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Israeli patch saves baby born with intestines outside body

(Photo: Hadassah Medical Center)

(Photo: Hadassah Medical Center)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 8, 2017

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Ahmed and Tamam, a couple from the Arab village of Kfar Kassam 12 miles east of Tel Aviv, named their baby girl Ibtihaj (Joy) and it’s not hard to understand why.

Ibtihaj was born with a rare defect, omphalocele, in which the intestines and sometimes other organs develop outside the abdomen in a sac. The condition was noticed on a prenatal ultrasound and their local doctor advised them to have an abortion.

“We were devastated,” said Ahmed. “The doctors we saw in other big centers also recommended an abortion. While we were absorbing this news, we happened to see a TV program about a baby with a similar problem who had been saved at Hadassah Hospital. We drove to Jerusalem. Dr. Dan Arbell, a pediatric surgeon, showed us photos of children with worse conditions who were now preteens and doing fine. It turns out that our baby was not in such desperate straits as the doctors had said. He gave us hope.” Read More

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Hikers find Second Temple period engravings of menorah in Judean Shephelah cistern

(photo: SA’AR GANOR/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

(photo: SA’AR GANOR/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

By Daniel K. Eisenbud - January 3, 2017

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

Hikers had a close encounter with history last weekend, while exploring a water cistern in a Judean Shephelah cave, they came across the engraving of an ancient seven-branched menorah from the Second Temple period on its bedrock walls.

Three members of the Israel Caving Club – Mickey Barkal, Sefi Givoni and Ido Meroz – said they decided to explore caves in the lowland region of South-Central Israel after hearing about their beauty off the beaten path.  

“We heard there are interesting caves in the region,” said Meroz on Tuesday. “We began to peer into them, and that’s how we came to this cave, which is extremely impressive with rock-carved niches and engravings on the wall." Read More

 

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Jewish, Muslim Israelis cater meals for needy children

(Photo: Dualis Social Investment Fund)

(Photo: Dualis Social Investment Fund)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 2, 2017

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

With a sparkle in her eye, a traditionally garbed Arab-Israeli mother asked to speak at a recent employee meeting of Cooking Coexistence (“Tavshil Hevrati” in Hebrew), a social business in northern Israel where she’d started her very first job outside the home some six weeks previously.

“We have five children and my husband earns 5,000 shekels [$1,300] a month. My salary from Cooking Coexistence now enables me to buy new clothes for my children and to pay for sending them to afterschool activities,” the woman said, as other women in the group nodded in agreement.

“I had tears in my eyes; it was a very emotional moment,” recalls Allan Chanoch Barkat, founder and chairman of the Dualis Social Investment Fund, which sponsors Cooking Coexistence and other social businesses in Israel.

Cooking Coexistence is an institutional catering business that trains and employs Arab and Jewish women over the age of 35 whom government agencies have identified as chronically underemployed or unemployed. Read More

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Christians laud freedom of worship in Israel

(photo: MARK NEYMAN / GPO)

(photo: MARK NEYMAN / GPO)

By Greer Fay Cashman - December 28, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

The annual reception hosted by President Reuven Rivlin for spiritual and lay leaders of Christian communities in Israel has not only been an opportunity for the exchange of holiday greetings, but also for Christians to air their complaints via Greek Patriarch Theophilos III.

Though couched in the most diplomatic language to soften the barb, the Patriarch’s speech invariably contained elements of the dissatisfaction of the Christian community with the status quo.

This year, with the exception of a reference to “all peoples to have their own legitimate rights to self-determination and freedom,” there was not even a hint of criticism of Israel, and even this remark could easily have related to Syria and other countries in the region, as it did not specifically mention the Palestinians.

Overtures made by Rivlin and Interior Minister Arye Deri over the past year to the leadership of the various Christian denominations have obviously borne fruit.

Addressing Rivlin directly, Theophilos said: “We take the opportunity of this holiday gathering to express our gratitude to you for the firmness with which you defend the freedoms that lie at the heart of this democracy – especially the freedom of worship.” Read More

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Israeli man starts 'Good Samaritan' charity to get injured Syrian women and children to Israel for medical help

(photo: Unicef)

(photo: Unicef)

By Bethan McKernan - December 12, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Independent 

An Israel-based charity providing health care for displaced Syrian women and children by taking them to Israeli hospitals is breaking down stereotypes and historical enmities, one case at a time.

Mordechai ‘Moti’ Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist, poured his own money into helping those displaced by the Syrian civil war in 2011. He sold his company and  founded Amaliah, a New York-run charity focused on getting aid into the war-torn country., in 2013.

Mr Kahana told The Independent he was inspired to devote his time to helping the victims of Syria's complex war after a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem in 2010. "Never again - not to us and to no one else," he said.  

"I cannot let these people suffer and die and walk away from it. I just cannot do it." Read More

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A special place for Arab-Israeli kids with disabilities

(photo: US Embassy in Tel Aviv)

(photo: US Embassy in Tel Aviv)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - December 8, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

When her son was diagnosed with autism 13 years ago, “Hadijah” felt terribly alone. The stigma attached to children with disabilities in her Arab village in central Israel led Hadijah to withdraw into a world of herself and her son.

That changed only after she met Amal abu Moch, a social worker at the Family Advancement Center of the Beit Issie Shapiro Sindian Center in Kalansua, a 22,000-population Arab city in the “Triangle” district of central Israel.

Moch introduced Hadijah to other Arab parents of children with disabilities and guided her in better understanding her son’s needs and legal rights.

”Now I feel I have the tools to help my son and family,” said Hadijah, who was able to find employment once she found the appropriate care framework for her son.

The Beit Issie Shapiro (BIS) Sindian Center was founded in 2001 as Israel’s first early-intervention center for the Arab sector, at the behest of the Israeli government. Read More

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Israeli biotech firm successfully reverses human bone loss in early trial

(screenshot: REUTERS)

(screenshot: REUTERS)

By REUTERS - December 7, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

Israeli biotech company Bonus Biogroup's lab-grown, semi-liquid bone graft was successfully injected into the jaws of 11 people to repair bone loss in an early stage clinical trial, it said on Monday.

The material, grown in a lab from each patient's own fat cells, was injected into and filled the voids of the problematic bones. Over a few months it hardened and merged with the existing bone to complete the jaw, it said. Read More

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Switching on the lights for Tanzania

By Abigail Klein Leichman - December 4, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

A solar electricity generator and storage batteries are providing constant electricity for the first time ever to Nkaiti Medical Center in Minjingu, a Tanzanian village of about 7,000 Masai subsistence farmers and cattle ranchers – thanks to the Tel Aviv University chapter of Engineers without Borders (EwB TAU).

“There’s power!!! There’s a light!!” reported team member Gal Aviram gleefully on Facebook on October 25, seven days into the group’s two-week working trip to Tanzania.

Since Minjingu is not connected to the national grid, the medical center struggled to provide basic healthcare services, lacking the ability to store vaccinations, sanitize the equipment, use electrical appliances and operate during nighttime, the students explained in their crowdfunding campaign literature.

Hoping to bring an immediate and long-term improvement to the community’s quality of life, EwB TAU students planned the project and 10 of them flew out to install the generator and batteries in cooperation with local companies and volunteers. Read More

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Rare Underwater Artifact Sheds Light on Roman Tyranny Over Judea

(photo: Jenny Carmel)

(photo: Jenny Carmel)

By JNS - December 1, 2016

Originally appeared here in Breaking Israel News

Israeli researchers from the University of Haifa have deciphered a rare inscription found on an underwater artifact. The inscription sheds new light on Roman rule over the province of Judea prior to the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

Archaeologists uncovered a massive rectangular stone bearing the name Gargilius Antiques during a maritime excavation at the Tel Dor archaeology site, which is located south of Haifa. The inscription enabled researchers to determine with certainty that Antiques was the Roman procurator who ruled over Judea just prior to the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

“Not only did we manage to identify with certainty for the first time the name of the procurator that controlled Judea during the critical years before the Bar Kokhba Revolt, but this is only the second time that a reference to the name Judea was revealed in any inscription from the Roman period,” University of Haifa’s Prof. Assaf Yasur-Landau and Dr. Gil Gambash said in a joint statement. Read More

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Israeli Muslims donate wood to rebuild Haifa synagogue

(photo: Masorti.org)

(photo: Masorti.org)

By Viva Sarah Press - December 5, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

The Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel put out an international call for donations to help the Moriah synagogue rebuild from the ashes after the recent week-long wildfires that raged across Israel.

But it was two small, local initiatives that put the damaged synagogue into the headlines.

On November 30, a group of worshippers from all faiths attended a special prayer service for the new Hebrew month of Kislev and to show support for the rebuilding of the community.

A local member posted Facebook photos of the service. One of the photos showed 20 saplings donated by a man from Baqa al-Gharbiyye, an Arab city in the Haifa district, as a gift to replace the trees in the courtyard that had been burned in the fires.

And he wasn’t the only one bearing gifts. Read More

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Over 5 weeks, Israeli paramedic aids 4,000 refugees at sea

(Photo: Francesca Malavolta/MOAS)

(Photo: Francesca Malavolta/MOAS)

By Viva Sarah Press - December 1, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Israel “Izzy” Papa decided to make helping others his vocation when he was in high school. The 22-year-old paramedic with Magen David Adom (MDA) started volunteering at Israel’s national emergency medical service and disaster-relief organization as a teen “because it was cool.”

“I saw some people in really awful situations and I realized that someone needs to help. I felt like I need to do it. That’s what I want to do; help people,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s also so satisfying. When you save someone and he gets to live another day, that is a crazy feeling. The best feeling I’ve ever had in my life.”

Papa hit the headlines in Israel recently after becoming the first paramedic, and the first Israeli, to join the Red Cross and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. Read More

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Children unite in dance for Syrian refugees

(photo: iamchildproject.com)

(photo: iamchildproject.com)

By Viva Sarah Press - November 20, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

There’s a new dance routine on social-media sites that has five catchy poses and one enormously powerful message of support. The #iamchild dance-therapy routine is part of a project in support of Syrian children affected by ongoing civil war.

The routine was created by Israeli-Turkish journalist Michal Bardavid to give emotional and moral support to millions of the world’s refugee children.

In addition to being an international correspondent for China Central Television, Bardavid is a psychological counselor and a certified dance therapist. After meeting hundreds of Syrian children in refugee camps on the Turkish-Syrian border, she created a motivational dance exercise made up of five positively worded sentences accompanied by five movements to show the kids that someone cares. Read More

 

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Ethiopian-Israeli Beauty Queen: World Must Learn How ‘Unique and Diverse’ Jewish State Is

By Barney Breen-Portnoy - November 4, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Algemeiner

The world must learn how “unique and diverse” the Jewish state is, an Ethiopian-Israeli beauty queen told The Algemeiner on Friday, amid a week-long US college campus speaking tour.

“There are Americans who I meet who are surprised that I’m Jewish and that I was an officer in the IDF and won Miss Israel,” 25-year-old Yityish ‘Titi’ Aynaw said in an interview with The Algemeiner while in New York City. “It’s weird for them. They don’t understand my story. Everything good that I represent, they don’t realize that these are things that can happen in Israel.”

Aynaw — whose current US tour was organized by the Jewish National Fund and Media Watch International — was born in the Gondar region of Ethiopia. Left parentless at the age of 12, she and her brother soon moved to Israel to live with their grandparents in the Mediterranean coastal city of Netanya. After finishing high school, Aynaw enlisted in the IDF and served as an officer in the Military Police Corps. Read More

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Fleeing France, an African Jewish family makes aliyah

(Photo: JTA / Courtesy of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews)

(Photo: JTA / Courtesy of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews)

By Cnaan Liphshiz - November 4, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

JTA — As a Jewish family originally from the Ivory Coast, Amy and George Camara and their four children felt somewhat immune to the rising anti-Semitic thuggery in France.

The Camaras, relieved to leave their war-torn African country, settled in the northern French city of Lille in 2012. Because they fit no one’s Jewish stereotype, they said they were able to live as Jews without fear — despite, in recent years, the rise in attacks on French Jews from a small segment of Muslim extremists.

But the Camaras soon discovered that belonging to both the African and Jewish minorities also came with its own set of challenges, said Amy, the 53-year-old daughter of an Ivorian father and a French Jewish Holocaust survivor. The difficulties prompted the family to again pack their suitcases and leave France — for Israel, the only country where this unique Jewish family says it can live comfortably according to their identity.

For the Camaras, whom Amy describes as “proudly Jewish but not too observant,” life in France wasn’t “truly comfortable,” she said.

Precisely because no one from their immediate environment thought they might be Jewish, “people, even friends, would say the most awful lies about Israel and Jews in our presence,” Amy said. Read More

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Quora Question: What is Life Really Like in Israel?

(photo: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images

(photo: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images

By Quora Contributor - October 30, 2016

Originally appeared here in Newsweek 

What should the world know about Israel? This question really is the main inspiration behind our new publication, The Desert and the Cities Sing: Discovering Today’s Israel. Israel is, like the United States, so much more than what we read about in the headlines, more than its politics, and to take it further: it is even more than its religion and history. It is a country in forward motion, with extraordinary levels of innovation and creativity helping it to move into the future.

It is also a place with many pockets of peacefulness and, we believe, a majority of people who want peace for themselves and for their children and grandchildren. As we researched for our project, we met with people from every sector and background—scientists, artists, educators, farmers, chefs, business leaders, humanitarian-aid workers—who all expressed a desire for peace and a willingness to work toward it. Read More

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Yazidi survivor tells her story at Israel UN event about refugees

(photo: REUTERS)

(photo: REUTERS)

By Danielle Ziri - October 27, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

NEW YORK – When ISIS began its Yazidi genocide in Iraq in August, 2014, Marwa Al Aliko knew something terrible was going to happen.

One morning, along with her parents and seven siblings, Aliko, then 21 years old, tried to escape from their home, only to be caught – along with 100 other people – by ISIS terrorists.

“The ISIS fighters took us captive and put us in a small room,” she told the audience at an event held by the Israeli mission to the United Nations on Thursday. “We were 52 women. Every night the men would come to us and do as they pleased. After a few days one of the men bought me and my two sisters and took us to Syria.

“Ten days later they separated us and I was left alone. One of the ISIS leaders bought me and another girl and told us that we were now Muslims. Read More

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Niece of top Arafat aide so loves Israel she had it tattooed on her back

By Times of Israel Staff - October 27, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

The niece of a top official in the Palestinian Fatah party and a close confidant of the late leader Yasser Arafat says she loves the State of Israel so much, she had the word “Israel” in Hebrew tattooed across her shoulder blades.

Sandra Solomon, 38, was born a Muslim in Ramallah under a different name, but grew up in Saudi Arabia before moving to Canada where she converted to Christianity.

Solomon is the niece of Saher Habash, one of the founders of the Fatah party, a member of its Central Committee and a leader of the Second Intifada.

“I grew up in a home that hated the Jews, hailed Hitler and praised the Holocaust,” she told Channel 2 in an interview Wednesday. Read More

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Oldest Hebrew mention of Jerusalem found on rare papyrus from 7th century BCE

By Ilan Ben Zion - October 26, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

A rare, ancient papyrus dating to the First Temple Period — 2,700 years ago — has been found to bear the oldest known mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew.

The fragile text, believed plundered from a cave in the Judean Desert cave, was apparently acquired by the Israel Antiquities Authority during a sting in 2012 when thieves attempted to sell it to a dealer. Radiocarbon dating has determined it is from the 7th century BCE, making it one of just three extant Hebrew papyri from that period, and predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries.

The IAA’s Eitan Klein said the dating of the papyrus had been confirmed by comparing the text’s orthography with other texts from the period.

The slip of papyrus, which was formally unveiled by the Israel Antiquities Authority on Wednesday, measures 11 centimeters by 2.5 centimeters (4.3 inches by 1 inch). Its two lines of jagged black paleo-Hebrew script appear to have been a dispatch note recording the delivery of two wineskins “to Jerusalem,” the Judean Kingdom’s capital city. The full text of the inscription reads: “From the female servant of the king, from Naharata (place near Jericho) two wineskins to Jerusalem.” Read More

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Archaeologists find battle site where Romans breached Jerusalem walls

(Photo: Yoli Shwartz/ Israel Antiquities Authority)

(Photo: Yoli Shwartz/ Israel Antiquities Authority)

By Gavin Rabinowitz - October 20, 2016

Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel 

Israeli archaeologists found the site of a fierce battle where the Roman army bombarded and breached the walls of Jerusalem before conquering the city and destroying the Second Temple almost 2,000 years ago, officials said Thursday.

They said that the discovery, made last winter during an excavation of a construction site for the new campus of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design outside the Old City, also finally confirmed the description of the wall that was breached provided by the historian Josephus Flavius.

During the dig, the archaeologists found the remains of a tower surrounded by scores of stones and boulders fired by Roman catapults at the Jewish forces guarding the wall, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement.

“This is a fascinating testimony of the intensive bombardment by the Roman army, led by Titus, on their way to conquering the city and destroying the Second Temple,” the statement said. Read More

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Masters of disaster, IDF field hospital may be recognized as world’s best

(Photo: Manish Swarup/AP)

(Photo: Manish Swarup/AP)

By Judah Ari Gross - October 18, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

Israel’s military field hospital, regularly dispatched to disaster zones to provide humanitarian relief — and to win the Jewish state some rare international brownie points — may soon be awarded the World Health Organization’s highest ranking, which would make it the first in the world to be so recognized.

In 2013, the United Nation’s WHO created a set of criteria to classify foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters, on a scale from one to three. No country has yet to receive the top mark and “only a handful in the world could even think of” doing so, according to the lead author of the classification system, Dr. Ian Norton.

Last month, a WHO delegation visited Israel to assess the IDF Medical Corps’ field hospital, a sprawling 26-tent structure, during a large-scale exercise in northern Israel to determine if Israel would indeed be the first to score a “Type 3,” Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Ofer Merin, commander of the field hospital, told The Times of Israel.

The field hospital is “not just some medics and doctors spread out in the field,” but is a “national treasure” that has the capabilities of an advanced, permanent hospital, but can be set up almost anywhere in under 12 hours, Merin said. Read More

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