Here is a calendar of upcoming events, up and down the country. Some are organized by us, others by like-minded organizations and groups.
Join us for a highly informative and interactive presentation by acclaimed Professor Yoram Barak on a survey of the available evidence, observations and hypotheses on how Alzheimer’s Disease might be prevented. This is the second in a 2-part series of lectures.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Yoram Barak is an assistant professor of Psychiatry at the Sackler School of Medicine of Tel-Aviv University, and director of the Psychogeriatric Department at the Abarbanel Mental Health Center. Trained in medicine and psychiatry at the Sackler School of Medicine, he became an Israel Medical Scientific Council Specialist in Psychiatry in 1993, and was awarded a Masters in Health Administration from Ben-Gurion University of Beer-Sheva, Israel in 2004.
Dr. Barak is also a consultant for the National Multiple Sclerosis Center in Israel and a special consultant on Positive Psychology for the Israel Defense Forces. He was president of the Israeli Association of Old-Age Psychiatry, and is currently on the editorial board of the Israel Journal of Psychiatry and the Open Psychiatry Journal. Research interests include multiple sclerosis, cancer, depression, schizophrenia, obsessive–compulsive disorder, suicide and geriatric psychiatry. He has published extensively in these areas, and is author and co-author of over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles.
He is currently on Sabbatical and teaching at the Otago University School of Medicine in Christchurch.
VENUE: Northwood Villa Clubrooms, Northwood Villas Cres, off O’Neill Ave, Northwood, Christchurch
WHEN: 2pm, Sunday, July 3, 2016
ADMISSION: Please bring a plate of finger food, we’d be grateful if you could avoid pork or seafood products.
FEEL FREE TO INVITE YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY
If you’ve not heard of Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, you’ll wonder how that could have been once you’ve seen what he does in this film. For dance aficionados, this is surely the most anticipated artist portrait since Wim Wenders’ Pina.
“A spectacular and celebratory investigation of a modern dancer’s creative process, this documentary tracks the four decades-long career of renowned choreographer Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. Thoughtfully and painstakingly researched, the film is packed with visually arresting archival footage from every stage of Naharin’s professional (and personal) life…
Choreographed pieces move in kinetic bursts from the rehearsal studio to the stage and, in interviews, dancers who’ve worked with him and colleagues from different periods offer insights in terms both admiring and blunt. Naharin is similarly expressive – about… the joys of physical expression, his struggles to convey his vision to those tasked with embodying it and the dance-world backdrop against which he developed his singular choreographic style and movement language, known as Gaga.
Heymann, a veteran documentarian whose filmography includes an earlier work about Naharin, skillfully constructs a portrait from these elements, methodically adding layers and sometimes revisiting previously seen footage, arming the viewer with new revelations and a more complicated understanding.” — Lynn Rapoport, San Francisco International Film Festival
Investigative journalism meets conspiracy thriller as Alex Gibney (Going Clear, NZIFF15) goes on the trail of Stuxnet, the extraordinary computer virus that metastasised around the world before it arrived at its target, Iranian nuclear facilities, and performing its mission: exploding uranium-enrichment centrifuges.
Undeterred by muzzled officials, the indomitable Gibney shows how Stuxnet – or ‘Olympic Games’, as its architects called it – was cooked up covertly by the US and Israel, creating a new level of virus complexity and a new class of weapon. One of Gibney’s sources, dramatised as a composite individual and played by a digitally reconstituted actor (one of many striking visual effects), says the worm may never have come to public attention had it not been for a unilateral Israeli move to recalibrate Stuxnet’s code and accelerate its impact. A wider operation had to be abandoned, and Tehran retaliated in kind, attacking US institutions with malware and parading its own burgeoning ‘cyber army’.
Gibney manages not only to illuminate in plain terms how Stuxnet worked, but to also issue a powerful warning about the Pandora’s box it opens. Echoing ideas explored in his WikiLeaks documentary We Steal Secrets, Gibney argues that in the face of an emerging cyber-conflict threat, which is analogous to that of nuclear weapons many decades ago, international norms and rules of engagement must be developed outside the shadows of secrecy and denial. — Toby Manhire
“Zero Days is reminiscent of that scene in Skyfall when Q tells 007 that he can do more damage with his laptop before his morning cup of Earl Grey than Bond can do in a year.” — Nicholas Barber, BBC
The German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt left her indelible imprint on 20th-century thought by coining the concept of the ‘banality of evil’ when reporting on the 1963 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. This spirited documentary illuminates that often abused idea and draws a larger picture of Arendt’s often conflicted engagement with the defining phenomena of her era – and maybe ours too.
Richly illustrated with historical footage, Vita Activa offers an intimate portrait of Arendt’s life and work – both deeply informed by the aftermath of World War I, the rise of Nazi Germany and its systematic elimination of European Jews.
“Directed by Israeli documentarian Ada Ushpiz, who has degrees in philosophy and history as well as filmmaking experience, Vita Activa closely examines Arendt’s ‘active life’ with the goal of putting us inside her formative experiences, the better to reveal who she was and where her attitudes came from. There are interviews with old friends and academic experts and extensive use of filmed interviews Arendt herself gave, as well as the effective reading of excerpts from her essays and letters by actress Alison Darcy. Though the talk is smart and constant here, Vita Activa also benefits from the director’s sharp eye for effective, often rarely seen newsreel and home-movie footage.” — Kenneth Turan, LA Times
“There are moments in Vita Activa, an urgent and often startling documentary from Israeli director Ada Ushpiz, where I could feel her trying to reach across the decades and talk to us.” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
An unsettling vision of military service pervading everyday Israeli life, Samuel Maoz’s (Lebanon) visceral and startlingly unpredictable film centres on a Tel Aviv couple coping with the death of their son, a soldier stationed in the middle of nowhere.
“Maazo’s marvelous, harrowing drama about death and life in Israel marches boldly through the no-man’s-land between realism and surrealism. It’s prize collection of paradoxes, combining an intimate, eviscerating depiction of parental grief ove ra serviceman’s death with an empathic, absurdist rendering of young Israeli Defence Force soldiers manning a remote and otherworldly roadblock…
Foxtrot carries the excitement and punch of a fearless writer-director tackling contemporary material with a bracing cocktail of potent traditional drama, wild black comedy, and serrated style. [It all] comes together as a complex plea for honesty, openness, frankness, and forgiveness. The movie is also, incidentally, a spectacularly effective antiwar film, focusing on the randomness and cruelty of life lived on military roads… Its final image resters like a blow to the chest. It’s a shot that should be seen around the world.” — Michael Sragow, Film Comment
“[Foxtrot] contains some of themost striking, memorable imagery of the year… It’s a film designed tomove you with its depiction of senseless tragedy but also to spark that part of your thinking process that only moviemaking can tap… This multitalented filmmaker has taken that darkness and turned it into something unforgettable for everyone who sees it.” — Brian Tallerico, RobertEbert.com
Awards: Grand Jury Price, Venice Film Festival 2017
Hebrew, Arabic and German, with English subtitles; 113 minutes.
An unsettling vision of military service pervading everyday Israeli life, Samuel Maoz’s (Lebanon) visceral and startlingly unpredictable film centres on a Tel Aviv couple coping with the death of their son, a soldier stationed in the middle of nowhere.
“Maazo’s marvelous, harrowing drama about death and life in Israel marches boldly through the no-man’s-land between realism and surrealism. It’s prize collection of paradoxes, combining an intimate, eviscerating depiction of parental grief ove ra serviceman’s death with an empathic, absurdist rendering of young Israeli Defence Force soldiers manning a remote and otherworldly roadblock…
Foxtrot carries the excitement and punch of a fearless writer-director tackling contemporary material with a bracing cocktail of potent traditional drama, wild black comedy, and serrated style. [It all] comes together as a complex plea for honesty, openness, frankness, and forgiveness. The movie is also, incidentally, a spectacularly effective antiwar film, focusing on the randomness and cruelty of life lived on military roads… Its final image resters like a blow to the chest. It’s a shot that should be seen around the world.” — Michael Sragow, Film Comment
“[Foxtrot] contains some of themost striking, memorable imagery of the year… It’s a film designed tomove you with its depiction of senseless tragedy but also to spark that part of your thinking process that only moviemaking can tap… This multitalented filmmaker has taken that darkness and turned it into something unforgettable for everyone who sees it.” — Brian Tallerico, RobertEbert.com
Awards: Grand Jury Price, Venice Film Festival 2017
Hebrew, Arabic and German, with English subtitles; 113 minutes.
A young girl is taken to an aid station in Alleppo
The Failure of the
UN and International Law in Syria:
A Classical Realist Perspective
Speaker: Jeremy Moses
Date: Monday 13 August 2018
Time: 5pm for 5:30pm
Venue: South Arts Lecture Theatre A4
Professor Paul Moon
Where: Spark Room, Christchurch Central Library, Turanga.
When: 2.00pm, Sunday, June 16.
Admission: A plate of finger food. Please avoid pork and seafood products. A collection will be taken to defray expenses.
NZ Friends of Israel wishes to acknowledge the kind support of the Holocaust Centre of NZ. This address was originally part of their Human Rights Series of lectures.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Having written over 25 books, Professor Paul Moon is one of New Zealand’s best-selling and respected historians and social commentators.
His specialist area is New Zealand history, and in 2014, he was shortlisted for the international Ernest Scott Prize in History for his book Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand, which academics described as ‘powerful’ and ‘truly fascinating’. His works have been published by Penguin Random House, and HarperCollins.
He has worked on several Treaty claims, and with numerous government agencies, on Treaty-related issues. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society at University College, London, and has since gained fellowships in the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. He also has been a consultant on documentaries about New Zealand history
NATIONS BLESS ISRAEL
CELEBRATING ISRAEL’S RESTORATION
I will bless those who bless you, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1-3)
You are invited to join with us and Nations Bless Israel Melbourne to celebrate the restoration of the State of Israel.
THURSDAY 9:45PM (NZST) ON MAY 14TH 2020
This Thursday evening we are invited to join the Aussies in celebrating Israel’s 72nd birthday. It will be a special event featuring a range of distinguished speakers from various walks of life in Israel and elsewhere. It starts 9.45pm NZ Time, but can be viewed later on Facebook.
This event is a fundraiser for the Rambam hospital and is in honour of the late Peter Kentley. Peter was a Messianic Jew who lived in Melbourne and led the planning for the Australian San Remo commemorations before he became too unwell. He loved Israel dearly and I have happy memories of our times together over there. Sadly he went to be with the Lord earlier this year following a brain tumour diagnosis.
The Guest Speakers include:
- Yuvat Rotem – Director General of Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (and former Israeli Ambassador to Australia and NZ pre 2010) He now runs the foreign ministry and played a key role in brokering the resumption of our diplomatic relations and the return of Ambassador Gerberg.
- Mark Sofer – Australia’s current Israeli Ambassaor; who was born in London.
- Andrew Tucker – distinguished lawyer and Israel legal advocate (ex C4Israel in the Hague)
- Zac Waller – Ha Yovel the organisation that encourages gentiles to help harvest crops in Israel fulfilling biblical prophecy.
- Rabbi Tuly Weisz – an American rabbi who made Aliyah a few years ago seeking to build knowledge and bridges between those who love Israel and Israel itself via his Israel365 website.
This is a free virtual event hosted on Zoom in tribute to the late Peter Kentley who, in partnership with Rabbi Riesenberg, established the inaugural Melbourne Nations Bless Israel last year.
The event may also be viewed on Facebook HERE
NZ Governments and Israel
4.30pm, Sunday, October 11
Hao Room, Halswell Centre, 341 Halswell Rd, Christchurch
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ashley Church is a current director of the Israel Institute of NZ and has a business partnership with ex-network newsreader and public relations consultant, Rawdon Christie. He also provides consulting and management services to Membership Organisations, Associations and Business Coops.
The Israel Institute of New Zealand is an independent think tank dedicated to providing New Zealanders with a better understanding of the State of Israel through accurate analysis, insightful commentary, and effective advocacy.
He is an NZME correspondent, for Energy, and Business issues and has appeared on My House My Castle, NZ Open Home, ASB I Want to Buy a Home and TVNZ Breakfast.
ADMISSION
Please bring a plate of finger food, no pork or seafood products. A collection will be taken to help defray travel and other event-related costs.