Before we get to the Israel news briefs, I want to send a big congrats out to Seattle Mariners announcer Dave Niehaus, on his induction, yesterday, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. My childhood was spent listening to him do play-by-play and nobody does it better. His “Fly away”, “My o My”, and ” A very pleasant good afternoon everybody on a glorious day out for baseball, the mountain is out in all her majesty” are calls that will forever be ingrained in my memory as well as millions of baseball fans who have listened to him over the years.

Now to the news:

Elbit Systems(ESLT) looks like it will have a strong quarter. Globes reports that the company is looking to make between $8-11 million more than they had thought as short-term delivery contracts rose.

Did I mention that today is my birthday?

The Jpost is reporting that Israeli chip maker Metalink (MTLK) is about to cut a lot of jobs as they try and reduce their burn rate. The report also says that the company is reviewing ’strategic alternatives’ which sounds like a potential sale maybe in the works.

Over at Seeking Alpha, Pierre Daillie interviews well respected investor Larry Sarbit, who speaks highly of the Israeli company Ituran (ITRN). Commenting on the the company that provides location sensing devices, Sarbit says, “It’s a cash machine. Once you get this thing in the car, it just spills out cash and they probably got pricing built into this. In other words,  if they increase the price of monitoring by a buck a year, do you think a guy who can afford a Mercedes in Argentina is going to give a damn?”

Silicom (SILC) is out with earnings and they say that they were impacted both by a drop in the Shekel/USD exchange rate as well as a tough spending environment for their customers. CEO Shaike Orbach said, “On the one hand, our revenues for the quarter suffered from both the difficult market environment, which has affected the revenues of many players in the network appliance value chain, and from a significant reduction in orders from our largest customer. We have been impacted by the customer’s new appliance configurations, which reflect its decision to begin offering our copper BYPASS cards as an optional add-on rather than as a standard component, as well as by its low quarterly volume of orders for fiber cards.“

Aaron Katsman, IsraelNewsletter.com

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in ESLT,ITRN,SILC. He has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 7/28/08.

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Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.

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Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com

Whether it was a case of judicial activism or not, working women in Israel won a huge victory as a Tel-Aviv judge ruled that they can  deduct part of the cost of sending their children to day-care centers.

According to the Jerusalem Post: ” According to the decision, a self-employed lawyer, Vered Peri, will receive tax deductions equivalent to two-thirds of the cost of the day-care centers to which she sent her children, if the price did not include lunch, or one-half of the cost if it did.”

Addressing the inner conflict so many women have regarding the work-life balance, Peri said, “It is obvious that if not for the fact that I had to work and earn a living, I would prefer to spend my time with my children, at least until they had reached the age where I could send them to kindergarten, and then, too, I would have chosen to send them only for the minimum number of hours that the law requires, and not the long hours that they were forced to spend outside the home.”

Unfortunately, while this is a victory, the tax authority has already announced they plan to appeal. Let’s hope common sense prevails and the courts rule in favor of working women.

Please see our Disclaimer HERE.

NEW! Introducing Israel Opportunity Investor, our monthly subscription-only newsletter. Stay ahead of the game and make smart decisions in Israel stocks. Go here to learn more.

Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.

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