Arkansas and Israel
Trade and Population Statistics
| Exports to Israel (2015) |
$32,016,161 |
| Percentage Change (2014-2015) |
-6.63% |
| Total Exports to Israel (1996-Present) |
$447,688,268 |
| Israel's Trade Partner Rank (2015) |
30 |
| Military Contracts with Israel (2012) |
$0 |
| Jewish Population (2015) |
10,700 |
| Jewish Percentage of Population |
0.49% |
Binational
foundation grants shared by Arkansas and Israel
Grant recipients in
Arkansas from U.S.-Israel binational foundations:
National Center for Toxicological Research
University of Arkansas
Bilateral
Institutions
None. Help us build this section. Email AICE with
any updates, additions, corrections or comments. We appreciate your
support.
Cooperative
Agreements - "Memoranda of Understanding"
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any updates, additions, corrections or comments. We appreciate your
support.
Arkansas Government Missions to Israel
July 1999 - Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor joined
eight other attorneys general for a trip to Israel that was used to
explore U.S.-Israel cooperation in legal affairs. The attorney generals
also discussed issues including youth violence, the death penalty, and
extradition laws.
Partners
For Change
The U.S.-Israel relationship is based on the twin
pillars of shared values and mutual interests. Given this commonality of
interests and beliefs, it should not be surprising that support for Israel
is one of the most pronounced and consistent foreign policy values of the
American people.
It is more difficult to devise programs that capitalize
on the two nations' shared values than their security interests;
nevertheless, such programs do exist. In fact, these SHARED VALUE
INITIATIVES cover a broad range of areas, including the environment,
science and technology, education and health.
As analyst David Pollock noted, Israel is an advanced country with a population that surpassed eight million people in 2013 and a robust, dynamic economy that allowed it to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Between 2005 and 2013, Israel has represented a larger market for U.S. exports than Saudi Arabia. Although Israel's citizenry make up just 3 percent of the total region's population, Israel accounts for 25 percent of American exports in the Middle East.
"It has also been one of the top 20 foreign direct investors in the United States since 2009," Pollock confirms. He adds that "$2.25 billion of the $3 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel comes back via Israeli purchases of U.S. military equipment - and that is just 5 percent of the total bilateral trade each year."
Today's interdependent global economy requires that
trade policy be developed at the national and state level.
Many states have recognized the opportunity for realizing
significant benefits by seeking to increase trade with Israel. There are 33 states that have cooperative
agreements with Israel.
In 2012, Arkansas exported over $32,278,646.00 worth
of manufacturing goods to Israel. Since 1996, Arkansas exports to
Israel have totaled more than $379,370,974.00 and Israel now ranks as Arkansas’s
37th leading trade partner.
Israel is certainly a place where potential business
and trade partners can be found. It can also be a source, however, for
innovative programs and ideas for addressing problems facing the citizens
of Arkansas.
Israel has developed a number of pioneering education programs. For example, AICE introduced an innovative Israeli
peer tutoring program to North Carolina that educators adapted for use
in the United States. Now known as Reading Together, the program is
used in 28 states. The program is designed to help students achieve
reading fluency and is mostly used for children in second grade. The
hope is that with its implementation, increasing numbers of students
will perform at grade level or above.
A range of other exciting approaches to social problems
like unemployment, environmental protection and drug abuse have been
successfully implemented in Israel and could be imported for the benefit
of Americans.
The potential for greater cooperation with Israel for
the benefit of Arkansas is limited only by the imagination.
Arkansas Firms
Profit From Business With Israel
One good way to break into the Israeli market is through a joint venture
with an Israeli company. Funding for such projects is available from
the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD). BIRD funds projects in 36
states and the District of Columbia and hundreds of companies including
AOL, GE, BP Solar, Texas Instruments and Johnson & Johnson have
benefited from BIRD grants.
The United States and Israel established BIRD in 1977
to fund joint U.S.-Israeli teams in the development and subsequent commercialization
of innovative, nondefense technological products from which both the
Israeli and American company can expect to derive benefits commensurate
with the investments and risks. Most grant recipients are small businesses
involved with software, instrumentation, communications, medical devices
and semiconductors.
Since its inception, BIRD has funded more than 800
joint high-tech R&D projects through conditional grants totaling
more than $210 million. Products developed from these ventures have
generated more than $8 billion in direct and indirect revenues for both
countries and has helped to create an estimated 20,000 American jobs.
Dr. Eli Opper, the former Israeli chair of BIRD, has
said that BIRD is a strong pillar of US-Israel industrial
cooperation and that the extreme success of BIRD has
led Israel to adopt similar models of R&D with other countries.
Scientific
Innovations
Arkansas researchers are making scientific breakthroughs
and developing cutting-edge technologies in joint projects with Israeli
scientists thanks to support from the Binational Science Foundation (BSF). BSF was established in 1972
to promote scientific relations and cooperation between scientists from
the United States and Israel. The fund supports collaborative research
projects in a wide area of basic and applied scientific field for peaceful
and non-profit purposes. Since its inception, BSF has
awarded some $480 million through more than 4,000 grants in 45 states
and the District of Columbia.
BSF-sponsored studies are highly successful
in achieving their two main goals: strengthening the US-Israel partnership
through science and promoting world-class scientific research for the
benefit of the two countries and all mankind. The BSF grants help extend research resources to achieve milestones that might
not otherwise be attainable; introduce novel approaches and techniques
to lead American researchers in new directions; confirm, clarify and
intensify research projects; and provide unmatched access to Israeli
equipment, facilities and research results that help speed American
scientific advances. BSF has documented no less than
75 new discoveries made possible by its research grants and counts 37
Nobel Prize and 19 Lasker Medical Award laureates among its joint partners.
Arkansas researchers shared with their counterparts
in Israel nearly $339,164 in BSF grants awarded since
1996 alone.
Agriculture
Benefits
In 1978 the United States and Israel jointly created the Binational
Agricultural Research and Development Fund (BARD)
to help fund programs between US and Israeli scientists for mutually
beneficial, mission-oriented, strategic and applied research into agricultural
problems. Since its inception, BARD has funded more
than 1,000 projects in 45 states and the District of Columbia with a
total investment of more than $250 million. In 2000, an independent
and external economic review of 10 BARD projects conservatively
projected more than $700 million in revenue by the end of 2010, a number
which far outweighs the total investment in all BARD projects over its 33 year existence and helps to continually strengthen
the foundation.
Most BARD projects focus on either increasing agricultural
productivity, plant and animal health or food quality and safety and
have been influential in creating new technologies in drip irrigation,
pesticides, fish farming, livestock, poultry, disease control and farm
equipment. BARD funds projects in 45 states and the
District of Columbia and at present is beginning to administer collaborative
efforts between Australia, Canada and Israel as well. It is difficult
to break down the impact on a state-by-state basis, but overall, BARD-sponsored
research has generated sales of more than $500 million, tax revenues
of more than $100 million and created more than 5,000 American jobs.
Arkansas institutions have shared with their counterparts in Israel BSF grants worth more than $152,900 since 1979.
Other Cooperative
Programs
As first lady of Arkansas in 1985, Hillary Clinton pioneered the HIPPY (Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters) program in Arkansas, which had begun in Israel and been brought to the United States in 1980. HIPPY is a 2-year home-based education program designed to help adults with limited formal education prepare their children for school, and was developed in 1969 by Dr. Avima Lombard at Hebrew University’s National Council of Jewish Women Research Institute for Innovation in Education. The first HIPPY programs in the United States were established in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Richmond, Virginia, with Little Rock, Arkansas following soon after. Currently, approximately 17,000 American families participate in the HIPPY program, which has 140 offices in 23 states.
Sister Cities
None. Help us build this section. Email AICE with
any updates, additions, corrections or comments. We appreciate your
support.
UJA Partnership
2000 Communities
None.
State
Contacts:
Hillel
Campus Profiles
Jewish Federation Of Arkansas
Suzanne Berkovits, Executive Director
1501 N. Pierce Street, Suite 101
Little Rock, AR 72207
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 501-663-3571
Fax: 501-663-7286
Web: www.jewisharkansas.org
Directory of Arkansas Congregations (Jewish Federation)
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