As part of its “soft public diplomacy” efforts, the Israeli Foreign Ministry embarked this week on a new program to teach Hebrew to the Arab world. To this end, the ministry’s digital diplomacy department on Tuesday uploaded a video clip to its Arabic-language Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages, in which two staffers offer a lesson in simple words, such as, “Yes,” “Thanks” and “Hello.”

One hundred years ago, in 1913, the Jewish community in Palestine was roiled by controversy, set off when the German aid organization Ezra began work in Haifa on the Yishuv’s first institution of higher education, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Board of Governors decided that German would be the main language of instruction. In response, some teachers said they would refuse to teach and students walked out of their classes. The Board of Governors eventually backed down, and Hebrew became the sole language of instruction.

The Israeli blogosphere’s obsessive preoccupation with food is making veteran culinary writers reel. The Internet has become a flesh-eating plant that devours recipes in an insatiable frenzy. When you Google the word “recipe” in Hebrew − you get close to three million hits.

Despite promises made in February by Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, the government’s latest hasbara campaign focused on involving average Israelis in the effort to defend the Jewish state abroad has remained an exclusively Hebrew affair.

"Of course, we had in the past and also now Taiwanese students studying in Israeli leading universities, but this is the first time that Taiwanese students will benefit from our government scholarships" said Raphael Gamzou, the head of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei.