Israeli ASA (Academic Sports Association) Debating Competition 2012

This is the third year this 4 days event is taking place in the lovely sunny vacation town of Eilat in southern Israel.

The Winners: Uri Feldman and Keren Kuralander (IDC Herzliya)

Best Speaker: Uri Feldman (IDC Herzliya)

Best Junior Speaker: Yael Goren (MTA)

Motions:

1. THW allow people given life imprisonment to be able to choose the death penalty

2. THBT the state should only fund sports that bring achievements

3. THW allow families to check their relatives into rehab for treat drug and alcohol addiction

4. THW cancel the State Witness agreement

Semi-Finals: THW ban donations from abroad to local political associations
Final: THW prohibit all media statements made by senior Israeli officials on the subject of a military attack on Iran

CA – Rinat Gershfeld

DCA – Lior Hadas

Convener – Amitai Itzkovitch

Yours,

Rinat Gershfeld

Red Sea Open 2

The Ben - Gurion University of the Negev is again hosting it's "end of the summer" tournament in the resort city of Eilat from the 4th to 8th of September.

Reg is due to open on July 9th.

Take a look at this website for more details.

http://www.redseaopen.com/

Israel's National Championship Results

This week the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev hosted Israel's National Championships:

Winners: Haifa B (Meir Yarom & Edo Rosenblum)

Best Speaker: Maya Boursi (IDC A)

Finalist :

IDC A (Maya Boursi & Itsik Zarfati)

TLV A (Omer Nevo & Sella Nevo)
BGU F (Yonatan Hunger & Schachar Langbeheim)

This tournament's CA was Lior Hadas, his DCAs were Shiri Noyman, Anat Paz and Michael Shapira.

The motions: (Translated from Hebrew)

Round 1: THW ban lobbyists.

Round 2: THW consider the sexual history of the complainant in sexual assault cases.

Round 3: THW bar Sons and daughters of IDF bereaved families from combat duty

Round 4: THW ban paid super natural advice.

Round 5: THW only subsidize academic degrees that financially benefit the state.

Round 6: THW condition all plea bargains to victim's connect.

Semi: THW will publish the pictures from the Itamar terrorist attacks.

Final: THW cancel all anti-smoking law except those that relate to selling to minors.

Israeli Open Championship Results

The Israeli Open Championship (in Hebrew) was held this weekend at the University of Haifa.


Winners: Naty Peral and Rannen Nicola (i, Robot).

Best Speaker: Maya Bousri (IDC A)

Finalists:
OG: Rannen Nicola & Naty Peral (i, Robot)
OO: Itsik Zarfati & Maya Bousri (IDC A)
CG: Mila Finkelshtain & Meir Yarom (Great Expectations)
CO: Omer Nevo & Sella Nevo (Proofs from THE BOOK)

Final panelists were: Michael Shapira (CA) Anat Gelber, Yoni Cohen Idov, Uri Feldman (DCA), Yael Betzalel (DCA), Lior Hadas and Anat Zaidenberg.

Motions
1) This Knesset will cap rent in city centres.
2) This Knesset will allow familes with many children to sell babies to those who can no longer have children.
3) This Knesset will hold Israeli debating events on the Sabbath.
Semi: This Knesset will move the entire Isreali education system from Hebrew to English.
Final: This Knesset will forbid Israeli citizens from raising children in areas beyond the seperation fence.

Results of the Red Sea Open 2010

Ben Gurion University hosted the Red Sea Open 2010, with Anat Gelber as CA, and Will Jones and Can Okar as DCA's.

Winners:
YMCA (Michael Shapira and Yoni Cohen Idov)

Finalists:
You Think You’re Oppressed (Neil Dewer and Hugh Burns)
~(:>0)X (Mollie Gerver and Ronit Prawer)
Shomer Effin Shabbos (Daniel Gindis and Gregg Roman)

Joint Best Speakers: Neil Jewer and Hugh Burns (Both Oxford)

Best ESL speaker: Yoni Cohen (Tel-Aviv University)

The motions:
R1: This house would actually build a mosque in Ground Zero
R2: This house believes that state subsidy for higher education should priorities students whose parents did not have higher education
R3: This house would allow the use of lethal force against intruders in defense of property.
R4: This house would not have a Facebook profile
R5: This house, which is China, would cease all political and economic support to North Korea
R6: This house believes that environmental terrorism is morally justified
SF: This house believes that multi national corporations should trade with rebel groups, and in the areas they control
F: This house would ban all forms of Missionary activity in Israel

It was a great week and we had lots of fun.
Thanks to everyone who contributed and especially to the amazing conveners, Yarden Olivero and Haya Eichler.

We would also like to thank Ben Gurion University for their financial support, as well as "Sia'h vaSig", for donating the financial prizes and subsidizing the arrival of additional excellent judges.
Hope to see you all again soon!
Anat

More updates about the Red Sea Open‏

Hello Debaters!
We all had fun at Euros Amsterdam, but that is over now, Time to move on. And moving on starts at Eilat!

If five days in a hotel along with all-you-can-drink free Alcohol and the most cracking A-Team in the world wasn’t enough* - we added more reasons to come to the Red-Sea-Open.

As Announced in Amsterdam, the winning team will take away 500$!!!! We are also offering 250$ for the best speaker! That is 750$ that can be yours if you are the best speaker and win the tournament while your partner suddenly “disappears” after the final! (Cost of making partner disappear may exceed 750$.)

So, what do you still need to do? Registration closes on July 25th, so you have less than a week to find a partner, pick a cool team name, buy a swimsuit and come down to a tournament of fun!

Not spreading the love, but spreading free Alcohol, food and pool parties!
The RSO team.
http://www.redseaopen.com/

*”The most cracking A- Team in the world”, if you didn’t know, consists of Can Okar, Will Jones and our very own Anat Gelber!

Haifa win 201 Israeli Nationals

Tel Aviv University hosted the 2010 Israeli Nationals, with Yoni Cohen-Idov as CA, and Haran Pilpel (Hebrew U) and Jonathan Braverman (IDC Herzliya) as DCA's.


Winners: Haifa A (Leor Sapir and Shiri Noyman)

Finalists:
Bar Ilan A (Amit Sochnatzky and Netanel Yaakov Hai)
Technion Turing (Amit Rahum and Gil Kerbs)
IDC C (Uri Feldman and Mila Finkelstein)

Semi Finalists:
BGU YO (Jordan Olivero and Ori Noked)
Tel Aviv B (Oren Elisha and Sivan Gazit)
Tel Aviv A (Yael Bezalel and Vered Shacham)
IDC B (Itzik Zarfati and Natalie Schneider)

Top speaker: Leor Sapir (Haifa A)

The motions:

Round 1: THW Nationalize energy resources
Round 2: THBT The Obama administration is good for Israel
Round 3: THBT Western media should refrain from portraying the image of Mohammed in ways that offend Muslims
Round 4: Given that the technology exists to identify any genetic trait, THW allow parents full discretion in choosing their embryos
Round 5: THBT Religious leaders who do not take an official part in the political sphere should refrain from expressing opinions on matters of security and foreign affairs
Round 6: THW Not convict those who utilized illegal means to expose war crimes
Semi-Final: THW Award work immigrants (both legal and illegal) Israeli citizenship in exchange for military service
Grand-Final: THW Lift the blockade off Gaza

Red Sea Open - Importnant information‏

Dear Debaters,

No Tournament is a tournament without its screw-up, and we are happy to report we found ours! While we invited you all to join us at 22-26/08/2010, the truth is we would like to see you all on 29/08-02/09/2010, a week later.

The good news is, as a result of this hiccup, we shall have FREE ALCOHOL for the duration of the tournament! Free Hot Drinks- coffee, tea! If this isn't sufficient satisfaction, you are not really a debater - and you know it.

And the hotel is giving us all that for only 10 euro extra per person, so now you get Lots of parties, sun, beach, Beautiful hotel accommodation, great team of adjudicators, and…FREE ALL YOU CAN DRINK ALCOHOL!!!

However, since this is a debating tournament, and we do want you to be able to debate (or judge), we have decided to adopt the method used at worlds (with some adaptations to Israeli summer) - so free beer will be available all day long, but other alcoholic drinks will only be served after rounds are over....

We are sorry for any inconvenience, this really is an upgrade of the event in a total. We will be revealing the name of the person in charge of this problem at the tournament. There, you can blame him\her personally for what he\she has done.

Please let us know if this caused any major problems with your planning and if we can assist you in anyway

Regards

Jordan & Haya, conveners
p.s.
We are sure your asking how this could have happened? The answer has to do with trying to convert between the Hebrew Calendar (in which this year is 5770) and the more common Gregorian calendar (2010 AD). A bad conversation system led to the hotel resort understanding that we plan hosting the event on the last week of August 5771 A.D. We were fine with this, but many debaters complained it didn't fit with plans they had for that time. We quickly moved the tournament 3761 years back, but a week ahead.

Past Winners of the Israeli National Demating Championships

Year 2010

Winners Haifa A (Leor Sapir and Shiri Noyman)
Finalists Bar Ilan A (Amit Sochnatzky and Netanel Yaakov Hai) Technion Turing (Amit Rahum and Gil Kerbs) IDC C (Uri Feldman and Mila Finkelstein)
Top Speaker Leor Sapir (Haifa A)

Year 2009
Winners IDC Herzliya C (Jonathan Braverman and Maya Boursi).
Finalists Tel Aviv A (Danny Zeevi and Yoni Cohen-Idov) IDC Herzliya B (Carmel Sahaf and Daphna Gross) Haifa A (Leor Sapir and Shiri Newman)
Top Speaker Yoni Cohen-Idov (Tel Aviv A)

Year 2008
Winners IDC Herzliya (Era Segev and Lior Hadas)
Finalists "Tel-Aviv University (Yoni Cohen and Linor Deutsch)
Hebrew University (Raanan Eichler and Haran Pilpel) University of Haifa (Leor Sapir and Lihi Yona)"
Top Speaker Yoni Cohen (Tel-Aviv University)

Year 2007
Winners IDC B (Avihu Tamir and Ran Eliassaf)
Finalists Haifa B (Lotem Rotbain Sher and Masha Yudashkin), IDC H (Lior Hadas and Era Segev) and IDC C (Michal Halbersham and Yossi Orevi)
Top Speaker Shahar Ronen (Haifa A)

Year 2006
Winners
Finalists
Top Speaker

Year 2005
Winners
Finalists
Top Speaker

Year 2004
Winners Hebrew University (Or Kroyzer & Lital Helman)
Finalists Koby Sadis & karni Shagal (Haifa U.) Guy Nesher & Ilan Kovach (IDC) Yaron Hayat & Jacob Shwergold (IDC)
Top Speaker Gilad Barzilay (Technicon A)

Year 2003
Winners Dov Levin & Rinat Gershfeld (Haifa U.)
Finalists Haifa (Yakov Sadis & Shimrit Chobotaru), IDC (Ariel Halevi & Yaron Hayat), Hebrew (Or Kroyzer & Lital Helman)
Top Speaker Yakov Sadis (Haifa University)

Year 2002
Winners Anat Gelber & Guy Yariv (Haifa U.)
Finalists Haifa (Yaniv Zaid & Sergio Shmilovich), IDC (Ariel Halevi & Yaron Chayat), Haifa (Guy Carmi & Ines Rishel)
Top Speaker Ariel Halevi (IDC)

Year 2001
Winners Ruvi Ziegler & Shir Barniv (Haifa U.)
Finalists Haifa (Avinoam Halevi & Meriv Regev), Haifa (Guy Yariv & Anat Gelber) Hebrew (Yehoshua Gurtler & Roy Weisner)
Top Speaker Yehoshua Gurtler (Hebrew University)

Year 2000
Winners Roy Weisner & Yehoshua Gurtler (Hebrew U.)
Finalists
Top Speaker

Year 1999
Winners Yehoshua Gurtler & Tomer Treves (Hebrew U.)
Finalists
Top Speaker

Haifa University's Sci-Fi tourny

On May 2nd, Haifa University’s Debating Society hosted Israel’s (And arguably the world’s) first Science-Fiction debating tournament. The A Team consisted of Victor Chernnov from the Technion and Michael Shapira from Haifa University.


We congratulate the tournament’s winners:, Team Capitan JO : Jordon Olivero and Ori Noked of Ben-Gurion University.

The Motions were (roughly translated from Hebrew):

1) THB Governments should hide from the public any contact with Extraterrestrials.
2) THW burn moral values in to the minds of humans.
3) THB It is better to swallow the blue pill and live in a virtual world.
Final:
4) THW severe our dependence on robots before it is too late.

We thank all the subjects in this successful experiment!

Michael Roy Shapira

Red Sea Open

The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is proud to announce the Red Sea Open!


BP debaters and adjudicators from around the world are invited to join us this summer for an open tournament that is all about fun, sun and beautiful people. Eilat is THE vacation resort of Israel, and for a lunatic cheap price, you can enjoy 5 days there alongside some of the best debating ever.

A world class A-Team that needs no introduction has been assembled: With Can Okar and Will Jones as DCA and Anat Gelber as CA – you can be sure to have some of the best motions and adjudication panels ever.

Registration begins on the 1st of May at 20:00 Jerusalem time (+2 GMT, get use to it). In the Holy Land, we love “I was here first” competitions, and so the first Team to register will receive a bottle of Vodka from the org com. The bottle is nice and shinny and actually has Vodka in it.

All the information you need is our website at www.redseaopen.com or on our facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=114480475252150

Come join us!

Haifa wins the Israeli ASA Debating Competition

The Israeli ASA (Academic Sport Association) Debating Competition was held in the southern tourist city of Eilat for 2 days.


Winners: Shiri Noyman and Edo Rosenblum (Haifa Green)

Teams in the final:
Amit Shuchnazky and Hadas Nevenzal (BIU Purple)
Mor Yamin and Netanel Yakov-Chay (BIU Red)
Yelena Kozlov and Ofir Tzuman (Open Brown)

Best Speakers:
Shiri Noyman - Haifa University
Amit Shuchnazky - Bar Ilan University
Best Junior Speaker: Edo Rosenblum - Haifa University

The motions:
R1. THW place condoms vending machines in schools
R2. THW forbid the Supreme Court to annul legislative laws
R3. THE forbid advertisers to use women body for the marketing of products which aren’t related directly to women’s body.
R4. THW not assassinate terrorists in foreign countries
Final: THBT the Israeli anthem should represent all of the segments of society

Full tab can be found here

Source: http://israelidebate.blogspot.com/

Israeli Open Results

The IDL annual "Israeli Open" competition has been won by Tel-Aviv University (Omer Nevo and Yael Bezalel).
The finalists were IDC Herzliya (Lior Hadas and Avihu Tamir), IDC Herzliya (Uri Feldman and Mila Finkelstein), BGU & Haifa (Yarden Olivero and Michael Shapira)

Best Speaker:
Lior Hadas - (IDC Herzliya)

Full tab can be found here

Hebrew University win IDL English Cup

From ליגת הדיבייט הישראלית Israelidebate:



The Israeli debating league held its annual “English Cup” competition - the official pre-worlds training competition.


We want to congratulate the winners from the Hebrew University:
Mollie Gerver, Caylee Talpert (Hebrew C).

Finalists (in breaking order):
Adina Goldberger, Adam Grunwald - RRIS A
Hayah Eichler, Raanan Eichler - Hebrew A
Michael Shapira, Ohad Davidow - Haifa B

Best Speaker:
Adam Grunwald, of RRIS A.

The Motions were:
1R: THBT the state should pay artists a salary.
2R: THBT national carbon quotas should not be tradable.
3R: TH would lift patent restrictions on the production of drugs for use in developing nations.
Final: TH will grant political asylum to Muslim women.
Full TAB can be found here

Adjutication Team:
Haran Pilpel (CA), Daphna Gross (DCA), Leor Sapir (DCA)
Convener: Akiva Miller (Hebrew University)

Herzliya win Israeli National Debating Championship

The Israeli National Debating Championship, hosted by IDC Herzliya, took place on June 17-18, and consisted of 6 preliminary rounds, semi-finals and a grand-final.

The finalists were (in breaking order):
Tel Aviv A (Danny Zeevi and Yoni Cohen-Idov)
IDC Herzliya B (Carmel Sahaf and Daphna Gross)
IDC Herzliya C (Jonathan Braverman and Maya Boursi)
Haifa A (Leor Sapir and Shiri Newman)

Winners: IDC Herzliya C (Jonathan Braverman and Maya Boursi).

Best Speaker: Yoni Cohen-Idov (Tel Aviv A)

Motions:
Round 1: THW obligate internet commenters to reveal their true identities.
Round 2: THBT the west should intervene in the Iranian election.
Round 3: THW set a congestion toll on private vehicles entering city centers.
Round 4: THW ban leaders who lost their bid for reelection from running for office again.
Round 5: THBT the gay parade is detrimental to the gay community.
Round 6: THW privatize the military checkpoints in Gaza and the West Bank.
Semi-Finals: THW ban the use of evidence which had been illegally obtained
Finals: THW ban the commemoration of the “Day of Al Nakba”.

Holy Land Open 2009

Registration is now open for the Holy Land Open 2009!

We are pleased to announce the opening of the website for the first ever Holy Land Open 2009! At www.holylandopen.org you can find all the details about the tournament and the registration site.

Dates:
June 4th
Optional Workshops. Free to participants of HLO.
Evening opening party

June 7th
Evening closing party
In between - lots of fun (and some debating)

Registration:
Registration fee will be €60 per person (debaters and adjudicators). This fee will be payable in cash upon arrival either in €, US$, or (our favorite) New Israeli Shekel (they aren't so new anymore, but still). If you'd like to pay by bank transfer before the event, that would be great and we'll gladly give you all the bank details. Registration closes on May 15th.

The A-Team:
That's right, we are finally ready to reveal our A-team, and what a team it is!
CA: Our very own, and very beautiful, Anat Gelber.
DCA: (in order of geographic proximity to the Holy Land) Mert Ozan Ondes and Will Jones.
And the tabmaster who will be cracking the whip behind the scenes: Avihu Tamir. With this great line up, who wouldn't want to come to the HLO??

Accommodations:
We are working on a crash accommodation basis. It will be first come first serve for those registering, so be sure to sign up ASAP.

The CAP:
There is none. Come one, come all. Bring a judge if you can. No N-1, as our pool of qualified Israeli judges is large and raring to go.

We hope to see you in the Holy Land!
Hadar Radzinski and Hayah Eichler
Co-Conveners

Coaching opportunity‏ in Israel

Sia’h vaSig - The Israel Debating Society - regularly hosts week long Summer Debate Workshops in English in four different locations in Israel over a period of twelve days. These workshops serve to introduce high school students to the world of debating and are the catalyst for our weekly club meetings throughout the year. The workshops are run by the best Israeli debaters, usually former World Schools debaters and current World University debaters. We have found, however, that the addition of coaches from abroad helps to attract students to the workshops and offers the opportunity of studying with coaches of the highest standard from different traditions and with varying accents. Since the workshops tend to fall during the university exam period in Israel, we do not always have the assistance of our local university debaters and enjoy the outside help.

The duties of the coaches include:

To be in email contact with the workshop organizers to help devise a schedule.
To coach debate sessions throughout the two weeks of the workshop.
To give specific - knowledge sessions based on your educational background.
To judge debates and give age and level appropriate feedback to the participants.

In return, the coaches will receive:

2200 shekels towards airfare and night-life transportation costs.
Host families for the duration of the workshops.
Breakfast and Lunch for the duration of the workshops.
Transportation to and from the airport.
Inter-city transportation from workshop to workshop.

In 2009 the workshops will take place from Sunday July 5th at 9 a.m. to Friday July 19th at 1 p.m. Candidates must be willing to arrive in Israel by July 4th and can depart from the late afternoon on July 19th.

To apply, please send your debating CV to Hayah Eichler at hayah.goldlist@mail.huji.ac.il by the 24th of December.

Israeli National Championships results

The Israeli National Debate Championship took place at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a 2 days event that joined together all the Israeli Debating Societies.

Winners:
Era Segev and Lior Hadas (IDC Herzliya)

Finalists:
Yoni Cohen and Linor Deutsch (Tel-Aviv University)
Raanan Eichler and Haran Pilpel (Hebrew University)
Leor Sapir and Lihi Yona (University of Haifa)

Best Speaker:
Yoni Cohen (Tel-Aviv University)

A special award was presented to Mr. Uri Zakai for his great contribution to the development of The Israeli Debating League for the past 10 years.

Motions:
1. thw send over-weight children to weight watching groups
2. thw return fire to its sources, even at the cost of harming citizens
3. thw introduce progressive inheritance tax
4. thbt its legitimate to publish the sexual orientation of public figures
5. thw oblige doctors to inform parents before performing an abortion on a minor
6. thw force Haredic jewish people to change their way of living

Semi-Final: thbt drunk driving is equivalent of attempted murder
Final: thw not interrogate an active prime minister

Israeli English Cup 2007

Following is the link to the results of the Israeli English Cup 2007 competition that took place today (december 9) at Bar Ilan University (the official israeli competition in english).

The winners are:

Hebrew A: Raanan Eichler and Haran Pilpel


Finalists:

Tel Aviv z: Danny Ze'evi and Uri Merhav
RRIS A: Ariel Pulver and Yuval Biggs
IDC C: Jonathan Braverman and Dafna Geniger

http://www.smoothtournament.com/showcase/englishcup2007/ - the results from smoothtournament

the tab was done using smoothtournament with some help from Klaas.

Ben-Gurion Open Results

The Ben-Gurion Open was held on Saturday, and here are the results.

Winners:
IDC B – Lior Hadas & Era Segev

Finalists:
MIXED M&A – Michal Halbershtam & Avihu Tamir
IDC C – Gili Arazi Cohen & Uri Feldman
IDC E – Ruty Koren & Dalit Yakobovich

Best Speaker: Michal Halbershtam (MIXED M&A)

CA: Rinat Gershfeld

See Smooth Tournament for the full Tab (preliminaries) of this debating tournament.