News

In a viral video from last year, Ukrainian President Zelensky called upon his troops to lay down their arms and surrender. The clip might have changed history, but it was quickly exposed as an AI-generated fake. As was an image of former President Trump scuffling with police, and a litany of other false content involving celebrities. For better or for worse, artificial intelligence is here to stay. At Sapir, we know that tomorrow’s leaders must learn to use this technology for good while defending against those who would exploit it with malevolent intent.

Few people alive today can recall a childhood without Television. The “tube” (often uttered by parents together with an unflattering rhyme) has literally shaped how kids around the globe perceive reality. But what children experience while fixated on the small screen is only part of the story. Children’s TV is a vast industry, operating within broader cultural, ideological, political, and economic contexts, unique to each country and changing over time.  A new book by Dr. Yuval Gozansky, Chair of the Communications Department at Sapir College, gives us the big picture.

President Herzog Honors Sapir Trustee for Social Innovation He’s a pioneer in cyber security. The business he founded serves 1000 companies in 30 countries. Nissim Bar-El’s greatest passion, however, is the struggle against poverty and inequality. Now he’s received the Presidential Volunteerism Award for his efforts. Bar-El, a member of the Board of Trustees at Sapir College, believes entrepreneurship is a fast track to empowerment and social mobility, so he founded a nonprofit to help women in underserved communities start their own businesses.

It was a legal-political drama worthy of prime-time news. If you didn’t know in advance, you’d think you were in Beer Sheva District Court. A mayor, his secretary and a leading contractor had been indicted in a major corruption scandal.  Now they were being prosecuted – and defended – by third year law students from Sapir Academic College. The three-judge panel was as real as it gets: The Hon. Revital Yafa Katz, President of the District Court; Adv. Erez Padan, southern district attorney; and former deputy southern district DA, Adv.

Memorial Ceremony for Ethiopian Jews Who Died in Sudan Sapir College was honored to host a moving ceremony in memory of the 4,000 Ethiopian Jews, who died during their Aliyah journey to Israel, in the refugee camps in Sudan during Operation Achim.

It was a crowning moment when 89 outstanding students at Sapir College received merit scholarships for academic excellence, 79 of them with great distinction and ten with the highest distinction. The fact that many of them hail from underserved communities in Israel’s social and geographic periphery only made it sweeter and more poignant. Liat Aleemo, a student at Sapir’s Cultural Studies program, explained how academic achievement is intimately connected to her own personal growth. “The opportunity to study theory at Sapir helped me frame my own experience in a broader social context.

It was the first event of its kind. Twenty seven students from the Sapir Academic College Innovation Lab met with representatives of JDC-Israel to pioneer a new approach to social service and advocacy. They’re all part of course at Sapir’s Communications Department, organized in conjunction with JDC, on the interface between digital communities and the third sector.  Under the direction of Dr. Omer Keinan, students follow and analyze relevant social media content and then build effective digital communities to help JDC improve its social intervention programs.