reportedly came in the wake of the war that began in October 2023, aligning with a broader pattern of Chinese caution toward Israel. In recent months, China has also warned domestic companies against purchasing Israeli cybersecurity products and faced questions about Chinese participation in Israeli infrastructure projects.\nThe investment ban creates particular difficulties for Israeli companies and communities that entered into agreements with Chinese partners before the policy change. Kibbutz Hanitah\u0026rsquo;s situation illustrates this problem clearly: a deal struck in more favorable times is now caught between contractual obligations and geopolitical realities.\nThe case is ongoing.\nSource: Calcalist\n","date":"2 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/02/china-bans-investment-israel-kibbutz-hanitah/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lawsuit filed by members of Kibbutz Hanitah against Chinese investment fund Ballet Vision has brought to light a sweeping Chinese government policy: a blanket ban on all new investment in Israel. The kibbutz is seeking approximately $11 million in damages after the fund refused to exercise its contractual option to purchase the kibbutz’s remaining shares in the Hanita Lenses factory.\n","title":"China Bans All New Investment in Israel, Kibbutz Hanitah Sues Chinese Fund","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"2 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hanita-lenses/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hanita-Lenses","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/investment/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Investment","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kibbutz-hanitah/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kibbutz-Hanitah","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"2 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lawsuit/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lawsuit","type":"tags"},{"content":" Children of Foreign Workers Fight for Right to Serve in the IDF # They were born in Israeli hospitals, grew up speaking Hebrew, attended Israeli schools, and joined the Scouts. But when their classmates received draft notices, these teenagers — children of migrant workers from the Philippines, Thailand, Ivory Coast, and elsewhere — discovered they were invisible to the system they call home.\nLast month, immigration law firm Zari Hazan \u0026amp; Co. filed a High Court petition on behalf of approximately 50 young people who want to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. The case highlights a growing tension between Israel\u0026rsquo;s acute wartime manpower shortage and its immigration policies, with direct implications for Asian and African migrant worker communities across the country.\nPersonal Stories # Reign Arpon, 19, was born in Moshav Mishmar Hashiva to Filipino parents. She grew up fully Israeli in every way that matters — except on paper. \u0026ldquo;I want to give back to the country — especially in today\u0026rsquo;s situation with the war,\u0026rdquo; she told the Times of Israel.\nPrince Justice, 18, born in Tel Aviv to parents from Ivory Coast, recalls the moment in school when military service came up in class discussion. \u0026ldquo;That was the first time that I understood that I\u0026rsquo;m different,\u0026rdquo; he said — different not by choice or culture, but by bureaucratic status.\nNeel Vicente, 18, grew up in the Israeli Scouts movement, fully expecting to serve alongside his peers. When his friends received their draft notices, he was left behind. \u0026ldquo;I got upset because I couldn\u0026rsquo;t — because they have an Israeli ID,\u0026rdquo; he said.\nThe Legal Argument # The petition rests on a straightforward reading of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Defense Service Law, which requires the IDF to draft individuals who meet the definition of \u0026ldquo;permanent resident\u0026rdquo; — meaning those whose lives are based in Israel, regardless of formal legal status. Attorney Meytal Lupoliansky argues that these young people clearly meet this criterion.\n\u0026ldquo;When these kids finish school, and all their Israeli friends enlist, they find themselves both invisible\u0026rdquo; and unable to serve, she explained.\nAn estimated 3,500 children of foreign workers in Israel lack legal status but could be eligible for conscription under this interpretation.\nA Critical Manpower Gap # The timing of the petition is significant. Since October 7, 2023, the IDF has faced a prolonged manpower crisis. Military officials report a shortage exceeding 10,000 soldiers, with 6,000 to 7,500 needed specifically for combat roles.\nEarlier in the war, a pilot program to allow some children of foreign workers to enlist was discussed but ultimately stalled. The current petition aims to force the issue through the courts.\nThe Price Already Paid # The case carries particular weight because of one name: Sgt. First Class Cedrick Garin. Born to Filipino parents, Garin fought and won his own battle to serve in the Givati Brigade. He was killed in Gaza on January 22, 2024, during an RPG attack alongside 20 other soldiers. His story is a reminder that some children of foreign workers have already given everything for a country that still won\u0026rsquo;t formally recognize them.\nWhat Happens Next # Attorney Zari Hazan describes the current situation as \u0026ldquo;an absurdity\u0026rdquo; — a country fighting a prolonged war that simultaneously bars willing and capable young people from serving. A High Court decision is expected in February 2026.\nFor the Asian and African migrant worker communities in Israel, the outcome could reshape what it means to be born and raised here. These aren\u0026rsquo;t newcomers seeking entry — they\u0026rsquo;re young people who have never known another home, asking to defend it.\nSource: Times of Israel, by Stav Levaton\n","date":"30 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/01/children-foreign-workers-fight-idf-enlistment/","section":"Posts","summary":"Children of Foreign Workers Fight for Right to Serve in the IDF # They were born in Israeli hospitals, grew up speaking Hebrew, attended Israeli schools, and joined the Scouts. But when their classmates received draft notices, these teenagers — children of migrant workers from the Philippines, Thailand, Ivory Coast, and elsewhere — discovered they were invisible to the system they call home.\n","title":"Children of Foreign Workers Fight for Right to Serve in the IDF","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"30 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/enlistment/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Enlistment","type":"tags"},{"content":"Kimura-Ya is the first Israeli branch of a Japanese izakaya chain with nearly 180 locations across Asia. Located on Mazeh Street in Tel Aviv, the restaurant brings authentic Japanese dining with no local adaptations \u0026ndash; chefs from the chain trained the local team to deliver an izakaya experience as it\u0026rsquo;s meant to be.\nThe menu features sushi, yakitori, gyoza, ramen, Japanese curry, tempura, wagyu shabu shabu, and matcha desserts, alongside a curated selection of sake, shochu, and Japanese whiskey.\nAddress: Mazeh Street, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"26 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kimura-ya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Kimura-Ya is the first Israeli branch of a Japanese izakaya chain with nearly 180 locations across Asia. Located on Mazeh Street in Tel Aviv, the restaurant brings authentic Japanese dining with no local adaptations – chefs from the chain trained the local team to deliver an izakaya experience as it’s meant to be.\n","title":"Kimura-Ya","type":"directory"},{"content":" Kimura-Ya: Japanese Izakaya Chain Lands in Tel Aviv # Mazeh Street in Tel Aviv has a striking new addition: the first Israeli branch of Kimura-Ya, a Japanese izakaya chain with nearly 180 locations across Asia. The chain, which first expanded outside Asia to Dubai (where it operates four branches), has chosen Tel Aviv as its next destination.\nFrom Tokyo to Tel Aviv # Kimura-Ya is a well-established Japanese restaurant chain operating branches throughout Asia. Its first international expansion was to Dubai, where it currently runs four locations. The Tel Aviv opening marks another step in the chain\u0026rsquo;s global expansion, bringing an authentic Japanese dining experience to Israel.\nAuthentic Japanese Dining # Ahead of the Israeli opening, chefs from the chain traveled to Israel and worked side by side with the local team. The goal was clear: to build a kitchen that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t resemble a version adapted to Israeli tastes, but one that brings Japan itself — with the precision, discipline, and character found in everyday Tokyo restaurants. The chain says no shortcuts were taken and no attempt was made to cater to local preferences — simply an izakaya as it\u0026rsquo;s meant to be.\nMenu Highlights # The menu draws on everyday Japanese food, without the \u0026ldquo;Western\u0026rdquo; adaptations common in many Japanese restaurants in Israel:\nSushi and classic rolls — faithful to Japanese tradition Yakitori — charcoal-grilled chicken skewers Gyoza — stuffed dumplings Edamame and karaage — classic bar snacks Ramen — noodles in rich broth Japanese curry and tempura — hearty everyday dishes Wagyu shabu shabu and sukiyaki — premium offerings Matcha desserts — for a sweet finish Japanese Beverages # Alongside the food, Kimura-Ya offers a curated selection of premium Japanese drinks: sake, shochu, and Japanese whiskey — a range that completes the full izakaya experience.\nAtmosphere \u0026amp; Design # The space was designed by Japanese designer Mayuka Kojima, blending traditional Japanese aesthetics with contemporary pop-culture touches. Guests enter a space that feels like a nightlife district in Tokyo — tables at just the right density, a bar that invites lingering, energy that creates an evening that is both culinary and social, and a collection of anime figurines adding an authentic Japanese touch.\nLocation # Address: Mazeh Street, Tel Aviv\nSource: N12 / Mako, by Liran Shabtai\n","date":"26 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/01/kimura-ya-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kimura-Ya: Japanese Izakaya Chain Lands in Tel Aviv # Mazeh Street in Tel Aviv has a striking new addition: the first Israeli branch of Kimura-Ya, a Japanese izakaya chain with nearly 180 locations across Asia. The chain, which first expanded outside Asia to Dubai (where it operates four branches), has chosen Tel Aviv as its next destination.\n","title":"Kimura-Ya: Japanese Izakaya Chain Lands in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/yakitori/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Yakitori","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/elbit-systems/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Elbit-Systems","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Indian Army has signed a contract worth 29.3 billion rupees (approximately $35 million) with local company Nibe to supply long-range multi-rocket launchers (MRL) based on Elbit Systems\u0026rsquo; PULS platform. The deal represents another milestone in the deepening defense partnership between India and Israel.\nMake in India Partnership # The contract follows an agreement signed between Nibe and Elbit Systems in August 2025 to manufacture the PULS system locally in India. Elbit was among the first Israeli defense companies to adapt its operations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Make in India\u0026rdquo; policy, which encourages domestic production of military equipment.\nThe partnership with Nibe is particularly significant as it encompasses not only production for Indian forces but also potential supplies to international customers. According to reports, the project is expected to be delivered within approximately 12 months.\nPULS System Capabilities # The Precise and Universal Launching System (PULS) is a versatile artillery platform capable of launching unguided rockets, precision munitions, and missiles at various ranges up to a maximum of 300 kilometers. This flexibility makes it a comprehensive solution for modern artillery requirements, allowing forces to adapt their firepower to different tactical scenarios using a single platform.\nIndia\u0026rsquo;s Artillery Modernization # This acquisition is part of India\u0026rsquo;s broader strategy to diversify its artillery capabilities. The country recently conducted its first trial of the locally produced Pinaka rocket system with a range of approximately 120 kilometers. The Indian government reported that during the initial launch, the rocket successfully performed all required tests, including target acquisition.\nThese developments are being spearheaded by DRDO, India\u0026rsquo;s Defense Research and Development Organization, which maintains frequent collaboration with Israeli defense firms on various projects.\nStrengthening Defense Ties # The PULS deal adds to a series of significant defense contracts between India and Israel in recent months. Earlier agreements have included Rafael\u0026rsquo;s SPICE air-to-surface missiles, IAI\u0026rsquo;s aerial refueling tankers, and IWI-Adani joint venture assault rifles. Together, these partnerships underscore India\u0026rsquo;s position as one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s most important defense export markets and the strategic importance of the bilateral relationship.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"15 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/01/india-elbit-puls-launcher-deal/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Indian Army has signed a contract worth 29.3 billion rupees (approximately $35 million) with local company Nibe to supply long-range multi-rocket launchers (MRL) based on Elbit Systems’ PULS platform. The deal represents another milestone in the deepening defense partnership between India and Israel.\n","title":"India Signs $35M Deal for Israeli PULS Rocket Launchers","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"15 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/puls/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Puls","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/check-point/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Check-Point","type":"tags"},{"content":"China has issued a warning to domestic companies advising them against purchasing cybersecurity solutions from approximately a dozen US and Israeli companies, citing national security concerns, according to a Reuters report.\nIsraeli Cybersecurity Giant Affected # The warning specifically targets major cybersecurity providers including Israel\u0026rsquo;s Check Point Software Technologies, as well as American firms Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Broadcom. Following the news, Check Point\u0026rsquo;s share price dropped 2% in premarket trading.\nThe move represents a significant escalation in tensions between China and Israeli tech companies, particularly in the sensitive cybersecurity sector where concerns about data access and potential surveillance are paramount.\nLimited Direct Impact Expected # While the warning sounds significant, the actual business impact may be more limited than it appears. Check Point derives approximately 13% of its total revenue from the entire Asia-Pacific region, which includes not just China but also Australia, Japan, and other markets where operations will continue normally.\nFurthermore, many Israeli cybersecurity companies have already chosen to limit their presence in the Chinese market. Most prefer maintaining relationships with US federal agencies, which prohibit any business contact with China. This strategic choice means the Israeli cybersecurity industry has relatively limited exposure to the Chinese market.\nContext of Ongoing Tensions # The warning comes amid broader tensions between China and Western cybersecurity firms. Israeli and American cybersecurity companies regularly publish research exposing Chinese state-linked hacking operations. Just last month, Check Point released a report documenting a Chinese-linked cyberattack on a European government office, while Palo Alto Networks published findings in September about Chinese cyberattacks targeting diplomats worldwide.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s domestic cybersecurity market is already dominated by local players, including 360 Security and Neusoft, which limits the overall market opportunity for foreign firms regardless of official policy.\nThe development adds another chapter to the complex relationship between Israeli technology companies and China, a topic that has generated increasing attention as geopolitical considerations shape business decisions in the tech sector.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"14 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/01/china-bans-check-point-products/","section":"Posts","summary":"China has issued a warning to domestic companies advising them against purchasing cybersecurity solutions from approximately a dozen US and Israeli companies, citing national security concerns, according to a Reuters report.\n","title":"China Warns Companies Against Israeli Cybersecurity Products","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/democracy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Democracy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/foreign-policy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Foreign-Policy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/somaliland/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Somaliland","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taiwan has welcomed Israel\u0026rsquo;s decision to formally recognize Somaliland as a sovereign nation, standing apart from the wave of international criticism that followed the announcement.\nIsrael Makes Historic Recognition # On December 27, 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would become the first country in the world to officially recognize Somaliland as an independent state. Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, has functioned as a de facto sovereign state for over three decades but had never received formal recognition from any nation.\nThe breakaway region enjoys a strategic position on the Gulf of Aden and maintains its own currency, passports, and military. Despite its stability compared to Somalia, it has remained diplomatically isolated since its unilateral declaration of independence.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s Supportive Response # In a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan explicitly welcomed Israel\u0026rsquo;s decision. The ministry stated that Taiwan, Israel, and Somaliland are all \u0026ldquo;like-minded democratic partners sharing the values of democracy, freedom, and rule of law.\u0026rdquo;\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s response is particularly significant given the parallel situations these three entities face. All three operate as functioning democracies while facing territorial disputes and limited international recognition. Taiwan itself is claimed by China, which rejects its independence, similar to how Somalia continues to claim Somaliland as part of its territory.\nGrowing Taiwan-Israel-Somaliland Cooperation # Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s ties with Somaliland have been developing for several years. In August 2020, Taipei opened a representative office in Somaliland\u0026rsquo;s capital, Hargeisa, and Somaliland reciprocated by opening a similar office in Taipei the following month.\nThe three-way relationship has deepened across multiple sectors. According to Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s foreign ministry, cooperation has expanded to include medicine, education, agriculture, information technology, security, and energy mineral development. Most recently, Taiwan and Somaliland signed an agreement in July 2025 to enhance coast guard cooperation, jointly safeguarding navigation safety in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.\nIsrael-Taiwan Relations Warming # The development comes amid broader warming of Israel-Taiwan relations. While the two maintain largely informal ties due to Israel\u0026rsquo;s diplomatic relationship with China, recent months have seen increased contact.\nEarlier in December, Reuters reported that Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu made a secret visit to Israel, reportedly to explore defense cooperation opportunities. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung confirmed in November that \u0026ldquo;in terms of technology and defense there is mutual learning and some interactions\u0026rdquo; between the two countries.\nIsrael, which has faced increasing diplomatic isolation during its ongoing conflict in Gaza, appears to be diversifying its international relationships, with Taiwan representing a natural partner given shared democratic values and technological strengths.\nInternational Criticism # Israel\u0026rsquo;s recognition of Somaliland drew sharp criticism from multiple quarters. Somalia\u0026rsquo;s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called the decision \u0026ldquo;tantamount to a blunt aggression against the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the unity of the people of the Somali Republic.\u0026rdquo;\nEgypt, Turkey, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation all condemned the move. The European Union called for Somalia\u0026rsquo;s territorial integrity to be upheld, and the United States stated it continues to recognize Somalia\u0026rsquo;s territorial integrity \u0026ldquo;which includes the territory of Somaliland.\u0026rdquo;\nThe UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the matter, acceding to a demand by Somalia.\nThree Democracies, Shared Challenges # Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s enthusiastic response to Israel\u0026rsquo;s recognition of Somaliland highlights a growing alignment among nations that face similar geopolitical challenges. All three maintain functioning democratic institutions while navigating complex international situations regarding their sovereignty and recognition.\nFor Taiwan, supporting Somaliland\u0026rsquo;s recognition aligns with its broader strategy of building relationships with like-minded partners who understand the challenges of operating outside traditional diplomatic frameworks. For Israel, the move demonstrates a willingness to pursue independent foreign policy decisions despite international pressure.\nThe trilateral cooperation between these three democracies may serve as a model for other nations facing similar circumstances in the international arena.\nSources: The Times of Israel, Focus Taiwan\n","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/01/taiwan-welcomes-israel-somaliland-recognition/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan has welcomed Israel’s decision to formally recognize Somaliland as a sovereign nation, standing apart from the wave of international criticism that followed the announcement.\nIsrael Makes Historic Recognition # On December 27, 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would become the first country in the world to officially recognize Somaliland as an independent state. Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, has functioned as a de facto sovereign state for over three decades but had never received formal recognition from any nation.\n","title":"Taiwan Welcomes Israel's Recognition of Somaliland as Sovereign Nation","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/flying-tigers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Flying-Tigers","type":"tags"},{"content":"A Jewish American fighter pilot who gave his life defending China from Japanese invasion during World War II has finally been laid to rest in his hometown, more than eight decades after his death.\nThe Flying Tigers Legacy # Lt. Morton Sher was a member of the legendary Flying Tigers—the nickname for the American volunteer pilots who fought alongside Chinese forces against Japanese aggression during WWII. Assigned to the 76th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group, 14th Air Force, Sher flew dangerous missions in the China-Burma theater, escorting bombers and engaging Japanese forces.\nBy the time of his death, the young pilot had logged three aerial victories. In 1942, his plane was shot down by seven Japanese fighters after a successful air raid on Hong Kong. Despite suffering a head injury, he returned to combat rather than accept a safer reassignment—a decision that reflected his deep commitment to the mission.\nA Life Cut Short # Born on December 14, 1920, in Baltimore, Maryland, Sher\u0026rsquo;s family later moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where they became active members of Congregation Beth Israel. As a teenager, he was a founding member of the B\u0026rsquo;nai B\u0026rsquo;rith Youth Organization\u0026rsquo;s Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) fraternity.\nSher studied at the University of Alabama, where he joined the Kappa Nu fraternity and managed the school\u0026rsquo;s basketball team. His love of flying led him to join the Air Force through ROTC.\nOn August 20, 1943, Sher was killed at age 22 while piloting a P-40 Warhawk fighter-bomber over Hunan province. His plane crashed and burned in a rice paddy in Xin Bai Village. His squadron arranged for a memorial stone to be erected at the crash site—a tribute maintained by local Chinese villagers who remembered the American pilots who fought to protect their homeland.\nA Hero\u0026rsquo;s Connection to China # In letters home and wartime interviews, Sher expressed genuine affection for the Chinese people he was helping defend. After engine trouble forced him to land in a Chinese village in October 1942, locals welcomed him with food and celebration. He later recalled singing American songs to villagers and being escorted back to base through mountain towns.\nThis warmth between the young Jewish pilot and the Chinese communities he protected represents a lesser-known chapter of Jewish-Chinese relations during one of history\u0026rsquo;s darkest periods.\nThe Long Journey Home # For decades after the war, Sher\u0026rsquo;s family knew him only through letters, photographs, and stories. A 1947 army review concluded that his remains had been destroyed in the crash, and he was officially listed as unrecoverable. His mother, Celia Sher, received his Purple Heart that year.\nThe effort to bring him home began in 2012, when a private citizen contacted the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency with a photograph of the memorial stone erected by Chinese villagers at the crash site. After initial searches yielded no remains, a more extensive recovery mission in 2024 uncovered aircraft wreckage and human remains in Xin Bai Village near Hengyang. DNA testing confirmed Sher\u0026rsquo;s identity.\nFinal Rest # On December 14, 2025—what would have been his 105th birthday—Lt. Morton Sher was buried in Greenville, South Carolina, where a headstone with his name and a Star of David had waited for decades. Family and friends poured dirt from Israel onto his grave, honoring both his Jewish heritage and his sacrifice.\n\u0026ldquo;He filled his pages of life with meaning,\u0026rdquo; said his nephew, Bruce Fine, at the memorial service. He recalled a letter Sher wrote home the day before his death, explaining he had turned down a safer instructor assignment because he found combat \u0026ldquo;too exciting\u0026rdquo; to leave.\n\u0026ldquo;Our family tree produced a real hero,\u0026rdquo; Fine said. \u0026ldquo;The kind you read about and see on the big screen, except he was real.\u0026rdquo;\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2026/01/jewish-wwii-pilot-china-flying-tigers/","section":"Posts","summary":"A Jewish American fighter pilot who gave his life defending China from Japanese invasion during World War II has finally been laid to rest in his hometown, more than eight decades after his death.\n","title":"Jewish WWII Flying Tigers Pilot Returns Home 82 Years After Death in China","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/us-military/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Us-Military","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/wwii/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Wwii","type":"tags"},{"content":"India\u0026rsquo;s Defense Acquisition Council (DAC), led by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, has approved the purchase of SPICE 1000 guidance kits from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems as part of a substantial $8.7 billion defense procurement package.\nAbout the SPICE System # The SPICE (Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective) family represents some of the most advanced air-to-ground weapon systems available today. Developed by Rafael, the system has earned the prestigious Israel Defense Prize for its technological achievements.\nKey capabilities of the SPICE 1000 include:\nRange: Up to 100 kilometers Weight: Approximately 500 kilograms Accuracy: Less than three meters from target Navigation: GPS-independent autonomous guidance using electro-optical homing and advanced algorithms The system\u0026rsquo;s most significant advantage lies in its ability to navigate autonomously without GPS dependency. Using an electro-optical homing head combined with innovative mathematical algorithms, the weapon compares stored target imagery with real-time observations to achieve exceptional strike accuracy.\nWhy India Needs These Weapons # India\u0026rsquo;s conflict with Pakistan in May 2025 highlighted the country\u0026rsquo;s need for advanced precision-strike capabilities. The engagement demonstrated gaps in India\u0026rsquo;s arsenal that Israeli defense technology can help address.\nThis procurement follows a memorandum of understanding signed in early November between India\u0026rsquo;s Director General of the Ministry of Defense and his Israeli counterpart to strengthen bilateral security cooperation.\nIndia: Israel\u0026rsquo;s Largest Defense Customer # According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India accounts for approximately 34% of all Israeli defense exports between 2020 and 2024, making it the largest customer for Israeli defense industries.\nThe relationship continues to deepen. Reports indicate that Indian defense officials have held discussions about procuring additional Israeli systems, including IAI\u0026rsquo;s Air LORA ballistic missiles and Rafael\u0026rsquo;s Ice Breaker cruise missiles, with potential for domestic manufacturing under India\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Make in India\u0026rdquo; initiative.\nThe Air LORA system is particularly appealing given its 400-kilometer range, which would allow Indian fighter jets to strike targets without entering the engagement envelope of Chinese-made Pakistani air defense systems.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"30 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/india-rafael-spice-missiles-deal/","section":"Posts","summary":"India’s Defense Acquisition Council (DAC), led by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, has approved the purchase of SPICE 1000 guidance kits from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems as part of a substantial $8.7 billion defense procurement package.\n","title":"India Approves Purchase of 1,000 Rafael SPICE Missiles","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"30 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pakistan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pakistan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/spice-missiles/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Spice-Missiles","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"28 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/activism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Activism","type":"tags"},{"content":"In a powerful display of solidarity, a Korean individual was filmed standing in support of Israel during severe winter conditions, with temperatures reaching -20°C. The video, which has circulated on social media, shows the supporter braving extreme cold to express support for the Jewish state.\nThis act of solidarity reflects a broader pattern of pro-Israel sentiment within certain segments of South Korean society, particularly among evangelical Christian communities. While South Korea maintains a balanced diplomatic stance toward the Middle East conflict, visible support for Israel has emerged from religious and conservative political circles.\nKorean-Israeli Relations and Public Support # South Korea has maintained diplomatic relations with Israel since the early 1960s, with growing cooperation in technology, defense, and innovation sectors. However, public expressions of support like this winter demonstration represent a specific segment of Korean society rather than the broader population.\nAccording to recent analyses, approximately 30% of South Koreans identify as Christians, with many evangelicals viewing support for Israel through a biblical lens. This religious perspective has translated into organized advocacy, including the creation of Korea\u0026rsquo;s first Holocaust Memorial Museum in Paju, spearheaded by Christian educators and activists.\nThe Israeli flag has become increasingly visible at conservative and right-wing rallies in Seoul, often appearing alongside pro-American and anti-communist messaging. While these demonstrations are not exclusively focused on Middle East politics, they reflect a growing identification between certain Korean political movements and Israel\u0026rsquo;s position on the international stage.\nA Complex Picture of Solidarity # Public opinion in South Korea toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nuanced and divided along ideological lines. Recent polling shows that conservatives, Protestants, and Catholics are significantly more likely to sympathize with Israel and view its military actions as justified self-defense. Meanwhile, progressive and liberal Koreans tend to express greater compassion for Palestinians and criticism of Israeli military operations.\nDespite these divisions, acts like standing in freezing weather to show support demonstrate the depth of commitment among pro-Israel Koreans. Such demonstrations, though representing a minority viewpoint within broader Korean society, highlight the passionate advocacy emerging from religious and ideological convictions.\nThe winter solidarity action captured on video serves as a reminder of the global nature of support networks that exist around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, extending even to individuals willing to endure physical hardship to express their political and religious beliefs.\nSource: YouTube\n","date":"28 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/korean-supporter-israel-winter/","section":"Posts","summary":"In a powerful display of solidarity, a Korean individual was filmed standing in support of Israel during severe winter conditions, with temperatures reaching -20°C. The video, which has circulated on social media, shows the supporter braving extreme cold to express support for the Jewish state.\n","title":"Korean Supporter Stands for Israel in Freezing Weather","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"28 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/support/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Support","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/infrastructure/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Infrastructure","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/metro/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Metro","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/us-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Us-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"As Israel launches its largest infrastructure project—the NIS 65 billion Metro construction—a fundamental question looms unanswered: What happens if a Chinese company bids, or even wins? Despite intense US pressure and growing European boycotts, Israel has no declared policy on Chinese involvement in infrastructure projects.\nThe Metro Tender # Published in November 2025, the Metro tender calls for creation of a contractor pool to compete for eleven infrastructure packages, each worth billions of shekels. Senior officials at NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit state that no company is barred based on country of registration—yet precedent suggests otherwise.\nThe gap between official openness and practical reality reflects Israel\u0026rsquo;s delicate balancing act between economic pragmatism and geopolitical pressures.\nPrecedents: When Chinese Bids Were Blocked # Green and Purple Light Rail Lines # In tenders for the Dan Region\u0026rsquo;s Green and Purple light rail lines, a Chinese consortium partnered with Israeli firms Shikun \u0026amp; Binui and Egged. The consortium submitted the lowest bid and was expected to win, but NTA\u0026rsquo;s tender committee disqualified the proposal as \u0026ldquo;manipulative.\u0026rdquo;\nWhile the committee\u0026rsquo;s decision was legally upheld as professional, intense pressure from the Trump administration (during his first term) coincided with the disqualification. Even if taken on purely technical grounds, the decision alleviated political concerns.\nJerusalem Blue Line Rolling Stock # After Polish company PESA withdrew from the Jerusalem Blue Line project during the war, Israeli consortium Dan and Danya Cebus turned to China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) as an alternative supplier. CRRC already supplies railcars for the Gush Dan Red Line.\nWhen the company sought approval from Israel\u0026rsquo;s Finance Ministry, overt US intervention blocked the deal. Market sources claim parties with ties to the US administration leveraged those connections to scuttle the agreement in favor of other companies.\nUltimately, a compromise allowed CRRC to supply railcars from its Australian plant instead, resulting in a 20% price increase. Notably, while Israel refused to sign for Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Blue Line rolling stock, it simultaneously negotiated with the same company for additional Tel Aviv Red Line railcars.\nHaifa Fuels Port # Last year, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) was disqualified on security grounds from the Haifa fuels port tender. The company petitioned, arguing that restrictions on Chinese firms should be made transparently by the government, \u0026ldquo;not on the basis of an ad hoc recommendation by the National Security Council.\u0026rdquo;\nThe state responded: \u0026ldquo;This is not a blanket disqualification; any future case will be examined on its merits.\u0026rdquo; The petition was ultimately dismissed by consent.\nWhere Chinese Companies Succeeded # Despite high-profile rejections, Chinese involvement continues:\nHaifa Bayport Terminal: Chinese company SIPG won the 2015 tender to operate the port as the sole bidder. Despite claims the port would shut down during emergencies, it operated normally during the war, even under missile fire. Israel\u0026rsquo;s Noy Fund later acquired a 25% stake for NIS 600 million—interpreted as SIPG\u0026rsquo;s effort to shed the \u0026ldquo;Chinese port\u0026rdquo; label by bringing in an Israeli partner.\nSubcontractor Roles: Chinese companies serve as subcontractors in Green Line excavations, construct the tunnel under Tel Aviv, and participated in excavating the Gush Dan Red Line—whose rolling stock is also Chinese.\nChina\u0026rsquo;s Workaround Strategy # \u0026ldquo;Chinese companies understand which way the wind is blowing, even if things aren\u0026rsquo;t said out loud,\u0026rdquo; observes Galia Lavi, deputy director of the Glazer Israel-China Policy Center at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).\nLavi\u0026rsquo;s research examined 46 tenders worth NIS 100 million or more between 2001 and June 2022:\n2019: Peak year—Chinese companies won every tender they bid for (four total) 2020: Turning point—won only one of four tenders Post-2020: Sharp decline in bids submitted \u0026ldquo;Chinese companies are taking a workaround approach,\u0026rdquo; Lavi explains. \u0026ldquo;They understand the chances of winning tenders for large, heavy infrastructure projects are low, so they\u0026rsquo;re positioning themselves as subcontractors instead.\u0026rdquo;\nThis strategy appears across projects: Green Line construction (working under developer companies), Jerusalem Blue Line railcars, and power station construction in northern Israel.\n\u0026ldquo;Israel loses out twice,\u0026rdquo; Lavi notes. \u0026ldquo;First, because it has less oversight, and second, because it\u0026rsquo;s more expensive.\u0026rdquo;\nThe European Vacuum # Israel\u0026rsquo;s infrastructure market once featured fierce competition among European companies. Chinese entry in recent decades widened the competitive field—European firms often couldn\u0026rsquo;t match Chinese prices.\nToday, however, European companies face pressure from pro-Palestinian organizations, committees, politicians, and investors, making Israeli operations increasingly difficult.\nThe government is attempting to expand options by courting companies from South Korea and India, with NTA delegations visiting both countries to promote Metro participation.\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s Policy Incoherence # \u0026ldquo;Israel has no interest in saying Chinese companies are unwelcome here, and it does have an interest in involving them in tenders,\u0026rdquo; Lavi observes. Yet Israel refrains from transparent policy statements.\nThe result is case-by-case decision-making vulnerable to external pressure, lacking consistent criteria or public accountability.\n\u0026ldquo;In my opinion, Chinese companies should not be restricted from digging a tunnel and building infrastructure,\u0026rdquo; Lavi argues. \u0026ldquo;Everything is done under Israeli supervision, and I don\u0026rsquo;t see any impediment unless it\u0026rsquo;s a matter of sensitive sites. Construction work does not grant control over the assets. I also don\u0026rsquo;t see foreign companies lining up to work here.\u0026rdquo;\nImplications for Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian Relationships # The Metro controversy reveals tensions in Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian relationships:\nUS-China Competition: Israel finds itself caught between American strategic pressure and Chinese economic advantages, forced to navigate without clear policy guidelines.\nEconomic Pragmatism vs. Geopolitical Alignment: Chinese companies offer competitive prices and proven capabilities, yet geopolitical considerations override economic efficiency.\nTransparency Deficit: Ad hoc decisions by committees and informal US interventions replace transparent governmental policy, leaving companies and the public unclear about actual criteria.\nAsian Alternatives: Attempts to attract South Korean and Indian companies suggest Israel seeks to maintain Asian economic partnerships while reducing reliance on China.\nFor Israel\u0026rsquo;s Chinese community and businesses, the uncertainty creates challenges—unclear whether commercial relationships in infrastructure will remain viable or face increasing restrictions.\nThe NIS 65 billion Metro represents Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest infrastructure project, yet the question \u0026ldquo;Who decides if China will build it?\u0026rdquo; remains unanswered—revealing deeper questions about how Israel balances economic interests with geopolitical pressures in an era of intensifying US-China competition.\nSource: Globes - Who decides if China will build the Metro?\n","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/china-metro-israel-controversy/","section":"Posts","summary":"As Israel launches its largest infrastructure project—the NIS 65 billion Metro construction—a fundamental question looms unanswered: What happens if a Chinese company bids, or even wins? Despite intense US pressure and growing European boycotts, Israel has no declared policy on Chinese involvement in infrastructure projects.\n","title":"Who Decides if China Will Build Israel's Metro?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/exchange-rate/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Exchange-Rate","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israeli tourism to Japan is experiencing dramatic growth, with an 88% increase in travelers expected for April 2025 compared to 2024, driven by favorable currency exchange rates, direct flights, and deep cultural connections between the two nations.\nThe Currency Advantage # \u0026ldquo;The weakening of the yen against the shekel has made prices in Japan very attractive for Israelis,\u0026rdquo; observes Shirley Cohen-Orkaby, VP of Eshet Tours. \u0026ldquo;Although flights are not cheap, the vacation in Japan itself is certainly affordable.\u0026rdquo;\nThe favorable exchange rate has transformed Japan from an expensive dream destination into an accessible reality for Israeli travelers. This economic factor, combined with the peak cherry blossom season in April coinciding with the Passover holiday, has created perfect conditions for a tourism boom.\nBeyond Economics: Cultural Affinity # Cohen-Orkaby believes Israeli tourism will continue even if exchange rates change, citing deeper factors driving Israeli interest in Japan:\nDirect Flights: The availability of non-stop service from Tel Aviv to Tokyo has eliminated one of the major barriers to Japanese tourism.\nCultural Fascination: Israeli interest in Japanese culture—particularly anime, manga, and traditional arts—has created a passionate base of travelers eager to experience Japan firsthand.\nPersonal Safety: Japan\u0026rsquo;s reputation for safety and low crime rates appeals to Israeli tourists.\nAbsence of Antisemitism: Unlike some European destinations where antisemitism has become a concern, Japan is perceived as welcoming to Jewish visitors.\nTradition and Progress: The unique combination of ancient traditions coexisting with cutting-edge technology fascinates Israeli travelers.\nJapan\u0026rsquo;s Tourism Strategy # Israel\u0026rsquo;s surge in tourism aligns with Japan\u0026rsquo;s broader strategy to become a major tourist destination. In 2023, the Japanese government launched a plan to reach 60 million tourists annually by the end of the decade, bringing in $100 billion.\nThe strategy is working: In the first ten months of 2025, 35.5 million tourists entered Japan, with October alone seeing 3.9 million visitors—a 17.6% increase compared to October 2024.\nThe China Factor # Geopolitical tensions may create unexpected opportunities for Israeli tourism. In October 2025, Chinese tourists accounted for about 18% of total visitors to Japan. However, escalating tensions between Japan and China led to China issuing a travel warning for Japan in November.\nIf Chinese tourism decreases, Japan may accelerate assistance to the tourism industry, potentially benefiting visitors from other countries, including Israel.\nA Transformed Market # \u0026ldquo;Japan has always been a desirable destination,\u0026rdquo; Cohen-Orkaby notes, \u0026ldquo;but it was very expensive and it was awkward to get to. Today, with the opening of direct flights and the reduction in prices in terms of the Israeli currency, a vacation there is much more accessible.\u0026rdquo;\nThis transformation reflects broader trends:\nPre-2020: Japan was considered prohibitively expensive for most Israeli travelers, accessible primarily to wealthy tourists.\n2020-2023: Covid restrictions limited all international travel.\n2024-2025: The combination of direct flights, favorable exchange rates, and pent-up travel demand created perfect conditions for growth.\nSignificance for Israeli-Japanese Relations # The tourism surge strengthens people-to-people ties between Israel and Japan:\nCultural Exchange: Israeli travelers return home with deeper understanding of Japanese culture, potentially strengthening business and cultural cooperation.\nEconomic Impact: Israeli tourists contribute to Japan\u0026rsquo;s economy while Japanese tourism infrastructure becomes familiar with Israeli needs (kosher food, Sabbath observance, etc.).\nAnime Community: Many young Israeli travelers are motivated by love of anime and manga, connecting Israel\u0026rsquo;s thriving fan community with Japanese pop culture at its source.\nLong-term Relationships: Tourism often precedes deeper connections—business partnerships, academic exchanges, and cultural collaborations.\nFor the Asian community in Israel, particularly Japanese expats and cultural organizations, the surge in Israeli visitors to Japan represents an opportunity to deepen cultural bridges and educate travelers about authentic Japanese traditions beyond stereotypes.\nThe 88% growth in tourism demonstrates that when barriers (cost, accessibility) are removed, the natural cultural affinity between Israelis and Japanese culture creates powerful momentum for connection.\nPlanning a Trip: Community Resources # A surge this size has produced a small local industry serving it. Israeli travellers no longer have to navigate Japan in English alone: Hebrew-language services have grown alongside the tourism numbers. For trip planning and guided travel, the directory lists https://asiansinisrael.com/directory/explore-japan-travel/, a Tel Aviv-based Japan travel specialist, and https://asiansinisrael.com/directory/hebrew-tour-guide-japan/, which runs Hebrew-language tours on the ground in Japan. Both reflect the same trend the figures describe — demand deep enough to sustain dedicated Hebrew-speaking operators.\nTravellers who want to prepare their palate before the flight — or recreate the trip after it — can start with our guide to the https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/best-japanese-restaurants-israel/. And Japan is increasingly part of a wider pattern of cheaper, more direct Israel–Asia travel; see our coverage of https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/08/israel-southeast-asia-airfares-fall/ for the regional picture.\nUpdate — May 2026: The Currency Story Has Shifted # The currency advantage at the heart of this article has, if anything, intensified. As of May 2026 the yen has weakened a further roughly 23% against the shekel over the preceding twelve months — so the core driver of the 2025 surge remains firmly in place, and arguably stronger.\nTwo caveats for readers planning a trip now. First, the 88% figure and the \u0026ldquo;April 2025\u0026rdquo; framing are specific to that period; treat them as the snapshot they were, not a current rate. Second, Japan has introduced a series of tourism-related price increases and new taxes for 2026 — higher accommodation levies in some areas, raised entry and access fees at certain sites, and a planned increase to the departure tax — so while the exchange rate still favours Israeli visitors, the on-the-ground cost base is rising. The trip is still affordable by the standards this article describes; it is simply no longer getting cheaper across the board.\nSource: Globes - Israeli tourism to Japan jumps sharply\n","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/israeli-tourism-japan-surge/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israeli tourism to Japan is experiencing dramatic growth, with an 88% increase in travelers expected for April 2025 compared to 2024, driven by favorable currency exchange rates, direct flights, and deep cultural connections between the two nations.\n","title":"Israeli Tourism to Japan Jumps 88% as Yen Weakens","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/guy-gilboa-dalal/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Guy-Gilboa-Dalal","type":"tags"},{"content":"In a moving intersection of tragedy and cultural passion, a new animated film imagines how Guy Gilboa-Dalal, a 22-year-old Israeli hostage held in Gaza, draws on his deep love of Japanese culture and anime to survive the psychological trauma of captivity.\nWho is Guy Gilboa-Dalal? # Guy Gilboa-Dalal is a young man from Ramat Gan and an avid fan of anime and Japanese culture who had been planning a trip to Japan before October 7, 2023. He had attended Harucon, one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest anime and manga conventions, in previous years, deeply embedded in the local Japanese-culture fan community.\nOn October 6, 2023, Guy went to the Nova desert rave with three friends for a long-planned outing. His love for Japanese culture was so central to his identity that his family and friends knew Japan represented a dream destination for him.\nThe Attack # Early on the morning of October 7, Guy\u0026rsquo;s brother Gal joined him at the festival. They hugged, took a selfie, and Guy sent the picture to their mother—a moment of joy that would become haunting within hours.\nWhen Hamas attacked around 6:30 a.m., the brothers tried to escape in separate cars, leaving only minutes apart. Both became stuck in the massive traffic jam at the festival exit under heavy gunfire, and were separated.\nIt took Gal about seven and a half hours of running and hiding in fields under fire to escape, with no contact from Guy. Within hours, the family found video evidence showing Guy and his best friend Evyatar David—friends since kindergarten—being taken hostage to Gaza, including footage of them tied up and lying in a tunnel.\nThe Film: \u0026ldquo;Guygu\u0026rdquo; # The six-minute animated film titled \u0026ldquo;Guygu\u0026rdquo; (based on his family\u0026rsquo;s nickname for him) imagines how Guy\u0026rsquo;s love of Japanese culture helps him survive Hamas captivity.\nVisual Style: Drawing on anime and dreamlike Japanese imagery, the trailer shows an animated Guy—recognizable from hostage posters—surrounded by cherry blossoms and wearing a short-sleeved kimono. The film blends these hopeful images with audio of his parents and siblings.\nThe Chest-Knock Motif: A central element features his mother\u0026rsquo;s voice telling him: \u0026ldquo;Guygu, if you feel that you\u0026rsquo;re in danger, give yourself a knock on the chest.\u0026rdquo; This is a real family habit—his mother often repeated it, fearing something terrible might happen. The family now imagines him knocking on his chest in the tunnels as a reminder that they are with him.\nFantasy and Reality: Director Jordan Barr explains that Guy\u0026rsquo;s story is \u0026ldquo;very black and white\u0026rdquo; in its moral clarity about terrorism and captivity. Yet the film uses anime-style escapism, letting Guy \u0026ldquo;imagine his captor is a samurai\u0026rdquo; and turn his situation into a Japanese-themed psychological escape.\nThe Filmmakers # Jordan Barr, a videographer and anime fan, felt an immediate bond with Guy through their shared interest in Japanese animation. Already involved with another hostage family through media work after October 7, Barr learned about Guy\u0026rsquo;s particular love of Japan and conceived the idea for \u0026ldquo;Guygu.\u0026rdquo;\nChen Heifetz co-directed the film with Barr. The family became closely involved in the creative process, turning the project into both a personal tribute and a public act of remembrance and advocacy.\nHarucon Premiere # The trailer for \u0026ldquo;Guygu\u0026rdquo; was first screened at Harucon, the major annual anime and manga convention held at Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s International Convention Center during Purim. This was a deliberate choice to present Guy\u0026rsquo;s story within the community that shares his passion.\nFor thousands of attendees at Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest anime convention, the screening turned Guy\u0026rsquo;s personal tragedy into a collective experience, connecting the hostage crisis to the cultural world they love.\nSignificance for the Asian Community in Israel # Guy\u0026rsquo;s story and the film \u0026ldquo;Guygu\u0026rdquo; carry profound meaning for Asian cultural communities in Israel and beyond:\nCultural Visibility: The film affirms that Asian cultural identities and interests are visible and central, not marginal, in national tragedies and narratives. Guy\u0026rsquo;s love of Japanese culture isn\u0026rsquo;t a footnote—it\u0026rsquo;s the lens through which his family imagines his survival.\nShared Symbolic Language: Anime, samurai, cherry blossoms—these motifs create a bridge that can be understood across Israel and Asia, potentially fostering empathy and solidarity from Asian audiences who recognize their own cultural symbols in Guy\u0026rsquo;s imagined inner world.\nDeep Cultural Integration: Guy\u0026rsquo;s case highlights that Asian popular culture, especially Japanese anime, is deeply woven into the lives of young Israelis, including those directly affected by the October 7 attacks. This isn\u0026rsquo;t superficial interest—it\u0026rsquo;s identity-forming passion.\nPsychological Resilience: The film connects Japanese narratives of perseverance and honor with an Israeli hostage\u0026rsquo;s struggle for psychological survival, suggesting that cultural passion can be a source of strength in the darkest circumstances.\nCommunity Connection: By screening at Harucon, the film acknowledges Israel\u0026rsquo;s thriving anime and manga community—many members feeling part of a broader Asian-culture diaspora inside Israel—and includes them in the national conversation about the hostages.\nA Universal Story # While rooted in Israeli tragedy, \u0026ldquo;Guygu\u0026rdquo; tells a universal story about how cultural passion and imagination can sustain us through unimaginable trauma. For Asian communities in Israel and worldwide, it demonstrates that the cultural connections they cherish—the anime they watch, the traditions they admire, the aesthetics they love—are not trivial escapes but profound sources of meaning and resilience.\nGuy Gilboa-Dalal\u0026rsquo;s story reminds us that culture crosses borders, that a young Israeli\u0026rsquo;s love of Japan can become his family\u0026rsquo;s hope, and that the cherry blossoms of imagination might bloom even in the darkest tunnels.\nSource: Times of Israel - For hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal, a film imagines salvation through all things Japanese\n","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/guy-gilboa-dalal-japanese-culture-hostage-film/","section":"Posts","summary":"In a moving intersection of tragedy and cultural passion, a new animated film imagines how Guy Gilboa-Dalal, a 22-year-old Israeli hostage held in Gaza, draws on his deep love of Japanese culture and anime to survive the psychological trauma of captivity.\n","title":"Hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal: Film Imagines Salvation Through Japanese Culture","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-cuisine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Cuisine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/givat-shmuel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Givat-Shmuel","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sakura is a Japanese bar and restaurant in Givat Shmuel, near Bar Ilan University, designed as a blooming Japanese boulevard with cherry blossom trees, black doors, and gold walls. The kosher establishment is led by Chef Elhanan Filipson, who specializes in Japanese cuisine.\nThe menu features precise, traditional sushi with fresh fish and rice cooked with vinegar and mirin, alongside mochi desserts and an authentic sake selection. The fully kosher menu makes no compromises, built on quality fish, vegetables, and rice.\nRead our full review\n","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/sakura-givat-shmuel/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Sakura is a Japanese bar and restaurant in Givat Shmuel, near Bar Ilan University, designed as a blooming Japanese boulevard with cherry blossom trees, black doors, and gold walls. The kosher establishment is led by Chef Elhanan Filipson, who specializes in Japanese cuisine.\n","title":"Sakura","type":"directory"},{"content":"In an unexpected location that might be the last place you\u0026rsquo;d guess for an authentic Japanese dining experience, Sakura has opened in Givat Shmuel, bringing cherry blossoms, sake, and traditional Japanese cuisine to this quiet residential neighborhood near Bar Ilan University.\nA Japanese Oasis in Givat Shmuel # Linon Buzaglo, the visionary behind Sakura, decided to bring everything he loves about Japanese culinary culture to Givat Shmuel. To make the unconventional connection clear even before guests taste the first dish, he designed the restaurant as a blooming Japanese boulevard, complete with cherry blossom trees, black doors, and gold walls that create a striking contrast with the pink springtime atmosphere.\n\u0026ldquo;I want to create a surprise effect when people enter here, and give an experience that is as far as possible from where we are - a pleasant residential neighborhood in Givat Shmuel,\u0026rdquo; Buzaglo explains about the surprising spot. \u0026ldquo;The design immediately transports you to the atmosphere, the lounge music takes you into the nightlife world, and then you receive the menu and understand that Japan is here - in the dishes, in the ingredients, and in the presentation aesthetics.\u0026rdquo;\nAuthentic Japanese Cuisine # When considering the concept, an immediate concern arises - the location is Givat Shmuel, meaning kosher food, so how can the deep connection to Japan be maintained in spirit, approach, and food? The good news is that there\u0026rsquo;s no compromise here because the menu is based on vegetables, quality fish, and rice prepared in various traditional methods.\nTo ensure this connection happens in the best possible way, Chef Elhanan Filipson, who specializes in Japanese cuisine, is responsible for execution. Filipson has been conducting boutique chef dinners based on sushi and traditional Japanese dishes for years.\nMenu Highlights # Filipson brings his rich experience to Sakura with a precise, unpretentious sushi menu that keeps the focus on the fish and rice cooked with vinegar and mirin - exactly as in Japan. The menu features:\nTraditional Sushi: Expertly crafted with fresh fish and perfectly seasoned rice Mochi Desserts: Traditional Japanese rice cakes Sake Selection: Authentic Japanese rice wine Vegetarian and Vegan Options: The vegetable-based menu ensures plant-based diners find their favorites Design and Atmosphere # The cherry blossom (sakura) trees are an integral part of the experience, creating an immersive environment that transports diners from a Givat Shmuel residential neighborhood to a Japanese springtime street. The lounge music and carefully curated aesthetic complete the transformation.\nSignificance for the Japanese Community # Sakura represents an important development for Japanese food culture in Israel:\nAuthentic Representation: The restaurant demonstrates a commitment to authenticity rather than fusion or adaptation, maintaining traditional Japanese cooking methods and presentation.\nKosher Japanese Dining: By maintaining kosher standards while preserving Japanese culinary traditions, Sakura bridges two cultures and makes authentic Japanese cuisine accessible to the observant Jewish community.\nCultural Education: Beyond serving food, Sakura introduces diners to Japanese aesthetic principles - from the cherry blossom design to the precise presentation of each dish.\nAsian Culinary Presence: The restaurant strengthens the visibility of Asian cuisine in Israel beyond the typical Chinese and Thai offerings, showcasing the sophistication of Japanese dining culture.\nFor the Asian diaspora in Israel, particularly the Japanese community and Japanese cuisine enthusiasts, Sakura offers a taste of home and cultural connection in an unexpected but welcoming location.\nSource: Channel 13 - Cherry Blossoms, Sake and Mochi: New Japanese Bar Near Bar Ilan University\n","date":"26 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/sakura-japanese-bar-givat-shmuel/","section":"Posts","summary":"In an unexpected location that might be the last place you’d guess for an authentic Japanese dining experience, Sakura has opened in Givat Shmuel, bringing cherry blossoms, sake, and traditional Japanese cuisine to this quiet residential neighborhood near Bar Ilan University.\n","title":"Sakura: Japanese Cherry Blossom Bar Opens Near Bar Ilan University","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/australia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Australia","type":"tags"},{"content":"Exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activists living in Australia have become targets of a disturbing intimidation campaign, receiving anonymous letters and pamphlets with antisemitic content mailed from Chinese-controlled territories. The campaign has drawn condemnation from Jewish groups and Australian government officials.\nThe Targets # Ted Hui, a former Hong Kong legislator now residing in Adelaide, and Kevin Yam, a Melbourne-based activist, are both wanted by Hong Kong authorities for allegedly breaching the territory\u0026rsquo;s controversial national security law. Both fled to Australia after the law granted authorities sweeping extraterritorial powers to prosecute acts or comments made anywhere in the world deemed criminal.\nThe Attacks # Adelaide - Antisemitic Pamphlets: Hui discovered that pamphlets were sent to several mosques in Adelaide falsely accusing him of being a pro-Israel lawyer willing to \u0026ldquo;wage war\u0026rdquo; against Islamic terrorism. The pamphlet, mailed from Macau, falsely quotes Hui as saying: \u0026ldquo;I am a pro-Jewish man and siding with Israel to wage war against those Islamic terrorism.\u0026rdquo;\nMelbourne - Bounty Letters: Kevin Yam received anonymous letters purporting to offer a police bounty of $203,000 for information about him, linking him to nearby locations. The letter was mailed from Hong Kong.\nOfficial Condemnation # Jewish Community Response: Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, called the tactics \u0026ldquo;disgusting,\u0026rdquo; noting that \u0026ldquo;referring to one\u0026rsquo;s enemy or opponent as a Jew is an ugly feature of antisemitic discourse.\u0026rdquo;\nAustralian Government: Foreign Minister Penny Wong stated the government would \u0026ldquo;not accept any one of our citizens or on our shores to be bullied or harassed or threatened by a foreign power.\u0026rdquo;\nOpposition: Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson described the pamphlet as \u0026ldquo;a crude attempt to weaponise antisemitism for the purposes of foreign interference.\u0026rdquo;\nHuman Rights Concerns # Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch, urged the Australian government to investigate and hold those responsible accountable. She explained the intent: \u0026ldquo;It is to make the activists feel like \u0026lsquo;rats crossing the streets\u0026rsquo;\u0026hellip; to make them feel ashamed, unsafe, hunted, no matter where they are in the world.\u0026rdquo;\nWang noted that while it\u0026rsquo;s unclear who sent the letters, the tactics appear similar to those allegedly used by Chinese and Hong Kong governments \u0026ldquo;to paint a target on the backs of those they don\u0026rsquo;t like.\u0026rdquo;\nOfficial Responses # The Chinese government has previously denied involvement in similar campaigns in the UK but said it was reasonable to pursue \u0026ldquo;fugitives.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Hong Kong government said it would not send anonymous letters but stressed it would \u0026ldquo;take every measure\u0026rdquo; to pursue anyone accused of breaching its national security laws.\nAustralian government sources confirmed the material targeting Yam and Hui has been raised with Chinese and Hong Kong government officials.\nImplications for Asian Diaspora # This case highlights several challenges facing pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong and other Asian communities in exile:\nTransnational Repression: The use of intimidation tactics against political refugees demonstrates how authoritarian governments attempt to silence critics even after they\u0026rsquo;ve fled to democratic countries.\nWeaponization of Social Divisions: The deliberate use of antisemitic rhetoric and attempts to sow division between religious communities represents a sophisticated form of psychological warfare.\nCommunity Safety: The targeting of activists\u0026rsquo; nearby locations and religious institutions raises concerns about the safety of entire diaspora communities, not just prominent figures.\nDemocratic Values Under Threat: The campaign tests Australia\u0026rsquo;s commitment to protecting political refugees and maintaining its democratic values against foreign interference.\nDiaspora Solidarity: The incident underscores the importance of solidarity between different diaspora communities—Jewish, Muslim, and Asian—against attempts to divide them through hate and misinformation.\nA Global Pattern # Similar campaigns targeting Hong Kong activists have been documented in the UK, Canada, and the United States, suggesting a coordinated transnational effort to silence critics of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.\nThe Australian case is particularly notable for its attempt to weaponize religious and ethnic tensions—sending antisemitic material to mosques in a transparent attempt to create community conflict and isolate the activist.\nFor Asian communities in Australia and worldwide, the case serves as a reminder that political persecution doesn\u0026rsquo;t end at national borders, and that protecting democracy requires vigilance and solidarity across all communities.\nSource: The Guardian - \u0026lsquo;Disgusting\u0026rsquo; antisemitic tactics used to threaten exiled Hong Kong man in Adelaide, Jewish group says\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/hong-kong-activists-antisemitic-attack-australia/","section":"Posts","summary":"Exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activists living in Australia have become targets of a disturbing intimidation campaign, receiving anonymous letters and pamphlets with antisemitic content mailed from Chinese-controlled territories. The campaign has drawn condemnation from Jewish groups and Australian government officials.\n","title":"Hong Kong Activists in Australia Targeted with Antisemitic Mail Campaign","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ted-hui/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ted-Hui","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-workers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian-Workers","type":"tags"},{"content":"In an unusual case highlighting security and criminal challenges related to foreign workers in Israel, a Chinese citizen working legally in Israel was detained at a West Bank checkpoint with an enormous sum of 1.5 million shekels in cash (approximately $400,000 USD) in his luxury vehicle.\nDetails of the Detention # During a routine checkpoint inspection in the West Bank, police forces stopped a luxury Mercedes driven by a Chinese national holding a valid residency and work permit in Israel. During the inspection, officers discovered an unusual amount of cash in the vehicle—approximately 1.5 million shekels—a sum that immediately raised suspicion among law enforcement officials.\nWhen questioned about the source of the money and the reason for carrying such a large amount in cash, the man provided no explanations and could not supply documentation or reasonable justification for the presence of the funds in his vehicle.\nLaw Enforcement Response # Following the suspect\u0026rsquo;s inability to provide a satisfactory explanation, police forces took several actions:\nCash Confiscation: The entire sum of 1.5 million shekels was confiscated by officers pending clarification of its source and the legitimacy of possessing it.\nVehicle Seizure: The luxury Mercedes was also confiscated as part of the investigation, as it may be involved in illegal activity.\nSummons for Interrogation: The Chinese citizen was summoned for police interrogation to clarify the circumstances of possessing the cash and to determine whether it involves criminal activity such as money laundering, terrorism financing, or organized crime.\nBroader Context # The case highlights several important issues related to the Asian community in Israel:\nForeign Workers and Crime: While most foreign workers in Israel, including those from China, are law-abiding citizens seeking legitimate employment opportunities, cases such as this raise questions about possible involvement of a minority in criminal activities.\nMoney Laundering: Possession of large amounts of cash without reasonable explanation is one of the classic warning signs of money laundering—a process whereby money originating from illegal activity is disguised as legitimate.\nWest Bank Security: The presence of a foreign citizen with such a large sum of money at a West Bank checkpoint raises additional security questions, especially during a period of heightened tensions.\nOversight of Foreign Workers: The case underscores the importance of appropriate supervision and regulation of foreign workers, not only regarding working conditions and wages, but also in preventing the exploitation of residency and work permits for illegal activity.\nImplications for the Chinese Community in Israel # While this is an isolated case, such incidents can impact Israeli public perception toward Chinese and Asian workers generally:\nStigma: Prominent cases of crime involving foreign citizens can create negative stigma toward entire communities, even when most of their members are law-abiding citizens.\nIncreased Scrutiny: The case may lead to heightened scrutiny and additional inspections of foreign workers, which could make life more difficult for those operating legally.\nChina-Israel Relations: Although this is a single criminal matter, such cases require delicate handling to ensure they don\u0026rsquo;t negatively affect diplomatic and economic relations between Israel and China.\nThe Importance of Transparency and Law Enforcement # The case emphasizes the importance of:\nConsistent Law Enforcement: Addressing all suspicions of criminal activity regardless of the suspect\u0026rsquo;s nationality or status.\nProtection of Rights: Ensuring the Chinese citizen receives fair treatment and a just trial while safeguarding his legal rights.\nTransparency: Public disclosure of case details helps maintain trust in the justice system and prevent unfounded speculation.\nThe investigation continues, with law enforcement authorities working to clarify the source of the money and the purpose behind possessing such a large sum in cash. The results of this investigation may shed light on broader criminal activities and help improve oversight of foreign workers in Israel.\nSource: Walla News - Chinese Citizen Detained in West Bank with 1.5 Million Shekels\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/chinese-citizen-detained-west-bank-cash/","section":"Posts","summary":"In an unusual case highlighting security and criminal challenges related to foreign workers in Israel, a Chinese citizen working legally in Israel was detained at a West Bank checkpoint with an enormous sum of 1.5 million shekels in cash (approximately $400,000 USD) in his luxury vehicle.\n","title":"Chinese Citizen Detained with 1.5 Million Shekels at West Bank Checkpoint","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/law-enforcement/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Law-Enforcement","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/money-laundering/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Money-Laundering","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/west-bank/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"West-Bank","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-diaspora/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian-Diaspora","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bilateral-relations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bilateral-Relations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cultural-sensitivity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cultural-Sensitivity","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/reservists/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Reservists","type":"tags"},{"content":"A surge of Israeli reservists seeking respite in Thailand after months of war service has sparked an unexpected diplomatic challenge. Complaints about poor behavior in the northern Thai town of Pai have triggered official investigations and warnings from both governments, threatening to strain the warm relationship between Thailand and Israel.\nPost-War Escape to Thailand # Thailand has long been a favored destination for young Israelis, particularly after military service. The country offers affordable travel, stunning natural beauty, and a relaxed atmosphere that provides stark contrast to life in Israel. Since October 7 and the ongoing war in Gaza, this traditional post-army escape has taken on new urgency.\nWar-weary reservists and discharged soldiers are choosing Thailand specifically to decompress from intensive combat duty and the psychological strain of wartime Israel. In 2024, the small town of Pai hosted over 31,000 Israeli visitors—the second-largest foreign tourist group—a marked increase that locals describe as a sudden \u0026ldquo;swarm.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Israeli presence has evolved beyond typical backpacker tourism. An Israeli \u0026ldquo;forest school\u0026rdquo; relocated from Goa to Pai, and families have begun settling for longer stays, contributing to local perceptions that Israelis are not just visiting but permanently changing the town\u0026rsquo;s character.\nMounting Complaints # Thai business owners and residents in Pai have voiced an escalating list of grievances:\nUnpaid Bills and Payment Disputes: Restaurant and café owners report Israelis consuming large orders then refusing to pay or leaving without settling bills, sometimes involving hundreds of baht.\nNoise and Public Disturbance: Locals complain about loud gatherings late at night that disrupt the town\u0026rsquo;s traditionally quiet, wellness-focused atmosphere. Many say some Israelis ignore local norms about maintaining peaceful public spaces.\nPerceived Disrespect: Interviewed Thais and long-term foreign residents describe encounters where Israeli tourists talk rudely to staff, argue intensely over prices, and show little cultural sensitivity.\n\u0026ldquo;Takeover\u0026rdquo; Fears: Construction of a security wall around the local Chabad house and the presence of the Israeli forest school have fueled rumors that Israelis are \u0026ldquo;taking over\u0026rdquo; parts of Pai. While no clear legal violations are involved, the visible Israeli infrastructure has intensified local resentment.\nOne bar briefly posted a \u0026ldquo;No Israelis\u0026rdquo; sign before police intervened, reflecting how social friction has crossed into informal discrimination.\nGovernment Response # The controversy escalated from a local tourism issue to the national political level:\nThai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra publicly addressed viral claims that over 30,000 Israelis had \u0026ldquo;moved\u0026rdquo; to Pai and were banning Thais from certain properties. After official investigation, she dismissed these allegations as misinformation.\nInterior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited Pai\u0026rsquo;s Chabad house, stating that talk of an Israeli \u0026ldquo;takeover\u0026rdquo; was false and that Israelis were obeying Thai law. His visit aimed to calm nationalist backlash while signaling government oversight.\nNational Police Chief Kittharath Punpetch ordered a seven-day investigation of foreign nationals in Pai, instructing Immigration, Tourist Police, and local authorities to coordinate checks on alleged illegal activities and public disturbances.\nThe Immigration Bureau warned it could revoke permits of foreigners whose behavior \u0026ldquo;posed a risk to society,\u0026rdquo; indicating that deportation and visa cancellation are options for problematic tourists.\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s Official Warning # Recognizing the seriousness of the situation, the Israeli Embassy in Thailand issued a formal advisory in Hebrew on February 21, acknowledging \u0026ldquo;several incidents involving the behavior of Israeli tourists\u0026rdquo; that led Thai authorities to adopt stricter measures, especially in Pai.\nThe embassy explicitly warned that these incidents have \u0026ldquo;negatively impacted the image of Israeli tourists\u0026rdquo; and could harm the traditionally warm reception Israelis enjoy in Thailand.\nThe advisory included behavioral guidelines urging Israelis to:\nKeep quiet in public spaces Respect local customs and sensitivities Dress modestly when appropriate Comply fully with Thai law and regulations The embassy disclosed that several Israelis have recently been deported for violating local rules and urged travelers not to jeopardize the broader relationship: \u0026ldquo;The Thai people respect and warmly welcome Israeli tourists. Let\u0026rsquo;s maintain this relationship.\u0026rdquo;\nWhy Thai-Israeli Relations Matter # The bilateral relationship carries significant economic and human dimensions:\nTourism: Over 300,000 Israelis visited Thailand last year, making it one of the most popular destinations for Israeli travelers worldwide. Tourism represents a major people-to-people link between the nations.\nLabor Migration: Thailand sends tens of thousands of workers—especially in agriculture and construction—to Israel. Bilateral labor agreements are financially important to many Thai families and crucial to sectors of the Israeli economy.\nSecurity Cooperation: Israel has repeatedly assisted Thailand in crises, including sending IDF and Defense Ministry experts for search-and-rescue operations after major disasters, reflecting practical humanitarian cooperation.\nThese dense ties—tourism, labor migration, and security cooperation—motivate both governments to contain the fallout and prevent escalation into broader anti-Israeli sentiment or policy restrictions.\nImplications for Asian Communities in Israel # While the immediate controversy centers on Israeli behavior in Thailand, the implications extend to Asian communities living and working in Israel:\nLabor Relations: Negative Thai media coverage portraying Israelis as disrespectful could shape public opinion about Israel generally, potentially affecting Thai workers\u0026rsquo; willingness to accept jobs in Israel or influencing future labor negotiations.\nReciprocity and Awareness: Thai and other Asian workers often report exploitation, poor conditions, or discrimination in Israel. The Pai controversy flips the lens, highlighting how Israelis themselves can be perceived as problematic migrants when abroad.\nEconomic Impact: If relations cool or public anger rises in Thailand, Israel could see reductions or stricter conditions on Thai labor migration, affecting agriculture and caregiving sectors where Asian workers are vital.\nRegional Perceptions: The situation may increase sensitivity among the Asian diaspora in Israel about how Israeli behavior overseas feeds into stereotypes and political debates in their home countries.\nA Two-Way Mirror # The Pai controversy serves as a revealing two-way mirror: Israeli reservists seek healing and escape in Thailand after traumatic war service, but their conduct abroad is now being scrutinized in ways that mirror how Thai and other Asian communities experience life and work in Israel.\nFor both nations, the challenge is clear—maintaining the mutual respect and cultural sensitivity that have long characterized their relationship, even as the pressures of war, mass tourism, and economic migration test those bonds.\nSource: Times of Israel - As war-weary Israeli reservists head to Thailand, poor behavior could spoil relations\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/israeli-reservists-thailand-behavior-concerns/","section":"Posts","summary":"A surge of Israeli reservists seeking respite in Thailand after months of war service has sparked an unexpected diplomatic challenge. Complaints about poor behavior in the northern Thai town of Pai have triggered official investigations and warnings from both governments, threatening to strain the warm relationship between Thailand and Israel.\n","title":"Thai-Israeli Relations Under Strain as Reservist Behavior Sparks Controversy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Everest Sekuwa Corner serves authentic Nepali cuisine in the heart of south Tel Aviv, near the central bus station. The restaurant specializes in sekuwa \u0026ndash; traditional Nepali grilled meat marinated with garlic, ginger, cumin, and chili \u0026ndash; alongside home-style curries, dal and rice thali plates, and Indian breads.\nMore than just a restaurant, it serves as an informal community center for Nepali workers in Israel, offering \u0026ldquo;ghar jasto\u0026rdquo; (home-like) food far from home.\nAddress: Yesud ha-Ma\u0026rsquo;ala 36, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/everest-sekuwa-corner/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Everest Sekuwa Corner serves authentic Nepali cuisine in the heart of south Tel Aviv, near the central bus station. The restaurant specializes in sekuwa – traditional Nepali grilled meat marinated with garlic, ginger, cumin, and chili – alongside home-style curries, dal and rice thali plates, and Indian breads.\n","title":"Everest Sekuwa Corner","type":"directory"},{"content":"In the bustling streets of south Tel Aviv, near the central bus station, a small restaurant brings the flavors of the Himalayas to Israel. Everest Sekuwa Corner (एभरेष्ट सेकुवा कर्नर) serves authentic Nepali cuisine to a community of migrant workers seeking the comforting tastes of home.\nLocation and Atmosphere # Located at Yesud ha-Ma\u0026rsquo;ala Street 36 in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Everest Sekuwa Corner sits in the heart of south Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s diverse migrant worker neighborhood. The area around the central bus station is home to many Asian and African workers, making it a natural hub for authentic ethnic cuisines that are hard to find elsewhere in Israel.\nThe restaurant functions as more than just an eatery—it\u0026rsquo;s an informal community center where Nepali workers gather on their days off to share news, celebrate festivals, and reconnect with their culture through food.\nWhat is Sekuwa? # Sekuwa is a classic Nepali grilled meat dish that lies at the heart of the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s identity. Traditional sekuwa consists of marinated meat—typically goat, pork, chicken, or buffalo in Nepal—cooked over charcoal or an open fire. The marinade features a distinctive blend of garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, chili, and other local spices that give the dish its characteristic smoky, complex flavor.\nIn Nepal, sekuwa is typically served with achar (spicy pickle), fresh onions, lemon wedges, and chiura (beaten rice). At Everest Sekuwa Corner, the dish is adapted to locally available meats—primarily chicken and sometimes mutton—while maintaining the authentic tandoor-grilled style and traditional Nepali spice blend.\nMenu Highlights # Everest Sekuwa Corner offers a mix of Indian and Nepali specialties, recognizing the culinary overlap between the two neighboring nations and the diverse South Asian clientele it serves. The menu includes:\nSekuwa-style grilled chicken: The signature dish, featuring tandoor-grilled chicken with authentic Nepali spicing Home-style curries: Traditional Nepali and Indian chicken and vegetable curries Dal and rice thali plates: Complete meals featuring lentils, rice, and accompaniments Indian breads: Naan and roti to complement the Nepali dishes The restaurant prides itself on serving \u0026ldquo;ghar jasto\u0026rdquo; (home-like) food—a crucial offering for workers living far from their families and homeland.\nThe Nepali Community in Israel # While smaller than the Filipino or Thai communities, Nepal\u0026rsquo;s presence in Israel is significant. Many Nepalis work in caregiving (especially elder care), agriculture, and service industries as part of broader Asian labor migration to Israel.\nThese workers often face long hours and cultural isolation, making community spaces like Everest Sekuwa Corner vital for maintaining cultural connections. The restaurant likely serves as a gathering place for festivals such as Dashain, Tihar, and Teej—major Nepali celebrations that help workers maintain ties to their heritage while living abroad.\nSignificance for Asian Diaspora # Everest Sekuwa Corner represents an important aspect of Asian diaspora life in Israel:\nCultural Preservation: The restaurant allows Nepali workers to maintain their culinary traditions in a country where these flavors are otherwise unavailable.\nCommunity Hub: Beyond food, it provides a space for workers to speak Nepali, share information about jobs and housing, and build support networks far from home.\nVisibility: The Devanagari signboard and the iconic \u0026ldquo;Everest\u0026rdquo; name make Nepali presence visible in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s urban landscape, representing a community often overlooked when discussing Asian migration to Israel.\nCross-Cultural Bridge: By serving both Nepali and Indian cuisine, the restaurant creates a meeting point for the broader South Asian diaspora, fostering connections among Indians, Nepalis, and curious locals.\nFor the Asian community in Israel, restaurants like Everest Sekuwa Corner serve a purpose far beyond feeding hungry customers—they provide comfort, connection, and a taste of home thousands of kilometers away from the mountains of Nepal.\nSource: Atly - Everest Sekuwa Corner\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/everest-sekuwa-corner-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the bustling streets of south Tel Aviv, near the central bus station, a small restaurant brings the flavors of the Himalayas to Israel. Everest Sekuwa Corner (एभरेष्ट सेकुवा कर्नर) serves authentic Nepali cuisine to a community of migrant workers seeking the comforting tastes of home.\n","title":"Everest Sekuwa Corner: A Taste of Nepal in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/migrant-community/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Migrant-Community","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nepali-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nepali-Food","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sekuwa/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sekuwa","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/south-asian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"South-Asian","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/south-asian-cuisine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"South-Asian-Cuisine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/academia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Academia","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hebrew-university/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hebrew-University","type":"tags"},{"content":"Professor Miron Medzini, 93, stands as one of the pivotal figures in developing Israel\u0026rsquo;s relationship with East Asia. As professor emeritus of Japanese studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Medzini was instrumental in founding East Asian studies in Israel and became the first to teach about Japan in the country.\nFounding East Asian Studies in Israel # Born in Jerusalem in 1932, Medzini studied Japanese and Far Eastern studies at Harvard University between 1959 and 1962, earning his doctorate. Upon returning to Israel in September 1962, he co-founded the Department of East Asian Studies at Hebrew University, where he trained generations of students in Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean affairs.\nParallel to his academic career, Medzini served as spokesman for the Prime Minister\u0026rsquo;s Office under Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin, and as director of the Government Press Office. His mother, Regina, was a childhood friend of Golda Meir in Milwaukee, creating a unique personal connection.\nContributing to Research and Diplomacy # Medzini authored several significant books on East Asia:\nFrom Port Arthur to Hiroshima: The Rise and Fall of Japanese Militarism (2006) Under the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Japan and the Jews During the Holocaust (2012) Taiwan: History, Society and Politics (2020) Who Has Primacy? The Struggle for Hegemony in East Asia Since the End of the Cold War (2009) His biography of Golda Meir, published in 2008, won the Prime Minister\u0026rsquo;s Prize for Literature in 2010.\nJapanese Recognition # In 2016, Medzini received the Order of the Rising Sun, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Japanese government, for his contributions to advancing Japanese studies and strengthening Israel-Japan relations. This recognition underscores his lasting impact on Israel\u0026rsquo;s understanding of East Asia.\nTaiwan Expertise # Beyond his work on Japan, Medzini became a leading expert on Israel-Taiwan relations. His book \u0026ldquo;Taiwan: History, Society and Politics\u0026rdquo; provides comprehensive analysis of the island\u0026rsquo;s politics, society, and its ties with Israel. His work has helped Israeli policymakers better understand Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s strategic importance as a democratic ally and technology partner.\nA Legacy of Bridges # Professor Medzini\u0026rsquo;s work represents decades of commitment to cross-cultural understanding. As one of the first Israelis to master Japanese and study East Asian culture in depth, he opened pathways for academic research and diplomatic relations that continue today.\nFrom his office at Hebrew University, Medzini continued teaching and mentoring on East Asia well into his retirement, and his influence is visible in an entire generation of Israeli scholars, diplomats, and businesspeople engaging with Asia.\nSource: Hebrew Wikipedia\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/miron-medzini-israel-east-asia-bridge/","section":"Posts","summary":"Professor Miron Medzini, 93, stands as one of the pivotal figures in developing Israel’s relationship with East Asia. As professor emeritus of Japanese studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Medzini was instrumental in founding East Asian studies in Israel and became the first to teach about Japan in the country.\n","title":"Miron Medzini: Israel's Academic Bridge to East Asia","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Tel Aviv operates as Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s de facto embassy in Israel, managing all official ties between the two nations despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Since its establishment in 1993, TECO has become instrumental in fostering one of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s most significant international partnerships.\nWhy No Formal Ties? # Israel officially recognizes the People\u0026rsquo;s Republic of China and adheres to the \u0026ldquo;One-China\u0026rdquo; policy, which prevents it from maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. However, this hasn\u0026rsquo;t stopped both sides from developing robust practical cooperation through representative offices.\nIn 1993, Taiwan and Israel simultaneously opened mutual representative offices - Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv and Israel\u0026rsquo;s office in Taipei. This arrangement marked the beginning of official, though non-diplomatic, relations that have only grown stronger over three decades.\nTECO\u0026rsquo;s Multifaceted Role # Political and Diplomatic Liaison # TECO acts as Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s official representative to the Israeli government, Knesset members, think tanks, and civil society. Despite diplomatic constraints, it cultivates parliamentary friendships and facilitates unofficial political visits in both directions.\nEconomic and Technology Hub # The office promotes trade, investment, and technology cooperation between Taiwanese and Israeli firms, particularly in high-tech sectors, semiconductors, cybersecurity, water technologies, and agri-tech. Taiwan and Israel have signed more than 30 trade and cooperation agreements, all coordinated through their representative offices.\nCultural Bridge # TECO organizes cultural events, exhibitions, film festivals, and Taiwan-related lectures to increase Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s visibility in Israel. It facilitates university partnerships, student exchanges, and research cooperation with institutions like Reichman University and Hebrew University.\nConsular Services # Like a traditional embassy, TECO provides consular services to Taiwanese citizens in Israel, including passport renewals, document authentication, and emergency assistance. It also handles visa services and provides practical information for Israelis traveling to or studying in Taiwan.\nRecent Intensification # The relationship has notably intensified during and after the Gaza war, with TECO playing a central coordinating role:\nSolidarity During Crisis: Taiwan strongly condemned Hamas\u0026rsquo;s attacks on Israeli civilians and coordinated donations and public solidarity messages through TECO.\nAcademic Outreach: TECO has actively engaged students and faculty at Israeli universities, building pro-Taiwan networks in Israeli society beyond government channels.\nParliamentary Engagement: In 2025, Taiwan hosted multiple unofficial Knesset delegations. A September delegation led by MK Boaz Toporovsky delivered a statement signed by 72 Israeli legislators supporting Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s international participation.\nSecurity Dialogue: Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s President Lai Ching-te has cited Israel as a model for missile defense, promoting a \u0026ldquo;T-Dome\u0026rdquo; concept modeled on Iron Dome. Former Taiwanese Deputy Defense Minister Fu Hong-hui reportedly visited Israel in secret to discuss advanced military technology transfer.\nShared Democratic Identity # Analysts describe Taiwan and Israel as \u0026ldquo;students of survival\u0026rdquo; - small, high-tech democracies facing existential security challenges and partial international isolation. Both invest heavily in innovation and human capital as leverage for global indispensability.\nTaiwan sees its support for Israel as solidarity among democracies resisting authoritarian pressure from China, Iran, and Russia. The relationship transcends mere economic interest, rooted in shared values and parallel challenges.\nLooking Forward # Despite political constraints from Israel\u0026rsquo;s relationship with China, both governments see strong incentives to deepen cooperation in high-tech, cyber, and defense-adjacent industries. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s manufacturing ecosystem complements Israel\u0026rsquo;s R\u0026amp;D strengths perfectly.\nTECO Tel Aviv stands at the center of this growing partnership, proving that formal diplomatic recognition, while valuable, isn\u0026rsquo;t essential for meaningful international cooperation. In an era of complex geopolitics, Taiwan and Israel demonstrate how shared values and mutual interests can forge powerful alliances through creative diplomatic arrangements.\nSources: INSS, BESA Center, Global Taiwan\n","date":"25 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/teco-israel-taiwan-unofficial-embassy/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Tel Aviv operates as Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Israel, managing all official ties between the two nations despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Since its establishment in 1993, TECO has become instrumental in fostering one of Taiwan’s most significant international partnerships.\n","title":"TECO Israel: Taiwan's Unofficial Embassy Building Bridges","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"20 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/christmas/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Christmas","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/flor/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Flor","type":"tags"},{"content":"FLOR (Cave à Manger) in Tel Aviv is inviting the Israeli public to a unique Christmas celebration on December 24 - following the authentic Jewish-American tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve.\nView this post on Instagram A New York Jewish Tradition # For decades, American Jews have developed a unique tradition of visiting Chinese restaurants on Christmas Eve. The reason is simple: while most restaurants are closed for the Christian holiday, many Chinese restaurants remain open, becoming a traditional meeting place for Jewish families. The tradition has spread so widely that it has become a recognized cultural phenomenon among Jewish communities in the U.S.\nThe FLOR Event # On December 24 at 5:00 PM, FLOR will host a special evening in Lower East Side New York style, with a Chinese menu full of oil, sugar, and monosodium glutamate - exactly as tradition demands.\nThe menu includes classic dishes such as:\nKung Pao Chicken Lo Mein noodles Additional authentic Chinese dishes Additionally, the event promises a playful atmosphere: \u0026ldquo;Whoever is a good child will sit on Uri\u0026rsquo;s lap and receive a fortune cookie,\u0026rdquo; as stated in the post.\nAbout FLOR # FLOR is a Cave à Manger (food cave) in Tel Aviv specializing in contemporary cuisine with international influences. The restaurant is known for its creative events and humorous approach to culinary traditions.\nThe event is open to the public and advance reservations are recommended due to limited seating.\nWhen: December 24, 2025, 5:00 PM Where: FLOR • Cave à Manger, Tel Aviv What: Chinese Christmas evening in New York Jewish tradition\nUpdate: Seats are filling up quickly, contact the restaurant for reservations.\nSource: Instagram - FLOR Tel Aviv\n","date":"20 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/flor-tel-aviv-chinese-christmas-event/","section":"Events","summary":"FLOR (Cave à Manger) in Tel Aviv is inviting the Israeli public to a unique Christmas celebration on December 24 - following the authentic Jewish-American tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve.\n","title":"FLOR Tel Aviv Hosts 'Chinese Christmas' in New York Tradition","type":"events"},{"content":"HaAnoi HaSinit (The Chinese Hanoi) is a Cantonese-style Chinese restaurant in Beer Sheva, born from a cross-cultural love story between an Israeli woman and a Chinese man. The restaurant has earned an impressive 88% positive rating from over 220 reviews.\nThe menu features rice dishes, noodles, stir-fries, spring rolls, and traditional Chinese soups. Particularly recommended are the chicken with mushrooms and bamboo shoots and the corn soup. Delivery is available throughout Beer Sheva.\nAddress: Resco Shopping Center, 28 Rager Boulevard, Beer Sheva\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/haanoi-hasinit/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"HaAnoi HaSinit (The Chinese Hanoi) is a Cantonese-style Chinese restaurant in Beer Sheva, born from a cross-cultural love story between an Israeli woman and a Chinese man. The restaurant has earned an impressive 88% positive rating from over 220 reviews.\n","title":"HaAnoi HaSinit","type":"directory"},{"content":"Behind every great restaurant, there\u0026rsquo;s often a compelling story. At HaAnoi HaSinit (The Chinese Hanoi) in Beer Sheva, that story is one of cross-cultural romance that brought authentic Chinese flavors to the capital of the Negev.\nA Love Story Becomes a Restaurant # The restaurant was founded by an Israeli-Chinese couple who fell in love and built their life together in Israel. Their union didn\u0026rsquo;t just create a family (including two daughters) but also gave birth to a culinary venture that has become a beloved fixture in Beer Sheva\u0026rsquo;s dining scene. The restaurant has earned an impressive 88% positive rating from over 220 reviews, testament to the quality of food and service.\nThe Menu # HaAnoi HaSinit specializes in Cantonese-style Chinese cuisine, offering a rich menu that includes:\nRice dishes Noodles and stir-fries Appetizers and spring rolls Traditional Chinese soups Desserts Particularly recommended by diners are the chicken with mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and the corn soup. The restaurant prides itself on combining authentic Far Eastern recipes with flavors that resonate with Israeli palates.\nDelivery Service # The restaurant operates an active delivery service throughout Beer Sheva and surrounding areas, making it convenient to enjoy their food at home. They also have a dedicated mobile app for easy ordering.\nRestaurant Details # Address: Resco Shopping Center, 28 Rager Boulevard, Beer Sheva\nPhone: 08-9950095\nHours:\nSunday-Thursday: 11:00-22:00 (delivery) Friday-Saturday: Check directly with restaurant Website: hanoi.co.il\nOnline Ordering: Order delivery\nSource: HaAnoi HaSinit Official Website\n","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/haanoi-hasinit-chinese-restaurant-beer-sheva/","section":"Posts","summary":"Behind every great restaurant, there’s often a compelling story. At HaAnoi HaSinit (The Chinese Hanoi) in Beer Sheva, that story is one of cross-cultural romance that brought authentic Chinese flavors to the capital of the Negev.\n","title":"HaAnoi HaSinit: A Cross-Cultural Love Story Serving Chinese Cuisine in Beer Sheva","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/negev/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Negev","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/contest/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Contest","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/japanese-cuisine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Japanese-Cuisine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kikkoman/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kikkoman","type":"tags"},{"content":"Kikkoman, the iconic Japanese soy sauce brand, is celebrating over 300 years of tradition by offering Israeli consumers a chance to win a trip to Japan and experience authentic Japanese cuisine firsthand.\nHow to Enter # The contest is straightforward:\nShare your food dream: Write what dish you would most want to taste in Japan and why Purchase a Kikkoman product: Buy at least one Kikkoman product and keep your receipt Submit your entry: The most interesting answer wins Prizes # Grand Prize: Two round-trip tickets to Japan\nAdditional Prizes:\nVouchers for Japanese restaurant meals for two Kikkoman product gift packages About Kikkoman # Kikkoman has been producing authentic Japanese soy sauce for over three centuries, making it one of the oldest food companies in the world. The brand has become synonymous with quality soy sauce globally and is a staple in kitchens across Israel, used not only in Asian cooking but also as a versatile seasoning for various cuisines.\nThe company\u0026rsquo;s commitment to traditional brewing methods, combined with modern quality standards, has made Kikkoman the world\u0026rsquo;s leading soy sauce brand. Each bottle represents centuries of accumulated knowledge in fermentation and flavor development.\nWhy This Matters for Asian Food Lovers in Israel # For those who appreciate Japanese cuisine, Kikkoman represents an authentic taste of Japan. The contest offers a unique opportunity to experience the source of this culinary tradition firsthand - visiting Japan to explore its food culture.\nWhether you dream of trying fresh sushi at Tsukiji Market, authentic ramen in Tokyo, or traditional kaiseki cuisine in Kyoto, this contest invites you to share your Japanese food aspirations.\nHow to Participate: Visit Kikkoman Israel\u0026rsquo;s contest page to submit your entry. Participants must be 18 or older and agree to the contest terms and conditions.\nSource: Kikkoman Israel\n","date":"10 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/kikkoman-300-years-japan-trip-contest/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kikkoman, the iconic Japanese soy sauce brand, is celebrating over 300 years of tradition by offering Israeli consumers a chance to win a trip to Japan and experience authentic Japanese cuisine firsthand.\n","title":"Kikkoman Celebrates 300 Years With Trip to Japan Contest","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ben-gurion-airport/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ben-Gurion-Airport","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israeli and Thai officials gathered at Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday for an emotional farewell ceremony as the remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak were finally flown home to Thailand, more than two years after he was killed during the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.\n\u0026ldquo;One of Ours\u0026rdquo; # Israel\u0026rsquo;s hostage envoy Gal Hirsch expressed deep sorrow during the ceremony, apologizing to Rinthalak and his family.\n\u0026ldquo;It shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have ended this way,\u0026rdquo; Hirsch said. \u0026ldquo;We failed to protect you; it took too long to bring you back home.\u0026rdquo;\nCalling Rinthalak \u0026ldquo;one of us,\u0026rdquo; Hirsch added, \u0026ldquo;You are now heading back home, we will never, never forget you.\u0026rdquo;\nThe 43-year-old agricultural worker was murdered at Kibbutz Be\u0026rsquo;eri during the Hamas onslaught. His remains were returned to Israel from Gaza on December 3 and identified by Israeli authorities the following day.\nThai Ambassador Pays Tribute # Thai Ambassador to Israel Boonyarit Vichienpuntu said that, like many Thai workers, Rinthalak crossed the ocean with a determination to make a better life for his loved ones.\nThe ambassador added that the Thai government is praying for the return of the last Israeli hostage, police officer Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, to bring an end to this mournful period and allow for full implementation of the ceasefire agreement.\nFamily Watches From Thailand # Rinthalak\u0026rsquo;s family - his parents Thong Ma and Orn, and his older brother Thepporn - watched the ceremony live from their home in Thailand. Rinthalak was divorced and had no children.\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s Ambassador to Thailand, Alona Fisher-Kamm, spoke about the strong bonds between the two countries and their solidarity during the past two years of war.\n\u0026ldquo;Always Smiling, Always Ready\u0026rdquo; # Boaz Cohen, a resident of Kibbutz Sa\u0026rsquo;ad who employed Rinthalak at an agricultural company serving various kibbutz communities, shared his memories.\n\u0026ldquo;He was one of ours,\u0026rdquo; Cohen told The Times of Israel. \u0026ldquo;He was a great guy, always smiling, always ready to do whatever was necessary.\u0026rdquo;\nCohen had six Thai workers taken captive from his staff during the October 7 attacks.\nThe Last Foreign Hostage # With Rinthalak\u0026rsquo;s return, all foreign hostages from the October 7 attacks have now been accounted for. Of the 251 people taken hostage, 35 were foreign nationals.\nJosh Lawson, who headed the medical desk at the Prime Minister\u0026rsquo;s Office for hostages and served as liaison to the Gaza envelope communities, addressed the ceremony.\n\u0026ldquo;Every Israeli can now say your name, Sudthisak,\u0026rdquo; Lawson said. \u0026ldquo;You were one of the last murdered hostages. Your story became clear, a painful beacon to us all.\u0026rdquo;\nHe noted that Rinthalak\u0026rsquo;s family will receive all benefits given to families of terrorist victims.\n\u0026ldquo;If you come into Israel legally and are hurt in a terrorist attack, you will get, down to a shekel, what an Israeli from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem will get, for life,\u0026rdquo; Lawson explained.\nThe ceremony was held at the 8th Armored Brigade Memorial at Ben Gurion Airport, which has served as the backdrop for similar ceremonies honoring foreign workers killed on October 7 before their bodies were returned to their home countries.\nThailand\u0026rsquo;s Heavy Toll # Thailand suffered one of the heaviest tolls among foreign nations on October 7. Of the 39 Thai nationals killed during the Hamas attack, Rinthalak was among the last to be returned home.\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"9 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/sudthisak-rinthalak-farewell-ceremony/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israeli and Thai officials gathered at Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday for an emotional farewell ceremony as the remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak were finally flown home to Thailand, more than two years after he was killed during the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.\n","title":"Officials Bid Farewell to Thai Hostage Sudthisak Rinthalak","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"5 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/israel-aerospace-industries/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Israel-Aerospace-Industries","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and other defense companies have announced an immediate halt to the use of Chinese-made vehicles, citing concerns about potential data leaks through technological systems installed in these vehicles.\nThe Security Concern # The decision follows an examination by the Security Authority of the Defense Establishment (Malmab) regarding data leakage risks from Chinese vehicles. Modern Chinese cars are equipped with cameras, sensors, and computer systems that could potentially collect environmental data and transmit it to China or other parties.\nIn response to Malmab\u0026rsquo;s assessment, IAI and other defense companies have decided to:\nStop leasing Chinese-made vehicles immediately Ban entry of private Chinese vehicles to factory grounds nationwide Employees with Chinese vehicles will only be permitted to park in public parking areas outside company facilities Following the IDF\u0026rsquo;s Lead # This move mirrors a similar decision made by the Israel Defense Forces approximately one month ago. The military had already restricted Chinese vehicles from entering sensitive installations due to similar security considerations.\nBroader Context # The ban reflects growing global concerns about Chinese technology and potential espionage risks. Chinese vehicles, which have become increasingly popular in Israel due to competitive pricing, are equipped with advanced technological systems that security officials fear could be exploited for intelligence gathering.\nChinese automakers have captured a significant share of the Israeli vehicle market in recent years, with brands like BYD, Geely, and others offering electric and hybrid vehicles at attractive prices. However, this popularity has come with increasing scrutiny from security establishments.\nThe decision affects thousands of employees at Israel\u0026rsquo;s defense companies who may have purchased Chinese vehicles, and represents a significant shift in how Israel views consumer technology from China in security-sensitive contexts.\nSource: Maariv\n","date":"5 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/israel-defense-industries-ban-chinese-vehicles/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and other defense companies have announced an immediate halt to the use of Chinese-made vehicles, citing concerns about potential data leaks through technological systems installed in these vehicles.\n","title":"Israeli Defense Industries Ban Chinese Vehicles Over Security Concerns","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jungle Tea, the Israeli bubble tea chain known for its authentic Taiwanese recipes, has expanded to central Tel Aviv with a new delivery location on Ibn Gabirol Street.\nFrom Taipei to Tel Aviv # The founders of Jungle Tea discovered bubble tea in the alleyways of Taipei and committed to bringing the genuine Taiwanese experience to Israel. What sets them apart is their dedication to authenticity: equipment imported directly from Taiwan, ingredients sourced from the original suppliers, and preparation methods learned at a bubble tea academy in Taipei.\nThe chain already operates a physical location in Kiryat Ono and has now expanded its delivery reach to cover Tel Aviv.\nThe Menu # Jungle Tea offers a comprehensive bubble tea menu with several categories:\nMilk Teas (₪27-28)\nJungle Milk Tea - black tea with fresh milk and tapioca pearls Matcha Milk Tea - Japanese matcha with milk and tapioca Taro Milk Tea - purple taro root with milk and tapioca Bangkok Milk Tea - Thai-style tea with fresh milk Masala Chai Milk Tea - black tea with cinnamon spices Dirty Cookies - chocolate milk with cream, tapioca, and cookies Fruit Teas (₪27)\nLychee Sun - green tea with lychee and blueberry boba Peach Island Tea - oolong with peach and kiwi boba Blue-Blue Tea - green tea with blueberries and lychee boba Mangolia Tea - green tea with mango and passion fruit jelly Smooteas (₪29) Fruit smoothies blended with oolong tea, fresh milk, and cream topping - available in strawberry, passion fruit, blueberry, and mango.\nCoffee Series (₪28) Vietnamese coffee combinations including Coffee Matcha and Coffee Chocolate with tapioca pearls.\nOnigiri (₪21) Japanese rice triangles wrapped in seaweed, including an avocado variety.\nParty Packages # For events and corporate gatherings, Jungle Tea offers combo deals:\n12 drinks: ₪300 18 drinks: ₪439 30 drinks: ₪720 50 drinks: ₪1,149 Details # Address: Ibn Gabirol 24, Tel Aviv\nDelivery Hours:\nSunday-Thursday: 13:00-23:00 Friday: 10:00-17:00 Saturday: 18:00-24:00 Phone: 077-610-6250\nWebsite: jungle-tea.com\nOrder: Available via Wolt\nNote: Drinks are delivered with temperature-controlled bags to maintain quality during transit.\nMade in Taiwan\n","date":"4 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/jungle-tea-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jungle Tea, the Israeli bubble tea chain known for its authentic Taiwanese recipes, has expanded to central Tel Aviv with a new delivery location on Ibn Gabirol Street.\nFrom Taipei to Tel Aviv # The founders of Jungle Tea discovered bubble tea in the alleyways of Taipei and committed to bringing the genuine Taiwanese experience to Israel. What sets them apart is their dedication to authenticity: equipment imported directly from Taiwan, ingredients sourced from the original suppliers, and preparation methods learned at a bubble tea academy in Taipei.\n","title":"Jungle Tea Brings Authentic Taiwanese Bubble Tea to Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jungle Tea\u0026rsquo;s Tel Aviv branch on Ibn Gabirol Street brings the same authentic Taiwanese bubble tea experience from their Kiryat Ono location to central Tel Aviv, with a focus on delivery. Equipment and ingredients are imported directly from Taiwan, and preparation methods were learned at a bubble tea academy in Taipei.\nThe menu features milk teas, fruit teas, smoothie-tea blends, Vietnamese coffee combinations, and onigiri (21-29 NIS). Party packages are available for events. Delivery is available via Wolt with temperature-controlled bags.\nAddress: Ibn Gabirol 24, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"4 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/jungle-tea-tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Jungle Tea’s Tel Aviv branch on Ibn Gabirol Street brings the same authentic Taiwanese bubble tea experience from their Kiryat Ono location to central Tel Aviv, with a focus on delivery. Equipment and ingredients are imported directly from Taiwan, and preparation methods were learned at a bubble tea academy in Taipei.\n","title":"Jungle Tea Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"4 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hamas/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hamas","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kibbutz-beeri/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kibbutz-Beeri","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel has confirmed the identification of Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker who was murdered during the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. His remains were returned from Gaza on December 3, 2025, more than two years after the massacre.\nRinthalak was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be\u0026rsquo;eri in southern Israel, one of the communities devastated in the October 7 attacks. The Israel Prime Minister\u0026rsquo;s Office officially confirmed the identification on December 4, 2025.\nThailand\u0026rsquo;s Heavy Toll # Thailand suffered disproportionately heavy casualties in the October 7 attacks. At the time, approximately 30,000 Thai workers were employed in Israel, almost all as agricultural laborers. Thousands were working on farms near the Gaza border when Hamas terrorists launched their assault.\nAccording to the Thai Foreign Ministry:\n32 Thai citizens were killed 22 were taken hostage 19 were injured Thailand represented the largest source of migrant agricultural labor for Israel, with workers concentrated in the southern farming communities that bore the brunt of the attack.\nThe Last Thai Hostage Accounted For # With Rinthalak\u0026rsquo;s identification, all Thai citizens taken during the October 7 attacks have now been accounted for. Since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire began in October 2024, 20 living Thai hostages were released and the remains of 27 others, including Rinthalak, have been returned to Israel.\nThe Thai Ambassador to Israel, Boonyarit Vichienphan, expressed appreciation for Israel\u0026rsquo;s efforts to recover and return Rinthalak\u0026rsquo;s remains to his family.\nRemembering Sudthisak Rinthalak # Sudthisak Rinthalak came to Israel like tens of thousands of his countrymen seeking work in agriculture. These workers form the backbone of Israel\u0026rsquo;s farming sector, particularly in the kibbutzim and moshavim of the south.\nOn October 7, 2023, he became one of the many victims of Hamas terrorism. His body was taken into Gaza, where it remained for over two years before being recovered.\nMay his memory be a blessing.\nSources: The Jerusalem Post, Associated Press\n","date":"4 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/12/sudthisak-rinthalak-thai-hostage-identified/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel has confirmed the identification of Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker who was murdered during the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. His remains were returned from Gaza on December 3, 2025, more than two years after the massacre.\n","title":"Thai Hostage Sudthisak Rinthalak Identified After Return From Gaza","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taipei-101/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taipei-101","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taiwan has reaffirmed its unwavering support for Israel, reminding the world of its solidarity that began from the earliest moments of the conflict. The Taiwan in Israel office shared a powerful image from October 2023, when Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the nation\u0026rsquo;s tallest building, Taipei 101, was illuminated with a message of support for Israel.\nA Beacon of Solidarity # The iconic Taipei 101 skyscraper, one of the world\u0026rsquo;s tallest buildings, conveyed a steadfast message during the difficult days following October 2023. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted at the time: \u0026ldquo;Tonight, the illumination of our nation\u0026rsquo;s tallest building conveyed a steadfast message: We uphold peace. Taiwan stands resolute, united in solidarity with Israel.\u0026rdquo;\nThis public display of support was significant, as Taiwan is one of the few nations in Asia that has consistently shown solidarity with Israel during challenging times.\nShared Values and Challenges # Taiwan and Israel share certain geopolitical parallels - both are democracies facing larger, sometimes hostile neighbors. This shared experience has fostered a sense of mutual understanding and support between the two nations.\nThe relationship between Taiwan and Israel extends beyond symbolic gestures to include academic partnerships, technology collaboration, and cultural exchanges. The scholarship program at the Peres Academic Center and the recent opening of Israeli restaurants in Taipei are examples of this deepening relationship.\nIsraeli commenters on social media have responded warmly to Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s consistent support, with many expressing gratitude and recognizing Taiwan as a true friend during difficult times.\nSource: Taiwan in Israel Facebook\n","date":"25 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/taiwan-stands-with-israel-taipei-101/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan has reaffirmed its unwavering support for Israel, reminding the world of its solidarity that began from the earliest moments of the conflict. The Taiwan in Israel office shared a powerful image from October 2023, when Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the nation’s tallest building, Taipei 101, was illuminated with a message of support for Israel.\n","title":"Taiwan Stands with Israel Since the Very Beginning","type":"posts"},{"content":"A significant culinary connection between Israel and Taiwan has been established with the opening of Miznon restaurant in Taipei. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Representative to Israel, Ms. Ya-Ping (Avi) Lee, recently met with internationally renowned Israeli chef and culinary icon Eyal Shani for dinner in Tel Aviv to mark this milestone.\nMiznon Expands to Taiwan # Eyal Shani has built an impressive global presence with his Miznon restaurant chain, and Taipei now joins the list of cities hosting this Israeli culinary concept. The new location brings Israeli street food culture to one of Asia\u0026rsquo;s most vibrant food scenes.\nTaipei is known for being an open, welcoming city that embraces diverse cultures. It is also considered one of the friendliest and safest cities in the world for Jews and Israelis, making it a natural choice for Israeli culinary expansion.\nA Creative Culinary Scene # Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s capital boasts a creative and lively culinary scene, which aligns well with Shani\u0026rsquo;s innovative approach to food. Miznon, famous for its pita-based dishes and signature roasted cauliflower, brings a distinctive Israeli flavor to Taipei\u0026rsquo;s diverse restaurant landscape.\nThe Taiwan in Israel office congratulated Shani on the new opening, wishing him great success and welcoming Miznon to Taipei with the traditional Chinese phrase for enjoying a meal.\nThis expansion represents another thread in the growing ties between Israel and Taiwan, extending beyond diplomacy and trade into the realm of food culture and gastronomy.\nSource: Taiwan in Israel Facebook\n","date":"23 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/miznon-opens-in-taipei-eyal-shani/","section":"Posts","summary":"A significant culinary connection between Israel and Taiwan has been established with the opening of Miznon restaurant in Taipei. Taiwan’s Representative to Israel, Ms. Ya-Ping (Avi) Lee, recently met with internationally renowned Israeli chef and culinary icon Eyal Shani for dinner in Tel Aviv to mark this milestone.\n","title":"Chef Eyal Shani Opens Miznon Restaurant in Taipei","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"23 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/eyal-shani/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Eyal-Shani","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/miznon/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Miznon","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/peres-academic-center/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Peres-Academic-Center","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taiwan has once again demonstrated its commitment to Israel through a meaningful act of solidarity. At a ceremony held at the Peres Academic Center, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Representative to Israel, Ms. Ya-Ping (Avi) Lee, presented scholarships to twelve Israeli students who were displaced from their homes after their cities were struck by Iranian missiles during the 12-day war.\nSupporting War Victims Through Education # The scholarship recipients came from Bat Yam, Rehovot, Be\u0026rsquo;er Sheva, Holon, and Ramat Gan. Despite facing significant personal and national challenges, all of them continue their academic studies and work toward building their futures.\nThe ceremony was part of the \u0026ldquo;Together in Academia - For Those Affected by Operation Iron Swords\u0026rdquo; program. This comprehensive initiative provides displaced students with a full three-year academic track, along with an extensive support system that includes:\nTuition funding Psychological counseling Social assistance Professional mentoring Additional scholarships The program aims not only to help students continue their education but also to support their recovery, strengthen their resilience, and enable them to rebuild their lives.\nTaiwan-Israel Friendship in Action # Senior representatives from the Peres Academic Center, faculty members, and the students\u0026rsquo; families attended the ceremony. Participants emphasized the friendship and mutual commitment between Taiwan and Israel, particularly during challenging times.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s approach to international solidarity focuses on practical action rather than mere words. This scholarship initiative represents the continuation of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s consistent support for Israel since the beginning of the conflict.\nAs stated by Taiwan in Israel: \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is proud to stand alongside Israel, and as always, to do so through action.\u0026rdquo;\nSource: Taiwan in Israel Facebook\n","date":"21 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/taiwan-scholarships-peres-academic-center/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan has once again demonstrated its commitment to Israel through a meaningful act of solidarity. At a ceremony held at the Peres Academic Center, Taiwan’s Representative to Israel, Ms. Ya-Ping (Avi) Lee, presented scholarships to twelve Israeli students who were displaced from their homes after their cities were struck by Iranian missiles during the 12-day war.\n","title":"Taiwan Awards Scholarships to Israeli Students Displaced by Missile Attacks","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/iai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Iai","type":"tags"},{"content":"India and Israel are deepening their defense cooperation, with New Delhi seeking to manufacture advanced Israeli missile systems on Indian soil as part of the Make in India initiative.\nNew Defense Agreements # Ministry of Defense director general Gen. (res.) Amir Baram recently signed a memorandum of understanding with his Indian counterpart Rajesh Kumar Singh to strengthen bilateral defense collaboration. India remains Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest defense customer, accounting for approximately 34% of all Israeli defense exports between 2020 and 2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.\nMissiles Under Discussion # A delegation from the Indian Ministry of Defense has visited Israel to negotiate agreements for procuring and manufacturing two key missile systems:\nAir Lora Ballistic Missiles (Israel Aerospace Industries)\nRange: 400 kilometers Weight: 1,600 kilograms Features: Supersonic speed, satellite navigation with anti-jamming protection, \u0026ldquo;fire and forget\u0026rdquo; capability Accuracy: Within 10 meters of target Purpose: Attacking missile sites, military bases, and air defense systems Ice Breaker Cruise Missiles (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)\nRange: Approximately 300 kilometers Targets: Land and sea Features: All-weather capability, electronic warfare resistance, AI-powered infrared navigation and target acquisition Strategic Context # India\u0026rsquo;s interest in the Air Lora stems from the success of Israeli Rampage missiles during recent skirmishes with Pakistan. While the Rampage\u0026rsquo;s 250-kilometer range has proven effective, India seeks greater standoff distance to protect combat aircraft from Pakistani air defense systems. The Air Lora\u0026rsquo;s extended range would allow Indian Sukhoi 30 and MiG 29 aircraft to strike targets without entering enemy air defense envelopes.\nIAI\u0026rsquo;s Presence in India # Israel Aerospace Industries has established significant operations in India, including its subsidiary Aerospace Services India (ASI), launched last year. ASI employs 50 workers, 97% of whom are Indian citizens, with headquarters in Delhi and manufacturing facilities across the country. The company was established through cooperation between IAI and India\u0026rsquo;s Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to develop and support installations for India\u0026rsquo;s armed forces.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"9 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/india-israel-missile-production-talks/","section":"Posts","summary":"India and Israel are deepening their defense cooperation, with New Delhi seeking to manufacture advanced Israeli missile systems on Indian soil as part of the Make in India initiative.\nNew Defense Agreements # Ministry of Defense director general Gen. (res.) Amir Baram recently signed a memorandum of understanding with his Indian counterpart Rajesh Kumar Singh to strengthen bilateral defense collaboration. India remains Israel’s largest defense customer, accounting for approximately 34% of all Israeli defense exports between 2020 and 2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.\n","title":"India in Talks to Produce Israeli Missiles Domestically","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/drones/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Drones","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Philippines government has announced it will stop placing new orders from Israeli defense companies, but the country\u0026rsquo;s deep reliance on Israeli military systems makes a complete break nearly impossible.\nBackground of the Ban # Manila declared its intention to halt new Israeli defense procurements following domestic political pressure and tensions over Israel\u0026rsquo;s refusal to recognize Philippine territorial claims in the South China Sea. However, the extensive integration of Israeli defense systems throughout the Philippine armed forces has created significant dependencies that cannot be easily severed.\nContinued Israeli Presence # According to MaxDefense Philippines, Elbit Systems continues to provide training and support for the Philippines\u0026rsquo; comprehensive drone and UAV program, along with its subcontractors. The services span multiple tiers of unmanned aerial vehicles:\nTier 1: Short-range UAVs including Thor and Skylark 1 models Tier 2: Medium-sized Skylark 3 drones Tier 3: Medium-altitude, long-endurance UAVs, specifically the Hermes 450 Creative Workarounds # Manila has found ways to work around its own restrictions on Israeli procurements. One method involves purchasing from Elbit subsidiaries rather than directly from the parent company.\nLast month, the Philippines purchased sonar systems from Geospectrum, a company fully owned by Elbit Systems. While the deal is relatively small at $41 million, it signals that Manila is not implementing an absolute boycott on new Israeli defense acquisitions.\nRegional Context # This development highlights the complex position many Asian nations find themselves in regarding Israeli defense products. Despite political pressures, the operational capabilities and established support infrastructure of Israeli systems often make them difficult to replace with alternatives from other suppliers.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"6 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/philippines-israel-arms-ban-struggles/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Philippines government has announced it will stop placing new orders from Israeli defense companies, but the country’s deep reliance on Israeli military systems makes a complete break nearly impossible.\n","title":"Philippines Struggles to Implement Israel Arms Ban","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"5 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hermes-900/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hermes-900","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Singapore Air Force has announced its decision to procure Elbit Systems\u0026rsquo; Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicles, replacing its aging fleet of Hermes 450 drones that have served for two decades.\nSelection Process # According to the Singapore Air Force announcement, the Hermes 900 was chosen following comprehensive evaluations: \u0026ldquo;Through robust and thorough evaluations, the H900 UAV was assessed to best meet the Singapore Air Force\u0026rsquo;s operational needs.\u0026rdquo;\nThe announcement noted that Singapore joins a growing list of countries operating this advanced system for both military and civilian applications.\nHermes 900 Capabilities # The Hermes 900 is a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle with impressive specifications:\nRange: Over 1,000 kilometers Mission types: Regional surveillance, continuous intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, target acquisition, and observation Operating environments: Both land and maritime arenas The platform is designed to perform a wide range of missions, making it versatile for Singapore\u0026rsquo;s defense requirements in the strategically important Southeast Asian region.\n20-Year Partnership # This procurement extends a defense relationship between Singapore and Elbit Systems spanning two decades. The original Hermes 450 fleet has provided reliable service since its acquisition, and the upgrade to the more capable Hermes 900 demonstrates Singapore\u0026rsquo;s continued confidence in Israeli UAV technology.\nElbit\u0026rsquo;s Global Position # Elbit Systems ranks among the world\u0026rsquo;s leading UAV manufacturers, positioned fifth globally according to Defense Post. Since the Hermes 900\u0026rsquo;s market introduction in 2011, more than 20 customers worldwide have selected the platform.\nThis deal follows Elbit\u0026rsquo;s announcement six weeks earlier of a $120 million contract to supply Hermes 900 systems for maritime patrol missions to another international customer.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"5 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/elbit-singapore-hermes-900-deal/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Singapore Air Force has announced its decision to procure Elbit Systems’ Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicles, replacing its aging fleet of Hermes 450 drones that have served for two decades.\n","title":"Singapore Chooses Elbit's Hermes 900 Drone for Air Force","type":"posts"},{"content":"Air India has announced it will resume regular scheduled flights between Tel Aviv and Delhi starting January 1, 2026, marking a significant return after more than two years of minimal service to Israel.\nFlight Details # The carrier will operate five weekly flights on the Tel Aviv-Delhi route:\nDays: Sunday through Thursday Flight duration: Approximately 5.5 hours This schedule provides nearly daily connectivity between the two countries, offering convenient options for both business and leisure travelers.\nImportance for Israelis and Indian Community # The resumption represents a significant development for travelers seeking connections to destinations across Asia. Air India\u0026rsquo;s route network provides Israelis with access to numerous cities throughout India and beyond, while also serving the Indian community in Israel with direct links to home.\nCautious Approach Since 2023 # Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, Air India has maintained a cautious approach to Israel operations. The airline has only operated occasional and brief service resumptions, avoiding flights unless there were extended periods of relative calm in the region.\nThe most recent service resumption occurred in March 2024, but flights were suspended again in May after a Houthi missile landed within Ben Gurion Airport grounds.\nLooking Ahead # The January 2026 restart suggests Air India is confident in improved security conditions for sustained operations. The return of a major foreign carrier to the Tel Aviv route is a positive signal for Israel\u0026rsquo;s aviation sector, which has seen reduced international connectivity during the conflict period.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/air-india-resumes-israel-flights/","section":"Posts","summary":"Air India has announced it will resume regular scheduled flights between Tel Aviv and Delhi starting January 1, 2026, marking a significant return after more than two years of minimal service to Israel.\n","title":"Air India to Resume Israel Flights in January 2026","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/air-india/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Air-India","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/aviation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Aviation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/delhi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Delhi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/flights/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Flights","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/air-force/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Air-Force","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/boeing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Boeing","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is on the verge of securing a significant defense contract worth $905.7 million to convert six passenger aircraft into aerial refueling tankers for the Indian Air Force. According to Indian press reports, IAI stands as the sole bidder in the tender, making the deal nearly certain.\nThe Conversion Project # Under the proposed contract, IAI will transform six used Boeing 767 aircraft into modern refueling tankers. A key requirement stipulates that 30% of services and parts must be sourced from India, aligning with the country\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Make in India\u0026rdquo; defense initiative.\nThis conversion project addresses a pressing need for India\u0026rsquo;s military. The Indian Air Force currently relies on six aging Russian-made Ilyushin IL-78 tanker aircraft from the 1980s, which have become increasingly difficult to maintain and service.\nSuperior Capabilities # The converted Boeing 767s will offer substantial improvements over the existing Ilyushin fleet:\nSpecification Ilyushin IL-78 Boeing 767 (Converted) Crew Required 6 3 Payload 100 tonnes 67.1 tonnes Fuel Transfer Rate 2,000 liters/min 4,000 liters/min Maximum Speed 852 km/h 926 km/h Range 7,223 km 12,200 km While the Boeing 767 carries less fuel, its doubled transfer rate and significantly extended range make it far more effective for supporting long-range air operations.\nIAI\u0026rsquo;s Conversion Expertise # IAI has established itself as a global leader in aircraft conversions, primarily for civilian applications. In September 2025, the company announced the successful conversion of a Boeing 777 from passenger service to cargo configuration.\nAircraft typically become unsuitable for passenger transport after approximately fifteen years of service. However, conversion to cargo or specialized military use can extend their operational life by another fifty years. The economics are compelling—conversion costs run about 20% less than purchasing new purpose-built aircraft.\nStrengthening Defense Ties # This potential contract comes amid deepening India-Israel defense cooperation. Just days before this announcement, the two nations signed a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding during the 17th annual meeting of the Joint Working Group in Tel Aviv.\nThe MoU establishes frameworks for collaboration across strategic dialogues, training, defense industrial initiatives, AI, and cybersecurity. India has been the largest importer of Israeli weapons from 2020-2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.\nOther recent defense deals include India\u0026rsquo;s approval of a $3.76 billion package for MR-SAM missile systems and a $3.3 billion joint venture producing 425,000 assault rifles.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"4 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/iai-indian-air-force-tanker-contract/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is on the verge of securing a significant defense contract worth $905.7 million to convert six passenger aircraft into aerial refueling tankers for the Indian Air Force. According to Indian press reports, IAI stands as the sole bidder in the tender, making the deal nearly certain.\n","title":"IAI Expected to Win $906 Million Indian Air Force Tanker Contract","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"2 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/arkia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Arkia","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israeli airlines El Al and Arkia are examining the possibility of resuming direct flights to India, a route that has been dormant since Air India suspended its Israel operations with no announced return date before early 2026.\nThe Oman Factor # The viability of direct Israel-India flights depends entirely on one key decision: whether Oman will allow Israeli aircraft to traverse its airspace. Permission would dramatically change the economics of the route, shortening flight times from nine hours to just seven.\nThe current lengthy route makes direct flights to India less profitable, pushing many passengers toward cheaper connecting flights via the UAE. Oman first allowed Israeli aircraft through its airspace in February 2023, significantly reducing flight times to Asia, lowering fuel costs, and enabling Israeli airlines to compete with foreign carriers. However, this overflight permission was withdrawn when the Gaza war broke out in October 2023.\nWith the Gaza ceasefire now in place, the possibility of Oman reopening its airspace has returned to the table.\nArkia\u0026rsquo;s Push for India Routes # Arkia announced it is in talks to renew direct Israel-India service. In a meeting between Arkia CEO Oz Berlowitz and Indian Ambassador to Israel J.P. Singh and commercial attaché Shri Garika Tejeswar, the airlines discussed technical aspects of operating routes to destinations including Mumbai, Delhi, Goa, and Bangalore.\nThe shorter route over Oman would make it possible to use narrow-bodied aircraft such as the Airbus A321neo LR currently in Arkia\u0026rsquo;s fleet. These aircraft are unsuitable for the longer nine-hour route, making operations without Omani overflight permission economically unviable.\nHistorical Context # During the Covid pandemic, Israeli airlines ceased flying to Asia. El Al diverted planes from routes to Beijing, Mumbai, and Hong Kong to other destinations, while Arkia halted flights to Cochin and Goa. In February 2023, Arkia opened a route to Colombo but closed it after three months due to unprofitability.\nIndia remains a popular destination for Israeli travelers, creating significant demand for direct service.\nBroader Implications for Asian Routes # If Omani airspace opens to Israeli aircraft, the impact will extend beyond India. Flight times to Thailand would be shortened by approximately two hours, and to Vietnam by about one hour.\nThese shorter routes would enable airlines to operate more efficiently by diverting aircraft to other destinations or increasing frequency on existing routes. Earlier arrival times would free up aircraft and crews sooner than currently planned, allowing more efficient use of existing fleets and reducing operating costs.\nThe decision rests with Oman, where Israeli airlines await word on whether the diplomatic thaw following the Gaza ceasefire will translate into practical aviation benefits.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"2 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/11/israel-india-direct-flights/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israeli airlines El Al and Arkia are examining the possibility of resuming direct flights to India, a route that has been dormant since Air India suspended its Israel operations with no announced return date before early 2026.\n","title":"Israel-India Direct Flights Hinge on Oman Airspace Decision","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"2 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/oman/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Oman","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/gaza/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Gaza","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/indonesia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Indonesia","type":"tags"},{"content":"Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto surprised diplomats at the United Nations General Assembly in September when he concluded his address with a single Hebrew word: \u0026ldquo;Shalom.\u0026rdquo; For the leader of the world\u0026rsquo;s largest Muslim-majority country, which has no formal relations with Israel, the gesture signaled a potential shift in Jakarta\u0026rsquo;s approach.\nSubianto\u0026rsquo;s Surprising UN Speech # Before ending with \u0026ldquo;peace\u0026rdquo; in Hebrew, Subianto spoke sympathetically about Israel, stating that the world must \u0026ldquo;recognize,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;respect\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;guarantee the safety and security of Israel.\u0026rdquo; He offered to send 20,000 peacekeepers to Gaza and said Indonesia would \u0026ldquo;immediately\u0026rdquo; recognize Israel once it recognizes a Palestinian state.\nThree weeks later, during US President Donald Trump\u0026rsquo;s visit to Israel to mark implementation of his Gaza peace plan, Israeli media reported that Subianto would make a landmark visit to Jerusalem. The Indonesian president has earned repeated public praise from Trump for his enthusiasm in advancing the Gaza plan.\nHowever, Indonesia\u0026rsquo;s Foreign Ministry quickly issued clear denials of any such trip, affirming their longstanding support for Palestinians in Gaza. Sources indicated that Subianto had approved the visit but backed out once plans leaked to the press, fearing domestic backlash.\nConstitutional Constraints # The resistance to normalization runs deep in Indonesian society. When Indonesia declared independence from the Dutch Empire in 1945, it enshrined opposition to colonialism as a core constitutional principle. Many Indonesians view Israel as occupying Palestinian land and denying Palestinians statehood.\n\u0026ldquo;Whenever someone deviates from the official stance on ties with Israel, that deviation is seen as a deviation from the constitution itself,\u0026rdquo; explained Giora Eliraz, a research fellow at Hebrew University\u0026rsquo;s Harry S. Truman Institute. For Indonesia\u0026rsquo;s Muslim majority, the motivation extends beyond politics. \u0026ldquo;The Palestinian people are seen as part of the collective Muslim identity. Anyone who diverges from that line is seen as deviating not just politically, but on a faith-based level.\u0026rdquo;\nHistorical Precedent # Indonesia\u0026rsquo;s ideological rigidity has not entirely precluded engagement with Israel. During President Suharto\u0026rsquo;s authoritarian rule from the late 1960s to the 1990s, Jakarta quietly opened unofficial military and intelligence cooperation with Jerusalem, including arms deals, intelligence sharing, and training Indonesian officers in Israel.\nIn 1993, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met with Suharto in Jakarta, marking the first and so far only official visit of an Israeli leader to the country. Subianto, who served as a general under Suharto and was once his son-in-law, has continued this pragmatic tradition while remaining bound by Indonesian policy linking diplomatic relations to Israel\u0026rsquo;s stance toward Palestinians.\nStrategic Motivations # Beyond ideological considerations, Indonesia has practical motivations to engage with Israel. Jakarta wants to raise its international standing and take a more visible role on the global stage. The war in Gaza has brought Indonesia further regional attention, with communication channels reportedly opened between Israel and Indonesia to discuss potential resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza.\n\u0026ldquo;Our president\u0026rsquo;s position on Israel is clear, but we still give room for rational choice,\u0026rdquo; said Yon Machmudi, head of the Department of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Indonesia. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not only about solidarity. We want to see the Middle East become stable and prosperous, as this will create economic opportunities.\u0026rdquo;\nIndonesia\u0026rsquo;s Jewish Community # For Indonesia\u0026rsquo;s tiny Jewish community, estimated at around 100 people, any warming of ties holds religious promise. Rabbi Yaakov Baruch, who has worked to revitalize Jewish life in Jakarta since the early 2000s, notes that anti-Israel sentiment increased after October 7, 2023. \u0026ldquo;Members of the Muslim community became very aggressive toward me and stopped speaking to me and my Jewish friends,\u0026rdquo; he said, though adding that \u0026ldquo;it hasn\u0026rsquo;t reached a dangerous level yet.\u0026rdquo;\nAny improvement in relations would significantly help daily Jewish life, Baruch said, making it easier to prepare materials for worship like matzah, kosher wine, and traditional holiday items.\nThe Road Ahead # The path to normalization depends heavily on how Trump\u0026rsquo;s Gaza plan progresses. \u0026ldquo;The ceasefire has put normalization back on track,\u0026rdquo; said Daniel J. Samet of the American Enterprise Institute. \u0026ldquo;Quiet in Gaza gives Jakarta the political cover it needs to recognize Israel and expand ties. But if the ceasefire collapses, he will be hard-pressed to follow through.\u0026rdquo;\nOthers remain skeptical that calm alone would suffice, noting that even Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state might not be enough without concrete implementation of a two-state solution.\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"30 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/10/indonesia-israel-relations/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto surprised diplomats at the United Nations General Assembly in September when he concluded his address with a single Hebrew word: “Shalom.” For the leader of the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, which has no formal relations with Israel, the gesture signaled a potential shift in Jakarta’s approach.\n","title":"Indonesia Eyes Ties with Israel Despite Domestic Resistance","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"30 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/muslim-world/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Muslim-World","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/normalization/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Normalization","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/trump-peace-plan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Trump-Peace-Plan","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/adani/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Adani","type":"tags"},{"content":"A joint venture between Israel Weapons Industries (IWI) and India\u0026rsquo;s Adani Group has secured a major contract to supply assault rifles to the Indian Army, marking another milestone in Israel-India defense cooperation.\nThe Deal # PLR Systems, the joint venture between IWI (controlled by Samy Katsav through SK Group) and Adani Corporation (which also owns Haifa Port), will deliver 425,000 CQB carbine assault rifles to the Indian Army. The contract is part of a larger $3.3 billion procurement deal that also includes rifles from Bharat Forge.\nThe Israeli-Indian joint venture will receive approximately 40% of the deal value, amounting to roughly $1.32 billion. Bharat Forge will handle the remaining 60%. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in September 2026 and conclude by 2028.\nMake in India Program # The contract falls under India\u0026rsquo;s Make in India initiative, which requires products to be designed and manufactured domestically with at least 50% local content (or 60% if not designed locally). According to Dr. Lauren Dagan Amos, a researcher on India\u0026rsquo;s foreign and security policy at Bar-Ilan University, the deal represents \u0026ldquo;a clear expression of the self-reliance policy in security\u0026rdquo; led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u0026rsquo;s government.\nIsrael-India Defense Relations # India has become Israel\u0026rsquo;s primary defense export destination. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), approximately 34% of Israeli defense exports between 2020 and 2024 were sold to India. Multiple Israeli defense companies, including Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, operate production facilities in India.\nThe relationship extends beyond rifles. Reports indicate India is interested in procuring additional Israeli weapons systems, including IAI\u0026rsquo;s LORA missiles. This interest has grown following increased tensions with Pakistan, particularly after May skirmishes where Rampage air-to-ground missiles (jointly produced by Elbit\u0026rsquo;s IMI unit, IAI\u0026rsquo;s MLM plant, and Tomer) struck Pakistani air force bases.\nWhy LORA Missiles # The LORA missile system offers significant advantages over the Rampage missiles currently in India\u0026rsquo;s arsenal. While Rampage has a range of 150-250 kilometers, LORA can reach targets at 400 kilometers, allowing Indian fighter jets to strike without risking exposure to Chinese-made Pakistani defense systems.\nDeveloped at IAI\u0026rsquo;s MLM plant, the LORA missile weighs approximately 1,600 kilograms, flies at supersonic speed, and uses satellite navigation protected from jamming. Its \u0026ldquo;launch and forget\u0026rdquo; capability means no in-flight guidance is required, and its strike accuracy of approximately ten meters makes it highly effective against precision targets like missile sites, military bases, and air defense systems.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/10/israel-india-rifle-deal/","section":"Posts","summary":"A joint venture between Israel Weapons Industries (IWI) and India’s Adani Group has secured a major contract to supply assault rifles to the Indian Army, marking another milestone in Israel-India defense cooperation.\n","title":"Israeli-Indian Joint Venture Wins Major Indian Army Rifle Contract","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/iwi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Iwi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/weapons/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Weapons","type":"tags"},{"content":"While international attention focuses on the US, Qatar, and Turkey in discussions about Gaza\u0026rsquo;s future, China has quietly positioned itself to benefit from the estimated $70 billion reconstruction effort through strategic tender wins and local partnerships.\nEarly Tender Success # China\u0026rsquo;s involvement began with a United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) tender in April for mobile homes. A Chinese company, Heike from Qingdao, won with a bid 50-60% lower than the second-place competitor. The tender required mobile homes equipped with living room, bedroom, and bathroom facilities.\nMore recently, the UN Development Agency (UNDP) held a tender for 45,000 mobile homes, attracting bids from companies across Italy, UK, Somalia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. The bid range was substantial: from Palestinian company Retaj\u0026rsquo;s $152 million to US company FTR\u0026rsquo;s $507 million.\nChinese Companies Dominate Results # Results announced this week revealed that of the 12 lowest bids, nine came from Palestinian companies (seven being the cheapest), two from Egyptian companies, and one from Chinese company Shandong Weichang. However, sources familiar with the tender composition indicate that \u0026ldquo;each of these companies, whether Palestinian or Egyptian, uses Chinese goods.\u0026rdquo;\nHow China Competes on Price # Chinese companies achieve dramatically lower prices through extensive government subsidies:\n100% logistics subsidy: Beijing covers all export logistics costs through 2027 40% goods subsidy: The government subsidizes 40% of exported goods costs 15% tariff incentive: Additional payment covering approximately 15% of tariffs at destination countries Full coverage of raw materials transport and processing machinery costs Workforce grants: Additional support for labor in the field The Chinese labor model for Gaza involves shipping component parts to Egypt for final assembly.\nThe Sinai Connection # Chinese goods reach Gaza through El-Arish in Egypt, facilitated by influential local figures. One key player is Ibrahim Al Organi, a Bedouin entrepreneur known as \u0026ldquo;The King of the Rafah Border Crossing.\u0026rdquo; Al Organi\u0026rsquo;s construction company Abnaa Sinai won a UN Development Agency tender and maintains close ties with Egyptian intelligence through Mahmoud el-Sisi, the Egyptian president\u0026rsquo;s son.\nAccording to the Financial Times, those wanting to bring goods into Gaza for years were required to work with Al Organi\u0026rsquo;s companies. The company was entrusted with upgrading Rafah border crossing facilities when Egypt controlled the area.\nBroader China-Egypt Cooperation # This economic maneuvering reflects deeper China-Egypt ties. China accounts for 30-40% of foreign investment in Egypt, and the two countries conduct joint military exercises. During the Gaza conflict, Chinese shipping giant Cosco was the only major company to comply with Houthi demands to avoid Israeli ports, while China continued purchasing over 90% of Iran\u0026rsquo;s oil exports despite US pressure.\nThe reconstruction dynamics illustrate how Israel faces losing both revenue and oversight from Gaza reconstruction while China captures economic benefits through multiple channels.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/10/china-gaza-reconstruction/","section":"Posts","summary":"While international attention focuses on the US, Qatar, and Turkey in discussions about Gaza’s future, China has quietly positioned itself to benefit from the estimated $70 billion reconstruction effort through strategic tender wins and local partnerships.\n","title":"China Positions Itself for Major Role in Gaza Reconstruction","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/egypt/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Egypt","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"23 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/reconstruction/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Reconstruction","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 September 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/disinformation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Disinformation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 September 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hasbara/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hasbara","type":"tags"},{"content":"Since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza, Israel has faced a two-front war: a physical battle on the ground and a relentless information war designed to erode its legitimacy on the global stage. As a recent opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post argued, traditional methods of correcting misinformation are no longer sufficient in a digital ecosystem saturated with anti-Israel narratives.\nTo find a more effective playbook, Israel can look to Taiwan, a nation that has become a global leader in combating sophisticated, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, primarily from China.\nThe Taiwanese Model: A Multi-Layered Defense # Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s approach is not merely reactive; it is a comprehensive, whole-of-society strategy. Facing millions of documented disinformation incidents annually, Taiwan has built a resilient defense system that integrates government, civil society, and the private sector.\n1. Institutional and Academic Collaboration: Taiwan has fostered a robust research infrastructure, with institutions like National Chengchi University and Academia Sinica analyzing disinformation tactics. The government established a dedicated Cognitive Warfare Research Centre to formally investigate and counter these influence operations.\n2. A Thriving Civil Society: Rather than centralizing all efforts within the government, Taiwan empowers a vibrant network of independent fact-checking organizations like the Taiwan FactCheck Center, MyGoPen, and Cofacts. These civic groups are crucial for identifying falsehoods quickly and maintaining public trust.\n3. Technological Innovation: Leveraging its tech-savvy population, Taiwan has developed advanced AI-driven tools to detect and flag disinformation. Organizations like Taiwan AI Labs are at the forefront of creating technology that can identify coordinated inauthentic behavior and deepfakes at scale.\n4. Public Education and Media Literacy: A core pillar of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s strategy is proactive public education. By investing in media literacy programs, the government aims to equip its citizens with the critical thinking skills needed to identify and resist manipulative content, thereby building long-term societal resilience.\nActionable Lessons for Israel # While the context is different, Israel can adapt key elements of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s successful model to bolster its own information defense.\nDecentralize the Fight: Israel should move beyond a state-centric hasbara model and empower a diverse ecosystem of actors. This includes funding independent fact-checkers, supporting academic research on information warfare, and partnering with tech startups in the \u0026ldquo;Silicon Wadi\u0026rdquo; to develop new defensive technologies. Invest in Resilience: A long-term strategy requires investing in media literacy from a young age. By integrating digital citizenship and critical thinking into the national curriculum, Israel can cultivate a more discerning public that is less susceptible to manipulation. Build International Coalitions: Disinformation is a global threat. Israel should actively build coalitions with other democracies, including Taiwan, to share intelligence on tactics, co-develop countermeasures, and present a united front against authoritarian influence operations. Demand Platform Accountability: Following Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s lead, Israel must establish a clear regulatory framework that requires social media platforms to take responsibility for the content they host. This includes greater transparency and cooperation in tackling bot networks and state-sponsored propaganda. The information battlefield is one where victory is not achieved through defensive corrections alone. By adopting a proactive and multi-layered strategy inspired by Taiwan, Israel can move from a reactive posture to one of strategic initiative, safeguarding its digital sovereignty and reclaiming the narrative.\n","date":"3 September 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/09/israel-learns-from-taiwan-disinformation-strategy/","section":"Posts","summary":"Since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza, Israel has faced a two-front war: a physical battle on the ground and a relentless information war designed to erode its legitimacy on the global stage. As a recent opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post argued, traditional methods of correcting misinformation are no longer sufficient in a digital ecosystem saturated with anti-Israel narratives.\n","title":"What Israel Can Learn From Taiwan's War on Disinformation","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"31 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cuisine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cuisine","type":"tags"},{"content":"Jurong East TLV brings authentic Singaporean cuisine to Tel Aviv, named as an homage to the vibrant Jurong East district in Singapore. The restaurant introduces Israeli diners to the rich blend of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Peranakan flavors that define Singaporean food \u0026ndash; from chili crab and laksa to Hainanese chicken rice and satay.\nWith Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s adventurous food scene as a backdrop, Jurong East TLV serves as a culinary bridge between Southeast Asia and the Middle East, offering both a taste of home for Singaporeans in Israel and a new discovery for local food lovers.\nRead our full review\n","date":"31 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/jurong-east-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Jurong East TLV brings authentic Singaporean cuisine to Tel Aviv, named as an homage to the vibrant Jurong East district in Singapore. The restaurant introduces Israeli diners to the rich blend of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Peranakan flavors that define Singaporean food – from chili crab and laksa to Hainanese chicken rice and satay.\n","title":"Jurong East TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":"A fascinating culinary bridge emerges in the bustling streets of Tel Aviv with the establishment of Jurong East TLV, a restaurant set to introduce the rich and diverse flavors of Singaporean cuisine to Israeli diners. Named perhaps as an homage to the vibrant Jurong East district in Singapore, this eatery signifies an exciting cross-cultural exchange, bringing the unique tastes of Southeast Asia to the Middle East.\nSingaporean cuisine is renowned for its incredible blend of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Peranakan influences, resulting in a tapestry of flavors that are complex, aromatic, and deeply satisfying. From the fiery kick of chili crab to the comforting warmth of laksa, the savory notes of Hainanese chicken rice, and the delicate crispness of satay, the culinary landscape of Singapore offers an adventurous journey for the palate. The presence of a restaurant like Jurong East TLV in Tel Aviv suggests a growing appetite for authentic international flavors in Israel\u0026rsquo;s dynamic food scene.\nTel Aviv, known globally for its innovative culinary traditions and diverse gastronomic offerings, provides a fertile ground for new and exciting concepts. The city\u0026rsquo;s diners are often open to exploring new tastes and experiences, making it an ideal location for a Singaporean restaurant to thrive. Jurong East TLV\u0026rsquo;s arrival could pave the way for a deeper appreciation of Singapore\u0026rsquo;s culinary heritage, offering a taste of home for Singaporeans in Israel and a delightful discovery for locals.\nWhile specific menu details and the exact culinary focus of Jurong East TLV would need direct confirmation, one can anticipate a curated selection of Singaporean staples designed to introduce diners to the breadth of the cuisine. This could range from popular street food dishes, often found in Singapore\u0026rsquo;s famed hawker centers, to more refined Nyonya or Peranakan dishes that highlight the intricate blend of Chinese and Malay traditions.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s name itself, \u0026ldquo;Jurong East TLV,\u0026rdquo; evokes a sense of specific origin paired with its destination, highlighting the direct connection it aims to forge between Singaporean authenticity and the vibrant spirit of Tel Aviv. Such establishments not only serve food but also act as cultural ambassadors, fostering greater understanding and appreciation between distant nations through the universal language of food. The journey of Singaporean cuisine to Tel Aviv marks another exciting chapter in the global culinary narrative, promising a unique fusion of East and Middle East on a plate.\n","date":"31 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/jurong-east-tlv-singaporean-restaurant/","section":"Posts","summary":"A fascinating culinary bridge emerges in the bustling streets of Tel Aviv with the establishment of Jurong East TLV, a restaurant set to introduce the rich and diverse flavors of Singaporean cuisine to Israeli diners. Named perhaps as an homage to the vibrant Jurong East district in Singapore, this eatery signifies an exciting cross-cultural exchange, bringing the unique tastes of Southeast Asia to the Middle East.\n","title":"Jurong East TLV: Bringing Singaporean Flavors to the Heart of Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"31 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/singaporean/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Singaporean","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/southeast-asian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Southeast-Asian","type":"tags"},{"content":"In the bustling heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market, a unique story of cultural adaptation and business growth unfolds. What began as a single, modest shop catering specifically to the culinary needs of Thai and Filipino migrant workers has blossomed into East \u0026amp; West, Israel\u0026rsquo;s leading chain of stores dedicated to Asian food and cookware.\nOrigins and Early Days # East \u0026amp; West\u0026rsquo;s journey commenced with a clear mission: to provide a taste of home for migrant workers from Thailand and the Philippines who found themselves in Israel. These early customers were seeking familiar ingredients and products that would allow them to recreate the flavors of their native cuisines. The store\u0026rsquo;s initial location in the vibrant Carmel Market served as the perfect starting point, nestled within a community that valued diverse culinary experiences.\nEvolution and Expansion # Over the years, East \u0026amp; West has undergone a remarkable transformation. While maintaining its commitment to authentic Asian products, the chain has expanded its reach to major cities across Israel. This growth reflects not just business success, but a broader cultural shift – Israelis themselves have developed a growing appreciation for Asian cuisine.\nThe stores now serve a diverse clientele that includes:\nIsraelis who have discovered the joy and convenience of Asian cooking Travelers who have experienced Asian flavors abroad and wish to recreate them at home Cooking enthusiasts eager to experiment with new culinary styles Home cooks who find Asian cooking to be simple, fast, and more economical than dining out This evolution has created a unique space for cultural exchange, where Israelis and Asian communities can meet, share recipes, and exchange cooking tips.\nProduct Range # East \u0026amp; West offers a comprehensive selection of products essential for Asian cooking:\nAsian Ingredients: From soy sauces and curry pastes to rice, noodles, tofu, and exotic spices Cooking Essentials: Coconut milk, seaweed snacks, sushi products, and gluten-free options Cookware: Authentic Asian kitchenware and utensils Beverages: Both soft drinks and alcoholic beverages from various Asian countries Ready-to-Cook Items: Pre-packaged products that make authentic Asian dishes accessible to everyone The chain\u0026rsquo;s commitment to affordability ensures that anyone interested in exploring Asian cuisine can do so without breaking the bank.\nLocations # From its humble beginnings in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market, East \u0026amp; West has grown to become a nationwide presence, with stores in Israel\u0026rsquo;s major cities. This expansion has made it easier than ever for Israelis to access authentic Asian ingredients and cooking supplies.\nEast \u0026amp; West represents more than just a grocery store chain – it\u0026rsquo;s a bridge between cultures, a testament to how food can bring communities together, and a reflection of Israel\u0026rsquo;s increasingly diverse culinary landscape. For those interested in exploring Asian flavors or supporting businesses that celebrate cultural diversity, East \u0026amp; West offers a welcoming and well-stocked gateway.\nSource: East and West - Asian Stores\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/east-and-west-asian-grocery/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the bustling heart of Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market, a unique story of cultural adaptation and business growth unfolds. What began as a single, modest shop catering specifically to the culinary needs of Thai and Filipino migrant workers has blossomed into East \u0026 West, Israel’s leading chain of stores dedicated to Asian food and cookware.\n","title":"East \u0026 West - The Asian Grocery That Bridged Cultures in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"East \u0026amp; West is Israel\u0026rsquo;s leading chain of Asian grocery stores, offering a comprehensive selection of ingredients, cookware, and beverages from across Asia. What began as a small shop in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market serving Thai and Filipino migrant workers has grown into a nationwide chain with locations in major cities across the country.\nThe stores carry everything needed for Asian cooking \u0026ndash; soy sauces, curry pastes, rice, noodles, tofu, coconut milk, exotic spices, and much more \u0026ndash; at affordable prices. East \u0026amp; West serves a diverse clientele of Asian communities and Israeli food enthusiasts alike.\nRead our full review\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/east-and-west/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"East \u0026 West is Israel’s leading chain of Asian grocery stores, offering a comprehensive selection of ingredients, cookware, and beverages from across Asia. What began as a small shop in Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market serving Thai and Filipino migrant workers has grown into a nationwide chain with locations in major cities across the country.\n","title":"East \u0026 West Asian Grocery","type":"directory"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/nationwide/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Nationwide","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%9C/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"אוכל","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A2%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%9D/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"עסקים","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"פיליפינים","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%90%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%99%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קולינריה אסייתית","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%AA%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%93/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"תאילנד","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%AA%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%91/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"תל אביב","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bara-worldwide/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bara-Worldwide","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/content-creator/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Content-Creator","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/digital-media/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Digital-Media","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/entrepreneur/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Entrepreneur","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/house-of-judah/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"House-of-Judah","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/judaism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Judaism","type":"tags"},{"content":"Meorah Ha-Me\u0026rsquo;ir (하 수혜) is a remarkable example of how diverse backgrounds can enrich the Jewish community. As a Korean-American-Israeli religious entrepreneur and creative director, she has dedicated her career to making Judaism more accessible through digital media and creative projects.\nProfessional Background # In 2019, Meorah was serving as CEO and Creative Director of a Boston-based agency, but despite her professional success and access to major brands and opportunities, she found herself spiritually depleted and burned out. This pivotal moment led her to leave the corporate world entirely, immersing herself instead in Jewish life and learning about emunah (faith).\nFollowing this spiritual transformation, she redefined herself as a \u0026ldquo;Jewish Creative\u0026rdquo; and launched personal projects aligned with her mission to engage and support the Jewish world. She founded BARA Worldwide, a non-profit organization whose primary goal is to break down cultural barriers around Torah-observant Judaism.\nCreative Ventures and Content Creation # Meorah is also the founder of House of Judah™, a Jewish streetwear brand that reflects her unique position as a Korean-American Jew. Her approach to Jewish engagement centers on bridging mainstream culture with traditional Jewish lifestyles.\nShe maintains a YouTube channel with over 3,000 subscribers, where she creates vlogs discussing Torah, Jewish law (halachic matters), and her daily experiences as an observant Jew. Her content is characterized by remarkable candor and authenticity - she openly shares her mistakes and learning experiences, from struggling to assemble a schach (sukkah covering) to admitting when she breaks halachic law. This honest, non-judgmental approach makes her content particularly relatable and accessible.\nCurrent Focus # Now living in Israel, Meorah continues her work as a religious entrepreneur and creative director. Rather than proselytizing, her mission focuses on creating digital content that educates young Jews - both observant and secular - by meeting them where they already spend their time: in digital spaces. She actively seeks partnerships with organizations that share her vision of making Jewish learning and practice more accessible to contemporary audiences.\nHer journey from corporate burnout to spiritual fulfillment in Israel represents a unique path of Jewish identity exploration and community building that bridges Eastern and Western cultures.\nLearn more about Meorah\u0026rsquo;s work at hameorah.com and watch her YouTube content to see how she\u0026rsquo;s making Judaism more accessible in the digital age.\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/meorah-ha-meir/","section":"Posts","summary":"Meorah Ha-Me’ir (하 수혜) is a remarkable example of how diverse backgrounds can enrich the Jewish community. As a Korean-American-Israeli religious entrepreneur and creative director, she has dedicated her career to making Judaism more accessible through digital media and creative projects.\n","title":"Meorah Ha-Me'ir: Korean-American Religious Entrepreneur Bridging Cultures in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/religious/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Religious","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%93%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"דתית","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%94%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"יהדות","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%94%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"יהודית","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%9F/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"יוצרת תוכן","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%96%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"יזומה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%93%D7%99%D7%92%D7%99%D7%98%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"מדיה דיגיטלית","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A2%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"עליה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קוריאנית","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EA%B8%B0%EC%97%85%EA%B0%80/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"기업가","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EB%94%94%EC%A7%80%ED%84%B8-%EB%AF%B8%EB%94%94%EC%96%B4/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"디지털-미디어","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EC%95%8C%EB%A6%AC%EC%95%BC/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"알리야","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EC%9C%A0%EB%8C%80%EA%B5%90/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"유대교","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EC%9C%A0%EB%8C%80%EC%9D%B8/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"유대인","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EC%A2%85%EA%B5%90%EC%A0%81/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"종교적","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%EC%BD%98%ED%85%90%EC%B8%A0-%ED%81%AC%EB%A6%AC%EC%97%90%EC%9D%B4%ED%84%B0/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"콘텐츠-크리에이터","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ko/tags/%ED%95%9C%EA%B5%AD%EC%9D%B8/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"한국인","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bao/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bao","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chef-yi-ching-lee/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chef Yi Ching Lee","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/popup/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Popup","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/taiwanese-food/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Taiwanese Food","type":"tags"},{"content":" Wei Teamim: A Taste of Taiwan in Israel # \u0026ldquo;Wei Teamim\u0026rdquo; (טעמים), which translates to \u0026ldquo;Wei\u0026rsquo;s Flavors,\u0026rdquo; is a unique culinary initiative based in Israel, focusing on bringing authentic, handmade Taiwanese flavors to a discerning audience. Led by the talented chef Yi Ching Lee, Wei Teamim operates as a series of pop-up dinners and private culinary experiences, offering a rare and intimate glimpse into the rich gastronomic heritage of Taiwan.\nConcept and Offerings # Wei Teamim distinguishes itself by organizing exclusive pop-up dinners and collaborative food events across Israel, often partnering with local venues such as Tea Wei in Tel Aviv. These events are designed to be more than just a meal; they are an immersive journey into the comforting and soulful tastes of Taiwan. Guests can expect a rotating menu that features signature dishes like handcrafted Taiwanese bao (steamed buns) and lu wei (braised starters), all prepared with meticulous attention to traditional techniques and authentic ingredients.\nThe Culinary Style of Chef Yi Ching Lee # Chef Yi Ching Lee is at the heart of Wei Teamim, driven by a passion for sharing her native cuisine. Her culinary approach emphasizes handmade preparations and traditional Taiwanese recipes, ensuring that each dish embodies the true essence of Taiwanese home cooking. The limited-time nature of these events and their focus on communal dining fosters a warm and inviting atmosphere, making each experience memorable.\nHow to Join the Experience # Due to their popularity and exclusive nature, Wei Teamim events frequently sell out. For those eager to experience these unique Taiwanese flavors, participation is typically managed through direct messages (DM) on Instagram. Chef Yi Ching Lee regularly posts upcoming dates, event details, and sneak peeks of the menu on the official Instagram account: @wei.teamim. Following their page is the best way to stay updated on future pop-ups and secure a spot at one of these highly sought-after culinary gatherings.\nWei Teamim stands out in the Israeli culinary scene for its unwavering dedication to authentic, handmade Taiwanese food and its commitment to creating a warm, community-oriented dining atmosphere for food enthusiasts seeking genuine Asian flavors.\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/wei-teamim-taiwanese-popup/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wei Teamim: A Taste of Taiwan in Israel # “Wei Teamim” (טעמים), which translates to “Wei’s Flavors,” is a unique culinary initiative based in Israel, focusing on bringing authentic, handmade Taiwanese flavors to a discerning audience. Led by the talented chef Yi Ching Lee, Wei Teamim operates as a series of pop-up dinners and private culinary experiences, offering a rare and intimate glimpse into the rich gastronomic heritage of Taiwan.\n","title":"Wei Teamim: Authentic Taiwanese Soul Food Pop-Up in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/art/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Art","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/artist/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Artist","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/multidisciplinary/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Multidisciplinary","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/performance-art/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Performance Art","type":"tags"},{"content":"Chihiro Tazuro, born in Japan in 1989, is a multidisciplinary artist currently making significant contributions to the vibrant art scene in Tel Aviv, Israel. Her work uniquely blends her Japanese heritage with a profound engagement with various artistic forms, creating a captivating and diverse portfolio.\nTazuro\u0026rsquo;s artistic journey began with a strong foundation in physical expression, having studied rhythmic gymnastics and contemporary dance during her formative years. This background in movement and choreography laid the groundwork for her later explorations into performance art and other dynamic mediums. Her academic pursuits led her to further refine her skills in dance in the Netherlands before expanding her artistic scope at The School of Visual Theater in Jerusalem, where she delved into performance, plastic arts, video, and music, among others.\nAs a truly multidisciplinary artist, Tazuro\u0026rsquo;s creative output spans an impressive array of mediums including video art, animation, music, performance, painting, photography, and installation work. She also identifies as a singer, dancer, and actress, showcasing an extraordinary range and versatility in her creative expression. This fluid approach allows her pieces to dictate their most appropriate medium, often blurring the lines between traditional art forms.\nBeyond her individual practice, Tazuro has actively engaged with the local and international art communities. Her past work includes performing for \u0026ldquo;Hazira\u0026rdquo; theater in Jerusalem and co-founding the music band \u0026ldquo;Koi Fish,\u0026rdquo; which has toured various festivals across Israel. Her exhibitions, such as \u0026ldquo;Next To Me\u0026rdquo; at Uriel 23 art gallery in Tel Aviv, have demonstrated her broad areas of interest and innovative use of different media. Her short animation film \u0026ldquo;A Tasty Fish\u0026rdquo; received the Wacom prize at Creative Hack Award 2020 in Tokyo, further attesting to her diverse talents.\nChihiro Tazuro\u0026rsquo;s presence in Tel Aviv enriches the city\u0026rsquo;s cultural landscape, as she continues to explore the intersection of diverse artistic practices and cultural narratives. Her journey exemplifies how art can transcend boundaries, conveying profound connections and allowing materials to express themselves in uncategorized forms.\nSource: Chihiro Tazuro Official Website\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/chihiro-tazuro-artist-profile/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chihiro Tazuro, born in Japan in 1989, is a multidisciplinary artist currently making significant contributions to the vibrant art scene in Tel Aviv, Israel. Her work uniquely blends her Japanese heritage with a profound engagement with various artistic forms, creating a captivating and diverse portfolio.\n","title":"Spotlight: Chihiro Tazuro, A Multidisciplinary Artist Bridging Cultures in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/baking/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Baking","type":"tags"},{"content":"Haowa Pastries is a Taiwanese home bakery based in Israel, run by a talented baker who blends traditional Asian flavors with Israeli inspiration. Operating via Instagram and personal orders rather than a physical storefront, the bakery has gained a following for creative treats like Asian-inspired Hamantaschen with black tea custard, matcha, and black sesame fillings.\nMore than just pastries, Haowa Pastries fosters cross-cultural connections within the Asian community in Israel through the universal language of food.\nRead our full review\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/haowa-pastries/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Haowa Pastries is a Taiwanese home bakery based in Israel, run by a talented baker who blends traditional Asian flavors with Israeli inspiration. Operating via Instagram and personal orders rather than a physical storefront, the bakery has gained a following for creative treats like Asian-inspired Hamantaschen with black tea custard, matcha, and black sesame fillings.\n","title":"Haowa Pastries","type":"directory"},{"content":"In the heart of Israel, a delightful culinary journey is unfolding through the unique creations of a talented Taiwanese home baker. Known simply as \u0026ldquo;haowa pastries\u0026rdquo; on Instagram, this passion project celebrates the art of baking, blending traditional Asian flavors with a touch of personal flair and Israeli inspiration.\nUnlike a formal business, the creator of haowa pastries shares their delectable treats with friends and collaborates with other Asian individuals and communities in Israel, spreading joy and fostering cross-cultural connections through the universal language of food. The name \u0026ldquo;haowa pastries\u0026rdquo; itself appears to be a unique and charming label, embodying the baker\u0026rsquo;s personal touch rather than referring to a traditionally known Taiwanese pastry. This individuality highlights the creative freedom and personal expression poured into each batch of pastries.\nA standout example of this innovative spirit is the recent creation of Asian-inspired Hamantaschen, a nod to the traditional Jewish Purim pastry, reimagined with distinct Asian flavors. Imagine the delicate balance of black tea and milk tea custard, or the earthy notes of matcha combined with rich black sesame filling, all encased in a beautifully crafted pastry.\nView this post on Instagram This initiative not only brings unique and exciting flavors to the Israeli culinary scene but also serves as a testament to the vibrant and diverse Asian community thriving within the country. It\u0026rsquo;s a reminder that food can be a powerful bridge between cultures, creating new traditions and shared experiences.\nKeep an eye on the haowa pastries Instagram account to follow this sweet journey and discover more of these delightful, culturally infused creations.\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/haowa-pastries-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the heart of Israel, a delightful culinary journey is unfolding through the unique creations of a talented Taiwanese home baker. Known simply as “haowa pastries” on Instagram, this passion project celebrates the art of baking, blending traditional Asian flavors with a touch of personal flair and Israeli inspiration.\n","title":"Haowa Pastries: A Taste of Taiwan in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/home-bakery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Home-Bakery","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pastries/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pastries","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pastry/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pastry","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/culinary/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Culinary","type":"tags"},{"content":" Want to discover the secrets of Japan? Join a captivating virtual journey! # \u0026ldquo;Japan with Sho\u0026rdquo; invites you to a series of experiential and captivating online meetings that will take you on a deep dive into the intricacies of Japanese culture, language, unique cuisine, rich history, and essential tourist information about Japan. This is a rare opportunity to learn interactively and enjoyably, directly from the comfort of your home.\nThe workshops will be led by Sho Igawa, a Japanese expert born and raised in Japan. Sho holds a master\u0026rsquo;s degree and a teaching certificate, and brings with him extensive knowledge and experience in planning trips and sharing the true secrets of Japan. He will share his insights with you, help you understand cultural nuances, and connect with Japan in a way you haven\u0026rsquo;t experienced before.\nWhat will we learn in the workshop? # Practical Language: We will learn useful everyday phrases and key sentences for daily communication, which will help you navigate and better understand the locals and the culture. Discovering Hidden and Famous Places: We will uncover the fascinating stories behind Japan\u0026rsquo;s most famous places, as well as its lesser-known ones, providing you with a deep perspective on their history and beauty. Culinary Experience: We will get acquainted with the rich and diverse Japanese cuisine, and receive recommendations for authentic restaurants you simply must not miss on your next visit to Japan. Workshop Details: # The series includes 4 sessions held on Tuesdays, once a week, during September, on the ZOOM platform. Special price for participation in the entire workshop: only 320 Shekels.\nTo join and for more details: Contact Sho at phone: 058-717-7208. Hurry to register! Limited spots available.\nSource: Image from the original \u0026ldquo;Japan with Sho\u0026rdquo; flyer.\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/japan-with-sho-online-workshops/","section":"Posts","summary":"Want to discover the secrets of Japan? Join a captivating virtual journey! # “Japan with Sho” invites you to a series of experiential and captivating online meetings that will take you on a deep dive into the intricacies of Japanese culture, language, unique cuisine, rich history, and essential tourist information about Japan. This is a rare opportunity to learn interactively and enjoyably, directly from the comfort of your home.\n","title":"Japan with Sho: Online Workshops for Japanese Culture","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"אומנות","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%94%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"היסטוריה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%9F/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"יפן","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"מסעות","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A1%D7%93%D7%A0%D7%90%D7%95%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"סדנאות","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קולינריה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"שפה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"תרבות","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"アート","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%83%E3%83%97/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"ワークショップ","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"文化","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E6%96%99%E7%90%86/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"料理","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E6%97%85%E8%A1%8C/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"旅行","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"日本","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E6%AD%B4%E5%8F%B2/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"歴史","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/%E8%A8%80%E8%AA%9E/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"言語","type":"tags"},{"content":"Otoro is a kosher hand-roll sushi bar in Ramat Gan, bringing an authentic and modern Japanese dining experience to Israel. Each hand roll is crafted from just three components \u0026ndash; premium raw fish, perfectly seasoned sushi rice, and crisp seaweed \u0026ndash; prepared and meant to be eaten by hand.\nThe ambiance blends Japanese quietness with New York chic, and the menu offers both a la carte options and hand-roll flights. Recognized as one of the first kosher hand-roll bars of its kind in Israel.\nAddress: HaChilazon 1, Ramat Gan\nRead our full review\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/otoro-ramat-gan/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Otoro is a kosher hand-roll sushi bar in Ramat Gan, bringing an authentic and modern Japanese dining experience to Israel. Each hand roll is crafted from just three components – premium raw fish, perfectly seasoned sushi rice, and crisp seaweed – prepared and meant to be eaten by hand.\n","title":"Otoro","type":"directory"},{"content":"Otoro, a kosher hand-roll sushi bar located at HaChilazon 1 in Ramat Gan, brings an authentic and modern Japanese dining experience to Israel. The restaurant distinguishes itself with a minimalist approach, focusing on high-quality, fresh ingredients to craft traditional hand-roll sushi.\nThe Concept # The core of Otoro\u0026rsquo;s philosophy is simplicity and authenticity. Each hand roll is made with just three key components: premium raw fish, perfectly seasoned sushi rice, and crisp seaweed. The rolls are prepared by hand and are meant to be eaten with your hands, offering an interactive and genuine experience that sets it apart from typical sushi establishments.\nThe ambiance combines \u0026ldquo;Japanese quietness with New York chic,\u0026rdquo; creating a unique and accessible atmosphere where fresh food is prepared at the moment of ordering.\nMenu and Experience # Otoro offers both à la carte options and \u0026ldquo;hand-roll flights,\u0026rdquo; allowing diners to sample a variety of flavors. The focus on affordability makes this high-quality sushi experience accessible to a wide audience.\nOperating Hours:\nSunday - Thursday: 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM (walk-in) and 6:00 PM - 11:30 PM Saturday: 6:30 PM - 11:30 PM Friday: Closed Otoro is recognized as one of the first kosher hand-roll bars of its kind, offering a unique culinary concept in Israel\u0026rsquo;s vibrant food scene.\nThis article was written based on publicly available information.\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/otoro-ramat-gan/","section":"Posts","summary":"Otoro, a kosher hand-roll sushi bar located at HaChilazon 1 in Ramat Gan, brings an authentic and modern Japanese dining experience to Israel. The restaurant distinguishes itself with a minimalist approach, focusing on high-quality, fresh ingredients to craft traditional hand-roll sushi.\n","title":"Otoro: Authentic Hand-Roll Sushi in Ramat Gan","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is the About page in Japanese.\n","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/about/","section":"在イスラエルアジア人 - コミュニティ、求人、イベント","summary":"This is the About page in Japanese.\n","title":"About","type":"page"},{"content":"This is the Contact page in Japanese.\n","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/contact/","section":"在イスラエルアジア人 - コミュニティ、求人、イベント","summary":"This is the Contact page in Japanese.\n","title":"Contact","type":"page"},{"content":"This is the Guidelines page in Japanese.\n","date":"August 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/guidelines/","section":"在イスラエルアジア人 - コミュニティ、求人、イベント","summary":"This is the Guidelines page in Japanese.\n","title":"Guidelines","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asians-in-israel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asians-in-Israel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/community-website/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Community-Website","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/launch/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Launch","type":"tags"},{"content":" Welcome to Our Beautiful New Community Hub! 🎉 # We\u0026rsquo;re thrilled to announce the launch of our completely redesigned Asians in Israel community website! After months of planning and development, we\u0026rsquo;ve created a modern, user-friendly platform that better serves our vibrant and diverse community.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s New? ✨ # Modern Design # Our new website features a clean, modern design that\u0026rsquo;s easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile devices. The fresh color scheme reflects both our Asian heritage and our life in Israel.\nBetter Organization # Content is now organized into clear categories:\n📰 News: Community updates and important announcements 🎉 Events: Upcoming meetups, cultural celebrations, and networking events 💼 Jobs: Career opportunities and professional networking 🏢 Business: Directory of Asian-owned businesses and entrepreneurial stories Enhanced Features # Responsive Design: Looks great on phones, tablets, and computers Easy Navigation: Find what you\u0026rsquo;re looking for quickly Social Sharing: Share articles with friends and family Search Functionality: Search through all our content Mobile-Friendly: Optimized for reading on the go How to Get Involved 🤝 # Share Your Story # We want to hear from you! Share your experiences as an Asian living in Israel:\nHow did you end up in Israel? What challenges have you faced and overcome? What advice would you give to newcomers? What do you love most about living here? Promote Your Business # Are you an entrepreneur or business owner? List your business in our directory and share your story with the community. We love highlighting Asian-owned businesses across Israel.\nPost Job Opportunities # Help fellow community members find great career opportunities. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re hiring or know of open positions, share them with the community.\nOrganize Events # Planning a cultural celebration, professional meetup, or social gathering? Let us know and we\u0026rsquo;ll help you spread the word.\nCommunity Guidelines 📋 # To keep our community welcoming and valuable for everyone, please review our Community Guidelines. We\u0026rsquo;re committed to maintaining a respectful, supportive environment where all members can thrive.\nTechnical Details 🛠️ # For those interested, our new website is built with:\nHugo: A fast, flexible static site generator Blowfish Theme: A modern, responsive Hugo theme Tailwind CSS: Modern, responsive styling Mobile-First Design: Optimized for all devices Fast Loading: Optimized for speed and performance What\u0026rsquo;s Coming Next? 🔮 # We have exciting plans for the future:\nMember Directory: Connect with other community members Event Calendar: Better event planning and RSVP system Resource Library: Guides for living and working in Israel Language Exchange: Connect with people learning Asian languages or Hebrew Thank You! 🙏 # A huge thank you to everyone who provided feedback during the design process. Your input has been invaluable in creating a website that truly serves our community\u0026rsquo;s needs.\nSpecial thanks to our volunteer development team who worked tirelessly to bring this vision to life.\nGet Connected 📱 # Don\u0026rsquo;t forget to follow us on our social channels:\nWhatsApp: Join our community group for daily discussions Facebook: Follow our page for event updates Telegram: Get quick news and announcements Start Exploring! 🚀 # Take some time to explore the new website. Check out the different categories, read some articles, and don\u0026rsquo;t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or suggestions.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re excited about this new chapter for our community and can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see how you\u0026rsquo;ll use this platform to connect, share, and grow together.\nWelcome to your new digital home! 🏠💙\nHave feedback about the new website? We\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you! Contact us at info@asiansinisrael.com\n","date":"27 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/welcome-new-community-site/","section":"Posts","summary":"Welcome to Our Beautiful New Community Hub! 🎉 # We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our completely redesigned Asians in Israel community website! After months of planning and development, we’ve created a modern, user-friendly platform that better serves our vibrant and diverse community.\n","title":"Welcome to Our New Community Website!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gurkha Kitchen is a hidden gem in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Neve Shaanan neighborhood, offering authentic Indian and Nepali cuisine at very affordable prices. The menu features a rich blend of curries, tandoori dishes, breads, and noodles, with generous portions and both meat and vegetarian options. Highlights include the Chicken Tikka, Butter Chicken, and quality Tandoori Chicken.\nKnown as \u0026ldquo;Neve Shaanan\u0026rsquo;s open secret,\u0026rdquo; the restaurant delivers delicious, mildly spiced food that feels genuinely authentic. Cash only; delivery available via Wolt.\nAddress: Rosh Pina 16, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"26 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/gurkha-kitchen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Gurkha Kitchen is a hidden gem in Tel Aviv’s Neve Shaanan neighborhood, offering authentic Indian and Nepali cuisine at very affordable prices. The menu features a rich blend of curries, tandoori dishes, breads, and noodles, with generous portions and both meat and vegetarian options. Highlights include the Chicken Tikka, Butter Chicken, and quality Tandoori Chicken.\n","title":"Gurkha Kitchen","type":"directory"},{"content":"Gurkha Kitchen is a unique restaurant located in the heart of Neve Shaanan, Tel Aviv, offering an authentic blend of traditional Indian and Nepali cuisine. The restaurant is situated at 16 Rosh Pina Street and is a culinary gem in the vibrant and diverse neighborhood of Neve Shaanan.\nLocation and Atmosphere # The restaurant is nestled deep within Neve Shaanan, an area described as \u0026ldquo;the most challenging neighborhood in the city.\u0026rdquo; Despite its challenging location, the place is recognized as \u0026ldquo;Neve Shaanan\u0026rsquo;s open secret\u0026rdquo; and is described as a place that \u0026ldquo;is still worth it on many levels.\u0026rdquo; The restaurant is somewhat hidden in the neighborhood but successfully attracts food lovers looking for an authentic culinary experience.\nCuisine and Menu # Unique Culinary Blend: The restaurant specializes in a fusion of Indian and Nepali cuisine, creating a diverse and rich menu. The menu includes several main categories: breads, soups, salads, fried dishes, rice, and noodle dishes.\nMeat Selection: Dishes are primarily based on chicken and lamb, with the restaurant offering impressive portions of dishes like Chicken Tikka and quality Tandoori Chicken. It\u0026rsquo;s worth noting that sometimes there might be shortages of certain dishes, such as lamb kebabs.\nVegetarian Options: The restaurant offers \u0026ldquo;quite a few vegetarian dishes,\u0026rdquo; making it a suitable place for vegetarians as well.\nSpice Level and Flavors # The restaurant specializes in mild and balanced flavors: \u0026ldquo;most of the dishes we ate were spicy rather than hot.\u0026rdquo; The spiciness, when present, is described as \u0026ldquo;subtle.\u0026rdquo; For example, the Butter Chicken dish was served \u0026ldquo;in a tomato sauce with butter and spices\u0026rdquo; with a \u0026ldquo;rich, creamy, and velvety sauce,\u0026rdquo; where \u0026ldquo;even the slight heat was only hinted at.\u0026rdquo;\nPortion Sizes and Prices # The restaurant offers generous portion sizes – \u0026ldquo;the stew was packed in a half-liter container,\u0026rdquo; indicating significant volumes for other dishes like Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Korma. Prices are described as \u0026ldquo;very moderate,\u0026rdquo; with examples like Pakora priced at 25 ILS.\nService and Payment Methods # Payment Restrictions: It\u0026rsquo;s important to note that the restaurant accepts cash only, which should be considered when planning a visit.\nOrdering Options: The restaurant offers delivery service through the Wolt platform, and can be contacted via phone at 053-8851222. You can also dine in or take away.\nReviews and Recommendations # Reviews for the restaurant are very positive. TimeOut is enthusiastic about the place, stating that this \u0026ldquo;will not be the first time and certainly not the last time we are enthusiastic about this restaurant.\u0026rdquo; Another review concludes: \u0026ldquo;The experience at Gurkha was very good\u0026rdquo; and emphasizes that \u0026ldquo;no dish was missed.\u0026rdquo;\nThe restaurant is described as a place that successfully provides \u0026ldquo;delicious food at a very moderate price,\u0026rdquo; and is an answer to the Israeli search for \u0026ldquo;Indian food that truly feels like it\u0026rsquo;s from there.\u0026rdquo;\nConclusion # Gurkha Kitchen represents a unique culinary success in Neve Shaanan, successfully combining authenticity with affordable prices. The restaurant offers a high-quality culinary experience for those seeking true Indian and Nepali flavors in Tel Aviv, while maintaining quality, generous portions, and good service.\n","date":"26 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/gurkha-kitchen-tel-aviv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gurkha Kitchen is a unique restaurant located in the heart of Neve Shaanan, Tel Aviv, offering an authentic blend of traditional Indian and Nepali cuisine. The restaurant is situated at 16 Rosh Pina Street and is a culinary gem in the vibrant and diverse neighborhood of Neve Shaanan.\n","title":"Gurkha Kitchen: A Taste of India and Nepal in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/binyamin/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Binyamin","type":"tags"},{"content":"In a landmark move, Taiwan has become the first foreign nation to officially donate funds for the development of an Israeli settlement, providing a significant contribution to a new medical center being built in the Binyamin region of the West Bank.\nThe donation was formalized during a visit by Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative to Israel, Ya-Ping (Abby) Lee, who met with Binyamin Regional Council head and Yesha Council chairman Israel Gantz. Accompanied by MK Ohad Tal (Religious Zionism), Lee toured the construction site of the \u0026ldquo;Nanshi\u0026rdquo; Medical Center in the Sha\u0026rsquo;ar Binyamin industrial zone and laid a cornerstone for one of its units.\nThis visit marked the first time a Taiwanese diplomat has officially visited a Jewish community in Judea and Samaria.\nDuring the visit, the parties signed a joint declaration affirming their commitment to continued friendly relations. The historic partnership, they stated, reflects a shared dedication to the life-saving mission of the medical center, which will serve tens of thousands of residents in the area.\nCouncil head Israel Gantz hailed the event as a sign of growing international recognition for the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. \u0026ldquo;This contribution is immensely important and expands the international recognition of the settlement enterprise,\u0026rdquo; he stated.\nMK Ohad Tal added, \u0026ldquo;Especially in these times\u0026hellip;we continue to connect our friends in the world to Judea and Samaria.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Taiwanese representative emphasized the humanitarian aspect of the donation. \u0026ldquo;Medical cooperation has been a key area in Taiwan-Israel relations for decades,\u0026rdquo; said Lee. \u0026ldquo;We are pleased to extend this cooperation to the regional level\u0026hellip; to save lives and ensure the right to health regardless of origin, age, or gender.\u0026rdquo;\nThe visit is part of a broader diplomatic effort by the Binyamin Council\u0026rsquo;s foreign relations desk, which has recently included meetings with Argentinian President Javier Milei and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.\nSource\n","date":"26 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/taiwan-funds-settlement-medical-center/","section":"Posts","summary":"In a landmark move, Taiwan has become the first foreign nation to officially donate funds for the development of an Israeli settlement, providing a significant contribution to a new medical center being built in the Binyamin region of the West Bank.\n","title":"For the First Time, a Foreign Country Donates to Israeli Settlement Health Services: Taiwan Funds New Binyamin Medical Center","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/foreignrelations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Foreignrelations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/settlements/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Settlements","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/explosion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Explosion","type":"tags"},{"content":"根據《以色列時報》的報導，爆炸事故發生在伊朗一個關鍵港口，死亡人數已增加到至少28人，超過1000人受傷。據一名與伊朗伊斯蘭革命衛隊（IRGC）有聯繫的人士報告，爆炸發生在中國運來的化學物質送達途中，該化學物質用於製造導彈燃料。\n這起事件引發了關於伊朗導彈生產活動和其從海外獲取材料的重大問題。\n請點擊《以色列時報》獲取更多細節。\n","date":"August 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/2025/08/iran-port-explosion/","section":"Posts","summary":"根據《以色列時報》的報導，爆炸事故發生在伊朗一個關鍵港口，死亡人數已增加到至少28人，超過1000人受傷。據一名與伊朗伊斯蘭革命衛隊（IRGC）有聯繫的人士報告，爆炸發生在中國運來的化學物質送達途中，該化學物質用於製造導彈燃料。\n","title":"事件显示，伊朗港口发生的爆炸是由于中国提供的导弹燃料组件引起的。","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"21 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/aerospace/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Aerospace","type":"tags"},{"content":"Japan is currently evaluating options for a substantial drone procurement, with both Israel and Turkey emerging as key contenders. The procurement is part of a 1 trillion Yen ($6.3 billion) budget allocated by Japan for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) acquisition.\nIsrael Aerospace Industries (IAI) is offering its Heron Mark II UAV, a sophisticated drone that has been under consideration by Japan for some time. However, recent reports indicate that Turkey is also a strong competitor, presenting its Kargu suicide drone (loitering munition) and other models. Turkish drones are reportedly technologically comparable to their Israeli counterparts but come at a lower cost, making them an attractive option for Japan. Spain and Australia are also in the running with their own drone offerings.\nDespite its growing defense budget, which increased by 21% in 2024 to approximately $55.3 billion, Japan\u0026rsquo;s defense spending remains relatively low compared to other major global players. The country aims to increase its defense budget by only 2% by 2027, a modest target compared to NATO\u0026rsquo;s recently raised defense budget goal of 5% of GDP.\nFor 2025, Japan has earmarked $261 million for the purchase of US MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones for maritime reconnaissance. Additionally, $20 million is allocated for smaller attack drones, intended to enhance security on the islands in the southwest of the country. Japan\u0026rsquo;s primary security concerns, shared by many nations in the Asia-Pacific region, are China and North Korea.\nThis competition highlights the evolving landscape of global defense procurement, where technological prowess and cost-effectiveness play crucial roles in securing international contracts.\nSource: Israel and Turkey vie for Japanese drone order\n","date":"21 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/israel-turkey-japanese-drone-order/","section":"Posts","summary":"Japan is currently evaluating options for a substantial drone procurement, with both Israel and Turkey emerging as key contenders. The procurement is part of a 1 trillion Yen ($6.3 billion) budget allocated by Japan for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) acquisition.\n","title":"Israel and Turkey Vie for Japanese Drone Order","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"21 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/turkey/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Turkey","type":"tags"},{"content":" Chinese Propaganda Against Japan and Israel # Source: Mida\nIn recent decades, Chinese media and political systems have employed a variety of propaganda tools, some covert and some more overt, targeting various countries in East Asia and the Middle East. Two prominent countries often subjected to accusations or negative narratives are Japan and Israel – each for its unique reasons.\nThe Historical Context with Japan # Relations between China and Japan are historically charged, dating back to World War II. The collective memory in China focuses on difficult events like the \u0026ldquo;Nanjing Massacre,\u0026rdquo; and the state repeatedly uses them as part of the national narrative. The education system, cinema, and television programs in China emphasize the suffering caused, thereby building a public prone to distrust and suspicion towards Japan even in the modern era. Additionally, the current struggle for regional influence in economics, technology, and maritime security further reinforces the Chinese leadership\u0026rsquo;s need to shape an image of a \u0026ldquo;continuous historical enemy.\u0026rdquo;\nIsrael in the Chinese Context # Israel occupies a different and more complex place in the Chinese propaganda apparatus. On one hand, China and Israel maintain extensive economic ties in technology, agriculture, and health. On the other hand, in internal discourse managed on state-controlled social media and in academic or political discussions, Israel is sometimes presented as responsible for tensions in the Middle East, especially in the Palestinian context. Various propaganda tools use imagery and narratives that portray Israel as closely linked to the United States, China\u0026rsquo;s geo-strategic rival.\nSimilarities and Differences Between the Two Cases # In the case of Japan, the emphasis is placed on historical wounds and the national sentiments of the Chinese themselves. In contrast, the Israeli case involves more of an external narrative related to China\u0026rsquo;s global standing and its attempts to present itself as a \u0026ldquo;just\u0026rdquo; global power protecting the oppressed.\nImpact on Public Opinion # This propaganda has a real impact on public attitudes. Internal surveys indicate that a significant portion of young people in China are primarily exposed to local media sources, and therefore are almost exclusively exposed to anti-Japanese or anti-Israeli perspectives. This shapes a public image that hinders cooperation, even when clear economic interests exist on both sides.\nConclusion # The approach of Chinese media and the state towards Japan and Israel demonstrates how modern propaganda is not merely focused on history or current political events, but serves as a tool in the global geo-political arena. For Israel, understanding these narratives is especially important in order to consider how to continue developing economic ties with China, while simultaneously identifying the diplomatic challenges involved.\n","date":"21 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/chinese-propaganda-japan-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chinese Propaganda Against Japan and Israel # Source: Mida\nIn recent decades, Chinese media and political systems have employed a variety of propaganda tools, some covert and some more overt, targeting various countries in East Asia and the Middle East. Two prominent countries often subjected to accusations or negative narratives are Japan and Israel – each for its unique reasons.\n","title":"Chinese Propaganda Against Japan and Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"20 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/airfares/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Airfares","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/airlines/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Airlines","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/competition/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Competition","type":"tags"},{"content":"Flight options from Israel to Southeast Asia are picking up again after a long period of uncertainty, route cancellations and a sharp reduction in connection options. Last week, Arkia launched new direct routes: a weekly flight to Vietnamese capital Hanoi, and three weekly flights to Bangkok, a route that until now was operated exclusively by El Al.\nAt the same time, UAE carriers flyDubai and Etihad are increasing the frequency of convenient connections to the East. The result: more choices and lower fares, even during the peak season to southeast Asia in the winter months.\nRound-trip tickets to Bangkok in January can already be purchased for less than $1,000, a price that was difficult to obtain six months before the flight date during the same period last year. El Al offers round-trip tickets starting at $889, and Arkia starting at $998. To Hanoi, a route on which Arkia is the exclusive operator, return fares start at $1,398.\nCompetition from the UAE\nUAE airlines are strengthening their hold on the Israel to Southeast Asia market. flyDubai and Etihad offer convenient connections to destinations in the East, and the former has even increased the frequency of its flights until the end of the summer season in Israel. These are two airlines that have demonstrated deep loyalty to the Israeli market throughout the war, canceling flights only in exceptional situations and hastening to restore them immediately after the security situation calms.\nThe UAE airlines have two advantages: the fare, which is usually more attractive; and the time, since their ability to fly over Oman shortens the flight duration. In terms of fares, round-trip flights to Bangkok with Emirates in combination with flyDubai in January start at $860, and with Etihad from $833. On the route to Hanoi, the starting price via Emirates in combination with flyDubai is $1,233. In most cases, the longer the waiting time on the connection, the lower the ticket price.\nSince the outbreak of the war, and even shortly before it, flights from Israel to Southeast Asia have experienced a series of difficulties. Initially, there was a sharp decline in demand, partly due to the widespread call-up of reservists that interrupted travel plans of many young people, some of whom were planning their big trip to the East, and others who were forced to return to Israel mid-trip to participate in the war.\nAt the same time, foreign airlines reduced their operations in Israel, and some halted flights altogether. Major players that allowed convenient connections, including Air India, operated erratically, while Turkish Airlines, which led the connection market, disappeared from the Israel aviation scene completely. Israeli airlines received exclusive rights on the few direct routes that remained active.\nThe discontinued solution\nIn February 2023, Oman announced for the first time that it would allow Israeli planes to fly over its airspace, which shortened Israeli airlines\u0026rsquo; flights to the East, cut flight costs, and allowed them to compete with international airlines operating on the same routes. The approval received by the Israeli airlines significantly improved their situation relative to their Asian competitors, saving passengers about two hours of flight time and reducing costs, less fuel, and a smaller crew of pilots.\nEl Al and Arkia planned to add routes to Delhi (in India) and Colombo (in Sri Lanka), but the events of October 7th ruined the plans. Today, this option is not available, but despite its absence, the direct flights of the Israeli airlines still have the distinct advantage of allowing passengers to avoid connection stopovers.\nWho actually benefits\nFalling fares to Southeast Asia are usually framed around Israeli backpackers and holidaymakers, but the people for whom the difference is most material are often the region\u0026rsquo;s diaspora communities in Israel. Thailand\u0026rsquo;s large community of agricultural workers, and the smaller Vietnamese-Israeli community, travel these routes not for leisure but to see family — and a several-hundred-dollar swing in a round-trip fare, plus the choice between a direct flight and a connection through the Gulf, changes how often a trip home is realistic. The arrival of a direct Hanoi service in particular gave the Vietnamese community a connection that simply did not exist before. For more on the new routes themselves, see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/08/arkia-flights-bangkok-hanoi/.\nThere is a lighter knock-on effect too: cheaper, more frequent flights mean more Israelis returning from Thailand and Vietnam with a taste for the food, which feeds demand for the real thing back home — see our guides to the https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/best-thai-restaurants-israel/ and https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/best-vietnamese-restaurants-israel/.\nUpdate — May 2026\nThe competitive shift described above has held and deepened. Arkia\u0026rsquo;s Bangkok and Hanoi routes both launched on schedule (November 2025 and January 2026), and Arkia has since added a direct Tel Aviv–Phuket route for the Spring–Summer 2026 season, competing with El Al there as well. The Gulf carriers remain a major presence on connecting routes. Specific fares move week to week and seasonally — treat the numbers above as an August 2025 snapshot — but the structural picture of more carriers and more direct options on Israel–Southeast Asia routes is intact as of mid-2026. The Delhi and Colombo routes mentioned above remain unflown.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"20 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/israel-southeast-asia-airfares-fall/","section":"Posts","summary":"Flight options from Israel to Southeast Asia are picking up again after a long period of uncertainty, route cancellations and a sharp reduction in connection options. Last week, Arkia launched new direct routes: a weekly flight to Vietnamese capital Hanoi, and three weekly flights to Bangkok, a route that until now was operated exclusively by El Al.\n","title":"Israel - Southeast Asia Airfares Fall as Competition Intensifies","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"18 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/jeffrey-schwartz/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Jeffrey Schwartz","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"18 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/synagogue/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Synagogue","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is a metropolis of contrasts: glass skyscrapers alongside ancient temples, and vibrant night markets interwoven with the scents of incense and local flavors. Within this urban landscape, an extraordinary building has emerged that seems to have been taken from another world—the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center, an architectural and spiritual gem in the heart of East Asia.\nFor many years, Taiwan was considered an almost inaccessible destination for observant Jewish tourists, mainly due to the lack of community infrastructure and kosher food. This reality changed dramatically with the establishment of the center, the brainchild of Jeffrey D. Schwartz, a Jewish-American entrepreneur who has lived in Taiwan since the 1970s, and his Taiwanese wife, Na Tang. Together, they built an impressive 2,000-square-meter structure at a cost of $20 million, which has become one of the most surprising Jewish success stories of the 21st century.\nA Vision of a Golden Tallit # The building is impressive from first glance. Its white facade is designed like a giant tallit (prayer shawl), with a golden Star of David emblazoned in the center bearing the word \u0026ldquo;Chai\u0026rdquo; (life). A rear wall covered in Jerusalem stone provides a sense of physical and spiritual connection to Jerusalem.\nThe interior design is breathtaking, creating an atmosphere of a classic European synagogue. The carved doors of the Holy Ark, the golden bimah, and the vaulted ceiling create a magnificent and inspiring prayer space. The women\u0026rsquo;s section, separated by a stylish wooden partition, overlooks the main area. The center serves as an active house of prayer for the local community, which numbers about 50 to 70 worshipers on a regular Sabbath and hundreds on holidays.\nMuch More Than a Synagogue # The center is a world of its own. It includes a gourmet kosher kitchen, a lavish ballroom for events, a mikveh (ritual bath) with a gold-leaf ceiling, a Judaica museum, and even a Chabad house run by Rabbi Shlomi Tabib. The museum displays an impressive collection of Judaica that Schwartz and his wife have collected over the years, including a rare 600-year-old Torah scroll from Tunisia and an ornate \u0026lsquo;Elijah\u0026rsquo;s Chair\u0026rsquo; from Iran.\nThe center does not only serve the Jewish community. It opens its doors to the general public in Taiwan, hosting educational tours and school students who come to learn about Jewish culture and history. \u0026ldquo;I wanted to give something back to Taiwan,\u0026rdquo; Schwartz explains. \u0026ldquo;I thought, what can I do that no Chinese person will do? I decided to build a Jewish center.\u0026rdquo;\nThe project also changed Schwartz\u0026rsquo;s own life, bringing him closer to his Jewish roots. From a distant Conservative Jew, he has become a man who puts on tefillin daily and wears a kippah.\nThe Jewish Community Center in Taipei is more than just a beautiful building; it is a symbol of cross-cultural connection, a testament to one man\u0026rsquo;s vision, and a beacon of thriving Jewish life in an unexpected corner of the world.\nWhat It Means for the Community Here # For the Israel–Taiwan relationship, the center is quietly significant infrastructure. It gives the small but growing community of Israelis in Taiwan — students, tech professionals on semiconductor secondments, diplomats attached to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office\u0026rsquo;s counterpart mission — a reliable anchor for Shabbat, kosher food, and lifecycle events. Before it existed, observant travellers often skipped Taiwan altogether. That barrier is now gone.\nIt also runs the other way. The center\u0026rsquo;s educational tours for Taiwanese schoolchildren and the public function as soft diplomacy: thousands of young Taiwanese encounter Jewish history and Israeli culture in person, not through headlines. In a period when Israeli lawmakers and Taiwanese officials have been actively deepening parliamentary and civic ties, that grassroots familiarity matters.\nPractical Notes for Visitors # The center sits in central Taipei (Lane 24, Section 3 — Da\u0026rsquo;an District) and houses an active synagogue, a kosher kitchen, a mikveh, and the Judaica museum. It is run by the Jeffrey D. Schwartz \u0026amp; Na Tang Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association (JTCA), which offers English-language guided tours; tours and Shabbat attendance should be arranged in advance through the JTCA (jtca.org.tw). Although the building quietly opened in 2021, COVID-era restrictions delayed its formal dedication ceremony until 2023 — so much of its public programming is, in practice, only a few years old and still expanding.\nThe source of information and inspiration for this article is an article published on JewishTraveler.co.il. Visitor and timeline details verified against the JTCA and Chabad.org.\n","date":"18 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/jcc-taiwan/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is a metropolis of contrasts: glass skyscrapers alongside ancient temples, and vibrant night markets interwoven with the scents of incense and local flavors. Within this urban landscape, an extraordinary building has emerged that seems to have been taken from another world—the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center, an architectural and spiritual gem in the heart of East Asia.\n","title":"The Golden Pearl of Taipei: The Story of the Jewish Community Center in Taiwan","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%A1%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"בית כנסת","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%92%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A5/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"ג'פרי שוורץ","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%98%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"טאיפיי","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%98%D7%99%D7%99%D7%95%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9F/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"טייוואן","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"台北","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"台灣","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E7%8C%B6%E5%A4%AA%E6%95%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"猶太教","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"August 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E7%8C%B6%E5%A4%AA%E6%95%99%E5%A0%82/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"猶太教堂","type":"tags"},{"content":"Breaking Barriers: Arkia Takes Flight to Southeast Asia\nIsraeli travelers have reason to celebrate as Arkia Airlines prepares to shake up the Far East travel market with two groundbreaking routes that promise to transform how Israelis explore Southeast Asia. The airline\u0026rsquo;s ambitious expansion into Thailand and Vietnam represents more than just new destinations—it\u0026rsquo;s a strategic move that\u0026rsquo;s already reshaping the competitive landscape of international travel from Israel.\nBangkok Beckons: Competition Heats Up # For years, El Al has held a virtual monopoly on direct flights between Israel and Thailand, charging premium rates that often left travelers searching for alternatives. That dynamic is about to change dramatically when Arkia launches its Bangkok service on November 25, 2025. The timing couldn\u0026rsquo;t be more strategic, positioning the airline to capture the lucrative winter travel season when Israelis traditionally escape to warmer climates.\nThe numbers tell a compelling story of disruption. While El Al currently charges upward of $1,278 for a December round-trip to Bangkok, Arkia is promising fares starting at just $998 for the same journey—a reduction of nearly $300 that includes both checked baggage and carry-on. For budget-conscious travelers, one-way tickets will start at an attractive $499, while those seeking luxury can opt for business class seats beginning at $1,499.\nThe service will operate twice weekly using Arkia\u0026rsquo;s wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft, with flights departing on Mondays and Wednesdays initially, shifting to Mondays and Fridays from January 2026. The journey takes approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes eastbound and 11 hours and 25 minutes on the return, with passengers enjoying two full meals during each flight.\nVietnam Venture: Pioneering New Territory # Perhaps even more significant is Arkia\u0026rsquo;s venture into Vietnam—a destination that has never before been served by direct flights from Israel. The inaugural Tel Aviv-Hanoi service, launching January 5, 2026, represents a historic milestone in Israeli aviation. Initially operating once weekly on Mondays, the service is planned to expand to twice weekly by March 2026.\nAt $1,500 for a round-trip ticket, the Hanoi route positions Vietnam as an accessible gateway for Israeli travelers seeking to explore Southeast Asia\u0026rsquo;s emerging markets. The flight duration of approximately 11 hours and 35 minutes to Hanoi makes it surprisingly manageable for a destination that has traditionally required multiple connections.\nStrategic Significance Beyond Tourism # These routes represent more than tourist convenience—they signal Israel\u0026rsquo;s growing economic and cultural ties with Southeast Asia. Thailand has long been a favorite destination for Israeli backpackers and families, while Vietnam\u0026rsquo;s rapidly developing economy presents opportunities for business travelers and adventure seekers alike.\nThe competitive pressure is already showing results. Industry experts anticipate that El Al will be forced to adjust its pricing strategy in response to Arkia\u0026rsquo;s aggressive market entry. This competition benefits not just leisure travelers but also the growing number of Israeli businesses looking to establish footholds in these dynamic Asian markets.\nArkia\u0026rsquo;s expansion comes at a time when Southeast Asia is experiencing unprecedented growth in tourism infrastructure and economic development. Vietnam, in particular, has emerged as one of the world\u0026rsquo;s fastest-growing tourist destinations, offering everything from the bustling streets of Hanoi to the stunning landscapes of Ha Long Bay.\nA New Chapter in Israeli Aviation # With its full Israeli crew and commitment to maintaining kosher meal options, Arkia is ensuring that Israeli travelers can maintain their cultural connections while exploring new horizons. The airline\u0026rsquo;s strategic timing, competitive pricing, and route selection demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of Israeli travel patterns and preferences.\nAs these flights prepare for takeoff, they represent more than new routes—they\u0026rsquo;re opening doors to cultural exchange, business opportunities, and adventures that were previously complicated by lengthy connections and high costs. For Israeli travelers, Southeast Asia has never been more accessible.\nWhat This Means for the Community # For Israel\u0026rsquo;s Thai and Vietnamese communities, direct flights are not an abstraction — they are the difference between a feasible trip home and an exhausting multi-stop journey. Tens of thousands of Thai agricultural workers live in Israel, and a direct Tel Aviv–Bangkok service removes the connection-hopping that long made a visit home a major undertaking. The Hanoi route is even more consequential: it is the first-ever direct link between Israel and Vietnam, opening a far simpler path for the smaller Vietnamese-Israeli community and for the caregivers who travel between the two countries.\nThere is a second audience here too. Israelis who discover Southeast Asia on these flights often come home looking for the food they ate there — and increasingly they can find it. For a primer on where, see our guides to the https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/best-thai-restaurants-israel/ and https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/best-vietnamese-restaurants-israel/.\nUpdate — May 2026: Routes Are Live, and Phuket Is Next # As of mid-2026, both routes have launched as planned. The Tel Aviv–Bangkok service began on 25 November 2025 and the Tel Aviv–Hanoi service on 5 January 2026, with Hanoi moving toward twice-weekly frequency. The competitive picture has since broadened: El Al and Thai Airways both operate the Bangkok route alongside Arkia, while Arkia remains the only carrier flying direct to Hanoi.\nThe bigger development is that Arkia has added a direct Tel Aviv–Phuket route for the Spring–Summer 2026 season — putting it in direct competition with El Al on yet another Thai destination. Travellers should treat the specific fares quoted above as a mid-2025 snapshot: airfares on these routes have moved considerably since, and the broader trend has been downward as competition intensified. See our follow-up coverage, https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/08/israel-southeast-asia-airfares-fall/, for the fuller picture.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"12 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/arkia-flights-bangkok-hanoi/","section":"Posts","summary":"Breaking Barriers: Arkia Takes Flight to Southeast Asia\nIsraeli travelers have reason to celebrate as Arkia Airlines prepares to shake up the Far East travel market with two groundbreaking routes that promise to transform how Israelis explore Southeast Asia. The airline’s ambitious expansion into Thailand and Vietnam represents more than just new destinations—it’s a strategic move that’s already reshaping the competitive landscape of international travel from Israel.\n","title":"Arkia to Launch Flights to Bangkok and Hanoi","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"12 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hanoi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hanoi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vietnam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vietnam","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/closing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Closing","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/economy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Economy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/local-business/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Local-Business","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mochikva/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mochikva","type":"tags"},{"content":"We are closing our store, and we\u0026rsquo;re getting a lot of questions why, so I\u0026rsquo;m here to explain.\nSince September, we\u0026rsquo;ve seen a steady decline in the number of visitors. Maintaining a store in Tel Aviv is not easy – rent, raw materials, time – and when there aren\u0026rsquo;t enough customers, it\u0026rsquo;s simply impossible to continue.\nThe last year has been particularly difficult: the war, the rising cost of living, no tourists – all these have affected everyone, including us. We did everything we could to hold on, but unfortunately, we cannot continue this way.\nWe always tried to maintain fair prices, even though everything we sell is handmade, with time, attention, and love. But love doesn\u0026rsquo;t cover the expenses – and that\u0026rsquo;s a hard truth we had to accept.\nWe know that Ben Yehuda is not the most convenient location. And maybe we should have asked for your help sooner, but it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to be vulnerable. But the truth is, we\u0026rsquo;ve been struggling for quite some time.\nAnd with all that, We have 18 more days left!\nWe will be open. We will be well-stocked. We will be ready. Come. Say hello. Help us make these last days sweet. We\u0026rsquo;d love to see you.\nWith love, Mochikva\n","date":"4 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/08/mochikva-closing/","section":"Posts","summary":"We are closing our store, and we’re getting a lot of questions why, so I’m here to explain.\nSince September, we’ve seen a steady decline in the number of visitors. Maintaining a store in Tel Aviv is not easy – rent, raw materials, time – and when there aren’t enough customers, it’s simply impossible to continue.\n","title":"Mochikva Says Goodbye: Why We Are Closing the Store?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"30 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/boycott/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Boycott","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ethics/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ethics","type":"tags"},{"content":"Source: Israel Hayom\nThis week, I faced a difficult dilemma. An enticing offer for an advertising campaign, one that could be a significant career achievement and bring in a substantial sum. Everything seemed rosy until it turned out that the product I was supposed to promote was made in China. For many, this might be a minor detail, but for me, it raised a major moral question.\nThis hesitation is not new. For years, I\u0026rsquo;ve grappled with the tension between the desire to enjoy inexpensive and accessible Chinese products and the reluctance to support a regime whose actions cause deep concern. The ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, the harvesting of their organs for transplants, the brutal suppression of the Uyghurs, and the subjugation of the peace-loving Tibetan people – these are just a small part of the long list of human rights violations attributed to the Chinese regime.\nHowever, the dilemma took an even sharper turn when I was exposed to information about China\u0026rsquo;s involvement in funding anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda on American campuses. Recent studies, such as those published by the Network Contagion Research Institute, indicate that networks linked to the Chinese Communist Party are funding and organizing anti-Israel protests that have disrupted campus activities in the United States. Activist groups like \u0026ldquo;Shut It Down for Palestine\u0026rdquo; (SID4P), which emerged after the events of October 7, have been identified as part of this network, using anti-Israel propaganda as a tool to advance a broader agenda of undermining social and political stability in the West.\nThe claim is that China is not acting out of direct antisemitic motives, but rather from a strategic interest to stir division and conflict within Western societies, thereby eroding them from within. In this case, the Jewish and Israeli communities become pawns in a broader global struggle. For me, as an Israeli, this understanding makes the moral dilemma even more complex. Can I contribute, even indirectly, to a system that harms the interests of my people and my country?\nThe campaign offer was tempting, and the thought of financial gain was alluring. But in the end, conscience prevailed. Buying a Chinese product is one thing – actively collaborating with an entity linked to such a regime is something else entirely. The decision to forgo the campaign was not easy, but it reflected a fundamental principle: there are red lines that should not be crossed, even at a financial cost. In a world where the boundaries between economics, politics, and morality are increasingly blurred, it is more important than ever to stand by our principles and choose the right side of history.\nA Note on Where the Lines Actually Fall # This is an opinion piece, and the dilemma above is a personal one. But because it touches a community that reads this site directly, it is worth being precise about what is and is not being claimed — and where reasonable people disagree.\nFirst, a distinction the original reflection itself draws but that bears repeating: the argument is about the Chinese government and entities tied to it, not about Chinese people, the Chinese-Israeli community, or the many Chinese and Hong Kong residents who are part of Israeli life. Conflating \u0026ldquo;China the state\u0026rdquo; with \u0026ldquo;Chinese people\u0026rdquo; is exactly the slide that does real harm — to a community that, in Israel as elsewhere, has periodically borne the cost of being treated as a proxy for a government it did not choose. A boycott reasoned from values loses its moral footing the moment it becomes an excuse for suspicion of neighbours, colleagues, or customers.\nSecond, the factual claims here are of different weights, and honesty requires saying so. The persecution of Uyghurs and the suppression of Tibet are documented by a wide range of governments, UN bodies, and independent researchers. The allegations around Falun Gong organ harvesting are serious and have been raised by tribunals and rights groups, though they remain contested and hard to verify independently. The claim that CCP-linked networks fund campus anti-Israel activism rests, as the piece notes, largely on reporting from the Network Contagion Research Institute — a specific organisation with a specific analytical lens, not a settled consensus. A reader can find the human-rights record damning and still treat the campus-funding thesis as unproven. Good faith means not flattening those into a single undifferentiated indictment.\nThird, the practical reality. As our reporting on the car market shows (https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-israel-market-leader/ and https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-increase-market-share/), Israel is now the developed world\u0026rsquo;s leader in Chinese-vehicle market share — Chinese goods are not a fringe choice a consumer can simply opt out of. That is precisely why the author\u0026rsquo;s framing is useful: it does not pretend a total personal boycott is feasible. It draws a narrower line — between consuming a product and actively lending one\u0026rsquo;s name and platform to promote it. Whether that is the right line is a question each reader will answer differently, and it is a more honest question than \u0026ldquo;are you for or against China.\u0026rdquo;\nThe value of the original piece is that it refuses the easy answers in both directions: neither \u0026ldquo;it\u0026rsquo;s just a product, who cares\u0026rdquo; nor \u0026ldquo;cut every thread.\u0026rdquo; For readers of this site — Chinese-community members, Israelis who follow China, people whose work and family ties span both — that middle, uncomfortable ground is where the real conversation lives. For the harder edge of this debate, where security rather than ethics drives the decision, see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/12/israel-defense-industries-ban-chinese-vehicles/.\n","date":"30 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/07/chinese-influence-israel-dilemma/","section":"Posts","summary":"Source: Israel Hayom\nThis week, I faced a difficult dilemma. An enticing offer for an advertising campaign, one that could be a significant career achievement and bring in a substantial sum. Everything seemed rosy until it turned out that the product I was supposed to promote was made in China. For many, this might be a minor detail, but for me, it raised a major moral question.\n","title":"The Chinese Dilemma: Money, Morality, and Foreign Influence in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cosplay/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cosplay","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/dizengoff-center/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Dizengoff Center","type":"tags"},{"content":" Opening Hours # Sunday-Thursday: 10:00-20:00\nFriday: 9:00-15:00\nAddress # Dizengoff 50, Tel Aviv\nThis summer, the Land of the Rising Sun lands at Dizengoff Center for a whole month full of Japanese culture, art, food, style, and a classic and modern Japanese experience in the heart of Tel Aviv!\nDuring this period, the Center will transform into a magical Japanese space filled with unique activities and performances:\nWhat Awaits You? # Immersive Japanese design throughout the Center and at the gates Tokyo Market - stalls that will bring Japan to your home Daily peak events on a central stage: wrestling shows, music, fashion shows, cosplay competitions, and Japanese dances Free children\u0026rsquo;s workshops alongside paid expert workshops, such as workshops in collaboration with the Botanical Garden, the Israeli Origami Center, and more Japanese culinary stalls - ramen, matcha, gyoza, and more For the first time in Israel - Hello Kitty pop-up with exclusive dolls and products Japan Film Festival at Cinema Lev Special Performances and Events # At the central stage in Building B\nWorkshops, Lectures, and Tournaments # Throughout the month in the Boutique area\nConcept Events # Shops and Stalls # Japanese Film Club at Cinema Lev # Event Schedule # The event spans 4 weeks, with a wide range of daily activities and performances. Among the activities you can find:\nWeek 1 (27.7 - 1.8): Japanese Kendo performances, opening event and Taiko drum performance, Iaido demonstration, Japanese film screenings at Cinema Lev (\u0026ldquo;My Neighbor Totoro\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Perfect Days\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Lost in Translation\u0026rdquo;), free origami and craft workshops. Week 2 (4.8 - 8.8): Karate performances, lectures on Japanese culture, Japanese film screenings (\u0026ldquo;Ghost in the Shell\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Spirited Away\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Howl\u0026rsquo;s Moving Castle\u0026rdquo;), calligraphy workshops. Week 3 (11.8 - 15.8): Judo performances, panels with anime voice actors, Japanese film screenings (\u0026ldquo;Princess Mononoke\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;The Wind Rises\u0026rdquo;), manga drawing workshops. Week 4 (18.8 - 22.8): Lectures for a trip to Japan, cosplay competition, karate performances, Japanese film screenings (\u0026ldquo;Howl\u0026rsquo;s Moving Castle\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;All That Remains\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Tokyo!\u0026rdquo;), Beyblade tournaments, Dragon Ball events, role-playing game tournaments. In addition, there will be paid workshops and lectures, Lego One Piece events, Japanese culinary stalls, and Tokyo Market.\nFor more details and updates, it is recommended to visit the Dizengoff Center website.\n","date":"27 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/07/japan-month-dizengoff-center/","section":"Posts","summary":"Opening Hours # Sunday-Thursday: 10:00-20:00\nFriday: 9:00-15:00\nAddress # Dizengoff 50, Tel Aviv\n","title":"Japan Month at Dizengoff Center","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/movies/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Movies","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/origami/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Origami","type":"tags"},{"content":"China is paying a heavy price for its lack of support for Israel – and the big winner is Taiwan, which receives mutual support. In a \u0026ldquo;cross-party\u0026rdquo; move, 72 Knesset members signed a declaration calling for Taiwan to be included in international forums – despite the pressures China exerted on some of them and threats of entry bans. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is a true friend of Israel,\u0026rdquo; said the initiator of the declaration.\n72 Knesset members from the coalition and opposition today (Thursday) signed a declaration stating: \u0026ldquo;The systematic and unjustified exclusion of Taiwan from international forums is irresponsible internationally.\u0026rdquo; The declaration comes in the wake of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s consistent support for Israel since the October 7 massacre. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is a true friend of Israel, and is not afraid to demonstrate it both in words and deeds,\u0026rdquo; said MK Boaz Toporovsky – the initiator of the declaration.\nMK Ohad Tal, Abby Lee, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative, and MK Boaz Toporovsky.\nMK Boaz Toporovsky from the Yesh Atid party is the chairman of the Israel-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association. MK Ohad Tal from Religious Zionism joined his declaration, and together with 70 Knesset members from all factions (except the Arab ones) they called for Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s integration into international forums and organizations, with an emphasis on health, transportation, environmental quality, and human rights.\n\u0026ldquo;Taiwan is a vibrant democracy working to promote the values of freedom, equality, human rights, and the rule of law, all in a challenging geopolitical environment. We express strong opposition to the systematic, unjustified, and irresponsible exclusion of Taiwan from organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), especially in light of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s impressive contribution during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 crisis, during which Taiwan was a global leader in finding solutions and assisting other countries,\u0026rdquo; the Knesset members\u0026rsquo; declaration stated.\nThe Knesset members further emphasized that support for its participation in international organizations does not contradict the \u0026ldquo;One China\u0026rdquo; policy – to which the Israeli government is committed. Rather, the support is an expression of gratitude to Taiwan for its support of Israel, and a practical recognition of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s contribution to global welfare. However, despite the clarification, it was learned that some Knesset members reported pressure from China not to sign – including a threat of an entry ban.\nIn the background, China\u0026rsquo;s conduct towards Israel has been cold since October 7. China repeatedly chooses to publish condemnations of Israel\u0026rsquo;s actions in the war, and even refused to act for the release of the hostage Noa Argamani, who was rescued from Gaza. Liora, Noa\u0026rsquo;s late mother, was Chinese. As a result, China is losing public support in Israel, and conversely – Taiwan is gaining it.\nTaiwan, which was among the first countries to express support for Israel and stood by its side without reservations, contributed greatly to strengthening both security and civilian resilience in Israel. Among other things, it donated 1.8 million shekels for the establishment of a satellite communication system that includes devices and a unified emergency command center to strengthen urban security and defense needs in local authorities.\nAfter the Majdal Shams massacre, the Taiwanese government donated 187,000 shekels to promote demobilized soldiers from the Druze community. In addition, it established a rare project in cooperation with Kibbutz Palmachim, in which a maritime resilience farm assists in the rehabilitation of Gaza envelope residents, victims of the October 7 massacre, and their families. And even during the Israel-Iran war, Taiwan donated 1.2 million shekels to victims in Bat Yam and to ZAKA.\nThe initiator of the declaration, MK Toporovsky, said: \u0026ldquo;Israel will always remember who stood by its side in its difficult hour. After October 7, Taiwan was among the first to stand by Israel and has continued to support us ever since. It supported Israel in the political arena and promoted aid to victims, worked to establish a resilience center, for health and education, and more. The Knesset members see this, as well as the shared values of human rights and democracy.\u0026rdquo;\nMK Toporovsky further added that he is \u0026ldquo;proud that most Knesset members expressed their gratitude to Taiwan and their support for its continued positive international involvement,\u0026rdquo; and called for cooperation from \u0026ldquo;the business, academic, and public communities in Israel with Taiwan, for whom innovation and progress are a guiding light, and who so desires to deepen cooperation with us.\u0026rdquo;\nMK Ohad Tal also referred to the importance of Taiwan in light of the declaration: \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is a true friend of Israel and is not afraid to demonstrate it both in words and in deeds.\u0026rdquo; Israel and Taiwan have many common interests, and it proves its support for Israel anew, time and again and even more so since the beginning of the war.\u0026quot; According to him: \u0026ldquo;This is our opportunity to show our great appreciation for Taiwan and to stand by its side and for our shared prosperity.\u0026rdquo;\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative in Israel, Abby Lee, welcomed the initiative: \u0026ldquo;On behalf of the people and government of Taiwan, I would like to thank you for the cross-party support in the Knesset. The joint declaration is a strengthening testimony not only to your consistent support for democracy, but also to the recognition of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s contribution to international affairs and your explicit support for its meaningful participation in international organizations.\u0026rdquo;\nAbby Lee added that \u0026ldquo;this is an unprecedented and historic step, sending a powerful message not only to the people of Taiwan, but to all democracies in the world – that in times of increasing pressure from authoritarian regimes, democracies must stand together in solidarity and with one voice.\u0026rdquo; The representative said that the call by the Knesset members is encouraging due to the desire to deepen ties with it in \u0026ldquo;economic, technological, and interpersonal\u0026rdquo; fields.\nShe also said that there is an expectation that relations \u0026ldquo;will grow, and our friendship will flourish together, based on mutual respect and common interests.\u0026rdquo; Finally, the representative asked: \u0026ldquo;to recognize the courage and great heart of the Knesset members who carry the flag of Taiwan not only in this decision – but throughout the years.\u0026rdquo;\nWhat This Means in Practice # It is worth being precise about what the declaration is and is not. It is not a change in Israeli foreign policy: the MKs explicitly reaffirmed Israel\u0026rsquo;s commitment to the \u0026ldquo;One China\u0026rdquo; policy. Nor is it binding — a declaration signed by individual members is a political signal, not legislation. What it does is put 72 of the Knesset\u0026rsquo;s 120 members on record across the coalition–opposition divide, which is unusual for any foreign-policy question and gives the Israel–Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association real cross-party weight.\nFor the practical relationship, the more telling thread is the concrete aid the post documents — the satellite-communications system, the support for Druze demobilised soldiers after Majdal Shams, the Kibbutz Palmachim maritime resilience farm, the donations after the Bat Yam strikes. These are the kinds of ties that outlast any single declaration, and they have continued since: see our coverage of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s ZAKA conference donation, scholarships for Israeli students displaced by missile attacks, and the deepening Israel–Taiwan technology partnership.\nUpdate (May 2026): From Declaration to Delegation # The July 2025 declaration was not the end of the story. In May 2026 a cross-party Knesset delegation travelled to Taiwan and met President Lai Ching-te, with talks centred on technology, trade, security, resilience, and academic cooperation — the same agenda the declaration had flagged. The delegation included MKs Mickey Levy, Boaz Toporovsky (chair of the friendship association and the original declaration\u0026rsquo;s initiator), and Ron Katz of Yesh Atid, alongside Yonatan Mishraki of Shas. China issued a sharp rebuke and warned against \u0026ldquo;crossing red lines,\u0026rdquo; echoing the pressure the original signatories had reported. The episode shows the parliamentary track moving from a paper declaration to face-to-face engagement — and that Beijing\u0026rsquo;s objections have not slowed it.\n[Original article source: https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skvmpdjpxg]\nMay 2026 delegation update verified against JNS, All Israel News, and the Office of the President, Republic of China (Taiwan).\n","date":"24 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/07/israel-knesset-members-support-taiwan/","section":"Posts","summary":"China is paying a heavy price for its lack of support for Israel – and the big winner is Taiwan, which receives mutual support. In a “cross-party” move, 72 Knesset members signed a declaration calling for Taiwan to be included in international forums – despite the pressures China exerted on some of them and threats of entry bans. “Taiwan is a true friend of Israel,” said the initiator of the declaration.\n","title":"Despite China's Threat: 72 MKs Call to End Taiwan's Exclusion","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/internationalrelations/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Internationalrelations","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"中国","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"中國","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/%E4%BB%A5%E8%89%B2%E5%88%97/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"以色列","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/%E5%8F%B0%E6%B9%BE/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"台湾","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/%E5%9B%BD%E4%BC%9A/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"国会","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/%E5%9B%BD%E9%99%85%E5%85%B3%E7%B3%BB/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"国际关系","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E5%9C%8B%E6%9C%83/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"國會","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/tags/%E5%9C%8B%E9%9A%9B%E9%97%9C%E4%BF%82/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"國際關係","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"政治","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-tw/categories/%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"新聞","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"July 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/categories/%E6%96%B0%E9%97%BB/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"新闻","type":"categories"},{"content":"During the months of war, Hamas published propaganda videos in which one can clearly see how they managed to collect information about forces in Gaza through Chinese drones operated by the IDF, manufactured by Chinese DJI or other companies. The military acknowledges the problem, yet continues using the Chinese product due to its availability rather than Israeli and Western products, which exist in the market and are more secure against hacking.\n\u0026ldquo;The drone world underwent a revolution in the ground forces, but we urgently need another revolution,\u0026rdquo; said an officer in the Southern Command. \u0026ldquo;This undermines the IDF\u0026rsquo;s superiority,\u0026rdquo; added another officer.\nA source knowledgeable in the field explains that Chinese drones have a built-in product that allows someone other than the operator to connect to the drone and download information from it, and even take control of it. This product, which looks like a small suitcase, is sold by the Chinese to Iranians, Russians, and other users.\nIn fact, it\u0026rsquo;s a product that can be easily purchased. In Israel, several security measures were implemented to prevent unauthorized connections, but experts in the field explain that despite this, it\u0026rsquo;s still possible to connect to the IDF\u0026rsquo;s Chinese drones. The only solution, say the sources we spoke with, is to \u0026ldquo;purchase Israeli or Western drones.\u0026rdquo;\nThe vast majority of drones currently serving in the ground forces came from donations - thousands of drones purchased by Israeli and Jewish donors from around the world. The introduction of drones in the war indeed created a revolution; forces in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria use them to collect information and understand the battlefield situation in a way they never had before, without being dependent on the Air Force. Thanks to drones, hundreds of soldiers\u0026rsquo; lives were saved and hundreds of terrorists were eliminated.\nBut conversely, many drones fell in Gaza and reached Hamas\u0026rsquo;s hands. The IDF said after several such cases that there was \u0026ldquo;no concern of information leakage,\u0026rdquo; but this isn\u0026rsquo;t true. From the moment the technology is in Hamas\u0026rsquo;s hands, they study it, including the communication method between the operator and the drone. There are videos online showing IDF forces as documented by the drones of units maneuvering in Gaza. In fact, our drones became Hamas\u0026rsquo;s intelligence arm, as defined by an officer who fought in Gaza.\nThe Danger of the Security Breach # The fact that the IDF removed memory cards from the drones themselves, after these fell into Hamas\u0026rsquo;s hands with the operators\u0026rsquo; documentation, also teaches that the discussed documentation reached Hamas through connection to the drones themselves. The military also estimates that many drones fell in Gaza after they managed to take control of them. The military confirms there were no cases where Israeli drones fell or where they managed to download information from Israeli drones, such as the \u0026ldquo;Rooster\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;G2.\u0026rdquo; Another problem is that whoever hacked the drone also knew where its operator was located, and would thus act to harm them.\n\u0026ldquo;We entered the war on October 7 with a gap in the drone field; as a military, we weren\u0026rsquo;t at this event despite understanding the field. What brought the IDF into the drone world was the field and the donors,\u0026rdquo; explained an officer working in the field. \u0026ldquo;Thousands of drones suddenly entered battalions and companies that never dreamed of receiving this means, and it took us time to understand the quantity and capabilities this gives to a maneuvering force. Hundreds of terrorists eliminated with drones that expose them and close the circle.\u0026rdquo;\nBut then problems are also revealed. \u0026ldquo;Pretty quickly, drones start falling. Add to this that we see our products with Hamas and Palestinian factions, we understand we have a problem. We still don\u0026rsquo;t understand how much - this took time. The terrorists see what we see, and we identify cases of strikes in places where there were drone operators.\u0026rdquo;\nSavings That Could Cost Dearly # According to the officer working in the field, \u0026ldquo;Already a year ago, the field and forward headquarters of brigades and divisions raised warning lights, but there\u0026rsquo;s no change. After some time, they again raise the problem.\u0026rdquo; According to him, the answer they received is that they won\u0026rsquo;t bring such a quantity of other drones - that is, Israeli or Western-made ones.\nIsrael already has the capability to produce quality drones, but for unclear reasons, the IDF doesn\u0026rsquo;t purchase them in quantities that would fill the maneuvering units, and they can only be seen in \u0026ldquo;boutique\u0026rdquo; units, such as Yahalom and special units. It appears that the IDF and Defense Ministry need to change strategy to plan the fastest possible procurement of Israeli and Western drones - which would curtail Hamas\u0026rsquo;s ability to collect information about forces and would also usually provide better operational capability.\nNot only in Gaza - in the past, there were publications that in the Navy disaster in Lebanon in 1997, Hezbollah managed to penetrate unmanned aircraft that were then in IDF service, and thus apparently exposed that naval commando activity that became the Navy disaster.\nIt appears then that there\u0026rsquo;s a need for strategic change, as was done for example in Ukraine. At the beginning of the war with Russia, Ukraine barely had drones, certainly not locally manufactured ones. In the first year of war, they mainly used Chinese drones, and then they understood that the Russians were using them against them. Chinese superiority made accessible to the enemy. Gradually they changed strategy and removed most Chinese drones from service and moved to local production, which today reaches about 4,000 drones per month.\n","date":"16 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/07/hamas-idf-chinese-drones/","section":"Posts","summary":"During the months of war, Hamas published propaganda videos in which one can clearly see how they managed to collect information about forces in Gaza through Chinese drones operated by the IDF, manufactured by Chinese DJI or other companies. The military acknowledges the problem, yet continues using the Chinese product due to its availability rather than Israeli and Western products, which exist in the market and are more secure against hacking.\n","title":"Officers Warning: Hamas Remotely Takes Control of IDF's Chinese Drones","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cars/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cars","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/electricvehicles/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Electricvehicles","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/import/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Import","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/xiaomi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Xiaomi","type":"tags"},{"content":" Xiaomi Electric Vehicles Set to Enter Israeli Market Through New Partnership # In a significant move for the Israeli automotive market, electronic products importer Hemilton, owned by the Aharoni family, has joined forces with Land Rover importer Hamizrach, controlled by the Eini family, to establish a new joint venture. This partnership is poised to introduce Chinese tech giant Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s highly anticipated electric vehicles (EVs) to Israel.\nThe newly formed company, equally owned by both parties, is expected to focus on importing Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s EVs, with sales in Western markets slated to commence next year. This collaboration addresses a crucial need for Hemilton, which, despite its previous announcement to import Xiaomi EVs, lacked the extensive infrastructure required for national-scale vehicle marketing and servicing. Hamizrach, with its established presence and experience in the luxury vehicle segment, provides the necessary local expertise.\nXiaomi\u0026rsquo;s Rapid Ascent in the EV Market # Xiaomi, a company renowned for its electronic products, only ventured into vehicle production in March 2024. Its initial offering, a single electric sedan model, has quickly become a formidable competitor to the Tesla Model 3 in China. The company has already delivered over 240,000 units in its home market, with a waiting list extending several months, underscoring the immense demand for its vehicles.\nAdding to its impressive lineup, Xiaomi recently launched the sporty electric crossover SU7 in China. This model, designed to compete with the Tesla Model Y, boasts superior range and power specifications at a more competitive price point. The SU7 has garnered extraordinary attention, securing over 200,000 pre-orders within the first three minutes of its sales opening in China, leading to a waiting time of over a year for new orders. The company also plans to introduce its first plug-in hybrid model next year.\nDespite these remarkable sales figures, Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s car manufacturing division is currently operating at a loss, with the company incurring thousands of dollars in losses for each vehicle sold. However, the strategic entry into the EV market has significantly boosted Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s share price, which has nearly tripled since mid-2024, reflecting investor confidence in its long-term potential.\nFuture Outlook and Global Expansion # To meet the escalating demand, Xiaomi is in the process of completing an additional manufacturing plant, which is expected to substantially increase its production capacity. While the company has officially stated that it will not begin direct exports to the West before 2027, it has already taken steps to facilitate international distribution. Approximately two months ago, Xiaomi entered into an agreement with an international trading company from China to handle exports to various countries until official exports commence. Furthermore, the company has initiated vehicle testing in Europe, signaling its commitment to global expansion.\nThis partnership between Hemilton and Hamizrach marks a pivotal moment for the Israeli automotive landscape, promising to introduce cutting-edge electric vehicle technology and further diversify the market. The collaboration leverages the strengths of both companies, setting the stage for Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s successful entry into Israel.\nUpdate: Where Things Stand in Mid-2026 # Nearly a year on, the timeline has firmed up rather than accelerated. Hemilton has reiterated that it expects to import Xiaomi cars around 2027, tied explicitly to the vehicles meeting European homologation standards and to inventory availability — Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s own European launch is also scheduled for 2027. In the meantime, Xiaomi has been expanding its line-up (it now sells the SU7 sedan and the YU7 crossover in China and has set an internal target of around half a million cars in 2026) and has opened an R\u0026amp;D centre in Munich to adapt its vehicles for European regulations. For Israeli buyers, the practical takeaway is unchanged: Xiaomi cars are not arriving imminently, and anyone in the market for a Chinese EV today should look at brands already established here.\nWhy This Matters Beyond the Showroom # A Xiaomi car landing in Israel is a different kind of story from another BYD or Chery model arriving. Xiaomi is, first and foremost, a consumer-electronics brand that millions of Israelis — and a large share of the Chinese and broader Asian community here — already own a piece of, whether a phone, an air purifier, or a scooter. Its move into cars is the clearest single example of the Chinese \u0026ldquo;ecosystem\u0026rdquo; business model reaching Israel: the same account, app, and brand spanning your pocket, your home, and your driveway.\nThat raises the same questions other Chinese vehicles have already provoked in Israel — data handling and connected-car security — but with a sharper edge, because Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s value proposition is precisely the integration of phone, home, and car data. Israel\u0026rsquo;s defence establishment has already moved to restrict Chinese vehicles on security grounds (see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/12/israel-defense-industries-ban-chinese-vehicles/); a deeply connected brand like Xiaomi will likely face that scrutiny early. Readers weighing the brand when it does arrive should factor in not just price and range but how comfortable they are with that level of integration.\nFor the wider context of how thoroughly Chinese carmakers have taken over the Israeli market, see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-israel-market-leader/ and https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-increase-market-share/. For another Chinese EV technology heading to Israel, see https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/04/byd-flash-ev-charging-israel/.\nSource: Globes English\n","date":"9 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/07/xiaomi-cars-israel-import/","section":"Posts","summary":"Xiaomi Electric Vehicles Set to Enter Israeli Market Through New Partnership # In a significant move for the Israeli automotive market, electronic products importer Hemilton, owned by the Aharoni family, has joined forces with Land Rover importer Hamizrach, controlled by the Eini family, to establish a new joint venture. This partnership is poised to introduce Chinese tech giant Xiaomi’s highly anticipated electric vehicles (EVs) to Israel.\n","title":"Xiaomi Electric Vehicles Set to Enter Israeli Market Through New Partnership","type":"posts"},{"content":" China\u0026rsquo;s Delicate Dance in the Middle East # The recent Israel-Iran conflict, which flared between June 13-24, 2025, put China\u0026rsquo;s foreign policy to the test, exposing the intricate balance Beijing seeks to maintain in the volatile Middle East. While official statements called for de-escalation and condemned Israeli actions, a deeper look reveals a pragmatic approach driven by economic interests and a desire for regional stability rather than ideological alignment.\nThis article synthesizes information and analysis, with primary source material compiled from reporting by Discourse Power on Substack1.\nOfficial Stance vs. Nationalist Echoes # China\u0026rsquo;s diplomatic rhetoric, led by figures like Foreign Minister Wang Yi and UN Ambassador Fu Cong, consistently emphasized respect for sovereignty and international law, urging both sides to cease hostilities. This \u0026ldquo;active non-alignment,\u0026rdquo; as some analysts describe it, allows China to position itself as a responsible global actor. However, the narrative adopted by state-affiliated media and influential nationalist voices, such as former Global Times editor Hu Xijin, offered a more nuanced and at times subtly pro-Iran perspective. While officially condemning violence, these outlets often framed Israel as the aggressor, subtly downplaying Iran\u0026rsquo;s role in regional destabilization and its nuclear ambitions. This dual approach grants Beijing flexibility: a seemingly neutral official posture for international consumption, alongside a more assertive, anti-Western undertone for domestic audiences and sympathetic partners.\nStrategic Pragmatism: Beyond the \u0026ldquo;Axis of Evil\u0026rdquo; # Despite a \u0026ldquo;comprehensive strategic partnership\u0026rdquo; with Iran, China\u0026rsquo;s response to the conflict highlighted its instrumental, rather than ideological, approach. Beijing offered no military aid or direct support to Tehran, signaling that its alliances are built on transactional benefits rather than unwavering solidarity. This calculus prioritizes China\u0026rsquo;s broader strategic goals, particularly avoiding direct confrontation with the United States and securing its economic interests. The idea of an \u0026ldquo;Axis of Evil\u0026rdquo; or a rigid anti-Western alliance between China, Russia, and Iran appears to be more rhetoric than reality; Beijing\u0026rsquo;s actions during the conflict underscore a preference for maintaining flexibility and leveraging crises for economic advantage.\nImpact on Middle East Ambitions and Economic Lifelines # The conflict undeniably complicated China\u0026rsquo;s carefully cultivated relationships in the Middle East. While Beijing has invested heavily in diplomatic and economic ties across the region, its condemnation of Israel risks straining relations with Jerusalem. This underscores the challenge China faces in its ambition to be a major player in the Middle East without taking definitive sides in its complex rivalries.\nEconomically, the war had direct implications for China\u0026rsquo;s energy security. As Iran\u0026rsquo;s largest oil purchaser, China has a vested interest in regional stability and uninterrupted supply chains. The conflict, unexpectedly, presented an opportunity for China to continue purchasing Iranian oil with reduced sanctions risks post-ceasefire, validating previously ambiguous transactions. This reflects China\u0026rsquo;s consistent strategy of prioritizing economic interests, using its influence to secure resources and market access rather than engaging in costly political interventions. Initiatives like the Belt and Road, while aiming to expand China\u0026rsquo;s influence, cannot alone guarantee regional stability, highlighting the limits of economic power in complex geopolitical landscapes.\nA Quest for Stability in a Shifting Landscape # Ultimately, China\u0026rsquo;s reaction to the Israel-Iran conflict underscores a deep-seated desire for stability in the Middle East, albeit on its own terms. Its cautious approach reflects an understanding that direct military entanglement or overtly partisan stances could jeopardize its long-term economic and strategic interests. While Beijing seeks to project an image of a responsible global power, its actions reveal a pragmatic focus on its own economic well-being and a reluctance to fully commit to any single regional power, including its partners.\nThe aftermath of the conflict will continue to test China\u0026rsquo;s balancing act. As the Middle East remains a crucible of geopolitical tensions, Beijing\u0026rsquo;s ability to navigate these complexities, maintain its economic lifelines, and advance its influence without being drawn into direct conflict will determine the success of its ambitious regional strategy. Its calculated silence and emphasis on de-escalation are not signs of weakness, but rather a reflection of a carefully considered foreign policy aimed at securing its future prosperity.\nTuvia Gering, \u0026quot;China Reacts to Israel-Iran War: Compilation\u0026quot;, Discourse Power, June 17, 2025.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"17 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/china-reacts-israel-iran-war-compilation/","section":"Posts","summary":"China’s Delicate Dance in the Middle East # The recent Israel-Iran conflict, which flared between June 13-24, 2025, put China’s foreign policy to the test, exposing the intricate balance Beijing seeks to maintain in the volatile Middle East. While official statements called for de-escalation and condemned Israeli actions, a deeper look reveals a pragmatic approach driven by economic interests and a desire for regional stability rather than ideological alignment.\n","title":"China's Calculated Silence: Navigating the Israel-Iran Conflict","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s newest ramen sensation, Koko Neko, has made a major announcement that will delight food enthusiasts across the city: the authentic Japanese ramen bar is now available on the Wolt delivery platform.\nBreaking Their Dine-In Only Policy # The announcement, made via the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s Instagram account (@koko_neko_tlv), marks a significant expansion for the Florentin-based establishment. Since opening in early 2025, Koko Neko had operated exclusively as a walk-in restaurant at their location on Florentin 5, requiring customers to dine in at their intimate Japanese-styled space.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s Instagram post featured their signature \u0026ldquo;NO WAR EAT RAMEN\u0026rdquo; message alongside their beloved cat mascot, with the exciting news displayed prominently: \u0026ldquo;We are on Wolt!\u0026rdquo;\nMeeting Growing Demand # This move comes as a response to the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s rapid rise to prominence in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s competitive dining scene. The decision to join Wolt represents an effort to make their authentic Japanese cuisine more accessible to the growing number of fans seeking genuine ramen experiences.\nKoko Neko is a collaboration between Israeli restaurateur Dudi Afriat and Japanese chef Misato Behar, who has lived in Israel for over a decade and brings traditional expertise to the kitchen. The restaurant has quickly established itself as a must-visit destination, offering three distinct ramen varieties - tofu, chicken, and pork - alongside handcrafted gyoza and their famous Japanese soufflé pancakes.\nAuthentic Japanese Cuisine at Home # The restaurant\u0026rsquo;s menu showcases Chef Misato Behar\u0026rsquo;s commitment to authentic Japanese flavors, featuring:\nThree Ramen Varieties: Tofu, chicken, and pork options, each prepared following traditional Japanese recipes Handmade Gyoza: Japanese dumplings crafted in-house Soba Noodle Salad: Fresh ingredients prepared in traditional style Japanese Appetizers: Including chuka seaweed salad and pickled shiitake mushrooms Soufflé Pancakes: A rare treat in Tel Aviv, these fluffy Japanese-style pancakes have become a signature dessert All dishes are prepared using high-quality, imported ingredients to ensure an authentic taste experience that maintains the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s reputation for quality.\nWhat This Means for Tel Aviv Food Scene # The addition of Koko Neko to Wolt\u0026rsquo;s platform is significant for several reasons:\nAccessibility: Food enthusiasts can now enjoy authentic Japanese ramen from home without the need to visit the walk-in only restaurant.\nQuality Delivery: This brings truly authentic Japanese cuisine to Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s delivery market, with dishes prepared by a Japanese chef with over a decade of experience in Israel.\nMarket Expansion: The move allows Koko Neko to serve customers beyond their immediate Florentin neighborhood, potentially reaching ramen lovers across greater Tel Aviv.\nMaintaining Authenticity in Delivery # The challenge for Koko Neko will be maintaining the quality and authenticity that has made them famous when transitioning to delivery. Their focus on traditional Japanese recipes, carefully crafted broths, and precise preparation methods will need to translate to the delivery experience.\nChef Misato Behar\u0026rsquo;s expertise and commitment to authentic Japanese techniques, combined with the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s use of imported ingredients, positions them well to maintain their high standards in the delivery format.\nCommunity Response # The announcement has generated significant excitement within Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s food community and the local Asian community. Comments on the Instagram post show enthusiasm from customers who have been waiting for this opportunity, with many expressing relief at being able to enjoy Koko Neko\u0026rsquo;s offerings without the lengthy wait times.\nLooking Forward # This development represents a new chapter for Koko Neko as they balance their commitment to authentic Japanese cuisine with the demands of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s competitive food delivery market. For the Asian community in Israel, it means greater access to one of the most authentic Japanese dining experiences available in the country.\nThe restaurant continues to operate their dine-in service Monday through Saturday, 12:00-23:00, maintaining their walk-in only policy for in-person dining while now also serving customers through Wolt delivery.\nAs Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s appreciation for authentic Asian cuisine continues to grow, Koko Neko\u0026rsquo;s expansion to delivery platforms marks an important milestone in making genuine Japanese culinary culture more accessible to the broader community.\nFor more information about Koko Neko and other Asian businesses in Israel, visit our businesses section.\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/koko-neko-joins-wolt-delivery/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tel Aviv’s newest ramen sensation, Koko Neko, has made a major announcement that will delight food enthusiasts across the city: the authentic Japanese ramen bar is now available on the Wolt delivery platform.\n","title":"Koko Neko Ramen Bar Now Available on Wolt Delivery Platform","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/koko-neko/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Koko-Neko","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/wolt/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Wolt","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cultural-diplomacy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cultural-Diplomacy","type":"tags"},{"content":" Korean Embassy Cancels 2025 K-Pop World Festival in Israel # The Korean Embassy in Israel has officially announced the cancellation of the 2025 K-Pop World Festival in Israel, citing \u0026ldquo;circumstances beyond our control\u0026rdquo; in a formal statement posted on their Instagram account.\nThe announcement, which features the official Korean government seal, expresses regret over the decision and thanks supporters for their \u0026ldquo;interest and support,\u0026rdquo; while hoping to \u0026ldquo;see you at future events.\u0026rdquo;\nView the original announcement: Korean Embassy in Israel Instagram Post\nBackground and Context # The festival was originally scheduled as part of the global K-Pop World Festival series, with Israel set to host a preliminary competition at Tel Aviv University on July 10, 2025. Applications were open until March 31, 2025, making this a last-minute cancellation.\nInternational Pressure and Fan Activism # The cancellation comes amid sustained international pressure from K-pop fan communities worldwide, who launched boycott campaigns against Israel\u0026rsquo;s participation in the festival. Fans organized under hashtags like #KpopFestivalOutWithZionism, accusing organizers of \u0026ldquo;artwashing genocide\u0026rdquo; in relation to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.\nThe campaign gained momentum following the death of Palestinian K-pop fan Tia, whose family was killed in an Israeli airstrike, highlighting the human cost of the conflict for the global K-pop community.\nSecurity and Diplomatic Considerations # While the embassy\u0026rsquo;s statement cites vague \u0026ldquo;circumstances beyond our control,\u0026rdquo; several factors likely influenced the decision:\nRegional Security Concerns: The ongoing conflict in Gaza and regional instability posed potential safety risks for participants and organizers Diplomatic Balancing: South Korea faced pressure to balance its traditional alliance with Israel against growing international criticism Cultural Soft Power Protection: The controversy threatened to damage K-pop\u0026rsquo;s global appeal and South Korea\u0026rsquo;s cultural diplomacy efforts Implications for Korea-Israel Relations # This marks a rare instance where South Korea has prioritized international public sentiment over established diplomatic partnerships. The decision reflects the growing influence of transnational fan communities in shaping cultural diplomacy outcomes.\nWhile economic and military cooperation between South Korea and Israel continues, the cancellation signals Seoul\u0026rsquo;s awareness of shifting global attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly among younger demographics who form K-pop\u0026rsquo;s core audience.\nWhat It Means for the K-Culture Community in Israel # For the Korean-culture community in Israel — both the small resident Korean population and the much larger circle of Israeli K-pop and K-drama fans — the cancellation was felt as more than a logistical disappointment. The Israel preliminary of the K-Pop World Festival, run for several years at Tel Aviv University\u0026rsquo;s Smolarz Auditorium, had become one of the few fixed points on the calendar where that community gathered in person: a place for cover-dance crews, vocalists and fans to meet offline rather than through screens.\nLosing it removed a rare public-facing venue for a community that, like other Asian-interest scenes in Israel, is otherwise dispersed and largely organised online. It also placed Israeli fans in an uncomfortable position — caught between a global fandom that increasingly frames participation as a political act, and a local scene that experiences K-pop simply as culture they love. The festival\u0026rsquo;s absence has not, in practice, diminished day-to-day engagement: Korean restaurants, groceries and study groups around the country continue to draw steady interest, and for readers looking to connect with that scene our guide to the https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/05/best-korean-restaurants-israel/ is a practical starting point. But the cancellation underlined how exposed cultural-exchange events are when diplomacy and grassroots activism collide.\nCurrent Status # As of mid-2026, the K-Pop World Festival has not returned to Israel. No Israel preliminary was announced for 2026, and the Korean Embassy has not published a revised date or a replacement event. The festival\u0026rsquo;s global series has continued elsewhere, but Israel\u0026rsquo;s slot remains effectively suspended rather than formally restored — a quiet continuation of the 2025 cancellation rather than a resolution of it. Readers should treat the festival as on indefinite hold until the embassy says otherwise.\nEmbassy Statement # The Korean Embassy concluded its announcement by stating: \u0026ldquo;We sincerely thank our amazing audience for your interest and support, and we hope to see you at future events. Thank you for your understanding. Praying for better days, Korean Embassy In Israel.\u0026rdquo;\nThe full announcement can be viewed on the Korean Embassy in Israel\u0026rsquo;s Instagram page, where it was originally posted.\nThis cancellation sets a precedent for how cultural exchanges may be affected by geopolitical conflicts and grassroots activism in the digital age, demonstrating the complex intersection of entertainment, diplomacy, and human rights advocacy.\nView this post on Instagram ","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/korean-embassy-cancels-kpop-world-festival-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"Korean Embassy Cancels 2025 K-Pop World Festival in Israel # The Korean Embassy in Israel has officially announced the cancellation of the 2025 K-Pop World Festival in Israel, citing “circumstances beyond our control” in a formal statement posted on their Instagram account.\n","title":"Korean Embassy Cancels 2025 K-Pop World Festival in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kpop/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kpop","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/authentic/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Authentic","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bulgogi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bulgogi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/emergency-preparedness/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Emergency Preparedness","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hindi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hindi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/independence-street/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Independence-Street","type":"tags"},{"content":"Israel Population and Immigration Authority Expands Emergency Preparedness Outreach with Multilingual Videos\nThe Israel Population and Immigration Authority (רשות האוכלוסין וההגירה) has launched a series of emergency preparedness videos specifically designed for foreign workers, available in Chinese, Hindi, and Thai languages. This initiative represents a significant step in ensuring that Israel\u0026rsquo;s diverse foreign worker population has access to critical safety information during emergencies.\nMultilingual Video Series # The authority has released three dedicated videos on YouTube, each tailored to specific language communities:\nChinese Version: Emergency Preparedness Guide Thai Version: Emergency Preparedness Guide Hindi Version: Emergency Preparedness Guide These videos provide essential information about emergency protocols, shelter procedures, and safety measures that foreign workers need to know while living and working in Israel.\nContext and Importance # Israel currently hosts over 42,000 foreign workers in the agricultural sector alone, with additional thousands working in construction, healthcare, and other industries. The majority of these workers come from Thailand, India, and other Asian countries, making multilingual emergency preparedness materials essential for public safety.\nThe timing of this initiative is particularly significant given Israel\u0026rsquo;s current security situation and the need for comprehensive emergency preparedness across all population segments. Foreign workers, who may not be fluent in Hebrew or Arabic, require accessible information to ensure their safety during various emergency scenarios.\nForeign Worker Demographics # According to recent data, Israel\u0026rsquo;s foreign worker population includes:\nThai workers: Primarily employed in agriculture, with 13,000 new permits issued in 2025 Indian workers: Mainly in construction and specialized sectors, with 16,000 workers arriving since October 2023 Chinese workers: Across various industries including technology and manufacturing These communities represent a significant portion of Israel\u0026rsquo;s workforce, particularly in essential sectors like agriculture and construction that are vital to the country\u0026rsquo;s economy and food security.\nEmergency Preparedness Focus # The videos likely cover key emergency preparedness topics relevant to foreign workers, including:\nUnderstanding Israel\u0026rsquo;s alert system and siren warnings Locating and accessing protected spaces and bomb shelters Emergency contact information and procedures Workplace safety protocols during security incidents Communication channels for emergency updates Government Initiative # This multilingual outreach effort demonstrates the Population and Immigration Authority\u0026rsquo;s commitment to ensuring that all residents of Israel, regardless of their native language, have access to life-saving emergency information. The initiative aligns with Israel\u0026rsquo;s broader emergency preparedness strategies that have been enhanced following recent security challenges.\nThe creation of these videos reflects recognition that effective emergency preparedness requires inclusive communication that reaches all segments of the population. By providing information in Chinese, Hindi, and Thai, the authority addresses the linguistic needs of some of Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest foreign worker communities.\nBroader Implications # This initiative represents part of Israel\u0026rsquo;s evolving approach to integrating foreign workers into the country\u0026rsquo;s emergency preparedness framework. As Israel continues to rely on foreign workers in critical sectors, ensuring their safety and preparedness becomes increasingly important for overall national resilience.\nThe multilingual video series also demonstrates how government agencies are adapting their communication strategies to serve Israel\u0026rsquo;s increasingly diverse population, recognizing that effective emergency preparedness requires reaching every community in their preferred language.\nForeign workers and their employers are encouraged to view these videos and incorporate the information into their workplace safety protocols and personal emergency preparedness plans.\nHow to Use These Resources — Practical Guide # If you are a foreign worker, student or family member who does not speak Hebrew fluently, here is how to make these resources actually work for you.\nThe three videos, by language:\nChinese — youtube.com/watch?v=DDGd5-Ywx7w Thai — youtube.com/watch?v=IBl_OyGL9EI Hindi — youtube.com/watch?v=3I58sq4eQMs Note that the Population and Immigration Authority\u0026rsquo;s videos cover Chinese, Hindi and Thai — they do not (as of this review) include Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese or Tagalog. Korean and Japanese speakers, and Filipino workers, should rely on the multilingual Home Front Command app and the assistance line below.\nWatch the video once now, not during an emergency. Save the link for your language, watch it before you ever hear a siren, and share it with housemates and co-workers who speak the same language. During an actual alert there is no time to look anything up.\nPair the video with the Home Front Command app. The official Israel Home Front Command app is available in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English, and it delivers the real-time staged alerts. The PIBA videos explain what to do; the app tells you when. Install the app, set it to a language you understand, and keep notifications on.\nKnow who to call. During the security situation, PIBA operates a multilingual inquiry and assistance line for foreign workers: 1-700-707-889. Use it for questions about your status, your safety, or your rights as a worker during the emergency. Save the number in your phone now.\nFor employers and recruitment agencies. If you employ foreign workers, do not assume watching a video is enough. Walk each worker physically to the protected space, confirm they understand the siren and the all-clear, and check that they have the app installed in their language.\nRelated Practical Guides # Israel\u0026rsquo;s Four-Stage Alert System: A Guide to Home Front Command Warnings — what each alert colour means and how much time you have, explained for non-Hebrew speakers PIBA guidance webinars for foreign worker employers — sector-specific emergency guidance for employers, including a recorded Thai workers session Israel automatically extends visas expiring through May 2026 — keeping your legal status valid while PIBA offices run on emergency hours ","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/population-authority-multilingual-emergency-videos/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel Population and Immigration Authority Expands Emergency Preparedness Outreach with Multilingual Videos\nThe Israel Population and Immigration Authority (רשות האוכלוסין וההגירה) has launched a series of emergency preparedness videos specifically designed for foreign workers, available in Chinese, Hindi, and Thai languages. This initiative represents a significant step in ensuring that Israel’s diverse foreign worker population has access to critical safety information during emergencies.\n","title":"Israel Population and Immigration Authority Releases Emergency Preparedness Videos in Chinese, Hindi, and Thai","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kalu Baba Thali is a beloved pop-up in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Florentin neighborhood, run by Sumit Sharma (Kalu Baba), a chef from Pushkar, Rajasthan. He serves authentic vegetarian Rajasthani thali meals twice a week, featuring traditional dishes like dal baati churma, kadhi, seasonal curries, and homemade chutneys on brass plates.\nOriginally based in Kiryat Shmona, Kalu Baba relocated to Tel Aviv after security concerns in the north. His pop-up has become a cultural bridge for Indian expatriates and Israeli food lovers alike. Thali meals range from 60-80 NIS.\nLocation: Florentin, Tel Aviv (check Instagram @kalubabathali for schedule)\nRead our full review\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kalu-baba-thali/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Kalu Baba Thali is a beloved pop-up in Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood, run by Sumit Sharma (Kalu Baba), a chef from Pushkar, Rajasthan. He serves authentic vegetarian Rajasthani thali meals twice a week, featuring traditional dishes like dal baati churma, kadhi, seasonal curries, and homemade chutneys on brass plates.\n","title":"Kalu Baba Thali","type":"directory"},{"content":" Kalu Baba Thali: A Taste of Rajasthan in Tel Aviv # In the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s vibrant Florentin neighborhood, a remarkable culinary story unfolds twice weekly as Sumit Sharma, affectionately known as Kalu Baba, transforms a modest space into a portal to Pushkar, Rajasthan. His pop-up restaurant has become a beloved destination for both Indian expatriates seeking authentic flavors and Israeli food enthusiasts eager to experience genuine Rajasthani cuisine.\nFrom Pushkar to Israel: A Love Story Through Food # Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s journey to Israel began in 2013 when he met his future Israeli wife while operating a restaurant in the sacred city of Pushkar, Rajasthan. This chance encounter would eventually lead him to relocate to Israel, initially settling in Sde Nehemia, a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee, before establishing a restaurant in Kiryat Shmona.\nThe chef\u0026rsquo;s path took an unexpected turn in 2024 when escalating security concerns and missile threats in northern Israel forced him to temporarily close his Kiryat Shmona location. Rather than abandon his culinary mission, Kalu Baba adapted with remarkable resilience, launching a pop-up operation in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s artistic Florentin district.\nAuthentic Rajasthani Thali Experience # The Menu: Traditional Flavors, Authentic Preparation # Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s specialty lies in the traditional Rajasthani thali - a complete meal served on brass plates that showcases the diverse flavors and textures of desert cuisine. His vegetarian offerings include:\nClassic Thali Components:\nDal Baati Churma - the signature Rajasthani dish featuring lentil curry with baked wheat balls and sweet crumbled mixture Kadhi - spiced yogurt curry with gram flour dumplings Seasonal vegetable curries prepared with traditional spice blends Homemade chutneys and pickles Fresh rotis and rice Traditional sweets and desserts Each dish is prepared using time-honored techniques passed down through generations in Pushkar, ensuring authenticity that transports diners to the colorful streets of Rajasthan.\nCultural Fusion Elements # While maintaining strict adherence to traditional recipes, Kalu Baba has incorporated subtle adaptations learned from his Israeli experience. His interactions with local patrons have led to interesting fusion elements, including techniques borrowed from Israeli hummus preparation that enhance certain curry textures without compromising authenticity.\nThe Florentin Experience # Atmosphere and Ambiance # The pop-up operates in true Florentin style - unpretentious yet vibrant, reflecting the neighborhood\u0026rsquo;s reputation as Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s bohemian heart. Visitors describe a space adorned with Indian textiles, filled with the sounds of Bollywood music, and permeated with the aromatic spices of Rajasthani cooking.\nThe dining experience emphasizes community and cultural exchange, with Kalu Baba often engaging personally with guests, sharing stories of his journey from Pushkar to Israel and explaining the cultural significance of each dish.\nOperating Schedule # The pop-up currently operates twice weekly, leveraging Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s cosmopolitan food scene while maintaining the intimate, authentic atmosphere that has made it a local sensation. The limited schedule has created a sense of exclusivity that draws regular patrons and curious newcomers alike.\nCultural Bridge and Community Impact # Serving Multiple Communities # Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s restaurant serves as a unique cultural bridge, attracting diverse clientele:\nIsraeli Travelers: Many customers are Israelis who discovered Indian cuisine during post-military service travels to India, particularly those familiar with Pushkar\u0026rsquo;s backpacker scene.\nIndian Expatriates: The restaurant provides a taste of home for India\u0026rsquo;s growing community in Israel, offering authentic flavors often difficult to find elsewhere in the country.\nLocal Food Enthusiasts: Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s adventurous dining scene has embraced Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s authentic approach, with food bloggers and culinary influencers regularly featuring his story.\nMedia Recognition and Social Media Presence # Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s story has gained significant media attention, with his Instagram account (@kalubabathali) showcasing both his culinary creations and the cross-cultural exchanges that define his restaurant. YouTube food vloggers have praised his \u0026ldquo;desi\u0026rdquo; charm and the exceptional quality of his traditional preparations.\nThe restaurant has been featured in collaborations with notable food personalities, including cookbook author Adeena Sussman, highlighting its growing influence in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s culinary landscape.\nResilience and Adaptation # Overcoming Challenges # Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s transition from a permanent restaurant in northern Israel to a pop-up in Tel Aviv exemplifies the resilience required of businesses operating in challenging environments. His ability to maintain quality and authenticity while adapting to new circumstances demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit that characterizes many immigrant-owned businesses in Israel.\nThe move to Florentin has actually enhanced his visibility and accessibility, placing his authentic Rajasthani cuisine in the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most dynamic neighborhood.\nFuture Prospects # While currently operating as a pop-up, Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s growing popularity and loyal following suggest potential for expansion. His success demonstrates the appetite for authentic ethnic cuisine in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s diverse food scene.\nPractical Information # Location: Florentin neighborhood, Tel Aviv (specific address varies as pop-up location) Operating Schedule: Twice weekly (check Instagram @kalubabathali for current schedule) Cuisine Type: Vegetarian Rajasthani/North Indian Specialties: Traditional thali meals, dal baati churma, seasonal curries Price Range: Moderate (typical thali meals range from 60-80 shekels) Reservations: Follow social media for announcements and booking information\nA Culinary Ambassador # Kalu Baba represents more than just another restaurant in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s competitive dining scene. His story embodies the broader narrative of cultural exchange between India and Israel, facilitated through the universal language of food. By maintaining authentic preparation methods while adapting to local preferences and circumstances, he has created a unique dining experience that honors his Rajasthani heritage while embracing his adopted Israeli home.\nFor visitors seeking genuine Indian cuisine beyond the typical curry house experience, Kalu Baba\u0026rsquo;s thali offers an authentic journey to Pushkar\u0026rsquo;s vibrant food culture, served with the warmth and hospitality that defines both Rajasthani and Israeli dining traditions.\nThe success of this humble pop-up demonstrates Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s openness to authentic ethnic cuisine and the power of personal stories to create meaningful culinary experiences. As Kalu Baba continues to serve his traditional thalis in Florentin, he not only feeds his customers but also builds bridges between cultures, one meal at a time.\nFor more information about businesses in the Asian community, visit our businesses section. Follow @kalubabathali on Instagram for current operating schedule and location updates.\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/kalu-baba-thali/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kalu Baba Thali: A Taste of Rajasthan in Tel Aviv # In the heart of Tel Aviv’s vibrant Florentin neighborhood, a remarkable culinary story unfolds twice weekly as Sumit Sharma, affectionately known as Kalu Baba, transforms a modest space into a portal to Pushkar, Rajasthan. His pop-up restaurant has become a beloved destination for both Indian expatriates seeking authentic flavors and Israeli food enthusiasts eager to experience genuine Rajasthani cuisine.\n","title":"Kalu Baba Thali: Authentic Rajasthani Cuisine in Tel Aviv's Florentin","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kimchi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kimchi","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/korean-restaurant/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Korean-Restaurant","type":"tags"},{"content":"Koreana, on Independence Street 66, is Haifa\u0026rsquo;s first dedicated Korean restaurant — and only the third in all of Israel when it opened in July 2024. For the Korean community of the north, and for the growing crowd of Israelis who discovered Korean food through K-dramas and TikTok, it filled a gap that had meant a trip to Tel Aviv or nothing at all.\nThe story behind it is itself a piece of the Asian diaspora in Israel. Founder Konstantin Matkrimov is a 32-year-old immigrant from Uzbekistan and a quarter Korean — a descendant of the Koryo-saram, the Korean community displaced to Central Asia generations ago. Drawn to those roots, he spent roughly six years living in South Korea, absorbing the language and the cooking. In Israel he had built a career in medical tourism; when COVID and then the war hollowed that industry out, he turned back to the food he had always loved. To keep the kitchen honest, he flew in a chef from South Korea to train the local staff in the techniques he didn\u0026rsquo;t want to fake.\nThat commitment shows on the plate. The menu runs through the classics — bibimbap in a hot stone bowl, tteokbokki, japchae glass noodles, rich and sour jjigae stews — alongside traditional Korean banchan and Korean alcohol that, as the team warns, climbs to your head fast. Heat is central to the cuisine and Koreana will take it to full Korean intensity if you ask, but the kitchen also adjusts spice for diners still learning their tolerance. It is unusually accommodating otherwise, too: nearly every dish can be made vegetarian or vegan, and all but one are gluten-free, built on rice flour and sweet potato rather than wheat. Meals open with changing seasonal salads and, when the vegetables cooperate, house kimchi. The banchan that arrive before the mains — small, rotating side dishes — are part of the draw here, not an afterthought.\nThe room is small, homey and unpretentious — clean lines and a few quiet Korean touches rather than the themed decor the owners deliberately avoided. Mains sit in the mid-range, roughly 45–75 NIS, in portions built for the Korean habit of sharing. Koreana is in central Haifa, about a fifteen-minute walk from the Haifa Center HaShmona train station, which makes it a realistic destination for the Korean students, expats and curious northern diners who previously had nowhere closer than Tel Aviv to go. It keeps modest hours, so calling ahead is wise — especially if you\u0026rsquo;re travelling in from out of town. Follow @koreana_haifa for seasonal specials and menu changes.\nRead our full review\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/koreana-haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Koreana, on Independence Street 66, is Haifa’s first dedicated Korean restaurant — and only the third in all of Israel when it opened in July 2024. For the Korean community of the north, and for the growing crowd of Israelis who discovered Korean food through K-dramas and TikTok, it filled a gap that had meant a trip to Tel Aviv or nothing at all.\n","title":"Koreana Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":" Koreana Haifa: Northern Israel\u0026rsquo;s Gateway to Korean Cuisine # In July 2024, Haifa welcomed its first dedicated Korean restaurant when Koreana opened its doors on Independence Street 66. Managed by Korean professionals and emphasizing authentic recipes, this establishment has quickly become a cultural bridge between Korea and northern Israel, offering residents and visitors an immersive taste of traditional Korean cuisine.\nAuthentic Korean Management and Philosophy # Korean-Led Operations # Koreana distinguishes itself through authentic Korean management, with Korean staff ensuring traditional cooking techniques and genuine flavors. This authenticity extends beyond the kitchen to the overall dining experience, creating an atmosphere that reflects Korean hospitality and cultural values.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s commitment to authenticity is evident in its approach to ingredients, preparation methods, and presentation. Rather than adapting dishes for local tastes, Koreana maintains traditional recipes while educating diners about Korean culinary culture.\nCultural Mission # As northern Israel\u0026rsquo;s first dedicated Korean restaurant, Koreana serves as more than just a dining establishment. It functions as a cultural ambassador, introducing Korean traditions through food while building connections between Korean and Israeli communities.\nMenu and Culinary Offerings # Signature Dishes # Bibimbap The restaurant\u0026rsquo;s signature bibimbap features the traditional mixed rice dish served in heated stone bowls, combining seasoned vegetables, marinated meat, and a perfectly fried egg. Each component is prepared separately using traditional techniques before being artfully arranged and served with gochujang (Korean chili paste).\nKorean BBQ and Bulgogi Koreana offers authentic bulgogi featuring thinly sliced, marinated beef grilled to perfection. The meat is served with traditional banchan (side dishes) including various kimchi preparations, pickled vegetables, and seasoned bean sprouts.\nRamen and Soups The restaurant\u0026rsquo;s ramen features house-made broths developed through traditional Korean techniques. Kimchi jjigae (fermented cabbage stew) provides a spicy, warming option that showcases Korea\u0026rsquo;s fermentation traditions.\nTraditional Sides and Banchan Every meal includes an array of banchan, small side dishes that are fundamental to Korean dining culture. These include various kimchi preparations, seasoned vegetables, and pickled items that complement the main dishes.\nMenu Evolution # Since opening, Koreana has refined its menu based on customer feedback and seasonal availability. A significant menu update in September 2024 expanded offerings while maintaining focus on traditional preparations and authentic flavors.\nPricing and Value # Koreana positions itself in the mid-range dining category, with main dishes typically priced between 45-75 shekels. This pricing reflects the quality of ingredients and authentic preparation methods while remaining accessible to a broad customer base.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s pricing strategy considers both the cost of importing specialty Korean ingredients and the value of providing an authentic cultural experience. Portions are generous, following Korean dining traditions of abundance and sharing.\nLocation and Accessibility # Prime Haifa Location # Located at Independence Street 66, Koreana occupies a central position in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s dining district. The location provides easy access for both local residents and visitors exploring the city\u0026rsquo;s culinary scene.\nThe restaurant is approximately a 15-minute walk from Haifa Center HaShmona train station, making it accessible via public transportation. Street parking is available, though limited during peak dining hours.\nOperating Hours # Current Schedule:\nSunday: Closed Monday-Wednesday: 18:00-21:00 Thursday-Saturday: 12:00-21:00 The restaurant recommends calling ahead (04-834-9597) to confirm availability, especially for diners traveling from distant locations or planning special occasions.\nBranding and Visual Identity # Professional Design Approach # Koreana\u0026rsquo;s branding, developed by Pickles Team, deliberately avoids stereotypical Asian restaurant aesthetics. Instead, the visual identity incorporates subtle cultural metaphors and warm earth tones, creating a sophisticated atmosphere that appeals to diverse clientele.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s interior design reflects this approach, featuring clean lines, natural materials, and understated Korean cultural elements. This creates a comfortable, family-friendly environment that encourages both casual dining and special occasions.\nDigital Presence # Koreana maintains an active Instagram presence (@koreana_haifa) featuring high-quality food photography and behind-the-scenes content. The social media strategy includes Hebrew captions with Korean cultural explanations, helping educate followers about Korean cuisine and traditions.\nThe restaurant uses Instagram to announce daily specials, seasonal menu changes, and cultural celebrations, building a community around Korean food culture in northern Israel.\nCultural Impact and Community Reception # Filling a Culinary Gap # As Haifa\u0026rsquo;s first dedicated Korean restaurant, Koreana addresses a significant gap in the region\u0026rsquo;s dining landscape. The establishment serves multiple communities, including Korean expatriates seeking authentic flavors, Israeli travelers familiar with Korean cuisine, and local food enthusiasts eager to explore new culinary traditions.\nEducational Role # Beyond serving food, Koreana functions as an educational resource about Korean culture. Staff members explain dish origins, cooking techniques, and cultural significance, helping diners understand the context behind their meals.\nThe restaurant has become a gathering place for cultural exchange, hosting informal events and celebrations that strengthen connections between Korean and Israeli communities.\nReviews and Recognition # While still building its reputation following its 2024 opening, Koreana has received positive recognition on platforms like TripAdvisor, where it\u0026rsquo;s highlighted among Haifa\u0026rsquo;s top Korean dining options. Early reviews praise the authenticity of flavors and the educational aspect of the dining experience.\nFood bloggers and cultural commentators have noted Koreana\u0026rsquo;s role in expanding Haifa\u0026rsquo;s culinary diversity and its contribution to growing Israeli interest in Korean culture.\nChallenges and Adaptations # Ingredient Sourcing # Operating an authentic Korean restaurant in Israel requires careful attention to ingredient sourcing. Koreana works with specialty importers to ensure access to essential Korean ingredients while exploring local alternatives that maintain dish integrity.\nThe restaurant has developed relationships with local suppliers for fresh produce while importing specialty items like gochujang, Korean rice varieties, and specific seasonings essential to authentic preparation.\nCultural Education # One of Koreana\u0026rsquo;s ongoing challenges involves educating diners about Korean dining customs and flavors. The restaurant addresses this through patient staff explanations, detailed menu descriptions, and social media content that provides cultural context.\nFuture Prospects # Expansion Potential # Koreana\u0026rsquo;s success in Haifa demonstrates the appetite for authentic Korean cuisine in northern Israel. The restaurant\u0026rsquo;s growing popularity and positive reception suggest potential for expansion or the development of additional Korean dining concepts in the region.\nCultural Programming # The restaurant has expressed interest in hosting cultural events, Korean cooking classes, and celebrations of Korean holidays, further establishing its role as a cultural center beyond dining.\nPractical Information # Address: Independence Street 66, Haifa Phone: 04-834-9597 Instagram: @koreana_haifa Cuisine Type: Authentic Korean Price Range: Mid-range (45-75 shekels for main dishes) Specialties: Bibimbap, bulgogi, kimchi jjigae, Korean BBQ Reservations: Recommended, especially for weekend dining Parking: Limited street parking available A Cultural Bridge Through Cuisine # Koreana Haifa represents more than a restaurant addition to northern Israel\u0026rsquo;s dining scene. It serves as a cultural ambassador, introducing authentic Korean flavors while building bridges between communities through the universal language of food.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s commitment to authenticity, combined with its educational approach and welcoming atmosphere, has established it as a significant addition to Haifa\u0026rsquo;s culinary landscape. For diners seeking genuine Korean cuisine or cultural exploration through food, Koreana offers an authentic journey to Korea\u0026rsquo;s rich culinary traditions.\nAs Korean culture continues to gain popularity globally, Koreana positions itself at the forefront of this cultural exchange in northern Israel, serving not just meals but meaningful cultural experiences that honor Korean traditions while embracing its Israeli home.\nFor more information about businesses in the Asian community, visit our businesses section. Follow @koreana_haifa on Instagram for current menu updates and cultural events.\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/koreana-haifa/","section":"Posts","summary":"Koreana Haifa: Northern Israel’s Gateway to Korean Cuisine # In July 2024, Haifa welcomed its first dedicated Korean restaurant when Koreana opened its doors on Independence Street 66. Managed by Korean professionals and emphasizing authentic recipes, this establishment has quickly become a cultural bridge between Korea and northern Israel, offering residents and visitors an immersive taste of traditional Korean cuisine.\n","title":"Koreana Haifa: Authentic Korean Cuisine in Northern Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/multilingual/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Multilingual","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/northern-israel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Northern-Israel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pushkar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pushkar","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/rajasthani/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Rajasthani","type":"tags"},{"content":"Saka Ba opened in January 2025 on Zevulun Street, in the stretch of Florentin that runs up to Levinsky Market, and it arrived inside one of the busiest waves of Japanese openings Tel Aviv has seen — Gaijin, Wabi, Koko Neko and Ikari all within roughly a year. What sets Saka Ba apart from that crowd is that it isn\u0026rsquo;t trying to be a destination restaurant. It\u0026rsquo;s a neighbourhood izakaya: a small Japanese drinking spot built around a bar, with low backless stools scattered around it and a few seats outside. The name itself is a compound — saka from sake, ba from basho, the word for a liquor shop.\nThe man behind it is Assaf Menachem, owner of the long-running Tel Aviv restaurant Mententen, who lived in Osaka for fifteen years. He is married to a Japanese woman, speaks the language, and built Saka Ba as a small sibling to Mententen rather than a trend-chasing follow-up. During his years in Osaka he met a chef known as Masaya, who had spent two decades cooking in izakayas; dishes Masaya made for their gatherings fed into the Mententen menu first, and now into Saka Ba\u0026rsquo;s. The room is designed to read as fluently Japanese — wood-panelled walls, suggestive vintage Japanese prints, and, in the middle of the space, a glass-walled smoking booth of the kind common in Japan, where smoking indoors is normal but on the street is not.\nThe opening menu runs to around 25 plates, all priced under 70 NIS — the izakaya logic of small, accessible dishes meant to be shared over drinks. Highlights include gyudon, thin beef strips over rice with raw egg yolk, spring onion, pickled ginger and togarashi; tori udon in a long-cooked chicken-and-dashi broth with bamboo shoots and spinach; niku sashimi, beef in a traditional Japanese marinade with chive and sesame; and lighter things like cherry tomatoes in a classic Japanese pickling brine. The drinks list is the real spine of the place: 17 sakes to choose from, plus shochu distilled from rice, sweet potato or plums, Japanese whisky and beer, and cocktails built on sake and shochu.\nFor the Japanese community in Tel Aviv, and for Israelis who have travelled in Japan and want the after-work nomikai feeling rather than a polished sushi counter, Saka Ba is a genuinely unusual fit — an everyday Osaka bar dropped into Florentin. It opens evenings, with a Friday lunch slot as well; seating is first-come, first-served and the room is small, so going early or off-peak helps. Follow @saka_ba_tlv for hours and menu updates.\nRead our full review\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/saka-ba/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Saka Ba opened in January 2025 on Zevulun Street, in the stretch of Florentin that runs up to Levinsky Market, and it arrived inside one of the busiest waves of Japanese openings Tel Aviv has seen — Gaijin, Wabi, Koko Neko and Ikari all within roughly a year. What sets Saka Ba apart from that crowd is that it isn’t trying to be a destination restaurant. It’s a neighbourhood izakaya: a small Japanese drinking spot built around a bar, with low backless stools scattered around it and a few seats outside. The name itself is a compound — saka from sake, ba from basho, the word for a liquor shop.\n","title":"Saka Ba","type":"directory"},{"content":" Saka Ba: Authentic Osaka-Style Izakaya in Tel Aviv # Saka Ba is an intimate Japanese izakaya that opened in early 2025 in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s vibrant Florentin neighborhood. Drawing direct inspiration from the after-work drinking culture of Osaka, this authentic establishment recreates the convivial atmosphere of a traditional Japanese tavern where locals gather to unwind over drinks and shareable dishes.\nThe Concept # Founded by Assaf Menachem (owner of Mententen) and Japanese chef Masaya, Saka Ba operates as a true izakaya—a hybrid between a casual bar and small-plates restaurant. Unlike formal dining establishments, the izakaya format emphasizes informality and encourages guests to linger over multiple rounds of small bites alongside sake or beer, mirroring the late-night taverns of Osaka\u0026rsquo;s entertainment districts.\nMenu Highlights # The menu features approximately 25 items, each priced below 70 NIS, reflecting the izakaya tradition of accessible, flavor-packed plates:\nSignature Dishes # Gyūdon - Thinly sliced beef over rice with raw egg yolk and pickled ginger Tori Udon - Dashi-based chicken noodle soup with bamboo shoots and spinach Mini Tomato - Cherry tomatoes cured in traditional Japanese marinade Niku Sashimi - Seasoned beef sashimi with scallions and sesame Sāshi Maki and Maguro Norimaki - Sushi-style rolls The menu\u0026rsquo;s simplicity belies its depth, relying on authentic Japanese techniques and ingredients to deliver a genuine Osaka izakaya experience.\nBeverage Selection # Saka Ba features an extensive Japanese beverage program:\nMore than a dozen varieties of sake Shōchū distilled from rice, sweet potato, or plums Japanese whiskies and craft beers Creative cocktails using sake or shōchū as bases This focus on authentic Japanese libations underscores the bar\u0026rsquo;s mission to replicate the sensory landscape of Osaka\u0026rsquo;s nightlife.\nAtmosphere \u0026amp; Design # The interior features:\nWood-paneled walls with evocative Japanese artwork Low stools arranged around a central counter A striking glass-walled smoking booth (a nod to Osaka\u0026rsquo;s approach to accommodating smokers) Natural wood tones and sparse furnishings creating a warm, unpretentious atmosphere Open-plan layout fostering interaction between chefs, bartenders, and patrons What Makes Saka Ba Special # Saka Ba stands out by delivering an authentic slice of Osaka to Tel Aviv. The combined expertise of Israeli restaurateur Assaf Menachem and Japanese chef Masaya brings genuine cultural exchange to the city. Unlike fusion concepts, Saka Ba\u0026rsquo;s commitment to traditional recipes, ingredient sourcing, and izakaya customs—such as communal seating and transparent smoking facilities—sets it apart from other Japanese-inspired venues.\nThe modest pricing, coupled with a spirited, laid-back ambiance, offers both locals and visitors a chance to experience Japan\u0026rsquo;s beloved after-work dining culture in the heart of Tel Aviv.\nLocation \u0026amp; Contact # Address: Zevulun 8, Florentin, Tel Aviv (Levinsky Market area)\nInstagram: @saka_ba_tlv\n\u0026ldquo;Saka Ba recreates the convivial atmosphere of an Osaka izakaya complete with minimalistic décor and menus priced mostly under 70 NIS per item.\u0026rdquo;\nWhether you\u0026rsquo;re looking to unwind after work or experience authentic Japanese drinking culture, Saka Ba invites you to discover the spirit of Osaka in the heart of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Florentin neighborhood.\n","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/saka-ba/","section":"Posts","summary":"Saka Ba: Authentic Osaka-Style Izakaya in Tel Aviv # Saka Ba is an intimate Japanese izakaya that opened in early 2025 in Tel Aviv’s vibrant Florentin neighborhood. Drawing direct inspiration from the after-work drinking culture of Osaka, this authentic establishment recreates the convivial atmosphere of a traditional Japanese tavern where locals gather to unwind over drinks and shareable dishes.\n","title":"Saka Ba: Authentic Osaka-Style Izakaya in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"16 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/small-plates/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Small-Plates","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/alert-system/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Alert System","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/civil-defense/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Civil Defense","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/emergency/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Emergency","type":"tags"},{"content":"Understanding Israel\u0026rsquo;s Four-Stage Alert System During Wartime\nThe Israel Home Front Command introduced an updated four-stage alert system in June 2025, particularly in response to Iranian ballistic missile threats. This comprehensive system, accessible through the official Home Front Command mobile application, provides clear guidance on when and how to seek shelter during different threat levels, representing a significant improvement over previous protocols.\nThe Four Alert Stages # Stage 1: Preparation Phase (Yellow Alert) # Mobile Alert: \u0026ldquo;Stay next to a protected space\u0026rdquo;\nResponse Time: 15-30 minutes to reach shelter Action Required: Prepare to move to a protected area but remain alert Stage 2: Missile Launch Detected (Orange Alert) # Mobile Alert: \u0026ldquo;In the next few minutes, alerts are expected in your area\u0026rdquo;\nResponse Time: 10 minutes to approach shelter Action Required: Begin moving toward your designated shelter area Stage 3: Immediate Danger (Red Alert - \u0026ldquo;Tzeva Adom\u0026rdquo;) # Alert Type: Loud siren warning throughout the area\nResponse Time: 90 seconds (1.5 minutes) to reach shelter Critical Note: This timing applies to large-scale, longer-range missile threats Special Consideration: For closer threats (e.g., rockets from Gaza), warning times may be just several seconds, requiring immediate shelter Stage 4: All Clear (Green Alert) # Mobile Alert: \u0026ldquo;End of stay next to a protected space\u0026rdquo;\nAction Required: Wait for official notification before leaving protected areas Important: Do not leave shelter after 10 minutes like in previous protocols - wait for official clearance Key Safety Reminders # The Home Front Command emphasizes that civilians should only leave their protected spaces after receiving official notification through the mobile app. This represents a change from previous protocols where people might have left shelters after a standard waiting period.\nThe alert system is designed to provide maximum warning time while ensuring public safety during various threat scenarios. Citizens are encouraged to download the official Israel Home Front Command app and familiarize themselves with their nearest protected spaces.\nRecent System Updates # This updated alert system was implemented following technical failures and civilian casualties in spring 2025, with the goal of preventing future lapses in civilian protection. The main improvements include:\nEarly Warning Capability: Pre-alerts now provide 15-30 minutes advance notice for long-range missile threats Explicit All-Clear Protocol: Clear notification when it\u0026rsquo;s safe to leave shelters, replacing previous ambiguous waiting periods Multi-Channel Distribution: Alerts are distributed via the dedicated app, SMS, and traditional sirens Threat-Specific Timing: Different response times based on the type and origin of the threat If You Don\u0026rsquo;t Speak Hebrew: What You Need to Know # This system matters most to people who can act on it quickly — and that is harder if Hebrew is not your first language. For the Asian community in Israel — foreign workers, students, expats and their families — here is what to focus on.\nInstall the app and set its language. The official Israel Home Front Command app is available in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. After installing, open the settings and switch the app to English (or Arabic/Russian) so the alerts and instructions appear in a language you understand. The app is the most reliable way to receive the staged pre-alerts in a language other than Hebrew.\nKnow the limitation of cellular broadcast alerts. The automatic alerts pushed to all phones in an area (cell broadcast / SMS-style messages), and the physical street sirens, are issued primarily in Hebrew and are generally not translated. If you rely only on those, you may hear an alert but not understand the instruction. This is exactly why installing the app in your own language matters — and why civil-rights groups have long pushed for translated broadcast alerts.\nWhat each stage means in plain terms:\nYellow (Stage 1) — \u0026ldquo;Get ready.\u0026rdquo; You have roughly 15–30 minutes. Identify your nearest shelter now, gather phone, ID, shoes and water. No need to run. Orange (Stage 2) — \u0026ldquo;Move now.\u0026rdquo; Alerts are expected within minutes. Walk to your shelter or protected room and stay near the entrance. Red / \u0026ldquo;Tzeva Adom\u0026rdquo; (Stage 3) — \u0026ldquo;Take cover immediately.\u0026rdquo; The siren is sounding. You have about 90 seconds for long-range missile threats, and as little as a few seconds for short-range rockets. Get into the protected space and stay away from windows. Green (Stage 4) — \u0026ldquo;It is not over yet.\u0026rdquo; Do not leave the shelter just because time has passed. Wait for the explicit all-clear notification in the app. Practical preparation for foreign workers and shared housing:\nIf you live in employer-provided or shared accommodation, ask your employer or housemates today where the protected space (mamad), stairwell or public shelter is — do not wait for an alert to find out. Save the app, keep your phone charged, and make sure notifications are not silenced at night. Agricultural and construction workers in the field or on site have less shelter access and shorter warning times — know the designated protected point at your workplace before a siren sounds. Your employer is expected to brief you on this (see the PIBA employer webinars linked below). Related Practical Guides # Population and Immigration Authority emergency preparedness videos in Chinese, Hindi and Thai — official video guidance on shelters and sirens in your own language PIBA guidance webinars for foreign worker employers — what your employer should be telling you about workplace safety Israel automatically extends visas expiring through May 2026 — keeping your legal status current during the security situation This educational material serves as a crucial reminder of the importance of civil defense preparedness and the sophisticated systems in place to protect civilian populations during security incidents.\n","date":"15 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/israel-four-stage-alert-system-guide/","section":"Posts","summary":"Understanding Israel’s Four-Stage Alert System During Wartime\nThe Israel Home Front Command introduced an updated four-stage alert system in June 2025, particularly in response to Iranian ballistic missile threats. This comprehensive system, accessible through the official Home Front Command mobile application, provides clear guidance on when and how to seek shelter during different threat levels, representing a significant improvement over previous protocols.\n","title":"Israel's Four-Stage Alert System: A Guide to Home Front Command Warnings","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"15 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sirens/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sirens","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%90%D7%96%D7%A2%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"אזעקות","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%98%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9F/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"ביטחון","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%94%D7%92%D7%A0%D7%94-%D7%90%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%99%D7%AA/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"הגנה אזרחית","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9D/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"חירום","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%98%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"טילים","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"ישראל","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%A2%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"מערכת התרעה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A3/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"פיקוד העורף","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/derech-yafo/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Derech Yafo","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/lower-city/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Lower City","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/new-branch/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"New Branch","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/opening/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Opening","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/supermarket/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Supermarket","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tayo/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tayo","type":"tags"},{"content":" TAYO Asian Supermarket Opens New Branch in Haifa # TAYO Asian Supermarket, Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest Asian grocery chain, has officially opened its highly anticipated third branch in Haifa, marking a significant expansion into northern Israel. The new store is located at Derech Yafo 21 in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Lower City (Ir Tahtit), bringing authentic Asian products closer to residents of Haifa and the surrounding region.\nGrand Opening Announcement # The supermarket chain announced the opening on their Facebook page with excitement, declaring \u0026ldquo;חיפה והסביבה - פתחנו!\u0026rdquo; (Haifa and surroundings - we\u0026rsquo;re open!). The announcement highlighted the store\u0026rsquo;s extensive inventory of thousands of food and household products, featuring trending items and brands imported directly from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Korea, India, and more.\nWhat Makes TAYO Special # TAYO has built its reputation as Israel\u0026rsquo;s premier destination for authentic Asian groceries, and the new Haifa branch continues this tradition. The store features:\nIsrael\u0026rsquo;s largest ramen wall - an impressive selection of instant noodles from across Asia Thousands of authentic Asian food products and household items Direct imports from major Asian countries including Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Philippines, and India Fresh and specialty ingredients for home cooking Asian snacks, beverages, and ready-to-eat meals Kosher-certified products clearly labeled for observant customers Strategic Location in Lower Haifa # The choice of Derech Yafo 21 in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Lower City positions TAYO strategically in one of the city\u0026rsquo;s most accessible commercial areas. This location serves not only Haifa residents but also customers from surrounding northern communities who previously had to travel to Beer Sheva or Rishon LeZion to access TAYO\u0026rsquo;s extensive Asian product selection.\nExpanding Network # This Haifa opening represents TAYO\u0026rsquo;s third location, joining their established branches in:\nBeer Sheva: Khayim Yakhil 3 (the original flagship store) Rishon LeZion: Honim Konim Mall, Yosef Lishanski Blvd 9 The expansion demonstrates TAYO\u0026rsquo;s commitment to making authentic Asian products accessible across Israel, responding to growing demand for Asian cuisine ingredients and specialty items.\nCommunity Response # The opening has generated significant excitement in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s diverse community, particularly among Asian food enthusiasts and the city\u0026rsquo;s international residents. Social media responses to the announcement have been overwhelmingly positive, with many expressing relief at no longer needing to travel south for their Asian grocery needs.\nProduct Range and Services # Like its sister stores, the Haifa branch offers:\nFresh and frozen Asian ingredients for authentic home cooking Extensive beverage selection including Asian teas, soft drinks, and specialty beverages Household and personal care items from Asian brands Cooking utensils and kitchenware for Asian cuisine preparation Snacks and confectionery from across Asia The store maintains TAYO\u0026rsquo;s commitment to clearly labeling kosher products, making it accessible to all segments of Israel\u0026rsquo;s population.\nMarket Context and Competition # TAYO\u0026rsquo;s expansion into Haifa comes at a time of significant growth in Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian grocery sector. The market is experiencing increased competition, with chains like Mundo recently opening four new stores in 2025, including locations in Netanya, as they aggressively expand across central Israel.\nWhile competitors focus on the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, TAYO has strategically positioned itself to serve underserved regions. Their Beer Sheva flagship store serves as a regional hub for southern Israel, and now the Haifa branch extends their reach into the north, creating a strategic geographic advantage.\nImpact on Northern Israel # The opening of TAYO Haifa addresses a significant gap in northern Israel\u0026rsquo;s retail landscape. Previously, residents seeking authentic Asian ingredients had limited local options, often requiring trips to central or southern Israel. This new branch brings convenience and accessibility to an underserved market.\nThe timing is particularly significant as interest in Asian cuisine continues to grow in Israel, driven by cultural exchange, tourism, and the country\u0026rsquo;s diverse international population. The Asian grocery market has evolved from niche ethnic stores to mainstream retail destinations, with TAYO positioning itself as a key player in this transformation.\nWhat This Means for Asian Home Cooks in the North # For the Asian community in and around Haifa, the practical effect of this branch is bigger than the headline suggests. Stocking a kitchen the way you would back home — Filipino, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Chinese or Indian — has long meant either a long drive south or relying on whatever a handful of small neighbourhood shops happened to carry that week. A full-range store on Derech Yafo changes the baseline: the building blocks of a dish — the right curry roux, gochujang, hot pot base, the specific noodle or rice paper a recipe assumes you own — become a single in-person trip rather than a hunt across the region.\nIt also changes things for the broader north, not just Haifa proper. The Krayot, the western Galilee and the Jezreel Valley all sit within a reasonable drive, and TAYO\u0026rsquo;s nationwide delivery means even households further out can reach the same range without travelling. That matters for community members who keep a traditional kitchen but live where the local supermarket has never heard of half their ingredients.\nOne honest caveat worth setting expectations on: dedicated Asian supermarkets in Israel are strongest on dry, ambient and frozen goods, and weakest on fresh produce. Asian herbs, leaves and vegetables remain the hardest category to find consistently anywhere in the country. TAYO Haifa solves the pantry — pastes, sauces, noodles, snacks, frozen staples — exceptionally well; for fresh Thai basil, kaffir lime leaves or Asian greens, it is still worth calling ahead or planning a separate stop.\nFor a region-by-region picture of where TAYO sits among every other Asian grocery in the country — including the other northern options around Haifa, the Krayot and the Galilee — see our city-by-city guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel. For a closer look at the kind of haul a TAYO trip actually produces, our TAYO shopping trip walks through a real basket. Practical details for this branch — hours, address and delivery — live in its directory listing.\nStrategic Positioning # TAYO\u0026rsquo;s measured expansion strategy contrasts with competitors\u0026rsquo; rapid national rollouts. While other chains pursue aggressive growth across central Israel, TAYO focuses on creating regional hubs that serve broader geographic areas. This approach allows them to build strong local customer bases while maintaining their reputation for quality and authenticity.\nThe company\u0026rsquo;s emphasis on cultural integration - hosting promotional events like Lunar New Year sales and stocking region-specific items - helps differentiate them in an increasingly competitive market.\nLooking Forward # TAYO\u0026rsquo;s expansion into Haifa signals the company\u0026rsquo;s confidence in the northern market and suggests potential for further growth in the region. The success of this branch could pave the way for additional locations serving Israel\u0026rsquo;s northern communities.\nWith over 1,200 Asian products spanning Japan, Korea, Thailand, China, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines, TAYO continues to position itself as Israel\u0026rsquo;s premier destination for authentic Asian groceries. The new Haifa branch joins TAYO\u0026rsquo;s existing network in providing nationwide delivery services, though local customers can now enjoy the full in-store shopping experience that has made TAYO a destination for Asian food lovers across Israel.\nFor more information about TAYO\u0026rsquo;s locations, hours, and product offerings, visit their website at ta-yo.co.il or contact their customer service at 077-604-8220.\n","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/tayo-haifa-branch-opening/","section":"Posts","summary":"TAYO Asian Supermarket Opens New Branch in Haifa # TAYO Asian Supermarket, Israel’s largest Asian grocery chain, has officially opened its highly anticipated third branch in Haifa, marking a significant expansion into northern Israel. The new store is located at Derech Yafo 21 in Haifa’s Lower City (Ir Tahtit), bringing authentic Asian products closer to residents of Haifa and the surrounding region.\n","title":"TAYO Asian Supermarket Opens New Branch in Haifa","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jungle Tea brings authentic Taiwanese bubble tea to Kiryat Ono, founded by Yaheli Rubinski after training at a bubble tea academy in Taiwan. All ingredients and equipment are imported directly from Taiwan, ensuring every cup tastes like what you\u0026rsquo;d find on the streets of Taipei.\nThe extensive menu includes eleven milk tea varieties, fruit teas, smoothies, Vietnamese coffee combinations, and bubble waffles (21-32 NIS). Tapioca pearls are prepared fresh in-house daily using traditional methods.\nAddress: Naomi Shemer 5, Kiryat Ono\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/jungle-tea/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Jungle Tea brings authentic Taiwanese bubble tea to Kiryat Ono, founded by Yaheli Rubinski after training at a bubble tea academy in Taiwan. All ingredients and equipment are imported directly from Taiwan, ensuring every cup tastes like what you’d find on the streets of Taipei.\n","title":"Jungle Tea","type":"directory"},{"content":"Jungle Tea represents a significant milestone in Israel\u0026rsquo;s evolving beverage landscape, bringing authentic Taiwanese bubble tea culture to the heart of Kiryat Ono. This establishment marks not just another café opening, but the introduction of a meticulously crafted cultural experience that bridges the gap between Far Eastern traditions and Middle Eastern tastes.\nThe Authentic Taiwanese Experience # Origins and Training # Jungle Tea emerged from the vision of Yaheli Rubinski, a young entrepreneur who, following his military service, identified a gap in Israel\u0026rsquo;s beverage market during his travels to the Far East with his father. Their frequent visits to famous bubble tea stalls in China and Taiwan led to a clear conclusion that what was available in Israel\u0026rsquo;s developing market simply wasn\u0026rsquo;t authentic enough.\nThe commitment to authenticity drove Rubinski and his family through an intensive three-week training program at Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s bubble tea academy, where they mastered the precise preparation methods that define genuine Taiwanese bubble tea. This dedication to proper technique distinguishes Jungle Tea from other establishments that rely on alcohol-intended essences rather than authentic brewing methods.\nProduct Philosophy and Ingredients # Jungle Tea\u0026rsquo;s approach centers on importing all raw materials and specialized equipment directly from Taiwan, ensuring that every cup delivers the same taste experience one would find in the streets of Taipei. The establishment takes pride in brewing tea fresh on-site and preparing tapioca pearls in-house, maintaining the high quality and uniqueness that characterizes authentic Taiwanese bubble tea.\nMenu Innovation and Pricing # Milk Tea Selection # The \u0026ldquo;Milk Tea\u0026rdquo; section offers eleven different combinations (26-31 shekels), including:\nJasmine tea with milk and tapioca pearls Oolong varieties Hong Kong milk tea with grass jelly Matcha and taro options Bangkok milk tea Vietnamese coffee variations \u0026ldquo;Jungle Cream-Cheese\u0026rdquo; featuring green tea brew, cream cheese foam, and grape jelly Coffee and Specialty Drinks # The establishment\u0026rsquo;s diverse offerings extend beyond traditional milk teas to include:\nCoffee Combinations (26-30 shekels):\nChocolate and cream blends Sophisticated caffeine and matcha combinations Smoothies (29-32 shekels):\nStrawberry Passion fruit Blueberry Mango varieties Fruit Teas and Sparkling Sodas (26-29 shekels):\nGreen tea with passion fruit Mango boba with lemon Various refreshing alternatives to milk-based options Special Features # Jungle Tea enhances the traditional bubble tea experience with bubble waffles (21 shekels) that incorporate green tea into the batter and include chocolate dipping sauce. The establishment\u0026rsquo;s exterior features charming beach chairs that help distinguish it from surrounding restaurants near the adjacent academic campus.\nLocation and Accessibility # Strategic Positioning # Jungle Tea\u0026rsquo;s location at Naomi Shemer 5, Kiryat Ono, positions it strategically within a rapidly developing urban area. The establishment benefits from being situated in a city that has recently experienced significant growth, with new buildings and restaurant circles emerging regularly. This location serves both local residents and students from nearby academic institutions.\nContact Information # Address: Naomi Shemer 5, Kiryat Ono\nPhone: 03-6221900\nOperating Hours:\nSunday-Thursday: 11:00-22:00 Friday: 10:00-15:00 Saturday evening: 18:30-22:30 Social Media: Active presence on Instagram and TikTok for engaging younger demographics\nMarket Context and Cultural Impact # The Broader Beverage Revolution # Jungle Tea\u0026rsquo;s arrival coincides with a broader transformation in Israel\u0026rsquo;s beverage market, where consumers increasingly seek alternatives to traditional soft drinks. This shift reflects global trends toward more diverse, Instagram-worthy drinks that offer both visual appeal and unique taste experiences.\nThe pricing structure, while premium compared to traditional beverages, aligns with international bubble tea standards and reflects the quality of imported ingredients and specialized preparation methods. At 26-32 shekels per drink, Jungle Tea positions itself as a premium experience rather than everyday refreshment.\nCultural Integration # The success of bubble tea in Israel demonstrates the country\u0026rsquo;s growing openness to Asian culinary influences, facilitated by increased travel to Far Eastern destinations and social media exposure to global food trends. Jungle Tea capitalizes on this cultural shift while maintaining strict adherence to traditional Taiwanese preparation methods and ingredient sourcing.\nFuture Expansion and Vision # Jungle Tea\u0026rsquo;s founders have expressed ambitions to expand beyond their inaugural Kiryat Ono location, with plans for additional outlets in Tel Aviv and Netanya. This expansion strategy reflects confidence in the Israeli market\u0026rsquo;s receptiveness to authentic bubble tea culture and the establishment\u0026rsquo;s ability to maintain quality standards across multiple locations.\nThe brand\u0026rsquo;s commitment to authenticity, combined with its strategic positioning in Israel\u0026rsquo;s evolving beverage landscape, suggests potential for sustained growth in a market increasingly hungry for international culinary experiences.\nConclusion # Jungle Tea represents more than a new café opening; it embodies the successful transplantation of authentic Taiwanese bubble tea culture to Israeli soil. Through meticulous attention to traditional preparation methods, premium ingredient sourcing, and strategic location selection, the establishment has positioned itself as a genuine cultural ambassador.\nAs Israel\u0026rsquo;s beverage market continues evolving toward greater diversity and international influence, Jungle Tea stands as a testament to the power of authenticity in building lasting customer relationships and cultural connections. The combination of traditional techniques, premium ingredients, and modern presentation creates an experience that satisfies both curiosity about international trends and genuine appreciation for crafted beverages.\nFor more information about businesses in the Asian community, visit our businesses section.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/jungle-tea/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jungle Tea represents a significant milestone in Israel’s evolving beverage landscape, bringing authentic Taiwanese bubble tea culture to the heart of Kiryat Ono. This establishment marks not just another café opening, but the introduction of a meticulously crafted cultural experience that bridges the gap between Far Eastern traditions and Middle Eastern tastes.\n","title":"Jungle Tea: Taiwan's Authentic Bubble Tea Revolution Arrives in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/milk-tea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Milk-Tea","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tapioca/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tapioca","type":"tags"},{"content":"Koko Neko is a traditional Japanese ramen bar in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Florentin neighborhood, created by a collaboration between Dudi Afriat and Japanese chef Misato Becher. The compact restaurant features an authentic izakaya atmosphere with wooden stools, paper lanterns, and a mostly Japanese kitchen team greeting guests with \u0026ldquo;Irasshaimase.\u0026rdquo;\nThe menu focuses on three ramen varieties \u0026ndash; tonkotsu, shio, and tori paitan (68-72 NIS) \u0026ndash; alongside handcrafted gyoza and Instagram-worthy Japanese souffle pancakes. Customizable spice levels and meticulous preparation make every bowl stand out. Expect a wait of over an hour due to its massive popularity.\nAddress: Florentin 5, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/koko-neko/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Koko Neko is a traditional Japanese ramen bar in Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood, created by a collaboration between Dudi Afriat and Japanese chef Misato Becher. The compact restaurant features an authentic izakaya atmosphere with wooden stools, paper lanterns, and a mostly Japanese kitchen team greeting guests with “Irasshaimase.”\n","title":"Koko Neko","type":"directory"},{"content":"The bustling Florentin neighborhood of Tel Aviv has welcomed a new culinary sensation that has captured the attention of food enthusiasts across the city. Koko Neko, a traditional Japanese ramen bar that opened just over a month ago, has quickly become one of the most talked-about dining destinations in Israel, drawing massive crowds and creating the longest restaurant queues currently seen in Tel Aviv.\nAuthentic Japanese Experience in the Heart of Tel Aviv # Located at Florentin 5, Koko Neko represents a collaboration between Dudi Afriat, one of the owners behind the famous La Tigra Neapolitan pizza restaurant, and Misato Becher, a talented Japanese chef who immigrated to Israel 12 years ago. This partnership has created something truly special - an authentic Japanese ramen experience that transports diners straight to the streets of Tokyo.\nThe restaurant embodies the traditional ramen bar concept with its compact design featuring wooden stools, Japanese paintings adorning the walls, hanging paper lanterns, and a striking red neon sign. The open kitchen allows diners to watch the skilled team of eight workers, mostly Japanese, as they craft each bowl with meticulous attention to detail. The atmosphere is enhanced by the traditional Japanese greeting of \u0026ldquo;Irasshaimase\u0026rdquo; that welcomes guests as they enter.\nThe Menu: Simple Yet Perfect # Koko Neko\u0026rsquo;s approach exemplifies the Japanese philosophy of doing a few things exceptionally well. The restaurant offers a carefully curated menu featuring three distinct ramen varieties, each priced between 68-72 shekels:\nRamen Selection # Tonkotsu Ramen (72 shekels) features crispy pork chashu, handmade noodles, bamboo shoots, egg, green onions, and seaweed in a rich pork bone broth.\nShio Ramen (68 shekels) offers a vegetarian option with silky tofu chashu, handmade noodles, bamboo shoots, corn, egg, green onions, and aromatic oil.\nTori Paitan Ramen (72 shekels) combines chicken chashu with handmade noodles, bok choy, cabbage, bean sprouts, egg, and seaweed.\nWhat sets Koko Neko apart is the customizable spice level, allowing diners to choose their preferred heat intensity on a scale of 1-3, ensuring each bowl meets individual taste preferences.\nGyoza and Appetizers # The restaurant serves three varieties of handcrafted gyoza (34-36 shekels for three pieces):\nBeef with Japanese curry sauce Chicken with sesame soy sauce Vegetarian option with soy-sesame sauce The gyoza are particularly noteworthy for their perfect hand-folded technique using thin, delicate dough that encases juicy, flavorful fillings.\nAppetizer options include:\nSoba noodle salad Chuka salad Pickled shiitake mushrooms Soba bowl with gluten-free buckwheat noodles, broccoli, bean sprouts, green beans, cucumbers, cilantro, walnuts, and edamame (69 shekels) The Star Dessert: Japanese Soufflé Pancakes # Perhaps the most Instagram-worthy item on the menu is the Japanese soufflé pancake, available in three variations (48-52 shekels):\nWhite chocolate and matcha Milk chocolate and strawberries Whipped cream with amarena cherries These towering, airy pancakes require advance ordering as they\u0026rsquo;re prepared fresh every 15 minutes by a dedicated team of two specialists.\nThe Experience: Worth the Wait # The restaurant\u0026rsquo;s popularity has created a phenomenon unique to Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s dining scene. Wait times average around an hour and fifteen minutes, with queues forming daily as food enthusiasts patiently line up for their chance to experience authentic Japanese cuisine. The restaurant currently accommodates 38 diners across its compact space, having expanded from its original 20 seats to meet overwhelming demand.\nThe dining experience itself justifies the hype for many visitors. The tonkotsu ramen has been praised as superior to other ramen available in Israel, offering delicate flavors, perfect texture, ideal temperature, and a flawlessly cooked egg with delightful handmade noodles. The attention to detail extends to table condiments, including traditional Japanese accompaniments like spicy chili oil and seasoned garlic-ginger paste that enhance the already exceptional broth.\nPractical Information # Address: Florentin 5, Tel Aviv\nHours: Monday-Saturday 12:00-16:00, 17:00-22:00\nReservations: Currently not accepting takeaway orders or Wolt delivery\nPayment: No checks accepted, credit cards accepted for purchases over 15 euros\nThe restaurant operates on a first-come, first-served basis, so arriving early or being prepared for a wait is essential. The compact size and popularity mean that patience is required, but the authentic Japanese experience and exceptional food quality make it worthwhile for those seeking genuine ramen culture in Tel Aviv.\nA Cultural Bridge for Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian Community # For Asian residents and visitors in Israel, Koko Neko represents more than just a restaurant - it\u0026rsquo;s a cultural touchstone that brings authentic Japanese flavors and dining traditions to the Middle East. The presence of Japanese staff and authentic preparation methods creates an environment where Asian expatriates can experience a taste of home while introducing local Israelis to genuine Japanese culinary culture.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s success reflects Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s growing appreciation for authentic Asian cuisine and its position as a cosmopolitan city welcoming diverse culinary traditions. As part of the recent wave of Japanese restaurant openings in Tel Aviv, including HaYapani, Nobo, Saka-Ba, and Zo, Koko Neko stands out for its commitment to traditional preparation methods and authentic atmosphere.\nConclusion # Koko Neko has successfully established itself as more than just another ramen restaurant in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s competitive dining scene. Through its commitment to authenticity, quality ingredients, and traditional preparation methods, it offers both local food enthusiasts and the Asian community in Israel an opportunity to experience genuine Japanese ramen culture without leaving the country.\nWhile the wait times may test patience, the exceptional food quality, authentic atmosphere, and unique dining experience make Koko Neko a must-visit destination for anyone seeking the finest Japanese cuisine in Israel.\nFor more information about businesses in the Asian community, visit our businesses section.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/koko-neko/","section":"Posts","summary":"The bustling Florentin neighborhood of Tel Aviv has welcomed a new culinary sensation that has captured the attention of food enthusiasts across the city. Koko Neko, a traditional Japanese ramen bar that opened just over a month ago, has quickly become one of the most talked-about dining destinations in Israel, drawing massive crowds and creating the longest restaurant queues currently seen in Tel Aviv.\n","title":"Koko Neko: Tel Aviv's Hottest New Japanese Ramen Destination","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/noodles/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Noodles","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/shio/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Shio","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tonkotsu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tonkotsu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tori-paitan/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tori-Paitan","type":"tags"},{"content":"Izakaya is the kind of place that, by rights, should not be in Pardes Hanna-Karkur. A genuine Japanese tapas bar — the small-plates-and-sake format that Tokyo runs on — usually demands the foot traffic of a big city. Here it sits on HaMoshav Street, in a small town better known for its arts scene and weekend market, and that incongruity is half the story. Critic Gil Gutkin wrote in Haaretz that this is the sort of Japanese street food you used to have to fly to Japan — or at least to London or New York — to eat. You can now do it on a Thursday night in the Sharon countryside.\nThe restaurant is the work of chef Kyo Okuda, who was born and raised in Tokyo and came to Israel roughly two decades ago. Her path into Japanese cooking was indirect: she started out as a pastry chef specialising in organic sourdough, then built a reputation across the country running Japanese kitchens in Kfar Saba and Caesarea, plus pop-ups, food stalls and culinary consulting, alongside the cooking workshops she still teaches. Izakaya is her own place at last, opened in late 2024 as a deliberately intergenerational project: she runs it with her daughter, Naya H. Sela, who manages the floor and the drinks programme, with Shai Carmeli as sous chef.\nWhat lands on the table is precise rather than showy. The sushi has a local reputation as some of the best in Israel, and reviewers single out the rice — pressed neither too tight nor too loose — as the tell of a serious kitchen. Beyond the maki, the signature dish is the crispy rice nigiri topped with spicy salmon tartare, red miso and finger lime that pops on the tongue. The tan tan men, a rich chicken-and-sesame broth ramen, gets described as tasting like \u0026ldquo;an ancient Japanese home.\u0026rdquo; Around those sit wakame salad in sesame vinaigrette, addictive Japanese pickles, tempura white fish with shiitake, and yakitori and robata skewers. Naya\u0026rsquo;s side of the menu runs to sake, plum liqueur and Okinawan whisky, with a coconut-yuzu cream to finish.\nPractically: mains sit in the mid-to-upper range, and the room fills on Thursday evenings, so booking ahead is wise — especially if you\u0026rsquo;re driving in from Haifa or the coast. Delivery and self-collection cover Pardes Hanna-Karkur and the surrounding area, and the kitchen takes Friday sushi-platter orders by WhatsApp. For the Asian community of the north and centre, and for anyone who had written off small-town Israel as a Japanese-food desert, Izakaya is a real destination. Follow @izakaya_karkur for specials and platter announcements.\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/izakaya-karkur/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Izakaya is the kind of place that, by rights, should not be in Pardes Hanna-Karkur. A genuine Japanese tapas bar — the small-plates-and-sake format that Tokyo runs on — usually demands the foot traffic of a big city. Here it sits on HaMoshav Street, in a small town better known for its arts scene and weekend market, and that incongruity is half the story. Critic Gil Gutkin wrote in Haaretz that this is the sort of Japanese street food you used to have to fly to Japan — or at least to London or New York — to eat. You can now do it on a Thursday night in the Sharon countryside.\n","title":"Izakaya Karkur","type":"directory"},{"content":"Izakaya Karkur represents a remarkable culinary achievement in Israel\u0026rsquo;s dining landscape, bringing authentic Japanese flavors to the charming town of Pardes Hanna-Karkur. This establishment stands as a testament to the power of culinary authenticity, offering diners an experience that transports them directly to the heart of Japan while remaining firmly rooted in Israeli hospitality.\nThe Vision Behind Izakaya Karkur # Authentic Japanese Heritage # The foundation of Izakaya Karkur lies in the expertise and passion of Kyo Okuda, a master of Japanese cuisine who brings decades of authentic culinary knowledge to Israel. Born and raised in Tokyo, Kyo represents the genuine article in Japanese cooking, having immigrated to Israel approximately two decades ago where she established herself as a leading chef in the Japanese culinary scene.\nKyo\u0026rsquo;s extensive background includes founding and managing Japanese restaurants in Kfar Saba and Caesarea, operating pop-up establishments, Japanese food stalls, and providing culinary consulting to various restaurants. Her approach to Japanese cuisine emphasizes traditional cooking processes while maintaining strict adherence to fresh, quality ingredients and meticulous, precise cooking methods in accordance with Japanese culture.\nFamily Legacy and Intergenerational Collaboration # The restaurant represents a touching intergenerational collaboration between Kyo and her daughter Naya, who serves as the restaurant manager. This mother-daughter partnership brings together Kyo\u0026rsquo;s extensive culinary expertise with Naya\u0026rsquo;s fresh perspective and management skills, creating a dynamic that enhances both the quality of the food and the overall dining experience.\nCulinary Excellence and Menu Offerings # Japanese Tapas and Small Plates # Izakaya Karkur operates as a neighborhood tapas bar specializing in Japanese cuisine, focusing on small, distinctive dishes that showcase the best of Japanese culinary traditions. The menu design reflects the authentic izakaya concept, where diners can sample multiple dishes in a social, relaxed atmosphere.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s tapas selection includes:\nJapanese pickles Salmon tempura skewers Chicken and fish tempura pieces Visually stunning tuna tataki Authentic Japanese tofu soup Crispy rice rectangles topped with spicy salmon tartare Sushi and Traditional Preparations # The sushi program at Izakaya Karkur has earned particular acclaim from diners, with reviewers declaring it among \u0026ldquo;the best sushi in Israel\u0026rdquo;. The menu includes various nigiri options featuring high-quality fish such as:\nBluefin tuna (including akami, chu toro, and o toro cuts) Yellowfin tuna Yellowtail Salmon Butterfish Seabream The restaurant also offers maki rolls including California rolls, spicy salmon and tuna rolls, negitoro, and rainbow rolls. The sashimi selection mirrors the nigiri offerings, providing diners with the purest expression of the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s fish quality and knife skills.\nMain Courses and Grilled Specialties # Beyond its tapas and sushi offerings, Izakaya Karkur provides substantial main courses including:\nRice Dishes:\nChicken katsudon Omurice Vegetable fried rice (customizable with additional toppings) Yakitori and Robata Grilled Items:\nCharcoal leek Green miso chicken breast Orange chicken thigh Garlic soy Angus beef fillet Miso black cod Dining Experience and Atmosphere # Neighborhood Charm # Located in Pardes Hanna-Karkur, a town known for its artistic community and alternative lifestyle, Izakaya Karkur fits perfectly into the local cultural landscape. The restaurant benefits from the town\u0026rsquo;s reputation as a destination for authentic, high-quality dining experiences outside of major metropolitan areas.\nThe town itself has gained recognition for its diverse restaurant scene and artisanal food culture. Visitors can explore the artistic quarter known as The Artists\u0026rsquo; Stables, which houses boutiques, cafes, restaurants, and therapeutic spaces in converted horse stables.\nService Excellence # Customer reviews consistently praise Izakaya Karkur for its exceptional service quality and professional waitstaff. The establishment demonstrates strong commitment to customer satisfaction, offering:\nExtensive options for vegetarians and vegans Accommodation of various dietary restrictions Consistent quality across dine-in, delivery, and takeaway services Attention to aesthetic presentation in line with Japanese culinary principles Service Options # Delivery and Takeaway # Izakaya Karkur offers comprehensive delivery and takeaway services while maintaining their commitment to quality. The restaurant ensures that dishes arrive fresh and hot while preserving the aesthetic presentation that is central to the dining experience.\nOperating Hours # Sunday through Thursday: 12:00 PM to 11:00 PM Extended weekend hours to accommodate increased demand Recognition and Impact # The restaurant has garnered attention from food critics and media outlets, with coverage highlighting its role in bringing authentic Japanese street food to Israel. Critics have noted that many of the dishes offered at Izakaya Karkur were previously unavailable in Israel, requiring food enthusiasts to travel internationally to experience similar flavors.\nCustomer testimonials consistently emphasize strong satisfaction and loyalty, with diners frequently mentioning the restaurant as a place they would recommend and return to. The establishment\u0026rsquo;s ability to cater to various dietary preferences while maintaining authentic Japanese flavors has created a broad and devoted customer base.\nConclusion # Izakaya Karkur represents a significant achievement in bringing authentic Japanese cuisine to Israel\u0026rsquo;s diverse culinary landscape. Through the expertise of master chef Kyo Okuda and the dedicated management of her daughter Naya, the restaurant has established itself as a destination for diners seeking genuine Japanese flavors and hospitality.\nThe restaurant\u0026rsquo;s impact extends beyond its immediate dining offerings to include its role in enhancing Pardes Hanna-Karkur\u0026rsquo;s cultural identity and supporting the town\u0026rsquo;s development as a recognized culinary destination. For both residents of the Sharon region and visitors exploring Israel\u0026rsquo;s expanding culinary offerings, Izakaya Karkur provides an opportunity to experience Japanese cuisine as it was meant to be prepared and served.\nFor more information about businesses in the Asian community, visit our businesses section.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/izakaya-karkur/","section":"Posts","summary":"Izakaya Karkur represents a remarkable culinary achievement in Israel’s dining landscape, bringing authentic Japanese flavors to the charming town of Pardes Hanna-Karkur. This establishment stands as a testament to the power of culinary authenticity, offering diners an experience that transports them directly to the heart of Japan while remaining firmly rooted in Israeli hospitality.\n","title":"Izakaya Karkur: Authentic Japanese Dining Experience in Pardes Hanna-Karkur","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pardes-hanna-karkur/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pardes-Hanna-Karkur","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bubble-waffles/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bubble-Waffles","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/carlebach/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Carlebach","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/closed/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Closed","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/desserts/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Desserts","type":"tags"},{"content":"Eggzit is a popular pop-up vendor bringing authentic Hong Kong-style bubble waffles to Israel\u0026rsquo;s street food scene. Their signature decadent bubble waffles feature a crispy exterior and soft, chewy interior, topped with fresh fruit, whipped cream, chocolate sauces, and other creative toppings.\nA regular at major food festivals including Tel Aviv EAT, Eggzit has become a must-try for dessert lovers across the country. Keep an eye on local event listings to catch their next appearance.\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/eggzit/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Eggzit is a popular pop-up vendor bringing authentic Hong Kong-style bubble waffles to Israel’s street food scene. Their signature decadent bubble waffles feature a crispy exterior and soft, chewy interior, topped with fresh fruit, whipped cream, chocolate sauces, and other creative toppings.\n","title":"Eggzit","type":"directory"},{"content":" Eggzit: Bubble Waffle Pop-Up Making Waves in Israel # Eggzit is a standout name in Israel\u0026rsquo;s vibrant street food scene, known for its decadent bubble waffles that have captured the attention of foodies across the country. Whether popping up at major culinary festivals or serving crowds at bustling street food events, Eggzit brings a unique twist to the classic waffle, making it a must-try for anyone with a sweet tooth or a love for creative desserts.\nWhat Are Bubble Waffles? # Bubble waffles, also known as Hong Kong egg waffles, are a popular Asian street snack. Their distinctive bubble-like appearance comes from a special waffle iron, resulting in a crispy exterior and a soft, chewy interior. Eggzit elevates this treat with a variety of indulgent toppings and fillings, offering both classic and inventive flavor combinations.\nEggzit at Tel Aviv EAT Festival # Eggzit has gained significant attention for its participation in the annual Tel Aviv EAT Festival, one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest and most diverse food events. In 2025, Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s bubble waffles were featured in the festival\u0026rsquo;s street food section, alongside other international and local favorites. The festival, held at Charles Clore Park in Tel Aviv, is renowned for bringing together top chefs, innovative food trucks, and unique pop-ups, making Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s inclusion a testament to its popularity and quality.\nFestival Highlights # Signature Dish: Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;decadent bubble waffle\u0026rdquo; (וופל בועות מושחת) was a star attraction, drawing crowds eager to experience the sweet, customizable treat Festival Atmosphere: The event featured a wide range of street food, from Dutch fries and Spanish churros to Asian dumplings and Korean specialties, with Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s bubble waffles standing out as a highlight for dessert lovers Affordable Indulgence: Dishes at the festival, including Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s waffles, were priced to be accessible, with many options available for 15–45 NIS per serving Why Eggzit Stands Out # Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s appeal lies in its fusion of Asian culinary tradition with Israeli creativity. The bubble waffles are not just visually appealing but also offer a playful, interactive dessert experience. Customers can choose from a range of toppings—think fresh fruit, whipped cream, chocolate sauces, and more—making each order unique.\nWhere to Find Eggzit # As a pop-up, Eggzit appears at major food festivals and street food markets throughout Israel. Keep an eye on event listings, especially for festivals like Tel Aviv EAT, to catch their next appearance.\nMedia Coverage # Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s bubble waffles have been featured in several prominent Hebrew-language articles covering the Tel Aviv EAT Festival and Israel\u0026rsquo;s street food scene:\n\u0026ldquo;אזור סטריט-פוד יציע\u0026hellip; וופל בועות מושחת של Eggzit\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;\n(\u0026ldquo;The street food area will offer\u0026hellip; decadent bubble waffles from Eggzit\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;)\n— Maariv, Israel Hayom, PassportNews\nThese articles highlight Eggzit as a key player in the evolving Israeli street food landscape, emphasizing its role in bringing Asian-inspired desserts to a wider audience.\nEggzit is more than just a dessert stand—it\u0026rsquo;s a culinary experience that bridges cultures and brings joy to festival-goers and food lovers alike. If you spot Eggzit at an event, don\u0026rsquo;t miss the chance to try their bubble waffles—a sweet, Instagram-worthy treat that\u0026rsquo;s quickly becoming an Israeli favorite.\nFor updates on Eggzit\u0026rsquo;s next pop-up or to discover more Asian-inspired food in Israel, stay tuned to local event listings and festival announcements.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/eggzit/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eggzit: Bubble Waffle Pop-Up Making Waves in Israel # Eggzit is a standout name in Israel’s vibrant street food scene, known for its decadent bubble waffles that have captured the attention of foodies across the country. Whether popping up at major culinary festivals or serving crowds at bustling street food events, Eggzit brings a unique twist to the classic waffle, making it a must-try for anyone with a sweet tooth or a love for creative desserts.\n","title":"Eggzit - Bubble Waffle Pop-Up","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/gan-hashmal/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Gan-Hashmal","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hong-kong-style/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hong-Kong-Style","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mochi/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mochi","type":"tags"},{"content":"Mochikva was Israel\u0026rsquo;s first and only authentic bubble tea and mochi bar, located on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv. This women and Olim-owned business offered handmade bubble tea with fresh tapioca pearls, daily-made mochi in creative flavors like pistachio and red bean, and a warm inviting atmosphere.\nThe shop has permanently closed, but it remains a notable part of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Asian food history as a pioneer in bringing authentic Taiwanese bubble tea and Japanese mochi culture to Israel.\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/mochikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Mochikva was Israel’s first and only authentic bubble tea and mochi bar, located on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv. This women and Olim-owned business offered handmade bubble tea with fresh tapioca pearls, daily-made mochi in creative flavors like pistachio and red bean, and a warm inviting atmosphere.\n","title":"Mochikva","type":"directory"},{"content":" Mochikva - Bubble Tea \u0026amp; Mochi Bar # הבאבל טי ומוצ\u0026rsquo;י הראשון והיחיד בישראל! 🧋\nMochikva is Israel\u0026rsquo;s first and only authentic bubble tea and mochi bar, bringing the beloved Taiwanese drink culture and Japanese mochi tradition to Tel Aviv. This women and Olim-owned business creates a warm and inviting space where customers come for the boba and mochi, and stay for the vibe.\nAbout Mochikva # Founded as Israel\u0026rsquo;s pioneering bubble tea and mochi establishment, Mochikva represents authentic Asian dessert culture in the heart of Tel Aviv. The business is proudly women and Olim-owned, creating not just delicious drinks and treats, but also a welcoming community space.\nMenu Highlights # Bubble Tea Specialties # Taro Cupcake - Bestseller flavor Dragon Boba - Perfect for those who like a little sourness Chai Bubble Tea - Seasonal fall flavors Wide variety of creative and unique flavor combinations All tapioca pearls made fresh in-house Mochi Selection # Pistachio Ice Cream Mochi - Customer favorite Red Bean Mochi - Traditional Japanese flavor Fresh mochi made daily Various seasonal flavors available Special Features # Everything made in-house, including tapioca pearls Creative and unique flavor combinations High-quality ingredients with no compromises Immaculately clean preparation area Location \u0026amp; Hours # Address: 89 Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv\nOpening Hours:\nSunday-Thursday: 13:00-21:00 Friday: 12:00-15:00 Saturday: Closed Services # Delivery \u0026amp; Takeaway # Available through Wolt Fresh bubble tea and mochi delivered straight to you Catering Services # Perfect for various events including:\nBirthday parties Weddings Office happy hours Corporate events Custom packages available Merchandise # Branded merchandise available \u0026ldquo;Boba Babe\u0026rdquo; themed items Contact Information # Phone: 053-424-2029 WhatsApp: 053-424-2029 Website: mochikva.com What Makes Mochikva Special # First of its kind: Israel\u0026rsquo;s only authentic bubble tea and mochi bar Women-owned business: Supporting female entrepreneurs Olim-owned: Immigrant success story Authentic quality: No shortcuts or compromises on ingredients Community space: Welcoming atmosphere for all Social consciousness: Free period products available in bathroom Customer Reviews Highlights # \u0026ldquo;The best boba tea I have drank in Israel\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;High-quality products that don\u0026rsquo;t compromise\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Friendly service and immaculately clean\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Creative and delicious flavor combinations\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Supporting female entrepreneurs with every visit\u0026rdquo; Recommended Orders # First-timers: Taro Cupcake bubble tea with pistachio ice cream mochi Sour lovers: Dragon boba Traditional taste: Red bean mochi Seasonal: Chai bubble tea (fall flavors) Price Range # Bubble tea and mochi at premium quality pricing Catering packages available for events Delivery available through Wolt Come for the bubble tea and mochi, stay for the vibe! 💜\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/mochikva-bubble-tea-mochi/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mochikva - Bubble Tea \u0026 Mochi Bar # הבאבל טי ומוצ’י הראשון והיחיד בישראל! 🧋\nMochikva is Israel’s first and only authentic bubble tea and mochi bar, bringing the beloved Taiwanese drink culture and Japanese mochi tradition to Tel Aviv. This women and Olim-owned business creates a warm and inviting space where customers come for the boba and mochi, and stay for the vibe.\n","title":"Mochikva - Bubble Tea \u0026 Mochi Bar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari is a unique dual-concept space near Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Carmel Market, combining Japanese home cooking with a cozy cafe. Okasan serves authentic comfort dishes \u0026ndash; vegan curry, tofu stews, onigiri, and ramen \u0026ndash; inspired by chef Manami Ono\u0026rsquo;s family recipes from Japan. Ikari offers specialty coffee, matcha lattes, Japanese cakes, and classic sandos.\nThe intimate, homey atmosphere with communal tables and an open kitchen makes it perfect for both a quick coffee break and a leisurely meal. Extensive vegan and gluten-free options available.\nAddress: Malan 39, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/okasan-ikari/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Okasan \u0026 Ikari is a unique dual-concept space near Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market, combining Japanese home cooking with a cozy cafe. Okasan serves authentic comfort dishes – vegan curry, tofu stews, onigiri, and ramen – inspired by chef Manami Ono’s family recipes from Japan. Ikari offers specialty coffee, matcha lattes, Japanese cakes, and classic sandos.\n","title":"Okasan \u0026 Ikari","type":"directory"},{"content":" Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari: Japanese Home Food and Café in Tel Aviv # Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari is a standout culinary destination at Malan 39, Tel Aviv, blending the warmth of Japanese home cooking with the inviting charm of a Japanese-style café. Located near the bustling Carmel Market, this establishment is a favorite among locals and visitors seeking authentic, nourishing Japanese food and specialty coffee in a cozy, welcoming atmosphere.\nA Unique Dual Concept\nAt Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari, the two brands operate seamlessly under one roof:\nOkasan serves authentic Japanese home food, focusing on comfort dishes inspired by family recipes from chef Manami Ono\u0026rsquo;s childhood in Japan. Ikari functions as the café arm, offering specialty coffee, matcha drinks, Japanese cakes, and classic sandos (Japanese sandwiches). The brands are deeply intertwined, sharing the same space, chef, and philosophy, and are often referenced together in both signage and menus.\nMenu Highlights\nJapanese Home Cooking (Okasan): Vegan Japanese curry with root vegetables and lentils Tofu and soy sheets stew with mushrooms Onigiri (rice balls) with changing fillings Fresh salads and homemade pickles Ramen (including vegan and chicken options) with deep, comforting broths Japanese Café (Ikari): Specialty coffee and matcha lattes Japanese cakes (matcha-white chocolate loaf, gluten-free pistachio-lemon cake) Japanese sandos (egg salad, tuna) Light breakfast options Vegan and Gluten-Free Friendly: Both menus offer a wide range of vegan and gluten-free options, making Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari accessible to all diners. Atmosphere\nThe space is intentionally homey and relaxed, with a small bar, communal tables, and the chef preparing dishes in view of guests. The market-side location adds to the lively, casual vibe, making it perfect for both a quick coffee break or a leisurely lunch.\nCommunity \u0026amp; Recognition\nOkasan \u0026amp; Ikari is regularly featured in guides to the best Japanese and Asian restaurants in Tel Aviv, praised for its authenticity, inclusivity, and comforting food. The café is also active on social media, sharing updates, menu changes, and event announcements through its official Facebook page.\nContact \u0026amp; Visit\nAddress: Malan 39, Tel Aviv, Israel Mobile Phone: +972 50-670-8123 Email: okasan.telaviv@gmail.com Facebook: okasantlv Opening Hours: Sunday–Thursday: 8:30–16:30 Friday: 8:00–16:30 Saturday: Closed \u0026ldquo;Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari bring together the comfort of Japanese home food and the culture of Japanese coffeehouses, all under one roof in Tel Aviv.\u0026rdquo;\nWhether you\u0026rsquo;re after a nourishing Japanese meal, a specialty coffee, or a sweet treat, Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari invite you to enjoy the best of Japanese tradition and café culture in the heart of Tel Aviv.\nFeatured in:\nSecret Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Best Japanese Restaurants Gluten-free and vegan-friendly guides Experience the heart of Japanese home cooking and café culture—side by side—at Okasan \u0026amp; Ikari, Tel Aviv.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/okasan-ikari/","section":"Posts","summary":"Okasan \u0026 Ikari: Japanese Home Food and Café in Tel Aviv # Okasan \u0026 Ikari is a standout culinary destination at Malan 39, Tel Aviv, blending the warmth of Japanese home cooking with the inviting charm of a Japanese-style café. Located near the bustling Carmel Market, this establishment is a favorite among locals and visitors seeking authentic, nourishing Japanese food and specialty coffee in a cozy, welcoming atmosphere.\n","title":"Okasan \u0026 Ikari: Japanese Home Food and Café in Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/olim-owned/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Olim Owned","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ona Uma is an authentic Thai kitchen in the heart of Tel Aviv, founded by Rubi Hen and his wife Onauma from the Isan region of Thailand. Originally a stall at the Carmel Market, it grew into a beloved restaurant known for bold, genuine Thai flavors with no fusion compromises.\nThe menu celebrates traditional Isan and Thai cuisine \u0026ndash; spicy beef salads, aromatic curries, warming soups, and generous rice and noodle dishes. Portions are meant for sharing, and the rotating daily specials are always worth asking about.\nAddress: Carlebach 15, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ona-uma/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Ona Uma is an authentic Thai kitchen in the heart of Tel Aviv, founded by Rubi Hen and his wife Onauma from the Isan region of Thailand. Originally a stall at the Carmel Market, it grew into a beloved restaurant known for bold, genuine Thai flavors with no fusion compromises.\n","title":"Ona Uma Thai Kitchen","type":"directory"},{"content":" Ona Uma Thai Restaurant: A Taste of Authentic Thailand in Tel Aviv # Ona Uma (Onauma) Authentic Thai Kitchen stands out as a culinary gem in Tel Aviv, delivering a truly authentic Thai experience in the heart of the city. Located at 15 Carlebach Street, Ona Uma has quickly become a favorite among locals and visitors seeking genuine Thai flavors, aromatic spices, and warm hospitality.\nAbout Ona Uma\nFounded by Rubi Hen and his wife Onauma, who hails from the Isan region of northwest Thailand, Ona Uma began as a humble stall in Tel Aviv’s bustling Carmel Market. Thanks to glowing word-of-mouth and positive media coverage, the restaurant soon expanded to its current cozy location, where it continues to attract a loyal following.\nOnauma, the restaurant’s namesake, developed her passion for cooking after the loss of her mother at a young age, dedicating herself to preserving the flavors and aromas of her childhood in Khon Kaen, Isan. This personal connection is reflected in every dish served, offering diners an authentic taste of Thailand’s diverse regional cuisine.\nAmbience and Experience\nStepping into Ona Uma, guests are greeted by an inviting atmosphere that blends simple, elegant Thai decor with the lively spirit of Tel Aviv. The restaurant’s ambiance transports diners from the city’s hustle to the relaxed vibe of a Thai eatery, making it a perfect spot for both casual dinners and special occasions.\nThe staff is known for their friendliness and attentiveness, always ready to explain the menu and recommend daily specials, some of which may not be listed. Listening to the waiter’s advice is highly recommended, as the rotating specials often showcase unique flavors and seasonal ingredients.\nMenu Highlights\nOna Uma’s menu is a celebration of Thai culinary traditions, with an emphasis on authenticity and bold flavors. The selection, while not overwhelming, offers a variety of dishes suitable for all palates, including:\nSpicy beef entrecote salad for those who crave heat Warming soups and aromatic curries A range of rice and noodle dishes Refreshing Thai salads Vegetarian and vegan options Portions are generous, and the menu allows for easy sharing—perfect for groups who want to sample a bit of everything.\nDrinks and Specials\nThe restaurant plans to expand its drink menu to include cocktails infused with Thai herbs, but currently offers a selection of Thai beers and Israeli wines. The focus remains on complementing the food with beverages that enhance the dining experience.\nPractical Information\nAddress: Carlebach 15, Tel Aviv Opening Hours: Sunday–Thursday: 12:00–15:00 (lunch), 17:00–23:00 (dinner) Friday \u0026amp; Saturday: Closed Reservations: Recommended, especially for dinner Accessibility: The entrance is accessible for strollers and wheelchairs. Several parking options are available nearby. Contact: 03-698-1155 Recognition\nOna Uma has been featured in several guides as one of the best Thai restaurants in Tel Aviv and has earned a Travelers’ Choice award on Tripadvisor, placing it among the top 10% of restaurants in the city.\n\u0026ldquo;No fusion here, it\u0026rsquo;s just excellent Thai food.\u0026rdquo; — Tripadvisor reviewer\nConclusion\nFor those seeking an authentic Thai dining experience in Tel Aviv, Ona Uma offers a flavorful journey through Thailand’s rich culinary landscape. Whether you’re a Thai food enthusiast or a newcomer to the cuisine, Ona Uma’s dedication to quality, authenticity, and hospitality ensures a memorable meal every time.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/oma-numa/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ona Uma Thai Restaurant: A Taste of Authentic Thailand in Tel Aviv # Ona Uma (Onauma) Authentic Thai Kitchen stands out as a culinary gem in Tel Aviv, delivering a truly authentic Thai experience in the heart of the city. Located at 15 Carlebach Street, Ona Uma has quickly become a favorite among locals and visitors seeking genuine Thai flavors, aromatic spices, and warm hospitality.\n","title":"Ona Uma Thai Restaurant","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More sits at HaRakevet 12, on the corner of Levontin behind the old customs house — a quiet edge of the Gan HaShmal district, the artsy central Tel Aviv pocket of design studios, small bars and independent kitchens. It is a chef\u0026rsquo;s sushi bar in the Tokyo sense: a long counter at the centre of the room, the chef working in front of you, the menu treated as a craft rather than a checklist. For a city where \u0026ldquo;sushi\u0026rdquo; too often means an assembly-line salmon roll, Wat Sang is one of the addresses serious eaters point newcomers toward.\nThe restaurant is the independent venture of two people who spent more than two decades side by side at Moon, one of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s oldest and most respected sushi houses — chef Wat Sang in the kitchen and Zohar Shterek running the floor. After roughly 24 years together there, they left to build the place they had been imagining: somewhere that holds onto Japanese authenticity while honouring an Israeli identity, as Shterek has put it — meticulous and invested, but unpretentious enough for a weeknight. Their timing was brutal. The opening was set for October 9, 2023; the war intervened, and they opened instead with a soft launch in early November, days into a period when few people were starting restaurants at all.\nThe cooking rewards the credentials. The fish is the headline — carefully sourced, with seasonal bluefin tuna and imported premium ingredients, down to rice brought in from Japan. Beyond the maki, sashimi, nigiri and Osaka-style pressed battera, there are around fifteen special rolls and a genuine kitchen behind the bar: chicken and shrimp ramen simmered for nine hours, seared scallop with rice-milk cream, salmon in miso with Japanese squash, agedashi tofu, miso eggplant, vegetables in delicate tempura, and skewers off a robata grill. Drinks run to sake, Japanese beer, natural wines and house cocktails built on matcha, yuzu and sesame.\nThe room matches the food — quality wood, modern lighting, a counter that anchors everything, plus quieter corners for couples and larger tables for groups. It is not cheap; a full meal with drinks tends to land in the 150–360 NIS range, and the place has become popular enough that booking ahead is wise. For Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Japanese community and for Israelis chasing the real thing, Wat Sang has quickly become a neighbourhood fixture worth the reservation.\nRead our full review\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/watsang-sushi/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Wat Sang Sushi \u0026 More sits at HaRakevet 12, on the corner of Levontin behind the old customs house — a quiet edge of the Gan HaShmal district, the artsy central Tel Aviv pocket of design studios, small bars and independent kitchens. It is a chef’s sushi bar in the Tokyo sense: a long counter at the centre of the room, the chef working in front of you, the menu treated as a craft rather than a checklist. For a city where “sushi” too often means an assembly-line salmon roll, Wat Sang is one of the addresses serious eaters point newcomers toward.\n","title":"Wat Sang Sushi \u0026 More","type":"directory"},{"content":" Wat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More # Location: HaRakevet 12, corner of Levontin (behind the old customs house), Tel Aviv\nCuisine: Japanese (Sushi, Ramen, Robatayaki)\nPrice Range: ₪₪-₪₪₪\nKosher: No\nAbout # Wat Sang Sushi \u0026amp; More is a neighborhood Japanese restaurant that opened in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s vibrant Gan HaHashmal area. Founded by experienced chef Wat Sang and partner Zohar Shterek, both veterans from the renowned Moon restaurant, this establishment represents their independent venture into authentic Japanese cuisine with an Israeli touch.\nThe restaurant embodies the concept of an aesthetic and comfortable sushi bar, similar to what you\u0026rsquo;d find in major Japanese cities. The founders aimed to create a place that maintains its Japanese identity while embracing Israeli culture - refined and invested, yet accessible for casual dining.\nMenu Highlights # Sushi Selection # Maki \u0026amp; Temaki - Traditional hand rolls and cut rolls Inside Out Rolls - Creative combinations with salmon, sea bream, tuna, and white fish Sashimi \u0026amp; Nigiri - Fresh fish preparations Chirashi - Deconstructed sushi bowls Battera - Osaka-style pressed sushi technique Special Rolls - Including crab avocado yuzu roll, grilled sea bream with spinach and avocado, and salmon panko roll with asparagus (₪55-78) Prices range from ₪39 for vegetarian maki to ₪110 for chirashi with white fish\nHot Dishes # Miso Soup (₪22) Cucumber Salad (₪29) Miso Eggplant (₪39) Cherry Tomatoes in Japanese Marinade (₪31) Scallop in Rice Milk and sea bass in Japanese pumpkin sauce (₪75) Tempura - Shrimp or vegetables (₪49-58) Ramen - Chicken and shrimp varieties (₪72-76) Beverages # Japanese beer Organic natural juices Fermented kombucha tea in various flavors Sake and wines (average ₪42 per glass, ₪150 per bottle) Japanese-style cocktails with matcha, sakura tea, yuzu, and sesame oil (₪55-59) Atmosphere # The restaurant features clean lines and wood design that bridges East and West. The aesthetic is described as \u0026ldquo;meticulous yet accessible, fine dining that allows everyone to find themselves.\u0026rdquo; The space maintains the authentic Japanese sushi bar concept while remaining welcoming to the local community.\nLocation \u0026amp; Hours # Strategically located within walking distance of Gan HaHashmal and Levontin, in an area experiencing culinary growth alongside establishments like Ban Mi Nong, COS Coffee Studio, and the beloved Mela Cafe from Kikar Basel.\nOperating Hours: Sunday-Saturday 12:00-20:00 (soft opening hours)\nCommunity Connection # Wat Sang Sushi represents the resilience of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s restaurant scene, having opened during challenging times while contributing to both employee and customer well-being. The restaurant offers a neighborhood dining experience that doesn\u0026rsquo;t require special occasion planning, with a menu that balances authenticity with pleasant surprises.\nPerfect for sushi lovers seeking quality Japanese cuisine in a relaxed, accessible setting in one of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most dynamic neighborhoods.\n","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/watsang-sushi/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat Sang Sushi \u0026 More # Location: HaRakevet 12, corner of Levontin (behind the old customs house), Tel Aviv\nCuisine: Japanese (Sushi, Ramen, Robatayaki)\nPrice Range: ₪₪-₪₪₪\nKosher: No\n","title":"Wat Sang Sushi \u0026 More","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/women-owned/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Women Owned","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"אותנטי","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%A7%D7%A4%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"בית-קפה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"ידידותי-לטבעונים","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%A0%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"יפני","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%9C%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%98%D7%9F/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"ללא-גלוטן","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%A2%D7%93%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"מסעדה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/categories/%D7%A2%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%9D/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"עסקים","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%91%D7%9A/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קרליבך","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%AA%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"תאילנדי","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asian-fusion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Fusion","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"8 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/authentic-korean/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Authentic Korean","type":"tags"},{"content":"For years, Tel Aviv had no dedicated Korean restaurant — a strange gap in a city that had otherwise eaten its way through every Asian cuisine, and stranger still given how thoroughly K-dramas and K-pop had soaked into Israeli pop culture. Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s closed that gap. It is the city\u0026rsquo;s first standing Korean restaurant, and for a lot of diners it remains the place they first tasted real bibimbap or homemade kimchi rather than a fusion approximation of it.\nThe kitchen belongs to Suni Kim, and her biography is part of the appeal. Born in Japan to Korean parents, she also spent time living in China before moving to Israel — a genuinely pan-Asian background that shows up on the menu. Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s began the way a lot of good small restaurants did: as a COVID-era takeaway pop-up, cooking out of a delivery kitchen when nobody could sit down anywhere. The food found an audience, and the pop-up grew into the full restaurant now on Lilienblum Street. Suni is upfront that the recipes are her mother\u0026rsquo;s home cooking — this is family Korean food, not a chef\u0026rsquo;s reinterpretation of it.\nThe core menu runs through the classics: bibimbap, tteokbokki, japchae glass noodles, gimbap, bulgogi, and Korean fried chicken in soy, spicy, and honey-garlic versions. Suni\u0026rsquo;s homemade kimchi — napa cabbage and cucumber — is sold by the jar as well as served at the table. Alongside the Korean dishes sits a smaller Japanese-leaning selection: ramen, udon, handmade dumplings, and taiyaki fish-shaped cakes filled with red bean, custard, or chocolate. Heat is calibrated for Israeli palates rather than pushed to full Korean intensity, though the kitchen will oblige if you ask.\nThe vegan range is unusually deep for the cuisine. Beyond vegan bibimbap, gimbap, ramen, dumplings, and kimchi, every fried-chicken dish on the menu can be ordered as crispy tofu instead — the same sauces, the same idea, no meat. For a kitchen built on a famously meat- and fish-heavy cuisine, that is real effort, not a token salad.\nPractically: Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s sits in the City Center, on Lilienblum, an easy walk from Rothschild and the surrounding bars. At lunch it runs largely as a pickup-and-delivery kitchen with limited seating and no table service; evenings are the full sit-down experience, and reservations are taken via Ontopo. There is a business-lunch deal with a discounted appetizer platter, and family dinner sets for two or four. Delivery is available through Wolt. Follow @kimchistlv for specials and opening updates.\nAddress: 21 Lilienblum Street, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"8 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/kimchis-tlv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"For years, Tel Aviv had no dedicated Korean restaurant — a strange gap in a city that had otherwise eaten its way through every Asian cuisine, and stranger still given how thoroughly K-dramas and K-pop had soaked into Israeli pop culture. Kimchi’s closed that gap. It is the city’s first standing Korean restaurant, and for a lot of diners it remains the place they first tasted real bibimbap or homemade kimchi rather than a fusion approximation of it.\n","title":"Kimchi's TLV","type":"directory"},{"content":" Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV # אוכל קוריאני אותנטי בתל אביב! 🍚\nKimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV brings authentic Korean flavors to Tel Aviv, offering a wide range of traditional dishes in a modern setting. Started as a popular takeaway pop-up during COVID, the restaurant has evolved into a full dining experience, bringing the world\u0026rsquo;s trendiest cuisine to Tel Aviv. Owned by Suni Kim, who brings a multicultural background—born in Japan to Korean parents and having lived in China—the restaurant reflects authentic Korean flavors with influences from across Asia.\nRestaurant Story # What began as a takeaway pop-up during COVID has blossomed into a full restaurant experience. During lunch hours, the restaurant operates as a delivery kitchen with pickup options and limited seating (no table service), while evenings offer a complete restaurant experience.\nMenu Highlights # Korean Specialties # Bibimbap (Rice bowl with vegetables and meat) Tteokbokki (Spicy rice cakes) Gimbap (Korean sushi rolls) Korean Fried Chicken (Spicy, Soy, Garlic-Honey options) Homemade Kimchi (Napa cabbage, cucumber varieties) Japchae (Stir-fried glass noodles) Various Korean side dishes (Banchan) Japanese Fusion # Ramen Udon Hand-made dumplings Taiyaki (fish-shaped cake) Mochi Japanese bakery items Vegan \u0026amp; Vegetarian Options # Vegan Bibimbap Vegan Gimbap Vegan Ramen Vegan Dumplings Vegan Kimchi Tofu versions of all fried chicken dishes Drinks \u0026amp; Snacks # Soju Bong Bong peach juice Korean teas DIY cocktail sets Location \u0026amp; Hours # Address: 21 Lilienblum Street, Tel Aviv\nSunday-Thursday: 11:30-23:00 Friday: 11:30-16:00 Saturday: 19:00-23:00 Special Offers # Business lunch deals (11:30-15:00) with free appetizer Family dinner sets for 2 or 4 people Japanese bakery next door with fresh breads and desserts Contact # Phone: 03-1234567 Instagram: @kimchistlv Website: kimchi-tlv.com Special Features # Authentic Korean ingredients and traditional cooking methods Warm, inviting atmosphere with friendly, attentive staff Generous portions ideal for sharing Extensive vegan and vegetarian options Takeaway and delivery available Korean language menu available Reservations accepted Japanese bakery next door Delivery available through Wolt Recommended Dishes # Honey-Garlic Fried Chicken (68₪) - Sweet and spicy, served with rice to cool the heat Bibimbap - For those familiar with Korean cuisine Tofu versions of fried chicken dishes (68₪) - Perfect for vegetarians Crispy Dumplings - A must-try appetizer Price Range # Main dishes: 68₪ Lunch specials available Family sets available for 2 or 4 people ","date":"8 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/kimchis-tlv/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kimchi’s TLV # אוכל קוריאני אותנטי בתל אביב! 🍚\nKimchi’s TLV brings authentic Korean flavors to Tel Aviv, offering a wide range of traditional dishes in a modern setting. Started as a popular takeaway pop-up during COVID, the restaurant has evolved into a full dining experience, bringing the world’s trendiest cuisine to Tel Aviv. Owned by Suni Kim, who brings a multicultural background—born in Japan to Korean parents and having lived in China—the restaurant reflects authentic Korean flavors with influences from across Asia.\n","title":"Kimchi's TLV","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/experience/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Experience","type":"tags"},{"content":" Exploring the Flavors of Asia: Our Shopping Adventure at Ta-Yo Supermarket # If you\u0026rsquo;re a fan of Asian cuisine or just love discovering new snacks and ingredients, a trip to Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket is a must! We recently visited Ta-Yo and came home with a vibrant haul of goodies from across Asia.\nFrom instant noodles and curry mixes to crispy seaweed, unique beverages, and a variety of ready-to-eat meals, the selection was both impressive and inspiring. Our basket quickly filled up with Korean ramyeon, Japanese curry, Chinese hot pot bases, Taiwanese snacks, and more. The shelves were stocked with products from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, and beyond—making it easy to find both familiar favorites and exciting new treats to try.\nTa-Yo\u0026rsquo;s aisles are a treasure trove for anyone who loves to cook or snack. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re looking for authentic ingredients for a homemade meal or just want to sample something new, you\u0026rsquo;ll find plenty to choose from. We especially appreciated the clear labeling of kosher products and the helpful staff who were happy to answer questions.\nWhat you can actually stock up on # Ta-Yo is built around the pantry, not the fridge, and that shapes what it\u0026rsquo;s good for. The strongest aisles are the dry and ambient ones: a wide instant-noodle range covering Korean ramyeon, Japanese ramen and Thai and Chinese styles; cooking bases and pastes such as Japanese curry roux, Chinese hot pot and mala bases, and Korean gochujang and doenjang; rice, rice paper and dried noodles; cooking sauces — soy, oyster, fish, sesame, teriyaki; and a deep snack and confectionery section. There is also a frozen section with dumplings and other staples, plus Asian beverages and household and kitchenware items.\nFor an Asian home cook in Israel, that mix matters. The hardest things to source here are not snacks but the building blocks of a dish — the right paste, the right noodle, the specific seasoning a recipe assumes you already own. A shop like Ta-Yo turns those from a hunt across several stores into a single trip. The main thing to plan around is fresh produce: Asian herbs, leaves and vegetables are the category that\u0026rsquo;s hardest to find consistently anywhere in Israel, so treat Ta-Yo as the place that solves your dry and frozen pantry, and source fresh produce separately. If a recipe hinges on fresh kaffir lime leaves or Thai basil, it\u0026rsquo;s worth a phone call before a special trip.\nFinding a branch near you # When we wrote this, Ta-Yo\u0026rsquo;s basket was easy to fill because the chain genuinely carries one of the widest Asian ranges in the country. Ta-Yo now runs three branches — the original Beer Sheva flagship, Rishon LeZion, and a Haifa store on Derech Yafo that opened in 2025, extending the chain into the north. If you\u0026rsquo;re choosing where to shop, our city-by-city guide to Asian supermarkets in Israel maps Ta-Yo against every other Asian grocery by region, and the new northern branch is covered in our report on the TAYO Haifa opening. All three branches offer delivery, so a haul like ours doesn\u0026rsquo;t strictly require a car.\nCurious about what we found? Check out the photo above for a glimpse of our shopping haul!\nFor more information about Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket, including locations, hours, and delivery options, read our full business profile here, or see the dedicated listing for the Haifa branch.\n","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/tayo-shopping-trip/","section":"Posts","summary":"Exploring the Flavors of Asia: Our Shopping Adventure at Ta-Yo Supermarket # If you’re a fan of Asian cuisine or just love discovering new snacks and ingredients, a trip to Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket is a must! We recently visited Ta-Yo and came home with a vibrant haul of goodies from across Asia.\n","title":"Exploring the Flavors of Asia: Our Shopping Adventure at Ta-Yo Supermarket","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/philippine/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Philippine","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/review/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Review","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/shopping/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Shopping","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ta-Yo is Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest Asian supermarket chain, offering an extensive selection of authentic products from across Asia including Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Korea, and the Philippines. Whether you need ingredients for your favorite Asian dishes or unique snacks and beverages, Ta-Yo has you covered.\nWith branches in Beer Sheva, Rishon LeZion, and Haifa, the chain also offers nationwide delivery. Kosher products are clearly labeled, and a dedicated kosher category is available on their website.\nLocations: Beer Sheva, Rishon LeZion, Haifa\nRead our full review\n","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/ta-yo/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Ta-Yo is Israel’s largest Asian supermarket chain, offering an extensive selection of authentic products from across Asia including Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Korea, and the Philippines. Whether you need ingredients for your favorite Asian dishes or unique snacks and beverages, Ta-Yo has you covered.\n","title":"Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket","type":"directory"},{"content":" Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket # הסופר אסייתי הגדול בישראל! 🏪\nTa-Yo is Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest Asian supermarket chain, offering an extensive selection of authentic products from across Asia. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re looking for ingredients for your favorite Asian dishes or unique snacks and beverages, Ta-Yo has you covered.\nLocations \u0026amp; Hours # Beer Sheva Branch # Address: Khayim Yakhil 3, Beer Sheva\nSunday-Thursday: 09:30-20:00 Friday \u0026amp; Holiday Eves: 09:00-17:00 Saturday: 11:00-19:00 Rishon LeZion Branch # Address: Honim Konim Mall, Yosef Lishanski Blvd 9, Rishon LeZion\nSunday-Thursday: 09:00-20:30 Friday \u0026amp; Holiday Eves: 08:30-16:00 Saturday: 09:00-17:00 Haifa Branch (Opening June 12, 2025) # Address: Derech Yafo 21, Haifa\nProduct Categories # Fresh Seafood Asian Spices \u0026amp; Seasonings Beverages (Teas, Soft Drinks, Alcoholic Drinks) Sauces \u0026amp; Condiments Noodles \u0026amp; Rice Snacks \u0026amp; Sweets Frozen Foods Kitchenware \u0026amp; Utensils Beauty \u0026amp; Personal Care Household Items Kosher Options # Ta-Yo offers a variety of kosher products. Kosher items are clearly labeled with certification stickers on the back of the products. You can easily find kosher items by visiting the \u0026ldquo;Kosher\u0026rdquo; category on the website\u0026rsquo;s homepage.\nDelivery Information # Nationwide delivery available Delivery time: Up to 7 business days Business days exclude Fridays, Saturdays, and holidays No express delivery available Delivery fee: 30₪ (40₪ for Eilat and surrounding areas) Minimum order: 100₪ (including delivery) Contact # Customer Service: 077-604-8220 WhatsApp: +972-51-201-5555 Email: sherut@ta-yo.co.il Website: ta-yo.co.il ","date":"7 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/ta-yo/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket # הסופר אסייתי הגדול בישראל! 🏪\nTa-Yo is Israel’s largest Asian supermarket chain, offering an extensive selection of authentic products from across Asia. Whether you’re looking for ingredients for your favorite Asian dishes or unique snacks and beverages, Ta-Yo has you covered.\n","title":"Ta-Yo Asian Supermarket","type":"posts"},{"content":" マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ - 6月版 # マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップが帰ってきました！抹茶マフィン、伝統的な和菓子など、日本風のスイーツを楽しみましょう。\n📍 ギヴァタイム、シェンキン49 (グヴァロットにて)\nインスタグラムをフォローしてください: @mushroom_cafe および @gvarot.givatayim\nお会いできるのを楽しみにしています！🤗\n","date":"June 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2025/06/mushroom-cafe-popup-june2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ - 6月版 # マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップが帰ってきました！抹茶マフィン、伝統的な和菓子など、日本風のスイーツを楽しみましょう。\n","title":"マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ - 6月版","type":"posts"},{"content":"In a significant development for Israeli-Taiwanese relations, Taiwan has officially launched a new work-holiday program specifically designed for Israeli youth. This initiative, which began operations this week, represents the first such agreement between Taiwan and a Middle Eastern country, marking a milestone in bilateral relations.\nThe program allows up to 200 young people aged 18-30 from each country to live and work in the other country for up to one year. This opportunity comes at a particularly relevant time, as it offers Israeli youth an alternative destination for international experience and cultural exchange.\nParticipants in the program can work during their stay in Taiwan to support themselves, with opportunities available in various sectors including tourism, education, agriculture, and retail. This combination of work and leisure allows young Israelis to experience Taiwan not just as a tourist destination, but as a temporary home, enabling deeper integration into the local community and authentic experience of Taiwanese life.\nYa-Ping Abby Lee, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative in Israel, emphasized the program\u0026rsquo;s significance: \u0026ldquo;We welcome more and more young Israelis, adventurers, and creative spirits to explore our beautiful, diverse, and friendly country. Taiwan is a unique country that combines Eastern and Western cultures, stunning nature, and modern urban landscapes.\u0026rdquo;\nThe program is part of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s broader initiative to strengthen international ties, with similar agreements already in place with 18 countries worldwide. For Israel, this agreement joins existing work-holiday programs with countries including Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria.\nThe initiative not only provides practical work experience but also fosters cultural understanding and creates lasting international connections. Participants will have the opportunity to meet travelers from around the world and connect with locals who can provide insights into daily life in Taiwan.\nThis program represents a significant step in strengthening the friendship between Israel and Taiwan, offering young people from both countries a unique opportunity to build cross-cultural relationships that can last a lifetime.\nRead more at ynet.\n","date":"5 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/taiwan-work-holiday-program-2024/","section":"Posts","summary":"In a significant development for Israeli-Taiwanese relations, Taiwan has officially launched a new work-holiday program specifically designed for Israeli youth. This initiative, which began operations this week, represents the first such agreement between Taiwan and a Middle Eastern country, marking a milestone in bilateral relations.\n","title":"Taiwan Opens Doors to Israeli Youth with New Work-Holiday Program","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"5 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/work-abroad/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Work-Abroad","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%98%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9C/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"טיול","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9C/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"עבודה-בחו\"ל","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/health/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Health","type":"tags"},{"content":"山茶深蒸しは、深い豊かな風味と鮮やかな緑色が特徴のプレミアムな日本茶です。このオーガニックティーは、その味と香りを高める特別な蒸し工程を用いて生産されており、世界中の茶愛好家の間で人気があります。このお茶は、抗酸化物質や爽やかで活力を与える効果など、健康上の利点でも知られています。 この製品は、本格的な日本食および飲料製品の信頼できるサプライヤーであるヤマ・ヴァケドマによって輸入されています。パッケージには、完璧な一杯を淹れるためのヘブライ語の明確な説明が含まれており、初心者から経験豊富な茶愛好家まで、誰もが完全に楽しむことができます。 この素晴らしい日本茶をぜひお試しください。お近くの小売店を訪れるか、今すぐオンラインでご注文ください！\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2025/06/yama-tea-fukamushi-available/","section":"Posts","summary":"山茶深蒸しは、深い豊かな風味と鮮やかな緑色が特徴のプレミアムな日本茶です。このオーガニックティーは、その味と香りを高める特別な蒸し工程を用いて生産されており、世界中の茶愛好家の間で人気があります。このお茶は、抗酸化物質や爽やかで活力を与える効果など、健康上の利点でも知られています。 この製品は、本格的な日本食および飲料製品の信頼できるサプライヤーであるヤマ・ヴァケドマによって輸入されています。パッケージには、完璧な一杯を淹れるためのヘブライ語の明確な説明が含まれており、初心者から経験豊富な茶愛好家まで、誰もが完全に楽しむことができます。 この素晴らしい日本茶をぜひお試しください。お近くの小売店を訪れるか、今すぐオンラインでご注文ください！\n","title":"山茶深蒸し、イスラエルで販売開始","type":"posts"},{"content":"Chang Ba restaurant is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and to mark the occasion, a street party will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) from 18:00-24:00 in the Lower City. The chain currently operates three restaurants - in Haifa, Yokneam Illit, and Kiryat Bialik - led by chef Idan Lipschitz and his partner Lior Golan.\nAt the street party, which will take place on Port Street near the restaurant, visitors will enjoy Thai food stalls offering dishes from the Thai kitchen and cocktails, with music playing throughout the event.\nMeanwhile, the Facebook page \u0026ldquo;Haifaim Metzaytzim\u0026rdquo; has also joined the trend of supporting military spouses, offering a complimentary couple\u0026rsquo;s meal at Chang Ba to the military wife who most deserves a Thai meal. To participate, tag the military wife\u0026rsquo;s name in a comment on the page.\n","date":"3 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/colbo-food-festival-2025/","section":"Events","summary":"Chang Ba restaurant is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and to mark the occasion, a street party will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) from 18:00-24:00 in the Lower City. The chain currently operates three restaurants - in Haifa, Yokneam Illit, and Kiryat Bialik - led by chef Idan Lipschitz and his partner Lior Golan.\n","title":"Chang Ba Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Street Party","type":"events"},{"content":"","date":"3 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chang-ba/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chang-Ba","type":"tags"},{"content":" Israeli Real Estate Agency Opens Branch in Thailand # Anglo Saxon, one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest real estate agencies, has expanded its operations internationally by opening its first branch in Phuket, Thailand. This strategic move comes as the Thai property market experiences significant growth, particularly in tourist areas like Phuket, Koh Samui, Bangkok, and Pattaya.\nMarket Growth and Israeli Interest # The Thai real estate market has seen remarkable development, with thousands of residential units under construction in projects targeting Western buyers. Tourism has nearly fully recovered post-pandemic, with approximately 40 million tourists visiting Thailand annually. This has created a growing community of Israeli expatriates and investors in the country.\nEitan Katzaf, Anglo Saxon\u0026rsquo;s franchisee in Thailand, notes that the market is particularly attractive due to its combination of stability, growth potential, and business-friendly environment. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re seeing significant interest from Israeli investors and families looking to relocate,\u0026rdquo; he says.\nChallenges and Considerations # While the Thai market offers opportunities, it also presents unique challenges:\nComplex local regulations regarding foreign land ownership Language barriers in property management and negotiations Need for thorough legal due diligence Active management requirements, especially for short-term rentals Strategic Expansion # Ron Novotny, CEO of Anglo Saxon, explains the rationale behind the expansion: \u0026ldquo;In recent years, many Israelis have been purchasing properties abroad, either for relocation or investment purposes. This trend is particularly noticeable in Thailand, and we saw an opportunity to provide Israeli clients with a familiar, trusted partner in navigating the local market.\u0026rdquo;\nThe company chose Thailand as its first international location due to the growing Israeli community and the potential for future expansion. The branch aims to bridge cultural and regulatory gaps for Israeli investors while providing comprehensive real estate services.\nWhat This Means for the Israeli Community in Thailand # For Israelis already living in or relocating to Thailand, a Hebrew-speaking agency on the ground addresses a real friction point. Property transactions in Thailand routinely go wrong for foreign buyers who misunderstand the ownership rules — and the cost of that misunderstanding can be the entire purchase. A branch staffed with people who understand both the Thai system and Israeli expectations lowers the barrier for families weighing a move, retirees, and remote workers who have made Phuket and Koh Samui semi-permanent bases.\nIt also signals something about the size of that community. Anglo Saxon would not open an international branch for a handful of clients; the move reflects a Phuket-area Israeli presence substantial enough to sustain a dedicated business. That same community is increasingly reachable by air — the new and expanding direct routes from Tel Aviv, including Arkia\u0026rsquo;s Spring–Summer 2026 Tel Aviv–Phuket service, make back-and-forth travel far more practical for owners and investors. See our coverage of https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/08/arkia-flights-bangkok-hanoi/ and https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/08/israel-southeast-asia-airfares-fall/.\nPractical Takeaways for Buyers # The single rule that catches most foreign buyers is land ownership. Under the Thai Land Code, foreigners cannot own land directly. In practice this means:\nCondominiums can be owned freehold in a foreigner\u0026rsquo;s own name — but only within each building\u0026rsquo;s 49% foreign-ownership quota. Confirm the quota has room before committing. Houses and villas are different: a foreigner can own the structure, but the land underneath must be leased (registrable for up to 30 years) or held through a Thai company — a structure that carries its own legal scrutiny. Independent legal due diligence, by a lawyer not connected to the seller or developer, is not optional. Title verification and lease registration at the Land Office are where deals are protected or lost. These constraints have not loosened — they remain the framework as of 2026 — so a \u0026ldquo;familiar, trusted partner\u0026rdquo; matters only insofar as that partner walks buyers through them honestly rather than around them.\nRead the full article on Ynet.\n","date":"3 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/anglo-saxon-thailand-branch/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israeli Real Estate Agency Opens Branch in Thailand # Anglo Saxon, one of Israel’s largest real estate agencies, has expanded its operations internationally by opening its first branch in Phuket, Thailand. This strategic move comes as the Thai property market experiences significant growth, particularly in tourist areas like Phuket, Koh Samui, Bangkok, and Pattaya.\n","title":"Israeli Real Estate Agency Opens Branch in Thailand","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"3 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/real-estate/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Real-Estate","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/internships/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Internships","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kawaii/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kawaii","type":"tags"},{"content":" The Kawaii Café Arrives at Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV! # Your browser does not support the video tag. Video from Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV instagram!\nWe\u0026rsquo;re excited to announce the launch of the Kawaii Café at Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV! Inspired by the playful and adorable vibes of Japanese and Korean cafés, our new pop-up brings a delightful menu and a cozy, Instagram-worthy atmosphere to Tel Aviv.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s on the Menu? # Our menu is packed with cute and delicious treats:\nOnigiri Rice Balls (₪20): Choose from Bulgogi (Beef), Bibimbap, Korean Yellow Radish, Kimchi Fried Rice, or Korean Chicken Mayo. Tteokbokki Rice Cakes (₪28, Double Size = ₪45): Try unique flavors like Chocolate Chili, Chocolate Cinnamon, Sweet Soy Mitarashi, Sweet Miso Amamiso, or the classic Original Sweet \u0026amp; Spicy. Combo Deal (₪50): 2 Rice Balls + Tea for the perfect lunch! Animal Buns (₪25): Red Bean Panda, Black Sesame Piglet, Chocolate Teddy Bear, and Strawberry White Chocolate Bear. Bingsu Shaved Ice (₪25): Refreshing flavors like Tropical Blue Jeju, Strawberry, and Lemon (with optional sweet milk). Sides (₪15): Kimchi, Natto, or Miso Soup. Tea (₪15): Green Tea, Ginger Tea, Jujube (Asian Date) Tea, or Yuja (Citron) Tea. See you soon at Kimchi\u0026rsquo;s TLV! 💖\n","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/kawaii-cafe-tlv/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Kawaii Café Arrives at Kimchi’s TLV! # Your browser does not support the video tag. Video from Kimchi’s TLV instagram!\n","title":"Kawaii Café Pops Up at Kimchi's TLV!","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kimchis/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kimchis","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/onigiri/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Onigiri","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/research/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Research","type":"tags"},{"content":" Taiwan Announces 2025 NARLabs International Internships for Foreign Graduate Students # The National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) in Taiwan has announced its 2025 international internship program, inviting foreign Master and PhD students from universities worldwide to participate in hands-on research at leading Taiwanese research centers.\nNARLabs aims to foster global research collaboration by providing scholarships and practical research experience to students interested in working at one of its renowned research centers. The program encourages cross-border academic exchange and strengthens ties between Taiwan and the international research community.\nWho Can Apply? # Foreign Master and PhD students enrolled in domestic or international universities Students interested in gaining hands-on research and practical experience Internship Fields # Applications are open for students working in the following fields:\nEarth \u0026amp; Environment Information \u0026amp; Communication Technology Biomedical Technology Science \u0026amp; Technology Policy Program Highlights # Scholarship support for selected students Research experience at top NARLabs centers Opportunities for international academic exchange The goal of the program is to promote research collaboration, knowledge exchange, and cross-border internship opportunities between Taiwan and the global academic community.\nFor more information and application details, visit the official NARLabs website or contact your university\u0026rsquo;s international office.\nWhy This Matters for Israeli Graduate Students # For Israeli Master\u0026rsquo;s and PhD students, a NARLabs placement is a rare direct line into Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s applied-research ecosystem — the same ecosystem that anchors the island\u0026rsquo;s semiconductor, ICT, and biomedical industries. Israel and Taiwan are small, innovation-driven democracies with strikingly parallel R\u0026amp;D cultures, and the two governments have been actively encouraging exactly this kind of academic exchange (see our coverage of the Israel–Taiwan technology and innovation partnership). A research stint at a NARLabs centre is a concrete way for a student to build that network early in a career.\nIt also fits a broader pattern of widening student mobility between the two countries: Taiwan has been funding Chinese-language study scholarships for Israeli students and has eased post-study work rules for international graduates, so a NARLabs internship can be a first step rather than a one-off.\nUpdate (May 2026): The Successor Program Is Now Open # Since this post was first published, the original 2025 cycle has closed. The program has continued under a successor run jointly by Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and NARLabs: the 2026 International Internship Pilot Program (IIPP). Verified details for the current cycle:\nEligibility: foreign students enrolled at overseas universities (undergraduate or graduate). Duration: placements of 28–90 days, concluding by February 2027. Allowance: a tax-free stipend of NTD 1,000 per day for the duration of the internship. How to apply: register and apply for posted vacancies on the IIPP portal at iipp.stpi.niar.org.tw; questions go to iipp@niar.org.tw. Israeli applicants should still confirm current deadlines and any home-university requirements with their institution\u0026rsquo;s international office before applying, as cycle dates shift year to year.\nSuccessor-program details verified May 2026 against NSTC/NARLabs IIPP announcements.\n","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/06/narlabs-taiwan-internships-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan Announces 2025 NARLabs International Internships for Foreign Graduate Students # The National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) in Taiwan has announced its 2025 international internship program, inviting foreign Master and PhD students from universities worldwide to participate in hands-on research at leading Taiwanese research centers.\n","title":"Taiwan Offers 2025 Research Internships for Foreign Master and PhD Students","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tteokbokki/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tteokbokki","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%92%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"אוניגירי","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%A1%D7%95/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"בינגסו","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"טוקבוקי","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%A4-%D7%90%D7%A4/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"פופ-אפ","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%90%D7%95%D7%95%D7%90%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קאוואי","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%99/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קוריאני","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%A1/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קימצ'יס","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9D/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קינוחים","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"June 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A7%D7%A4%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"קפה","type":"tags"},{"content":" Israel Leads Developed World in Chinese Car Market Share # Israel has emerged as the developed world\u0026rsquo;s leader in Chinese vehicle market share, with Chinese-made vehicles accounting for 25.5% of all deliveries in the first quarter of 2025, according to recent market data.\nMarket Share Comparison # The Israeli market\u0026rsquo;s adoption of Chinese vehicles significantly outpaces other developed markets:\nAustralia: 20% market share UAE: 14% market share Brazil: 7% market share Europe: 4.1% market share (as of first two months of 2025) While Russia leads globally with 53% market share for Chinese vehicles, it is not considered a developed market due to Western sanctions following the Ukraine invasion.\nMarket Growth and Trends # By the end of April 2025, total sales of Chinese-made vehicles in Israel surpassed 200,000 units, with most sales occurring since 2020. The market is expected to grow further, with industry experts predicting Chinese vehicles could reach 30% of all deliveries by the end of 2025.\nIsrael currently leads developed countries in the number of Chinese brands available, with 21 Chinese brands currently represented in the market. At least five additional Chinese brands are expected to enter the Israeli market by the end of the year.\nSegment Performance # Chinese manufacturers have shown particularly strong performance in specific segments:\nPlug-in hybrid vehicles: 92% market share (6.2% of all new vehicle deliveries) Hybrid vehicles: 6.6% market share (up from less than 1% last year) The growth is attributed to Chinese manufacturers expanding beyond electric vehicles to include hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and gasoline-powered vehicles, addressing a broader market segment.\nUpdate: The 30% Prediction Came True — and Then Some # The industry forecast quoted above — Chinese vehicles reaching 30% of all deliveries by the end of 2025 — proved conservative. By the first quarter of 2026, Chinese automakers delivered 39,127 cars in Israel, the single largest national-origin bloc, comfortably ahead of South Korea (17,828) and Japan (10,630). Chery alone became the best-selling brand in the country in early 2026, with Chery Group overtaking the long-dominant Hyundai-Kia-Genesis and Toyota-Lexus groups. Israel\u0026rsquo;s status as the developed world\u0026rsquo;s outlier on Chinese-car adoption — the core claim of this article — has only hardened.\nWhat \u0026ldquo;Market Leader\u0026rdquo; Status Means Locally # Being the developed world\u0026rsquo;s leader in Chinese-car market share is not a neutral statistic in Israel. It sits at the intersection of three things our readers care about:\nA genuine consumer win. For the Asian community and for cost-conscious Israeli families alike, the flood of Chinese brands has meant more choice and real price pressure on Korean and Japanese incumbents. This is the most tangible benefit of the China–Israel economic relationship that an ordinary household actually feels. A growing security debate. The same dominance has prompted scrutiny — Israel\u0026rsquo;s defence establishment has moved to restrict Chinese vehicles over data and security concerns (see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/12/israel-defense-industries-ban-chinese-vehicles/), and Chinese involvement in Israeli infrastructure is contested (see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/12/china-metro-israel-controversy/ and https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/04/hyundai-israel-metro-china-exclusion/). Consumer enthusiasm and strategic caution are running in opposite directions at once. A barometer of the relationship. Unlike ports or tech investment, car-buying is a decision millions of Israelis make individually. That makes this market share one of the clearest grassroots indicators of how China is woven into Israeli daily life — even as the political relationship cools. For Chinese-community readers, there is also a quiet point of visibility here: Chinese engineering and brands are, for once, in the mainstream of Israeli consumer life rather than the margins.\nRelated Coverage # https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-increase-market-share/ — the segment-level data behind the headline share https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/07/xiaomi-cars-israel-import/ — Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s planned entry via a Hemilton–Hamizrach joint venture https://asiansinisrael.com/2026/04/byd-flash-ev-charging-israel/ — BYD\u0026rsquo;s fast-charging technology heading to Israel https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/12/israel-defense-industries-ban-chinese-vehicles/ — the security pushback Read the full article on Globes.\n","date":"22 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/chinese-cars-israel-market-leader/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel Leads Developed World in Chinese Car Market Share # Israel has emerged as the developed world’s leader in Chinese vehicle market share, with Chinese-made vehicles accounting for 25.5% of all deliveries in the first quarter of 2025, according to recent market data.\n","title":"Israel Leads Developed World in Chinese Car Market Share","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"May 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%9F/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"סין","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"May 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%91/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"רכב","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"May 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/%D7%AA%D7%97%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"תחבורה","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bilateral-trade/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bilateral-Trade","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/exports/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Exports","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/innovation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Innovation","type":"tags"},{"content":"An Israeli delegation of 20 companies is taking part in the biennial DSEI international defense exhibition in Japan. Seven of the companies are participating through SIBAT, the International Defense Cooperation directorate at Israel\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Defense, and eight of the companies are startups led by the Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense R\u0026amp;D (DDR\u0026amp;D).\nThis year\u0026rsquo;s exhibition is double the size of the 2023 event, and SIBAT head Brig. Gen. (res.) Yair Kulas tells Globes that the exhibition shows how much Tokyo has become a strategic destination for Israel\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Defense.\n\u0026ldquo;We came here for the first time in 2023. It is aimed at Asia-Pacific and it is obvious how much it has grown,\u0026rdquo; says Kulas. \u0026ldquo;About five years ago, we defined Japan as a breakthrough country in the Ministry of Defense, and since then the investment has been continuous. That investment has proven itself, because the export data indicate an increase from annual exports to Japan of tens of millions of dollars, to hundreds of millions. Part of this is due to our industries understanding the necessary change, and this has led to success.\u0026rdquo;\nIsraeli Companies at the Exhibition # Among the companies appearing in the SIBAT pavilion are:\nOrbit Technologies - provides advanced air and sea communications systems and satellite tracking Xtend - develops and manufactures AI-based drone systems Steadicopter - provides unmanned aerial systems with real-time intelligence and precision attack capabilities MagnaBSD - developed AI-based video analysis for military surveillance and critical infrastructure protection The DDR\u0026amp;D pavilion features:\nResight - developed augmented reality solutions enabling continuous multi-participant experiences Next-Dim - developed a network analysis platform for financial sector, money laundering prevention, and fraud detection Sealartec - developed autonomous launch systems for fully automated collection of marine vehicles in sea conditions Combat Proven Advantage # SIBAT\u0026rsquo;s head stresses that Israel\u0026rsquo;s systems have proven themselves on the battlefield, and being \u0026ldquo;Combat Proven\u0026rdquo; is one of the major advantages of the Israeli defense industry. \u0026ldquo;Many countries are looking for this. Our industry is amazing, creative and proactive, while the Japanese love technology, and playing with technology. They are interested in everything from Israel. We came with the DDR\u0026amp;D startups, and they are thrilled by Israeli technology.\u0026rdquo;\nStrong Defense Relationship # \u0026ldquo;The relationship has lasted many years. The directors general of the Ministry of Defense have come, as has Benny Gantz. The departments of the ministry are coming to Japan, and everyone is involved from the moment we made a decision on breaking into the country.\u0026rdquo;\nLocal Manufacturing Trend # A major challenge that SIBAT is facing across the board is the desire of countries around the world to manufacture in their own countries. One such country is Japan, and Kulas defines this as a \u0026ldquo;serious trend.\u0026rdquo; He says, \u0026ldquo;This is a change that is becoming more pronounced, and we understand that we must adapt ourselves. If in the past we said in G2G (government-to-government) contacts that a deal must be 100% production in Israel, we understood that there would be no deals if we did not agree to about 20%-30% local production.\u0026rdquo;\nWorking with Japanese Culture # \u0026ldquo;We use every exhibition for meetings, but now I am focused on the Japanese, on the large corporations, on the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Homeland Security. Before we arrived, we had a day last week to work with the companies on business, commercial and personal culture, what to do and not to do, respecting the culture. We ourselves are very careful and work with local trading companies. It is important to meet with end users and corporations, but these are companies that do business with them. The Japanese will not make a deal without a local company.\u0026rdquo;\nIn October, the Ministry of Defense will also attend a significant air show in Seoul. On this, Kulas says, \u0026ldquo;Seoul is an industrial hub like Japan, and we must be there. Our industry connects with South Korea, they produce a platform and we produce radar. The by-products on the Korean platforms are beneficial to both sides, because they appeal to other markets. This is a need for our industries.\u0026rdquo;\nSource: Globes\n","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/israel-defense-industry-japan-dsei/","section":"Posts","summary":"An Israeli delegation of 20 companies is taking part in the biennial DSEI international defense exhibition in Japan. Seven of the companies are participating through SIBAT, the International Defense Cooperation directorate at Israel’s Ministry of Defense, and eight of the companies are startups led by the Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense R\u0026D (DDR\u0026D).\n","title":"Israel's Defense Industry Targets Japan at DSEI Exhibition","type":"posts"},{"content":"An Israeli delegation of 20 companies participated in Japan\u0026rsquo;s biennial DSEI international defense exhibition this week, signaling Tokyo\u0026rsquo;s emergence as a strategic destination for Israel\u0026rsquo;s defense sector. The exhibition highlights a remarkable success story: Israeli defense exports to Japan have surged from tens of millions of dollars annually to hundreds of millions.\nStrategic Breakthrough # \u0026ldquo;About five years ago, we defined Japan as a breakthrough country in the Ministry of Defense, and since then the investment has been continuous,\u0026rdquo; says Brig. Gen. (res.) Yair Kulas, head of SIBAT, the International Defense Cooperation directorate at Israel\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Defense. \u0026ldquo;That investment has proven itself, because the export data indicate an increase from annual exports to Japan of tens of millions of dollars, to hundreds of millions.\u0026rdquo;\nSeven companies are participating through SIBAT, while eight startups are led by the Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense R\u0026amp;D (MAFAT). The 2025 exhibition doubled in size compared to 2023, reflecting Japan\u0026rsquo;s growing interest in defense technology.\nCombat-Proven Technology # Israel\u0026rsquo;s major advantage lies in systems proven on the battlefield. \u0026ldquo;Many countries are looking for this,\u0026rdquo; Kulas emphasizes. \u0026ldquo;Our industry is amazing, creative and proactive, while the Japanese love technology, and playing with technology. They are interested in everything from Israel.\u0026rdquo;\nThe SIBAT pavilion features:\nOrbit Technologies: Advanced air and sea communications systems and satellite tracking Xtend: AI-based drone systems Steadicopter: Unmanned aerial systems with real-time intelligence and precision attack capabilities MagnaBSD: AI-based video analysis for military surveillance and infrastructure protection The DDR\u0026amp;D startups showcase cutting-edge innovation:\nResight: Augmented reality solutions for continuous multi-participant experiences Next-Dim: Network analysis platform for financial sector fraud detection Sealartec: Autonomous launch systems for marine vehicles Deepening Bilateral Ties # The Israel-Japan defense relationship has strengthened over many years, with directors general of Israel\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Defense and senior officials like Benny Gantz visiting Japan. \u0026ldquo;The departments of the ministry are coming to Japan, and everyone is involved from the moment we made a decision on breaking into the country,\u0026rdquo; Kulas notes.\nAdapting to Local Production # A major challenge is Japan\u0026rsquo;s preference for domestic manufacturing. \u0026ldquo;This is a serious trend,\u0026rdquo; Kulas acknowledges. \u0026ldquo;If in the past we said in government-to-government contacts that a deal must be 100% production in Israel, we understood that there would be no deals if we did not agree to about 20%-30% local production.\u0026rdquo;\nIsrael has adapted by partnering with local trading companies, essential for doing business in Japan. \u0026ldquo;The Japanese will not make a deal without a local company,\u0026rdquo; Kulas explains. Cultural sensitivity is paramount—before the exhibition, the delegation received training on Japanese business customs and cultural norms.\nRegional Hub Strategy # Beyond Japan, Israel\u0026rsquo;s Ministry of Defense will attend Seoul\u0026rsquo;s air show in October. \u0026ldquo;Seoul is an industrial hub like Japan, and we must be there,\u0026rdquo; says Kulas. \u0026ldquo;Our industry connects with South Korea, they produce a platform and we produce radar. The by-products on the Korean platforms are beneficial to both sides, because they appeal to other markets.\u0026rdquo;\nNavigating Political Challenges # Despite political tensions with some European countries, Israel maintains its exhibition schedule. Following the Paris Air Show in June (with limited Israeli presence due to French government obstacles), SIBAT plans appearances at London\u0026rsquo;s DSEI in September, Seoul ADEX in October, and Dubai Air Show in November. \u0026ldquo;All exhibitions are on the agenda, and there are no signs of cancellations,\u0026rdquo; Kulas emphasizes.\nThe Japan Model # Japan represents a success story for Israeli defense exports—a testament to strategic planning, cultural adaptation, and technological excellence. As regional security concerns grow across Asia-Pacific, Israel\u0026rsquo;s combat-proven systems and innovative startups are finding receptive markets in countries seeking reliable defense partners.\nThe relationship demonstrates how shared interests in advanced technology and regional security can overcome diplomatic constraints, building bridges through practical cooperation and mutual benefit.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"21 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/israel-defense-industry-targets-japan/","section":"Posts","summary":"An Israeli delegation of 20 companies participated in Japan’s biennial DSEI international defense exhibition this week, signaling Tokyo’s emergence as a strategic destination for Israel’s defense sector. The exhibition highlights a remarkable success story: Israeli defense exports to Japan have surged from tens of millions of dollars annually to hundreds of millions.\n","title":"Israel's Defense Industry Targets Japan's Growing Market","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most ramen in Israel is something you eat sitting down, in one of a handful of restaurants. Tom Tom Ramen took the opposite route: it has no dining room at all. It is a delivery operation built around one chef\u0026rsquo;s near-academic obsession with a single dish — and it has become, by the reckoning of more than a few Israeli food critics, some of the best ramen in the country.\nThe chef is Tom Shamir. He visited Japan for the first time in 2019, tasted tsukemen — the \u0026ldquo;dipping\u0026rdquo; style, where firm noodles are served separate from a concentrated broth — and, as he puts it, something in him changed. Ramen stopped being a meal and became the centre of his life. He started cooking it at home during one of the COVID lockdowns, treating each component as a problem to be solved, and built a following by word of mouth before he had anything resembling a business. Time Out, Calcalist, Globes, Ynet, Maariv and Channel 13 have all since written about him; Time Out has named his bowl among the best ramen in Tel Aviv.\nThe menu is deliberately narrow — only ramen, with a personal spin on the styles Shamir met in Japan. The flagship is a tsukemen tonkotsu gyokai: a thick pork-and-fish dipping broth with thin handmade noodles. Around it sit a creamy pork miso ramen, Ippudo-inspired bowls (pork, chicken, or a vegetarian version pitched at beginners), a chicken tori paitan tsukemen, and maze soba — \u0026ldquo;dry\u0026rdquo; ramen with no soup, where a heavy sauce coats the noodles, offered in pork, chicken and a vegan version he calls the Japanese bolognese. He also sells handmade extras: chili oil, cabbage kimchi, and uncooked thick ramen noodles by weight. A spicy kimchi tonkotsu that runs a Japan-meets-Korea seam — graded from \u0026ldquo;flame\u0026rdquo; to \u0026ldquo;extinction event\u0026rdquo; — appears as a recurring special.\nThe delivery model is the unusual part. Orders are placed in advance through the website (now at ramen.co.il) and close at 13:00 the day before. Deliveries usually run Tuesdays and Thursdays, arriving between 11:00 and 16:00, with occasional evening rounds. The food turns up cold with the broth frozen — about 98 percent finished — so you reheat the soup and barely warm the noodles and toppings. It keeps refrigerated for up to 48 hours, which means a Thursday order can become a Friday or Saturday meal. Coverage centres on Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Givatayim, but rotating pickup points and pop-ups push much further — recent runs have reached Haifa, Kiryat Tiv\u0026rsquo;on, Kibbutz Ginosar and Jerusalem, and Shamir has staged collaborative pop-ups at restaurants including Pliim and Okinawa.\nFor the Japanese community in Israel and for Israelis who came home from Japan missing a proper bowl, Tom Tom Ramen fills a specific gap: serious, single-minded ramen with no compromises, delivered to wherever you happen to be. Updates and new delivery dates go out through WhatsApp groups organised by area; follow @tomshamir for specials and pop-up announcements.\n","date":"19 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/tomtom-ramen/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Most ramen in Israel is something you eat sitting down, in one of a handful of restaurants. Tom Tom Ramen took the opposite route: it has no dining room at all. It is a delivery operation built around one chef’s near-academic obsession with a single dish — and it has become, by the reckoning of more than a few Israeli food critics, some of the best ramen in the country.\n","title":"Tom Tom Ramen","type":"directory"},{"content":" トムトムラーメン # 日本の味があなたの家に！🍜\nトムトムラーメンは、本格的な日本のラーメンの味をあなたの玄関先までお届けします。2019年に日本でつけ麺を初めて味わって以来、人生が変わったトム・シャミールによって設立されたこのデリバリーサービスは、ユニークで美味しいラーメン体験を提供することに特化しています。\nメニューのハイライト # つけ麺 豚骨魚介（シグネチャーつけ麺） つけ麺 鶏白湯（鶏肉バージョン） 味噌ラーメン（豚肉ベース） 担々麺（ヴィーガンごま） 一風堂スタイルラーメン（豚肉/鶏肉/ヴィーガンオプション） 油そば（汁なしラーメン） 配送情報 # 配送は火曜日と木曜日に利用可能 配送時間：11:00～16:00 夕方配送は17:00～21:00に利用可能 注文は配送前日の13:00に締め切り 配送エリアには以下が含まれます：アシュケロン、アシュドッド、ベエルシェバ 重要な注意事項 # すべての料理は冷たい状態で、冷凍スープと一緒に届きます 冷蔵庫で最大48時間保存可能 各注文に加熱方法が記載されています お問い合わせ # ウェブサイト：tomtomramen.com\nWhatsApp：注文や問い合わせに利用可能\n","date":"May 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2025/05/tomtom-ramen/","section":"Posts","summary":"トムトムラーメン # 日本の味があなたの家に！🍜\n","title":"トムトムラーメン","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cooperation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cooperation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/emergency-services/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Emergency-Services","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/magen-david-adom/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Magen-David-Adom","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/partnership/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Partnership","type":"tags"},{"content":"May 15, 2025 — Tel Aviv\nThe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan has announced its continued collaboration with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel\u0026rsquo;s national emergency medical service, highlighting a steadfast commitment to saving lives and strengthening global health partnerships.\nIn a recent social media post, the Ministry expressed, \u0026ldquo;We are very happy to contribute and work with MDA in saving lives in Israel. It showcases another great fruit of our long-term partnership and friendship with people of Israel.\u0026rdquo; The message, shared in both Hebrew and English, underscores the deepening ties between Taiwan and Israel, particularly in the field of emergency healthcare.\nView this post on Instagram A Longstanding Friendship # This initiative builds on years of cooperation between Taiwan and Israel, with both nations sharing expertise and resources in health and disaster response. The Ministry described the collaboration as \u0026ldquo;the fruit of our long-term partnership and friendship with people of Israel,\u0026rdquo; reflecting a mutual dedication to humanitarian values and public health.\nThe partnership demonstrates how two nations can work together across geographical distances to advance shared humanitarian goals, with Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s technological expertise and Israel\u0026rsquo;s emergency response experience creating synergies that benefit both communities.\nGlobal Health Leadership # The announcement comes ahead of the upcoming World Health Assembly, where Taiwan has consistently advocated for international cooperation in healthcare. The Ministry emphasized Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;unwavering commitment to global health cooperation for the common good,\u0026rdquo; aligning with global efforts to ensure health for all.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s approach to international health cooperation reflects its broader diplomatic strategy of contributing meaningfully to global challenges while building relationships with like-minded nations that share democratic values and humanitarian commitments.\nCommunity Impact # The partnership is expected to further enhance MDA\u0026rsquo;s capabilities in providing emergency medical services across Israel, benefiting diverse communities, including the Asian community in Israel. The collaboration may include technology transfer, training programs, and resource sharing that will improve emergency response times and medical care quality.\nThe hashtags #HealthforAll, #TaiwanCanHelp, and #ChipInwithTaiwan highlight the spirit of solidarity and Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s proactive role on the world stage, demonstrating how smaller nations can make significant contributions to global health security.\nLooking Forward # As Taiwan and Israel continue to work together, their collaboration serves as a model for international partnership in health and emergency response. The Asian community in Israel can take pride in these growing ties, which not only save lives but also foster greater understanding and cooperation between nations.\nThis partnership represents more than just technical cooperation; it embodies shared values of innovation, humanitarian service, and the belief that international collaboration can overcome geographical and political barriers to serve the common good.\nThe continued strengthening of Taiwan-Israel relations in healthcare demonstrates how nations can build meaningful partnerships based on mutual respect, shared expertise, and commitment to improving lives, setting an example for other international collaborations in the region and beyond.\nWhy Taiwan Backs Israeli Emergency Services # Read on its own, a friendly social-media post about MDA is easy to overlook. Seen in context, it is one node in a consistent pattern. Taiwan has repeatedly channelled its support for Israel specifically into emergency response and resilience infrastructure rather than abstract statements: a donation toward a satellite-communications system and unified emergency command centre for local authorities, support after the Majdal Shams attack, and — more recently — a 500,000 NIS donation announced at ZAKA\u0026rsquo;s annual conference for life-saving equipment, plus the funding of a medical centre. The MDA partnership belongs to that same track.\nThere is a diplomatic logic to it. Taiwan is excluded from the World Health Organization and most UN bodies, so practical, bilateral health cooperation — the \u0026ldquo;Taiwan can help\u0026rdquo; approach referenced in the hashtags above — is one of the few channels through which it can demonstrate its capacity and build goodwill. Partnering with a respected, frontline service like MDA lets Taiwan show what it offers the world without needing a seat at the table it has been kept out of. That is also the backdrop to the 72 Knesset members who called for ending Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s exclusion from international health and aviation bodies.\nWhat It Means for the Community Here # For the Asian community in Israel, the takeaway is concrete rather than ceremonial: MDA is the service that answers the call in a medical emergency anywhere in the country, and strengthening its capacity benefits every resident regardless of background. For Taiwanese nationals, students, and businesspeople living in Israel, the partnership is also a quiet reassurance that their home country\u0026rsquo;s relationship with Israel reaches into the civic institutions they themselves depend on.\nFor more news about the Asian community in Israel, visit our news section.\n","date":"15 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/taiwan-magen-david-adom-partnership/","section":"Posts","summary":"May 15, 2025 — Tel Aviv\nThe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan has announced its continued collaboration with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency medical service, highlighting a steadfast commitment to saving lives and strengthening global health partnerships.\n","title":"Taiwan Deepens Partnership with Magen David Adom to Support Life-Saving Efforts in Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":" マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ 日本のスナック付き # 新しいマッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ 日本のスナック付き 来週金曜日 5月9日 ギヴァタイムで開催🤗🎶\n📍 シェンキン49 ギヴァタイム、グヴァロット店にて\n","date":"May 9, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2025/05/mushroom-cafe-popup-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ 日本のスナック付き # 新しいマッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ 日本のスナック付き 来週金曜日 5月9日 ギヴァタイムで開催🤗🎶\n","title":"マッシュルームカフェ ポップアップ 日本のスナック付き","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"May 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/authentic-japanese/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Authentic Japanese","type":"tags"},{"content":"Onigiri-ya is a tiny Japanese counter on Florentin Street that opened in August 2024, and it does one thing most of Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Japanese restaurants don\u0026rsquo;t: it ignores sushi entirely. The window says so plainly — \u0026ldquo;זה לא סושי,\u0026rdquo; this is not sushi — and what it serves instead is onigiri, the hand-pressed seaweed-and-rice parcels that are everyday street food across Japan but had no dedicated home here.\nThe place is run by the Sato family, who moved together from Tokyo. Yoshi Sato has lived in Israel for sixteen years; before opening his own spot he cooked at Sushi Bar Basel and in the corporate kitchens of Microsoft and Apple. His wife, Sharona, founded and fronts the shop — locals were struck by the sight of an Israeli woman speaking fluent Japanese in the middle of Florentin — and their son Joey works the small counter. Yoshi\u0026rsquo;s own calligraphy hangs on the pale wood walls, part of a deliberately spare, minimalist design that mirrors how compact Japanese shops actually look rather than performing a theme.\nThe menu is short and everything is displayed in the front window, then assembled fresh once you order. There are two fish onigiri — baked salmon (24 NIS) and tuna (21 NIS) — and three vegetarian versions (21 NIS each), including a sweetcorn one and a mozzarella-and-sesame parcel that\u0026rsquo;s toasted so the cheese turns molten. Beyond the rice balls there\u0026rsquo;s a bean-noodle salad with tamago, cherry tomatoes and shiitake (35 NIS), Japanese chicken curry with rice and potato salad (54 NIS), a vegetarian curry (42 NIS), and a bento box. Notably, every dish is made gluten-free, and many are vegetarian or vegan — a rare combination that makes the place unusually easy to recommend. Wash it down with the cold butterfly-pea-flower tea.\nSeating is minimal, as it is in the small shops Onigiri-ya is modelled on, so most orders go out as takeaway — which suits its location. The restaurant sits on the stretch of Florentin Street recently repainted green and fitted with benches as an emerging pedestrian mall, and Onigiri-ya was one of the first new businesses to bet on that block. Grab your order, find a bench, and eat it in the neighbourhood that has become Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s most restless food district. For the city\u0026rsquo;s Japanese community it\u0026rsquo;s a small piece of home; for everyone else it\u0026rsquo;s an honest introduction to what Japanese people actually eat on the go.\nOpen Sunday to Thursday; closed Saturday. Call ahead on 03-620-9922, order through Wolt, or follow @onigiri_ya_tlv for daily specials.\nRead our full review\n","date":"8 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/onigiri-ya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Onigiri-ya is a tiny Japanese counter on Florentin Street that opened in August 2024, and it does one thing most of Tel Aviv’s Japanese restaurants don’t: it ignores sushi entirely. The window says so plainly — “זה לא סושי,” this is not sushi — and what it serves instead is onigiri, the hand-pressed seaweed-and-rice parcels that are everyday street food across Japan but had no dedicated home here.\n","title":"Onigiri-ya","type":"directory"},{"content":" おにぎり屋 # 大きな夢だった家族経営のお店がついに実現しました！ 佐藤家の皆様を本格的な日本料理でおもてなしいたします💕\n営業時間 # 日曜日〜木曜日：15:00-22:00\n場所 # テルアビブ、フロレンティン34番地\n連絡先 # 電話：03-6209922\n","date":"May 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2025/05/onigiri-ya/","section":"Posts","summary":"おにぎり屋 # 大きな夢だった家族経営のお店がついに実現しました！ 佐藤家の皆様を本格的な日本料理でおもてなしいたします💕\n","title":"おにぎり屋","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/community-manager/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Community Manager","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/customer-support/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Customer Support","type":"tags"},{"content":" Customer Support Position # A Hi Tech company in Tel Aviv is looking for customer support representatives.\nRequirements: # Very good English High level proficiency in one of the following languages: Hindi Malay Urdu Job Details: # Full time position Work by shifts (including weekends) Night shift until 1am sometimes required Contact # For application details, please contact Asians in Israel.\n","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/customer-support-tech-company/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Customer Support Position # A Hi Tech company in Tel Aviv is looking for customer support representatives.\nRequirements: # Very good English High level proficiency in one of the following languages: Hindi Malay Urdu Job Details: # Full time position Work by shifts (including weekends) Night shift until 1am sometimes required Contact # For application details, please contact Asians in Israel.\n","title":"Customer Support - Multiple Languages","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/driving/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Driving","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/field-agent/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Field Agent","type":"tags"},{"content":" Field Agent for Hindi Clients # An Israeli company that provides international money transfers and communication services to foreign workers in Israel is looking for a Field Agent to work with Hindi clients.\nJob Details: # Full time position Mainly involves traveling to clients/potential clients Israeli driving license is required No Hebrew required Eligibility: # Must have Israeli ID or unrestricted work visa (Partner visa or marriage to post-doc visa accepted) Not suitable for industrial visa, construction visa, caregiver visa etc. Contact # For application details, please contact Asians in Israel.\n","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/hindi-field-agent/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Field Agent for Hindi Clients # An Israeli company that provides international money transfers and communication services to foreign workers in Israel is looking for a Field Agent to work with Hindi clients.\n","title":"Field Agent for Hindi Clients","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/full-time/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Full-Time","type":"tags"},{"content":" Hindi Community Manager # An Israeli company that provides international money transfers and communication services to foreign workers in Israel is seeking a Hindi Community Manager.\nJob Details: # Full time job in Petah Tikva Weekends sometimes in central bus station area of Tel Aviv (or other locations) No Hebrew required Eligibility: # Must have Israeli ID or unrestricted work visa (Partner visa or marriage to post-doc visa accepted) Not suitable for industrial visa, construction visa, caregiver visa etc. Contact # For application details, please contact Asians in Israel.\n","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/hindi-community-manager/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Hindi Community Manager # An Israeli company that provides international money transfers and communication services to foreign workers in Israel is seeking a Hindi Community Manager.\n","title":"Hindi Community Manager","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/international-money-transfers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"International Money Transfers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/malay/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Malay","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tomtom/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tomtom","type":"tags"},{"content":" TomTom Ramen Delivery Reminder # English:\nA tasty reminder: Tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon TomTom Ramen delivery is going out and orders close today at exactly 1:00 PM!\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s on the menu:\n🔥 2 smoked specials with pork - which will soon be removed from the menu! 🍜 Maze Soba (dry ramen = no soup) in three addictive flavors (beef/pork/vegetarian) 🥬 7 types of ramen from the regular menu with pork, chicken, vegan or vegetarian ramen 📦 The dish comes 98% ready to eat – you just need to heat it up. The ramen keeps perfectly for Friday or Saturday for those who want to treat themselves on their own time. ⏳ Order link (before it closes): https://tomtomramen.com\nHebrew original:\nלא בא לנו שתישארו בלי אז תזכורת טעימה: מחר בצהריים (חמישי) יוצא משלוח תוםתוםראמן וההזמנות נסגרות היום בשעה 13:00 בדיוק ⏰\nמה בתפריט:\n🔥 2 ספיישלים מעושנים עם חזיר - שעומדים לרדת מהתפריט בקרוב!\n🍜 מאזה סובה (ראמן יבש = בלי מרק) בשלושה טעמים ממכרים (בקר/חזיר/צמחוני)\n🥬 7 סוגי ראמנים מהתפריט הקבוע עם ראמן חזיר, עוף, טבעוני או צמחוני\n📦 המנה מגיעה 98% מוכנה לאכילה – לכם נשאר רק לחמם.\nוהראמן נשמר מעולה גם לשישי או שבת למי שרוצה לפנק את עצמו בזמן שלו.\n⏳ לינק להזמנה (לפני שזה נסגר): https://tomtomramen.com\n","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/tomtom-ramen-delivery-reminder/","section":"Posts","summary":"TomTom Ramen Delivery Reminder # English:\nA tasty reminder: Tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon TomTom Ramen delivery is going out and orders close today at exactly 1:00 PM!\n","title":"TomTom Ramen Delivery Reminder - Order by 1:00 PM Today","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/urdu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Urdu","type":"tags"},{"content":" Chinese Cars Increase Market Share in Israel in 2025 # Chinese vehicle brands have continued their steady rise in Israel\u0026rsquo;s automotive market, reaching a record 26.3% market share in the first four months of 2025, according to recent data from the Ministry of Transport Licensing Bureau.\nBetween January and April 2025, 30,693 Chinese-manufactured vehicles were delivered in Israel, representing a 24.4% increase compared to the same period last year. This growth comes at the expense of Korean manufacturers, whose market share has shrunk from over 33% to about 20%.\nOverall Market Performance # The total new vehicle deliveries in Israel for the first four months of 2025 reached 116,658 units, showing a 9% increase from the corresponding period in 2024, when the Gaza conflict was at its height. However, industry analysts note that approximately 14,000 of these vehicles were registered through \u0026ldquo;self-registration\u0026rdquo; by importers after not being sold within a year of production. When adjusting for this factor, actual deliveries to customers decreased by about 2%.\nElectric Vehicle Segment Struggles # The electric vehicle (EV) sector in Israel is experiencing a notable decline. Deliveries in the first four months of 2025 fell by 29% compared to the same period in 2024, with EVs now representing 16.4% of the market, down from 22% last year.\nChinese manufacturers still dominate the EV sector with over 65% market share, but established brands are facing challenges:\nBYD, last year\u0026rsquo;s market leader, fell to ninth place with a 47% decline in deliveries Geely dropped to 22nd place with a 52% decline Newer Chinese EV brands like Dongfeng, Leapmotor, Deepal, and Hongqi are struggling to gain traction despite significant marketing efforts Chinese Brands Enter Gasoline Vehicle Market # While facing challenges in the EV sector, Chinese manufacturers are making significant inroads into Israel\u0026rsquo;s traditional gasoline and hybrid vehicle market. Five of the top ten automotive brands in the first four months of 2025 were Chinese, with particularly strong performance from Chery Group:\nJaecoo (Chery Group) jumped to sixth place with 5,041 deliveries Combined Chery brands delivered 11,472 vehicles, up 215% from the previous year This places Chery Group in third place overall, behind only Hyundai and Toyota The Korean manufacturer Hyundai maintained its market leadership with 15,691 vehicles delivered (up 15%), while Toyota showed impressive recovery with 14,627 deliveries (up 36%) despite losing access to some strategic models due to export restrictions from Turkey.\nIndustry sources predict 2025 will be a difficult year for Israel\u0026rsquo;s automotive sector, with importers carrying heavy inventory and facing intense competition in a market with approximately 50 active car brands.\nUpdate: What Happened Next (Through Q1 2026) # The trend in this report did not just continue — it accelerated. By the first quarter of 2026, Chinese automakers accounted for the largest share of Israel\u0026rsquo;s imported passenger car sales, delivering 39,127 cars, ahead of South Korean automakers (17,828) and Japan (10,630). Chery Group — already in third place in this article\u0026rsquo;s data — overtook both Hyundai-Kia-Genesis and Toyota-Lexus to become the single best-selling car group in Israel. Brand-by-brand, Chery sat just behind Toyota and Hyundai with a 9.9% share, having climbed two spots. The \u0026ldquo;difficult year\u0026rdquo; the industry predicted turned out to be difficult mainly for the incumbents, not for the Chinese newcomers.\nThe EV slump described above also reversed: Chinese models made up roughly 82% of all electric car sales in Israel over January–November 2025, and BYD\u0026rsquo;s February 2026 registrations were up 76% year-on-year. The 2025 dip looks, in hindsight, like a pause for the wider EV market to absorb subsidy and tax changes rather than a rejection of Chinese vehicles.\nWhy This Matters for Our Readers # For the Chinese community in Israel — and for Israelis who follow China closely — this is one of the most visible, everyday signs of the China–Israel economic relationship, far more present in ordinary life than headlines about ports or infrastructure tenders. A neighbour\u0026rsquo;s Atto 3, a Chery Tiggo in the office car park: these are now unremarkable, and that normalisation matters in a period when Chinese involvement in Israel is otherwise politically fraught (see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/07/chinese-influence-israel-dilemma/).\nA few practical notes for anyone weighing one of these cars:\nImporter stability is the real question. With ~50 brands fighting over a shrinking customer base, the risk is not the car — it is whether the importer will still be around in five years to honour the warranty and stock parts. Favour brands with an established local importer and a real service network over the newest arrival with the lowest sticker price. EV resale values are volatile. The 29% delivery drop in early 2025 fed straight into used-EV prices. If you buy new, expect steeper depreciation than for an equivalent hybrid; if you buy used, that same volatility can work in your favour. Hybrids, not just EVs. The Chinese push into petrol and hybrid models — not only pure EVs — means buyers who are not ready to go fully electric still have Chinese options. See our companion piece, https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-israel-market-leader/, for the segment breakdown. For the broader picture of how far Israel\u0026rsquo;s adoption of Chinese cars outpaces other developed economies, see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/05/chinese-cars-israel-market-leader/. For Xiaomi\u0026rsquo;s planned entry, see https://asiansinisrael.com/2025/07/xiaomi-cars-israel-import/.\nRead the full article on Globes.\n","date":"6 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/chinese-cars-increase-market-share/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chinese Cars Increase Market Share in Israel in 2025 # Chinese vehicle brands have continued their steady rise in Israel’s automotive market, reaching a record 26.3% market share in the first four months of 2025, according to recent data from the Ministry of Transport Licensing Bureau.\n","title":"Chinese Cars Increase Market Share in Israel in 2025","type":"posts"},{"content":" Consular Assistant # About the Position # The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv is looking for a Consular Assistant to join their team!\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll be the first point of contact for consular services such as visas, passports, and document legalization. The job also includes administrative support, stats reports, and help with organizing events and visits.\nResponsibilities # Provide front-line consular services Process visa applications and passport renewals Handle document legalization Provide administrative support Prepare statistical reports Assist with organizing events and official visits Other duties as assigned Requirements # Excellent communication skills in English and Hebrew Knowledge of Mandarin Chinese is a plus Strong administrative and organizational skills Attention to detail Customer service orientation Computer proficiency Ability to work in a multicultural environment How to Apply # For full details and application instructions, please visit: https://www.roc-taiwan.org/il_en/post/4998.html\nApplication Deadline: May 18, 2025\nCome work with us and help promote Taiwan in Israel!\n","date":"6 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/consular-assistant-taipei-office/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Consular Assistant # About the Position # The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv is looking for a Consular Assistant to join their team!\n","title":"Consular Assistant - Taipei Economic and Cultural Office","type":"jobs"},{"content":" TomTom Ramen Brings Authentic Japanese Flavors to Tel Aviv # A wise Japanese person once said: \u0026ldquo;Those who order on Sunday, slurp on Thursday.\u0026rdquo; And a wise Israeli added: \u0026ldquo;And if you don\u0026rsquo;t order, you\u0026rsquo;ll be eating toast.\u0026rdquo;\nThis Thursday afternoon, TomTom Ramen is bringing their authentic Japanese ramen delivery to Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, and Givatayim. The menu includes special dishes perfect for the warm season.\nSummer Specials: Mazesoba # Their mazesoba (dry ramen without soup) comes with a thick sauce that coats the noodles from every angle. This is the perfect dish for the season: light but with all the deep flavors of authentic ramen.\nChoose your special:\nGyu Mazesoba - Shredded beef stew with onsen egg Vegan Mazesoba - Vegan option with ground \u0026ldquo;meat\u0026rdquo; made from soybeans Ton Mazesoba - Pork shoulder and belly in a rich, thick sauce Of course, their classic hot ramens are also available - for those who enjoy a hot bowl under the air conditioner!\nWhat Makes TomTom Ramen Special? # TomTom Ramen prides itself on:\nGenuinely large and satisfying portions - not the small, diluted versions typically delivered A variety of authentic pork ramen just like in Japan (Tsukemen/Miso/Ippudo/Mazesoba/smoked options!) as well as chicken/beef/vegetarian/vegan options Authentic Japanese flavors - no shortcuts Delivery Details # Deliveries will arrive on Thursday between 11:00-16:00. The dishes arrive 98% prepared and cold, requiring only brief heating in the microwave or pot.\nOrders close on Wednesday at 13:00 - secure your bowl and feel like you\u0026rsquo;re in Tokyo for a moment!\nOrder now at tomtomramen.com\n","date":"5 May 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/05/tomtom-ramen-delivery/","section":"Posts","summary":"TomTom Ramen Brings Authentic Japanese Flavors to Tel Aviv # A wise Japanese person once said: “Those who order on Sunday, slurp on Thursday.” And a wise Israeli added: “And if you don’t order, you’ll be eating toast.”\n","title":"TomTom Ramen Brings Authentic Japanese Flavors to Tel Aviv","type":"posts"},{"content":"中国中车（CRRC）在以色列的轻轨项目中时而被阻止，时而被争取，这凸显了政府对中国参与关键基础设施项目的不明确政策。\nRead the full story at Globes\n","date":"April 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/2025/04/israel-sends-mixed-messages-china-infrastructure/","section":"Posts","summary":"中国中车（CRRC）在以色列的轻轨项目中时而被阻止，时而被争取，这凸显了政府对中国参与关键基础设施项目的不明确政策。\n","title":"以色列在基础设施项目上向中国发出混合信号","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hospitality/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hospitality","type":"tags"},{"content":"Sheva Spa in Hilton Hotel Tel Aviv is looking for massage therapists.\nRequirements # Need to work evening hours (until 20:00) Experience not required Location # Hilton Hotel Tel Aviv Tel Aviv\n","date":"27 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/sheva-spa-massage-therapist/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Sheva Spa in Hilton Hotel Tel Aviv is looking for massage therapists.\nRequirements # Need to work evening hours (until 20:00) Experience not required Location # Hilton Hotel Tel Aviv Tel Aviv\n","title":"Massage Therapist - Sheva Spa","type":"jobs"},{"content":" Money Transfer Promoter # Israeli Company that\u0026rsquo;s doing money transfers is looking for people with influence in Chinese/Thai/Russian community in Israel to be their promoters.\n","date":"27 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/money-transfer-promoter/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Money Transfer Promoter # Israeli Company that’s doing money transfers is looking for people with influence in Chinese/Thai/Russian community in Israel to be their promoters.\n","title":"Money Transfer Promoter","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"27 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/russian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Russian","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/documentary/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Documentary","type":"tags"},{"content":" Letter From Masanjia # A powerful documentary that exposes the harsh reality of forced labor camps in China. The film follows the incredible story of a secret SOS letter that was discovered in a Kmart product, written by a prisoner from the notorious Masanjia labor camp.\nFilm Details # Duration: 75 minutes Country: Canada (2018) Director: Leon Lee Languages: English, Chinese with Hebrew subtitles Synopsis # When a woman in the United States opened a gift she purchased at Kmart, she found an SOS letter written by a prisoner from Masanjia – the most notorious forced labor camp in China. The letter read: \u0026ldquo;Sir, if you happen to purchase this product, please send this letter to a global human rights organization. Thousands of people here who are under the persecution of the communist regime in China will thank you and remember you forever.\u0026rdquo;\nThis discovery sparked an international investigation into the conditions of forced labor camps in China, leading to this award-winning documentary that was filmed secretly at great risk to the filmmakers\u0026rsquo; lives.\nScreening Information # Regular price: ₪19.90 Member price: ₪10 Hebrew subtitles available Not suitable for children under 16 This screening is part of our Human Rights Film Series.\nמכתב ממא סאן-ג\u0026rsquo;יאה | VOD # סרט תיעודי עטור פרסים שקטעים ממנו צולמו בסין בחשאי תוך סיכון חיים. כשאישה מארה\u0026quot;ב פתחה אריזת מתנה שקנתה בקיי-מארט נפל מתוכה מכתב SOS שנכתב בידי אסיר ממא סאן-ג\u0026rsquo;יאה – מחנה העבודה בכפייה הידוע ביותר לשמצה בסין: \u0026ldquo;אדוני, אם רכשת במקרה את המוצר הזה, בבקשה ממך תשלח את המכתב הזה לארגון זכויות אדם עולמי. אלפי אנשים כאן הנמצאים תחת הרדיפה של המשטר הקומוניסטי בסין, יודו לך ויזכרו אותך לעד\u0026rdquo;.\nמכתב ממא סאן-ג\u0026rsquo;יאה | Letter From Masanjia אורך: 75 דקות , קנדה (2018) בימוי: ליאון לי שפה: אנגלית, סינית | תרגום לעברית מחיר רגיל: 19.90 ש\u0026quot;ח | מחיר למנויים: 10 ש\u0026quot;ח\n","date":"26 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/04/letter-from-masanjia-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"Letter From Masanjia # A powerful documentary that exposes the harsh reality of forced labor camps in China. The film follows the incredible story of a secret SOS letter that was discovered in a Kmart product, written by a prisoner from the notorious Masanjia labor camp.\n","title":"Letter From Masanjia - Documentary Screening","type":"posts"},{"content":"Israel\u0026rsquo;s ambitious infrastructure projects are caught in the crossfire of US-China geopolitical competition, creating unexpected opportunities for South Korean companies to enter the Israeli market. The recent cancellation of a Chinese railcar supplier for Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s light rail project highlights how US security concerns are reshaping infrastructure partnerships in Israel.\nThe Jerusalem Light Rail Crisis # The Jerusalem light rail Blue Line project faced an abrupt disruption when Israel\u0026rsquo;s Finance Ministry accountant general canceled an agreement that would have seen Chinese state-owned company CRRC supply passenger carriages. The winning consortium of Dan and Danya Cebus had turned to CRRC after Polish manufacturer PESA withdrew from the project in 2024, citing increased business risks in Israel and the country\u0026rsquo;s credit rating downgrade.\nThe Chinese supplier had initially offered a more competitive bid than South Korea\u0026rsquo;s Hyundai Engineering, a subsidiary of Hyundai Engineering and Construction (market cap: $32 billion). Israeli officials initially believed Hyundai was reluctant to operate in Israel due to the ongoing security situation, making the Chinese option appear more practical.\nUS Pressure Reshapes the Playing Field # The cancellation came after sustained pressure from the US government, which has implemented a comprehensive policy to exclude Chinese state-owned enterprises from critical infrastructure projects. US federal law prohibits the use of federal funds to purchase rail rolling stock from Chinese SOEs like CRRC, citing both national security and economic competition concerns.\nAmerican policymakers worry that Chinese companies could exploit their participation in infrastructure projects for industrial espionage or cyber vulnerabilities. There are also concerns about unfair competition, as CRRC can undercut rivals through government subsidies and below-market state financing.\nThe US has extended this policy beyond its borders, pressuring allies to adopt similar exclusions to protect collective security interests and prevent Chinese influence over critical infrastructure networks.\nHyundai\u0026rsquo;s Strategic Interest # Contrary to Israeli officials\u0026rsquo; initial impressions, Hyundai Engineering has demonstrated strong interest in entering Israel\u0026rsquo;s infrastructure market. Before the decision to approve Chinese carriages, the Korean company sent multiple letters expressing support for Israeli projects and willingness to participate despite offering higher bids.\nHyundai Engineering brings substantial global experience to the table, having completed over 110 subway and railway projects worldwide, including:\nPanama Metro Line 3: A $2.5 billion project, the company\u0026rsquo;s largest Central American infrastructure undertaking, scheduled for completion in 2025 Hanoi Metro Line 3: Vietnam\u0026rsquo;s first metro project using Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) technology North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) in the Philippines: Multiple elevated sections and stations South Korean domestic network: Extensive experience with the Honam Express Railway, Pohang-Samcheok Railway, and other major projects According to industry sources, Shaul Bitterman—who previously represented Chinese companies in Israel and now represents Korean and Indian firms including Hyundai—brought the Korean company\u0026rsquo;s bid to US attention, highlighting that viable alternatives to Chinese suppliers exist.\nThe Metro Project Challenge # The struggle over Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s light rail carriages is merely a preview of larger battles ahead. Israel\u0026rsquo;s planned Tel Aviv Metro represents the country\u0026rsquo;s most ambitious infrastructure project ever, with a scope that dwarfs current light rail initiatives:\n150 kilometers of underground tunnels across three lines (M1, M2, M3) 109 stations serving 24 municipalities in the Tel Aviv metropolitan region 22 Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) required for simultaneous excavation Expected to serve over 2 million passengers daily (approximately 450 million trips annually) Estimated cost: NIS 150-200 billion (approximately USD 40-55 billion) Construction tenders for the Metro are expected to be published in 2026-2027, with the first public service not anticipated before 2040. However, government sources indicate a critical shortage of engineering personnel capable of managing such a massive undertaking.\nPersonnel Shortage Complicates Matters # Despite government delegations traveling to India and South Korea over the past two years to attract foreign companies, market assessments reveal a severe shortage of qualified engineering personnel. Operating 22 TBM machines to dig 300 kilometers of subway tunnels requires specialized expertise that remains scarce.\nCurrently, only a single-digit number of companies compete in Israel\u0026rsquo;s infrastructure market, and they\u0026rsquo;re already committed to other projects. The Metro will require international expertise regardless of which companies win contracts.\nSome Israeli industry observers express concern that the government\u0026rsquo;s policy toward Chinese companies prioritizes US strategic interests over practical Israeli needs. China\u0026rsquo;s exclusion may satisfy Washington, but it compounds the challenge of finding sufficient qualified contractors and personnel for Israel\u0026rsquo;s infrastructure ambitions.\nA Potential Solution: CRRC\u0026rsquo;s US Facilities # One compromise being explored involves having CRRC manufacture carriages at its facilities in the United States rather than in China. This could potentially satisfy US security concerns while providing access to CRRC\u0026rsquo;s competitive pricing and technical capabilities.\nHowever, this solution doesn\u0026rsquo;t address the broader question of Chinese participation in the Metro excavation work, where the engineering expertise shortage is most acute.\nWhat This Means for Asian Business in Israel # The infrastructure controversy reveals both opportunities and constraints for Asian companies operating in or considering entry to the Israeli market:\nFor Korean companies: Hyundai Engineering\u0026rsquo;s potential entry signals growing Korea-Israel economic ties beyond the existing strong relationships in technology and defense sectors. If Hyundai successfully competes for Metro contracts, it could pave the way for other Korean infrastructure firms.\nFor Chinese companies: Despite China\u0026rsquo;s significant construction capabilities and competitive pricing, state-owned enterprises face effective exclusion from Israeli infrastructure projects due to US pressure. Private Chinese companies may have better prospects, though they\u0026rsquo;ll face intense scrutiny.\nGeopolitical reality: Israel\u0026rsquo;s infrastructure sector increasingly operates within the framework of US-China strategic competition, regardless of purely economic or technical considerations. Asian companies seeking Israeli contracts must navigate not just local requirements but also broader geopolitical alignments.\nThe Jerusalem light rail carriage procurement crisis offers a preview of the complex calculations ahead. As Israel moves toward publishing Metro tenders in coming years, the balance between security concerns, economic competitiveness, personnel availability, and geopolitical pressures will shape which Asian companies ultimately help build Israel\u0026rsquo;s transportation future.\nSource: Globes\n","date":"22 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/04/hyundai-israel-metro-china-exclusion/","section":"Posts","summary":"Israel’s ambitious infrastructure projects are caught in the crossfire of US-China geopolitical competition, creating unexpected opportunities for South Korean companies to enter the Israeli market. The recent cancellation of a Chinese railcar supplier for Jerusalem’s light rail project highlights how US security concerns are reshaping infrastructure partnerships in Israel.\n","title":"Can South Korea's Hyundai Fill the Infrastructure Void Left by China's Exclusion?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"22 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hyundai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hyundai","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"22 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/light-rail/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Light-Rail","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"17 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/abby-lee/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Abby-Lee","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"17 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/asia/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asia","type":"tags"},{"content":"Taiwan, one of the countries that proved its friendship to Israel since October 7, will open a pavilion at Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s IMTM tourism fair (May 7-8, 2025), aiming to attract Israeli tourists to the surprising island nation from the East.\n\u0026ldquo;A True Friend in Good Times and Bad\u0026rdquo; # \u0026ldquo;Taiwan and Israel may be geographically distant, but they are close in their values,\u0026rdquo; says Ya-Ping (Abby) Lee, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative in Israel, in an interview with Mako. \u0026ldquo;In 2024, Taiwan was one of only six foreign countries that participated in the IMTM exhibition and set up the largest and most impressive pavilion, not only to support the exhibition but also to send a clear message that Taiwan remains a true friend in good times and challenging periods.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Taiwanese pavilion will showcase the country\u0026rsquo;s traditional and modern faces, with emphasis on cultural festivals and an LGBTQ-friendly environment.\nSafe Destination for Israelis # \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is one of the countries with the least antisemitism in the world,\u0026rdquo; Lee emphasizes. \u0026ldquo;It remains a safe place for Jews from all over the world. According to the Israeli government\u0026rsquo;s travel alert map, Taiwan is always considered a safe country to visit.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community and Cultural Center in Taipei deepens understanding of Jewish heritage through exhibitions, guided tours, and a museum displaying antique Torah scrolls and biblical art. The center also provides a synagogue, mikveh, and kosher facilities, serving as a hub for cultural events and prayers.\nDiverse Attractions # Taiwan offers varied experiences for all types of tourists:\nStunning Landscapes: Taroko Gorge, Alishan, and Sun Moon Lake offer breathtaking scenery suitable for hiking, cycling, and nature exploration.\nHot Springs: Areas like Beitou and Jiaoxi offer relaxing hot spring experiences in natural settings.\nStreet Food and Night Markets: While Taiwan has Michelin-starred luxury restaurants, it\u0026rsquo;s especially famous for its street food culture. Popular dishes like beef noodle soup and bubble tea are available at vibrant markets like Shilin and Raohe.\nVibrant Nightlife: Taipei offers a lively and inclusive nightlife scene suitable for all types of tourists.\nDirect Flights on the Horizon # The governments of Taiwan and Israel signed an air services agreement laying the legal groundwork for direct flights. \u0026ldquo;We hope to operate direct flights soon,\u0026rdquo; Lee says, although currently there are no direct flights between Tel Aviv and Taipei.\nDeep Support for Israel # Taiwan has stood out as one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s strongest supporters since October 7. The country sharply condemned Hamas attacks, unlike China which refrained from responding. Lee herself volunteered in Israeli agricultural fields and met with hostage families, demonstrating the depth of connection between the two countries.\nTaiwan is considered one of the safest countries in the world, with developed public transportation and a wide range of accommodation options for every budget. As a country sharing democratic values and similar security challenges with Israel, Taiwan offers Israelis not just an exotic vacation, but also a connection to a friendly allied nation.\nSource: Mako\n","date":"17 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/04/taiwan-waiting-israeli-tourists/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan, one of the countries that proved its friendship to Israel since October 7, will open a pavilion at Tel Aviv’s IMTM tourism fair (May 7-8, 2025), aiming to attract Israeli tourists to the surprising island nation from the East.\n","title":"Taiwan Awaits Israeli Tourists: 'A True Friend in All Times'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Since the events of October 7, we have discovered many countries that are true friends. Countries like Czech Republic, Albania, Lithuania, and Hungary have always been mentioned as supporters who are also waiting to host tourists from Israel.\nNow, as the IMTM tourism fair in Tel Aviv approaches (May 7-8, 2025), more countries are sending representatives to Israel to market themselves to local tourists. One of the surprising countries that will attend is Taiwan, which will open a pavilion at the fair showcasing the traditional and modern faces of the country, with emphasis on cultural festivals and an LGBTQ-friendly environment.\nClose in Values # \u0026ldquo;Taiwan and Israel may be geographically distant, but they are close in their values,\u0026rdquo; says Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative in Israel, Ya-Ping (Abby) Lee, in an interview with mako. \u0026ldquo;In 2024, Taiwan was one of only six foreign countries that participated in the IMTM fair and set up the largest and most impressive pavilion, not only to support the fair, but also to send a clear message that Taiwan remains a faithful friend in good times and challenging periods. This year too, we will continue to promote tourism to Taiwan and nurture our ongoing friendship.\u0026rdquo;\nSafety for Israeli Visitors # When asked about safety - the question that interests Israelis most these days - Lee responded: \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is one of the countries with the least antisemitism in the world. It remains a safe place for Jews from all over the world. According to the Israel government\u0026rsquo;s travel warning map, Taiwan is always considered a safe country to visit. Additionally, the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community and Cultural Center, located in Taipei, deepens understanding of Jewish heritage through exhibitions, guided tours, and a museum that displays artifacts such as ancient Torah scrolls and biblical art.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The center also provides a dedicated space for Jewish religious observances, including a synagogue, mikveh, and kosher facilities. It serves as a center for cultural events, prayers, and celebrations, strengthening not only local Jewish identity but also cultural understanding and appreciation between Taiwan residents and Jews.\u0026rdquo;\nDiverse Attractions # According to Lee, Taiwan is diverse, bustling, and colorful, suitable for all types of tourists. \u0026ldquo;The main highlights are stunning landscapes and outdoor activities. Taiwan offers breathtaking views like Taroko Gorge, Alishan, and Sun Moon Lake, suitable for hiking, cycling, and nature exploration. There are also many hot springs: areas like Beitou and Jiaoxi offer relaxing hot spring experiences in natural surroundings.\n\u0026ldquo;In terms of street food and night markets - Taiwan has Michelin-starred luxury restaurants, but it\u0026rsquo;s also famous for its street food culture, with popular dishes like beef noodle soup and bubble tea, available in vibrant markets like Shilin and Raohe. Nightlife: Taipei offers a vibrant and inclusive nightlife scene, suitable for tourists of all types.\u0026rdquo;\nDirect Flights # Lee adds that Taiwan is considered one of the safest countries in the world, with developed public transportation and a wide range of accommodation options for every budget.\nWhen asked about the possibility of direct flights between the countries, Lee said: \u0026ldquo;The governments of Taiwan and Israel have signed an aviation services agreement, which laid the legal foundation for direct flights. Currently, there are no direct flights between Tel Aviv and Taiwan due to the pandemic situation. We hope to operate direct flights soon.\u0026rdquo;\nSource: Mako\n","date":"17 April 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/04/taiwan-welcomes-israeli-tourists/","section":"Posts","summary":"Since the events of October 7, we have discovered many countries that are true friends. Countries like Czech Republic, Albania, Lithuania, and Hungary have always been mentioned as supporters who are also waiting to host tourists from Israel.\n","title":"Taiwan Welcomes Israeli Tourists: 'A True Friend in Good Times and Challenging Periods'","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"26 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/migration/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Migration","type":"tags"},{"content":"A first group of 100 Gazans is set to fly to Indonesia for work as part of a pilot program aimed at encouraging voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza, according to Israeli media reports. The program will be run by COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), a Defense Ministry body.\nProgram Details # The Gazans will likely be employed in construction work in Indonesia, the world\u0026rsquo;s largest Muslim-majority country. If the pilot proves successful, Israel hopes thousands of Gazans will voluntarily relocate to Indonesia for work and potentially decide to permanently resettle—pending Jakarta\u0026rsquo;s consent.\nSince Israel and Indonesia do not have diplomatic relations, a special communication channel was opened between Jerusalem and Jakarta to develop the program.\nPolitical Context # The initiative comes amid devastating destruction in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel. According to a September United Nations analysis, over two-thirds of Gaza\u0026rsquo;s structures have been damaged or destroyed during the subsequent war.\nIn early February, US President Donald Trump suggested the US \u0026ldquo;take over\u0026rdquo; Gaza and turn it into a \u0026ldquo;Middle East Riviera\u0026rdquo; while forcing Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt, Jordan, or other countries. While Trump later stated no Gazans would be expelled, his comments triggered global controversy.\nArab Response # The Palestinian Authority and Arab nations have rejected forced relocation proposals. Earlier this month, two key Arab organizations endorsed an Egyptian counterproposal for rehabilitating Gaza based on leaving inhabitants in place.\nDespite public opposition among regional leaders, the Israeli government has moved forward with plans to encourage voluntary Palestinian relocation.\nAdministrative Framework # If the pilot succeeds, a \u0026ldquo;migration administration\u0026rdquo; being established by the Israeli government will assume responsibility for the program. Defense Minister Israel Katz is expected to appoint Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter to lead the project.\nImplications for Indonesian-Israeli Relations # The program represents an unusual channel of cooperation between Israel and Indonesia, two countries without formal diplomatic ties. Indonesia has historically been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, with regular pro-Palestinian demonstrations occurring across the country.\nThis development highlights the complex dynamics in Asian-Middle Eastern relations, where practical considerations sometimes transcend official political positions.\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"26 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/03/gazans-indonesia-work-program/","section":"Posts","summary":"A first group of 100 Gazans is set to fly to Indonesia for work as part of a pilot program aimed at encouraging voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza, according to Israeli media reports. The program will be run by COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), a Defense Ministry body.\n","title":"Pilot Program: 100 Gazans Set to Move to Indonesia for Work","type":"posts"},{"content":"Since October 7, Israel has found itself navigating complex international relationships, with some traditional alliances strained. However, one partnership has only grown stronger: Taiwan. The small but technologically formidable island nation, nearly 8,000 kilometers away, shares remarkable parallels with Israel.\nBoth nations pursue aggressive technological innovation policies, view economic resilience as essential to national security, and operate under constant threat - Israel from an increasingly hostile Middle East, Taiwan from ever-present Chinese pressure.\nA Partnership Built on Shared Values # Abby Lee, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Representative to Israel, has witnessed this relationship strengthen during her three years in the country. \u0026ldquo;Over the past three decades, we\u0026rsquo;ve built strong ties in science, investment, education, and trade,\u0026rdquo; she explains. \u0026ldquo;This serves as an important foundation for the two nations to move forward.\u0026rdquo;\nFor Lee, the connection runs deeper than strategy. \u0026ldquo;Even though Israel is fighting on multiple fronts, it remains willing to share knowledge with like-minded countries like Taiwan - knowledge that is much needed as we face tremendous pressures from China through its hybrid toolkits.\u0026rdquo;\nTaiwan has long been a global technology center, producing over 60% of the world\u0026rsquo;s semiconductors and nearly 100% of AI chips - earning it the nickname \u0026ldquo;the silicon shield.\u0026rdquo; Tech giants like NVIDIA, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all established presence on the island.\n\u0026ldquo;Both countries lack natural resources. We have to invest in human capital and education - those are our weapons,\u0026rdquo; Lee emphasizes.\nComplementary Strengths # The economic relationship between Israel and Taiwan leverages their complementary expertise. \u0026ldquo;Israel is famous for startup innovation - taking ideas from zero to one. Taiwan, on the other hand, has the high-tech talent and industrial capacity to scale those ideas from one to infinity,\u0026rdquo; Lee explains.\nTaiwan excels in hardware; Israel leads in software, cybersecurity, and AI. This synergy is evident in growing investments: Taiwanese giants like TSMC invest in Israeli semiconductor startups, while companies like Winbond, ASUS, and Vivotek open operations in Israel. Israeli firms including Nova, Radware, and Taboola reciprocate with Taiwan offices.\nPatty Lin, Director of the Taiwan Trade \u0026amp; Innovation Center in Tel Aviv, describes Taiwan as \u0026ldquo;a very good place for Israeli startups to start if they want to enter the Asian market.\u0026rdquo; Unlike most such offices focused solely on trade, the Tel Aviv branch promotes innovation, connecting Israeli startups with Taiwanese companies monthly in semiconductors, AI, and medical technology.\nFrom Silicon Valley to Hsinchu # Dov Moran, the Israeli entrepreneur behind the USB flash drive and managing partner at Grove Ventures, has worked with Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s tech ecosystem for decades. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan became an important hub for all activities in East Asia. The people there are amazing - excellent engineers, incredibly hardworking, and extremely organized,\u0026rdquo; he says.\nMoran\u0026rsquo;s connection dates to 1994 when he opened an office in Taiwan while leading M-Systems. \u0026ldquo;Israel is strong at entrepreneurship and ideation, but we struggle with execution. Taiwan excels at that. Their ability to perform and deliver is unmatched.\u0026rdquo;\nAlon Webman, co-founder of Chain Reaction, a semiconductor startup with offices in Israel, the U.S., and Taiwan, emphasizes Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s government support. \u0026ldquo;The way that Taiwan supports its tech companies is something every country should learn from. It\u0026rsquo;s a national effort - Israel could benefit from adopting a similar approach.\u0026rdquo;\nHis company operates from Hsinchu Science Park near TSMC. \u0026ldquo;From day one, we needed strong connections with TSMC - they are the number one ASIC manufacturer in the world. The level of collaboration and access to talent is unmatched.\u0026rdquo;\nGeopolitical Parallels # For Taiwan, October 7 served as a stark reminder of vulnerabilities faced by small democracies in volatile regions. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan saw October 7 as more than just a regional conflict - it was a clash between democracy and terrorism and authoritarianism. We were among the first to express our solidarity,\u0026rdquo; Lee says.\nChina continues intensifying threats against Taiwan through military exercises, economic coercion, and cyber warfare. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s semiconductor dominance serves partly as deterrence. \u0026ldquo;If China invades Taiwan, it would be catastrophic for the entire semiconductor industry. If you use an iPhone, that might be your last iPhone,\u0026rdquo; warns Moran.\nMany in Israel\u0026rsquo;s tech sector see this as a model. Like Taiwan, Israel has long viewed innovation not merely as competitive advantage but as strategic defense. The goal: make global economic ties so deep and Israel\u0026rsquo;s technology so critical that its stability becomes an international priority.\nThe Future Partnership # While China remains Israel\u0026rsquo;s largest trade partner, technology leaders increasingly view Taiwan as the stronger, more reliable partner. \u0026ldquo;China is behind Taiwan in almost everything related to deep tech and semiconductors. Israeli companies are moving towards Taiwan,\u0026rdquo; Moran observes.\nWebman agrees: \u0026ldquo;Taiwan is a lighthouse for technology and manufacturing. The way they treat companies, the resources they provide - it\u0026rsquo;s something every country should study.\u0026rdquo;\nAs both nations navigate uncertain geopolitical waters, their partnership demonstrates how shared challenges and complementary strengths can forge powerful alliances. In an era where technology determines national security, Israel and Taiwan prove that innovation truly is a form of defense.\nSource: CTech\n","date":"24 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/03/israel-taiwan-innovation-defense-partnership/","section":"Posts","summary":"Since October 7, Israel has found itself navigating complex international relationships, with some traditional alliances strained. However, one partnership has only grown stronger: Taiwan. The small but technologically formidable island nation, nearly 8,000 kilometers away, shares remarkable parallels with Israel.\n","title":"Israel and Taiwan: Innovation as National Defense","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/semiconductors/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Semiconductors","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/asian-drinks/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Asian Drinks","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/bugrashov/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bugrashov","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/chinese-tea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese Tea","type":"tags"},{"content":"Tea Wei is an authentic Chinese bubble tea shop near Bugrashov Beach in Tel Aviv, started by a Chinese immigrant to Israel. It offers the most authentic bubble tea, fruit teas, and traditional Chinese teas you can find in the country.\nIf you want the real deal when it comes to bubble tea, Tea Wei is the place to go.\nAddress: Near Bugrashov Beach, Tel Aviv\nRead our full review\n","date":"22 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/teawei/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"Tea Wei is an authentic Chinese bubble tea shop near Bugrashov Beach in Tel Aviv, started by a Chinese immigrant to Israel. It offers the most authentic bubble tea, fruit teas, and traditional Chinese teas you can find in the country.\n","title":"Tea Wei","type":"directory"},{"content":"由一位中国移民在以色列创办的茶味（Teawei）拥有以色列最正宗的珍珠奶茶、果茶和传统中式茶！如果您在布格拉肖夫海滩附近，或者只是想品尝真正的珍珠奶茶，一定要来尝尝。\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/2025/03/teawei/","section":"Posts","summary":"由一位中国移民在以色列创办的茶味（Teawei）拥有以色列最正宗的珍珠奶茶、果茶和传统中式茶！如果您在布格拉肖夫海滩附近，或者只是想品尝真正的珍珠奶茶，一定要来尝尝。\n","title":"茶味","type":"posts"},{"content":"Since October 7, Israel has found itself navigating old alliances - some openly strained and others quietly eroded. However, certain partnerships have only grown stronger. One of the most unexpected yet consequential is Taiwan - the small but technologically formidable island nearly 8,000 kilometers away which, like Israel, sits at the crossroads of innovation and geopolitical pressure.\nBoth nations have pursued policies of technological innovation, see economic resilience as a matter of national security, and both operate under the looming shadow of war. In Israel\u0026rsquo;s case, it is an increasingly hostile Middle East; for Taiwan, it is the ever-present threat of China. Amid the turbulence in both regions, Taiwan has quietly become one of Israel\u0026rsquo;s closest allies on the diplomatic stage and has only deepened economic and technological ties.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s Mission in Israel # This growing partnership is reflected in the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv, first established in 1993, which serves as Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s diplomatic and commercial bridge to Israel. Diplomatic protocol prevents Taiwan from establishing formal embassies in many parts of the world, but this hasn\u0026rsquo;t hindered the head of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s mission, Representative Abby Lee, in her efforts to promote closer ties between the two nations.\n\u0026ldquo;Over the past three decades, we\u0026rsquo;ve built strong ties in science, investment, education, and trade,\u0026rdquo; Lee says. \u0026ldquo;This serves as an important foundation for the two nations to move forward.\u0026rdquo;\nFor Lee, the connection between the two nations is more than just strategic - it\u0026rsquo;s a relationship built on deeply similar values, goals and challenges. Lee has served in Israel for three years, witnessing firsthand the country\u0026rsquo;s determination in the wake of October 7. \u0026ldquo;Even though Israel is fighting on multiple fronts, it remains willing to share knowledge with like-minded countries like Taiwan - knowledge that is much needed as we face tremendous pressures from China through its hybrid toolkits.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Silicon Shield # Taiwan has long been a global center for technology and manufacturing. It produces over 60% of the world\u0026rsquo;s semiconductors and nearly 100% of AI chips, earning it the nickname \u0026ldquo;the silicon shield.\u0026rdquo; Tech giants like NVIDIA, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all established a presence on the island, recognizing its unparalleled expertise in deep tech.\nLee notes that the drive to build Taiwan as an economic and technological center is, as for Israel, a matter of survival. \u0026ldquo;Both countries lack natural resources. We have to invest in human capital and education - those are our weapons.\u0026rdquo;\nComplementary Strengths # The economic relationship between Israel and Taiwan is growing stronger, particularly in areas where their strengths complement each other. \u0026ldquo;Israel is famous for startup innovation - taking ideas from zero to one. Taiwan, on the other hand, has the high-tech talent and industrial capacity to scale those ideas from one to infinity,\u0026rdquo; Lee explains.\nTaiwan excels in hardware; Israel leads in software, cybersecurity, and AI. The synergy is clear, with Taiwanese giants like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) investing in Israeli semiconductor startups and Taiwanese companies opening R\u0026amp;D or sales offices in Israel, such as Winbond, ASUS, Merida, Vivotek, and Nuvoton. Likewise, Israeli companies are opening offices in Taiwan including Nova, Radware, Taboola, and OurCrowd.\nPatty Lin, Director of the Taiwan Trade \u0026amp; Innovation Center in Tel Aviv (TAITRA), describes Taiwan as \u0026ldquo;a very good place for Israeli startups to start if they want to enter the Asian market.\u0026rdquo; Unlike most TAITRA offices, which focus solely on trade, the Tel Aviv branch is dedicated to fostering innovation. \u0026ldquo;Every month, we connect Israeli startups with Taiwanese companies, send them to exhibitions, and facilitate collaboration in key areas like semiconductors, AI, and medical technology.\u0026rdquo;\nIsraeli Entrepreneurs in Taiwan # Dov Moran, the Israeli entrepreneur behind the USB flash drive and managing partner at Grove Ventures, has worked closely with Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s tech ecosystem for decades. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan became an important hub for all activities in East Asia. The people there are amazing - excellent engineers, incredibly hardworking, and extremely organized,\u0026rdquo; he says.\nMoran\u0026rsquo;s connection with Taiwan dates back to 1994 when he opened an office there while leading M-Systems. Since then, he has maintained close ties with TSMC and other Taiwanese firms. \u0026ldquo;Israel is strong at entrepreneurship and ideation, but we struggle with execution. Taiwan excels at that. Their ability to perform and deliver is unmatched.\u0026rdquo;\nHis experience reflects a broader trend of Israeli entrepreneurs and investors looking to Taiwan as a key partner in tech development. \u0026ldquo;Deep tech is Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s specialty. If you\u0026rsquo;re working in semiconductors, materials, space, or AI, there\u0026rsquo;s no better place to collaborate.\u0026rdquo;\nAlon Webman, co-founder of Chain Reaction, a semiconductor startup with offices in Israel, the U.S., and Taiwan, has also built strong ties with Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s industry. \u0026ldquo;From day one, we needed strong connections with TSMC - they are the number one ASIC manufacturer in the world. Taiwan has positioned itself as a global player, and working with them has been essential to our success.\u0026rdquo;\nGlobal Implications # For Taiwan, October 7 was a reminder of the vulnerabilities faced by small democracies in volatile regions. \u0026ldquo;Taiwan saw October 7 as more than just a regional conflict - it was a clash between democracy and terrorism and authoritarianism. We were among the first to express our solidarity and our relationship with Israel has strengthened,\u0026rdquo; says Lee.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s unparalleled dominance in semiconductors has made the nation an indispensable pillar of the modern economy. \u0026ldquo;If China invades Taiwan, it would be catastrophic for the entire semiconductor industry. If you use an iPhone, that might be your last iPhone,\u0026rdquo; says Moran.\nThe global reliance on Taiwanese chips has deterred, but not eliminated, Beijing\u0026rsquo;s aggression, as any disruption would send shockwaves through supply chains and economies worldwide. \u0026ldquo;This isn\u0026rsquo;t just in Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s interest,\u0026rdquo; Lee stresses. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a shared interest for the entire world.\u0026rdquo;\nSource: CTech\n","date":"20 March 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/03/israel-taiwan-tech-innovation-partnership/","section":"Posts","summary":"Since October 7, Israel has found itself navigating old alliances - some openly strained and others quietly eroded. However, certain partnerships have only grown stronger. One of the most unexpected yet consequential is Taiwan - the small but technologically formidable island nearly 8,000 kilometers away which, like Israel, sits at the crossroads of innovation and geopolitical pressure.\n","title":"Israel and Taiwan Share the Belief That Innovation Is a Form of National Defense","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the bustling culinary landscape of Israel, a surprising contender has emerged, captivating palates and sparking a fervent following: ramen. Once a humble street food in Japan, costing mere dollars, it has transformed into the trendiest dish of Winter 2025 in Israel, commanding prices of 60-80 NIS and often much more. This isn\u0026rsquo;t merely a transplant; it\u0026rsquo;s a fascinating adaptation, a dish that takes inspiration from its Japanese origins but boldly carves its own identity within the vibrant Israeli food scene. Forget the traditional Japanese slurping etiquette or the sheer volume consumed daily in Tokyo; here, ramen is a phenomenon, a canvas for local innovation that resonates deeply with our community\u0026rsquo;s adventurous spirit.\nIn Japan, ramen is akin to how we might view hummus – a quick, on-the-go meal, albeit with a Japanese precision that defines even the most casual dining. Its variations are boundless, a testament to regional diversity and individual creativity. There\u0026rsquo;s no single \u0026ldquo;classic\u0026rdquo; ramen; it can be clear or cloudy, intensely flavorful or delicately balanced, creamy or light, dark or bright. Ingredients are added and removed with artistic freedom. Yet, at its heart, three pillars define it: a rich, hours-long simmered broth, a potent seasoning mixture known as tare, and the eponymous ramen noodles. Let\u0026rsquo;s delve into these foundational elements before embarking on our tasting journey.\nThe Broth. The soul of ramen lies in its broth, a universe of flavors far richer and more diverse than one might imagine. Each broth is a labor of love, often simmered for 12 to 18 hours, sometimes even longer, extracting every ounce of essence. Beyond the well-known Tonkotsu (thick pork broth), Shoyu (soy sauce-based), Miso (fermented soybean paste-based), and Shio (clear salt-based), Israel\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene introduces us to unique interpretations. Consider the delicate Chintan, a clear chicken broth infused with root vegetables and kombu seaweed; the opulent Kamo, a rich duck broth; or the Dashi-Yam, a fish and seafood symphony combining bonito flakes and kombu seaweed for a subtle, umami-rich base that whispers of the ocean.\nDean Shoshani\u0026rsquo;s Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nThe Tare. This concentrated seasoning mixture is the flavor anchor of ramen, typically a masterful blend of savory ingredients like soy sauce, mirin (sweet rice wine), sake, and miso paste. Common tare types include the traditional Shoyu-based, the deeper and richer Miso-based, and the subtle Shio-based, which allows the broth\u0026rsquo;s inherent flavors to shine. The tare is a critical balancing act; too much can overwhelm with saltiness, while too little leaves the soup flat and uninspired. Its precise application is what elevates a good broth to an unforgettable ramen experience.\nThe Noodles. Far from mere pasta, ramen noodles are the backbone of a perfect bowl. Unlike the delicate, earthy buckwheat soba, ramen noodles are crafted from wheat flour with the crucial addition of kansui (alkaline water). This gives them their signature yellowish hue, their delightful elasticity, and that coveted springy texture. Crucially, kansui also enables them to absorb the broth\u0026rsquo;s complex flavors without becoming soggy. Like their broth and tare counterparts, noodles come in a dazzling array of types, thicknesses, and shapes—from slender and straight to robust and curly—each meticulously chosen to complement its specific ramen style and broth.\nAdvertisement\nFind Ramen Near You # Best ramen in Tel Aviv — 8 dedicated spots ranked Ramen in the center/Sharon region — Pardes Hanna and Emek Hefer Ramen in Haifa — what\u0026rsquo;s available in the north Our Quest for Israel\u0026rsquo;s Best Ramen # Even in Israel, a land far removed from ramen\u0026rsquo;s birthplace, we discovered a remarkable spectrum of ramen styles: delicate and bold, thick and clear, adorned with shrimp, beef, or fish cakes. The broths themselves ranged from fish and beef to pork and chicken, with some local innovations incorporating coconut milk, root vegetable broth, or cream for added richness. Indeed, across all the establishments we visited, no two ramens were alike, and even within the same restaurant, distinct variations abounded. To navigate this delicious diversity, we adopted a simple yet effective strategy: at each location, we ordered the \u0026ldquo;signature ramen\u0026rdquo;—the dish the waiter confidently recommended as their most popular. Our focus remained strictly on Japanese restaurants, though we\u0026rsquo;ve included a section at the end for other notable ramen purveyors, including home-based delivery options.\nAsian Club Ramen in Kadima | Photo: Daria Kuzmina, Public Relations\nMententen Ramen | Photo: Daniel Rom\nOur mission was clear: to find a ramen that would not only delight a first-time diner but also honor the authentic Japanese characteristics of the original. We sought a harmonious balance between the broth\u0026rsquo;s richness and creaminess and the toppings\u0026rsquo; abundance and variety. The texture and taste of the noodles were paramount, as was the overall \u0026ldquo;heaviness\u0026rdquo; of the dish—that elusive quality that makes you crave more without feeling overwhelmed.\nAdvertisement\nIn our estimation—and we acknowledge this deviates from strict Japanese standards, a point we emphasize—the ultimate ramen possesses a nuanced complexity and richness, delivered in a balanced and pleasing manner. It features exceptional, flavorful toppings, and its egg is not merely soft-boiled but perfectly marinated and cooked, with a yolk that remains delightfully soft and runny. Ultimately, our journey uncovered some truly excellent ramen dishes, some remarkably unique, and a few less successful. Yet, each bowl was a world unto itself, a surprising and captivating culinary creature from another realm.\nOban Koban Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nRamen Rankings: A Culinary Expedition # 12th Place: Hokkaido Ramen, Oban Koban – A Departure from Tradition # Oban Koban, a Japanese restaurant established in 2014, predates Israel\u0026rsquo;s ramen craze. With seven ramen options (67-78 NIS) and a Red Hot Chili Peppers soundtrack on a Friday afternoon, we opted for the Hokkaido Ramen (78 NIS) as recommended. This dish, featuring fish broth, coconut milk, and cream (the latter two unmentioned on the menu), proved to be a significant deviation. The fish broth and miso flavors were absent, overshadowed by a broken, boiled cream and coconut milk that veered closer to Tom Yum. Large, dry pork fillet slices, thin noodles, a semi-soft egg, shiitake, green onion, and spinach completed the bowl, notably missing the advertised sprouts. This was, regrettably, our least favorite ramen, taking us furthest from its Japanese roots.\nOban Koban. HaArba\u0026rsquo;a 16, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\nRamen at Ramen Talpiot | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nAdvertisement\n11th Place: Beef Ramen at Ramen Talpiot, Haifa – A Hearty Soup, Not Quite Ramen # Ramen Talpiot, a small Haifa eatery opened last summer in the bustling Talpiot market, offers three ramen choices: beef, chicken, and vegan (72-77 NIS). Following the counter employee\u0026rsquo;s recommendation, we sampled the popular beef ramen. What arrived was a generous bowl of flavorful beef broth, well-salted, with shredded beef, zucchini, coarsely chopped green onion, a nearly hard-boiled egg, and—most notably—instant noodles, visibly added from a package. While a very pleasant meat soup, it lacked the distinct characteristics of true ramen.\nRamen Talpiot. Sirkin 28, Haifa. Not Kosher\nThe only Kosher ramen on the list - Onami Hilton | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\n10th Place: Ramen with Sea Bass Yakitori at Onami Kosher, Tel Aviv – Richness Overload # Onami Kosher offers a single, priciest ramen option: Sakana Ramen (118 NIS) with long-cooked fish broth, sea bass yakitori, ramen noodles, a semi-soft egg, and bok choy. The large, juicy fish skewer was a highlight. However, the broth, reminiscent of crab bisque in texture and aroma, was excessively heavy, cloudy, and almost white—attributed by the waitress to reduced root vegetable broth. Large pools of chili and green onion oil added aromatic depth but also an overwhelming richness and fattiness.\nOnami. Hilton Hotel, HaYarkon 205, Tel Aviv. Kosher\nThe Japanese Ramen from Emek Hefer | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nAdvertisement\n9th Place: Beef Ramen at The Japanese, Mishmar HaSharon Junction – Minimalist Elegance # The Japanese, a relatively new Japanese chef fast-food spot in Emek Hefer, specializes in ramen with beef broth simmered for hours (62 NIS), a recipe learned in Osaka. Their beef ramen was the most minimalist we encountered: a very dark, almost black, clear broth, perfectly balanced in richness and profoundly deep in flavor. It featured plump, yellowish noodles, a whole egg, a large slice of roasted kohlrabi, green onion, and thin slices of smoked brisket. This ramen, balanced and uncluttered, would likely appeal to first-time ramen eaters. While tasty, it was less memorable than others on our list.\nThe Japanese. Sharonit Complex, Mishmar HaSharon Junction on Road 4. Not Kosher\nOkasan Ramen from Carmel Market | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\n8th Place: Chicken Ramen at Okasan, Tel Aviv – A Taste of Home # Manami Ono\u0026rsquo;s Okasan offers the most homely, clear, and vegetable-rich ramen we tasted. Her Japanese cafe serves two child-friendly versions: chicken and soy-based broth or vegetable-based broth, making it the most affordable ramen on our list (60 NIS). Served in a generously filled disposable bowl, the broth was remarkably clear and fat-free, with clean, delicate flavors reminiscent of a Jewish mother\u0026rsquo;s homemade chicken soup. Toppings included lettuce, carrots, seaweed, cabbage, \u0026ldquo;boiled chicken\u0026rdquo; slices, a marinated egg, and ramen noodles. Seasoned sesame oil with chili was served alongside. This dish is a steaming plate of comforting love, enjoyed at the bar amidst the vibrant chaos of Carmel Market.\nAdvertisement\nKamado Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\n6th Place: Classic Ramen at Kamado Kitchen, Pardes Hanna – A Zen Culinary Escape # Kamado Kitchen, nestled in Pardes Hanna\u0026rsquo;s Artists\u0026rsquo; Stables complex, exudes a chill, Far Eastern vibe. Their menu boasts five ramen versions (58-66 NIS for soup, 4-15 NIS for toppings), all served in deep, satisfying bowls. Options include classic Kamado with soy-based tare or root/Himalayan salt-based tare, and a gluten-free option. Toppings like broccoli, chard, mizuna, seaweed, tofu crumble, cabbage, and extra noodles are available. We tried the classic Kamado (66 NIS) with fish broth, soy-based tare, ginger, and coconut cream, accompanied by ramen noodles, a melt-in-your-mouth fish cake, a perfectly marinated soft egg, chard, shiitake, green onion, and nori. With added chili sesame oil, garlic paste, and ramen sauce, it tasted remarkably similar to miso soup. Kamado\u0026rsquo;s ramen was delicious and rich, the coconut milk adding a creamy texture, creating an excellent, harmonious dish.\nKamado Kitchen. Artists\u0026rsquo; Stables Complex, Pardes Hanna. Not Kosher\nDirty Ramen at 2SR | Photo: David Rozen, Public Relations\nAdvertisement\n5th Place: Dirty Ramen at 2SR, Tel Aviv – A Bold, Modern Twist # 2SR, an Asian (not exclusively Japanese) restaurant, introduced us to the burgeoning trend of \u0026ldquo;dirty ramen,\u0026rdquo; a modern, daring take on the traditional. This unique and affordable (64 NIS) Chinese-Korean ramen, based on beef broth, garlic, shiitake, and cabbage, was a revelation. Spicy, clear, and slightly oily, it featured abundant sweet potato noodles and crispy shallots that delivered a delightful kick with every slurp. Tender, slow-cooked beef pieces, generous shiitake mushrooms, and chili oil elevated the experience. For those who\u0026rsquo;ve explored Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s ramen scene and seek something truly distinctive, 2SR\u0026rsquo;s dirty ramen is an unmissable, sophisticated adventure.\n2SR. Rambam 16, Tel Aviv\nMententen Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nAdvertisement\n4th Place: Tan Tan Ramen at Mententen, Tel Aviv – An Intense, Authentic Experience # Mententen, a successful Tel Aviv izakaya, offers an authentic Japanese ambiance, professional service, and a skilled team. With Japanese music and decor, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to forget you\u0026rsquo;re in Tel Aviv. Their menu features seven ramen types, including Tori Ramen (chicken broth), Agedashi Tofu Ramen, Kara Ramen (Japanese curry broth), and Tongara Ramen (pork broth), plus two cold options for summer. We sampled the bestseller, the Tan Tan Ramen (70 NIS, pork version), a spicy, intensely flavored ramen with a rich broth that lingered for hours. Its satisfying fattiness, delicious slow-cooked ground meat, springy noodles, bamboo shoots, green onion, soft egg, red Japanese bean paste, chili, and tahini created a powerful, bold, and less balanced dish—ideal for seasoned ramen enthusiasts. Mententen delivers an impressive, flawlessly executed ramen in a truly special setting.\nMententen. Nahalat Binyamin 57, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\nWat Sang Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nAdvertisement\n3rd Place: Chicken Ramen at Wat Sang, Tel Aviv – The Epitome of Balance # Wat Sang\u0026rsquo;s Tori Paitan chicken ramen, available with jumbo tempura shrimp (76 NIS), proved to be the most balanced ramen we tasted. With the waitress\u0026rsquo;s guidance, adding sansho pepper, togarashi, and chili oil transformed it into a perfect symphony where no single flavor dominated. The broth\u0026rsquo;s delicate texture was neither heavy nor overly oily, and the noodles—flexible, thin, and perfectly cooked—surpassed others. This wonderfully understated and effortless ramen, coupled with a pleasant atmosphere and excellent service, truly stood out.\nWat Sang. HaRakevet 12, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\nKoko Neko Ramen | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\n2nd Place: Pork Ramen at Koko Neko, Tel Aviv – A Delightful Florentin Gem # Koko Neko, a new Florentin spot, boasts a fantastic atmosphere and a concise Japanese menu featuring three ramens: tofu, chicken thigh, or pork (68-72 NIS). We savored their Tonkotsu ramen (72 NIS) with crispy chashu pork, handmade noodles, bamboo shoots, a marinated soft-boiled egg, bok choy, sprouts, green onion, cabbage, and seaweed. Opting for mild spice, we found it impossible to stop eating, even after feeling full. Its pleasant texture, delightful thickness, and toppings offered a new, delicious experience with every bite. Koko Neko\u0026rsquo;s ramen is relatively delicate yet deep and complex, with tasty, flexible noodles, juicy meat, and refreshing bok choy, cabbage, and sprouts. A supremely enjoyable ramen, served at the perfect temperature for immediate indulgence.\nKoko Neko. Florentin 5, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\nThe Tastiest Ramen in Israel - WABI | Photo: Lin Levy, mako Food\nAdvertisement\nAnd in 1st Place: Tori Chashu Ramen at WABI, Tel Aviv – The Ramen University # Dean Shoshani, the \u0026ldquo;professor of ramen affairs,\u0026rdquo; has transformed his home-based operation into WABI, a permanent restaurant and true \u0026ldquo;university of ramen.\u0026rdquo; An employee patiently guides newcomers through the menu, explaining the nuances between salt tare (delicate) and soy tare (bolder) options, allowing for personalized ramen creations. From five menu options (60-65 NIS), we chose the Tori Chashu ramen (65 NIS) with a thick, soy-based chicken broth. It featured Shoshani\u0026rsquo;s on-site handmade ramen noodles (with egg for elasticity), a perfectly marinated egg with a runny yolk, bok choy, soy-marinated chicken thigh, green onion, and nori. Shoshani himself meticulously arranges each dish, ensuring perfect noodle swirl and ingredient placement. WABI\u0026rsquo;s ramen was the most delicious and successful we tried—creamy, moderately oily, clear, deeply flavorful, and rich in ingredients, exactly as one imagines a perfect ramen. Shoshani adds tare to the bowl\u0026rsquo;s bottom and crushed garlic to the broth. With sesame, chili oil, and his special kombu seaweed oil, it was simply perfect. WABI is spacious, relatively affordable, self-service, and embodies an authentic yet modern Tel Avivian Japanese eatery. Only music is missing for absolute perfection.\nWABI. De Figotto 23 corner Yehuda HaLevi, Tel Aviv. Not Kosher\nAdvertisement\nMore Ramen Dishes Worth Knowing # Homemade Ramens for Delivery # Tom Tom Ramen by Tom Shamir is the oldest and most popular of all homemade ramens, available for delivery across various areas in Israel, not just Tel Aviv. Uri Foigel (Hato Ramen) also prepares highly praised ramens from his home, accessible via his WhatsApp group. Sagi Dadush, known as Downtown Ramen, crafts ramen in Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s Shapira neighborhood.\nPop-ups: Fleeting Delights # The current ramen craze has spawned numerous pop-ups, likely to conclude with winter\u0026rsquo;s end. Discover ramen pop-ups at Chef Or Ginzburg\u0026rsquo;s Kichukai in the Flea Market, Fifi\u0026rsquo;s (Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Levinsky Market), and Kampai in Be\u0026rsquo;er Sheva. Jerusalem\u0026rsquo;s Asian February features beef broth ramen with picanha at Black Iron, and Ramen Studio hosts a pop-up twice weekly. Kibbutz Moran\u0026rsquo;s Yamaji Ramen pops up every Sunday, Tal Domoza serves ramen Sundays at Pizza Halalit in Haifa\u0026rsquo;s Talpiot Market, and Asaf Chetrit has a ramen pop-up at Rumiya in Carmel Market. At the non-kosher Onami on HaArba\u0026rsquo;a Street in Tel Aviv, Chef Roee Sofer\u0026rsquo;s ramen pop-up continues until late February.\nThe Most Expensive Ramen in Israel - ZO | Photo: Kaliger Communications, Public Relations\nRamens in Asian Restaurants: Beyond the Japanese Niche # To savor ramen, a journey to a dedicated Japanese restaurant or a Tel Aviv queue isn\u0026rsquo;t always necessary. Many Asian restaurants now feature ramen, allowing you to enjoy it alongside Pad Thai, bao buns, and spring rolls. Explore kosher options at Nini Hachi and Ze Sushi, or within the Kisso group\u0026rsquo;s establishments (Kisso, Nishi, Notch, Nylon, Anzu). Find ramen at Naya in Kiryat Anavim, Super HaMizrach in Jerusalem, Ruthie Broudo\u0026rsquo;s Herzl 16, the Mina Tomey chain, and the new Asian Club from Asian Deli\u0026rsquo;s creators. Even the new, much-discussed ZO in Tel Aviv offers Israel\u0026rsquo;s priciest ramen (129 NIS), featuring dashi broth, soba noodles, sea fish wontons, fried rice paper-wrapped tiger shrimp, and leeks.\n","date":"13 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/02/best-ramen-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the bustling culinary landscape of Israel, a surprising contender has emerged, captivating palates and sparking a fervent following: ramen. Once a humble street food in Japan, costing mere dollars, it has transformed into the trendiest dish of Winter 2025 in Israel, commanding prices of 60-80 NIS and often much more. This isn’t merely a transplant; it’s a fascinating adaptation, a dish that takes inspiration from its Japanese origins but boldly carves its own identity within the vibrant Israeli food scene. Forget the traditional Japanese slurping etiquette or the sheer volume consumed daily in Tokyo; here, ramen is a phenomenon, a canvas for local innovation that resonates deeply with our community’s adventurous spirit.\n","title":"The Best Ramen in Israel? A Full Ranking for Our Community","type":"posts"},{"content":"China\u0026rsquo;s ambassador to Israel, Xiao Jun-zheng, recently published several articles in Israeli media in both Hebrew and English, claiming that China opposes antisemitism and is fighting the phenomenon. The ambassador even expressed support for releasing Israeli hostages. However, according to Amit Elazar, a Sinologist and commentator on Chinese affairs, these statements contradict China\u0026rsquo;s actual policy since the beginning of the Iron Swords war.\nOpen Support for Hamas # Since October 7, 2023, China has refused to condemn the Hamas terror attack or the actions of Hezbollah and Iran against Israel. The Chinese Foreign Ministry described the Hamas terror attack as a \u0026ldquo;military operation\u0026rdquo; rather than a terrorist atrocity. Chinese official media focused on reporting the destruction in Gaza while pointing an accusing finger at Israel, while the Hamas atrocities were hardly mentioned.\nMoreover, China does not view Hamas or Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations, but rather as \u0026ldquo;resistance organizations.\u0026rdquo; In July 2024, the Chinese Foreign Ministry hosted an official delegation from Hamas as part of \u0026ldquo;reconciliation talks\u0026rdquo; between Palestinian factions, giving prominent legitimacy to the terror organization.\nExtreme Diplomatic Positions # In the diplomatic arena, China has taken extreme positions against Israel. Starting in November 2023, official Chinese representatives declared support for the Palestinian \u0026ldquo;right of return.\u0026rdquo; In February 2024, China\u0026rsquo;s representative to the International Court of Justice in The Hague claimed that acts of violence against Israelis are not terrorism, but rather a \u0026ldquo;legitimate armed struggle\u0026rdquo; based on international law.\nThe Chinese Foreign Ministry has repeatedly condemned Israel in international bodies for \u0026ldquo;violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity\u0026rdquo; of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, while completely ignoring the terrorism directed against Israeli civilians.\nIgnoring the Hostages # On the issue of Israeli hostages, China\u0026rsquo;s conduct has been even more blatant. Chinese media use the word \u0026ldquo;detainees\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;held\u0026rdquo; instead of \u0026ldquo;hostages,\u0026rdquo; and report on \u0026ldquo;prisoner exchanges\u0026rdquo; rather than hostage releases. According to an Israeli report, China rejected Israeli requests to help Noa Argamani, whose mother is Chinese, claiming she is \u0026ldquo;only half Chinese.\u0026rdquo;\nContrary to the ambassador\u0026rsquo;s statements about efforts to free the hostages, all official Israeli approaches to China on the matter have been rejected. This is a blatant disregard for the suffering of hostages and their families.\nWave of Antisemitism on Chinese Networks # Social networks in China, which are regularly censored by the authorities, have become a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, antisemitism, and incitement against Jews and Israel. The fact that the authorities allow this phenomenon to continue without interference indicates quiet support, or at least deliberate indifference.\nIn Chinese academia, there is also a worrying phenomenon of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Israel, and even challenging its right to exist as a state.\nStrategic Objectives # China is using the Iron Swords war as part of its efforts to portray itself as leading the Global South and the anti-Western axis. This is an opportunity to undermine the U.S.-led world order and expand its influence in the Middle East.\nCall to Action # The China expert calls on the State of Israel to take steps to exact a price from China for its support of terrorism. Steps could include canceling economic contracts, reducing cooperation in technology and hi-tech, and diplomatic protests through all channels. Israel must not allow Chinese companies access to Israeli technologies that could be used in the struggle against the U.S. and the West.\nThe Israeli public must understand that the Chinese government is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Behind the ambassador\u0026rsquo;s honeyed words lies a policy of supporting terrorism and inciting against Israel.\nSource: Makor Rishon\n","date":"10 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/02/china-ambassador-smokescreen-hamas-support/","section":"Posts","summary":"China’s ambassador to Israel, Xiao Jun-zheng, recently published several articles in Israeli media in both Hebrew and English, claiming that China opposes antisemitism and is fighting the phenomenon. The ambassador even expressed support for releasing Israeli hostages. However, according to Amit Elazar, a Sinologist and commentator on Chinese affairs, these statements contradict China’s actual policy since the beginning of the Iron Swords war.\n","title":"China's Ambassador to Israel Creates Smokescreen, Hides True Position","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chinese-ambassador/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chinese-Ambassador","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/botanical-garden/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Botanical-Garden","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"7 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sakura/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sakura","type":"tags"},{"content":"The Japanese cherry blossom festival celebrating the Sakura bloom at the Givat Ram Botanical Garden in Jerusalem will take place this upcoming weekend.\nIn Japan, crowds wait all year long for the famous blooming days, the \u0026ldquo;Sakura,\u0026rdquo; which lasts only 10 days and symbolizes the beautiful yet elusive and transient nature of spring. During this time of year, Japanese people traditionally go out to parks to experience and celebrate the cherry tree blossoming.\nThe Givat Ram Botanical Garden in Jerusalem is colored for a limited time in enchanting pink, and it\u0026rsquo;s time to go out and celebrate the Sakura and cherry blossom in Israel.\nSpecial Activities # Friday, February 7th (10:00-14:00) # Live Taiko drum performances Kendo sword demonstrations Kimono and Yukata booth to learn about traditional Japanese clothing Calligraphy Bonsai tree exhibition Guided tours about Japanese culture Tour of the only Japanese-style pagoda of its kind in the country Garden train tours Tours among the cherry trees and the new bonsai plot Japanese landscape paintings Japanese fan making Japanese-themed creative workshops for children Japanese food stalls Saturday, February 8th (10:00-14:00) # Kimono and Yukata booth Calligraphy Creative workshops for children Guided tours Japanese food stalls Detailed Event Schedule # Friday, February 7th # Live Taiko Drum Performances # Special performances of traditional Japanese drums Kendo Sword Fighting # Times: 11:00, 12:30, 13:30 Demonstration duration: 45 minutes Instructor: Pasha Volodradsky - Head of Kendo Division in Israel Kimono and Yukata Booth # Experience wearing traditional Japanese clothing Suitable from age 6 for men and women Children\u0026rsquo;s Creative Workshops # Japanese fans Origami - paper folding Manga drawing for young age Japanese-style nature drawings Tours # \u0026ldquo;Cherry and Bonsai Trail\u0026rdquo; - tour every hour on the hour Garden train - between 10:00-14:00 Saturday, February 8th # Kimono and Yukata Booth # Experience wearing traditional Japanese clothing From age 6 for men and women Calligraphy # Writing names in Japanese Children\u0026rsquo;s Creative Workshops # Japanese fans Origami Manga drawing Japanese-style nature drawings Tours # \u0026ldquo;Cherry and Bonsai Trail\u0026rdquo; - tour every hour on the hour Activities may change due to weather conditions. Please check for updates on the garden\u0026rsquo;s website or Facebook page.\n","date":"7 February 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/sakura-festival-2025/","section":"Events","summary":"The Japanese cherry blossom festival celebrating the Sakura bloom at the Givat Ram Botanical Garden in Jerusalem will take place this upcoming weekend.\nIn Japan, crowds wait all year long for the famous blooming days, the “Sakura,” which lasts only 10 days and symbolizes the beautiful yet elusive and transient nature of spring. During this time of year, Japanese people traditionally go out to parks to experience and celebrate the cherry tree blossoming.\n","title":"Sakura Festival - Japanese Cherry Blossom","type":"events"},{"content":"","date":"January 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/tags/party/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Party","type":"tags"},{"content":"嘿嘿！我是Ching，台湾味（Taiwan Wei）的幕后主理人，我正在举办一场农历新年派对——你被邀请了！😍🧧\n如果你（或你的朋友）喜欢饺子、美好的氛围和有趣的夜晚，这里就是你的不二之选。\n特别活动 # 1月29日星期三 (19:00-22:00) # 正宗台湾自助餐，提供美味菜肴和饮品 激动人心的幸运抽奖 有趣的新年活动 详细日程 # 1月29日星期三 # 台湾自助餐 # 正宗菜肴和饮品 台湾味（Taiwan Wei）的特别食谱 新年活动 # 激动人心的幸运抽奖 传统活动 节日气氛 仅剩2张票！不要错过这个充满乐趣的夜晚。私信获取报名链接！\n","date":"January 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/zh-cn/2025/01/lunar-new-year-party-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"嘿嘿！我是Ching，台湾味（Taiwan Wei）的幕后主理人，我正在举办一场农历新年派对——你被邀请了！😍🧧\n","title":"农历新年派对 - 台湾味","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/anu/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Anu","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"January 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/event/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Event","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"January 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/tags/sugihara/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sugihara","type":"tags"},{"content":"諸国民の中の正義の人・杉原千畝(センポ)の生誕125周年を記念するイベント。\n🗓 2025年1月24日(金)11:00開場 📍 ANU - ユダヤ民族博物館\n開会挨拶 # アリエ・コッツ氏(日本・イスラエル友好協会会長) 在イスラエル日本大使館からの祝辞 杉原まどか夫人からのビデオメッセージ プレゼンテーションと映像を交えた講演 # 杉原の功績と、故郷・八百津町の取り組みについて ヨシ・クリケリ氏(八百津町および杉原千畝記念館 特別顧問・代表) 音楽 # ティクン・オラム — ユダヤと日本の音楽の調和 クリスティーナ・ハイコ・クーパー(チェロ)、ヴィクトル・スタニスラフスキー(ピアノ) 会場:テルアビブ大学、ゲート1より入場 | 駐車場は有料 | 座席数に限りあり\n","date":"January 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2025/01/sugihara-125-20250124/","section":"Posts","summary":"諸国民の中の正義の人・杉原千畝(センポ)の生誕125周年を記念するイベント。\n","title":"諸国民の中の正義の人・杉原千畝(センポ)生誕125周年記念イベント","type":"posts"},{"content":"As Israel\u0026rsquo;s war with Hamas in Gaza continues and international support wanes, Taiwan remains steadfast in its solidarity. In an exclusive interview with VOA, Abby Lee, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s Representative to Israel, explained that the commonalities between Taiwan and Israel - particularly their existential threats from hostile neighbors - bind these two democratic entities together.\nShared Challenges # \u0026ldquo;Taiwan has lived under China\u0026rsquo;s military intimidation and threats for decades,\u0026rdquo; Lee told VOA in Tel Aviv. \u0026ldquo;If you\u0026rsquo;re being bullied at school, you don\u0026rsquo;t want to hide from your classmates and friends. China is one of our bullies.\u0026rdquo;\nLee draws parallels between Israel\u0026rsquo;s regional challenges and Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s situation. \u0026ldquo;Today, we\u0026rsquo;re seeing a confrontation between democracies and authoritarian regimes. Both Israel and Taiwan must deal with challenges from turbulent countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.\u0026rdquo;\nThis comparison is based on China\u0026rsquo;s ongoing military exercises near Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s coastal waters, widely seen as preparations for potential invasion and control. Similarly, since the October 2023 outbreak of war in Gaza, Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq have intensified attacks on Israel.\nDemocratic Frontline # \u0026ldquo;We see an axis of evil - or an axis of disruption - trying to undermine global order,\u0026rdquo; Lee stated. \u0026ldquo;Democratic countries must strengthen and coordinate our actions. Taiwan and Israel play crucial roles in defending frontline democracies and resisting terrorists.\u0026rdquo;\nWhile China has positioned itself as a peace advocate in the Gaza crisis, pushing for ceasefires and Palestinian statehood, it has simultaneously criticized U.S. Middle East policy and consolidated its leadership position in the \u0026ldquo;Global South.\u0026rdquo;\nTaiwan, however, has maintained unwavering support for Israel. After the October 7 Hamas attack, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s government immediately provided tens of thousands of dollars in aid. Recently, Taipei pledged $500,000 for medical and communication projects in Israel.\nNo Military Alliance, But Moral Unity # Does this mean Taiwan expects military support from Israel if China attacks?\n\u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t ask friends to fight for us,\u0026rdquo; Lee clarified. However, Taipei\u0026rsquo;s leaders do hope \u0026ldquo;like-minded democracies can unite and speak with one voice to increase the political cost of any potential invasion.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;When we saw Russia invade Ukraine, we paid close attention because we know China is closely monitoring the situation to assess what consequences they would face if they invade Taiwan,\u0026rdquo; Lee explained.\nStrategic Vulnerabilities # Both nations face deliberate shipping disruptions. Since October 2023, Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have seized ships and launched airstrikes in the Red Sea, causing global shipping costs to surge 284%. The Taiwan Strait, which carries 50% of global maritime trade, could face similar disruption if China blockades it.\nTaiwan is also the world\u0026rsquo;s largest computer chip supplier, producing 90% of advanced chips and 100% of AI chips globally. Any disruption would severely impact global supply chains - what Lee calls Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;silicon shield.\u0026rdquo;\nIsrael has similarly established itself as an indispensable provider of global technology.\n\u0026ldquo;Our goal for both sides is to invest in human capital, education, and innovation as leverage to create indispensable roles on the global political stage,\u0026rdquo; Lee said. This strategy counters China\u0026rsquo;s global propaganda that \u0026ldquo;democracy causes chaos.\u0026rdquo;\nGlobal Stakes # Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan recently warned on the Freakonomics podcast about underestimated global risks.\n\u0026ldquo;If there\u0026rsquo;s a larger-scale global conflict - say between Israel and Iran - leading to the closure of the Persian Gulf, exacerbating Houthi violence in the Red Sea straits, not to mention Taiwan issues, God forbid, but its impact on the global economy\u0026hellip; you think supply chain disruptions are bad now? My God,\u0026rdquo; Sullivan warned.\n\u0026ldquo;The American people haven\u0026rsquo;t been told how dangerous the situation is. It\u0026rsquo;s more dangerous than you think.\u0026rdquo;\nFor Taiwan and Israel, two small democracies facing existential threats, the path forward lies in strengthening bonds with like-minded nations and demonstrating their indispensability to global stability.\nSource: VOA Chinese\n","date":"9 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/01/taiwan-representative-israel-moral-support/","section":"Posts","summary":"As Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza continues and international support wanes, Taiwan remains steadfast in its solidarity. In an exclusive interview with VOA, Abby Lee, Taiwan’s Representative to Israel, explained that the commonalities between Taiwan and Israel - particularly their existential threats from hostile neighbors - bind these two democratic entities together.\n","title":"Taiwan Envoy: We Don't Ask Friends to Fight, But Need Moral Support","type":"posts"},{"content":"As Israel\u0026rsquo;s war with Hamas in Gaza continues, international support has increasingly waned. However, Taiwan remains a steadfast supporter. In an interview with Voice of America, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative to Israel, Abby Lee, explained that the commonalities between Israel and Taiwan are the glue that binds these two democratic entities together - chief among them being the existential challenges they both face from hostile neighbors.\nShared Experiences Despite Different Contexts # On the surface, Taiwan and Israel might not seem to have much in common.\nTaiwan is a Pacific island between the East China Sea and South China Sea, with nearly 23.42 million residents. It has experienced European and Japanese colonial rule throughout history and today has self-governing status, though Beijing views Taiwan as part of Chinese territory and opposes other countries establishing diplomatic relations with it.\nIsrael, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, and Egypt on its other sides, has a population of about 10 million - less than half of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s. Israel was founded in 1948, and since then, the small country has been in a state of conflict with its surrounding neighbors.\nYet Representative Abby Lee sees the commonalities between Israel and Taiwan as the bond that ties them closely together.\nLiving Under Threat # \u0026ldquo;Taiwan has lived under China\u0026rsquo;s military intimidation and threats for decades,\u0026rdquo; Lee said in her recent interview in Tel Aviv.\n\u0026ldquo;If you are bullied at school, you don\u0026rsquo;t want to hide from your classmates and friends,\u0026rdquo; she elaborated. \u0026ldquo;China is our bully.\u0026rdquo;\nLee believes that Israel has faced existential challenges from the outside since its founding.\n\u0026ldquo;Today, the challenge we see is democracy versus authoritarianism. Israel and Taiwan, these two countries, must deal with the challenges posed by volatile states like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran,\u0026rdquo; she said.\nLee\u0026rsquo;s analogy is based on China\u0026rsquo;s continuous military exercises in Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s coastal waters. Beijing\u0026rsquo;s overt threats are seen as preparation for invading and controlling Taiwan.\nIn Israel, since the outbreak of war with Hamas in Gaza in October 2023, Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq have intensified attacks on Israel, resulting in missile strikes, airstrikes, assassinations, and embassy explosions over the past year. Lee believes these escalating confrontations are intentional.\n\u0026ldquo;We see the axis of evil - or the axis of turmoil - trying to act to undermine global order. We democratic countries must strengthen and coordinate our actions. Taiwan and Israel play key roles in defending frontline democracies and resisting terrorists,\u0026rdquo; she said.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s Alliance with Israel # Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, China has made various statements and diplomatic efforts regarding the crisis. Through official statements, diplomatic activities, and media narratives, China has promoted itself as a regional peace advocate while also criticizing U.S. Middle East policy and military support for Israel.\nAs the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has exceeded 15 months, world leaders have increasingly turned away from supporting Israel. However, Taiwan remains unwavering in its support.\nTuvia Gering, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council\u0026rsquo;s Global China Center, believes that in many ways, Taiwan sees itself in Israel - \u0026ldquo;two vibrant democratic entities both facing threats from hostile neighbors.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Both countries have strong economic and technological capabilities and are heavily dependent on U.S. military exports and diplomatic support,\u0026rdquo; Gering told Voice of America.\nLee agrees with this view. She describes Israel as a small democracy in the Middle East forced to stand on the front lines against terrorism and the Iranian regime.\n\u0026ldquo;We see the parallels in the Middle East war,\u0026rdquo; Lee elaborated. \u0026ldquo;If we don\u0026rsquo;t show moral support, one day when we face the same situation or emergency, we will also need a lot of international moral support from like-minded countries and friends.\u0026rdquo;\nAfter Hamas\u0026rsquo;s terrorist attack on southern Israeli communities in October 2023, the Taiwan government immediately provided tens of thousands of dollars in aid. Recently, Taipei leaders pledged $500,000 to Israel for medical and communications projects.\nExpectations for Support # Does this mean Taiwan expects Israel\u0026rsquo;s support when it faces threats from China?\n\u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t ask friends to fight for us,\u0026rdquo; Lee clarified.\nBut Taipei leaders do hope that \u0026ldquo;like-minded democracies can unite and speak with one voice to increase the political cost of any potential invasion.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;When we saw Russia invade Ukraine, we closely monitored developments because we knew the Chinese side was also closely watching the situation to assess the consequences if they invaded Taiwan,\u0026rdquo; Lee said.\nShipping Disruptions: A Shared Concern # Israel and Taiwan also share the prospect of facing deliberate and aggressive shipping disruptions.\nSince October 2023, Yemen\u0026rsquo;s pro-Iranian Houthi militants, claiming solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, have seized passing ships in the Red Sea and launched airstrikes on dozens of vessels. These disruptions have caused global freight costs to surge by 284%.\nLee noted that the Taiwan Strait, between China and Taiwan, is a passage for 50% of global maritime trade. China blocking this passage would severely disrupt global trade.\nMeanwhile, Taiwan is the world\u0026rsquo;s largest supplier of computer chips, producing 90% of advanced chips and 100% of AI chips for the global market. Disruption of its manufacturing and shipping industries would severely impact global supply chains.\n\u0026ldquo;We call it our \u0026lsquo;silicon shield,\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo; Lee said.\nSimilarly, Israel has established itself as an indispensable provider of global technology.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s leaders say both sides aim to invest in human capital, education, and innovation as leverage to create indispensable roles on the global political stage. The goal is to offset what Lee calls China\u0026rsquo;s global propaganda that \u0026ldquo;democracy creates chaos.\u0026rdquo;\nSource: Voice of America\n","date":"9 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/01/taiwan-representative-israel-existential-challenges/","section":"Posts","summary":"As Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza continues, international support has increasingly waned. However, Taiwan remains a steadfast supporter. In an interview with Voice of America, Taiwan’s representative to Israel, Abby Lee, explained that the commonalities between Israel and Taiwan are the glue that binds these two democratic entities together - chief among them being the existential challenges they both face from hostile neighbors.\n","title":"Taiwan's Representative to Israel: We Don't Ask Friends to Fight for Us, But We Need Moral Support","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"3 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sovereignty/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sovereignty","type":"tags"},{"content":" Taiwan Rejects China\u0026rsquo;s Sovereignty Claims in Jerusalem Post Op-Ed # Ya-Ping (Abby) Lee, the representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv, has published an opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post strongly asserting Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s sovereignty and rejecting China\u0026rsquo;s territorial claims.\nKey Arguments # The article, published on January 3, 2025, makes several important points:\nTaiwan asserts itself as a sovereign, independent country (Republic of China) The author argues that UN Resolution 2758 does not grant the People\u0026rsquo;s Republic of China (PRC) sovereignty over Taiwan Taiwan positions itself as a democracy where people determine their own future Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s International Role # The article emphasizes Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s role as:\nA responsible stakeholder in global peace and supply chain A supporter of US sanctions on Iran and terrorist organizations A maintainer of peace in the Taiwan Strait, where 50% of global maritime commerce passes through Call for International Support # The piece concludes with a call for international support to maintain peace and stability, emphasizing Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s alignment with democratic values and the rule-based international order.\nRead the full article on The Jerusalem Post.\n","date":"3 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2025/01/taiwan-china-sovereignty-claim/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan Rejects China’s Sovereignty Claims in Jerusalem Post Op-Ed # Ya-Ping (Abby) Lee, the representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv, has published an opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post strongly asserting Taiwan’s sovereignty and rejecting China’s territorial claims.\n","title":"Taiwan Rejects China's Sovereignty Claims in Jerusalem Post Op-Ed","type":"posts"},{"content":" トムトムラーメンの新スペシャル：鶏肉または豚肉の担々麺 # （ヘブライ語原文より）\nトムトムラーメンに新しいスペシャルラーメンが登場しました。\n担々麺は、中国の担々麺の日本版です。比較的辛口のラーメンで、ローストしたゴマの風味と強い唐辛子の味が特徴です。スープはゴマ（日本の練りゴマ）のおかげでクリーミーで油っぽく、揚げたキャベツとパクチョイが辛い肉の混合物と対照的な食感を提供します。非常に辛くて特別なラーメン料理です。🍜🔥\n今後の配達：火曜日の正午（11:00-16:00）にテルアビブ、ラマトガン、ギヴァタイム地域（ヤッファを除く）へ。\n料理は冷たい状態で届くので、温めて豪快にすすってください🍜\nご注文と全メニューはこちらから\u0026raquo;\u0026gt;\nhttps://tomtomramen.com/\n","date":"December 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/ja/2024/12/tomtom/","section":"Posts","summary":"トムトムラーメンの新スペシャル：鶏肉または豚肉の担々麺 # （ヘブライ語原文より）\n","title":"トムトムラーメンの新スペシャル：鶏肉または豚肉の担々麺","type":"posts"},{"content":"A new Japanese street food restaurant has opened its doors in the emerging pedestrian mall of Florentin, bringing authentic onigiri to Tel Aviv\u0026rsquo;s food scene. Onigiri-ya, which opened recently, is making waves with its handcrafted Japanese rice balls, offering a fresh take on Japanese street food.\nThe restaurant, founded by Yoshi Sato and his wife Sharon, brings 16 years of Japanese culinary expertise to the neighborhood. Sato, who previously worked at Sushi Bar Basel and in the kitchens of Microsoft and Apple, has finally realized his dream of opening his own place serving authentic Japanese street food.\nWhat sets Onigiri-ya apart is its focus on handmade onigiri, a popular Japanese street food that\u0026rsquo;s different from sushi. The menu features several varieties including:\nCorn onigiri Salmon and avocado onigiri Tuna onigiri Mozzarella onigiri wrapped in sesame (toasted for a unique cheesy texture) Vegetarian onigiri with vegetables Prices range from 21-24 NIS per piece, with the rice balls being notably generous in size. The restaurant also offers additional items like bean noodle salad (35 NIS) and Japanese chicken curry (54 NIS) or vegetarian curry (42 NIS).\nThe space is designed with a clean, minimalist Japanese aesthetic, featuring traditional Japanese woodblock prints on the walls, handcrafted by Sato himself. The restaurant is currently open Sunday-Thursday 11:30-20:00, Friday 11:00-14:00, and Saturday 11:00-19:00.\nLocated at Florentin 36, Onigiri-ya represents the first sign of renewal in the area\u0026rsquo;s emerging pedestrian mall, which has recently been painted green and outfitted with seating areas for visitors to enjoy their food.\nFor those looking to try something different from the usual sushi offerings, Onigiri-ya provides an authentic taste of Japanese street food culture in the heart of Florentin.\n","date":"20 August 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2024/08/onigiri-ya-florentin/","section":"Posts","summary":"A new Japanese street food restaurant has opened its doors in the emerging pedestrian mall of Florentin, bringing authentic onigiri to Tel Aviv’s food scene. Onigiri-ya, which opened recently, is making waves with its handcrafted Japanese rice balls, offering a fresh take on Japanese street food.\n","title":"New Japanese Street Food Spot Opens in Florentin: Onigiri-ya","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taiwan and Israel face strikingly similar challenges: threats from hostile neighbors, partial international isolation, and pressure to defend their democratic systems against authoritarian powers. Since October 7, these parallels have become more visible as Taiwan strongly condemned Hamas while China remained silent.\nTaiwan\u0026rsquo;s Support After October 7 # Unlike Beijing, which refrained from condemning Hamas, Taiwan was among the first to denounce the October 7 massacre. Both then-President Tsai Ing-wen and current President Lai Ching-te issued strong statements. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s representative in Tel Aviv, Abby Lee, even volunteered in Israeli agricultural fields and met with families of hostages.\nThis solidarity stems from shared experience: just as Israelis have defended themselves against hostile neighbors for decades, Taiwanese live with constant fear of Chinese invasion. China has never recognized Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s independence and continues threatening reunification by force.\nComplex Historical Ties # The historical relationship between Israel, Taiwan, and China reveals complex diplomatic evolution. In 1949, the Republic of China (Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s government) recognized the newly created State of Israel. But in 1950, Israel recognized the People\u0026rsquo;s Republic of China, becoming the first Middle Eastern country to acknowledge the communist regime.\nFor decades, Israel and Taiwan avoided official diplomatic relations despite growing cooperation in missile technology, nuclear technology, aerospace, agriculture, and trade. Both countries faced pressure—Israel sought better relations with Beijing, while Taiwan competed with China for Arab diplomatic support.\nWhy China Supports Palestine # According to Chris King, a senior researcher at MEMRI\u0026rsquo;s Chinese Media Studies Project and former Tiananmen Square protester, Beijing\u0026rsquo;s pro-Palestinian stance primarily serves geopolitical opposition to the United States. In 1965, Mao Zedong compared Israel to Taiwan, calling both countries creations of \u0026ldquo;imperialism.\u0026rdquo;\nIronically, those who helped Jews during World War II were the Kuomintang government (now in Taiwan), not the Chinese Communist Party. Taiwan issued \u0026ldquo;lifetime visas\u0026rdquo; to European Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and planned Jewish settlements in Yunnan Province in 1939.\nShared Destiny, Different Preparedness # King warns that Taiwan cannot defend itself militarily without American support, unlike Israel\u0026rsquo;s self-reliant defense capabilities. \u0026ldquo;Most Taiwanese today are content with a life of little wealth and lack the military spirit of the Israelis,\u0026rdquo; he notes. \u0026ldquo;The Taiwanese military basically believes that as long as its own troops can delay the advance of the Chinese army, it can be considered a success.\u0026rdquo;\nThis contrasts sharply with Israel\u0026rsquo;s total defense philosophy where all citizens serve and remain prepared for conflict. Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s military service system, King argues, cannot guarantee sufficient soldiers if war breaks out.\nEconomic Contradiction # Despite supporting Palestine and Iran, China maintains profitable trade with Israel. King explains this as Xi Jinping\u0026rsquo;s realism: \u0026ldquo;Although his regime always denounces Israel verbally, he is essentially putting on a show in front of the world to appease Arab countries. But behind the scenes, he does not dare to be too tough on Israel.\u0026rdquo;\nChina\u0026rsquo;s economy struggles, making Xi reluctant to completely antagonize Israel, especially when Beijing seeks improved relations with the West.\nInvasion Likelihood # King predicts Xi Jinping will definitely attempt to take Taiwan during his tenure, but not immediately. China needs time to recover economically from COVID-19 mismanagement and achieve military advantage over the U.S. and its allies.\nThe most effective Western deterrent? Economic independence from China. \u0026ldquo;If this goes wrong, the CCP\u0026rsquo;s grip on power in China could be shaken,\u0026rdquo; King argues. \u0026ldquo;Only in this way can Xi give up the idea of taking over Taiwan.\u0026rdquo;\nLessons for Both Nations # The Israel-Taiwan relationship demonstrates how shared values and parallel challenges can forge powerful alliances despite official diplomatic constraints. Taiwan admires Israeli resilience and technological prowess. Israel recognizes a fellow democracy facing existential threats.\nAs both countries navigate hostile regional environments, their cooperation in technology, defense innovation, and mutual moral support offers hope that small democracies can survive—and thrive—in hostile neighborhoods.\nSource: Ynet News\n","date":"6 August 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2024/08/israel-taiwan-common-survival-history/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taiwan and Israel face strikingly similar challenges: threats from hostile neighbors, partial international isolation, and pressure to defend their democratic systems against authoritarian powers. Since October 7, these parallels have become more visible as Taiwan strongly condemned Hamas while China remained silent.\n","title":"Israel and Taiwan: A Common History of Survival","type":"posts"},{"content":"The fastest route depends on what you want.\nEditorial — corrections, story tips, factual concerns, commissioned writing pitches Email editor@asiansinisrael.com. The editor (Maya Sasson — pseudonym, see why) responds within five business days. Advertising — directory upgrades, sponsored content, newsletter slots Email info@asiansinisrael.com. See the rate card and advertising policy first. Submit a business to the directory or an event Use the form below, or send the link via Telegram @aainewbot (the fastest route for businesses with a Google Maps, Instagram, or Wolt page). Join the conversation Our Discourse community forum is the place for longer discussions, classifieds, and community Q\u0026amp;A. For anything else, the form below reaches the editor.\nName Email Message Send Message ","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/contact/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"The fastest route depends on what you want.\nEditorial — corrections, story tips, factual concerns, commissioned writing pitches Email editor@asiansinisrael.com. The editor (Maya Sasson — pseudonym, see why) responds within five business days. Advertising — directory upgrades, sponsored content, newsletter slots Email info@asiansinisrael.com. See the rate card and advertising policy first. Submit a business to the directory or an event Use the form below, or send the link via Telegram @aainewbot (the fastest route for businesses with a Google Maps, Instagram, or Wolt page). Join the conversation Our Discourse community forum is the place for longer discussions, classifieds, and community Q\u0026A. For anything else, the form below reaches the editor.\n","title":"Contact Us","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/farmworkers/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Farmworkers","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/october7/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"October7","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/recovery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Recovery","type":"tags"},{"content":"Thai Farm Workers Show Resilience in Return to Fields\nIn a testament to human resilience, Thai agricultural workers who survived the October 7 attacks are gradually returning to work in Israel\u0026rsquo;s fields. According to a recent report by the Times of Israel, these workers, many of whom witnessed the horrors of the Hamas attacks firsthand, are finding strength in returning to their daily routines while continuing to process their trauma.\nThe article highlights the complex emotional journey these workers face, balancing their need to support families back in Thailand with the psychological impact of their experiences. Many workers have chosen to stay in Israel, finding support in their communities and workplaces as they work through their trauma.\nThis story underscores the broader impact of the October 7 attacks on Israel\u0026rsquo;s agricultural sector and the international workers who form its backbone. The return of these workers represents not just an economic necessity but also a powerful symbol of resilience and healing.\nRead the full article at Times of Israel\n","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2024/03/thai-farmworkers-return-fields/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thai Farm Workers Show Resilience in Return to Fields\nIn a testament to human resilience, Thai agricultural workers who survived the October 7 attacks are gradually returning to work in Israel’s fields. According to a recent report by the Times of Israel, these workers, many of whom witnessed the horrors of the Hamas attacks firsthand, are finding strength in returning to their daily routines while continuing to process their trauma.\n","title":"Thai Farm Workers Return to Fields, Working Through Trauma After October 7","type":"posts"},{"content":"Guydeez is seeking enthusiastic and knowledgeable hosts to join our team in Jerusalem to deliver private and personalized walking experiences for small groups of travelers.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re looking for passionate locals who love Jerusalem and want to share its beauty and history with visitors from around the world. No professional tour guide experience is necessary—just a love for your city and the ability to engage with people.\nRole Overview # Position: Freelance Tour Guide Location: Jerusalem Contract Type: Freelance Payment: Fixed salary of 200 USD/day Flexible: Work days and hours that fit your schedule Key Responsibilities # Conduct private and personalized walking tours for diverse groups of travelers Share your knowledge of Jerusalem history, culture, and notable sites Tailor tours to the interests and preferences of guests Requirements # Local Expertise: In-depth knowledge of Jerusalem landmarks, history, and cultural highlights Language Skills: Fluency in one or more languages (French, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, etc.) is required Experience: Previous experience in guiding or hosting is a plus, but not necessary Flexibility: Ability to host various types of experiences, generally ranging from 3 to 8 hours Food Enthusiast: Interest in hosting food-related tours is a plus Additional Information # No entry fee required for applicants Includes a one-day introduction to our company Bonuses and performance incentives are available To Apply: Visit our website to explore the types of experiences we offer and learn how you can join our team!\n","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/tour-guide-freelance/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Guydeez is seeking enthusiastic and knowledgeable hosts to join our team in Jerusalem to deliver private and personalized walking experiences for small groups of travelers.\nWe’re looking for passionate locals who love Jerusalem and want to share its beauty and history with visitors from around the world. No professional tour guide experience is necessary—just a love for your city and the ability to engage with people.\n","title":"Tour Guide Freelance H/F","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","date":"19 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/trauma/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Trauma","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"January 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/announcement/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Announcement","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"January 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/he/tags/website/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Website","type":"tags"},{"content":"Asians in Israel is an independent bilingual publication covering the Asian diaspora communities in Israel — Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Nepali, Indian, and the smaller communities adjacent to them. We cover the businesses, restaurants, embassies, festivals, workplaces, and the practical mechanics of living and working here.\nWe exist because no one else was covering this beat. There are roughly a quarter of a million people from these communities in Israel, plus tens of thousands of Israelis who actively follow Asian culture, business, and travel. Mainstream Israeli media covers them episodically; community-internal channels are language-specific and fragmented. We sit in the middle: a single English + Hebrew surface that takes the community seriously as a community.\nWhat we publish # A business directory of around 850 Asian-owned or Asian-serving businesses across Israel — restaurants, groceries, importers, cultural centres, embassies, professional services. Curated, bilingual, and updated as businesses open and close. News — Asian-community stories from Israel where we have a local angle (interview, on-the-ground reporting, primary document, or community input). We do not republish wire copy. See the editorial policy for the rule. Practical guides — caregiver rights, finding a doctor who speaks your language, navigating Israeli bureaucracy in a non-Hebrew first language, kosher considerations for Asian cuisines. Cuisine and city guides — annual roundups of where to find Korean, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, and Filipino food, plus the Asian grocery stores city by city. Events and jobs that the community actually cares about. How we choose what to cover and how we verify it is on the methodology page.\nWho runs it # The site is edited by Maya Sasson — a pseudonym used by the publication\u0026rsquo;s editor to keep a single named, accountable point of contact for editorial decisions, corrections, and submissions, while preserving the editor\u0026rsquo;s personal privacy. The pseudonym is disclosed transparently here and on the editor\u0026rsquo;s page; it is not used to obscure conflicts of interest. See the editor\u0026rsquo;s page for the full bio and the reasoning behind the pseudonym.\nThe publication is independent: not affiliated with any embassy, community association, religious organisation, political party, or government. We are not funded by any of those. Revenue comes from paid directory placements and sponsored content as listed on /advertise/, plus optional reader support. The advertising policy sets out the firewall between commercial and editorial decisions.\nThe publisher is registered with Israeli tax authorities as an עוסק מורשה and issues proper Israeli tax invoices on commercial transactions.\nHow we work # A few principles we apply consistently:\nBilingual minimum (EN + HE). Every piece is published in English and Hebrew. We add Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai only when the content is specifically of that community — we do not machine-translate by default. Original or nothing. News coverage requires a local angle. Directory entries do not get a \u0026ldquo;Verified\u0026rdquo; badge unless we can confirm the business operates. Guides include businesses we have personally been to or that come from named community recommendations. AI assists language, not editorial judgement. Translation drafting and grammar are LLM-assisted. Sourcing, fact selection, framing, and ranking are human decisions. The methodology page describes the boundary. Corrections are visible. When we get something wrong, the post carries a \u0026ldquo;Corrected on YYYY-MM-DD\u0026rdquo; note with what changed. See editorial corrections. How to get involved # Tell us about your business or event. The contact form is the fastest route; we also accept directory submissions via Telegram @aainewbot. Flag a correction or factual issue. Email editor@asiansinisrael.com. Submit a story or first-person piece. We pay for commissioned writing; pitch via the editor\u0026rsquo;s address above. Advertise. See the rate card and the advertising policy. Reach # Discourse community forum — discussions, classifieds, longer threads Instagram — photo-first coverage, events Facebook — community page Telegram @aainewbot — bot route for submissions and tips Email: editor@asiansinisrael.com (editorial) · info@asiansinisrael.com (advertising, general) Related: editor · editorial policy · methodology · advertising policy · community guidelines\n","date":"15 January 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"Asians in Israel is an independent bilingual publication covering the Asian diaspora communities in Israel — Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Nepali, Indian, and the smaller communities adjacent to them. We cover the businesses, restaurants, embassies, festivals, workplaces, and the practical mechanics of living and working here.\n","title":"About Asians in Israel","type":"page"},{"content":" Community Guidelines # Welcome to the Asians in Israel community! To ensure our space remains welcoming, respectful, and valuable for all members, we ask everyone to follow these community guidelines.\n🤝 Our Community Values # Respect \u0026amp; Inclusivity: We embrace diversity in all its forms. Our community includes people from many Asian countries, different backgrounds, religions, and life experiences.\nMutual Support: We\u0026rsquo;re here to help each other succeed. Whether someone needs practical advice about life in Israel or professional guidance, we support one another.\nCultural Celebration: We take pride in our rich Asian heritage while embracing our life in Israel. Both cultures are important to who we are.\n✅ What We Encourage # 📝 Helpful Content # Share your experiences living in Israel Ask questions about daily life, work, education, or cultural adaptation Offer practical advice and tips Share success stories and achievements Post about community events and meetups 💼 Professional Growth # Share job opportunities relevant to our community Network professionally and respectfully Promote your business or services (following our promotion guidelines) Seek career advice and mentorship 🎉 Community Building # Organize or promote community events Share cultural celebrations and traditions Connect people with similar interests or backgrounds Welcome newcomers to Israel ❌ What We Don\u0026rsquo;t Allow # 🚫 Discriminatory Behavior # Racism, sexism, xenophobia, or discrimination of any kind Hate speech or harassment Content that promotes division within our community Disrespectful comments about any nationality, religion, or background 🚫 Inappropriate Content # Spam or excessive self-promotion Political arguments or divisive political content Personal attacks or bullying Content not relevant to our community False or misleading information 🚫 Commercial Violations # Unauthorized advertising or marketing Scams or fraudulent schemes Selling products without permission Multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes 📋 Posting Guidelines # For General Posts # Use clear, descriptive titles Tag your content appropriately (News, Events, Business, Jobs) Write in a respectful, helpful tone Include relevant details and context Use Hebrew and English as needed For Job Postings # Include company name and location Specify job requirements clearly Mention if language skills (Hebrew/English/Asian languages) are required Include salary range when possible Use the \u0026ldquo;Jobs\u0026rdquo; category For Business Promotion # Limit self-promotion to once per week Provide value to the community, not just advertising Be transparent about your business relationship Use the \u0026ldquo;Business\u0026rdquo; category Include location and contact information For Events # Post at least one week in advance when possible Include date, time, location, and cost (if any) Specify language of the event Use the \u0026ldquo;Events\u0026rdquo; category Update if details change 🛡️ Community Moderation # Our volunteer moderators work to keep the community safe and welcoming. We will:\nRemove content that violates these guidelines Issue warnings for minor violations Temporarily restrict members who repeatedly violate guidelines Remove members who engage in serious violations or harassment 📞 Reporting \u0026amp; Appeals # If You See a Problem # Use the report function on problematic content Contact moderators directly for urgent issues Don\u0026rsquo;t engage in public arguments - let moderators handle it If Your Content is Removed # Contact moderators for clarification We\u0026rsquo;re happy to explain our decisions You can appeal if you believe there was a mistake We aim to respond within 24-48 hours 🌍 Languages # While we primarily use English and Hebrew for broader accessibility, we welcome content in Asian languages when:\nIt\u0026rsquo;s particularly relevant to speakers of that language You provide a summary in English or Hebrew It helps preserve and share cultural traditions 🔒 Privacy \u0026amp; Safety # Protect personal information - don\u0026rsquo;t share addresses, phone numbers, or personal details publicly Meet safely - use public places for initial meetups Trust your instincts - if something feels wrong, report it Be cautious with financial or business arrangements 💡 Tips for a Great Community Experience # Use the search function before asking common questions Be patient with newcomers who are still learning Offer constructive feedback rather than criticism Celebrate others\u0026rsquo; successes - we\u0026rsquo;re all in this together Stay positive - focus on solutions and support 📞 Contact the Moderators # If you have questions about these guidelines or need to report an issue:\nEmail: moderators@asiansinisrael.com Direct message any moderator Use the report function on specific posts ✨ Thank You # These guidelines help us maintain a community that\u0026rsquo;s valuable, safe, and enjoyable for everyone. Thank you for helping make Asians in Israel a welcoming place for all members of our diverse community!\nLast updated: January 2025\nThese guidelines may be updated periodically - we\u0026rsquo;ll notify the community of any major changes.\n","date":"15 January 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/guidelines/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"Community Guidelines # Welcome to the Asians in Israel community! To ensure our space remains welcoming, respectful, and valuable for all members, we ask everyone to follow these community guidelines.\n","title":"Community Guidelines","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"25 January 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/high-tech/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"High-Tech","type":"tags"},{"content":"When Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s 14th president in January 2016 with a landslide 56% of the vote, Israel gained a leader who had already declared her admiration for the Jewish state. The Democratic Progressive Party candidate, Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s first female president, brought to office a deep appreciation for Israel shaped by a 2013 visit.\nA Transformative Visit # During her 2013 trip to Israel, Tsai was struck by multiple facets of Israeli society. Upon returning to Taiwan, she published a glowing article in the island\u0026rsquo;s main newspaper, expressing wonder at how Israelis maintain normal lives despite the constant threat of terrorism.\nShe highlighted Israel\u0026rsquo;s high-tech industry, the civic engagement demonstrated during the 2011 social protests, and the determination of Israeli diplomats fighting for their country abroad. Taiwan, she wrote, could learn much from Israeli experience and philosophy.\nWomen in the IDF # Tsai even posted a photograph on her Facebook page of an armed female Israeli soldier, expressing admiration for the level of women\u0026rsquo;s integration into Israeli society and security forces. This resonated with her own breakthrough as Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s first female president, reflecting shared values about gender equality in leadership.\nDeepening Bilateral Ties # The president maintained close relations with Simona Halperin, who served as head of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei from 2010 to 2015. During Halperin\u0026rsquo;s tenure, bilateral trade rose 9%, reaching $1.33 billion in 2014.\nThe two countries signed cooperation agreements covering industrial R\u0026amp;D, aviation, tourism, science and technology, customs affairs, environmental protection, education, sports, and youth exchanges. These agreements laid groundwork for the expanding Taiwan-Israel partnership that continues today.\nParallel Challenges, Shared Values # Tsai saw Israel as more than a trade partner or diplomatic ally. She recognized parallel challenges: both Israel and Taiwan face existential security threats, partial international isolation, and pressure from larger hostile neighbors. Both invest heavily in technology and innovation as strategic assets.\nHer admiration for Israel\u0026rsquo;s resilience under pressure would prove prescient. As president, Tsai faced increasing military intimidation from China while maintaining Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s democratic identity and technological edge—challenges not unlike those Israel confronts in its own region.\nA Pro-Israel President # Tsai Ing-wen\u0026rsquo;s presidency marked a high point in Taiwan-Israel relations. Her genuine enthusiasm for Israel, rooted in that 2013 visit, translated into warmer diplomatic ties, increased technological cooperation, and mutual support between two democracies facing authoritarian pressure.\nSource: The Times of Israel\n","date":"25 January 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/2016/01/taiwan-president-tsai-amazed-israel/","section":"Posts","summary":"When Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s 14th president in January 2016 with a landslide 56% of the vote, Israel gained a leader who had already declared her admiration for the Jewish state. The Democratic Progressive Party candidate, Taiwan’s first female president, brought to office a deep appreciation for Israel shaped by a 2013 visit.\n","title":"Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen: 'Amazed' by Israel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 January 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/tsai-ing-wen/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tsai-Ing-Wen","type":"tags"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Business Directory","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/acre-nahariya-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Acre Nahariya Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/afula-emek-yizrael-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Afula Emek Yizrael Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/ashdod-and-lachish-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Ashdod And Lachish Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/ashkelon/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Ashkelon","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/beer-sheva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Beer Sheva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/eilat/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Eilat","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/haifa/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Haifa","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/hasharon/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Hasharon","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/herzliya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Herzliya","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/jerusalem/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Jerusalem","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/karmiel-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Karmiel Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/mevaseret-zion-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Mevaseret Zion Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/modiin/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Modiin","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/multiple/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Multiple","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/netanya/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Netanya","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/pardes-hanna/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Pardes Hanna","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/petah-tikva/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Petah Tikva","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/rishon-lezion-hashfela-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Rishon Lezion Hashfela Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/rosh-pinna---zefat-area/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Rosh Pinna   Zefat Area","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/tel-aviv/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Tel Aviv","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/yokneam/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Businesses in Yokneam","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/category/community/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Community Organizations in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/category/food-drink/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Food \u0026 Drink in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/category/health-beauty/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Health \u0026 Beauty in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/category/retail/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Retail \u0026 Shopping in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/category/services/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Asian Services in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/category/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Browse by Category","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/city/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Browse by City","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Browse by Cuisine","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/central-asian/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Central Asian Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/chinese/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Chinese Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":" Maya Sasson, Editor # Asians in Israel is edited under the byline Maya Sasson — a pseudonym used by the site\u0026rsquo;s editor to preserve their privacy while keeping a single named, accountable point of contact for editorial decisions, corrections and submissions. Pseudonymous editorship is a long-standing journalistic practice; the site does not use anonymous bylines or generic \u0026ldquo;editorial team\u0026rdquo; personas, and every piece carries an attributed author.\nThe site has covered Israel\u0026rsquo;s Asian communities since 2024. Editorial decisions, restaurant reviews, embassy news and the business directory are curated by a single editor, with named community contributors credited where they appear.\nWhat the editor covers personally # Restaurants and groceries — visited, eaten at, photographed where possible Embassy and government news — read against primary sources (Hebrew and English) before writing Community profiles — built from interviews and on-the-ground reporting The directory — listings that have been visited in person or verified by phone What this site does not do # Mechanical rewrites of other outlets\u0026rsquo; news stories. News posts are gated by a local_angle requirement (interview, on-the-ground report, primary source, or community input) — see the editorial policy. Auto-translated machine content as a substitute for editorial judgement. Language drafting is LLM-assisted, but sourcing, fact selection and editorial calls are made by the editor. Locales outside English and Hebrew are added only when the content is specifically of that community. Anonymous bylines or generic \u0026ldquo;editorial team\u0026rdquo; personas. The Maya Sasson byline is consistent and stays attached to corrections. Get in touch # Email: editor@asiansinisrael.com Telegram channel: @aainewbot Community forum: community.asiansinisrael.com For how the site is sourced, vetted and updated, see the methodology. For corrections, conflicts of interest and the editorial standards the site holds itself to, see the editorial policy.\nContributing # If you live in Israel and have direct knowledge of an Asian community here — Thai workers, Korean students, Filipino caregivers, mainland Chinese tech workers, Vietnamese restaurant operators, anyone — the editor would like to hear from you. Bylines are credited to you under your own name (or a pseudonym of your choosing), not folded under a generic site identity.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/editor/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"Maya Sasson, Editor # Asians in Israel is edited under the byline Maya Sasson — a pseudonym used by the site’s editor to preserve their privacy while keeping a single named, accountable point of contact for editorial decisions, corrections and submissions. Pseudonymous editorship is a long-standing journalistic practice; the site does not use anonymous bylines or generic “editorial team” personas, and every piece carries an attributed author.\n","title":"Editor","type":"page"},{"content":"This page sets out the editorial standards that Asians in Israel commits to. It exists so readers, contributors and the businesses we cover know what we will and will not publish, and what to do if we get something wrong.\nEditorial responsibility # The site is edited under the byline Maya Sasson — a pseudonym used to preserve the editor\u0026rsquo;s privacy while keeping a single named, accountable point of contact for editorial decisions, corrections and submissions. The editor is the same person across every piece; the byline is not a rotating team identity. Background on the byline and how the editor works lives on the editor page.\nWhere outside contributors write a piece, they are credited by name (or by a pseudonym of their own choosing) in the article frontmatter and at the foot of the article. Contributions go through the editor before publication.\nSourcing standards # We publish in four content categories — news, businesses (directory + reviews), events and jobs. Each has its own sourcing rule.\nNews posts must add an original local angle. Mechanical rewrites of other outlets\u0026rsquo; stories are blocked at build time by the local_angle requirement in tools/check_frontmatter.py: every news post dated 2026-05-13 or later must declare one of interview, on-the-ground, primary-source, or community-input in its frontmatter. If we cannot honestly assert one of those four, we do not publish the post. The earliest reason this exists is simple — Israel already has plenty of outlets that summarise external stories; we earn the reader\u0026rsquo;s attention only by adding something Israel-specific that they cannot get elsewhere.\nDirectory and business reviews are written from first-hand experience or verified community input. Listings are either visited in person, ordered from, or phoned to confirm. Reviews disclose if the editor did not eat at the restaurant themselves and is reporting on community consensus instead.\nEvents are sourced from organisers directly, official channels, or community submissions. We verify dates and addresses against the source before publishing.\nJobs are sourced from the hiring organisation or a community member who has verified the listing is legitimate.\nWe hyperlink primary sources where possible — official government pages, embassy announcements, the relevant Hebrew or English press. Where a community-specific source exists (a Filipino caregivers\u0026rsquo; Facebook group, a Korean students\u0026rsquo; Telegram channel), we reference it as the proximate source rather than route through an English-language summary.\nCorrections # If a published piece is wrong, contact editor@asiansinisrael.com with the specific error and, where possible, a source for the correct information. We aim to acknowledge corrections within 48 hours. Material corrections are noted directly on the post — we do not silently rewrite a piece to make it look as though the error never happened.\nEvery directory entry and every cluster guide carries a last_reviewed date in its frontmatter; that date moves forward only when the editor has re-checked the underlying facts (still open, still at this address, prices and hours still current). When a business closes or changes hands materially, we update or remove the entry rather than leave a stale page indexed.\nConflicts of interest # Asians in Israel does not run sponsored listings, paid placements, or advertorial content masquerading as editorial. The business directory is offered as a free community resource and is not sold. Where the site eventually monetises (community subscriptions, lead-referrals priced transparently, a paid newsletter), the commercial layer is kept structurally separate from editorial — paying customers do not influence whether they are reviewed or where they rank in a guide.\nWe disclose any non-trivial relationship between editor and subject when it exists: free meals for review purposes, family/business ties to a listed business, prior work history with an embassy or institution under coverage. The default is to mention the relationship in-line in the relevant piece.\nWe do not accept gifts, hosted trips, or comped services in exchange for coverage. Press tickets to public-facing events (festivals, concerts) are accepted and disclosed.\nAI and translation # Language drafting on this site is LLM-assisted — Hebrew translations, and the occasional Japanese/Korean/Chinese localisation, run through a model first and are then edited. Sourcing, fact selection, what we choose to cover and what we choose to leave alone, structural editing, and the final approval of every piece are human decisions made by the editor.\nWe do not publish auto-translated content into Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese as a default. Those locales are added only when the content is specifically of that community — a piece on Korean events for Korean readers, not an English-news rewrite shoved through a translator. Thai and Vietnamese locales were retracted on 2026-05-13 for exactly this reason.\nContacting the editor # For corrections, complaints, story tips, business directory submissions, or anything else editorial: editor@asiansinisrael.com or via the contact page.\nFor the practical mechanics of how we build the directory, source guides, and decide who gets listed, see the methodology.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/editorial/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"This page sets out the editorial standards that Asians in Israel commits to. It exists so readers, contributors and the businesses we cover know what we will and will not publish, and what to do if we get something wrong.\n","title":"Editorial Policy","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/","section":"Events","summary":"","title":"Events","type":"events"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/guide/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Guides \u0026 Resources for Asians in Israel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/indian/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Indian Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/japanese/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Japanese Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"","title":"Jobs Board","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/korean/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Korean Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"Maya Sasson is the byline of the editor of Asians in Israel — a pseudonym used to preserve the editor\u0026rsquo;s privacy while keeping a single named, accountable point of contact for editorial decisions, corrections and submissions.\nThe editor covers the site\u0026rsquo;s four content categories — news, businesses (directory + reviews), events, and jobs — across the Thai, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Nepali and other Asian communities in Israel. Where work is contributed by named community members, the byline goes to them, not under this one.\nFor how the site decides what to publish, how corrections are handled, and what conflicts of interest exist, see the editorial policy. For how the directory and the cluster guides are built and refreshed, see the methodology. To get in touch directly, see the editor page or email editor@asiansinisrael.com.\nArticles # ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/maya-sasson/","section":"Authors","summary":"Maya Sasson is the byline of the editor of Asians in Israel — a pseudonym used to preserve the editor’s privacy while keeping a single named, accountable point of contact for editorial decisions, corrections and submissions.\n","title":"Maya Sasson","type":"authors"},{"content":"This page documents the practical mechanics behind the site — how a business gets into the directory, how a cluster guide is built, what the \u0026ldquo;last updated\u0026rdquo; badge actually means, and where AI sits in the workflow.\nThe directory # The business directory at /directory/ is the spine of the site. Every entry is structured data in data/businesses.yaml plus a per-entry markdown bundle in content/directory/{slug}/.\nSourcing. An entry enters the directory through one of four routes:\nEditor scouting — restaurants, shops and service providers found in person, through community channels, or by following Asian-cuisine and immigrant-business signals on Wolt, Google Maps, Instagram and local press. Community submission — readers and operators flag businesses we have missed. Submissions arrive via the contact page, the Telegram bot (@aainewbot), or the community forum. Reconciliation with public sources — we cross-check Wolt, Google Maps, official business pages and Instagram to confirm an operator is currently active before listing. Phone verification — for businesses where the public footprint is thin or inconsistent, we call before listing. Verification status. Each entry carries a verification_status field — verified, tentative, or unverified — set according to how thoroughly we have confirmed the business is still operating at the address and phone number on file. Entries that fail verification (number disconnected, address vacant, Wolt entry removed) are either updated or unpublished; the directory will not knowingly carry pages for businesses that have closed.\nlast_reviewed. Each entry also carries a last_reviewed date. This date moves forward only when the editor has re-checked the underlying facts — still open, still at this address, hours and prices still roughly current. A last_reviewed badge renders on the public page so readers can judge how fresh the information is. Entries that go un-reviewed for too long get re-queued for a fresh pass; if a re-pass confirms a closure, the entry comes down.\nWhat we do not list. Businesses with no connection to an Asian community in Israel; \u0026ldquo;Asian-fusion\u0026rdquo; venues run with no Asian community involvement or sourcing; businesses we cannot reach for verification after three attempts.\nCluster guides # Cluster guides (\u0026ldquo;Best Korean Restaurants in Israel\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Asian Supermarkets City-by-City\u0026rdquo;) are roundup pages that funnel readers into the directory entries. Each guide pulls together a curated set of named businesses with a paragraph or two on each; every named place in a guide links to its full directory entry.\nSelection criteria. A business gets named in a guide if it (a) has a directory entry that meets the verification standard above, and (b) earns inclusion on cuisine merit — the editor has eaten there, or the community-input signal is strong enough that the editor is confident naming it. Guides are not paid placements; the order is editorial and may shift between refreshes.\nRefresh cadence. Guides are year-stamped (\u0026quot;…2026\u0026quot;) and carry the same last_reviewed discipline as directory entries. We aim to refresh each guide at least once per year, sooner if a meaningful opening or closure shifts the landscape.\nNews, events, jobs # News posts are gated by the editorial-policy local_angle rule — see the editorial policy for what counts. Events are posted from organiser sources and verified against the source URL before publication. Jobs come from the hiring organisation or a verified community-member referrer.\nWe do not auto-syndicate from external feeds, and we do not republish other outlets\u0026rsquo; stories without adding the local angle that justifies the post existing.\nLanguages # The site is bilingual by default: every article ships in English and Hebrew. The cultural-specific locales — Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese — are added only when the content is specifically of that community. Korean embassy news goes into Korean; restaurant reviews of a Korean restaurant go into Korean. An English-news rewrite about Korea in general does not. Thai and Vietnamese locales were retracted on 2026-05-13 because the quality of community-specific content in those languages did not meet the bar.\nHebrew translation is the editor\u0026rsquo;s responsibility on every piece. The mechanics: an LLM produces a first-pass translation; the editor reviews, corrects and ships. The reverse direction (HE→EN) also happens occasionally for community-submitted pieces.\nAI in the workflow # Where AI sits in this site is narrow and explicit: language drafting. An LLM helps produce the first-pass Hebrew translation, occasionally helps draft a section of English prose around a research-heavy topic, and helps audit copy for unidiomatic phrasing.\nWhere AI does not sit: choosing what to cover, judging whether a source is reliable, deciding whether a business deserves a write-up, ranking restaurants within a guide, deciding whether to retract a piece after a complaint, or interacting with readers and contributors. Those are editorial calls made by the editor.\nThis split is deliberate. Routing, tool selection, and judgement stay in human hands; language understanding is delegated to the model. If a piece on this site reads like it was written by a model end-to-end, the editor has failed at the job — and a correction request is the right response.\nErrors and updates # When we get it wrong — wrong fact, wrong attribution, outdated information — the editorial policy sets out how to flag the issue and what we do in response.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/methodology/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":"This page documents the practical mechanics behind the site — how a business gets into the directory, how a cluster guide is built, what the “last updated” badge actually means, and where AI sits in the workflow.\n","title":"Methodology","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/nepali/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Nepali Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/pan-asian/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Pan-Asian Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"Looking to hire? Post your job listing on our community forum and reach the Asian community in Israel.\nWhat to include:\nJob title and employer City or remote Employment type (salaried, freelance, contract, internship) Languages required How to apply (URL, email, or phone) Application deadline Post on Community Forum\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/jobs/submit/","section":"Jobs Board","summary":"Looking to hire? Post your job listing on our community forum and reach the Asian community in Israel.\nWhat to include:\nJob title and employer City or remote Employment type (salaried, freelance, contract, internship) Languages required How to apply (URL, email, or phone) Application deadline Post on Community Forum\n","title":"Post a Job","type":"jobs"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re always looking to expand our directory of Asian businesses in Israel. If you know a restaurant, shop, service, or community organization that should be listed, let us know!\nWhat to include:\nBusiness name (English and Hebrew if possible) Type of business and cuisine City and address Contact info (phone, website, Instagram) A brief description of what makes it special Submit on Community Forum\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/submit/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"We’re always looking to expand our directory of Asian businesses in Israel. If you know a restaurant, shop, service, or community organization that should be listed, let us know!\nWhat to include:\n","title":"Submit a Business","type":"directory"},{"content":"Hosting an event the Asian community in Israel should know about? Share it on our community forum and we\u0026rsquo;ll list it here.\nWhat to include:\nEvent name and a short description Date(s) and time(s) Venue (name + address) and city Organizer (and website / Instagram, if any) Cost (free, ticketed, suggested donation) RSVP / ticket link Languages the event will be in Post on Community Forum\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/events/submit/","section":"Events","summary":"Hosting an event the Asian community in Israel should know about? Share it on our community forum and we’ll list it here.\nWhat to include:\nEvent name and a short description Date(s) and time(s) Venue (name + address) and city Organizer (and website / Instagram, if any) Cost (free, ticketed, suggested donation) RSVP / ticket link Languages the event will be in Post on Community Forum\n","title":"Submit an Event","type":"events"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/taiwanese/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Taiwanese Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/thai/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Thai Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/directory/cuisine/vietnamese/","section":"Asian Business Directory","summary":"","title":"Vietnamese Restaurants \u0026 Businesses in Israel","type":"directory"},{"content":" Connecting the Asian community across Israel — news, events, jobs, and businesses in 6 languages. Your hub for the Asian diaspora in Israel. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re looking for authentic restaurants, community events, job opportunities, or the latest news, we\u0026rsquo;ve got you covered.\n560+ businesses listed across Israel | 6 languages supported\nBrowse the Business Directory ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","summary":" Connecting the Asian community across Israel — news, events, jobs, and businesses in 6 languages. Your hub for the Asian diaspora in Israel. Whether you’re looking for authentic restaurants, community events, job opportunities, or the latest news, we’ve got you covered.\n","title":"Welcome to Asians in Israel","type":"page"}]